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Theosophy | The Tempest – II

January 30, 2023 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The tale of The Tempest is well-known but we shall briefly recapitulate its salient strands. It is, primarily, the story of Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his charming child, Miranda, both banished by the usurper Antonio, his brother, and living unknown on a lonely island. Here, through a long period of successful study and practice, Prospero has matured into a master-magician, and Miranda has flowered into a marriageable maiden. The play opens with a violent storm and a resulting shipwreck, caused at the bidding of Prospero by the invisible hosts of the elements, of whom Ariel is the chief. The royal party involved in the shipwreck is saved according to Prospero’s plan, and is scattered on the shore, in three different parts of the island. Alonso, the King of Naples; Sebastian, his brother; Antonio, the usurper; Gonzalo, an honest old Councillor; and two Lords, Adrian and Francisco, land on one side of the island and most of them fall into an induced slumber, during which the vigilant and vile Antonio persuades the susceptible Sebastian to join in a plot to kill the King. Thanks to the intervention of the invisible Ariel, the plotters are prevented from fulfilling their purpose, and the entire party is led to look for Ferdinand, the son and successor of Alonso.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand has met Miranda and has been forced into her father’s service, which he patiently undergoes until Prospero is pleased to bestow on him his daughter. At the same time, in a third part of the island, Caliban, the deformed and savage slave of Prospero, has been met first by Trinculo, the King’s jester, and then by Stephano, a drunken butler, both of whom foolishly join the faithless Caliban in an abortive plot against his powerful master. These three groups are all, in the last Act, brought together near his cell by Prospero, after Antonio and Alonso and Sebastian have been made by strange and fearful sights and sounds to repent of their folly; after Ferdinand and Miranda have been treated to a visionary masque, played by spirits; and after Caliban and his companions have been brought to their senses — all of which is accomplished through the agency of Ariel. The play ends with the restoration of disturbed harmony, the recompense of the good and the repentance of the deluded, the release of Ariel from Prospero’s service, and the reconciliation of one and all to the new order ushered in by Prospero, who shows himself to be a man of wisdom and a master of destiny.

Let us first briefly consider different interpretations of the underlying theme of The Tempest. There is, first of all, the excellent but purely artistic interpretation of Dr. Tillyard whose thesis is that the play gives us the fullest sense of the different worlds within worlds which we can inhabit, and that it is also the necessary epilogue to the incomplete theme of the great tragedies.

A more ambitious and comprehensive attempt is that of Wilson Knight, who interprets the theme of the play from various points of view — poetical, philosophical, political and historical. Poetically, he considers the play artistic autobiography, its meanings revealing a wide range of universal values. Philosophically, he maintains that The Tempest portrays a wrestling of flesh and spirit. Politically, he interprets the play as the betrayal of Prospero, Plato’s philosopher-king and a representative of impractical idealism, by Antonio, Machiavelli’s Prince, and a symbol of political villainy. Lastly, the play is regarded historically as a myth of the national soul, Prospero signifying Britain’s severe, yet tolerant, religious and political instincts, Ariel typifying her inventive and poetical genius, and Caliban her colonizing spirit.

Another serious attempt at interpretation is that of Colin Still, whose study of the ‘timeless theme’ of The Tempest has not attracted the attention it deserves. He regards this ‘Mystery play’ as a deliberate allegorical account of those psychological experiences which constitute Initiation, its main features resembling those of every ceremonial ritual based upon the authentic mystical tradition of all mankind, but especially of the pagan world. Still takes Prospero as the Hierophant, and in one aspect, as God Himself; Ariel as the Angel of the Lord, Caliban as the Tempter or the Devil, and Miranda as the Celestial Bride.

The comedians, Stephano and Trinculo, led on by the Devil, constitute a failure to achieve Initiation; the experiences of the Court Party, which is of purgatorial status, constitute the Lesser Initiation, its attainment being self-discovery; while Ferdinand attains to Paradise, to the goal of the Greater Initiation which consists in receiving a ‘second life.’ The wreck is considered symbolic of the imaginary terrors of the candidate for Initiation, and the immersion in the water as symbolic of his preliminary purification. The Masque is regarded as apocalyptic in character, and the cell is taken to represent the Sanctum Sanctorum, only to be entered after full initiation. And so Still goes on giving every detail the status of a semi-esoteric symbol drawn mainly from pagan ritual.

Still’s thesis, though basically sound, is obscured by theological terminology, and its detailed application often leads to a certain forcing of analogy. Prospero, for instance, is a man, not God, and Caliban is too clearly a thing of Nature to be called a Devil, or Satan. Still’s centre of reference is altogether less in the poetry or in the philosophy than in a rigid system of pagan symbolism applied to the play.

In theosophical terms, we can approach The Tempest from at least three angles — the psychological, the cosmic and the occult. Of these, we shall adopt the last for detailed interpretation of the characters in the play. Before that, however, it will be worthwhile to indicate how the psychological and the cosmic keys may be applied.

The psychological key enables us to construe the theme of The Tempest in terms of the principles of the human constitution and the everyday experiences of the majority of mankind. In this line of interpretation, Prospero would represent Atman, the universal Self, which overbroods the remaining constituents of man, and allows for their rescue from all internal disequilibrium, thus producing that divine and unifying harmony which spells poise and proportion, as well as power and peace. Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, would be that specialization of Atman which we know as Buddhi, the spiritual and at present passive principle in man, the vehicle of Atman, and at once the expression and the essence of pure wisdom and of true compassion. It is in this sense that Miranda represents the fallen and Sleeping Soul of the uninitiated and deluded man. Ferdinand, the Prince who aspires to the companionship of Miranda, could be made to symbolize the higher Manas, the incarnated ray of the Divine in Man, while Antonio, the usurper who plans to secure personal power at the cost of his weakening conscience, could represent the kama manas, or the desire-mind. To complete the picture, Caliban could be taken as the kamarupa or the passional part of man in material form, and Ariel as the type of the assemblage of presiding deities, devatas or elementals, in the human personality. This, in silhouette form, would be the system of symbols that could be constructed on the basis of the psychological key — a system which, interesting as it is in its ramifying implications, it would not be difficult to develop.

The second interpretation, which we have called the cosmic, follows from a comprehensive view of the evolutionary stream in Nature, of the Great Ladder of Being. This interpretation is implied in H.P. Blavatsky’s oft-quoted statement that

the Ego begins his life-pilgrimage as a sprite, an ‘Ariel,’ or a ‘Puck’; he plays the part of a super, is a soldier, a servant, one of the chorus; rises then to ‘speaking parts,’ plays leading roles, interspersed with insignificant parts, till he finally retires from the stage as ‘Prospero,’ the magician.The Key to Theosophy, 34

In this line of interpretation, the play presents an image of the glorious supremacy of the perfected human soul over all other things and beings. At the peak of the evolutionary ascent stands Prospero, the representative of wise and compassionate god-manhood, in its true relation to the combined elements of existence — the physical powers of the external world — and the varieties of character with which it comes into contact. He is the ruling power to which the whole series is subject, from Caliban the densest to Ariel the most ethereal extreme. In Prospero we have the finest fruition of the co-ordinate development of the spiritual and the material lines of evolution.

Next to Prospero comes that charming couple, Ferdinand and Miranda, exquisite flowers of human existence that blossom forth under the benign care of their patriarch and Guru. From these we descend, by a most harmonious moral gradation, through the agency of the skilfully interposed figure of the good Gonzalo, to the representatives of the baser intellectual properties of humanity. We refer to the cunning, cruel, selfish and treacherous worldlings, who vary in their degrees of delusion from the confirmed villainy of Antonio to the folly of Alonso. Next, we have those representatives of the baser sensual attributes of the mass of humanity — the drunken, ribald, foolish retainers of the royal party, Stephano and Trinculo, whose ignorance, knavery and stupidity make them objects more of pity than of hate. Lowest in the scale of humanity comes the gross and uncouth Caliban, who represents the brutal and animal propensities of the nature of man which Prospero, the type of its noblest development, holds in lordly subjection. Lastly, below the human and the animal levels of life, in this wonderful gamut of being, comes the whole class of elementals, the subtler forces and the invisible nerves of nature, the spirits of the elements, who are represented by Ariel and the shining figures of the Masque who are alike governed by the sovereign soul of Prospero. Shakespeare obviously knew of these invisible spirits and recognized their place in the panorama of evolution.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | The Tempest – I

January 29, 2023January 29, 2023 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The more one delves into the genius of Shakespeare, the greater is the realization that, as veil after veil is lifted, there will remain “veil upon veil behind.” Who was Shakespeare? What manner of man was he? What was the power behind his plays? These are questions more easily asked than answered. The vicissitudes of Shakespeare’s reputation and the vagaries of critical opinion alike substantiate H.P. Blavatsky’s statement that Shakespeare, like Aeschylus, “will ever remain the intellectual ‘Sphinx’ of the ages.”

The scattered hints in Theosophical literature, though few and far between, are sufficiently suggestive to indicate the protean and profound nature of Shakespeare and his message. “My good friend — Shakespeare,” wrote Mahatma K.H., quoting from him in a letter. In her editorial opening the first volume of Lucifer, H.P. Blavatsky declared that

Shakespeare’s deep and accurate science in mental philosophy’ (Coleridge) has proved more beneficent to the true philosopher in the study of the human heart — therefore, in the promotion of truth — than the more accurate but certainly less deep, science of any Fellow of the Royal Institution.

Again, we know from her letter to A.P. Sinnett that she wanted a student to write out “the esoteric meaning of some of Shakespeare’s plays” for inclusion in The Secret Doctrine. Lastly, we have W.Q. Judge’s statement: “The Adepts assert that Shakespeare was, unconsciously to himself, inspired by one of their own number.”

Shakespeare was a magnificent creative genius who, coming under Nirmanakayic influence, became a myriad-minded master of life and language. His amazing and expansive knowledge of the super-physical and the invisible, his penetrating and compassionate insight into human nature, his transcendent and kaleidoscopic imagination, his intuitive perception and his inspired passages — all these are at once the expression and the evidence of the deep inwardness of his plays, and of the luminous influence of Adepts.

What was the nature of Adept influence upon the mind of Shakespeare? It is not to be thought that Shakespeare was, from the first, under the special care and observation of the Great Lodge, but rather that the superior possibilities embedded within himself were what higher inspiration spurred into stronger activity. This was possible because of the largeness of his mind and the receptivity of his soul. The breadth of his Soul-Life could cause the offspring of his Fancy “to share richly in the vital Fire that burns in the higher (Image-making) Power.” Above all, he possessed the power, as John Masefield has written, to touch “energy, the source of all things, the reality behind all appearance,” and to partake of the storehouse of pure thought.

We will not, however, find it an easy task to unravel the mystery locked up in the allegory, symbol and character portrayal of the great plays. For, “the very fact that Shakespeare remained unconscious of the Nirmanakayic influence which his genius attracted shows that we must not expect the unadulterated expression of Divine Wisdom in all he created.”

There are two possible ways of studying any of Shakespeare’s plays in terms of Gupta Vidya. The first is the easier one of extracting hints of esoteric truth out of the significant lines and passages of the play. The second is the more difficult one of interpreting the entire tale and theme of the play according to one or more of the seven keys of symbolism suggested in The Secret Doctrine. We will use both methods, but concentrate on the second, which, if less easy, will be found more fascinating.

The group of plays to which The Tempest belongs and of which it is presumably the last, was written in the final period of Shakespeare’s life. All these plays are romances, neither tragic nor comic but both, full of unexacting and exquisite dreams, woven within a world of mystery and marvel, of shifting visions and confusing complications, “a world in which anything may happen next.” Strangely remote from ‘real’ life is this preternatural world of Shakespeare’s final period, and the universe of his invention is peopled with many creatures more or less human, beings belonging to different orders of life. The romantic character of these plays is reflected in the richness of their style. Here we have the primary facts of poetry, suggestion, colour, imagery, together with complicated and incoherent periods, softened and accentuated rhythms, tender and evanescent beauties. These plays reach the very apex of poetic art, revealing a matured magnificence of diction and the haunting magic of the purest lyricism, altogether appealing more to the imagination than the intellect.

The fundamental feature, however, of these plays of the final period is the archetypal pattern of prosperity, destruction and re-creation which their plots follow. Virtue is not only virtuous, but also victorious, triumphant, and villainy is not only frustrated, but also forgiven. These are dramas of reconciliation between estranged kinsmen, of wrongs righted through repentance, not revenge, of pardon and of peace. Tragedy is fully merged into mysticism, and the theme is rendered in terms of myth and music, reflecting the grandeur of true immortality and spiritual conquest within apparent death and seeming defeat.

Upon the firm foundation of the accepted conclusions regarding the chronological order of the plays of Shakespeare, and of the peculiar features of the final period, modern critics have been only too eager to build their plausible and picturesque interpretations.

We have, first, the Dowden doctrine, supported in different degrees by other critics, likening Shakespeare to a ship, beaten and storm-tossed, yet entering harbour with sails full-set to anchor in Stratford-on-Avon in a state of calm content and serene self-possession. This view gives the final period of the playwright the attractive appellation of “On the Heights”, and perceives in these last plays the charm of meditative romance and the peace of the highest vision. The Tempest is reverentially regarded as the supreme essence of Shakespeare’s final benignity.

Lytton Strachey’s contrary thesis, echoed partially by Granville-Barker, is that these faulty and fantastic last plays show that Shakespeare ended his days in boredom, cynicism and disillusionment. Dr. E.M.W. Tillyard and John Middleton Murry not only see no lack of vitality, no boredom with things, no poverty of versification in these later plays, but, in fact, evidences of the work of one whose poetical faculty was at its height.

The best interpretation is that of Wilson Knight in The Crown of Life. He regards Shakespeare as equivalent to the dynamic spiritual power manifest in his plays, and finds in the Shakespearean sequence the ring of reason, order and necessity. His plays spell the universal rhythm of the motion of the spirit of man, progressing from spiritual pain and despair through stoic acceptance and endurance to a serene and mystic joy. Whereas in the tragedies is expressed the anguish of the aspiring human soul, crying out from within its frail sepulchre of flesh against the unworthiness of the world, these last plays portray the joyous conquest of life’s pain.

It is, however, important to point out the danger of stereotyping the divisions of Shakespeare’s life, and the need to be wary how we apply our labels and demarcations to “so mobile a thing as the life and work of man.” In the last analysis, Shakespeare was all of one piece; he developed, but in his development cast nothing away; his attitude towards life deepened, but his essential outlook always remained the same.

We could attribute the surpassing majesty of the plays of the final period to the great expansion of the creative power and dramatic skill which had first begun to show themselves in their grandeur in the tragic productions of ‘the middle period.’ This expansion was the product, as it is the proof, of the Adept Inspiration from which Shakespeare progressively benefited and on which he increasingly drew. Thus, we are fully prepared to regard the final period as the culmination of a spiritual odyssey which found its consummation in The Tempest, his last and greatest of plays. In this view, then, The Tempest is a broader, deeper “embodiment of the qualities drawn from the higher planes of man’s being in which Imagination rules,” a perfect pattern of myth and magic as of music and marvel.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | INDIVIDUATION AND INITIATION – II

January 6, 2023 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

In the ancient schools one would not be allowed to begin serious study of yoga until one had mastered one’s temper. In the school of Pythagoras candidates were tested from the first day in regard to their personal vulnerability. That was the stringent standard of all schools preparing for the mysteries of initiation. The laws have not changed even though the external rules may seem to have been modified. It remains an inescapable fact of Nature and karma that if one loses one’s temper even after a lifetime of spiritual development, one’s progress is destroyed in a single mood. Like a city or a work of art, the time to construct is long, but destruction can be swift. One has to think out one’s true internal and external state of being, even if one goes to the Tolstoyan extreme of seeing every kind of fault in oneself. Tolstoy did not do this out of pride but rather because he was so thoroughly honest that he simply could not think of a single fault in anyone else which he could not see present in himself. This sense of commonality, rooted in ethical self-awareness, leaves no room for judging anyone else or for running away from anyone because one sees that the whole army of human foibles is in oneself, and that every elemental is connected with internal propensities in one’s astral form. To think this out Manasically is crucial in the Aquarian Age. The wise disciple will recognize that thoroughness, urgency and earnestness are quite different from fatuous haste and impulsiveness. Even if it takes months and years to think out and learn to apply the elementary axioms of the Science of Spirituality, it is necessary to be patient and persistent, rather than revel in fantasies that leave residues in successive lives. When something so obvious which one can test and comprehend is taught, this is an opportunity for growth which demands honesty in thought and intelligence in response. To receive the timeless teaching in this way enables the self to be the true friend of the Self. Not to do this is one of the myriad ways in which the self becomes the enemy of the Self because it is afraid of facing the facts and the laws of nature connected with relations and patterns in the vestures. Self-regeneration is a precise science and it is possible to test oneself in a manner that fosters sophrosyne.

This spiritual intelligence test is not a matter of making some sweeping moral judgement about oneself, because that will have no meaning for the immortal soul. It would simply not be commensurate with eighteen million years of self-conscious existence. It is really a waste of time to say “I’m no good, I’m this kind of person, I’m bound to do this.” Such exclamations are absurd because they do not account for the internal complexity and psychological richness of sevenfold man, let alone the immensity of the human pilgrimage. It is more important to understand and recognize critical incipient causes, to see how the karmic process takes place, and to arrest the downward slide into fragmented consciousness. To do this firmly with compassion at the root, one has to meditate upon some fundamental idea. One might benefit from the golden example set by disciples who practise the precept: “All the time everything that comes to me I not only deserve but I desire.” This form of mental asceticism is the reverse of psychic passivity and self-indulgent fatalism. It is a clear and crisp recognition that there is karmic meaning to every single event, that nothing is unnecessary even though one may not yet know what its meaning is. Ignorance of the process of adjustment of internal and external relations is merely a reflection of the limitation of one’s own growth at the level of lower mind. To accept totally one’s karma is like a swimmer recognizing the necessity of accepting the tidal currents of the ocean. A swimmer is not doing a favour to the ocean by accepting its sway. Deliberate and intelligent acceptance of oceanic currents is the difference between drowning and surviving.

When it comes to karma on the causal plane with reference to human consciousness and invisible forces, the same principle applies. That is why Buddha said, “Ye who suffer, know ye suffer from yourselves.” Though the teaching seems obvious when stated, it must really be thought through at the core of one’s being if one is going to alter the karmic tendencies of the forces at work. One must ask whether the whole of one’s being is cooperating with the totality of one’s karma. Unless one engages in this meditation and willingly accepts all karma even though one does not understand most of it, no regrets or resolves will make any difference. The constant task of learning, which is a matter of activating and sensitizing all the centres of perception, has an intimate bearing upon diminishing the range and reach of the irrational in one’s responses to life. There is a direct connection between the kundalini force of adjustment of internal and external relations, which moves in a curved path, and the karmic predominance of the various elemental powers in the human constitution. In the words of Hermes Trismegistus:

All these Genii preside over mundane affairs, they shake and overthrow the constitution of States and of individuals; they imprint their likeness on our Souls, they are present in our nerves, our marrow, our veins, our arteries, and our very brain-substance . . . at the moment when each of us receives life and being, he is taken in charge by the genii (Elementals) who preside over births, and who are classed beneath the astral powers (Super-human astral Spirits). They change perpetually, not always identically, but revolving in circles.

Ibid., i 294

Throughout the cyclic development of each soul, the proportional composition of the vestures out of the five elements is continually being adjusted. Through the attraction and repulsion of their coessence to the vestures, certain elements become the dominant ruling factors in one’s life. Unless one engages in noetic mental asceticism, one will invariably remain passive to the psychic sway of these irrational forces. Without ratio, harmony and proportion, one cannot employ the vestures as channels for the benevolent transmutation of life-atoms: rather one will needlessly compound the karma of selfishness. The compassionate projection of the spiritual energies of the soul requires that the genii be made subordinate to the awakened Buddhi-Manasic reason. The genii

permeate by the body two parts of the Soul, that it may receive from each the impress of his own energy. But the reasonable part of the Soul is not subject to the genii; it is designed for the reception of (the) God, who enlightens it with a sunny ray. Those who are thus illumined are few in number, and from them the genii abstain: for neither genii nor Gods have any power in the presence of a single ray of God.

Ibid., i 294-295

By the “few in number” is meant those Initiates and Adepts for whom there is no ‘God’ but the one universal and unconditioned Deity in boundless space and eternal duration.

The truly reasonable part of the soul is extremely important in the Aquarian Age. To think clearly, logically and incisively must be the true purpose of education. To unfold the immense powers of pure thought, the reasonable part of the soul must be given every opportunity to develop so that the irrational side is reduced. Its false coherence must be broken by seeing it causally. One must begin with a willingness to acknowledge it readily, and see that there is no gain in merely pushing it aside. The development of the reasonable part of the soul, which is not subject to the genii, culminates in the reception of the god who enlightens it with a sunny ray, the Chitkala that is attracted by contemplation. Clear, pure reason characterizes the immortal ray which is connected with the star that has its genii, good and evil by nature. The use of reason and clarity of perception in the spiritual and metaphysical sense involves the heart as well as the mind because they cooperate in seeing and thinking clearly. Once this is grasped, one can make a decisive difference to the amount of unnecessary karma involved in one’s irrational emanations and wasteful emotions. One can begin to let go of all that and calmly cultivate the deepest feelings.

At a certain point it will become natural for the mind to move spontaneously to spiritual teachings and universal ideas whenever it has an opportunity. It would not have to be told, nor would one have to make rules, because that would be what it would enjoy. When it becomes more developed in the art of solitary contemplation, it will always see everything from the higher standpoint whilst performing duties in the lower realm, thus transforming one’s whole way of living. This will make a profound difference to the conservation of energy and the clarification of one’s karma. It will also strengthen the power of progressive detachment whereby one can understand what it means to say that the Sage, the Jivanmukta, the perfected Yogin, is characterized by the golden talisman of doing only what is truly necessary. He only thinks what is necessary. He only feels what is necessary. There is so powerful a sense of what is necessary in the small, but from the standpoint of the whole, that there is no other way of life that is conceivable or imaginable. This internal Buddhic logic can never be understood by reference to external rules and characteristics because one has to come to it from a high plane of meditation and total detachment from the realm of external expression.

When the disciple is sufficiently self-evolved from within without, then the further individuation of the soul through self-conscious initiations may proceed. Prepared by testing and by trials, the reasonable part of the soul may receive a sunny ray, communicated by its spiritual ancestors, themselves inseparable from the disciple’s own seventh principle. The parentless progenitors of spiritual intelligence or consciousness are known at one level as Bodhisattvas, at another level as Dhyani Buddhas, at still another level as Manushi Buddhas. All of these are spiritual ancestors of what is called Buddhi — individually one’s own intuitive principle, but in a strict philosophical sense the pure vehicle of one universal light. Buddhi as a principle is its emanation, a gift from a Dhyani Buddha or spiritual progenitor. Seen in this way, all the higher principles are pure emanations from spiritual instructors and parents, in the same way that until the age of seven a terrestrial parent is the spiritual and mental progenitor of the thinking of a child. The child’s own intelligence is involved, and children vary in their responses because of accumulated karma. So too with the chela on the Path. The language that parents use, the ideas that they evoke, and their mode of consciousness colour the child’s psyche during the day, giving a certain tone to the environment. Though most parents hardly think deliberately about what is at stake, owing to their lack of knowledge and insight, nonetheless they have the inimitable opportunity of initiating the child into the wise use of its latent powers. This is only an imperfect analogy on the lower plane of differentiated consciousness and everyday relationships between highly vulnerable personalities. It can scarcely intimate the magical privilege of communicating with Adepts and Initiates, and of participating in the compassionate ideation that permeates the magnetic field in which the chela grows. As an immortal soul, each individual is potentially an inheritor of the whole field of human consciousness over eighteen million years; as an initiated chela each may freely assume this sacred birthright as a spiritual inheritor of the parentless Anupadaka.

The Bodhisattva Path of self-regeneration and of initiation into the mysteries of the higher principles begins and ends with the quickening of the reverential feeling of devotion and gratitude for every single being who ever did anything for oneself. Those who are fortunate enough to perfect that power of endless, boundless gratitude and spontaneous reverence to every teacher they ever learnt from are in a better position to understand how to invoke the highest gift of self-consciousness from the greatest spiritual progenitors. In a fearless way but also in a proper posture of true devotion and reverence, one can invoke the Dhyani Buddhas in dawn meditation, during the day, in the evening and at night, whenever and how often one reaches out in consciousness to them. Before this can be done effectively, one must learn to cleanse the lunar vesture, calm the mind and purify the heart. Every thought or feeling directed against another being makes that heart unworthy to feel the hebdomadal vibration of the Dhyani Buddhas.

Self-concern pollutes rather than protects. Self-purification and self-correction strengthen the capacity to liberate oneself from the karmic accretions of lives of ignorance and foolish participation in the collective dross. Such are the laws of spiritual evolution that this purification can only proceed through the sacrificial invocation of the whole of one’s karma. Then one can begin to become truly self-conscious in one’s interior relationship to the Dhyani Buddhas, the Daimon, the Genius which can speak to one through the Kwan Yin, the Chitkala, the Inner Voice. Just as a vast portion of the world’s sublimest music is only theoretically available to the average person, the finest vibrations of Akasha-Alaya must remain of little avail to most mortals until they fit themselves to come and sit close to the Teachers of Brahma Vach. “To live to benefit mankind is the first step.”

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | INDIVIDUATION AND INITIATION – I

January 6, 2023 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The Daimones are . . . the guardian spirits of the human race; ‘those who dwell in the neighbourhood of the immortals, and thence watch over human affairs,’ as Hermes has it. In Esoteric parlance, they are called Chitkala, some of which are those who have furnished man with his fourth and fifth Principles from their own essence; and others the Pitris so-called. . . .The root of the name is Chiti, ‘that by which the effects and consequences of actions and kinds of knowledge are selected for the use of the soul,’ or conscience, the inner Voice in man. With the Yogis, the Chiti is a synonym of Mahat, the first and divine intellect; but in Esoteric philosophy Mahat is the root of Chiti, its germ; and Chiti is a quality of Manas in conjunction with Buddhi, a quality that attracts to itself by spiritual affinity a Chitkala when it develops sufficiently in man. This is why it is said that Chiti is a voice acquiring mystic life and becoming Kwan-Yin.

The Secret Doctrine, i 288

The integral relationship between initiation and individuation can be grasped through the essential logic of the entire process of evolution. From the standpoint of matter, the logic of transformation involves increasing heterogeneity, differentiation and complexity. At the same time, there is a commensurate withdrawal of subjective and spiritual faculties which cannot function freely through limited projections or distorted reflections. The degree of spiritual volition depends upon the texture of the reflecting medium. In the collective thrust of evolution every single life-atom in all the seven kingdoms of Nature is touched by the same primal universal impulse towards self-consciousness. Within the broad perspective and purpose of evolution as a whole, the possibilities of initiation are enriched by individuation at a high level of self-consciousness. Initiation, in its most hallowed meaning, must always involve the merging of minds of Guru and chela into a state of oneness with the ineffable Source of Divine Wisdom. This mystical and magical relation of Manas and Mahat was comprehended and transmitted in secret sanctuaries. It was intimated in the enigmatic etymology of the word Upanishad, ‘to come and sit close’, so that there could be direct communion of minds and hearts. Sacred teachings are conveyed and communicated through the eyes and not merely through words, although mantramic sounds have a sacred and vital function. In the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna’s earnest enquiries and Krishna’s cosmic affirmations and psychological adjustments bring to birth within the mind of the chela the seed of chit, a level of consciousness which negates, transcends, and also heightens individuality. Initiation is the highest mode of individual communication, and it necessarily involves a mystic rapport between one who has gone before and one who is to come after, rather like the magnetic transference between mother and child. Such a relation is inherent in the logic of evolution because, as a result of an extremely long period of evolution, it is impossible to find any mechanical sameness between all human beings. They are identical in their inmost essence but so markedly different in the internal relations of their vestures that there cannot be complete equivalence between any two persons. Hence experience and reflection reveal both the mystery of each individual human being and the commonality of what it is to be human.

At one level of communication The Secret Doctrine is a metaphysical treatise on cosmic and human evolution. But at another level, for those who are Buddhic, it is not merely a book, but the initiatory presence of the compelling voice of the Verbum or Brahma Vach, reverberating in the society of sages, the Rishis who are of one mind and one lip. For the ardent seeker of Divine Wisdom, The Secret Doctrine is a series of stepping-stones, as the Upanishads and the great scriptures of all times have been, towards initiations into the mysteries of Selfhood. Through ever-renewed contact with the teaching, the chela begins to enact self-consciously and by degrees the realities which ordinary individuals sporadically experience at some level through deep sleep. This process comes alive through prolonged meditation for the sake of universal compassion, making one’s breathing more benevolent for the purpose of elevating all beings in all the kingdoms of Nature. When a person begins to do this, it is the awakening of Bodhichitta, the seed of enlightenment. It is the first step in translating knowledge into wisdom, words into realities, and resolves into actions. Having turned the key of compassion in the lock of the heart, the disciple will come to realize, through inward communication with the Teacher, the fuller meaning of the Upanishads:

Upa-ni-shad being a compound word meaning ‘the conquest of ignorance by the revelation of secret, spiritual knowledge’. . . They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of Deity, and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind and matter. In a few words: They CONTAIN the beginning and the end of all human knowledge. . .

The Secret Doctrine, i 269-270

The practical import of the metaphysical teaching of The Secret Doctrine lies in the fact that the highest spiritual powers are partly used by each human being every day but without fully knowing it. Light is universal, but it makes all the difference whether one has a blurred sense of perception and merely consumes light, or whether one can take a magnifying glass and concentrate light. There are also those who are like the laser beam which can direct a concentrated shaft of light to destroy cancerous cells and produce a range of extraordinary effects upon the physical plane. There is something of kundalini at work in every human being. Electricity and magnetism are sevenfold and work at the highest cosmic level of Akasha, but they also work at the most heterogeneous and diffusive level because everything is electrical and magnetic, from the occult standpoint. The aspirant must grasp, even at a preliminary level, the moral and psychological implications of this metaphysical “power or Force which moves in a curved path” in man and Nature.

It is the Universal life-Principle manifesting everywhere in nature. This force includes the two great forces of attraction and repulsion. Electricity and magnetism are but manifestations of it. This is the power which brings about that ‘continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations‘ which is the essence of life according to Herbert Spencer, and that ‘continuous adjustment of external relations to internal relations’ which is the basis of transmigration of souls . . .

Ibid., i 293

The two aspects of this omnipresent power mentioned here have to be totally mastered by the initiated yogi in all their possible manifestations. Long before this stage is reached, the disciple must begin to learn to govern these internal and external relations through Buddhi Yoga in order to fulfil the prerequisite conditions of magnetic rapport with a true Teacher of Wisdom.

The universal process of adjustment of the external to the internal, which leads to involuntary reincarnation for human beings, must be understood in terms of karma. At the most primary level, whenever human beings entertain and succumb to emotional reactions, they establish mental deposits and astral grooves which require many lives for proper adjustment. That is why over eighteen million years so many people approach the Path again and again but stumble and lose their track just as often. They cannot make a fundamental breakthrough even when in the presence of great teaching. For those who have made the teaching an internal living power in their consciousness, this is comprehensible as essential, just as the world seems clear to a child when its eyes are directed to the light of the sun. Whilst this is true for all human souls, the philosophical recognition of how this works is important. Every emotion registers an appropriate record in the astral vesture. It is wear and tear on the linga sharira and is at the expense of something or someone else. Thus selfishness is increased. This is true even if the emotion is benevolent for emotion itself is a form of passivity. Emotion is quite different from deep feeling which is unmodified by cyclic change or external event and is totally independent of outward demonstration. Emotion is like cashing a check: whilst it makes money available, it depletes the account. It is a way of demanding proof. As a form of external indulgence it is a passive fantasy which weighs heavily upon the astral vesture. To that extent it obscures one’s inmost feelings which are detached and compassionate. All the higher feelings are ontologically powerful and at the same time they constitute a pure negation psychologically. Though only an initial understanding of the problem, this is sufficient to explain why merely sitting down to postures and trying to control the external breath by hatha yoga exercises cannot make a significant difference to the inevitable adjustment of internal and external relations inherent in life itself. There is no substitute for facing oneself, asking what one is truly living for, how one is affected by likes and dislikes, and how one’s temper — or sophrosyne — is unbalanced through various irritations.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | THE PLEDGE OF KWAN YIN – II

December 11, 2022 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The light of daring is essential to the timely taking of the Kwan Yin pledge. In the Kwan Yin Sutra there is a reference to the flames of agony that consume personal consciousness. Kwan Yin in its metaphysical meaning is bound up with fire and water. Kwan Yin is connected with the primordial Light of the Logos, which is the paradigm and the pristine source of all creativity in the cosmos, of the hidden power in every human being to produce a result that is beneficent. If Kwan Yin is ontologically connected with light, but is also compared to the ocean, what then is the meaning of the textual reference to extinguishing the flames of agony? This is a metaphysical paradox. What is light on the most abstract level of undifferentiated primordial matter is the darkness of non-being, such as that which is around the pavilion of God in the Old Testament, or that which is sometimes simply referred to as “In the beginning”, the Archaeus, the dark abysm of Space. Kwan Yin is rooted in Boundless Space and therefore involves noumenal existence at so high a level of attributeless compassion in Eternal Duration that it is the paradigm of all the vows and pledges taken by vast numbers of pilgrims throughout unrecorded history. It is also called Bath-Kol, the Daughter of the Voice, in the Hebrew tradition, that which when sought within the inmost sanctuary bestows a merciful response within the human heart. There is a latent Kwan Yin in every human being. It is the voice of conscience at the commonest level. It is the Chitkala of the developed disciple. At the highest level it is Nada, the Voice of the Silence, the Soundless Sound, that which is comprehended in initiation, and ceaselessly reverberates in the Anahata, the deathless centre of the human body, transformed into a divine temple.

The deeper meaning of the Kwan Yin pledge is enshrined in profound metaphysics, but at the same time, it reaches down to the level of human ignorance and pain, at all levels extinguishing the intensity of craving, the fires of nescience. This is the teaching of the Kwan Yin Sutra. When that which is light at the highest level descends, it becomes like unto cool water, although intrinsically it is so radiant that it would be blinding. But when it is diffused it converts its state into a fluid which is extremely soothing, sometimes compared to the cool rays of the moon. And then it is capable of giving comfort and sustenance. When a person is soothed and cooled, it is possible to let go, to relinquish the intensity of self-concern. Personal heat is intensely painful when it is experienced without any awareness of alternatives. But when one finds that it may be displaced by soothing wisdom, the cooling waters of compassion, then it is possible to ease the pain and to convert one’s mind from a falsely fiery state, which is destructive, into a cooling and regenerative condition. These are all alchemical expressions of processes that are involved in making deliberate changes in states of consciousness connected with different levels of matter.

Theosophically, every level of thought corresponds to and is consubstantial with a level of differentiation of substance. Therefore, one can even discover in ordinary language certain words that tend to heat up the psycho-mental atmosphere. The very way in which one characterizes one’s own condition may do a lot of violence through language. One can burn oneself or become totally suffocated by the flames, though the Hasidic mystics remind us that even if the castle is burning, there is a lord. Even while one is burning there can be some recognition of that incorruptible, inconsumable essence in oneself. This possibility is the root of all faith in one’s power of spiritual survival, as well the basis of all notions of physical survival, which are only shadowy representations of this deeper urge to persist and prevail. If one has everyday experience of how certain words and shibboleths can engender a lower heat, one can also employ gentler words, healing metaphors and analogies, broader categories, that soothe and cool one’s atmosphere. Even learning to do this is an art, one that can only be practised in a human being’s sincere efforts at apprenticeship to the great masters of the art. Kwan Yin is the cosmic archetype of the art. She who expresses compassion in every conceivable context shows how inexhaustible are the ways of compassion of wise beings, how Initiates use every opportunity to release help. This is part of the universal inheritance of humanity. It is also mirrored in every mother or father who, despite all the lower levels of concern, somewhere knows that what he or she does cannot really be put into the language of calculation, cannot really be weighed or measured.

Gratitude cannot be compelled, but without it life would not go on. It is as if human beings impose upon what they innately know a false structure of expectations, which entangles them in mental cobwebs that are entirely self-created. If emotion becomes sufficiently intense, bitter and sour, there can be a tremendous burden, but even that burden is an act of compassion of the spirit because its weight eventually burns out the tanha, the persisting thirst for material sensation, for false personal life. It will dissolve at the moment of death, but this does not happen all at once. It will receive certain shocks in life, and thereby human beings come to throw off the enormous excesses of their own compulsive cerebration, a great deal of the wastage and the futility of their own emotions, the wear and tear upon the subtle vestures through their own anxieties.

What Nature does as a matter of course can be aided by conscious thought. But where it is aided by conscious thought in the name of the highest cosmic principle and in the company of a long lineage, a golden company of great exemplars of the vow and the pledge for universal enlightenment, one can truly consecrate one’s life and thereby refrain from becoming too tensely involved in the process of everyday psychological alchemy. This is implicit in what Buddha taught. If one truly enjoys the very thought of what Kwan Yin is, and of what is in the Kwan Yin pledge, this enjoyment should itself help to reduce much of the agony and the anxiety, the tension and strain of daily striving. The real problem is to be wholehearted with as undivided a mind as can be brought to the pledge. This must be done without qualifications, without contradictions, but with that holy simplicity of which the mystics speak, a childlike innocence, candour and trust. It is an act of acceptance of the universe and a letting go of whatever comes in the way. When anything does interfere, it must be consumed in the fires of sacrificial change that alone will lead to true spiritual growth. Many a monk on the Bodhisattva Path has found immense benefit through the talismanic use of these three verses:

If you are unable to exchange your happiness
For the suffering of other beings,
You have no hope of attaining Buddhahood
Or even of happiness in this lifetime.

If one whom I have helped my best
And from whom I expect much
Harms me in an inconceivable way,
May I regard that person as my best teacher.

I consider all living beings
More precious than ‘wish-fulfilling gems’,
A motivation to achieve the greatest goal:
So may I at all times care for them.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | THE PLEDGE OF KWAN YIN – I

December 5, 2022 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Never will I seek nor receive private, individual salvation; never will I enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the redemption of every creature throughout the world from the bonds of conditioned existence.

Kwan Yin

Unconditional affirmation of the Kwan Yin pledge can only come from the unconditional core of the human being. Words are uttered in time, and usually delimit meaning. They express thought, but they also obscure thought. To be able to use words in a manner that reaches beyond limits is to recognize prior to the utterance and to realize after the utterance, that one is participating only on the plane of that which has a beginning and an end, though in emulation and celebration of that which is beginningless and endless. Every word and each day is like an incarnation. Silence and deep sleep convey an awareness of duration that cannot be inserted into ordinary time, but indicate the return to a primal sense of being where one is neither conditioned by nor identified with external events, memories, anticipations, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, possibilities and limitations. Common speech and ordinary wakefulness, for most individuals, are but clouded mirrors dimly reflecting the resonance and radiance of spiritual wakefulness. Any sacred pledge may be uttered by a human being with a wavering mind and a fickle heart, but it can also be authentically affirmed in the name of the larger Self that is far beyond the utterance and the formulation, yet immanent in both.

This is the time-honoured basis of religious rites, as well as the original source of civil laws. Émile Durkheim explained how early in the evolution of societies human beings learnt to transfer the potency of religious oaths to secular restraints and thereby established a high degree of reliability in human relationships. Mohandas Gandhi spoke of the sun, the planets and the mighty Himalayas as expressing the ultimate reliability of the universe, and taught that when human beings bind themselves by the power of a vow, they seek to become wholly reliable. If reliability essentially connotes a consistent standard of unqualified and unconditional success, then in taking a vow one is necessarily seeing beyond one’s limitations. If one is wise one allows for the probability of failure and the possibility of forgetfulness, but somewhere deep in oneself one still wants to be measured and tested by that vow. Thereby a vow which is unconditional, which releases the spiritual will, calibrates one’s highest self-respect and is vitally relevant to the mystery of self-transformation.

The Kwan Yin pledge is a Bodhisattvic vow taken on behalf of all living beings. It is closely connected with the Bodhichitta, wisdom-seeking mind, the seed of enlightenment. The idea that an unenlightened human being can effectively generate a seed of enlightenment is the central assumption behind the compassionate teaching of Mahatmas and Bodhisattvas, of the Buddhas and Christs. A drop of water is suggestive of an ocean; a flashing spark or single flame is analogous to an ocean of light; the miniscule mirrors the large. Herein lies the hidden strength of the Kwan Yin pledge. What may seem small from the standpoint of the personal self, when it is genuinely offered on behalf of the limitless universe of living beings and of all humanity past, present and future, can truly negate the finality of finitude, the ultimacy of what seems urgent, the immensity of what appears immediate. The human mind ceaselessly creates false valuations, giving ephemera an excessive sense of reality, to uphold itself in a world of flux. To negate this tendency in advance and to assign reality only to the whole requires a profound mental courage. It requires, while one is alive, a recognition of the connection between the moment of birth and the moment of death, of the intimate relationship between the pain of one human being and the sorrow of all humanity. But it also involves a recognition that greater beings than oneself have taken precisely such a vow, have affirmed this pledge again and again. Therefore, one can invite oneself, however frail, however feeble, into the family of those who are the self-chosen, unacknowledged but unvanquished friends of the human race.

The prospect of such a vow is naturally perplexing to the lower mind which is almost totally ignorant of the priorities of the immortal soul, and knows very little about even this life, let alone about previous lives. On what basis could the personality assume a gnostic authority in regard to its own limitations? If one simply looks at the last ten years of one’s life, one will readily see that many things which looked irrelevant, remote, even impossible in the past, unexpectedly become part of one’s way of thinking, one’s depth of feeling. If a human being does not truly know himself, merely to be aware of himself at the personal level in terms of persisting limitations is frustrating. This does not take into account in oneself that which is ineffable and unexpressed, whatever cannot come through the confining parameters of thought, the truncating crudities of speech and the stultifying restrictions of action.

The Kwan Yin pledge can be taken by anyone at any time, but the level of thought and intensity with which it is taken will determine the degree and reliability of response of the whole of one’s being. Shantideva puts this in the form of an ordination:

When the Sugatas of former times committed themselves to the Bodhichitta, they gradually established themselves in the practice of a Bodhisattva. So, I too commit myself to the Bodhichitta for the welfare of all beings and will gradually establish myself in the practice of a Bodhisattva.

Today my birth has become fruitful; my birth as a human being is justified.

Today I am born in the Buddha Family; I am now a son of the Buddha.

Now I am determined to perform those acts appropriate to my Family; I will not violate the purity of this faultless, noble Family.

To be able to take one’s place in the glorious company of Bodhisattvas is not to assume that one can, purely on one’s own, fulfil this exalted aim. But once one has truly affirmed it, no other aim has any comparable significance. This recognition would be critical to a timely taking of the mighty vow of the Buddha, the sacred pledge of Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva ordination of Shantideva. Timeliness in this sense would mean that one simply cannot imagine an alternative. If a person were to take the pledge prematurely, lacking this sense of necessity, it would precipitate difficulties, making that person guilty, tortured with anxiety, involved even more in futile comparisons and contrasts with other human beings, more depressed, more desolate. But out of all these failures there may come some sense of timeliness at a later moment of ripeness. Timeliness does not occur all at once. Timeliness, like all wisdom, must be the ripe fruit of time-bound experiments and time-bound errors. Because these are time-bound, they are evanescent; they are not enduring. In the same way in which one stumbled and learnt to walk, or mumbled the multiplication tables, one may rediscover something about grace in movement or the deep logic of elementary numbers. So also one may rediscover the higher stage, the fuller meaning, the larger significance for the whole of one’s life, of the pledge one took. Suppose a person truly resolves to injure no human being and wishes to release love in every direction. If one is deeply attracted by this affirmation, what does it matter if there is something imperfect and inconclusive in one’s repeated efforts to embody it? Mature individuals, who have done this again and again, know that soon after one has made such an affirmation one is going to be tested. One has invited the Light of the Logos to shine upon the dark corners of one’s being. Through heightened awareness one sees unconscious elements in one’s nature which one did not even imagine were apt to give offense, but are now discerned as obscurations of one’s deepest feelings, one’s finest nature, one’s truest, profoundest sense of brotherhood. These discoveries are significant, but the hardest lesson at all times is the paramount necessity of patience and persistence. This is a pledge in favour of selfless service, and it cannot ever be premature. It will always be timely, though compelling timeliness can only come when there is serene insight, supported by the strength of personal invulnerability.

It is the immemorial teaching that the pristine seed of enlightenment, however small, may germinate far in the future into a flowering tree of wisdom, a mighty trunk of enlightenment. Inherent to the pure seed is a potency that represents the complete disavowal of considerations of success and failure for oneself, separate from the whole world. There is a fundamental abnegation of all the earthly criteria of happiness, power and achievement. For the immortal soul, the pledge could never be premature. Nevertheless, every sacred utterance should be the result of deep thought and true feeling, and should be renewed in silence, enriched by contemplation, and carried over from waking through dreamless sleep into the day of daily manifestation. If a person knows this much, then that person knows what is the essential nature of the task of self-transformation. As the task also involves self-forgetfulness and reaching out to all human beings, a point must surely come when the very thought of one’s own progress or lack of it in relation to the pledge will shrink into insignificance simply because one’s consciousness becomes so occupied with the greater growth, the larger welfare of the human race. If a person thought this out carefully, he or she could safeguard against the greatest danger, ignoring which is the mark of immaturity: the cold forgetfulness that arises from the initial unwisdom or psychic heat in taking a vow. A vow is sacred; it must germinate in silence. It invokes sacred speech, but it must ripen through suffering. Where the vow involves a recognition of the ubiquity of human suffering and where one chooses to make one’s own suffering meaningful and creative for a larger purpose, the vow has self-correction built into it. Those who have received this great teaching and have been inspired by the very highest ideal, will be wise to take the Kwan Yin pledge at some level. In the words of Buddha, “Anyone who even hears about Kwan Yin begins the search then and there for enlightenment.”

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | A Sufi Story from Rumi

October 25, 2022 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Once in a village, Woman saw three old Men sitting outside her house. They were sitting there for quite a while.

Woman went outside and said,
I saw that you are sitting here for long, you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat.

Men asked,
Is the man of the house at home ?

Woman replied, No.

Men replied,
Then we cannot come in.

Woman went inside. In the evening when her husband came, she told him about people sitting outside and all that had happened.

The husband told his wife to go and ask those Men to come in and have some food.

Woman went out and said,
My husband is home. He is inviting you all. Please come inside and have food.

They replied,
We do not go inside a house together.

Woman questioned, Why ?

Then one of those old Men explained.

Pointing to one of his friends, he said :
His name is Wealth.
If he goes with you, your home will be filled with wealth always.

Then pointing to another old Man he said :
He is Success.
If he goes with you, you will always be successful in any endeavor you start.

He then introduced himself as Love.
If I go with you, then your home will be filled with love always.

Then he said,
Now you go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home.

Woman went inside and told her husband about what the old Man said.
Her husband was overjoyed hearing about it and said,
Let’s invite Wealth.
Let him come and fill our home with wealth.

Wife disagreed and said, Why don’t we invite Success ?

Their daughter-in-law was listening to this.
She came to them and suggested,
Wouldn’t it be better if we invite Love in our home ?
Then our home will be filled with love forever.

Husband and wife agreed to this advice.

Woman again went out and said,
Which one of you is Love ? Please come in and be our guest.

Love got up and started walking toward the house. Just then the other two also got up and started following him.

Woman asked,
You said that not all can come together.
I invited only Love.
Why are you all coming in ?

The old Men replied,
If you had invited Wealth or Success then the other two would have stayed outside, but since you invite Love, wherever he goes, we go with him.

Wherever there is Love, Wealth and Success will follow.

Sufi Story

Alan Watts Teach Us The Art Of Meditation (Highly Recommended )

July 12, 2022 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Gnosticism | On Love, by Samael Aun Weor

February 17, 2022 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Love is as pure as the morning star. Love is universal. Love is impersonal, ineffable, and impartial. You must be charitable. We sin against Christian charity when we criticize the religions of others. Cultivate respect and veneration.

Respect your neighbors beliefs. Respect the religion of your neighbor. Do not force anyone to think your way. Do not criticize. Remember that each head is a world. Do not sin anymore against the charity of Christ.

Humanity is divided and subdivided into groups. Each group requires a special system of teaching. Each group needs it school, it’s religion, it’s sect. These are the commandments of the blessed one.

When we criticize others we violate the law of the tranquil heart.

If you are willing to give the last drop of blood for the love of this suffering humanity, then you are one of us.

Whosoever wants to reach the altar of initiation must transform the self into the immolated lamb (Christ) upon the altar of supreme sacrifice.

It is necessary to love those who hate us, to kiss the beloved hand of the one who whips us, to clean the sandals of the one who humiliates us (Humility).

If a poor beggar invites you to eat at his table, eat with him, because that poor beggar is our brother.

Always be the last; do not aspire to be first. Seat yourself on the last seats; never occupy the first place (put others before ourselves). Remember that you are nothing but a poor sinner. Do not be proud of perfection because only your Father who is in secret is perfect.

Do not hold resentments against your neighbor. Remember that your neighbor is not perfect either. Act not with resentment or revenge. Love, forgive, and kiss the hand of the executioner who whips you (Forgiveness, compassion, humility).

– Samael Aun Weor

Theosophy | The Concept of Maya

November 21, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

In Yogic philosophy it is said that the only thing that is real is the eternal, absolute and infinite consciousness that is the backdrop of this whole illusion of physical life. May is the veil and illusion that we are experiencing when we are seeing and experiencing life through our five senses.

Maya is the attachment to physical life and thinking that this is the only real thing. While in yoga we say that the universe is unreal, but the consciousness is the only real aspect. This consciousness is us and we are part of this as much as we are a part of it.

When we identify ourselves with limiting beliefs and adjuncts it’s called upadhi, thinning that the physical attributes that we have are what we are. Furthermore, avidya is the ignorance that makes us forget that we are atman, consciousness/Self. The individual soul, Jiva, is the aspect that gets reborn and is limited by the uphadis.

In conclusion, the remembrance that we are more than our body, mind and physical attribute, is when we start understanding that this veil is not real. We do not become one with the changes and shifts of the world and the mind, we do not identify with worldly events and we start devoting our path to sadhana, spiritual practice, to remind ourselves of our own eternity.

Theosophical Society | The Ancient Wisdom and the Occult Side of Sound | Eduardo Javier Gramaglia

November 10, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Is it possible to understand not only the objective phenomenon of sound, but also its inner causes? Explore the power of sound, its relationship with the etheric realms, some of its cosmological implications, and its link with human intuition.

The use of intuition and creative imagination has been an essential part of the work of great scientists and artists. How were great composers, scientists, and thinkers able to “sense” higher realities, translate them, and then step them down into concrete thoughts, music, words, or mathematical formulae? Does the universe or planet sound our own notes, or do we?

These reflections will take us to the core of the matter: What is meant by “The Harmony of the Spheres,” which famed occultist H.P. Blavatsky claimed not to be a mere philosophical fancy, but a reality?

Eduardo Javier Gramaglia holds a degree in classical philology from National University. He gives seminars, workshops, and lectures on a wide range of Theosophical subjects. His main area of research is the late Hellenistic tradition, particularly its hermetic texts on mystery traditions and astrology. He published Hermetic Astrology in 2006, the first book in Spanish on the ancient astrological traditions. He has taken part in international conventions, given seminars, and published two English translations of Ancient Greek astrological manuals. Eduardo teaches Ancient Religion and Myth, as well as Sanskrit language and literature at National University. He is also the principal pianist and harpsichordist of the Municipal Chamber Orchestra in Cordoba, Argentina and teaches musical analysis and the history of music.

Sanctuarium | Congratulations, HPS Melissa Gardner, on your Ordination!

October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

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We are happy to announce the Ordination of High Priestess Melissa Gardner, MD, of Wichita, Kansas, into the lineage of the cosmic Alpha et Omega Order of Melchizedek. A retired US Army Lieutenant-Colonel, HPS Gardner is also a practicing Second-Tier 12th degree Reiki Grandmaster through Nā Hālau. Once again, congratulations on your many accomplishments, HPS Gardner.

EVERYTHING You’ve Been Taught About Manifesting Abundance IS WRONG! | Sadhguru & Lewis Howes

October 4, 2021October 4, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Sadhguru is a Yogi, Mystic, and Visionary. Named one of India’s 50 most influential people, Sadhguru’s work has touched the lives of millions worldwide through his transformational programs. He has a unique ability to make the ancient yogic sciences relevant to contemporary minds, and his approach does not ascribe to any belief system but offers powerful and proven methods for self-transformation.

An internationally renowned speaker and author of the New York Times Bestseller Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy, Sadhguru has been an influential voice at major global forums including the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, addressing issues as diverse as socioeconomic development, leadership, and spirituality. He is regularly invited to speak at leading educational institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Stanford, Wharton, and MIT.

Dedicated to the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of humanity, Sadhguru possesses a perspective on life and living that never fails to intrigue, challenge, and surprise all those he encounters. In 1992, Sadhguru established Isha Foundation ⁠— a non-profit, volunteer-run organization that operates globally in over 300 centers supported by more than nine million volunteers. Through powerful yoga programs for inner transformation and inspiring social outreach initiatives, Isha Foundation has created a massive movement dedicated to addressing all aspects of human well-being.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sadhguru on Episode #965, and I was thrilled to have him back on the show! If you’re ready to learn the truth about karma, identity, and purpose, you don’t want to miss Episode 1,117 with the legendary Sadhguru!

— Lewis Howes

Theosophy | THE SENSE OF SELF – II

July 11, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The critical fact for any human being as a self-conscious agent is the capacity of objectivizing, of putting upon a mental screen as an object of reflection anything, in principle, that one wishes. A human being recognizes the range of self-consciousness through a process of progressive abstraction. This includes familiarization with what looks initially like mental blankness – like pitch-black night, where there are no conventional signs, no contours or landmarks, no north or south, east or west. A person who begins to sense the depths of subtle matter will discover that what seems to be a void or darkness is in fact a rich, pulsating light-substance that is porous to the profoundest thought. Then one realizes what initially was simply a bald fact about human beings – taken for granted and therefore forgotten – that all things are mutually and vitally interrelated. Human beings are generally so conditioned by mechanical responses to the ordinary calendar and clock-time that they can hardly apprehend the immensity of the doctrine of relationality, which presupposes that the visible world is a vast psychological field of awareness. The universe exists because there are minds capable of generating conceptions that have points of common contact and thereby an outwardness and extension sustaining an entire field of consciousness. As one cannot set any limit in advance to the range and development, the potency and the scope of all the minds that exist, one cannot readily imagine what it is like to negate everything that exists, to stand totally outside it.

Initially, it is extremely difficult to imagine all of this, so the whole world is at first apprehended as so unfathomably mysterious as to engender a feeling of alienation and fear. But why should moving into more expanded states of consciousness make one afraid? Who is afraid, and afraid for what? At any given time there is a film or shadowy image that is one’s false self between one’s inherent capacity to make a vaster state of consciousness come alive and one’s captivity to the familiar array of objects and opinions. One is like the fabled monkey which, in trying to collect nuts from a jar, held onto them so tightly that he was not able to open his hands and get any. There is an impersonal, impartial sweep to the mental vision of a Man of Meditation that simply cannot correlate and connect with, or take at face value, the common concerns of the world. It is necessary to grasp the strength and richness of viewing the universe as an interior object of intense thought which could be expanded indefinitely, eliminating self-imposed and narrow notions of identity and embracing vaster conceptions of the Self. The significance of this standpoint lies in that continuity is upheld but not formulated. Herein is the basis of indefinite expansion, of growth without hindrance. Existing frontiers of knowledge cannot provide the basis of judgement of the potential realm of the knowable. What is now known is meagre in relation to the immensity of the unknown. It is meaningful to relinquish the delusive sense of certainty to which so many people cling at the expense of an ever-deepening apprehension of relationality.

In general, human beings seem to need the illusions that sustain them. There is something self-protective in relation to all illusions. At least people are thereby helped from becoming fixated on obsessional delusions. There is even something enigmatic about why particular persons are going through whatever they endure. A great deal of human frustration, pain and anxiety, fear and uncertainty, arises from the desperate attempt to keep alive a puny sense of self in an alien world. Individuality arises only through the act of making oneself responsible for the consequences of choices, of seeing the world as capable of being affected by one’s attitudes and, above all, as an opportunity for knowing and rejoicing in wisdom and for rising to the levels of awareness of higher beings. The plane of consciousness on which such beings exist is accessible to all those who are willing to stretch themselves, patiently persist in going through the abyss of gloom, and endure all trials. Infallibly, they can enter those exalted planes and experience a strong sense of fellowship with beings who at one time would have seemed inaccessible. This ancient teaching is worthy of deep reflection. Its abstract meaning pertains to the elastic relation between subject and object, subjectivity and objectivity, and their mutual relativity as illustrated in one’s daily experience. A vast freedom is implicit in this no-ownership theory of selfhood. It is helpful to break up one’s life into periods and patterns, to note one’s most persistent ideas, ambitions and illusions, as well as those points on which one’s greatest personal sensitivity lies, and to make of these an object of calm and dispassionate study, to be able to see by questioning and tracing back what would be the assumptions which would have to be true for all of these to exist. To do this is to engage in what Plato calls dianoia, ‘thinking things through’, whereby in one day a person could wipe out what otherwise would hang like a fog over many lives. There is a fusion of philosophical penetration and oceanic devotion which is characteristic of high states of consciousness. There is no separation between thought and feeling – between Manas and Buddhi – such as is ordinarily experienced.

At one time a natural reverence existed in all cultures in ritual forms which eventually became empty of significance or could no longer be made meaningful when languages were lost or philosophical conceptions were neglected. Individuals today cannot force themselves to be able to feel any of the traditional emotional responses to any single system or ritual. Human beings should creatively find their own ways of making sacred whatever it is that comes naturally to them. What is sacred as an external object to one person need not be to another. The forms of ritualization have all become less important than they were, and that is not only due to the rapid pace of change but also because of the volatile mixture of concepts and of peoples all over the world, together with a growing awareness of the psychological dimension of seemingly objective conceptions of reality. But even though there is a pervasive desacralization of outward forms, the deepest feelings of souls are unsullied by doubt. It is only by arousing the profoundest heart-feelings that one can open the door to active spiritual consciousness. There is in the heart of every person the light of true devotion, the spontaneous capacity to show true recognition and reverence. To do this demands a greater effort for some people than for others. When human beings come to understand the law of interdependence that governs all states of consciousness, their impersonal reason as well as their intense feelings will point in the same direction. It is only this single-minded and whole-hearted mode of devotion which will endure, but its focus must be upon universal well-being.

It is not the individual and determined purpose of attaining Nirvana – the culmination of all Knowledge and wisdom, which is after all only an exalted and glorious selfishness – but the self-sacrificing pursuit of the best means to lead on the right path our neighbour, to cause to benefit by it as many of our fellow creatures as we possibly can, which constitutes the true Theosophist.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

THEOSOPHY | SPIRITUAL WILL – I

July 4, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The vital interrelationship of Nature and of humanity, as well as the complex process of evolution and of history, is essentially the manifestation of unity in diversity. Every human being is a compact kingdom with manifold centres of energy that are microcosmic foci connected with macrocosmic influences. There is a fundamental logic to the vast unfolding from One Source through rays of light in myriad directions into numerous centres that are all held together by a single Fohatic force, an ordering principle of energy. The logic of emanation is the same for the cosmos and for the individual. The arcane teaching of the divine Hierarchies, of Dhyani Buddhas, of the three sets of Builders and of the mysterious Lipika conveys intimations of invisible, ever-present, noumenal patterns that underlie this immense cosmos of which every human being is an integral part. The ordered movement of the vast whole is also mirrored in the small, in all the atoms, and is paradigmatically present in the symmetries and asymmetries of the human form with its differentiated and specialized organs of perception and of action.

Modern man, burdened by irrelevant and chaotic cerebration, often fails to ask the critical, central questions: What does it mean to have a human form? Why does the face have seven orifices? What does it mean to have a hand with five fingers? Why is one finger called the index finger and what is the purpose of pointing in human life? What is the significance of the thumb and what is its connection with will and determination, which must be both strong and flexible? Can flexibility and fluidity be combined in human life in ways analogous to what is exemplified in the physical world by all the lunar hierarchies impressed with the intelligence that comes from higher planes? What is the function of the little finger, which is associated with Mercury? What is the connection between speech and this seemingly unimportant digit which is important for those who have skill in the use of hands, whether in instrumental music or in craftsmanship? When one is ready to ask questions of this kind, taking nothing for granted, then one can look at statues of the Buddha and of various gods in many traditions, where the placement of the hand is extraordinarily significant: whether it is pointing above, pointing below, whether it is extended outwards, whether it is in the form of an oblation or receiving an offering, or in the familiar mudra of the hand that blesses. What is the meaning of joining the thumb and the central finger, which is given great importance in mystical texts like the Hymn to Dakshinamurti?

The moment one begins to raise such innocent questions about the most evident aspects of human existence, it immediately becomes clear that pseudo-sophisticated people are prisoners of the false idea that they already know. And yet self-reliance and spontaneous trust are so scarce in the world of the half-educated. Many people are so lacking in elementary self-knowledge that when a person meets another, instead of a natural response of receptivity and trust, there is an entrenched bias engendered by fear and suspicion. This has been consolidated through the establishment of a Nietzschean conceptual framework in which all human relationships are viewed simply in terms of domination and being dominated. This obsessive standpoint drains human relationships of deeper content, of spiritual meaning and moral consciousness. All moral categories and considerations become irrelevant when one entirely focuses upon an ethically neutral and colourless conception of the will. To assume and act as if everything turns upon the master-slave relation is a major block to the development of self-consciousness, as Hegel recognized. Humanity has left behind its feverish preoccupation with false dominance in formal structures. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed the emergence of a higher plateau of individual and collective self-consciousness. All men and women are the inheritors of the Enlightenment, with its unequivocal affirmation of the inalienable dignity of the individual, who can creatively relate to other human beings in meaningful dialogue and constructive cooperation.

Rooted in a simplistic but assertive mentality, dissolving all moral issues, the language of confrontation and of submission is irrelevant to the universal human condition and to the hierarchical complexity of Nature. Any person with a modicum of thought who begins to ask questions about the marvellous intricacy and dynamic interrelationships of Nature – questions about the sun and the stars, the trees and forests, the rivers and oceans, and above all about human growth – will readily recognize that no real understanding of the organic processes of Nature can be properly expressed in terms of such jejune categories as dominance and submission. Nor can any meaningful truths about the archetypal relations between teachers and disciples, parents and children, friends and companions, be apprehended through the truncated notion of an amoral will. Human life is poetic, musical and poignant. It has an open texture, with recurrent rhythms, and it continuously participates in concurrent cycles. To know this is to recognize, when viewing the frail fabric of modern societies, that human evolution has not abrogated the primordial principles of mutuality and interdependence, but indeed abnormal human beings and societies have become alienated from their inner resources of true strength and warmth, trust and reciprocity. The Golden Rule remains universal in scope and significance. There is not a culture or portion of the human race, not an epoch in history, in which the Golden Rule was not understood. Without this awareness there would be no social survival, let alone its translation into the language of roles and obligations and into the logic of markets. Reciprocity is intrinsic to the human condition.

Raghavan Iyer

The Gupta Vidya III

Theosophy | THE SENSE OF SELF – I

June 30, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Feeling, while going about, that he is a wave of the ocean of self; while sitting, that he is a bead strung on the thread of universal consciousness; while perceiving objects of sense, that he is realizing himself by perceiving the self; and, while sleeping, that he is drowned in the ocean of bliss; he who, inwardly constant, spends his whole life thus is, among all men, the real seeker of liberation.

Shankaracharya

All the varied vestures of the incarnated human being are distinct sheaths on adjoining planes of consciousness, each with its own rates of vibration, all participating in the potency of ideation and mirroring archetypal relations. What is implied in the Vedantin association of the lower vestures with unwisdom is the false sense of separateness, the illusory stability and entitative existence that we ascribe to a form. What is the significance of the seven orifices in the human face and the thirty-three vertebrae of the spine? What is to be understood from the varying textures of the different layers of skin? Is the physical body to be analysed in terms of its constituent elements, or is it to be viewed in relation to the pulsating rhythmic movement in the heart? Such questions are rarely asked. Most human beings take for granted a haphazardly acquired and habitually retained assemblage of sensory perceptions and residues identified with a name and form which is really a static mind-image of the body. Individuals deny themselves the possibility of direct experience without the mediation of routinized anticipations or of frozen images projected upon objects. Anyone may learn to discern and comprehend the recurring patterns, resistances and responses of the body. Even more, a person may come to view the body, as the Gita depicts, as a nine-gated city. A person can learn to use the body as a musician wields a musical instrument, self-consciously impressing energy upon its myriad life-atoms caught up in chains of interconnected intelligence.

The body is a vast and complex matrix of interdependent centres of energy, each of which puts a human being in touch potentially, and therefore in many cases unconsciously, with everything else that exists on the physical plane. The body exists at a certain level of material density, with a biological entropy built into it, as well as a degree of homeostatic resistance to the atmosphere around. This level of resistance in the physical body enables it to maintain itself and is the basis of physical survival. Those who truly reflect upon this could make a significant difference by the deliberate and creative interaction of their own ideas and feelings. For example, while eating food, a person’s thoughts, emotional states, magnetic field and inward reverence to the invisible elements of food can make a fundamental difference to the qualitative osmosis of energies transmitted to the organism. The body can be seen as a sacred instrument in rethinking one’s entire relationship with the world. There is reflective intelligence at the lunar level and the astral and physical vestures are subject to various cycles and different rates of motion. These cycles are mathematical equations and patterns at the cellular level. The mathematics of the complex system that is the physical body, with all its cycles, corresponds closely to the mathematics of the galaxies and the vast cosmos. One could come to learn from the natural cycles and then from the particular bent given to them by one’s own emanations, thus gaining some grasp of one’s dominant anticipations and typical responses. Whoever engages in daily self-study could come to discern the distinct ways in which the body affects the mind during different portions of the day and the week, as well as the succeeding phases of the lunar month.

Shankaracharya lived at a time when ritualistic practices were widely prevalent, and many had become blindly dependent upon detailed and complex knowledge of what to do, when, during each of the many subdivisions of the day. All of this knowledge would not enable a person to get to the core of the causal body – the delusive identification through an ‘I’ with limiting conceptions of space and time, together with the persisting notion of oneself as the actor. Shankara taught that one must get to the root of the ‘I-making’ tendency – the illusory sense in which one is separate from the world which is supposed to exist as clay material for one’s purpose. This false conception of selfhood becomes deeply rooted because it is pleasurable, owing to passive identification with those sensations that have pleasing responses in different parts of the body. It is reinforced in the language and the milieu of those valuations of segmented aspects of conduct which tend to routinize, making a person take experience totally for granted, just as the physical senses can lead an unthinking person to take for granted that the more solid a thing seems to the tactile sense, the more it is solid in reality. There is a radical failure to understand that the whole visible world is like a screen, hiding a vast mathematical activity, and that for all its bewildering complexity, this phenomenal realm may be reduced to certain primary relationships that archetypally correspond to the numbers between zero and ten.

By rethinking much of what one took for granted before, one could come to conceive of an exalted state such as Shankara conveyed in The Crest Jewel of Wisdom. In this serene state an individual would be devoid of all sense of psychological involvement in any of the desires and aims, any of the obsessions, passions, infatuations and concerns of the world, in any of the criteria of success and failure or pseudo-valuations of people generally. Furthermore, having no sense of tightness, of excessive anxious-ridden involvement in the activities of the body, such a person begins to experience a tremendous exhilaration, a rhythmic breathing and a profound peace. It is like seeing a part of oneself carry out its natural functions, and yet remaining totally outside every kind of manifestation in which any single portion of oneself is involved. A person who reaches this stage can combine with this detachment a deep gratitude, a joyous affirmation that there is a certain value to the body as a pristine vesture. At the causal level – in what is called the karana sarira or causal body – fundamental ideas prevail which are often hidden to most human beings but which, if they were examined, would wipe out whole chains of thinking, complex patterns of activity over many years. They would all be eradicated by getting to the core of a fundamental idea. A person who steadily works on the plane of ideation so renovates the thought-body that it becomes possible to release self-consciously the inexhaustible potentiality of divine energy. The entry points between the causal body and the astral vesture are made more porous and, in time, the physical body may reflect and transmit the radiant joy of universal ideation.

A person may learn to live in attunement to the plane of those enlightened free men who are not captive even to the vast conceptions of space and time associated with the universe as a whole. Such a person will be ever engaged in intense meditation upon the Unmanifest, which increasingly becomes the only reality. A person who begins to see through the eyes and with the help of the illumination of the Guru finds that the physical body is only a dim reflector of light-energy and also provides a means of shielding the divine radiance. By extending the possibilities of human excellence to the uttermost heights of control, purification, refinement and plasticity that can be brought about by the deliberate impact of disciplined thought upon gross matter, one can revolutionize one’s conception of matter. Einstein pointed out in the twenties that a lot of what is called matter simply dissolves into a prior, primordial notion of space. The body can become an architectonic pattern in space which has within its own intricate symmetry an inherent intelligence that is not transparent at the level of image and form. It has the capacity of holding, releasing and reflecting the highest elemental associations that accompany the profoundest thoughts. Nature is the great magician and alchemist. The wise man is an effortless master of lunar forces, correlations, patterns and potencies.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | THE VERBUM – I

June 28, 2021June 28, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

When our Soul (mind) evokes a thought, the representative sign of that thought is self-engraved upon the astral fluid, which is the receptacle and, so to say, the mirror of all the manifestations of being.

The sign expresses the thing: the thing is the (hidden or occult) virtue of the sign.

To pronounce a word is to evoke a thought, and make it present: the magnetic potency of the human speech is the commencement of every manifestation in the Occult World. To utter a Name is not only to define a Being (an Entity), but to place it under and condemn it through the emission of the Word (Verbum), to the influence of one or more Occult potencies. Things are, for every one of us, that which it (the Word) makes them while naming them. The Word (Verbum) or the speech of every man is, quite unconsciously to himself, a BLESSING or a CURSE; this is why our present ignorance about the properties or attributes of the IDEA as well as about the attributes and properties of MATTER, is often fatal to us.

Yes, names (and words) are either BENEFICENT or MALEFICENT; they are, in a certain sense, either venomous or health-giving, according to the hidden influences attached by Supreme Wisdom to their elements, that is to say, to the LETTERS which compose them, and the NUMBERS correlative to these letters.

The Secret Doctrine, i 93-94

Those who have had the resplendent karma of receiving this sacred teaching should move rapidly from the state of irresponsibility into the realm of responsibility in the gestation of sound associated with thought. This is a practical teaching that can be used even if one has yet to acquire a detailed knowledge of the hidden properties of matter on subtle planes of existence. Anyone may make a true beginning by trying to conserve speech-energy, by becoming more deliberate and careful in the choice of thoughts and words. Calmly sitting down in the privacy of one’s own solitude to read aloud The Voice of the Silence, or excerpts from The Secret Doctrine, one can make a radical change in one’s magnetic field. Infusing this endeavour with a profound sense of the sacred, a vital depth is touched in one’s daily awareness of the invisible centres of consciousness and in one’s capacity to direct benevolently different groupings of life-atoms, to purify and render them worthy of the divine temple of the human form in which there burns the flame of self-consciousness kindled by the Sons of Fire. The priceless gift of noetic self-awareness can be brought to bear upon each of the different centres of consciousness. Even though in its spiritual essence Manas is entirely disconnected from the discordant sensorium, it effectively can, through the pristine radiation of its own potent light, magnetize, consecrate and intensify as well as make precise and benevolent the organs of perception. Those who value this immense privilege seriously enough to carry out a series of initial experiments with truth within themselves will gain a greater awareness through deliberation of the dignity and the divinity of being human. They will discover what it means to reverse the current of negative thought, centered upon the sense of futility of the personal self, and they will lighten the load of dead-weight elementals impressed with past pretences, desperation and despair.

The orbit of the sacred is revolutionary; it is subversive to the status quo of one’s previous somnambulic existence. Lest one cultivate the fatal craft of becoming schizoid, one must assiduously practise the arcane teaching of the Verbum by consciously choosing and assuming full responsibility for one’s thought-currents. Instead of excusing one’s passive tendencies, one must learn to direct one’s attention to what one deliberately intends, to sublime themes that elevate the mind, to daily exercises in spiritual alchemy. Individuals must think to the core the quintessential prerogative of being human. Rather than irresponsibly pretending that the whole of life is episodic, they must acknowledge that days make up weeks, weeks make up months, months make up years, years make up decades in a lifetime, and each incarnation is an integral part of a long series of lives. In a universe where sowing and reaping are inextricably interwoven, human beings have to do what agriculturists know and gardeners practise: preparing the soil, pulling out weeds, planting at the right time and patiently cooperating with the seasons and cycles of nature. If some are afraid to do this, it is because they mistakenly believe that they are infallible experts on the subject of themselves. This is a fundamental error. When a person gains glimpses of self-knowledge, a sure sign of growth is the increased willingness to breathe the refreshing air of agnosticism. One is ready to recognize that there is a profound mystery to every human being, that the last person one knows is oneself. Not until the bonds of personality are loosened can that self be truly known. The soul abides in the Silence, and when the restless mind ceases from thoughts and words, it may be merged into the inmost shrine of the heart, so that when one opens the eyes and utters a sound, one feels it is a sacred privilege to breathe as the votary of the Logos, of Brahma Vach.

If a person ventured to make daily experiments with truth, it would be helpful to formulate some working rules which make due allowance for the plastic potency of one’s own vestures. After all, different people have different propensities. Some are very vocal on worldly matters but they are utterly unable to speak about the spiritual. Others speak endlessly about the spiritual until words lose all meaning. Still others speak as if they already know what they have only remotely glimpsed. Others mix vibrations, speaking of the sacred and then lapsing into the profane. Sacred language cannot be properly enunciated if one inserts into it a sense of the separative ‘I’ because the kamamanasic ‘I’ has to vacate its false authority within the human being so that the immortal individuality may affirm spiritual truths through an invulnerable personality. The metaphysical basis of this process lies in the fact that the more indivisible the mental energy involved in universal, abstract, impersonal ideas, the more rarefied and homogeneous is the matter within which these ideas clothe themselves. As divine ideation draws the mind to a still centre, through deep meditation upon boundless duration, abstract space and pure being, one approaches a plane of consciousness where matter is radically different from what is normally understood. Matter becomes light-energy. It is cool Akashic fire which has a distinctive texture, a peculiar tensility and volatility, ethereal properties for which there are no adequate analogues on the physical plane.

A person sitting for long hours by a log fire may start to see behind and around the flames a noumenal light and may begin to have an inkling of the invisible fire behind the veil of the visible. It is possible for any person to arouse the subtler senses by reaching towards universal ideas, and through intense ideation one may become conscious of noumenal matter. This arcane teaching rests upon the presupposition that what is called knowing or interacting is an imperfect experience of consubstantiality. One only knows what is on the grosser planes through the grossness in oneself. Any suggestion that it is outside is misleading, for if it were not in oneself it could not be seen. A highly evolved being may be able to take the most mundane of subjects and see it from the standpoint of the subtlest abstraction, thus elevating the entire field. On the other hand, most human beings only too often do the opposite. They may even take a sublime conception and drag it down to the densest plane of sensory awareness.

Control of thought and speech is an essential ingredient of soul etiquette and spiritual discrimination. It represents good taste at the highest level, where one may enrich a spontaneous longing for Brahma Vach, the Agathon, the Ineffable Good. Out of repeated meditation one must gain such a strong, lively and self-perpetuating sense of the Ineffable Good at the core of the Divine Darkness behind the shimmering veils of the universe, that one is securely anchored in that state of spiritual awareness. And therefore, as Plato suggested in the Allegory of the Cave, when seemingly descending into the world of heterogeneity, one is able to use wisely one’s eyes and ears and above all, one’s tongue, so that one is acutely conscious of every available opportunity to give a forward impulse to human evolution. Where one encounters anything meretricious on the lower planes, it will roll off like water off a duck’s back. It simply will not inhere because of the intense activation and vigilant preservation of one’s noetic awareness. The importance of this mental discipline will soon become evident to those who are courageous enough to become steadfast in its practice, not for their protection, but for the sake of universal enlightenment. Not only can they begin to discharge their debt to the sacred Teaching by converting it into what they could use, but they could actively contribute to the generation of the magnetic field in which spiritual instruction could be integrated into new modes of secular monasticism.

Hermes, June 1980
Raghavan Iyer

Theosophy | THE MYSTERY OF THE EGO – III

May 15, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Famous quotes about 'Egoism' - Sualci Quotes 2019

In the end, however, one cannot activate that golden cord, as Plato called it, without the exhilaration of self-transcendence. Paradoxically, when you are truly yourself, you forget yourself. To be calmly engaged in the manifestation of the golden thread is to increase awareness of all other beings and the whole of life. Self-study, then, has further depths of meaning. When a person in a period of true contemplation has a vision of the sutratmic Self, brought down from above and enriching consciousness through the activation of divine thought, then suddenly there will be a kickback arising from the resistance of the lesser self. One will painfully discover that the mind cannot stay for very long on a sufficiently abstract and impersonal level, and that the heart cannot continuously hold that which is the collective misery of mankind and bear love to all beings. It falls back to lesser concerns. Self-study becomes a way of studying the lesser self with firmness and honesty, together with a sense of humour towards the ridiculousness of the lesser self, the impostor that shuts out the richness and potentiality of the Self. True self-study takes the form of studying those periods of waking life where there is a forgetting and therefore a denial of the Self. Self-study is a way of minimizing the propensity to forget and the need for too many reminders, and above all, safeguarding against the need to have one’s knuckles rapped by admonitions that come from the life process. To choose one’s reminders rather than have them come from outside is to adjust the ratios of moments of time that are well spent to those that are wasted through being caught in forgetfulness of the golden thread. These wasted moments constitute the tragedy of the crucifixion of the Christos. The more one finds this happening, the greater the necessity to get to the root of the problem. Self-study can never be made the object of schemata because it must vary for every individual, and any person may find that repeated efforts yield only limited results. There may be particular moments when there is a brilliant flash, and one sees through so much in the masquerade that one is freed. But this is something about which no general rules can be made because it involves the interaction of complex variables and the emanations of consciousness in the life of every man, and so it constitutes part of the mystery of the ego itself.

As taught and exemplified by Socrates, philosophic self-study during life is an integral part of a continual preparation for the moment of death. A fruitful source for study and reflection is the Bhagavad Gita. Robert Crosbie suggests, in his remarks on the eighth chapter, that there is a real danger that fruits of effort will not carry over to the next life. The measure of difficulty in truly availing oneself of the teaching is identical to that involved in becoming immortal. Those for whom the teaching becomes a reality are able to reverse the false image given by the maya of the life process and by the moulds of interaction of men in terms of the reality they assign to the finite, the ever-fleeting and the false. They are able to reverse it so completely that they see with the eyes of pity and participate in the illusions of men with a constant inward awareness of Mahat and cosmic Eros. Such men display an existential consciousness of immortality which goes beyond external tokens and marks, beyond forms, words and concepts. It is that consciousness which ultimately must become the basis by which one thinks, and therefore by which one lives, and each one must cultivate this independently. Few individuals will reach that point in life before the moment of death where they have gained the power to slay their lunar form at will. After death every human being has to linger in a state in which there is a purgatorial dissipation of the lunar form made up of illusions, fears and anxieties engendered during life. All of these constitute the substance of what people call ‘living’ and ‘the self’, and to dissipate them in life means to have periods where one can see right through oneself. Most human beings are blocked in this because they have developed the tendency of seeing through others more than they see through themselves.

On the Path, one is not concerned to see through anything in anyone else without an appropriate compassion that can only be real if based upon knowledge gained by having broken through comparable illusions in oneself. One must first build into daily life an awareness that negates illusions, sifting and selecting between what is quintessential and what is not in every experience. Until this becomes a steady current, one is not going to be able to dissipate the lunar form at will before death, but for those who have done this, dying is like the discarding of clothes. Life in the ordinary sense has no hold over them and therefore their coming into the world is not involuntary. This is very difficult for most human beings to understand. As they go through a painful process of acting in one direction, reacting in another direction, they may suddenly hope that by some confession or ritual they can wipe out the past, but since that is impossible, the wheel of life is extraordinarily painful, monotonous and meaningless for them. They keep being propelled back into life, repeating the same oscillations of illusion. This is graphically described by Plato in the Myth of Er. There is a sense in which conventionally good people choose the life that they envied. If their goodness is caught up in appearances, they are going to be misled by external trappings. To be above the realm of appearances is to see to the very core of life, to see the essential justice of all things; and to be able to handle such insight one will need true compassion. To exemplify this authentically and continuously is in fact to be able to ceaselessly negate one’s own self and to see that self as being ultimately linked up with every other being on every plane. At its root it is no-thing; it is not conditioned, it is not in the process, it is beyond.

This is a long and difficult process, but given the mystery of the ego, people do not really know why they failed in the past when they made such attempts and they have no right to despair in advance. They do not know, through what seem to be small steps taken with integrity, that great results might accrue to them. Sometimes the first earnest steps may be taken very late in life. Fortunate is the man who begins this very early in life. But whether early or late, it can be tested in relation to reduction of fears and an elevation of all encounters with other beings. The Theosophical Movement seeks to maximize the opportunity for human beings to gain strength, support, inspiration and instruction in working upon the maintenance of conscious continuity of awareness. That awareness helps them to develop an eye for essentials in daily life, enabling them to distinguish the everlasting from the ever-fleeting and not to mistake the ephemeral for the enduring, not to mistake appearances and forms for archetypal realities. To do this again and again and to make it ultimately a line of life’s meditation is the only constructive way in which a person can prepare for the moment of death. This is to put the issue in psychological terms. It could also be put in terms of the sound that a human being can utter at the moment of death. That sound can be chosen only in a limited sense, because the whole of life is going to determine a dominant thought and feeling, and these will determine what sound is uttered at the moment of death. The line of life’s meditation is reflected in the particular aperture in the human body through which the life-current withdraws. A very wise being who looks at a corpse will see straightaway through which orifice life departed, and hence will know a great deal about the consciousness of the soul.

The wisest beings during life gather up all their energies, like the shy and watchful tortoise, into that which is within and above them. At the moment of death they will have a sublime gnostic experience which is an affirmation of immortality, a joyous discarding of all awareness of conditions. Having put themselves beyond conditions, they are able to experience not only immortal longings, but through the continuity of unconditioned cosmic Eros and through the continuity of an unconditional awareness of Mahat, they experience spiritual freedom. This detachment may look at times austere, but it is combined with an inexhaustible compassion and immense vitality. If they live right, without being caught in the process, every burden lies lightly upon them. They are constantly stripping away even as other men are draining themselves in the gardens of illusion. They constantly affirm on behalf of all the Upanishadic invocation: “Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness into light. Lead me from death to immortality.” When one can make a positive inner affirmation of the Divine within, this becomes a potent current of thought and feeling, energy and life. Without words, all one’s actions will convey to others a sense that behind the games of life there is a deeper reality of pure joy in which there is dignity to every individual. As a preliminary training in making this invocation, every night before going to sleep one should renounce all identification with the body and the brain, with form, with all likes and dislikes, with all memories and anticipations. One should invoke the same affirmation upon rising, as well as at other chosen times and spontaneously whenever possible. If it is to be meaningful in the context of a universe governed by the boundless ideation of Mahat and suffused by the beneficence of cosmic Eros, this invocation must be made not only for oneself, but for all.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

THEOSOPHY | THE INMOST SANCTUARY – I

May 14, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

The ‘Master’ in the sanctuary of our souls is ‘the Higher Self’ — the divine spirit whose consciousness is based upon and derived solely (at any rate during the mortal life of the man in whom it is captive) from the Mind, which we have agreed to call the Human Soul (the ‘spiritual soul’ being the vehicle of the Spirit). In its turn the former (the personal or human soul) is a compound in its highest form, of spiritual aspirations, volitions, and divine love; and in its lower aspect, of animal desires and terrestrial passions imparted to it by its associations with its vehicle, the seat of all these.

H.P. Blavatsky

Restoration of the right relationship between the Master in the inmost sanctuary and the incarnated consciousness is gained only through a sacrificial process of self-purification. Obscuring and polluting tendencies nurtured in the mind through its misuse over many lives must be removed by a self-chosen and self-administered therapy. Like the Pandava brothers exiled from their kingdom through their own folly, or like the master held prisoner in his own house by those who should be his servants in the parable of Jesus, the pristine divine ray of the Logos in man is trapped and stripped of its sovereign place in human life unless consciously sought by the aspirant. This invocation of wisdom through the supplication of the mind to the spirit was seen by the ancient Greeks as the cultivation of sophrosyne — the subordination of the inferior element to the superior. It is shown in The Voice of the Silence as the shila virtue — the attunement of thought, will and feeling to the pulsation of divine harmony, Alaya-Akasha. The mind stands as the critical link between the divine and the animal nature. The recovery and right use of the privilege of human existence depend upon the subordination of the elements of the lower rupa existence to the spiritual ideation of Arupa Manas.

The sacrificial posture and selfless motive required for this self-purification can be readily grasped through a telling analogy. There is not a modern metropolis which does not maintain the equipment needed to neutralize the effluvia of human waste and thereby reduce the danger of infection to its population. Similarly, a large number of devices are available, both to cities and to individuals, for the purpose of removing sediments and impurities from drinking water, through distillation, filtration and osmosis, to make it available in a purer and fresher form. With the human mind the same principles of public health and civic responsibility would require that each individual and every society strive to purify the muddy stream of human passions which pollute those coming into contact with it. Every human being has received the crystalline waters of life in a pure and unsullied condition, and therefore everyone has the karmic responsibility for every failure to return these waters to the ocean of life in a pristine condition. Insofar as this responsibility has been neglected by individuals, under karma in successive lives they are self-condemned to immersion in the waters they themselves have poisoned. Under the laws of karma affecting the processes of reincarnation and the transmigration of life-atoms, individuals owe it to their neighbours and their descendants, as well as to themselves, to purify their mental emanations.

In practice, this implies a continuous cleansing of one’s thoughts, one’s words and one’s actions; these in turn fundamentally depend upon the purification of the will. Unfortunately, purification of the will, which is vital to the spiritual regeneration of humanity, is itself seriously misunderstood as a consequence of the process of pollution of consciousness and magnetism. Mired in the morbid obscuration of higher consciousness, too many people suppose that a bolstering of the lower will is a means to survival. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The higher spiritual will does not itself need to be strengthened, but it may be released through the removal of obscurations and hindrances. So long as the will is activated by the individual only on behalf of passions and the illusion of the persona, that will is not worth having. Hence, many people have discovered that the will cannot be released on behalf of lesser purposes. This predicament is conspicuous in those diseased societies which place an inordinate emphasis upon the personal will. Will itself is a pure colourless principle which cannot be dissociated from the energy of the Atman released through breathing. Thus when human beings breathe benevolently, blessing others with every breath, they can release the beneficent will-energy of the Atman. As soon as the will is released on behalf of the personal ego, however, against other human beings, it is blunted. This inevitable paralysis of the antagonistic lower will is indeed a beneficent and therapeutic aspect of karma.

Viewed from a collective standpoint, many human beings can be seen as having been weakened because they have absorbed life-atoms from others who have misused spiritual knowledge and the potency of the higher will. Throughout the world perhaps one in ten persons has insistently used the will against other human beings in this or previous lives. This may have been for the sake of bolstering the insecure identity of the persona or, worse, through the misuse of spiritual knowledge connected with false meditation, indulgence in drugs and mediumistic practices. Since 1966 contemporary society has witnessed the emergence of a number of centres of pseudo-spiritual activity; now it is witnessing the inevitable psychological breakdown of many who were responsible for this moral pollution. The waves of spiritual influence initiated by the descent of Krishna offer golden opportunities to all souls, including those inverted natures self-blocked from inward growth by their own failures on the Path in previous lives. Amongst these there were some too cowardly to make a new beginning, who sought instead to compensate for their own weakness and delusion by cashing in on the currents of the 1975 Cycle. Having forfeited timely opportunities offered through compassion, they are self-destroyed when Krishna takes a firm stand on behalf of the entire human family because they are unable to generate a genuine concern for others. Never having generated an interest in the welfare of the vast majority of mankind, they are self-condemned. Sadly, they cast a long shadow over a much larger class of weaker souls who are affected by them, no doubt through their own delusions and vulnerabilities.

Persons are sometimes drawn into dangerous orbits of misused knowledge through loose talk about such sacred subjects as kundalini, kriyashakti and the activation of the higher spiritual centres in man. Ordinary people who enjoy a normal measure of spiritual health wisely avoid those places where they are likely to hear profane chatter. Through a natural sense of spiritual good taste they simply shun those places where self-deluded con men congregate to make a living off the gullible. Today, because the moral and spiritual requirements for participation in the humanity of the future have become more evident to many people, the market for such deceptive opportunism has begun to diminish. The America of P.T. Barnum, who said that a sucker is born every moment, has been replaced to a large extent by the America of Abraham Lincoln, where, as is well known, one cannot fool all the people all the time. Although many souls have to travel a great distance along the path of self-integration, they have learnt enough not to be duped by pseudo-spiritual blandishments. Just as they have learnt not to believe everything conveyed by the mass media and not to leap at every free offer or supermarket discount, they have also learnt to pass up invitations for instant development of kundalini and every facile promise of spiritual development that dispenses with the judicious control of the emotions and passions.

Even in the difficult area of sexuality the idea of strength through celibacy (e.g. Gabrielle Brown, The New Celibacy, 1980) has gained some currency amongst many people, young and old, who find the burden of ego-games and unequal experimentation intolerable. There is nothing wrong with the sacred act of communion and procreation, and as the ancient Jews believed, God is pleased when a man and a woman come together in true unison. Nor need this issue be obscured by pseudo-arguments concerning the Malthusian spectre of over-population. As the economist E.F. Schumacher pointed out, even if the entire population of the globe were concentrated in America, this would result in a population density no greater than that of Great Britain, a nation long noted for the spaciousness and greenery of its countryside. North America itself, over its ancient and almost entirely unwritten history, has supported many varied civilizations, some of which displayed a much greater spiritual maturity than is evidenced in its recent history. Broadly, one cannot understand the physical facts of life on earth, much less the spiritual facts of life, through a language of conflicting claims and counter-claims, rationalizations and compensatory illusions, or pseudo-sophisticated statistical arguments based upon a selfish and shallow view of the nature of the human psyche.

Raghavan Iyer
Hermes, February 1982

Theosophy | THE MYSTERY OF THE EGO – II

May 14, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

In the focusing of consciousness on the plane of differentiation, the process is broken into forms and colours, moments of time, fields of space. In the breaking up of consciousness, something gets caught, causing mental inertia. Cosmic spirit can only manifest in and through a material matrix, but it cannot manifest without mind, or without the energy that brings about the fusion of the matrix and what is potentially present in spirit. This is why, in all spiritual disciplines, the battleground is the mind. The fact that the mind becomes dual is the price paid for self-consciousness and this price involves both self-limitation and the limiting of other selves. This limitation is reinforced by religious beliefs that foreshorten the age of man and the earth, and also by constricting fears of death and decay, whether applied to human lives or collectively to a culture. There is a consequent increase in the inability of consciousness to free itself from its frozen identification with a particular aspect of the differentiated field which is at best only a veil cast over the greater life process. At the very core of the life process all worlds are potentially present. In addition to a particular differentiated field, an infinite number of potentially differentiated fields lie latent in a pregenetically differentiated state. This is the core of reality in the realm of divine thought called Mahat, the realm in which Mahatmas abide. It is also at the heart of cosmic Eros or Fohat.

Whether one examines the collective structure of society or an individual in a nuclear family, one will find myriad ways in which human beings transfer anxiety and limitations to each other. Not all human beings are equally trapped, nor are they all prey to the same kinds of illusions. Some individuals are perpetually subject to delusive expectations of worldly success. Their experience is painful and it seems they never truly learn. There are others who experience violent reactions, and just because there is so much violence in their reaction, they are bound equally at the extreme points in the oscillation between optimism and pessimism. Still others seem to be shrewd and subtle in leaving possibilities open by negating their involvements intuitively and unconsciously, even though they may not have any metaphysical map to guide them. There are always a few everywhere who are reminiscent of the great galaxy of beings who are awake during the long night of non-manifestation. They self-consciously begin with a certain thread of awareness, and those who know them from an early age may sense how calmly they are going to lay aside their mortal vestures in the end. Theirs is a beautiful, self-conscious reflection, though guarded and veiled, within the lesser vehicles and ordinary orbits of profane existence. While other human beings are cursing life and themselves, these heroic pioneers move as if they are constantly making an inward advance towards that which they knew early in life, and to which they will be true until the end.

The difference between human beings has to do with previous lives, and with the sad fact that many human beings seem to gravitate again and again in the same direction in which they had formerly been trapped. Given a sufficiently vast period of evolution, all human beings require in some sense to be where they are and need their illusions. This is true metaphysically and in regard to evolution as a whole. But under the law of cycles, in certain periods of history and at crucial moments in the present, people come to a parting of the ways, a moment of choice. It is as if they sense that if they do not do something, they are going to be left behind. One cannot hold down high souls who have work to do in regard to human evolution, who are going to sow the seeds for the harvest of tomorrow. One cannot expect them to be held back by those who are born then under karma, even though unwilling or unready to put themselves in that posture where they confidently affirm their right to belong to a larger life. This is part of the complex process of the dying of a civilization or an epoch, and of the coming to birth of a new order through a long and painful gestation. Ultimately, then, fragmentation and entrapment of consciousness cannot be understood solely in terms of the interdependence between human beings, or the differences between people bound up with the same illusions and those with the courage to break them. The missing term in such an account is the confrontation between self-consciousness and the void.

If life after life every time one starts to negate and encounters the void, one flees back into the world, a pattern is established which cannot be sustained indefinitely. Suppose that such an individual comes into contact with beings who have gone through the void and see no difference between the void, themselves and all other beings. Such Men of Meditation do not entertain any emotions below the level of cosmic Eros, and they do not engender any thought-currents except those in the context of Mahat, the universal mind. Contact with such beings is an immense opportunity but also an immense challenge, an instrument of precipitation. The entire riddle of the entrapment of consciousness, when moved from the general plane to a particular person, can only be solved by the individual. The perspective can be given, the metaphysical maps provided, but each person must examine why he or she is in a particular condition in terms of memories, feelings or ideas. By keeping in the forefront of awareness a conception that is larger than any habitual view of self, and with the assurance that there are those who have been able to resolve for all what individuals find so difficult to resolve for themselves, each will be helped. In the end, each must plunge into the stream. All must engage in individual self-study, asking again and again, “What is important to me? What am I prepared to let go? Have I the courage to die and be reborn?” A person who is in earnest will, without losing a sense of proportion and humour, set aside periods in which to take specific steps in the direction towards the Path. This centres upon what H.P. Blavatsky called the mystery of the human ego, the mystery of each human being.

The need for self-study bears directly upon the discovery of the thread of individual continuity, the sutratman. This thread of consciousness in every person is only an aspect of the monadic essence of which one is a ray. It is what makes of a person a monad, a particular being or an individual, separate only in the functional capacity to reflect the universal. Every human being is a unique lens capable of self-consciously reflecting universal light. If that is what all individuals are in essence, when they are manifesting through personalities bound up with name and form and involved in the world of differentiated matter, they become caught up in a psychic fog that obscures the clarity of the monadic vision of the true meaning and purpose of the pilgrimage of life. Nevertheless, in that fog there remains a residual reflection of what the monad in its fullness knows. This is what may be called the golden sutratmic thread within every human being. The thread is activated during deep sleep, but during waking life it cannot very easily be activated. It is involved in the baby’s first cry at birth, and is glimpsed at the moment of death. It can be self-consciously activated in meditation.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Theosophy | THE MYSTERY OF THE EGO – I

May 13, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

If we feel not our spiritual death, how should we dream of invoking life?
Claude de St.-Martin

The sure test that individuals have begun to ascend to higher planes of consciousness is that they find an increasing fusion of their ideas and their sympathies. Breadth of mental vision is supported by the depth of inmost feeling. Words are inadequate to convey these modes of awareness. Mystics cannot readily communicate the ineffable union of head and heart which has sometimes been called a mystic marriage. Such veiled metaphorical language may often refer to specific centres of consciousness in the human body. If the body is the living temple of an imprisoned divine intelligence, the metaphorical language of the mystics points to a tuning and activation of interrelated centres in the body. There is a mystical heart that is different in location and function from the physical heart. There is also a seed of higher intellection, “the place between thine eyes”, which is distinct from those centres of the brain that are involved in ordinary cerebration. The more a person is able to hold consciousness on a plane that is vaster in relation to time and space, subtler in relation to cause and motion, than normal sensory awareness, the more these higher centres are activated. Since this cannot take place without also arousing deeper feelings, the original meaning of the term ‘philosophy’ – ‘love of wisdom’ – is suggestive and significant. There is a level of energy released by love that is conjoined with a profound reverence for truth per se. This energy releases a greater capacity to experience self-conscious attunement to what is behind the visible phantasmagoria of the whole of life, drawing one closer to what is gestating under the soil in the hidden roots of being, and closer to the unarticulated longings of all other human beings. Everyone senses this kinship at critical moments. Sometimes, in the context of a shared tragedy or at a time of crisis caused by a sudden catastrophe, many people experience an authentic oneness with each other despite the absence of any tokens of tangible expression.

To bring the disciplined and developed creative imagination into full play is to do much more than merely to have a passive awareness of sporadic moments of human solidarity. These moments are only intermittent, imperfect and partial expressions of vaster capacities in the realms of thought and feeling. To draw out these capacities fully requires that we withdraw support from everything that is restrictive. The higher Eros presupposes a kind of negative Eros, a withdrawal of exaggerated emotional involvement in the things of this world, in sensations and sense-objects, in name and form and in ever-changing personalities. This withdrawal is based upon a recognition that there is a lie involved in superficial emotion, and a calm awareness of a noumenal reality which is unmanifest. To realize this is to prepare for the potential release of the higher Eros, but this is truly difficult because to negate means to come to a void. There is no way to withdraw from the froth of psychic emotion and the tangles of discursive reasoning without experiencing a haunting loneliness and immense void wherein everything appears meaningless. Though painful and even terrifying, this is the necessary condition through which the seeker must pass if he is to die so that he may be reborn. The Voice of the Silence teaches that “the mind needs breadth and depth and points to draw it towards the Diamond Soul”. It must actively generate these mental linkages through deep meditation upon the suffering of humanity, seeing all individual strivings as part of a collective quest for enlightenment, focussing with compassion upon the universal suffering that transcends yet includes all the pains and agonies of all living beings.

When a person can connect and coordinate these periods of deliberate meditation and conscious cultivation of universal compassion, and experiences ordinary life through these contacts with the realm of non-being, then the purification and renovation of the temple has begun. There is a starving out of entire clusters of elementals, minute constellations of matter that have been given a murky colouring and destructive impress, and which make up the astral vesture. These matrices of frustration, limitation, anger and self-hatred are gradually replaced by new clusters of life-energy – readily available throughout nature – which are more attuned to the highest abstract conceptions of space, time and motion. Thus there is a greater incarnation of the indwelling divine nature. Every human body may be seen as a mystic cross upon which the Christos within is being crucified. To nurture radical renovations in the vestures through the concentrated mind and disciplined imagination, by forging connections between points touched in meditation and in everyday life, is to make possible, after the Gethsemane necessitated by collective Karma, a fuller manifestation of the Christos, the god within. This long journey is coeval and coequal with the whole of life and the entirety of mankind. When individuals discern in their own quest a cosmic dimension, impersonality and selflessness in their endeavours become an authentic affirmation of what is potentially within all. It is impossible to grow in awareness of what one truly is without finding that the barrier between oneself and other beings weakens. There is an internal integrity to this quest, and, therefore, it is pointless to pretend that all at once, simply by words, gestures and rituals, one can suddenly come to a universal love of all mankind. Of course, some desperate people, through drugs or other adventitious aids, experience enthralling intimations of the wonder of life or of its unity. These are the result of temporarily loosening the screws in the complex psychophysical organism called the human body and should not be mistaken for true wisdom. The crucial difference lies in continuity.

The more consciously one is able to sense the universal presence of the true Self, the more one can maintain continuity. The more one can see the moment of death and its connection with the present moment, the more one can participate in the unmanifest core of the universal quest. While the mystical capacity for sensing cosmic Eros grows, the desire to express it declines. Those who are caught up in external appearances crave messianic miracles and want to treat the universe as if they could manipulate it. This is a stumbling block to the quest. The real quest has an integrity that can be tested continuously because it must release an energy of commitment to the whole. Just as it is only through the cessation of the repetitive revolutions of the lower mind that higher thought is released, it is only by the cessation of limiting desires on the heterogeneous plane of perception that the true Eros may be released.

The Voice of the Silence teaches: “Shun ignorance, and likewise shun illusion. Avert thy face from world deceptions: mistrust thy senses; they are false. But within thy body – the shrine of thy sensations, seek in the Impersonal for the ‘Eternal Man’; and having sought him out, look inward: thou art Buddha.” Tragically, the divine origin of human consciousness is all too often forgotten by individuals who permit themselves to become entrapped in “world deceptions”. Just as people in a room with artificial light forget the light of the sun, consciousness, when it is focussed through a lucid zone that points in the realm of externals in one direction, is in the very activity of awareness shutting off a larger consciousness. Human beings reinforce each other in assigning reality to the visible tip of the whole of life, to that which is maintained and activated by words, names and desires which have public criteria of recognition that can be fulfilled on the plane of external events. On the other hand, an individual who senses the rays of the Spiritual Sun, enfolded in the blackness of the midnight sky, comes closer to wisdom. Participating in the reflections of lesser lights, while retaining an inward reverence for the cosmic ocean of light, is living within the moment with a calm awareness of eternity. The Secret Doctrine suggests that what is called light is a shadowy illusion and that beyond what are normally called light and darkness there is noumenal Darkness which is eternally radiant.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II

Meditation | Encounters with the Seraphim: A Message for the Future of Humanity (+ Transverberatory Journey)

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

Originally this film was going to be a part of Samadhi Part 3, but it grew into its own separate creation. It explores something very important that is seldom spoken of in some spiritual traditions (the topic is almost taboo). It is based around insights that came during a “peak meditation experience” when I encountered beings that identified themselves as “the Seraphim”. Yes, the Seraphim are considered to be “angels”, but for me were nothing like the humans with wings depicted in the Bible, but a field of conscious energy which has the singular purpose of helping our soul to complete its evolutionary journey. In this film I report on the experience and give some insights that came to me. Such phenomena may sometimes be dismissed or negated due to preconceptions or biases within the limited egoic self, or on the flip side they may be given too much emphasis and become entrapments for the ego as it creates an identity around them. The film explores the relationship between the dimensions of being and becoming as the self structure grows and evolves, and the apparent paradoxes of realizing Samadhi at increasingly more subtle levels of the developmental spiral.

Realizing Samadhi is only the first step in an unfathomable unfolding journey to expand the inner lotus into higher worlds; an enlightenment process which is a development within the levels of self structure and soul. Awakening is waking up to the unchanging dimension of absolute “being”, pure consciousness, while enlightenment is about the ongoing dance of evolution and involution within the manifested world, the endless cycle of “becoming”. The human game allows the possibility of creating an expanded and purified vessel to interface with divine consciousness, or higher “impersonal” levels of consciousness. When we sacrifice the egoic wants to allow this divine connection to unfold, we become part of an expanded level of existence and part of a higher “plan”.

Through imitation of the Seraphim, or by matching their vibration, humans can have the same unmediated union with god. We are meant to imitate them, learn from their example, merge with their light, but not to worship them. Nor can we invoke their presence or try to summon them from the lower mind. We merge with them by becoming like them, by matching their resonance as we evolve on the spiritual path.

This release includes the full “Metatron’s Vision” which is a related sound and visual journey (or you could call it a “transverberation”) created by Daniel Schmidt and David Donnelly (the Fractalverse). “Metatron’s Vision” is designed to be listened to with headphones because the stereo effects create a swirling of energy that is difficult to perceive with speakers. Choose a time and place where you are not going to be interrupted. There are no particular instructions for the experience itself. Just see if you can sit still and go through the entire journey without generating a thought, staying present and attentive to the whole experience.

A version without the preceeding narration is available here: https://youtu.be/uNS2t7VvMMo

Seminary | What Is Initiation?

January 18, 2021January 18, 2021 Nā Hālau ʻĀha Hūi LanakilaLeave a comment

It is important for us to understand why we have to enter into initiation.

Initiation

We are NOT human beings. This is something that we have to comprehend in order to understand the meaning of initiation. People of this planet earth believe themselves to be human beings; and that is a great mistake. And of course, this great mistake comes from ancient times, especially from the intellectuals, from those that believe themselves to be wise.

The intellectuals are always trying to find the origin of this humanity. They say “the origin of man.” But really, if we investigate – in the complete sense of the word – this humanity, we arrive at the conclusion that MAN does not exist on this planet earth. Then why is everyone talking about man or human beings?

If we look in the dictionary or encyclopaedia, we find the word “man” or “human being,” we see that it is a title given to anyone who thinks, who rationalizes, and who walks on two feet, and has the appearance that we have. And according to the scientists, anyone who doesn’t have the same features or figure that we have, physically speaking, is not a human being. And that is precisely the great mistake – thinking that a human being is just the shape that we have. If we investigate the sense of the meaning of the word, we have to understand that human being is the Being united with the Mind.

“Hu” indicates the spirit.

“Man” comes from “manas,” which means mind.

So when the spirit, the Hu, dominates the mind, you find a hu-man. Of course, in us, the mind controls everything, and the spirit is ignored.

“Being” implies someone who knows how to “be,” and that someone is our own inner God, the Being. We are not what we should be. We have to learn how to be the Being.

So a human being is someone who is what they should be: a mind under the direction of the Being.

So here is another question, or another problem, that the scientists of this time believe: that the mind is only a product of the brain. Or that the mind is only an action of the grey matter that we have within our head, and that when we think any thought, it is because we are using the brain. Scientists say that even the consciousness is a product of evolution. But when they talk about evolution, they are talking about the evolution of physical matter. Therefore, they say the consciousness – mind – and even beliefs or anything related with the beyond, is just the result of the evolution of the cells, of matter, in this three dimensional world.

And if we sustain that the human being is not the physical body – but the physical body is just a vehicle – then we would contradict 100% all of the theories and knowledge that we find in modern science. So that is precisely what we have to do, and that we are doing: to give a completely different frame to that term HUMAN BEING.

A real human being is the microcosmos, because this creature contains within himself all of the universe; all of the universe is reflected in him. Nothing is hidden for him. When I am using the word “him,” it is necessary to understand that I am applying it as a title to this creature, but he is not male or masculine. He is a creature who has the two polarities. Since he is the microcosmos, he has within himself the two polarities: male-female. So this creature called Human Being, or “man,” is male-female at the same time. And being the microcosmos, he is a cosmos in the small; if we investigate inside of him, we will find everything that we find outside in the universe. So if we want to find, for instance, GOD within the human being, we will find God within him. If we want to find the infinite, the firmament, within this human being, the firmament will BE in the human being. We will also find the galaxies; the very milky way will be within him, in the microcosmos. All the creatures and beings which are within this firmament are within him. Of course, we ought to understand that we are talking here about archetypes. We have to understand it because it is not like for instance, if we want to find a tree within the human being, we will find a tree within him. But that which is related to the tree – all the mysteries, knowledge, wisdom, will be within him. This is how we have to understand when we say that the universe is reflected – as we say the word RE-FLECTED – within him. And because the Universe is reflected within him, everything is related to him. He understands everything.

To us, the concept of having the whole universe reflected within, is something really amazing. Something very grandiose. That’s why in Genesis it is written, that when God made man or the human being, he made him Male/Female, according to his own image, or reflection, in other words. In his own likeness.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. – Genesis 1:26-27

The human being, or this type of creature that we are talking about, existed on the earth, in the ancient times, before the beginning of this root race, and even before the beginning of the previous root race, which was Atlantis. Further back, we arrive at the continent of Mu, or Lemuria, and precisely in Lemuria is where we find the human being, the creature or microcosmos – three dimensional microcosmos – who had everything inside. If we investigate the other races that were before Lemuria, like the Hyperboreans and the Protoplasmic races, we find that they were not physical or three-dimensional races as Lemuria, Atlantis, and we are. The protoplasmatic race and the Hyperborean race were situated in the Supradimensions of nature, even though they were also human beings in the complete sense of the word. God was within them, the whole universe was within them. That is why it is written that they were living in Paradise.

Paradise is a synonym of that Beatitude, that state in which the human being is in harmony, in communion with all of the forces of the Universe. That is called Paradise. That is why it is written that when they were looking at any point in the space, to this particular star or planet, immediately everything that was in that planet was REFLECTED within themselves, and they knew by direct experience in that very moment, with that type of vision, the beings, and even the psychology of those beings, and the society and civilization of that particular planet, without the necessity of travelling, and going and talking to anyone. That type of vision is of course possible only in the Beings who are within the beings – that, instead of the EGO, they have God incarnated.

So the planet was evolving in the Supradimensions of nature, and descending into this physical world; then the physical matter began to appear, and also the physical figures of the human being. This body, which we call the physical body, was at that time starting to appear into the three-dimensional world, during the epoch of the Lemurian race. And this is when, according to the Bible, the terrestrial paradise appeared on the Earth. That terrestrial paradise, as the name is pointing out – TERRESTRIAL – was really three-dimensional, was of the earth, and was the Lemurian continent.

On the Lemurian continent, God, or more specifically the ELOHIM, an organization of beings related with creation – the cosmocreators – they put that creature, that man or human being, wherein the universe was reflected, they put him on the Lemurian continent. And they were many. And they are symbolized by the Adam of the Bible: Adam Kadmon. Adam Kadmon is a humanity: all of the human beings together, but in communion with the Universe. God incarnated in the flesh.

In many other lectures, we say the Heavenly Man is Kether (the first sephirah of the Tree of Life). But when Kether is incarnated in the human body, that is Adam Kadmon incarnated in the terrestrial paradise.

The terrestrial paradise which was Lemuria, was also reflected in their physical bodies, since the whole Universe is reflected in the human being. The terrestrial paradise was crystallizing and being created in that moment in order to receive the creature which we call human being. That paradise was also reflected in each of the physical bodies of the inhabitants of Lemuria. The physical body of each one of them was paradise as well. So all those microcosmic paradises, or physical bodies, were living within the great terrestrial paradise that we call Lemuria. That great terrestrial paradise was reflected in each of the bodies of those Lemurians. But within them also, in their consciousness – minds and spirits – was reflected the whole universe.

With time, male and female were separated, physically speaking. The physical body became ONE singular sex, whether this sex was masculine or feminine, and as you know, ever since the sexes were separated, that creature, which was called WOMAN, was responsible for the multiplication and creation of new physical bodies in this physical plane. Each one of them – when they were still perfect – whether they were female or male bodies, they were always reflected the paradise within them. So both as we find in the bible Adam and Eve, were living in paradise.

So then, it is obvious, that in order to multiply the physical bodies, they needed cooperation, the sexual COPULATION, in order to multiply themselves – physically speaking. But within them, whether they were male or female, they were perfect Human Beings.

This is what we have to understand, because it is a great mistake – which still exists – when we say “man,” to think of a male. We have to comprehend what the terms “male”and “female” are. The Bible speaks of “male-female.” But when we talk about a “man,” it is not simply about a male. The term “man” indicates this creature wherein the Universe is reflected. And that creature called Man is also called Human Being. Because, it is only within a human, a Man, – not an animal – in which the Being, the Spirit is united. Of course, the Human Being, the Real Man, is not an animal. And this is something also which we have to understand. An animal is an animal, and not a human being. In science we also find this great mistake. They say that the Human Being is the intellectual-rational animal. So they are, of course, mixing the Human Being with the intellectual-rational animal. We do not deny that in nature there exist two animals, in synthesis: those that do not rationalize, and those that rationalize. The irrational animals, and the rational animals. But science commits the error of saying that the rational animal is the human being. The real human being is not an animal. He, of course, has no ego.

So, what is the ego? The ego is mind. It is that material, or substance, which belongs to the mechanism of Nature. When we investigate this nature, we have to comprehend that it is not only three dimensional. Because, with our intellect we think – when we talk about Evolution – immediately we put our minds in that period of evolution, which is written about by many authors like Darwin or Hegel and many other great intellectual investigators of recent centuries who became bottled up in their theories of evolution.

We know that the law of evolution exists, but it is not limited to the physical plane. It acts in the internal planes. When we talk about mind, we know that the mind evolves. The mind is matter. And when we talk about matter, we have to understand that matter exists from the mind, below. Above the mind, we find, for instance, the Human Soul or Human Consciousness, the Divine Consciousness – or Spiritual Soul – the Spirit, and many other levels. But the mind itself is matter. And below the mind we find the emotional plane, called the Astral Plane, that is also matter, that evolves. And finally this physical world, that also evolves. So the Mind, Emotion, and this physical world, evolve. That is a mechanism that exists within the whole of nature.

So when we talk about the ego, we have to understand that we are talking about the mind. The mind is related to the law of evolution and devolution, which are twin laws that are always active in any type of nature – mechanical nature. So this ego, this mind, is the one that we are mistaking with the real Human Mind. The Human Mind, the real Human Mind, has nothing to do with this type of mind that we have, and that is merely intellectual.

So we have, for instance, in this very moment, the ego, which is related to the mechanical laws of nature. That matter, that Mind, obeys other forces – obeys the forces of Nature. But that matter does not obey the Spirit. Our particular Spirit. Because that matter is related to other laws, which are mechanical laws, which have nothing to do with our own particular Spirit. So the mind, or the ego, evolves, in different kingdoms, mechanically speaking. The mind, when it reaches the level of Intellectual Animal, gives us the capacity of choosing – as intellects – to enter into the path of the Human Being, into the level of the Human Being. And that is what we call Initiation. Initiation is the process to enter into the level where we are called a Human Being.

In the ancient times, the Human Being existed. But remember that Monads, or essences – innocent creatures – were evolving in the inferior kingdoms, which are always below the human kingdom. Those kingdoms that are below the human kingdom, are the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. So millions of souls are evolving there. At that time in Lemuria, when those souls were finishing their – they say “lessons” – in the animal kingdom, they were preparing themselves in order to enter into the human kingdom. And in order to enter into the human kingdom, the great human beings – the great men of Lemuria, were willingly dying, or separating themselves from their physical bodies, in order to deliver those human bodies to those souls of the animal kingdom that were entering in order to learn how to be human beings. Those creatures were learning, of course, through other great Masters, physically speaking, how to create, inside of them, the Human Being, the microcosmos. Those creatures, those souls, when they entered into the human body, only had the BODY of the human. But inside, they were still animals. Thus, they gained the capacity to rationalize with the intellect, but the mind itself was still an animal mind. So then they learned how to create the Human Emotion, how to create the Human Mind, how to create the Human Will. Those souls, from the animal kingdom, were creating emotion, mind, and will, as Humans – they were then converting themselves, or transforming themselves into real Human Beings. And after that they had to work hard to complete the whole process, in order for the Universe to be reflected in them.

In the time of Lemuria, when the souls were learning how to enter into the human kingdom, they were learning how to create the Human Emotion (astral body), the Human Mind (mental body), and Human Will (causal body). But how did they create them? They created them in the temples. So the great Angels, or messengers or Masters, taught them in the temples how to create those Inner Bodies. And of course, those souls were learning and being guided by the Angels, and obeying them. The process of creating the internal bodies is what we call Initiations. These creations initiate the soul into the Human Kingdom. That is initiation.

So at that time, there were also other beings that we call Demons, that were also fighting in order to initiate those souls in order to serve the purposes of nature, in the involutive or devolutive way. That is what we call a Demon. A demon is a creature which serves nature in the way of destruction. When nature reaches the level of human intellectual animal, the forces of evolution start to invert and enter into the abyss. The demons are those creatures which control those forces of evolution for the service of nature, and of course they also initiate souls in order to enter into the abyss, as slaves of nature.

Thus, there are bad initiations and good initiations. Those bad initiations are, of course, called by the Bible “idols” – we are told that we should not worship “idols” – meaning forces of nature or dark nature, that are pushing the soul in order to serve the involutive forces of nature. When we do that, then the purpose of the Spirit – or the purpose of those Beings which are cosmocreators – is failing, because the Soul is not reaching beyond the intellectual animal, but is reaching the intellectual animal and then initiating themselves into the abyss in order to serve Nature as involutive or devolving creatures.

There is always in nature that battle or that struggle between the forces of light – which are pulling the souls into the human kingdom and other higher kingdoms – and the forces of darkness, that want only to accomplish the mechanisms of nature and serve them. Creatures that do not want to have illumination. They want just to be, or to live like any plant, without any effort, just being in this universe mechanically. And this is it.

Of course, those devolving beings were very active when the sexes were separated in Lemuria, trying to find proselytes, neophytes. It is obvious that they found them in all of the great continents in the whole continent. So those disciples, instead of performing the sexual act in their temples under the direction of the angels, started to perform the sexual act in their homes. Because, I repeat: the sexual act was sacred, very sacred. They knew that it was only for the creation of the human being inside of themselves, or in order to bring new souls into the physical plane. So they knew how to multiply themselves. But as you know, as it is written in the Bible and many other books, humanity ate from the forbidden fruit.

To eat from the forbidden fruit is this: the tree of good and evil is the sexual energy. When we enter into the human kingdom, when we are learning how to be a real human, then the commandment of the Holy Spirit comes, from inside of our own Soul, the Holy Spirit which is the sexual energy says: “You shall not perform the sexual act as when you were animals.”

So the sexual act in the way of the animals is forbidden. “And the day that you perform the sexual act as an animal again, you will die as a human being, and you will be kicked out of the human kingdom and you will enter into the abyss.” That is, of course, in long words, what is written in short words.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. – Genesis 2:16, 17

He is talking to the Soul; he is not talking not the physical body. The Soul itself, that is learning. So the Holy Spirit from within is telling the Soul: “Here you have now a human body. Be careful, because to be a human is not to be an animal, so do not perform the sexual act as an animal. Learn. Here the masters and the angels will teach you how to use the sexual act as a human, in order to create what I need to create within you.”

Well, then the souls of Lemuria, incarnated in those bodies, committed the error of returning to the animal generation, performing the sexual act as when they were in the animal kingdom. The result, of course, was the fortification of the animal mind that they were going to disintegrate in order to create the human mind. And then the animal mind started to devolve because they were initiating themselves not in light but in darkness, not in the higher planes but in the devolutive planes, in involution. And by initiating themselves as Souls backwards, into the darkness, they were, of course, creating the ego. And the ego is nothing but the transformation of that mind in the devolutive way.

The mind that is developing in the evolutive way helps nature in the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, and animal kingdom. If you see any mineral, plant, or animal, you will find a mind there, evolving, and helping the purposes of nature in the creative direction. But when that mind starts to involve or devolve, then that mind transforms into ego, and instead of helping the purpose of nature to create, it helps the forces of nature to destroy, because it is devolving, entering into the abyss.

The dark nature and the light nature is found in the Tarot, in the Arcanum Six, the Lover who is between two women. The woman on the right is an initiate and the woman on the left is a whore. They symbolize the two forces of nature. The one that we follow, which is the white, is in order to enter into being a human being, and on the left is the one to enter into darkness, and to become a demon.

What is a demon? A demon is a failure, somebody who could not reach the level of Human Being and now is fortifying the ego and becoming a demon. In other words, someone who serves the negative forces of nature, the devolving forces. So instead of the human being, or an angel, the soul becomes a demon.

And that was of course the great failure in the time of Lemuria. That is how the beautiful bodies that those souls inherited from the real Men returned into the animal kingdom. And those bodies, those physical bodies, learned how to fornicate. Fornication is an activity of the animal soul, in order to multiply in this physical plane. This humanity, since it is still animal, does not know – ignores – how to multiply without fornication. People think that in order to multiply, fornication is indispensable. Yes, it is indispensable for animals. But not for human beings. Any human being, a real human being in any planet of the infinite, multiplies themselves without fornication. That is why is written: “You shall not fornicate.” The commandments are not, of course, for animals, but for those Souls which want to enter into the Human Kingdom, who want to Initiate themselves into that.

Since that time, the White Lodge, the White Fraternity, which is the conjunction of all of those Beings we call Angels, Archangels, Seraphim, Buddhas, etc. etc. – that is all the Great Masters – sends messengers periodically to the Souls that were fallen. Messengers to the human beings? To the men? It would be a joke to say that. Sometimes we say that out of respect. Because if we say that the White Lodge, the great Fraternity, sent messengers to the animals in order for them to learn how to be humans, it is a very crude way of saying it. So we have to say that the White Lodge, the Great Initiates, sent many messengers to humanity, or to the Human Beings or Men – which we say out of respect.

Some of those who were working towards perfection are called fallen Bodhisattvas. At that time there were many great Real Human Beings, Real Creatures, Human Beings in the complete sense of the word. And they also chose fornication, and they fell, and because when they chose fornication and they fell, the ego was again born in them. The animal mind was born in them. So that is why that the fallen angels became demons, because the ego is what makes the Soul a demon.

Lust is the original sin of the human being. Lust is an activity of the animal soul that we have to control and that we have to avoid if we want enter into the initiation of the human being. Lust, of course, serves the purpose of mechanical nature. Every animal fornicates. Every animal is lustful. So if we want to stop being an animal, we have to make the effort. It is not easy. But also, it is not impossible.

When an animal soul wants to learn how to be a human, this animal soul has transmute that lust into willpower. It is not possible to ask an animal soul to perform the sexual act without lust, because the animal soul is lust itself. So this animal soul must learn little by little how to transform that lust or that desire in other words into willpower. Little by little.

It is obvious that in the beginning, the animal soul begins working while submerged 100% in their lust. And the battle is, of course – the struggle – is hard; to control that lust into willpower, to change the instincts in order to teach that physical body – that is animal – to be a human. That is the most difficult part. To teach the donkey how to be a human. The donkey is the animal, is the physical body.

Of course, since that time, the White Lodge has been struggling with the Black Lodge. Dark forces and the forces of light. The messengers come in order to teach the Souls, but then the dark forces of nature through its messengers (which are demons or black magicians, disguised as white) are always, of course, deviating the souls into other ways, to be hypnotized or identified with many things, but keeping the fornication. For the demons or the black magicians, the important thing is that every single soul should fornicate – no matter what. They can perform any exercise or any practise – “It’s all good,” they say. But they say everyone should fornicate. If someone fornicates, they serve the forces of nature. So this is how we have to understand the sly way of the Black Magicians, who are always looking for proselytes. They teach them how to awaken consciousness – how to do this or to do that – but still enjoy the passions of the animal beasts.

When someone is controlling the sex, he is developing higher forces, creating in the human kingdom. But in order to create the real human being, sexual cooperation is indispensable. In order to become a human, we need to also gain the attributes of the human being. The consciousness has to learn how to behave as a human, meaning that any animal, of course, can learn how to perform the sexual act like a human being – not with the spasm, as you say – and meanwhile still being an assassin, a thief, a liar. It is not as simple as “we have to change psychologically” in order to become a human being. It is another thing that we call here transmutation.

Do you know what a mutant is? Someone who is different. So transmutation is to perform a transformation within. And that transformation starts from the bottom, which is the seed. The very root of our selves – if we investigate the root, the foundation of our selves – we will find that that root or foundation is the seed, the sexual seed. Physically speaking, it is the seed. And also internally. Everything comes from the sexual energy, which is the creative energy. So from that we have to start the transformation. And we have to learn, of course; it is not as simple as to just unite sexually and not spill the sacred sperm of sexual force – it is not just that.

There are different steps and levels in order to learn how to SUBLIMATE the energy. First we have to sublimate the energy, and that energy is matter in the sexual glands. It is MATTER. That matter is called semen in the men. And in the female we can call it semen, as well. But both sexes have that matter. That matter has to be transformed into energy, and energy has to rise. And for that we have to learn that transmutation is not mechanical, it is not automatic. The transmutation is something that we perform WILLINGLY and CONSCIOUSLY. So if we are not using our Consciousness and our Willpower in order to do it, we are not doing it – because we have to use Imagination, Willpower, and as well certain forces that we have to put into activity in order for that matter to become energy and to rise upwards. So if somebody is doing that without knowing all of this, he is just, of course, performing something that is just for the purposes of the animal soul, which is lust. Animals exist in this society and this humanity, people who perform the sexual act and who know how to control in order to endure it; but that is not transmutation, that is just a way to enjoy the lust.

Have you heard about the tail of Satan, the famous organ KUNDABUFFER? The Kundabuffer organ is that organ that develops in the ego of those souls that fertilize the lust without annihilating or entering into initiation. We do not deny that when you perform that transmutation all of that energy goes into your selves. But if you are identifying with it, and thinking that you will always be beautiful or magnetic etc., you are, of course, feeding your vanity, your self-love. And this is, of course, something that we have to learn in order not to fall into that level.

We know, for instance, that when we transmute and we enter into the initiation we gain a lot of power and initiations, but that is not the goal – to be infatuated with those things. It is just a duty, as we say, it is something that we have to perform. But we should not be infatuated, or to look with spite at other people who don’t know about this doctrine, or other people who reject this doctrine. Because there are many people who reject this doctrine – they don’t want to be human beings, they like to be animals. So let them be. But if we confront them, even when we know that they don’t like the doctrine, we don’t have to look at them with spite. “Oh I am reaching the human kingdom; this man is still an animal. And he doesn’t want it or he doesn’t like it so I am better than him.” No. We have to respect. We should not feed the ego. The ego of vanity or pride or conceit, right? Feeling better than others, feeling holy and just before the sinner… Let God judge them, but you should not judge them; we have to perform our labour and that is all. Be conscious of that without your pride, without your vanity, without your conceit. Be conscious of that. In other words , fight without pride, fight without anger, fight without vanity. That is the Mahabarata, the great battle that we have to perform.

I know many people, friends and relatives, that don’t feel the longing within of working in this process. Their souls are content with being animal souls. So then I comprehend and understand that, and I respect that. But, of course, I feel pity because I know that their fate is to go into the abyss, and they will go to the abyss – whether they like it or not – they will fall into hell. That is the way, the lunar way, that they are choosing. But here we are in the Solar Way, and we want to be Human Beings; we want to enter into Initiation. Well, we have to reject the animal soul. And to reject the animal soul does not mean we reject the animals outside, but the animal that we have within. And for that, of course, we have a long battle.

Many souls achieve the level of human being in one life. Others take many lives. It depends on the work. The main work is, of course, with the sexual energy, because with the sexual energy – when we transmute it – we apply that energy to the ego in order to disintegrate it.

What is the ego? It is the animal. If people think that they are at the standard level, they are going towards devolution. You see, for instance, many of the creatures of this planet, they are of course “going ahead,” but not in the superior worlds, but DOWN in the infernal worlds.

Most of the Black Magicians, they know that they are black magicians and they like to be black magicians; they think that they are walking the White Path while they are not. They are just identified with doctrines. Most of those Black Magicians that are very smart, disguise the doctrine of the Black Lodge with wisdom, light, beautiful words, things that really are beautiful. When we enter into the temples of the darkness, in the mental plane, where we find the most dangerous black magicians – they want to talk to you, they try to convince you that you are wrong with WORDS, with WISDOM, and in a very gentle way – never attacking you, and even hugging you and kissing you and showing you a lot of love – and you enter into those temples of darkness, and there is no darkness, you ask, “Why are people calling these temples of darkness?” And you see everywhere illuminated temples with light, and flowers, statues, HOLY statues, symbols and everything, and you see there Masters teaching, speaking of wisdom and with love,… how are you going to doubt it? But if you start talking, “What about sexual energy? Should we transmute the sexual energy?”

They will say, “Hmmm…What are you talking about? God says, go and multiply! We have to multiply ourselves!”

“Yeah but not like animals” we will say. But they will defend their fornication, because they are in the service of the dark forces of Nature. So they, of course, control the ego, because that ego that you have and that anybody has, belongs to nature, belongs to THEM. They control it. In other words, when we are walking on this path, they are controlling us. They are not controlling our Souls, our Spirit, but the EGO, and through the ego they are trying to pull us. “Oh look! Another soul is initiating into the light!” they say, “Well let’s see… we are going walk him to our service.”

How many of their servants do we have inside? A LOT, and a very strong one is lust. “We’ll send him (if he’s a male) a female. Then we’ll see if he REALLY wants to leave us.” Then the guy, is of course, attracted to that female – and starts to leave the path – or that woman is starting to be attracted to that male, and is leaving the Path. So what’s happening? She or he started in the Path, and suddenly is leaving. Well, the forces of darkness were strong. Stronger than the light. ALWAYS. Not just in the beginning. In the whole Path. The whole path is a struggle. The one who can see is the one that defeated darkness – but not outside, within. And that is precisely the initiation.

The beginning of the initiation is a confrontation. The first ordeal is a confrontation with the Guardian of the Threshold. “The Guardian of the Threshold? Who is that Guardian?” It is not something that is foreign to our Consciousness. It is something that is inside. It is not alien to ourselves. It is inside and we have to confront that ego, and we call it the Guardian of the Threshold. So that ego represents our own evilness, our own sins; our own lust, our own pride, our own greed, our own gluttony, our own laziness. Everything that we already know.

EVERYBODY that has ego is a servant of the Black Lodge. You say, “Oh no, I am here on this path and I am serving the White Lodge.” Yeah? All of us who have ego are serving the Black Lodge; the purpose of nature. When we are angry against anyone, when we hate anyone, when we perform any sin against anyone or against ourselves, we are performing the will of the Black Lodge through our ego. In the level that we are now, we are serving only the negative forces of nature. The White Lodge is the Soul, the Spirit, the Being; that is the White Lodge. How much of the White Lodge do we have within ourselves? 3%. How much of the Black Lodge do we have? 97%. So it is like David against Goliath.

If we are smart, we can kill the Black Lodge within us with one shot. And the stone that we have to throw is precisely the sexual force that we have to utilize – that David utilizes. So that is the Soul. David against Goliath; the initiation. We have to become a King of Nature. If you defeat Goliath, everybody is going to praise you, and you will deserve to be a King or Queen of your own nature. David became King of Israel. But what do we find within ourselves now? We don’t find kings, we find only what the Bible calls BAALIM. What is a Baalim? It is a Lord of darkness. Somebody who worships idols. And what are those idols? They are the negative forces of nature within.

So in the beginning, of course, whether we are single or married, initiation starts with the ordeal of the Threshold, fighting, and passing the ordeals of water, fire, earth, and air, which are related, of course, with life.

The ordeal of Earth is related with the Gnomes and Pygmies, that are always active in the evolutive forces of Nature. But in ourselves, those forces are already devoluting – so we are lazy. So then we have to defeat laziness. How do we defeat laziness? By always being active as a consciousness, ALWAYS in activity, consciously speaking. Because the contrary to that egotistically speaking is to be active like a Gnome making a lot of gold, making a lot of money to feed our own greed. So to defeat, or to overcome the ordeal the Earth, is to control the gnomes and pygmies – the relation of those forces – with Earth, with our lives.

The ordeal of water is related with the Ondines, Mermaids of the sea. They create – the forces of the sea, the forces of the water create, fertilize, clean – but if we don’t know how to utilize them in ourselves, we will start, of course, feeding the lust our own ego.

We find also the sylphs of the air, the Mind, controlling the thoughts. By understanding and comprehending the four elements, how we overcome the ordeals in life.

Really the sexual matter is a liquid fire, an igneous water at the same time. It is igneous water, it is liquid fire. Fire of the salamanders. You see how, for instance, when the couple in the Magic Flute, they are together to enter into the initiation, and they ended up having TOGETHER the ordeal of water, and the ordeal of fire. It is in this way in order to show us the main work with the water and the fire is in the couple. Of course, also the fire is shows anger, hatred. The fire of hatred and anger is the fire that burns the ego inside of the abyss.

So that is the initiation. A fight, a great battle that we have to do against ourselves. With the ego, of course, is the soul battling. That is why we have to liberate it. This is something that we have to understand and to comprehend.

Sometimes we are in the astral world, and you say to your Inner Being, “My father, my God, take me to a temple of the White Lodge.” Meanwhile, the secret enemy, that isn’t anywhere but INSIDE of you, and that is formed by your ego, is listening to your petition to your Inner Being. And sometimes it will drag you to the dark places. “I will cheat him or her in order to show that this is his Inner Father taking him or her.” And you must always be careful because the enemy can take you to other places. The enemy is inside of you, it is you, it is yourself. That negative double is also in the forces of nature. Exactly the double of great angels of Light are always the beings of Darkness. And the double of your Being is that EGO that we have there, that negative double. And therefore you have to conjure. You arrive and you see that this is a beautiful place. Wonderful. Let us conjure this place in the name of Christ. And if this is from the light, then it will remain. If not, then it will be destroyed. Because when you are conjuring, to conjure is to invite the place, the person, or that which is in front of you, to be in communion, with the forces that you are invoking. And of course, in hell or in the abyss, they are not in communion with the higher forces. So when you say “In the name of CHRIST I conjure you” you are saying, “In the name of Christ I invite you to share the high forces that I am worshipping.” And then that entity of darkness will say, “No way. I am not going to share that power with that light, I am from the darkness.” Then, immediately, it will take its original form. But, if that being is from the light, then it will say, “Come to the light,” and it will repeat the conjuration with you. Memorize the Conjuration of the Four, and the Conjuration of the Seven. So, that is why we say, we should not trust OURSELVES.

Do not trust yourself. Anytime that you are performing something, you have to think, “Oh. I have ego. I will be careful.” Especially when you are going to perform the Great Arcanum, where the ego is alert. So, do not sleep. Be alert, because I repeat, the enemy is within you. Therefore we have to annihilate the enemy. We have to kill all of the unfaithful. We have to annihilate all of the unfaithful. Mohammed says, “We have to kill all the unbelievers.” Who are those unfaithful ones? Our sins, our defects, errors that we have within. The problem is that we have them within. So the only way to be sure that we are performing everything well 100%, is when we do not have EGO within. Do we have ego? Don’t trust in yourself. Always use the Conjurations.

When you are going to face the Guardian of the Threshold, the Masters of the Light call unto you, “My brother or my sister, it is the time now. You have to decide. Do you want to follow us? Then you have to defeat the Guardian who is your own ego. We will INVOKE that Guardian – who is your own ego – and you will have to confront him.”

That is a decisive moment, when you say, “OK. Bring that son of a gun in front of me.” Then you should not be afraid. It is YOU. Then the monster will appear in front of you, which will be, of course, your own defects, vices, and errors in ONE shape. And then with strength you should say, “In the name of Christ, my own Saviour, I CONJURE YOU. Beast! Get out of my way!” With a lot of strength and decision! Do not be afraid. The only way to fail is if you are afraid, because then the monster will take you. You will be a slave of your defects. The initiate who does not succeed in that ordeal because he was afraid of himself or herself, will LEAVE the knowledge, will abandon Gnosis. Why is he or she leaving the knowledge? Well, he didn’t succeed in the threshold, he was afraid of himself, to defeat his own sins. He wants to feed and to nourish his own ego.

I remember very well when I confronted my own Guardian – or ego – and I was awakened. The Masters who awakeed me, they told me. And I conjured the beast in the name of the Lord. And I was, of course, successful. I made the big decision to go ahead. This is my path and no ego will stop me.

That is the beginning, in order to enter into the initiations: the threshold. That is why it is called the Guardian of the Threshold. The very beginning. You want to enter into the light? Well, you will have to renounce your animal way. The animal way is personified by the Guardian of the Threshold. You have to defeat him. Then the person starts working against him or herself, against the different defects vices or errors.

The help comes from inside, from Christ. Of course, the person has to be in chastity. How are you going to defeat the Guardian, if you are feeding the Guardian? The Guardian is the personification of your ego, and the main food for the ego is fornication. So if you are in fornication, then the Masters will not even bother to test you, because your guardian is very strong and you are not in chastity. So you cannot even enter into the path. But if somebody is in chastity, transmuting the energy, then they say, “Oh this one is transmuting. Let us give him the ordeal in order to advance more.” Then you will defeat him and go further.

Well after that ordeal, you will have many tests, because you have to defeat that guardian little by little and with patience. First, the great ordeal; you defeat him. But then the guardian will try to feed himself through you, and then you have to be in observance, attentive to yourself, in order to annihilate little by little all of your aggregates, psychological defects, in order to KILL – because one thing is to defeat the Guardian in front of you, and another thing is to kill him – to kill him is to take the stone of David and shoot him in the head. And that takes, of course, a long period of time; meditation, comprehension, patience. It’s not just that you defeated the Guardian today and tomorrow you will be a great Initiate. No, you are just a neophyte. One thing is to defeat it in confrontation, another thing is to kill him. He says, “OK. He defeated me. Now we will see if he is capable of killing me.” And the ego has to be destroyed. When the ego is destroyed, the Consciousness is liberated. The Soul is free.

The ego is divided into many parts. The first part that you have to defeat is that. After the defeat of the Guardian of the Threshold, we enter into the Lesser Initiations, or Minor Initiations; and there are nine. They are the “probationary path” for the neophyte. And those nine initiations are received by single people or married people. If the person is single, they will receive the nine initiations, of course, little by little. If he is married, he will receive them faster, because he is working with the sexual force. So, the nine initiations are great festivities that the initiate receives internally, in the Soul, after defeating different weaknesses that he has inside, and gaining different virtues, powers, etc.

So remember that this is really the path to the initiation and to the human being. This is what the great prophets or messengers came for. Jesus came in order to teach us. Now He feels, of course, sorrow because His doctrine is completely adulterated. Nobody knows how to become a Real Human Being. And the hundreds of millions of Christians only believe in his personality.