Another passage from "When the Sun Moves Northward"
Below is a passage regarding Easter. It is a reminder to stop trying to escape this world. Don't run away from that that you fear. Transmute your existence. Create a light body. Make the word flesh. Raise your vibration here. Get to the point where you cannot distinguish between the spiritual world and this world because you have so much infused this world with the Spirt. This world is fallen and it is our duty to restore it to its once divine existence not to escape it and leave the lower souls behind to fend for themselves.
Remember this — the esotericist, the occultist, the one who lives the inner life (not the life of the appearance of the appearance, but the one who lives the inner life), never speaks of the passing-out of the body as “death.” To him death means being in the physical, astral and mental states of consciousness and limited to their identification — that is, limited to the identification of the Power-to-be-conscious. That is death — the only death known by the awakened one. And so we must learn to know even the most exhilarating stimulation of the senses in physical experience as nothing but darkness and death, because immediately there comes the aftermath, which never follows the exhilaration of the soul in spiritual enjoyments.
The spiritual part of the man must so recognize the darkness and death of the physical, must so completely and willingly enter into it and transform it, the inevitable ill, into a thing desirable, that it shall dissolve away, and vanish in its character and quality as that which is ill or evil. So, in entering the Tomb, the Christ of the world, the Buddha of the world, the Krishna of the world, destroys the Tomb itself.
Enter into it willingly and transform it and bring the kingdom of heaven to it. This teaching is sound, and I endorse it. It is not pulling yourself up and beyond objective consciousness into a transcendental state; it is not trying to reach something back of or other than the astral and physical substance, but it is entering the material conditions of consciousness willingly and dwelling there until the material view has been transformed into the release of the substance. This can be carried to such an extent that the divine precept of the Illumined One becomes literally true. “More uprightly and purely speaketh the healthy body, perfect and square-built; and it speaketh of the meaning of the earth.” This is Freidrich Nietzsche's doctrine of the meaning of the earth. The earth has a meaning — it is not a material concept, but it is divine substance, and he who touches the physical body touches God.
That is the doctrine; stop running away from it and enter it until the material concept of it is dissolved away, until the character and quality which appears evil has completely vanished. You have not left it, but you are still there blended with it as the substance. Then think of the whole sidereal universe and of the orders of Beings embodied; think of all that as the body of God — and you have arrived! This is the significance of the resurrection. It is not pulling yourself out of objective consciousness and going on up somewhere; it is transforming it. When you can do that, you have resurrected yourself from material concept — the tomb — and there no longer is a tomb.
His supreme spirituality is stronger than that which would hold or bind him, and his supreme Love changes its nature into that which does not hold or bind.
I wish that students of the School of the Sacred Science could so learn this attitude that it would serve as a yardstick with which to measure all teaching, and as soon as they detect any teaching that even hints or suggests “this low body, this world is not my home, heaven is my home, etc.,” they would say, “Away with it! That is all a delusion! That is only the result of disappointment with sense objects!” Examine such ideas, psychoanalyze them, look into them, and see what is there. That is the great point in this work. I always carry this yardstick like a chip on my shoulder.
Thoughts like this wake me up — thoughts to which my soul thrills. Stay close to the earth and dispute all those who teach that the world is base and mean! This is the world, and you will keep coming back into it until you have conquered the last enemy and will not have to pass out of the body any more. By your attitude toward it, transform the body into divine substance. You do not want to withdraw from this body, but you do want to transform it by the power of your awakened soul. You will keep coming back until you can do that; you will never find heaven anywhere until you can do it. Start by looking at it. Keep going right into it; keep transforming your values and the properties of your own consciousness in regard to it, and some time it will be the divine substance with which you can clothe your doctrine.
Carry your yardstick everywhere, and you will see how many false doctrines are masquerading under the name of Truth. I have no patience with these doctrines. I am going to live in this body and on this earth until this existence becomes so divine that I love it — until I have no material thought or concept about anything I see; until I can see nothing but divine substance — the radiant substance of the body of God. Love your body, the divine substance of God! Such an attitude will make your flesh become radiant. That is the attitude you must learn to hold.
Touch this body and you touch God — that is the significance of the Christ entering the tomb, and when he is resurrected, there is no tomb; it has vanished!
And so, after the deep silence of the hours (or ages) of effort, of abasement, the grave yields up its dead, and that which is dead is alive.
What grave? The grave of your material concept about this divine substance! “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?” Even this matter is alive — that is the resurrection; that is Easter!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Death
Below is a selection from a book by Vitvan called "When the Sun Moves Northward." The full book is avaliable online here. The part I am referencing covers death.
Vitvan - When the Sun Moves Nothward:
The desire of birth, and the accomplishment of birth, followed by the experiences of love and life, have been the subject of the occult ceremonies and vigils so far. They are the subject of the whole Christmas and New Year celebrations, under all disguises, in all religions, and howsoever veiled and obscured by latter-day tradition. These being completed, it is now necessary for the disciple to turn his attention to the ritual concerning the soul's descent into matter, which was given in Egypt as an esoteric teaching only, for the enlightenment of those who were ready for knowledge. . . .
The descent of the spirit of man into matter was the outcome of the need for purification and regeneration. Unless he secures regeneration, and obtains the power to retrace his steps and become reborn again in higher states of being, he will descend too deeply into the Tomb, he will have missed his mark, and risk becoming engulfed altogether.
Among advanced occultists there is what is known as the Eighth Sphere. It is below even the lowest materialized animal consciousness, and this “descending too deeply into the Tomb” has reference to it. It is very exceptional that an individual will deliberately brutalize his nature until the Ego withdraws from it and allows the animal soul to descend under lower influences and be reborn in the animal kingdom. It doesn't seem possible that such retrogression could obtain, but if an individual so lowers his vibration, through the use of alcohol and drugs particularly, that the conditions become intolerable, the Immortal Soul will withdraw from its vehicles. The animal soul will take possession and come under the elemental influences to such an extent that the life forces will reincarnate in the animal state and be forced to begin the long, evolutionary process back again, because they have lost their human status in evolution. This is what is meant by “becoming engulfed altogether.”
The office of the ministering angel, Death, is to free man from matter temporarily, and to instruct him in his danger. Death is, in fact, a great conscious, devoted loving Power which strives ceaselessly to help man to strike off his bonds.
After a night's sleep, many of us have had the experience of consciously returning to our bodies in a very high and exalted state, but we soon noticed a lowering of the tone of vibration, due to coming under the influence of the lower instinctive nature when re-entering the body. From this, what takes place after death can readily be seen. With the release from the physical body, the soul immediately experiences a higher vibration and higher state of consciousness.
To those who understand this, the death-bed scene is a beautiful thing, instead of something to be dreaded. Death is really a wonderful provision of the cyclic or rhythmic law to release the soul and let it rise to a higher plane where it can strengthen itself spiritually before coming back to work out its incarnations further. When we begin to study death from this aspect, we shall see that death is really beautiful, and we shall see the similarity between love and death, because there is the same kind of beauty and joy in both. Love serves the same purpose to the soul as death.
No man dies alone, for Death himself is with him; and the dying man finds in him a familiar and most true friend. To the ancient Egyptian, this was known, and accepted, and he devoted himself to considering the steps he must take when he passed from his body, and from earth, in the charge of Death.
Because of the unprepared state of consciousness of the vast majority of people at death, a great amount of work has to be done for them by the astral workers when they pass over; and this condition is particularly chaotic in times of holocaust and war, when so many young and unprepared souls are thrown violently out of their bodies in a frightened, bewildered state.
This knowledge was accepted by the ancient Egyptians and they were prepared for the transition called death. It is a part of the occult training of the sacred science or ancient wisdom. To those who live in surface considerations, death is the last subject they want to entertain, and therefore they are wholly unprepared when it comes to them.
I remember vividly what a stir the consideration of “Thanatopsis” created in my soul when I was a mere school boy. I believe it a most beautiful and valuable thing to create this aspect of death in our consciousness, so that we shall anticipate it with pleasure, just as we look forward to a night's rest in a comfortable bed after a hard day's work. At the end of an incarnation, we should be able to say with the Apostle Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith!”
In the Devaduta-sutra is given a conversation between Yama, the God of Death, and the spirit of a wicked man in his charge, in which Yama explains the law of Karma to him, and urges him to take warning. He impresses upon the spirit of the man, strongly, how absolutely responsible he is for his own unfortunate plight.
Through understanding the significance of things, we are able to raise ourselves higher and prepare ourselves by utilizing the time between incarnations in the assimilation of experiences, which results in the development of faculty. Then in the next incarnation that which was arduous and laborious effort will have become opportunity and aptitude.
“These, thy evil deeds,” says King Yama, “thou alone hast done them all; thou alone must bear the fruit.”
I firmly believe that in our Sacred Science work we should emphasize the doctrine of karma more, for there is nothing which makes one walk the straight and narrow path as to know absolutely that he cannot perpetrate a real wrong — mental, emotional, or physical — without creating suffering for himself.
This is a part of the occult truth, discovered and declared by Tolstoy, that in the life of the spirit, direction is all-important.
Energy follows thought. It is in the direction in which you steadily maintain your thought that energy will flow. No matter what may be your highest aim, object, or purpose, if you will hold your thought steadily upon the secrets and mysteries of it, you will attain it. No matter what you desire to penetrate, if you hold right to it, the ultimate mystery of it will open to you.
I once came across a thought in the Bhagavad Gita that was a supreme mystery to me. It was the words of Krishna — ”By my nature I create, O Arjuna, by my nature I create.” I concentrated on that thought until its significance was born in my consciousness, and the “Manual of Instruction” given during the 1927 Summer School was the result of my realization of it.
The experience of death, which comes to every man, is not in itself a preparation for the great Good Friday ceremony. It is only by looking straight upon Death, and asking of him his secrets, that the passing into his charge becomes a preparation. He will answer you, be sure; and instead of explaining to you, as to the ordinary man, that law of Karma of which he is one of the administrators, he will enter upon a different and much more difficult discourse. He will show you the nature of matter, and what its power is over the spirit of man, and he will prepare you for the mystery of the Tomb. The disciple who has not attained sight, can only demand it ceaselessly, and continue to direct his unseeing gaze toward that which he longs to know and understand.
Have you ever seen anyone die? We have all experienced that hushed and awed presence — that indefinable something — in the face of death! But we attributed these feelings to something in ourselves — to our imagination, our reactions to superstition, maybe.
Here is the difference between one who lives the outer life and one who lives the inner life: one who has the inner consciousness of things comes to realize that the conditions — the “presence” felt at the death of another — are actual, powerful forces on other planes, and not his own psychological state. There is never a power or force except as it is focalized and becomes a being or entity of some realm. Any condition that you feel you think of as a force, but on some other plane it is an entity.
There are numerous classifications of these entities. In the deva line of evolution alone are more than ten thousand groupings of the nature spirits, which live on the etheric and astral levels, and some of the higher ones — the devas — live on the mental plane.
There is one division of entities known as “occult creations,” which are the pseudo-creations of the perverse thoughts of mankind. There is another division of discarnate spirits who never come into physical bodies at all, and yet they live in worlds that are more complete and more vivid than our material-plane world.
There are many degrees of development among all these beings or entities that function on successive planes of consciousness. Do not think of these planes as one above the other or below the other in strata — that is only a figure of speech. They all occupy the same space, but because of different rates of vibration, they are incomprehensible to one another, just as our atmosphere is congested with radio-active forces from various broadcasting stations, but all in different keys or wave-lengths, and producing no interference with each other. and so we use a fourth- dimensional measure when we speak of “lower” or “higher” planes.
We sense a great deal of this force and vibration of the entities of subtler planes in our everyday life. The “presence” experienced in the death-chamber is not merely a superstitious awe, but a universal power that our spirits have contacted temporarily and that has registered in our consciousness. In order to cultivate living the inner life and not merely the outer existence of values and reactions to these things, we should always think of them as actual forces and powers having existence on other planes.
I never get anything out of love but terrific force — I always feel the awfulness, the tragedy of it that hurts. There is a great beauty in love, too, that requires a high degree of development to understand. There is a great identity in love and death.
To the ordinary man, who seeks no such experiences as these, the profound abyss of grief is that place of consciousness in which he first becomes dimly aware of the stately presence that is so near to him. He suddenly recognizes that what is happening is not only the loss of one close to him, but that there is a new and great presence, benign and beautiful, pressing upon him. As he contemplates it, he experiences the sensation of being blessed; from the presence of death comes a profound good-will to man.
Were you ever able to get far enough out of your grief, at the death of a loved one, to get that feeling? In love we get so involved in our desire that we can't catch the real impersonal meaning of love at all. Many of the boys of all nationalities returned from the world war with their souls almost transformed by this force. In the daily presence of death they became softened by it and they felt the greatest good will to all mankind. When they first returned they had a new outlook upon life, but they soon lost it under the influence of the old race-mind forces which again engulfed them.
Have you observed how everyone, in the presence of death, always thinks and speaks of the good deeds of the departed — never the evil that he may have done? Do you recall the great wave of this good will that swept the United States when President Harding's funeral train passed through San Francisco? It is always so.
None can make this great essay, of taking the knowledge of death and learning the mysteries that lie in its keeping, who has not been perfectly obedient to the simple rule, “Thou shalt not kill.” Man hinders his progress on the path by arrogating to himself rights which are not his. The Buddha taught men explicitly that they had no right to take life, but mankind has not yet begun to learn the lesson. The disciple is told to respect life as those do who desire it. The knowledge of death is utterly hidden from those who do not realize its sacredness.
As disciples, this teaching is something to which we should pay more attention. We have not lived up to it, because we all kill in the very worst way, for we kill by proxy — we compel others to do our killing for us, so that we may have meat to eat, shoes and furs to wear, leather goods, etc., to use in our modern civilization.
There are certain cults in India who observe this prohibition against taking life literally, and surrender their physical bodies for vermin to infest. An extreme view, of course!
The solemn and beautiful presence of Death comes in its majesty equally at the end of the little fluttering life which lasts but a few hours, as to the deathbed of a king, because every spirit which casts aside its physical sheath is in his charge. These great forces, Life and Death, two of the powerful pairs of opposites, remain unalterably splendid. No sordidness of human conditions, no briefness or insignificance of the creature's span of life, can alter the splendor of the possession, or the dignity of that which takes it away, or rather, which transforms it. For Death, in his true province, is not a destroyer but a transformer, one who by a magic touch changes all things. . . . He shows to the disciple that he is both Death and Life to the occultist. It lies with the one who is enduring the initiation to take Death and make it Life.
If we can learn to see death from this angle, we shall see it as life, not as destruction.
With every Ceremony witnessed, every vigil observed, every ordeal endured, the disciple changes not only himself but the world in which he lives. He helps the great Powers towards their release from service to man, and he helps men around him in every crisis of life. His knowledge of death as being life emanates from him without any need of speech, and helps others in critical and terrible moments of human suffering.
On 21st March, the day on which the sun shines exactly on the equator, when the whole material earth is assured of its annual rebirth into full life, the ceremony of the vigil of death is observed by the disciples. To the ‘one who walks’, birth and death are the two parts of one action.
Death itself is blessed, but it is not within man's province to give that blessing. When he kills, he makes himself accursed. Death transforms the ill deed for the victim, but he cannot do so for the sinner. The greatest theft of all has been committed, and must be suffered for. The spiritual law has been broken, and one who transgresses the spiritual law remains a transgressor, though all the beneficent Powers should unite to transform the effect of his deed, and though the effect of his deed be transformed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death is one of my favorite topics. Death in itself means re-birth. It is a transition from one state or stage to another. It reminds us that this world is but temporary. It is shame most people are so afraid of the concept that they refuse to talk about it while repressing knowledge of it deep within. Death should be looked upon just as highly as birth into this world if not higher. How backwards that we mourn the liberation of the spirit.
Vitvan - When the Sun Moves Nothward:
The desire of birth, and the accomplishment of birth, followed by the experiences of love and life, have been the subject of the occult ceremonies and vigils so far. They are the subject of the whole Christmas and New Year celebrations, under all disguises, in all religions, and howsoever veiled and obscured by latter-day tradition. These being completed, it is now necessary for the disciple to turn his attention to the ritual concerning the soul's descent into matter, which was given in Egypt as an esoteric teaching only, for the enlightenment of those who were ready for knowledge. . . .
The descent of the spirit of man into matter was the outcome of the need for purification and regeneration. Unless he secures regeneration, and obtains the power to retrace his steps and become reborn again in higher states of being, he will descend too deeply into the Tomb, he will have missed his mark, and risk becoming engulfed altogether.
Among advanced occultists there is what is known as the Eighth Sphere. It is below even the lowest materialized animal consciousness, and this “descending too deeply into the Tomb” has reference to it. It is very exceptional that an individual will deliberately brutalize his nature until the Ego withdraws from it and allows the animal soul to descend under lower influences and be reborn in the animal kingdom. It doesn't seem possible that such retrogression could obtain, but if an individual so lowers his vibration, through the use of alcohol and drugs particularly, that the conditions become intolerable, the Immortal Soul will withdraw from its vehicles. The animal soul will take possession and come under the elemental influences to such an extent that the life forces will reincarnate in the animal state and be forced to begin the long, evolutionary process back again, because they have lost their human status in evolution. This is what is meant by “becoming engulfed altogether.”
The office of the ministering angel, Death, is to free man from matter temporarily, and to instruct him in his danger. Death is, in fact, a great conscious, devoted loving Power which strives ceaselessly to help man to strike off his bonds.
After a night's sleep, many of us have had the experience of consciously returning to our bodies in a very high and exalted state, but we soon noticed a lowering of the tone of vibration, due to coming under the influence of the lower instinctive nature when re-entering the body. From this, what takes place after death can readily be seen. With the release from the physical body, the soul immediately experiences a higher vibration and higher state of consciousness.
To those who understand this, the death-bed scene is a beautiful thing, instead of something to be dreaded. Death is really a wonderful provision of the cyclic or rhythmic law to release the soul and let it rise to a higher plane where it can strengthen itself spiritually before coming back to work out its incarnations further. When we begin to study death from this aspect, we shall see that death is really beautiful, and we shall see the similarity between love and death, because there is the same kind of beauty and joy in both. Love serves the same purpose to the soul as death.
No man dies alone, for Death himself is with him; and the dying man finds in him a familiar and most true friend. To the ancient Egyptian, this was known, and accepted, and he devoted himself to considering the steps he must take when he passed from his body, and from earth, in the charge of Death.
Because of the unprepared state of consciousness of the vast majority of people at death, a great amount of work has to be done for them by the astral workers when they pass over; and this condition is particularly chaotic in times of holocaust and war, when so many young and unprepared souls are thrown violently out of their bodies in a frightened, bewildered state.
This knowledge was accepted by the ancient Egyptians and they were prepared for the transition called death. It is a part of the occult training of the sacred science or ancient wisdom. To those who live in surface considerations, death is the last subject they want to entertain, and therefore they are wholly unprepared when it comes to them.
I remember vividly what a stir the consideration of “Thanatopsis” created in my soul when I was a mere school boy. I believe it a most beautiful and valuable thing to create this aspect of death in our consciousness, so that we shall anticipate it with pleasure, just as we look forward to a night's rest in a comfortable bed after a hard day's work. At the end of an incarnation, we should be able to say with the Apostle Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith!”
In the Devaduta-sutra is given a conversation between Yama, the God of Death, and the spirit of a wicked man in his charge, in which Yama explains the law of Karma to him, and urges him to take warning. He impresses upon the spirit of the man, strongly, how absolutely responsible he is for his own unfortunate plight.
Through understanding the significance of things, we are able to raise ourselves higher and prepare ourselves by utilizing the time between incarnations in the assimilation of experiences, which results in the development of faculty. Then in the next incarnation that which was arduous and laborious effort will have become opportunity and aptitude.
“These, thy evil deeds,” says King Yama, “thou alone hast done them all; thou alone must bear the fruit.”
I firmly believe that in our Sacred Science work we should emphasize the doctrine of karma more, for there is nothing which makes one walk the straight and narrow path as to know absolutely that he cannot perpetrate a real wrong — mental, emotional, or physical — without creating suffering for himself.
This is a part of the occult truth, discovered and declared by Tolstoy, that in the life of the spirit, direction is all-important.
Energy follows thought. It is in the direction in which you steadily maintain your thought that energy will flow. No matter what may be your highest aim, object, or purpose, if you will hold your thought steadily upon the secrets and mysteries of it, you will attain it. No matter what you desire to penetrate, if you hold right to it, the ultimate mystery of it will open to you.
I once came across a thought in the Bhagavad Gita that was a supreme mystery to me. It was the words of Krishna — ”By my nature I create, O Arjuna, by my nature I create.” I concentrated on that thought until its significance was born in my consciousness, and the “Manual of Instruction” given during the 1927 Summer School was the result of my realization of it.
The experience of death, which comes to every man, is not in itself a preparation for the great Good Friday ceremony. It is only by looking straight upon Death, and asking of him his secrets, that the passing into his charge becomes a preparation. He will answer you, be sure; and instead of explaining to you, as to the ordinary man, that law of Karma of which he is one of the administrators, he will enter upon a different and much more difficult discourse. He will show you the nature of matter, and what its power is over the spirit of man, and he will prepare you for the mystery of the Tomb. The disciple who has not attained sight, can only demand it ceaselessly, and continue to direct his unseeing gaze toward that which he longs to know and understand.
Have you ever seen anyone die? We have all experienced that hushed and awed presence — that indefinable something — in the face of death! But we attributed these feelings to something in ourselves — to our imagination, our reactions to superstition, maybe.
Here is the difference between one who lives the outer life and one who lives the inner life: one who has the inner consciousness of things comes to realize that the conditions — the “presence” felt at the death of another — are actual, powerful forces on other planes, and not his own psychological state. There is never a power or force except as it is focalized and becomes a being or entity of some realm. Any condition that you feel you think of as a force, but on some other plane it is an entity.
There are numerous classifications of these entities. In the deva line of evolution alone are more than ten thousand groupings of the nature spirits, which live on the etheric and astral levels, and some of the higher ones — the devas — live on the mental plane.
There is one division of entities known as “occult creations,” which are the pseudo-creations of the perverse thoughts of mankind. There is another division of discarnate spirits who never come into physical bodies at all, and yet they live in worlds that are more complete and more vivid than our material-plane world.
There are many degrees of development among all these beings or entities that function on successive planes of consciousness. Do not think of these planes as one above the other or below the other in strata — that is only a figure of speech. They all occupy the same space, but because of different rates of vibration, they are incomprehensible to one another, just as our atmosphere is congested with radio-active forces from various broadcasting stations, but all in different keys or wave-lengths, and producing no interference with each other. and so we use a fourth- dimensional measure when we speak of “lower” or “higher” planes.
We sense a great deal of this force and vibration of the entities of subtler planes in our everyday life. The “presence” experienced in the death-chamber is not merely a superstitious awe, but a universal power that our spirits have contacted temporarily and that has registered in our consciousness. In order to cultivate living the inner life and not merely the outer existence of values and reactions to these things, we should always think of them as actual forces and powers having existence on other planes.
I never get anything out of love but terrific force — I always feel the awfulness, the tragedy of it that hurts. There is a great beauty in love, too, that requires a high degree of development to understand. There is a great identity in love and death.
To the ordinary man, who seeks no such experiences as these, the profound abyss of grief is that place of consciousness in which he first becomes dimly aware of the stately presence that is so near to him. He suddenly recognizes that what is happening is not only the loss of one close to him, but that there is a new and great presence, benign and beautiful, pressing upon him. As he contemplates it, he experiences the sensation of being blessed; from the presence of death comes a profound good-will to man.
Were you ever able to get far enough out of your grief, at the death of a loved one, to get that feeling? In love we get so involved in our desire that we can't catch the real impersonal meaning of love at all. Many of the boys of all nationalities returned from the world war with their souls almost transformed by this force. In the daily presence of death they became softened by it and they felt the greatest good will to all mankind. When they first returned they had a new outlook upon life, but they soon lost it under the influence of the old race-mind forces which again engulfed them.
Have you observed how everyone, in the presence of death, always thinks and speaks of the good deeds of the departed — never the evil that he may have done? Do you recall the great wave of this good will that swept the United States when President Harding's funeral train passed through San Francisco? It is always so.
None can make this great essay, of taking the knowledge of death and learning the mysteries that lie in its keeping, who has not been perfectly obedient to the simple rule, “Thou shalt not kill.” Man hinders his progress on the path by arrogating to himself rights which are not his. The Buddha taught men explicitly that they had no right to take life, but mankind has not yet begun to learn the lesson. The disciple is told to respect life as those do who desire it. The knowledge of death is utterly hidden from those who do not realize its sacredness.
As disciples, this teaching is something to which we should pay more attention. We have not lived up to it, because we all kill in the very worst way, for we kill by proxy — we compel others to do our killing for us, so that we may have meat to eat, shoes and furs to wear, leather goods, etc., to use in our modern civilization.
There are certain cults in India who observe this prohibition against taking life literally, and surrender their physical bodies for vermin to infest. An extreme view, of course!
The solemn and beautiful presence of Death comes in its majesty equally at the end of the little fluttering life which lasts but a few hours, as to the deathbed of a king, because every spirit which casts aside its physical sheath is in his charge. These great forces, Life and Death, two of the powerful pairs of opposites, remain unalterably splendid. No sordidness of human conditions, no briefness or insignificance of the creature's span of life, can alter the splendor of the possession, or the dignity of that which takes it away, or rather, which transforms it. For Death, in his true province, is not a destroyer but a transformer, one who by a magic touch changes all things. . . . He shows to the disciple that he is both Death and Life to the occultist. It lies with the one who is enduring the initiation to take Death and make it Life.
If we can learn to see death from this angle, we shall see it as life, not as destruction.
With every Ceremony witnessed, every vigil observed, every ordeal endured, the disciple changes not only himself but the world in which he lives. He helps the great Powers towards their release from service to man, and he helps men around him in every crisis of life. His knowledge of death as being life emanates from him without any need of speech, and helps others in critical and terrible moments of human suffering.
On 21st March, the day on which the sun shines exactly on the equator, when the whole material earth is assured of its annual rebirth into full life, the ceremony of the vigil of death is observed by the disciples. To the ‘one who walks’, birth and death are the two parts of one action.
Death itself is blessed, but it is not within man's province to give that blessing. When he kills, he makes himself accursed. Death transforms the ill deed for the victim, but he cannot do so for the sinner. The greatest theft of all has been committed, and must be suffered for. The spiritual law has been broken, and one who transgresses the spiritual law remains a transgressor, though all the beneficent Powers should unite to transform the effect of his deed, and though the effect of his deed be transformed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death is one of my favorite topics. Death in itself means re-birth. It is a transition from one state or stage to another. It reminds us that this world is but temporary. It is shame most people are so afraid of the concept that they refuse to talk about it while repressing knowledge of it deep within. Death should be looked upon just as highly as birth into this world if not higher. How backwards that we mourn the liberation of the spirit.
Christian Occult/Mystical Teachings
These are some of my favorite subjects. They were the springboard for me cultivating an insatiable desire to KNOW. Enjoy!
From "Questions and Answers in Rosicrucian Philosophy Volume I" by Max Heindel:
QUESTION NO. 86
IS THE TREE OF LIFE SPOKEN OF IN THE BIBLE THE SAME AS THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE OF THE ALCHEMISTS?
ANSWER: Yes and no. To understand the matter it is necessary to go back in the history of mankind. There was a time when humanity was double sexed and capable of generating a body without the help of another. But when it became necessary to build the brain in order that the spirit might be able to CREATE BY THOUGHT as well as in the Physical World, one-half the sex force was retained to build an organ of thought. Then it became necessary for each to seek the cooperation of another who expressed the opposite pole of the creative force which he had available himself for sex purposes. Having no brain, and as "their eyes had not been opened," they were of course unconscious in the Physical World and unable to guide themselves. Therefore, the Angels herded them together at certain times of the year when the planetary forces were propitious to perform the generative act as a religious sacrifice, whereby they gave up part of their bodies for the generation of a vehicle for another spirit. In that close embrace, the spirit first pierced the veil of the flesh and Adam "KNEW" his wife. Later on, when the consciousness of humanity had become focused a little more upon the Physical World and a few among them had begun dimly to perceive the bodies of which we now are so thoroughly conscious, these pioneers began to preach the gospel of the body, telling the others that they possessed a physical body, for the majority were then unconscious of that instrument as we are now of having a stomach when in good health.
Then it was noticed that those bodies died, and the question arose among the pioneers as to how such a body could be replaced. The solution was given to man by a certain class of spirits who were stragglers from the evolution of the Angels, demi-gods, as we might say. These Lucifer Spirits, or light givers, enlightened nascent humanity regarding their powers of generating a body at any time. But these bodies were not perfect then--they are not perfect today--and of course generation without reference to the planetary conditions has produced even inferior bodies to what would have been otherwise generated, in addition to the painful parturition prophesied by the Angel.
Since then the generative function has been exercised unrestrictedly by the ignorant human race. But by the fact of death it has been possible for the Angels to teach humanity between death and a new birth how to build a gradually improving body. Had man learned in that far past how to renew his vital body, a he was taught to generate a dense vehicle at his own pleasure, then death would indeed have been an impossibility and man would have become immortal as the Gods. But he would then have immortalized his imperfections and made progress an impossibility. It is the renewal of this vital body which is expressed in the Bible as "eating of the Tree of Life." At the time of his enlightenment concerning generation man was a spiritual being whose eyes were not yet blinded by the material world, and he might have learned the secret of vitalizing his body at will, thus frustrating evolution. Thus we see that death, when it comes naturally, is not a curse but our greatest and best friend, for it frees us from an instrument from which we can learn no more; it takes us out of an environment which we have outgrown, that we may learn to build a better body in an environment of wider scope in which we can make more progress toward the goal of perfection.
In this pilgrimage there comes at last a time when man is fitted to have the powers of LIFE. The body which he has made for himself becomes pure and is of service for a much longer time than heretofore. Then he begins to seek after the philosopher's stone, the elixir vitae, or whatever name he may choose to employ. The alchemists aimed to manufacture this pure and holy vehicle, but not by a chemical process in a laboratory, as supposed by the ignorant multitude. Nomenclature which gave color to that idea was made necessary because they lived in an age when a dominant and apostate church could have brought them to death had the truth been known. When they spoke of transmuting base metals to gold, they spoke the truth not only from the material standpoint but also from the spiritual, for gold has ever been the symbol of spirit and these alchemists aimed to spiritualize their bodies, which are of baser mixture.
Everywhere the pure and beautiful symbol of transparency has been given to designate the power of purity. In the Old Testament we hear of the Temple of Solomon that was "built without sound of hammer." The most beautiful ornament there was THE MOLTEN SEA. Hiram Abiff, the master-workman, AS HIS FINAL ACHIEVEMENT, succeeded in smelting all the metals of the earth into an alloy as TRANSPARENT AS GLASS. In the New Testament we are told the last about a beautiful city having in its midst A SEA OF GLASS. In the East, the initiate aims to become the diamond-soul, pure and transparent. In the West the Philosopher's Stone is the symbol of the purified soul extracted from the bodies which have been transmuted and spiritualized. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, but the pure soul is immortalized by the elixir vitae, the "TREE OF LIFE," into a vital body that will last millenniums as a vehicle for the spirit.
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QUESTION NO. 87
THE LORD HAD RESPECT UNTO ABEL AND HIS BLOODY OFFERING, BUT UNTO CAIN AND HIS SWEET AND CLEAN OFFERING, HE HAD NOT RESPECT. WHY?
ANSWER: The inquirer is under a misapprehension. The offering of Abel was not a BLOODY offering. It is nowhere stated that Abel killed an animal. The legend of the occult free masons, which we will give in part, tells the story:
Once upon a time, the Elohim created Eve; he united with her and she bore Cain; he left her before the birth of Cain and Cain was thus "the son of a widow." Then the Elohim Jehovah created Adam who united with Eve and she bore Abel. In time Cain and Abel brought their offerings to Jehovah. Abel brought of his flocks created by God while Cain brought THE WORK OF HIS OWN HANDS, the grain. And Jehovah received the gift which Abel had found ready to his hand, made by nature, but he despised the sacrifice which was the outcome of the creative ability of Cain. Then Cain slew Abel and was cursed. Adam again united with Eve, and she bore Seth.
From Cain and Seth came two classes of people. The descendants of Cain were Tubal-Cain and Hiram Abiff, cunning master workmen, who knew how to fashion things with their hands, HAVING WITHIN THEMSELVES THE DIVINE ABILITY OF CREATION, of making two blades of grass grow where there was only one before, and from them come all those who work with their hands and strive to conquer the earth and its resources.
From Seth descended the kings and the priests, WHO RECEIVED THEIR WISDOM READY MADE FROM THE GODS, AND TOOK THINGS AS THEY FOUND THEM. Among them was Solomon, the wisest of men, but he had not worked for his wisdom himself, HE RECEIVED IT AS A GIFT OF GOD. These two classes are still found upon earth today and are battling for supremacy. One is the progressive temporal Powers, the other the conservative Priest-craft.
The reason, then, why Jehovah accepted the offering of ABEL was because he had taken things as they were found created; HE WAS A SON OF A MAN, AND DID NOT ASPIRE TO DIVINE CREATORSHIP. But CAIN WAS OF A DIVINE NATURE; HE HAD WITHIN HIM THE CREATIVE INSTINCT; and that was not to the liking of the God.
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QUESTION NO. 88
WHAT IS THE ESOTERIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARK OF THE COVENANT?
ANSWER: We read in the earliest chapters of the Bible about the Fall in Eden, when man took the creative force into his own hands, used it ignorantly and thus sinned against the laws of nature. Propagation is a faculty of the vital body which is the shadow of the life spirit, the second aspect of the threefold spirit in man.
Cherubim are described as having been put on guard with a flaming sword when man was driven out from Eden, lest he eat of the Tree of Life and become immortal, for they are the great creative hierarchy which had charge over the earth in the Sun Period, when the vital body germinated and the life spirit was awakened.
Then commenced the long pilgrimage THROUGH THE WILDERNESS of matter, and the ark of the covenant was the symbol of man in this migratory phase of his existence. During the pilgrimage in the wilderness, the staves which were used to carry the ark were always left in their places to show that it had no abiding place, but when it came to the temple made without sound of hammer, the Temple of Solomon, its pilgrimage was ended, and the staves were removed.
In its character as a symbol of man the ark contained THE BOOK OF THE LAW, given to teach man right action. There was THE ROD OF AARON which budded, a wand of power, symbolizing the spiritual force latent in every man. This rod was a replica of the spear of Parsifal, which was an instrument of harm in the hands of Klingsor, the Black Magician, and likewise in the hands of the Roman soldier, but the pure and spiritual Parsifal used it to heal the wounds of Amfortas. The rod of Aaron had been used among the Egyptians to cause distress and sorrow, an was the HIDDEN WITHIN THE ARK, symbolical of the fact that man had at one time possessed and misused the spiritual power now hidden within.
There was the POT OF MANNA. This was not a food for the body as materialistically explained. The word manna is almost universal. In the Sanskrit we have "MANAS," THE THINKER. In German, the English, the Scandinavian languages, and in many others, we have the same word "MAN" to designate the thinker. The placing of the pot of manna within the ark commemorates the time when the Ego drew into the form it had built and became an INDWELLING individual spirit.
That was the "FALL" into material conditions, necessitating the generation of dense bodies. When man arrogated to himself the power to generate at any time, he was exiled from the Etheric Region lest he possess himself of the secret of vitalizing the imperfect bodies he generates and render evolution impossible.
It is stated in the first part of our answer, the Cherubim were the authors of our vital powers, so they must guard them until man is qualified to have control himself. Therefore they are said to have been placed at the garden of Eden with a Flaming Sword, and it is of the greatest significance that UPON THE DOORS to the Temple of Solomon there stood the Cherubim, holding in their hands no longer the Flaming Sword, but an open flower. The flower is the generative organ of the plant, which accomplishes the act of generation IN A PURE, PASSIONLESS MANNER, and when man has learned how to become pure and passionless so that each and every FORM is immaculately conceived, he can enter into the temple of God as the ark entered the Temple of Solomon, and he may REMAIN THERE, as signified by the removal of the staves, and as prophetically told in Revelation where the spirit said: "Him that overcometh, I will make a pillar in the House of God: THENCE HE SHALL NO MORE GO OUT."
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QUESTION NO. 89
IS THERE AN OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE IN THE VARIOUS CHRISTIAN FEASTS OF THE YEAR?
ANSWER: Yes, the feasts of the year have the very deepest occult significance. From the material point of view, the planets are but so many masses of matter going about in their orbits in obedience to so-called blind laws, but to the occultists they appear as Great Spirits, moving about in space as we move in the world.
When a man is seen gesticulating, we attach a certain significance to his gestures. If he shakes his head, we know that he is negativing a certain proposition, but if he nods, we infer he agrees. If he beckons, having the palms of his hands turned toward him, we know that he is motioning for someone to come to him, but if he turns the palms outward, we understand that he is warning someone to stay away. In the case of the universe, we usually do not think that there is any significance to the altered position of the planets, but to the occultist there is the very deepest meaning in all the varied phenomena of the heavens. They correspond to the gestures of man.
Krishna means anointed, and anyone who had a special mission to perform was so anointed in olden times. When, in the winter time, the sun is below the equator at the nadir point of its travel, the spiritual impulses are the greatest in the world. For our material welfare, however, it is necessary that the sun should come again into the northern hemisphere, and so we speak of the time when the sun starts upon its journey northward as Christmas, the birthday of the Savior, anointed to save us from the famine and cold which would ensue if he were to stay at the nadir point always.
As the sun passes toward the equator, it goes through the sign Aquarius, the water-man, at that time the earth is deluged with rain, symbolizing the baptism of the Savior. Then comes the passage of the sun through the sign Pisces, the fishes, in the month of March. The stores of the past year have been all consumed, and the food of man is scant, hence we have the long fast of LENT, where the eating of fish symbolizes this feature of the solar journey. Then comes THE PASSOVER, when the sun PASSED OVER the equator. This is the time of EASTER, when the sun is at his EASTERN node, and this CROSSING of the equator is symbolized by the CROSSIFICATION OR CRUCIFIXION, so called, of the Savior; the sun then goes into the sign of Aries, the Ram, and becomes the Lamb of God, which is given for the salvation of the world at the time when the plants begin to sprout. In order that the sacrifice may be of benefit to man, however, he (the sun) must ascend into the heavens where his rays will have power to ripen the grape and the corn, and so we have the feast of the Ascension of the Savior to the Throne of the Father, which is at the summer solstice in June. There the sun remains for three days, when the saying "Thence he shall return" takes effect as the sun commences his passage toward the western node. At the time when he enters the sign Virgo, the Virgin, we have the feast of THE ASSUMPTION and later on, when he leaves the sign Virgo, THE NATIVITY of the virgin, who seems, as it were, to be born from the sun.
THE JEWISH FEAST OF TABERNACLES occurred at the time when the sun was crossing the equator on its passage into the winter months, and this feast was accompanied by the weighing in of the corn and the harvest of the wine, which were the gifts of the solar God to his human worshipers.
Thus all the feasts of the year are connected with the motions of the stars through space.
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QUESTION NO. 90
I UNDERSTAND YOU TO SAY THAT THE CHRIST HAS BEEN INCARNATED ONLY ONCE IN JESUS; WAS HE NOT PREVIOUSLY INCARNATED IN GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND STILL EARLIER IN KRISHNA?
ANSWER: No. Jesus Himself was a spirit belonging to our human evolution, and so was Gautama Buddha. The writer has no information concerning Krishna, but is inclined to believe that he was also a spirit belonging to the human race, because the Indian stories concerning him tell of how he entered heaven and what took place there. The Christ spirit which entered the body of Jesus when Jesus himself vacated it, was a ray from the cosmic Christ. We may follow Jesus back in his previous incarnations, and we can trace his growth to the present day. The Christ spirit, on the contrary, is not to be found among our human spirits at all.
We may say that before the coming of Christ, He worked upon the earth from the outside, much as the group spirit works with the animals from without, guiding and helping them, until they become sufficiently individualized to be the abode of an individual spirit. There was no indwelling spirit in the earth prior to the coming of Christ, but at the time when the sacrifice upon Golgotha had been consummated and the Christ spirit was liberated from the body of Jesus, it drew into the earth and is now the indwelling Earth Spirit, which Paul says "is groaning and travailing, waiting for the day of liberation," for, contrary to the accepted opinion, the sacrifice upon Golgotha was not completed with the death of the body of Jesus; in fact, that event may be said to be only the beginning; the sacrifice will continue until such time as we shall have evolved the altruism and love that will liberate the Earth Spirit from the cramping conditions of material existence, when the necessity for guiding us shall have passed away.
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QUESTION NO. 91
WE ARE TOLD THAT "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT DIE BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE." HOW CAN WE RECONCILE THAT IDEA WITH THE WORDS OF CHRIST, "I CAME NOT TO BRING PEACE BUT A SWORD"?
ANSWER: It is said that the "law and the prophets were until Christ," and there are four steps whereby man lifts himself to God. At first, when he awakens to a consciousness in the Physical World and is in the savage state, he finds himself surrounded by other men, who by the very stress of circumstances are forced to fight for life, men among whom "might is right"; here he learns to rely upon his own strength to save him from the onslaughts of wild animals and other men. But he perceives around him the nature powers, and of them he is afraid, for he knows their ability to kill and his own impotence to cope with them. He therefore begins to worship, seeking to PROPITIATE THE GOD HE FEARS by bloody sacrifices.
Then comes the time when he begins to look to GOD AS THE GIVER OF THINGS, who will reward him here and now for obedience to his law and punish him instantly for disobedience. A mighty ally against his enemies but a powerful enemy, and therefore, much to be feared also. And so, he worships and SACRIFICES ANIMALS THROUGH FEAR AND AVARICE.
Then comes the stage when he is taught to worship A GOD OF LOVE and TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF from day to day, through his whole life, for a reward in a future state which he is to believe in by faith and which is not even clearly outlined.
Finally man will reach a stage when he will recognize his divinity and DO RIGHT BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT without thought of fear or bribe.
The Jews had reached the second of these stages and were under the law. The Christian religion is gradually working through the third stage, though not yet freed from the second. All of us are yet under laws made by God and by man in order to curb our desire bodies BY FEAR, but to advance us spiritually from now on we must sensitize our vital body which is amenable to love while not at all cognizant of law which governs the desire nature.
In order to prepare this coming state the priests, who were more advanced than the ordinary people, kept separate and apart from them. We hear in the East that only a certain caste, the Brahmins, were allowed to enter the temples and perform the temple services. Among the Jews, only the Levites were allowed to approach the holy place, and among other nations it was the same. The priests were always a distinct class, who were not allowed to marry among the ordinary people. They were separate and apart in every respect.
That was because the leaders of humanity could only use the strain where there existed a certain laxity between the vital body and the dense body. And so they bred these priests and herded them around the temples, regulating their life, sexually and otherwise, in every respect. But at the time when Christ was liberated from the body of Jesus and diffused His Being throughout the whole earth, the veil was rent, as a symbol of the fact, that the need for any special condition had passed away. From that time on the ether has been changing in the earth. An increasingly higher rate of vibration allows for the expression of altruistic qualities. It was the starting of that enormous vibration which caused the darkness said to have attended crucifixion. That was not darkness at all, but an intense light which blinded people for the time being until the vibrations slowed down by immersion in the dense, physical earth. A few hours later the radiant Christ Spirit had drawn into the earth sufficiently to restore normal conditions. But gradually that power from within is gaining the ascendancy, and the etheric vibrations are being accelerated, increasing altruism and spiritual growth. Thus the conditions are now such that no special or privileged class need exist, but EACH AND EVERY ONE MAY ASPIRE TO ENTER THE PATH OF INITIATION.
Old conditions die hard, however; under the regime of Jehovah, the Spirit of the Moon, humanity had been broken up into nations, and in order that He might guide them it was necessary that He should at times use one nation to punish another, for humanity was not then amenable to love--it would only obey under the lash of fear. Before the great Universal Brotherhood of Love can be inaugurated it is necessary to break up these nations on the same principle that if we have a number of buildings, composed of bricks and we wish to build them into one grand structure, it is necessary first to break them to pieces so that the individual bricks will be available for use in the larger building. Therefore the Christ said, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword."
We must OUTGROW PATRIOTISM and learn to say as that great soul, Thomas Paine, "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion." Until that time, the wars must go on and the more the better, for thereby the sooner will the horror become sufficiently appalling to compel peace.
On the holy night when the Christ child was born, the angels sang a song, "Peace on Earth and Good Will among Men." Later the child grew up and said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," and the Christian religion has been the bloodiest of all religions of humanity. It has carried desolation and sorrow with it wherever it has gone, but out of all that travail there will yet come the day when the song of? the Angels will become a fact and the words of the Christ uttered at other times concerning love to one's neighbor will be lived. When the sword has done its work it will be beaten into plow shares, and there will be no more war, for there will be no more nations.
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QUESTION NO. 92
WHAT IS MEANT BY EVERLASTING SALVATION AND DAMNATION?
ANSWER: The orthodox religions say that those who have done well in this life are saved, that is to say, they will go to a heaven not very clearly defined, and those who fail to reach this salvation are plunged into a hell of which not very much is known save that it is a place of misery. The good and the bad stay in their respective places, once they have been judged; there is no redemption for the lost souls, and no danger of a fall for those once saved.
Such an interpretation is radically wrong, if the Greek dictionary is taken as authority, for obviously the meaning hinges upon the word translated "EVERLASTING." That word is AIONIAN, and in the dictionary it is translated to mean "an age, an indefinite period, a lifetime," etc. What, then, is the true meaning of the passage quoted we may ask ourselves, and in order to find that meaning it will be necessary to take a comprehensive view of life.
In the beginning of manifestation, God, a great flame, differentiates a vast number of incipient flames or sparks WITHIN Himself, not FROM Himself, for it is an actual fact that "IN Him we live and move and have our being." NOTHING CAN EXIST OUTSIDE GOD. So within Himself, God differentiates these countless souls. Each of them is POTENTIALLY divine, each enfolds all His powers as the seed enfolds the plant, but as the seed must be buried in the ground to bring forth the plant, so it is necessary that these divine sparks should be immersed in material vehicles in order that they may learn lessons that can be mastered only in such a separative existence as there is in the world.
The world may be regarded as a training school for the evolving spirits. Some of them started early and applied themselves diligently to the task before them; consequently they progressed rapidly. Others started later and are laggards. They are therefore left behind in the race; but all will ultimately attain the goal of perfection. In consequence of the foregoing fact there are a number of classes of these pilgrim spirits, and before one set, or class, of spirits can be moved up another step in evolution it is necessary that they should have attained a certain standard of proficiency. They are SAVED from a lower condition which they have outgrown. Once this measure of efficiency has been acquired, they are promoted into another race, another epoch. But among a large number there are always laggards, and these are CONDEMNED to stay in the class where they are until they have arrived at the stage of growth required for advancement. The plan is similar to the method in which children in a school are promoted into the next higher class AT THE YEARLY EXAMINATIONS if they have attained a certain standard of knowledge; if not, they are CONDEMNED to stay behind--NOT FOREVER, BUT ONLY UNTIL ANOTHER YEAR'S EXAMINATION PROVES THAT THEY HAVE QUALIFIED.
The foregoing is not a distorted or a wrong representation of the meaning of the word aionian. It has been used other places in the Bible in a manner which bears out our contention. For instance, in Paul's letter to Philemon, where he returns to him the slave Onesimus with the words, "Perhaps it was well that you should lose him for a time that he might be given back to you FOREVER." The word "forever" is the same word aionian which is translated EVERLASTING in connection with damnation and salvation, and it will be readily seen that in this case it can only mean a part of a lifetime, for neither Paul or Philemon, as such, would live forever.
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QUESTION NO. 93
WHAT IS THE TEACHING OF THE ROSICRUCIANS CONCERNING THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION?
ANSWER: The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is, perhaps, one of the most sublime mysteries of the Christian religion, and perhaps for that reason it has suffered more from being dragged down into materiality than any of the other mysteries. It has suffered alike from the interpretation of its clumsy supporters and the sneers of the skeptics. When, for instance, we see in churches a picture of God as an old man sitting up in the skies with a blow-pipe in his mouth in the act of blowing the infant Jesus into the side of Mary, it is more than ridiculous, it is pathetic!
The popular, but erroneous, idea is that about 2000 years ago an individual named Jesus Christ was born of a mother without the cooperation of an earthly father, and THIS INCIDENT IS REGARDED AS UNIQUE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. In reality, it is not unparalleled; the immaculate conception has taken place many times in the history of the world and will become universal in the future.
The anticipated history of man is written in the stars--man being the little world as the stars are great worlds. There the ideal, the prototype of the Immaculate Conception is dramatically presented from year to year. The sun is the LIFE GIVER of the world; it is THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD also. And as the more advanced beings who are saviors of mankind appear when the greatest spiritual darkness is upon earth, so the sun is born anew at the winter solstice and starts its journey toward the equator on the darkest night of the year, the night between the 24th and the 25th of December. At that time, the zodiacal sign Virgo rises upon the eastern horizon in all northern latitudes, which are the most populous parts of the earth.
Thus, the light of the world is each year immaculately conceived by the celestial virgin mother and starts upon his journey northward to give his life for humanity as he ripens the corn and the grape. By analogy the spiritual teachers are born at time when spiritual darkness is greatest, and they give to man the bread of life which feeds the soul.
Men do not gather grapes of thorns, but like always begets like; an entity that is vile must be born of a mother who is vile, and before a savior can be born a pure virgin mother must be found. But when we say "virgin," we do not mean virgin in a physical sense. We all possess physical virginity in the early years of our lives, but virginity of the spirit is a quality of soul acquired by lives of pure thought and lofty aspirations. It is not dependent upon the state of the body. A true virgin may bear several children and remain "virgin."
Whether a child is conceived in sin or immaculately conceived is thus dependent upon its own inherent soul quality, for if the Ego to be born is pure and chaste it will naturally be born to a mother who is also of the same pure and beautiful nature. And the physical act, which in the case of most people is dictated by passion and desire for sensual gratification, is performed by the pure and the chaste of soul in a spirit of prayer as a sacrifice. Thus the child is begotten without the sin of passion; it is immaculately conceived.
Such a one is never an accidental child. His coming has been heralded and looked forward to with anticipation of pleasure and joy, and there are many cases at the present day where people come very close to an imitation of the Immaculate Conception; cases where both the parents are pure and chaste; where they perform the generative act in the spirit of pure love; where the mother is unmolested during the gestatory period and the child is born in almost as pure a manner as foreshadowed in the symbolical immaculate conceptions. In time, when humanity grows more and more altruistic, passion will be superseded by pure love and all men will be immaculately begotten.
From "Questions and Answers in Rosicrucian Philosophy Volume I" by Max Heindel:
QUESTION NO. 86
IS THE TREE OF LIFE SPOKEN OF IN THE BIBLE THE SAME AS THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE OF THE ALCHEMISTS?
ANSWER: Yes and no. To understand the matter it is necessary to go back in the history of mankind. There was a time when humanity was double sexed and capable of generating a body without the help of another. But when it became necessary to build the brain in order that the spirit might be able to CREATE BY THOUGHT as well as in the Physical World, one-half the sex force was retained to build an organ of thought. Then it became necessary for each to seek the cooperation of another who expressed the opposite pole of the creative force which he had available himself for sex purposes. Having no brain, and as "their eyes had not been opened," they were of course unconscious in the Physical World and unable to guide themselves. Therefore, the Angels herded them together at certain times of the year when the planetary forces were propitious to perform the generative act as a religious sacrifice, whereby they gave up part of their bodies for the generation of a vehicle for another spirit. In that close embrace, the spirit first pierced the veil of the flesh and Adam "KNEW" his wife. Later on, when the consciousness of humanity had become focused a little more upon the Physical World and a few among them had begun dimly to perceive the bodies of which we now are so thoroughly conscious, these pioneers began to preach the gospel of the body, telling the others that they possessed a physical body, for the majority were then unconscious of that instrument as we are now of having a stomach when in good health.
Then it was noticed that those bodies died, and the question arose among the pioneers as to how such a body could be replaced. The solution was given to man by a certain class of spirits who were stragglers from the evolution of the Angels, demi-gods, as we might say. These Lucifer Spirits, or light givers, enlightened nascent humanity regarding their powers of generating a body at any time. But these bodies were not perfect then--they are not perfect today--and of course generation without reference to the planetary conditions has produced even inferior bodies to what would have been otherwise generated, in addition to the painful parturition prophesied by the Angel.
Since then the generative function has been exercised unrestrictedly by the ignorant human race. But by the fact of death it has been possible for the Angels to teach humanity between death and a new birth how to build a gradually improving body. Had man learned in that far past how to renew his vital body, a he was taught to generate a dense vehicle at his own pleasure, then death would indeed have been an impossibility and man would have become immortal as the Gods. But he would then have immortalized his imperfections and made progress an impossibility. It is the renewal of this vital body which is expressed in the Bible as "eating of the Tree of Life." At the time of his enlightenment concerning generation man was a spiritual being whose eyes were not yet blinded by the material world, and he might have learned the secret of vitalizing his body at will, thus frustrating evolution. Thus we see that death, when it comes naturally, is not a curse but our greatest and best friend, for it frees us from an instrument from which we can learn no more; it takes us out of an environment which we have outgrown, that we may learn to build a better body in an environment of wider scope in which we can make more progress toward the goal of perfection.
In this pilgrimage there comes at last a time when man is fitted to have the powers of LIFE. The body which he has made for himself becomes pure and is of service for a much longer time than heretofore. Then he begins to seek after the philosopher's stone, the elixir vitae, or whatever name he may choose to employ. The alchemists aimed to manufacture this pure and holy vehicle, but not by a chemical process in a laboratory, as supposed by the ignorant multitude. Nomenclature which gave color to that idea was made necessary because they lived in an age when a dominant and apostate church could have brought them to death had the truth been known. When they spoke of transmuting base metals to gold, they spoke the truth not only from the material standpoint but also from the spiritual, for gold has ever been the symbol of spirit and these alchemists aimed to spiritualize their bodies, which are of baser mixture.
Everywhere the pure and beautiful symbol of transparency has been given to designate the power of purity. In the Old Testament we hear of the Temple of Solomon that was "built without sound of hammer." The most beautiful ornament there was THE MOLTEN SEA. Hiram Abiff, the master-workman, AS HIS FINAL ACHIEVEMENT, succeeded in smelting all the metals of the earth into an alloy as TRANSPARENT AS GLASS. In the New Testament we are told the last about a beautiful city having in its midst A SEA OF GLASS. In the East, the initiate aims to become the diamond-soul, pure and transparent. In the West the Philosopher's Stone is the symbol of the purified soul extracted from the bodies which have been transmuted and spiritualized. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, but the pure soul is immortalized by the elixir vitae, the "TREE OF LIFE," into a vital body that will last millenniums as a vehicle for the spirit.
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QUESTION NO. 87
THE LORD HAD RESPECT UNTO ABEL AND HIS BLOODY OFFERING, BUT UNTO CAIN AND HIS SWEET AND CLEAN OFFERING, HE HAD NOT RESPECT. WHY?
ANSWER: The inquirer is under a misapprehension. The offering of Abel was not a BLOODY offering. It is nowhere stated that Abel killed an animal. The legend of the occult free masons, which we will give in part, tells the story:
Once upon a time, the Elohim created Eve; he united with her and she bore Cain; he left her before the birth of Cain and Cain was thus "the son of a widow." Then the Elohim Jehovah created Adam who united with Eve and she bore Abel. In time Cain and Abel brought their offerings to Jehovah. Abel brought of his flocks created by God while Cain brought THE WORK OF HIS OWN HANDS, the grain. And Jehovah received the gift which Abel had found ready to his hand, made by nature, but he despised the sacrifice which was the outcome of the creative ability of Cain. Then Cain slew Abel and was cursed. Adam again united with Eve, and she bore Seth.
From Cain and Seth came two classes of people. The descendants of Cain were Tubal-Cain and Hiram Abiff, cunning master workmen, who knew how to fashion things with their hands, HAVING WITHIN THEMSELVES THE DIVINE ABILITY OF CREATION, of making two blades of grass grow where there was only one before, and from them come all those who work with their hands and strive to conquer the earth and its resources.
From Seth descended the kings and the priests, WHO RECEIVED THEIR WISDOM READY MADE FROM THE GODS, AND TOOK THINGS AS THEY FOUND THEM. Among them was Solomon, the wisest of men, but he had not worked for his wisdom himself, HE RECEIVED IT AS A GIFT OF GOD. These two classes are still found upon earth today and are battling for supremacy. One is the progressive temporal Powers, the other the conservative Priest-craft.
The reason, then, why Jehovah accepted the offering of ABEL was because he had taken things as they were found created; HE WAS A SON OF A MAN, AND DID NOT ASPIRE TO DIVINE CREATORSHIP. But CAIN WAS OF A DIVINE NATURE; HE HAD WITHIN HIM THE CREATIVE INSTINCT; and that was not to the liking of the God.
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QUESTION NO. 88
WHAT IS THE ESOTERIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARK OF THE COVENANT?
ANSWER: We read in the earliest chapters of the Bible about the Fall in Eden, when man took the creative force into his own hands, used it ignorantly and thus sinned against the laws of nature. Propagation is a faculty of the vital body which is the shadow of the life spirit, the second aspect of the threefold spirit in man.
Cherubim are described as having been put on guard with a flaming sword when man was driven out from Eden, lest he eat of the Tree of Life and become immortal, for they are the great creative hierarchy which had charge over the earth in the Sun Period, when the vital body germinated and the life spirit was awakened.
Then commenced the long pilgrimage THROUGH THE WILDERNESS of matter, and the ark of the covenant was the symbol of man in this migratory phase of his existence. During the pilgrimage in the wilderness, the staves which were used to carry the ark were always left in their places to show that it had no abiding place, but when it came to the temple made without sound of hammer, the Temple of Solomon, its pilgrimage was ended, and the staves were removed.
In its character as a symbol of man the ark contained THE BOOK OF THE LAW, given to teach man right action. There was THE ROD OF AARON which budded, a wand of power, symbolizing the spiritual force latent in every man. This rod was a replica of the spear of Parsifal, which was an instrument of harm in the hands of Klingsor, the Black Magician, and likewise in the hands of the Roman soldier, but the pure and spiritual Parsifal used it to heal the wounds of Amfortas. The rod of Aaron had been used among the Egyptians to cause distress and sorrow, an was the HIDDEN WITHIN THE ARK, symbolical of the fact that man had at one time possessed and misused the spiritual power now hidden within.
There was the POT OF MANNA. This was not a food for the body as materialistically explained. The word manna is almost universal. In the Sanskrit we have "MANAS," THE THINKER. In German, the English, the Scandinavian languages, and in many others, we have the same word "MAN" to designate the thinker. The placing of the pot of manna within the ark commemorates the time when the Ego drew into the form it had built and became an INDWELLING individual spirit.
That was the "FALL" into material conditions, necessitating the generation of dense bodies. When man arrogated to himself the power to generate at any time, he was exiled from the Etheric Region lest he possess himself of the secret of vitalizing the imperfect bodies he generates and render evolution impossible.
It is stated in the first part of our answer, the Cherubim were the authors of our vital powers, so they must guard them until man is qualified to have control himself. Therefore they are said to have been placed at the garden of Eden with a Flaming Sword, and it is of the greatest significance that UPON THE DOORS to the Temple of Solomon there stood the Cherubim, holding in their hands no longer the Flaming Sword, but an open flower. The flower is the generative organ of the plant, which accomplishes the act of generation IN A PURE, PASSIONLESS MANNER, and when man has learned how to become pure and passionless so that each and every FORM is immaculately conceived, he can enter into the temple of God as the ark entered the Temple of Solomon, and he may REMAIN THERE, as signified by the removal of the staves, and as prophetically told in Revelation where the spirit said: "Him that overcometh, I will make a pillar in the House of God: THENCE HE SHALL NO MORE GO OUT."
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QUESTION NO. 89
IS THERE AN OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE IN THE VARIOUS CHRISTIAN FEASTS OF THE YEAR?
ANSWER: Yes, the feasts of the year have the very deepest occult significance. From the material point of view, the planets are but so many masses of matter going about in their orbits in obedience to so-called blind laws, but to the occultists they appear as Great Spirits, moving about in space as we move in the world.
When a man is seen gesticulating, we attach a certain significance to his gestures. If he shakes his head, we know that he is negativing a certain proposition, but if he nods, we infer he agrees. If he beckons, having the palms of his hands turned toward him, we know that he is motioning for someone to come to him, but if he turns the palms outward, we understand that he is warning someone to stay away. In the case of the universe, we usually do not think that there is any significance to the altered position of the planets, but to the occultist there is the very deepest meaning in all the varied phenomena of the heavens. They correspond to the gestures of man.
Krishna means anointed, and anyone who had a special mission to perform was so anointed in olden times. When, in the winter time, the sun is below the equator at the nadir point of its travel, the spiritual impulses are the greatest in the world. For our material welfare, however, it is necessary that the sun should come again into the northern hemisphere, and so we speak of the time when the sun starts upon its journey northward as Christmas, the birthday of the Savior, anointed to save us from the famine and cold which would ensue if he were to stay at the nadir point always.
As the sun passes toward the equator, it goes through the sign Aquarius, the water-man, at that time the earth is deluged with rain, symbolizing the baptism of the Savior. Then comes the passage of the sun through the sign Pisces, the fishes, in the month of March. The stores of the past year have been all consumed, and the food of man is scant, hence we have the long fast of LENT, where the eating of fish symbolizes this feature of the solar journey. Then comes THE PASSOVER, when the sun PASSED OVER the equator. This is the time of EASTER, when the sun is at his EASTERN node, and this CROSSING of the equator is symbolized by the CROSSIFICATION OR CRUCIFIXION, so called, of the Savior; the sun then goes into the sign of Aries, the Ram, and becomes the Lamb of God, which is given for the salvation of the world at the time when the plants begin to sprout. In order that the sacrifice may be of benefit to man, however, he (the sun) must ascend into the heavens where his rays will have power to ripen the grape and the corn, and so we have the feast of the Ascension of the Savior to the Throne of the Father, which is at the summer solstice in June. There the sun remains for three days, when the saying "Thence he shall return" takes effect as the sun commences his passage toward the western node. At the time when he enters the sign Virgo, the Virgin, we have the feast of THE ASSUMPTION and later on, when he leaves the sign Virgo, THE NATIVITY of the virgin, who seems, as it were, to be born from the sun.
THE JEWISH FEAST OF TABERNACLES occurred at the time when the sun was crossing the equator on its passage into the winter months, and this feast was accompanied by the weighing in of the corn and the harvest of the wine, which were the gifts of the solar God to his human worshipers.
Thus all the feasts of the year are connected with the motions of the stars through space.
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QUESTION NO. 90
I UNDERSTAND YOU TO SAY THAT THE CHRIST HAS BEEN INCARNATED ONLY ONCE IN JESUS; WAS HE NOT PREVIOUSLY INCARNATED IN GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND STILL EARLIER IN KRISHNA?
ANSWER: No. Jesus Himself was a spirit belonging to our human evolution, and so was Gautama Buddha. The writer has no information concerning Krishna, but is inclined to believe that he was also a spirit belonging to the human race, because the Indian stories concerning him tell of how he entered heaven and what took place there. The Christ spirit which entered the body of Jesus when Jesus himself vacated it, was a ray from the cosmic Christ. We may follow Jesus back in his previous incarnations, and we can trace his growth to the present day. The Christ spirit, on the contrary, is not to be found among our human spirits at all.
We may say that before the coming of Christ, He worked upon the earth from the outside, much as the group spirit works with the animals from without, guiding and helping them, until they become sufficiently individualized to be the abode of an individual spirit. There was no indwelling spirit in the earth prior to the coming of Christ, but at the time when the sacrifice upon Golgotha had been consummated and the Christ spirit was liberated from the body of Jesus, it drew into the earth and is now the indwelling Earth Spirit, which Paul says "is groaning and travailing, waiting for the day of liberation," for, contrary to the accepted opinion, the sacrifice upon Golgotha was not completed with the death of the body of Jesus; in fact, that event may be said to be only the beginning; the sacrifice will continue until such time as we shall have evolved the altruism and love that will liberate the Earth Spirit from the cramping conditions of material existence, when the necessity for guiding us shall have passed away.
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QUESTION NO. 91
WE ARE TOLD THAT "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT DIE BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE." HOW CAN WE RECONCILE THAT IDEA WITH THE WORDS OF CHRIST, "I CAME NOT TO BRING PEACE BUT A SWORD"?
ANSWER: It is said that the "law and the prophets were until Christ," and there are four steps whereby man lifts himself to God. At first, when he awakens to a consciousness in the Physical World and is in the savage state, he finds himself surrounded by other men, who by the very stress of circumstances are forced to fight for life, men among whom "might is right"; here he learns to rely upon his own strength to save him from the onslaughts of wild animals and other men. But he perceives around him the nature powers, and of them he is afraid, for he knows their ability to kill and his own impotence to cope with them. He therefore begins to worship, seeking to PROPITIATE THE GOD HE FEARS by bloody sacrifices.
Then comes the time when he begins to look to GOD AS THE GIVER OF THINGS, who will reward him here and now for obedience to his law and punish him instantly for disobedience. A mighty ally against his enemies but a powerful enemy, and therefore, much to be feared also. And so, he worships and SACRIFICES ANIMALS THROUGH FEAR AND AVARICE.
Then comes the stage when he is taught to worship A GOD OF LOVE and TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF from day to day, through his whole life, for a reward in a future state which he is to believe in by faith and which is not even clearly outlined.
Finally man will reach a stage when he will recognize his divinity and DO RIGHT BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT without thought of fear or bribe.
The Jews had reached the second of these stages and were under the law. The Christian religion is gradually working through the third stage, though not yet freed from the second. All of us are yet under laws made by God and by man in order to curb our desire bodies BY FEAR, but to advance us spiritually from now on we must sensitize our vital body which is amenable to love while not at all cognizant of law which governs the desire nature.
In order to prepare this coming state the priests, who were more advanced than the ordinary people, kept separate and apart from them. We hear in the East that only a certain caste, the Brahmins, were allowed to enter the temples and perform the temple services. Among the Jews, only the Levites were allowed to approach the holy place, and among other nations it was the same. The priests were always a distinct class, who were not allowed to marry among the ordinary people. They were separate and apart in every respect.
That was because the leaders of humanity could only use the strain where there existed a certain laxity between the vital body and the dense body. And so they bred these priests and herded them around the temples, regulating their life, sexually and otherwise, in every respect. But at the time when Christ was liberated from the body of Jesus and diffused His Being throughout the whole earth, the veil was rent, as a symbol of the fact, that the need for any special condition had passed away. From that time on the ether has been changing in the earth. An increasingly higher rate of vibration allows for the expression of altruistic qualities. It was the starting of that enormous vibration which caused the darkness said to have attended crucifixion. That was not darkness at all, but an intense light which blinded people for the time being until the vibrations slowed down by immersion in the dense, physical earth. A few hours later the radiant Christ Spirit had drawn into the earth sufficiently to restore normal conditions. But gradually that power from within is gaining the ascendancy, and the etheric vibrations are being accelerated, increasing altruism and spiritual growth. Thus the conditions are now such that no special or privileged class need exist, but EACH AND EVERY ONE MAY ASPIRE TO ENTER THE PATH OF INITIATION.
Old conditions die hard, however; under the regime of Jehovah, the Spirit of the Moon, humanity had been broken up into nations, and in order that He might guide them it was necessary that He should at times use one nation to punish another, for humanity was not then amenable to love--it would only obey under the lash of fear. Before the great Universal Brotherhood of Love can be inaugurated it is necessary to break up these nations on the same principle that if we have a number of buildings, composed of bricks and we wish to build them into one grand structure, it is necessary first to break them to pieces so that the individual bricks will be available for use in the larger building. Therefore the Christ said, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword."
We must OUTGROW PATRIOTISM and learn to say as that great soul, Thomas Paine, "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion." Until that time, the wars must go on and the more the better, for thereby the sooner will the horror become sufficiently appalling to compel peace.
On the holy night when the Christ child was born, the angels sang a song, "Peace on Earth and Good Will among Men." Later the child grew up and said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," and the Christian religion has been the bloodiest of all religions of humanity. It has carried desolation and sorrow with it wherever it has gone, but out of all that travail there will yet come the day when the song of? the Angels will become a fact and the words of the Christ uttered at other times concerning love to one's neighbor will be lived. When the sword has done its work it will be beaten into plow shares, and there will be no more war, for there will be no more nations.
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QUESTION NO. 92
WHAT IS MEANT BY EVERLASTING SALVATION AND DAMNATION?
ANSWER: The orthodox religions say that those who have done well in this life are saved, that is to say, they will go to a heaven not very clearly defined, and those who fail to reach this salvation are plunged into a hell of which not very much is known save that it is a place of misery. The good and the bad stay in their respective places, once they have been judged; there is no redemption for the lost souls, and no danger of a fall for those once saved.
Such an interpretation is radically wrong, if the Greek dictionary is taken as authority, for obviously the meaning hinges upon the word translated "EVERLASTING." That word is AIONIAN, and in the dictionary it is translated to mean "an age, an indefinite period, a lifetime," etc. What, then, is the true meaning of the passage quoted we may ask ourselves, and in order to find that meaning it will be necessary to take a comprehensive view of life.
In the beginning of manifestation, God, a great flame, differentiates a vast number of incipient flames or sparks WITHIN Himself, not FROM Himself, for it is an actual fact that "IN Him we live and move and have our being." NOTHING CAN EXIST OUTSIDE GOD. So within Himself, God differentiates these countless souls. Each of them is POTENTIALLY divine, each enfolds all His powers as the seed enfolds the plant, but as the seed must be buried in the ground to bring forth the plant, so it is necessary that these divine sparks should be immersed in material vehicles in order that they may learn lessons that can be mastered only in such a separative existence as there is in the world.
The world may be regarded as a training school for the evolving spirits. Some of them started early and applied themselves diligently to the task before them; consequently they progressed rapidly. Others started later and are laggards. They are therefore left behind in the race; but all will ultimately attain the goal of perfection. In consequence of the foregoing fact there are a number of classes of these pilgrim spirits, and before one set, or class, of spirits can be moved up another step in evolution it is necessary that they should have attained a certain standard of proficiency. They are SAVED from a lower condition which they have outgrown. Once this measure of efficiency has been acquired, they are promoted into another race, another epoch. But among a large number there are always laggards, and these are CONDEMNED to stay in the class where they are until they have arrived at the stage of growth required for advancement. The plan is similar to the method in which children in a school are promoted into the next higher class AT THE YEARLY EXAMINATIONS if they have attained a certain standard of knowledge; if not, they are CONDEMNED to stay behind--NOT FOREVER, BUT ONLY UNTIL ANOTHER YEAR'S EXAMINATION PROVES THAT THEY HAVE QUALIFIED.
The foregoing is not a distorted or a wrong representation of the meaning of the word aionian. It has been used other places in the Bible in a manner which bears out our contention. For instance, in Paul's letter to Philemon, where he returns to him the slave Onesimus with the words, "Perhaps it was well that you should lose him for a time that he might be given back to you FOREVER." The word "forever" is the same word aionian which is translated EVERLASTING in connection with damnation and salvation, and it will be readily seen that in this case it can only mean a part of a lifetime, for neither Paul or Philemon, as such, would live forever.
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QUESTION NO. 93
WHAT IS THE TEACHING OF THE ROSICRUCIANS CONCERNING THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION?
ANSWER: The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is, perhaps, one of the most sublime mysteries of the Christian religion, and perhaps for that reason it has suffered more from being dragged down into materiality than any of the other mysteries. It has suffered alike from the interpretation of its clumsy supporters and the sneers of the skeptics. When, for instance, we see in churches a picture of God as an old man sitting up in the skies with a blow-pipe in his mouth in the act of blowing the infant Jesus into the side of Mary, it is more than ridiculous, it is pathetic!
The popular, but erroneous, idea is that about 2000 years ago an individual named Jesus Christ was born of a mother without the cooperation of an earthly father, and THIS INCIDENT IS REGARDED AS UNIQUE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. In reality, it is not unparalleled; the immaculate conception has taken place many times in the history of the world and will become universal in the future.
The anticipated history of man is written in the stars--man being the little world as the stars are great worlds. There the ideal, the prototype of the Immaculate Conception is dramatically presented from year to year. The sun is the LIFE GIVER of the world; it is THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD also. And as the more advanced beings who are saviors of mankind appear when the greatest spiritual darkness is upon earth, so the sun is born anew at the winter solstice and starts its journey toward the equator on the darkest night of the year, the night between the 24th and the 25th of December. At that time, the zodiacal sign Virgo rises upon the eastern horizon in all northern latitudes, which are the most populous parts of the earth.
Thus, the light of the world is each year immaculately conceived by the celestial virgin mother and starts upon his journey northward to give his life for humanity as he ripens the corn and the grape. By analogy the spiritual teachers are born at time when spiritual darkness is greatest, and they give to man the bread of life which feeds the soul.
Men do not gather grapes of thorns, but like always begets like; an entity that is vile must be born of a mother who is vile, and before a savior can be born a pure virgin mother must be found. But when we say "virgin," we do not mean virgin in a physical sense. We all possess physical virginity in the early years of our lives, but virginity of the spirit is a quality of soul acquired by lives of pure thought and lofty aspirations. It is not dependent upon the state of the body. A true virgin may bear several children and remain "virgin."
Whether a child is conceived in sin or immaculately conceived is thus dependent upon its own inherent soul quality, for if the Ego to be born is pure and chaste it will naturally be born to a mother who is also of the same pure and beautiful nature. And the physical act, which in the case of most people is dictated by passion and desire for sensual gratification, is performed by the pure and the chaste of soul in a spirit of prayer as a sacrifice. Thus the child is begotten without the sin of passion; it is immaculately conceived.
Such a one is never an accidental child. His coming has been heralded and looked forward to with anticipation of pleasure and joy, and there are many cases at the present day where people come very close to an imitation of the Immaculate Conception; cases where both the parents are pure and chaste; where they perform the generative act in the spirit of pure love; where the mother is unmolested during the gestatory period and the child is born in almost as pure a manner as foreshadowed in the symbolical immaculate conceptions. In time, when humanity grows more and more altruistic, passion will be superseded by pure love and all men will be immaculately begotten.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Journey through Matter
"There is no desire in matter to hold itself together with other matter" - Walter Russell
We are in state that is not natural to us. There is absolutely no point where we become content in this world and say, 'I think I enjoy it 'down' here, I think I want to build a permanent house and retire.' It's not reality, our eyes are veiled. Inside we are forever fighting to unite with the One, Absolute that we sprung from. However, the spark must become a flame for this to occur. Unity is stillness, it is balance, oneness.
There was something Vitvan said that put a concept in a different light for me. You cannot push a person past their present level of consciousness, he says. 'You cannot wake up the sheeple.' They don't want to be awoken and they are not ready to be awoken in reality. We are all at a certain level in our evolution. Part of our purpose here is to find out this level. There will be many falls if you don't have a base point for your position in this grand cosmic unfolding. One can't just read a book and figure out the secrets to the world and become a 4th degree initiate. We are at a certain level, the seed is unfolding how it was meant to. If one tries to force it's hand (letting your PERSONAL will take over) then this is akin to going too slowly or being rather oblivious to the process. How hard it is it to say, "Spirit, take the keys and drive." This is essentially nothing less than self annihilation. But it must occur if we seek to ascend. There is no "you" and only perpetuating this fallacy digs the whole deeper. We must step back and let it all unfold and let the mayaistic veil fall down.
Part of the problem in this equation is the pride that inevitably rises. When one becomes conscious of his position he is likely to say, "wow - look at all these sheep that are completely asleep...I am awake." tell yourself that you are on the forefront of evolution. God has chosen you as one of the promised! Your center starts to rise up and your head becomes quite large. You start to look at the common folk with disdain. By propping yourself up on the pedestal you have now created an equal, opposite opposing force to rise up and knock you back down to square one. This is why the pious mystics preach humility above all other virtues. Without it on the path I it seems that most journeys would be quite slow and much like that of the ordinary soul making the spiral trek.
The law of rhythm is very much at work. One is in a world of electric polarity and there will thus be equal number of ups and downs. However one doesn't have to play the game. When one feels that lightness, that ecstasy rising up he doesn't have to take the bait and ride the high like a strung out junkie. See it for what it is, feel it inside rising up - but watch one's self as you keep your feet on the ground. When the inevitable fall comes back around we don't have to become depressed either. Again see it for what it is - it is the downturn of the cycle. One might not feel as active, as vibrant as he did on the other side but he doesn't have to stop his life or his progression towards his destiny. Do we cease living during the winter? We don't have to hibernate like the bear. Is life as exciting and easy going? For a lot of us it isn't but being cognizant of cycles we know that the summer will soon come again, that the sun will rise again. Further more, we know that all is one, that there is no summer or winter. Neither is good or bad, they are objectively what they are. Putting our personal spin on it does nothing but harm ourselves. There is no spoon.
Walter Russell says stretching a piece of elastic rubber is equivalent to nature's processes.
Take a piece elastic rubber. Stretch it out. What happens? The one is stretched out into a sort of dualistic state. Tensions are created. Does it simply stay there with the tensions? No, on its own accord it eventually returns to the single state of balance. Another way to look at this: To get the motion (this being a microcosm for all cycles) started an outside force must start it, but see that the rubber (substitute man/soul) works it's way back to the state of unity by itself. The motion is started and the process must go on until unity/original state is achieved. There is no further hands on guidance needed. Any outside help would in fact disrupt the process.
So now think about it in terms of personal will and God's will. God was the hand that first stretched the rubber sparking the universe into motion (existence). We can say that a piece God was carried inside the many that were split into motion (one becomes two but remains inherently one). When one tries to force his destiny, when he tries to take over and control the unfolding of the seed he is disrupting the process. One is causing an unbalance in a path that is based in math. From the start there was a certain path that the seed/soul was to take. When we take over we veer off of this objective (set) path. When you take over, you are fighting against nature, you are fighting truth. This is when the uprisings, symptoms, diseases occur. One is not affecting just himself, he is affecting the natural order of everything that is. The spirit within is trying to tell us through the symbol of the body that we are hurting it, we are going against it's desire for ultimate liberation. That set path is the fast track to this very liberation. Fortunately, we have no real power, God has all the power and can overcome us. He lets us have the free will but when we veer too far off of His set course He can and will extinguish you.
Russell says to stop thinking that there are opposite directions or forces. Opposite forces that go away from each other could not unite. All are but divided sexes seeking to come back together in union.
"The normal condition of this universe is a rest condition. Motion is a created effect which emerges from rest and returns to it. This universe of motion might be likened to a quiet pool into which a stone has been thrown. The normal quiet of the pool has been disturbed by a force. The normal quiet will return without the aid of force. There is no opposite force which causes the return to normal balance"
Think about yourself being sprung out from the stillness at birth into this objective world. You're sitting on a pole, with much unrest. That motion that shot you to this pole will produce an equal, opposite reaction just as the elastic rubber does. You interfere with this process by getting too attached to this pole, this illusionary objective world. You're on a path of experience and you don't have to do anything. This is the teaching of the Tao. Put your faith in God and let Christ take over.
Now the map is not the territory. Can we follow the map and traverse the territory correctly and find our boon at the end of the journey??? What a beautiful concept.
We are in state that is not natural to us. There is absolutely no point where we become content in this world and say, 'I think I enjoy it 'down' here, I think I want to build a permanent house and retire.' It's not reality, our eyes are veiled. Inside we are forever fighting to unite with the One, Absolute that we sprung from. However, the spark must become a flame for this to occur. Unity is stillness, it is balance, oneness.
There was something Vitvan said that put a concept in a different light for me. You cannot push a person past their present level of consciousness, he says. 'You cannot wake up the sheeple.' They don't want to be awoken and they are not ready to be awoken in reality. We are all at a certain level in our evolution. Part of our purpose here is to find out this level. There will be many falls if you don't have a base point for your position in this grand cosmic unfolding. One can't just read a book and figure out the secrets to the world and become a 4th degree initiate. We are at a certain level, the seed is unfolding how it was meant to. If one tries to force it's hand (letting your PERSONAL will take over) then this is akin to going too slowly or being rather oblivious to the process. How hard it is it to say, "Spirit, take the keys and drive." This is essentially nothing less than self annihilation. But it must occur if we seek to ascend. There is no "you" and only perpetuating this fallacy digs the whole deeper. We must step back and let it all unfold and let the mayaistic veil fall down.
Part of the problem in this equation is the pride that inevitably rises. When one becomes conscious of his position he is likely to say, "wow - look at all these sheep that are completely asleep...I am awake." tell yourself that you are on the forefront of evolution. God has chosen you as one of the promised! Your center starts to rise up and your head becomes quite large. You start to look at the common folk with disdain. By propping yourself up on the pedestal you have now created an equal, opposite opposing force to rise up and knock you back down to square one. This is why the pious mystics preach humility above all other virtues. Without it on the path I it seems that most journeys would be quite slow and much like that of the ordinary soul making the spiral trek.
The law of rhythm is very much at work. One is in a world of electric polarity and there will thus be equal number of ups and downs. However one doesn't have to play the game. When one feels that lightness, that ecstasy rising up he doesn't have to take the bait and ride the high like a strung out junkie. See it for what it is, feel it inside rising up - but watch one's self as you keep your feet on the ground. When the inevitable fall comes back around we don't have to become depressed either. Again see it for what it is - it is the downturn of the cycle. One might not feel as active, as vibrant as he did on the other side but he doesn't have to stop his life or his progression towards his destiny. Do we cease living during the winter? We don't have to hibernate like the bear. Is life as exciting and easy going? For a lot of us it isn't but being cognizant of cycles we know that the summer will soon come again, that the sun will rise again. Further more, we know that all is one, that there is no summer or winter. Neither is good or bad, they are objectively what they are. Putting our personal spin on it does nothing but harm ourselves. There is no spoon.
Walter Russell says stretching a piece of elastic rubber is equivalent to nature's processes.
Take a piece elastic rubber. Stretch it out. What happens? The one is stretched out into a sort of dualistic state. Tensions are created. Does it simply stay there with the tensions? No, on its own accord it eventually returns to the single state of balance. Another way to look at this: To get the motion (this being a microcosm for all cycles) started an outside force must start it, but see that the rubber (substitute man/soul) works it's way back to the state of unity by itself. The motion is started and the process must go on until unity/original state is achieved. There is no further hands on guidance needed. Any outside help would in fact disrupt the process.
So now think about it in terms of personal will and God's will. God was the hand that first stretched the rubber sparking the universe into motion (existence). We can say that a piece God was carried inside the many that were split into motion (one becomes two but remains inherently one). When one tries to force his destiny, when he tries to take over and control the unfolding of the seed he is disrupting the process. One is causing an unbalance in a path that is based in math. From the start there was a certain path that the seed/soul was to take. When we take over we veer off of this objective (set) path. When you take over, you are fighting against nature, you are fighting truth. This is when the uprisings, symptoms, diseases occur. One is not affecting just himself, he is affecting the natural order of everything that is. The spirit within is trying to tell us through the symbol of the body that we are hurting it, we are going against it's desire for ultimate liberation. That set path is the fast track to this very liberation. Fortunately, we have no real power, God has all the power and can overcome us. He lets us have the free will but when we veer too far off of His set course He can and will extinguish you.
Russell says to stop thinking that there are opposite directions or forces. Opposite forces that go away from each other could not unite. All are but divided sexes seeking to come back together in union.
"The normal condition of this universe is a rest condition. Motion is a created effect which emerges from rest and returns to it. This universe of motion might be likened to a quiet pool into which a stone has been thrown. The normal quiet of the pool has been disturbed by a force. The normal quiet will return without the aid of force. There is no opposite force which causes the return to normal balance"
Think about yourself being sprung out from the stillness at birth into this objective world. You're sitting on a pole, with much unrest. That motion that shot you to this pole will produce an equal, opposite reaction just as the elastic rubber does. You interfere with this process by getting too attached to this pole, this illusionary objective world. You're on a path of experience and you don't have to do anything. This is the teaching of the Tao. Put your faith in God and let Christ take over.
Now the map is not the territory. Can we follow the map and traverse the territory correctly and find our boon at the end of the journey??? What a beautiful concept.
The Fire Inside
The soul waits patiently yet yearning to be released from it's objectified prison. The fire burns bright but on the human level a lack of focus stifles this desire from being realized. The fire, it blazes in the center of the system, the heart. The lack of focused, one-pointed will sees that it's efforts result in an ever expanding prison. Instead of the explosion or radiation that is needed occurring, the soul makes his feeble attempts but the electric world wins out every time.
The soul makes a run for it but he did not plan thoroughly enough for the escape attempt and is thus thwarted. Back to the big house he goes. The edges produce heat but not enough and soon crystallization ensues. Each effort tests the soul's moxie and resilience. There are dark nights when he wants to give up, when he cannot see even a speck of light. But then there are times when he reaches the edge and gets a taste of freedom and liberation, his destiny is set, he cannot give up his dream. The hunger it hurts but it will never cease until his gold is found.
He needs time. He must do the proper work. He must create the correct matrix or blueprint. He must see himself as a free soul and create this vision. He cannot overstep or supersede nature's processes. One day the fire will burn bright enough and the dark star will explode revealing the trued stone, the light within. He is on a journey to the center of all that is and he will know when he arrives. Instead for now he shall only crystallize, while expanding his awareness day by day until his story is complete
The soul makes a run for it but he did not plan thoroughly enough for the escape attempt and is thus thwarted. Back to the big house he goes. The edges produce heat but not enough and soon crystallization ensues. Each effort tests the soul's moxie and resilience. There are dark nights when he wants to give up, when he cannot see even a speck of light. But then there are times when he reaches the edge and gets a taste of freedom and liberation, his destiny is set, he cannot give up his dream. The hunger it hurts but it will never cease until his gold is found.
He needs time. He must do the proper work. He must create the correct matrix or blueprint. He must see himself as a free soul and create this vision. He cannot overstep or supersede nature's processes. One day the fire will burn bright enough and the dark star will explode revealing the trued stone, the light within. He is on a journey to the center of all that is and he will know when he arrives. Instead for now he shall only crystallize, while expanding his awareness day by day until his story is complete
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Caspian "The Raven"
Just some beautiful post rock music (in my opinion) I would like to share with the world
and I'll add in "Vienna" live while I'm at it.
and I'll add in "Vienna" live while I'm at it.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Divine Illiad
Below are quotes from Walter Russell's book, "The Divine Illiad". These are teachings he received during his 27 day illumination in which he had so-called "360 degree illumination." There are also great practical lesson in both volumes. Hope you enjoy!
"The toxemia of unbalance is man's only ailment. There is no other ailment. Therefore, give him balance."
"Body hath no existence. It is but motion and motion existeth not."
"All creating forms are but spectrum waves of dual light of My electric thinking. Forms are illusions produced by the motion of light-waves. Light waves springeth from imagined extension of My thinking."
"Wave of dual light of My thinking are not My Light, nor are they Me. They extendeth from Me to manifest My knowing and My power, as the lever extendeth from the fulcrum to mainfest the power which is in the fulcrum. But the lever is not the fulcrum nor is the dual light of electric thinking Me."
"Electric waves of motion, which are My body, are electrically sensed with an awareness of each other. Senses are wave mirrors which reflect their ever changing condition to every other wave in My whole universal body, and all of its extensions."
"Senses are mirrors which intercommunicate with each other by reflecting their light into - and through - each other. Thus are all of my creations, reflections of Me and of each other. Man calleth the reflected interchange between the senses 'an electric current'"
"Man's early aeons of living for sensing alone - with but little thinking - and lesser knowing - bred fear, selfishness, and greed in his body."
"When thinking My knowing with Me, he (man) findeth Balance in Me to void the pairs of opposites of his unbalanced thinking and is made whole by find rest in Me."
"All idea of My thinking is divided into pairs of opposites unbalanced conditions."
"Male sex and female sex are opposite unbalance conditions of the one idea of man. These two opposed conditions void each other by finding rest from motion in each other."
"Opposite unbalanced conditions are as a lever in motion swinging from its still fulcrum. In the fulcrum is the one unchanging condition of Balance from which the two changing unbalanced conditions extend."
"So long as the lever swingeth in motion its opposites are unbalanced. When the swinging of the lever ceaseth, the lever is balanced in the stillness of the fulcrum."
"The toxemia of unbalance is man's only ailment. There is no other ailment. Therefore, give him balance."
"Body hath no existence. It is but motion and motion existeth not."
"All creating forms are but spectrum waves of dual light of My electric thinking. Forms are illusions produced by the motion of light-waves. Light waves springeth from imagined extension of My thinking."
"Wave of dual light of My thinking are not My Light, nor are they Me. They extendeth from Me to manifest My knowing and My power, as the lever extendeth from the fulcrum to mainfest the power which is in the fulcrum. But the lever is not the fulcrum nor is the dual light of electric thinking Me."
"Electric waves of motion, which are My body, are electrically sensed with an awareness of each other. Senses are wave mirrors which reflect their ever changing condition to every other wave in My whole universal body, and all of its extensions."
"Senses are mirrors which intercommunicate with each other by reflecting their light into - and through - each other. Thus are all of my creations, reflections of Me and of each other. Man calleth the reflected interchange between the senses 'an electric current'"
"Man's early aeons of living for sensing alone - with but little thinking - and lesser knowing - bred fear, selfishness, and greed in his body."
"When thinking My knowing with Me, he (man) findeth Balance in Me to void the pairs of opposites of his unbalanced thinking and is made whole by find rest in Me."
"All idea of My thinking is divided into pairs of opposites unbalanced conditions."
"Male sex and female sex are opposite unbalance conditions of the one idea of man. These two opposed conditions void each other by finding rest from motion in each other."
"Opposite unbalanced conditions are as a lever in motion swinging from its still fulcrum. In the fulcrum is the one unchanging condition of Balance from which the two changing unbalanced conditions extend."
"So long as the lever swingeth in motion its opposites are unbalanced. When the swinging of the lever ceaseth, the lever is balanced in the stillness of the fulcrum."
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Force vs. Matter
I've been reading some more Vitvan books. The latest one has allowed me to see some things a different way. The book is called "Self-Mastery Through Meditation".
So behind all matter is a force. There are lines of force that are the building blocks or the structure behind our material bodies. "God geometrizes" he says. Think about a magnet that arranges iron fillings into geometrical patterns. Everything in the "differentiated" or non-absolute world arranges this way.
I will look at it like this. We have a vision of ourselves that we create. This is the positive action or force. This is the geomatrization. Except our thinking is out of balance and so we create unbalanced archetypes or structures. The material world is that which fills this mind construct we have of ourselves (makes it OBJECTive). It is passive or negative. The material body is simply an extension of the force. The material body is only unbalanced because the mental construct that created it was unbalanced. This is why it is considered passive. The material body cannot bypass the force of the lower self will that created it and go to the source or true Self to become perfectly balanced. It is passively resigned to that of the lower will. So in essence you are not the body, but you are also not the lower self - these are only extensions along the descending chain.
So we talk about finding or becoming the higher Self. It is taught that we do this by becoming still. I have quoted a lot William Law and Jacob Boehme. Their way of expressing this is to say die to the self will and become nothing to yourself. Fall in line with God's Will. So to me in putting all of this together, you become nothing to your mind. You stop all bodily movement, you stop all thinking, lose all desires, etc. You become unconscious of yourself. In doing so you lose that force that created the unbalanced body. The canvas becomes blank. You have wiped the slate clean. The errant structure you created becomes a vacuum. This is where the Higher Self or God comes in and can input His template. His perfect thinking can now become manifest in the lower worlds. The Word becomes flesh.
I will now quote the section that stimulated me into writing the above paragraphs:
"The field determines the action. All that exists follows that 'law.' Even the pattern of your thoughts, your desires, your feelings, your feel-knowings are determined by some field, a field differentiated out of the Mother Substance.
This is an important point to catch on to. If, in the emerging process, we come to a stage where we experience that urge to transcend the slower expanding process then we need to stop all effort. We need to be still and know. That knowing is on the field level. Do not turn to the aristotelian manifold of values to understand that statement. I am not talking about getting the 'body' still, although that is part of it. Right now I am focused on stilling any action that is self-conscious: feeling, desiring, loving or thinking. To cooperate with that urge to accelerate the process we must bring all self-conscious action into a state of abeyance. If we can do that then That which motivates all action will appear in the consciousness.
Think of drawing all the air out of a bottle until we create a vacuum. When there is the least opportunity that vacuum will release and fill the bottle with air. In the same way the differentiating Power of the unifying process (at whatever state) will occupy the consciousness the moment you refrain from all self-conscious action. So be still. Ultimately, with no effort, It is there. And that is what we mean when we say, "The Power with which we seek is the Power for which we are seeking."
Thank you Vitvan.
So behind all matter is a force. There are lines of force that are the building blocks or the structure behind our material bodies. "God geometrizes" he says. Think about a magnet that arranges iron fillings into geometrical patterns. Everything in the "differentiated" or non-absolute world arranges this way.
I will look at it like this. We have a vision of ourselves that we create. This is the positive action or force. This is the geomatrization. Except our thinking is out of balance and so we create unbalanced archetypes or structures. The material world is that which fills this mind construct we have of ourselves (makes it OBJECTive). It is passive or negative. The material body is simply an extension of the force. The material body is only unbalanced because the mental construct that created it was unbalanced. This is why it is considered passive. The material body cannot bypass the force of the lower self will that created it and go to the source or true Self to become perfectly balanced. It is passively resigned to that of the lower will. So in essence you are not the body, but you are also not the lower self - these are only extensions along the descending chain.
So we talk about finding or becoming the higher Self. It is taught that we do this by becoming still. I have quoted a lot William Law and Jacob Boehme. Their way of expressing this is to say die to the self will and become nothing to yourself. Fall in line with God's Will. So to me in putting all of this together, you become nothing to your mind. You stop all bodily movement, you stop all thinking, lose all desires, etc. You become unconscious of yourself. In doing so you lose that force that created the unbalanced body. The canvas becomes blank. You have wiped the slate clean. The errant structure you created becomes a vacuum. This is where the Higher Self or God comes in and can input His template. His perfect thinking can now become manifest in the lower worlds. The Word becomes flesh.
I will now quote the section that stimulated me into writing the above paragraphs:
"The field determines the action. All that exists follows that 'law.' Even the pattern of your thoughts, your desires, your feelings, your feel-knowings are determined by some field, a field differentiated out of the Mother Substance.
This is an important point to catch on to. If, in the emerging process, we come to a stage where we experience that urge to transcend the slower expanding process then we need to stop all effort. We need to be still and know. That knowing is on the field level. Do not turn to the aristotelian manifold of values to understand that statement. I am not talking about getting the 'body' still, although that is part of it. Right now I am focused on stilling any action that is self-conscious: feeling, desiring, loving or thinking. To cooperate with that urge to accelerate the process we must bring all self-conscious action into a state of abeyance. If we can do that then That which motivates all action will appear in the consciousness.
Think of drawing all the air out of a bottle until we create a vacuum. When there is the least opportunity that vacuum will release and fill the bottle with air. In the same way the differentiating Power of the unifying process (at whatever state) will occupy the consciousness the moment you refrain from all self-conscious action. So be still. Ultimately, with no effort, It is there. And that is what we mean when we say, "The Power with which we seek is the Power for which we are seeking."
Thank you Vitvan.
Thought of the Moment
We often have a new experiences and try to fit them into the framework of the world that we have already created. We limit ourselves by confining a transcendent idea to the box that we have created based on past experiences. Instead of letting the new idea free=flow into what it truly is we distort it trying to fit it into our present worldview. Don't deny new experiences and ideas because your language has nothing that can categorize or define. Stop labeling yourself, stop committing yourself to a certain path. Let the seed unfold as it desires. Let the new ideas flow like water. Be the passive observer.
In a sense, I think what I am saying is don't be afraid to think abstractly. This is the only true way to evolve that I can see, it is a process of expansion. You will get called crazy because you deal in terms of energy and things unseen by the materialist but who cares what they think. You're showing the person who lives in a box that he is a slave. He is afraid of what his peers will think of him. He is afraid to step out of the normal patterns of society and stand alone. You are not though, you are comfortable being the eagle who soars ever higher barely visible to those who dwell below on the ground. Eventually your abstract thinking will reach a point where you know based on your feeling, based on your personal experience and developed intuition.
In a sense, I think what I am saying is don't be afraid to think abstractly. This is the only true way to evolve that I can see, it is a process of expansion. You will get called crazy because you deal in terms of energy and things unseen by the materialist but who cares what they think. You're showing the person who lives in a box that he is a slave. He is afraid of what his peers will think of him. He is afraid to step out of the normal patterns of society and stand alone. You are not though, you are comfortable being the eagle who soars ever higher barely visible to those who dwell below on the ground. Eventually your abstract thinking will reach a point where you know based on your feeling, based on your personal experience and developed intuition.
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