...

DEVACHAN

—

LESSON 131

To those who are practically ignorant of the basic realities of life

would say again as I have said before in effect, they have no adequate

[TT 339] conception of the devachanic plane or the conditions of

existence on that plane when they jeopardize all that is desirable and

possible of individual existence on that plane by filling their minds

full of the trivialities of their present life, and their auric sphere with

reflections from other minds which will afford no basis for a real

devachanic bliss.

As you would smile tenderly though pityingly at your child's

concept of maturity, so "those who know" can only smile wistfully at

your feeble concepts of life in its maturer aspects when those concepts

are devoid of evil. We often hear an undeveloped disciple voice his

desire to "renounce devachan" for the purpose of returning at once to

earth life, for the good of humanity. This occurs as a result of hearing

or reading of such a consummation by some high Initiate, but the

words are spoken in utter ignorance of that which must be renounced,

or even of their power to make such a renunciation.

Such a disciple is no more capable of making an intelligent

renunciation of that character thon would be a three-year-old child.

If you to whom I speak are among this class, I can assure you that

you might as well say you will renounce the period between meals,

given to digestion and assimilation of the food you take to sustain

your body ; for one period is as necessary to the soul as the other is to

the body.

If you had evolved to the degree where material food was no

more requisite to the health of the body, as have those higher Initiates,

you might then be able to make such a statement with more

understanding. Instead of impossible renunciation of devachan, it

would be more to the purpose if you would use the energy so lost, in

strengthening your high ideals or forming new ones which would

furnish the substance for assimilation in your devachanic life.

Many wrong ideas are prevalent concerning the nature of

subconscious life. Devachan is supposed to be a state of self-

deception, a dream. If you consider your present life a dream, then

also are you justified in considering devachan a dream, and not

otherwise, for one is as real as the other.

I would ask you : "To what degree have you penetrated the hidden

desires, motives, and private acts of the friend to whom you are most

devotedly attached ?" "Is not the fact that you are utterly unable to

reach to those hidden places one of the chief sources of the discontent

you feel whenever he or she is absent from you, and even when

present in a lesser degree ?" You can never get close enough to your

friend to satisfy your desire, and it is because of your belief in his

possession of virtues now concealed from you that you so desire

closer intimacy with your friend. It is not the faults, the weaknesses,

the [TT 340] contemptible little things of the lower nature that you are

so desirous of contacting. Your devachanic experience, so far as that

one friend is concerned, is a full realization of the highest attributes of

your friend, a unifying of your consciousness with the higher aspects

of that soul, and all the virtues and beauties of mind and body which

you believe exist and which do exist in the Higher Self of that friend.

You cannot so identify yourself with your friend in earth life, but

you can "lay up treasures in heaven" by your desire for and

appreciation of beautiful attributes, your appreciation of beautiful

things, where, metaphorically speaking, no moth or rust of the lower .

the material . self can corrupt or destroy, or thieves break through to

steal them. If you could not come to some knowledge of those

attributes and assimilate them into your consciousness in your

devachanic experience you could never bring them into manifestation

in yourself, no matter how many earth lives you might live.

However much you may desire immediate re-embodiment, so

long as there is a single higher attribute still undeveloped in your

nature a period of devachan is a necessity and is desirable. The

majority of adult human beings absolutely require the rest of devachan

as much as they do the rest of sleep ; for the astral brain . the seat of

the skandas . becomes as weary as does the physical brain in the case

of the undeveloped.

...

SINCERITY

—

132

Look askance at the man who maliciously attacks his own

country, his home, or the organization to which he belongs. You may

be sure he is either revenging himself for some deserved punishment,

or has some selfish purpose to carry out.

If a man is sincere in trying to correct a supposedly wrong

condition, and is capable of so correcting it, he will devise a better

condition, prove it feasible in his own life, and then present it to

others. He may be sure that if it is really better than the previous

condition, it will at once appeal to the intuition of all concerned, for

everyone wants better conditions.

It is neither necessary nor right to use the weapons of a coward or

a cur to accomplish a good purpose. The law of progression furnishes

the impulse and points the way for such accomplishment. [TT 341]

...

RADICAL ACTION

—

LESSON 133

There are certain definite cycles in the lives of the more

conservative lines of action time being or the evolution of man or

nation will be sadly threatened, if not temporarily stopped ; cycles in

which sentiment and the higher attributes of mercy and forgiveness

must seem to take on characteristics which are foreign to them during

other cycles.

The law of cycles is as applicable to those attributes as it is to all

other phases of manifestation, and the lowest arc of the cycle of a

sentiment would coincide with the lowest arc of a racial or world

cycle ; and the interaction between the controlling forces back of the

evolving of such a sentiment and the more materialistic aspects of life

which were dominating the race during that particular racial cycle

would be stronger and more incessant than at other periods.

As is usually the case, humanity at large only perceives the

effects, scarcely ever the causes which lie back of the changeable

phenomena which make up its life experiences. It jumps to the

conclusion that it is the cruelty, injustice, wrong living of one class

which is responsible for the enforced suffering and Nard conditions

under which other classes are living. That karmic action and cyclic

law have compelled the manifestation of the conditions that have bred

the class hatred, always in evidence at such periods, does not occur to

either class.

The class in power recognizes the fact that something must be

done to change the conditions which are making for class hatred, but it

does not know what to do to achieve such change. It is as ignorant of

the real facts as are its supposed victims.

A stronger band than theirs is at the helm of the universal ship, a

hand which is in readiness to demand justice for outraged law, and it

chooses just such a period as I have mentioned, when the lowest arcs

of the cycles of sentiment and justice are in opposition-a tune when

radical action is necessary, whatever its effect on individual and

collective man.

As there are cycles in individual life when virtue cannot be

regained by limiting vice, times when merciless, radical action is the

only possible cure for diseases of the mind or body, so, similar cycles

come in national and universal life. The seemingly unnatural and

unnecessarily cruel wars which have occurred from time to time

between two factions of a single nation, as well as the bodies of

people are sacrificed to some ideal, [TT 342] or for some selfish

purpose-have always materialized at such periods as I have referred

to ; and until mankind can realize that strong, determined, radical

action is equally possible and far more effective on fines of unification

than on fines of disorganization, and therefore that it is possible to use

all the radical forces generated at the lowest arc of a cycle for

purposes of good instead of evil, he will continue to slaughter his

fellow man, and then build monuments to his glory, and sing psalms

of victory over what are in truth terrible defeats.

But before collective man can utilize the power that may be at his

command in such a manner, individual man must learn to do the same

thing ; and while he selfishly continues to break down, where he

should be building, while he cajoles and deceives when radical action

is imperative, and uses radical action where the higher conservative

action is atone lawful, he is only a victim of the forces which gather at

the nether pole of a cycle.

War is only necessary between man and man so long as humanity

is blind to the purposes, power and scope of the irresponsible,

semiconscious forces of natural life, which may be used even more

effectually in pursuance of peace than of its opposite, war. These

forces can be used for the uplifting of a race which has fallen under

their action at a time when such action was directed by destructive

agencies.

It is a sad mistake to accept the theory that the forces of the

negative aspect, the lowest point in the arc of a cycle, are responsible

for the evil deeds committed by mankind at that period. The negative

aspect of any natural force or object is evil only because the forces of

the negative aspect are used FOR evil. In no way is this truth more

easily demonstrated than by the good man who is great enough to sink

himself to the level of the man who has fallen low in the scale of life

and lost all hope of betterment. Only by reaching down to the level of

the other man can he possibly understand the fall of the latter, and lay

the fines of regeneration.

Once awaken the hope of valuable service to mankind in the

breast of a man, and the negative forces which under wrong direction

have worked for his undoing will work just as strongly for his

uprising. This fact may not be generally accepted because of the

evident difficulties in the way and the backsliding experienced by the

man who is trying to rise from a fall. But the latter are all due to auto-

suggestion. He has set up definite currents in his astral atmosphere

which can only be retarded and finally destroyed by personal effort

and direction ; but the same energy he used in the carrying out of

wrong suggestion can be used in carrying out right suggestion ;

however, it requires a strong directing impulse, either by some more

virile man or by the awakened [TT 343] soul of the that energy in the

right direction, and this is where radical action is essential.

No amount of sentiment or precept will fulfil the purpose which

positive example and radical action will accomplish in such an

instance. The races of mankind die out at the lowest point in the arc of

a great cycle when the negative forces are the most active, because

they have been drawing on those forces for selfish and evil purposes

during the whole of the second and third quarters of that cycle, and the

people are surcharged with that one aspect of life. The builders . the

semiconscious elementals of the negative force . have become in turn

the destroyers through wrong direction.

...

THE INTERMEDIATE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND

MANS RELATION THERETO

—

LESSON 134

The revelations of ancient and modern science are rapidly

drawing to a focus. It is now but a matter of nomenclature and the

bigotry of a few modern authorities on physics that are keeping the

world at large from a recognition of the spiritual truths which underlie

all phenomena, and therefore which are responsible for the continued

disputations, and the waste of time, means and strength which could

be applied to more important investigation in those fields which would

render the most satisfying results. When some one of the said

authorities proudly proclaims the discovery of a state of matter

hitherto unknown to, and unimaginable by, his contemporaries, and

practically denies the existence of the same state of matter, on the

following day, even deriding the descriptions given by some ancient

authority in a similar field of investigation, and who takes such a

course owing to the fact that the matter indicated by the ancients has

been placed in the field of metaphysics instead of the field of physics,

and can only be identified by some term in common use by

metaphysicians, he is only adding to the confusion in the minds of the

masses.

If he would even permit an analogy, a correspondential possibility

to gain a vantage point in his own dogmatic mind, and put it out as a

working theory, the mind of some embryonic scientist or philosopher

possibly less well equipped in some ways, yet more intuitive, would

go right to the root of the difficulty and throw a flood of light on all

phases of the subject. [TT 344]

Wonderful discoveries are announced from time to time in current

literature, discoveries which have been prevented by the Initiates up to

the present tune for the reason that their open announcement might do

exactly what I have intimated, i. e., set some intuitive mind to work at

a problem which the world was not ready to solve advantageously to

itself, and which might have led to outbursts of crime far exceeding in

brutality and wickedness any which had preceded them, such, for

instance, as the burning of the so-called witches. It was the claim

made by metaphysicians of their belief in and knowledge of an

intermediate state of existence and the inhabitants of that state, as well

as the power of the latter to influence sensitives on the physical plane

to injure others by occult methods, which was primarily responsible

for the perpetration of that blot upon civilization termed the era of

witchcraft. Yet the recent announcement by an accepted authority of

the discovery of a state of matter which is in fact identical with the

state and plane of matter discovered by the before-mentioned

metaphysicians by means of their investigations into psychic

phenomena, does not cause a ripple of excitement.

This new discovery, or rather re-discovery, relates to the existence

of minute organisms given the names of cathode corpuscles, and

negative electrons. The existence of these minute lives was quite

clearly indicated in the instruction on Light, given to Templars over a

decade ago.

The emissions, absorptions, and radiations of Light are the bases

of all matter in manifestation, both on the exterior and interior planes

of life. But as long as man refuses to accept the fact of the Spiritual

Sun . the source of all light . he will continue to work in practical

darkness. While he considers the etheric plane as merely the medium

by means of which light and sound waves are conveyed, instead of the

eternal mode of motion of all life . spiritual Light, he will work in a

circle. He will accept and reject his corpuscular theory by turns. The

atomic, ionic, interionic, and all other component parts of his

corpuscles will give him subject matter to theorize about, but he must

eventually accept the facts as given out by the Masters of Wisdom.

Man must experience in order to know, and the before-mentioned

autocrats of modern science must bow their heads to the Level of the

little child and accept unequivocally the facts as given by the votaries

of divine wisdom before it will be possible for them to reach tho

threshold of spiritual experience, which atone holds the key of

knowledge. The dogmatism, egotism and pride engendered by such

successes as they have reached, fanned by the adulation of those who

could scarcely comprehend, much less interpret, their dissertations on

their [TT 345] discoveries, prevents them from reaching the attitude

most requisite for such experience as I have mentioned.

They cannot cross the bar simple faith has set up at the gate of

knowledge, nor can they understand the nature of the substance of that

bar. Although they may reach that substance by inductive methods,

can see and touch it in their investigations, yet they must turn sadly

and disappointedly away each time because of their inability or

unwillingness to cross the bar. But it is being crossed by others in all

quarters of the world, and the discoveries being made by those others

are fast destroying all obstacles, and are building the neutral structure

between the two poles of endeavor within which the two phases of the

one great and divine science can meet and mingle, and from which

will go out to the whole world the glad tidings of great joy.

...

BLOOD SACRIFICE

—

LESSON 135

Every milestone of the path of human progress has been marked

with blond up to the present time, and will continue to be so marked

until all matter is redeemed. Many men have striven rightly to

interpret the statement imputed to the Apostle Paul to the effect that

without the shedding of blond there can be no remission of sin. The

same or similar statements have been uttered by the Initiate teachers at

some time in the first half of every racial period since man became a

self-conscious, responsible being, and they have been to voice the

necessity of sacrifice for broken law. These statements have usually

been called forth as the result of the sacrifice of the life of some great

teacher or leader of men ; but that they might more particularly refer

to a fact in nature . the action of a universal law was seldom

recognized.

The blond is the vehicle of Prana . material life force, whether

that life force is circulating through human or animal veins, or through

the sap of a tree or the molecules of a stone. When the term "blond

sacrifice" was used by the ancients to indicate the redemption of a race

or a world from the power of evil, it was used in a generic sense, and

included all containers and conveyors of life force, whatever their

form or character, which could be compelled to render up that life

force in a sacrificial rite. [TT 346]

The law of karma is generally understood to apply to self-

conscious beings atone, but that is a mistake, for its action is just as

certain, though not so radical nor pronounced, in the case of every

molecule of living matter as it is in the case of man.

Every such molecule of living matter embodies an embryonic . a

rudimentary . soul, that is on its way to self-conscious existence, and

which is therefore subject to the laws which govern all self-conscious

forms of life . the laws of karma, reincarnation and eternal progress.

No race or kingdom of living things or beings, whether it be

human, animal, vegetable or mineral, can rise to the next succeeding

degree beyond its status at the close of a racial period, until its racial

indebtedness is remitted by the shedding of blond ; that is, by the

yielding up of its bodily envelopes, in order that the value of the

experiences lived through by the constituent molecules of those

envelopes, may be impressed upon them by contact with the spiritual

life forces of a higher plane of existence, and so receive the impetus to

greater endeavor when they shall again be assembled in some more

concrete material embodiment. These lesser elemental lives must be

freed from constriction and confinement in form before such spiritual

impetus can be given ; as the soul of man must be freed from the

physical form, either in concentration, sleep, or death, in order to

contact the spiritual forces or beings of higher forms of consciousness,

and receive the impetus to continued growth.

This is one of the great mysteries of life which science rejects

because it cannot prove, but which is nevertheless at the very root of

evolution. If this truth be accepted it is not difficult to understand why

it is that it is only the dead thing, whether it be a dead world, a dead

government, or a dead enterprise, that can stand still. As long as either

one is alive organic change is inevitable. Change is dependent upon

motion and every mode of motion is incited by Spiritual entities.

The man who departs from any form of established life for the

purpose of realizing some ideal must pay the price of his departure,

and he pays it by yielding up some feature or phase of his life,

whether it be his literal blond, or a higher grade of the conveyors of

life force embodied in his mentality or soul. Those who come after

him will profit by his sacrifice to the extent that he has benefited by

the sacrifice of others ; but he, that is, the Ego, the real man, will come

back into sentient life to share in the success he has been instrumental

in creating by his sacrifice.

It may be that a government, an association of people, a tribe or a

family has arisen in beauty, strength and power, only to yield up its

life as a body, in turn, to make way for a higher form of associated

[TT 347] life in another day and age. But the Ego which presided over

the first-sacrifice made for the ideal condition will share in the

benefits as well as the succeeding sacrifices of the body with which it

was thus connected.

Whenever you see a man rise to the height of a great sacrifice you

may be sure countless numbers of lesser sacrifices lie behind him, as

you may be sure he is on the point of receiving the benefits he has

thus earned, for justice rides the universe. Man builds his ladder step

by step if he would reach to an eminence.

To the onlooker it seems a great pity that so much apparently

needless sacrifice is being constantly made. It appears to be a calamity

that the inevitable destroyer must come in and annul the fruits of great

labor, and of sacrifice unbounded, but the elementary forces, the lesser

lives which make up the hosts of the destroyers, whether their work is

done by inciting human hatred or other passions to destructive acts, or

whether that work is done in the great storms and upheavals of earth,

or by any other one of natures methods of destruction . those

elementary hosts are doing the work for which they were created, and

are agents of karmic law on the way to higher forms of development.

The great ideals of the Gods and of men, atone are eternal, all else

is change, all else is sacrificial ; so "be not attached to the fruits of

action." Live aright today and the morrow will be right ; live wrongly

today and tomorrow will surely bring you remorse and

discouragement. Do not look forward to the results of your brother's

sacrifices of today with expectation of individual advantage at some

later day, for it is only your own sacrifices that will bring you

individual attainment. You will be partaker in the results of your

brother's shedding of his life force in so far as you have stood by your

brother in his needed trial, and therefore have shed your own blood .

your own life force . whether it be the blond of the soul or body, at

the same time.

Remember, sacrifice is the law of all life and progress. Without

sacrifice there is no remission of sin, no wiping out of evil, of

inharmony, of death. The assertion that a brother's blond will cry out

from the ground for vengeance is generally believed to have been used

in a figurative sense, but to the advanced psychic it is seen to be a

statement of fact ; for with the expulsion of blond from . an animal or

human body there occurs a premature reuniting, a commingling of the

earth and fire elementals from which the material constituents of the

blond originally came, and a demand is thereby made on the universal

law by those elementals for payment of the debt contracted by the one

who has cast [TT 348] fore the time when they would have been

released by natural law, and so given the opportunity for the higher

impulse before referred to ; for the law decrees that the souls of

mortals who die violent deaths shall remain in Kama Loka until the

day of their appointed end, at which tune they are released to attain to

Devachan and to receive the higher, the spiritual impulse, and the

same law is correspondingly active in the case of the lesser lives

which make up the physical body of man. In fact it is largely the

breaking of this law which has given cause for the confinement of the

soul in Kama Loka during the aforementioned interval, in the cases of

those who die violent deaths. Violent death is unnatural death, and

nature cannot be thwarted.

The conditions in which the violently expelled blond elementals

are involved are comparable to the conditions which obtain in Kama

Loka, where all is confusion and unintermittent change ; consequently

conditions of suffering in various degrees.

...

TO THOSE WHO SUFFER

—

LESSON 136

Is there one among your number or among your friends and

acquaintances who would not raise a hand in response to a question as

to the need of sympathy at some time when the waves of sorrow had

beaten down the last stronghold of materiality ; in some hour when the

very depths of suffering had been sounded and the soul was atone with

God ; when no human succor was possible ; when all that lay between

life and death was whatever degree of the power of endurance that

soul had developed ?

If memory can recall such an hour with sufficient vividness, does

it not also remind you of the agonized promises you made to your

better self, to your God, to undo some wrong you had done, or to do

some righteous action which might change the current of your life, if

so be you might find relief ?

Even death would be welcome at such an hour if there were no

other way of bringing surcease of suffering to soul or body, as the case

might be.

You may not know it, but you touched the Godhead, in that

moment or hour in the depths, far closer, more intimately than you had

ever done before, or could do again unless like conditions obtained ;

and something was given you in that touch that you had never

possessed [TT 349] before, something which forevermore separated

you from the self of matter you had previously served. Whatever name

or title you choose to bestow upon that gift, whether the gift was an

expression of divine Love, Sympathy, or a mutual understanding, it

matters not, it was in all truth a part of God's essence bestowed upon

you.

If you have permitted that gift to lie idle, or have only drawn

capon it when a claim was made by a personal friend, or when some

national calamity pounded so hard at the door of your heart that you

had to open the door in self defense, you are forfeiting the greatest

opportunity given to man, and one for which will be demanded a most

rigid accounting.

It should make no difference to you who or what a sufferer may

be or may have been, what had been the original cause of his

suffering, or what was going to be done eventually with the results of

your awakened sympathy. The one thing that should count with you is

the fact that for the moment or hour you have been graciously

permitted to become a vehicle for the transmission of that gift of the

Holy Spirit to another human soul, that you have been enabled to

radiate the same divine Essence, by and through which you had

become godlike for the time being.

Your own exemption from infinitely worse suffering than you had

ever endured was hanging in the balance when the unspoken call was

made capon you to share that divine gift with another. You have

nothing whatever to do with the results of such expenditures, whether

they take the form of spiritual or material things. The responsibility of

the results rests capon the God who incited you to that action in that

never to be forgotten hour while in the depths of your own suffering.

Though you have been forgetful of, and ungrateful for that gift at

times, you still have faith to believe that there will come a tune when

you will NOT forget, and when Gratitude will become a permanent

possession.

Believing this, can you not also realize that repeated efforts will

sometime bring others to the place where they will not forget what

you did for them while they too were "in the depths" ?

Therefore you have no cause to fear the final effect of any good

act, whatever its temporary aspect.

High or low, black or white, educated or uneducated, human

beings are much alike when it comes to the real, the vital things of

their complex lives, and there are some notes in the grand scale to

which every soul must respond.

Do I hear you say "but what of the evils of ingratitude ? Would

not such indifference on the part of one incite to equal indifference on

[TT 350] the part of the other ?" Ah, my child, again I say you need

not concern yourself with the results of any righteous act. You may

safely leave such results with the giver of the gift you received in your

hour of exaltation, for He hath other gifts in His power, and your

expression of sympathy may prepare the recipient for the coming of

the gift of Gratitude . the key which will unlock the fart closed door

of the heart that has been seared by the cruelty, the coldness and

indifference of the world at large. You may joy in the gratitude of

another, but you may not demand that gift as your right.

Not many, even among the most orthodox Christians, have ever

fully interpreted that most occult saying of the Master Jesus .

Whosoever will give a cup of cold water in my name the same is my

disciple."

What the cup of cold water is to the dried, parched lips of the

desert . worn traveler, such is the dew of sympathy and help to the

lonely soul in the depths of suffering ; and if it be given in the name

which means in the power of the Christ . there is also imparted the

spiritual power, Endurance, the power to rise above and conquer the

restricting elementals which have plunged that soul into those depths.

You are in the throes of a vast opportunity. A like baptism of Fire

to that which descended upon the disciples of Jesus, in the "upper

chamber", is falling today on all people whose hearts are open to its

flames.

The tongues of flame, and the tongues which gave utterance,

during that fiery deluge, to strange languages, were of one and the

same nature ; both were tokens of the power of the Christ to impart

knowledge of the strange new language of human brotherhood.

The man or woman in the depths of suffering is a Christ . given

opportunity to all those who can hear the call of the sufferer ; and may

God have mercy on the human soul who perceives that call and

refuses to respond to it, for there will be no mercy shown that one

when the decrees of evolutionary law are uttered by the blind

administrators of that law ; and there will arise no pleader in the name

. that is, in the power of the name . in the power of those tongues of

flame . the power of the Christ, which was bestowed upon that one

when God the Son recombined the God in man with man in God, in

that moment or hour "in the depths."

It will be of no consequence whether you be a member of a

church or any other organization, or a free lance among the

unorganized, but it will be of much consequence whether or not you

are able to hear the call of your Higher Self.

It may be made through my lips at the present moment, or

through the lips of a child, a beggar, a woman of the street, or a prison

bound [TT 351] criminal, at the next moment, but whenever or

however it should bring back to you some measure of your own

experience, and incite you to answer . and then to forget that you had

answered, if you are inclined to expect an outer expression of

appreciation.

You will fend it difficult to hear that call if your inner ears are

still sealed by the sense of separateness . the belief that separation

between bodies extends to souls.

Only the realization of the essential unity of all things, all people,

will unseal the ears and eyes of the soul, and finally bring about the

annihilation of suffering.

...

PREPAREDNESS

—

LESSON 137

—

Published February, 1913

The criminal indifference or mental indolence of a large majority

of the white race in view of their present defenseless position, on the

one band, and their inane, inadequate plans for such defense as seems

needful to them on the other band, could only be sustained by a race

blinded by egotism and self-adulation, and can only result in the

destruction of the race as a race, when the hour strikes for the next

cyclic upheaval of races (as strike it must in a comparatively short

time), unless some worldwide awakening to the real facts in the case

takes place and a united, determined effort is made to correct the

mistakes that have resulted from the use of wrong educational

methods. Those mistakes have been made in the face of prophecy,

payable, warning, and entreaty sounded from pulpit, lecture platform

and in various literary productions, from wherever and by whomever

the light of wisdom has escaped ; and today the thinking people stand

aghast at the possibilities presenting themselves.

Spasmodic efforts put forth by first one and then another for the

formation of a peace pact between nations will be fruitless of expected

results, nor could such efforts ever succeed unless all interested

factors combined could recognize and use the knowledge of spirits .

spiritual and psychic forces which are at present only perceptible to a

few.

At the apogee of a racial period the divine impulse of cyclic law

sets into action certain elemental farces which destroy those races

which [TT 352] have not utilized their opportunities to the full, and

finally uses the energy generated in the process of the destruction of

one race, for the building up of another race. Paradoxical as it seems,

it requires a corresponding amount of life force to kill that it does to

create.

The yellow and the brown races have retained possession of a

divine power won by them in other ages and incarnations . the power

of concentration. Not even their subsequent degradation and loss

could rob them entirely of that power, and it is their consciousness of

the possession and availability of that power that will furnish the

dynamic force back of their plans of warfare in any struggle with a

white race.

A large majority of the last named race have either ignored,

neglected or despised the evidences of such a power as that possessed

by the brown and yellow races and formerly by the red races when

such evidence was forced on their notice, notwithstanding their

knowledge of the resultant strength, endurance, contempt of physical

pain and even of life itself. One of the evidences of the possession of

this power is national and racial devotion and this devotion will

supply the ideal needful as a base for the concentrated effort and the

wise direction of the energy now being utilized in building up,

equipping and training their armies. Once utilized in subduing and

governing natural desires and functions of life and in the performance

of magic and psychic phenomena, it bas been turned in the opposite

direction, and we would ask what preparation bas the white race made

for meeting and combating such forces when launched against it with

destructive intent ?

It would be a very grave mistake for one to consider it incumbent

upon or excusable in him or her to make an intimate connection with

one of the opposite sex of an antagonistic race merely because it had

been prophesied that similar connections were inevitable at some

future time.

The great benefit to be derived from prophecy is the opportunity

which previous knowledge of coming events affords man to equip

himself with the requisites for meeting the rapid changes incidental to

the coming of such events ; changes which occur in ever increasing

ratio as time brings the event closer, and such changes inevitably

affect the lives of those who are influenced by the shadowy outlines of

the event . the men and women who see and feel intuitively that far

reaching incidents are occurring in some interior field of activity, yet

who without special guidance or prophetical knowledge are unable to

grasp the proportions of such incidents and seize their individual

opportunities for conserving energies, enlarging perspective, and

strengthening the power of endurance, by persistently practicing

concentration in the daily [TT 353] affairs of life and realizing that

any duty worth performance at all can be better performed if the mind

is fixed immovably upon it for the time being.

The tremendous waste of energy in useless words, passion for

amusement, loss of vital fluids, thirst for abnormal pursuits and the

resultant ennui and brain and nerve exhaustion, is fast sapping the

moral, mental and physical inheritance which came to the present

white race from a more vigorous ancestry, thus making impossible the

concentration of will power and consecration of purpose which atone

will furnish the vital energy requisite for the fulfilling of a great

national purpose or the protection and conservation of a great race.

The egotism which results in accepting as an assured fact that

common theory that a race must be white in color to be supreme in

power is another prolific cause for the apathy of the white race now at

the height of its power, while the truth is that the cyclic opportunity

for the rapid rise of the yellow and brown races is close at band, and

nothing will prevent the eventual supremacy of these races for

centuries to come but the amalgamation of the three races mentioned

and the consequent birth and development of a new race, the long

prophesied Sixth Race.

Such epochs as I have referred to in the history of men can only

occur at the expiration of such vast periods of time that no reliable

records are left in the bands of the people at large, although many

legends and myths survive. The only authentic records of such epochs

are in the bands of the Initiates and are preserved with such extreme

care that the laity have no access to them.

At certain definite periods such knowledge as is requisite for the

races in manifestation during said periods, is given out by the Initiates

who are appointed by the Hierophant of that Degree of the White

Lodge which holds the records and which is the guiding power of that

period. If the race will not accept and heed the information given, it

must bear the results of its indifference or wilfulness. A perfect stream

of such knowledge and information bas been poured out on the

humanity of this age within the last half century. In isolated cases it is

appreciated and utilized, but the world-wide enthusiasm and effort, the

impulse, the wave of ardent endeavor which should rise and swell to

such a height as to overwhelm the error, supineness and self-

satisfaction of those to whom that knowledge bas been given, have

hardly started, and time is flying.

Life is a constant battle at the best and it makes incalculable

difference what impulse and purpose nerves the ram, sharpens the

battle axes or propels the bullets. Symbolically and literally, the

generalship, [TT 354] the marksmanship, the calibre of weapons and

men and these are all dependent upon the forces of concentration and

devotion inherent in a race . the two forces which the white race have

not sufficiently developed up to the present moment. Where is the

man who will speak the word or write the treatise that will lift the life

wave of enthusiastic effort into motion ?

...

THE ETERNAL TRAGEDY

—

LESSON 138

Year after year, century after century, cycle upon cycle passes

without any appreciable change, so far as may be observed, in the

character, the desires and aims of the masses of the human race. What

wonder at the revolt of the individual man or woman who has been

partially awakened from thrall to things . to imaginary national, social

and family requirements, when those requirements are seen to be but

the results of the prostitution of all the higher instincts and ideals of

those who have passed this way before, or those who are now in the

toils of the same slave drivers . lusts of the flesh . which originally

incited to such prostitution !

I say truly the prostitution of all higher instincts and high ideals,

for wherein does the difference lie between the courtesan who uses

her body for the gaining of gold, and the man or woman who uses

brain and soul for a like purpose when the proceeds of their shame is

used for self-gratification ?

Round after round of the grand cycle, as in a treadmill, goes race

after race under similar conditions, similar aims, impelled to similar

efforts ; and the one man, the one woman, who steps out from among

the masses and points to the manna falling from heaven for the

feeding of the soul, is torn to pieces by the beast . like passions of

man, or crucified on the cross he or she has innocently raised to

indicate the way to the storehouse where the manna o£ other ages still

lies stored.

The deep lined faces of men, the paint-smeared, hardened features

of women, who are now, figuratively speaking, dancing along the

edge of the precipice built of the broken laws of nature, or crouching

under overhanging cliffs . man . made laws . which have made

possible such security as has conduced to the gathering of golden

store ; and both of them sick at heart with fear, or callous and

indifferent to the [TT 355] prophecies of enforced payment of debts,

contracted in defiance of all spiritual law . is it any wonder that men

and women go mad in their helpless, aimless revoit at their bondage,

or sink into abject, cowardly indifference ? "Lo, here, and lo, there",

cry the would . be prophets, themselves powerless to find the safe

path for their own feet to traverse, to say nothing of rightly guiding

others ; and always, in the far distant past as in the present, from the

heaven within a voice is crying, "Seek ye within." "Seek first the

kingdom of God and all things thou desirest shall be given unto thee."

And man says, "No, the last shall be first ; give me now the things I

desire . then will I seek within." He knows not what he really desires,

he only knows what his senses demand for the privilege of using that

body for a season. What he, the real man, the real woman desires

above all else is God, and nothing less will satisfy. But a man must go

naked of soul, as he was naked of body when entering the world, into

that "within :" He can take none of the trappings of lust, of ambition or

greed, with him, and as he will not part with these, the eternal tragedy

is re-enacted moment after moment.

When one who has passed within the gate and caught a glimpse of

the glory beyond tries to tell his fellow men what he has seen his

tongue is completely tied. All that he can do is to point to the path by

which he entered ; and because that path is beset by wild beasts which

have bitten, and mauled, and trampled him, when he shows the scars

of his passage, the eyes of other men, of other women are so fixed

upon those scars they fait to see the light of Shekina shining through

his eyes ; and so they cry, away with him, we will have none of him.

Crucify him ; let him starve or die ; he is a fraud, a lie, fit only for the

subject of a cartoon, an object of scorn. The light dies out of his eyes,

drenched in sorrow for those he cannot serve, even though he gave his

life, because their eyes are holden by the THINGS they have gathered

about them, things of matter and things of mind, both results of their

prostitution.

The last part of the path to the heights of life is cold and dark and

lonely, and the senses cry out for warmth and light and company. But

the coldness, the darkness, and the loneliness are essential for the

freezing of lower desire, the gestation of the embryo of the new life,

the perception that God is all there is of life. Possessing God, the soul

possesses all things desirable.

There are moments in all mature lives when that great truth comes

home to the heart in unmistakable terms, but the things for which man

sells his soul smother the heart's longing, and not knowing what else

to do, the great majority go on collecting more things, to the end of the

great tragedy. [TT 356]

...

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

—

LESSON 139

The one all important subject that is exercising the minds of the

deepest thinkers along religious fines, in this age, is that of the long

prophesied return in the comparatively near future of the Master and

Avatar formerly known as Jesus of Nazareth. The method of His

reappearance, the proof of His identity, the purpose of His coming, the

possibility of recognition, and even His personal presence on earth at

this time, all these and countless minor details are discussed widely,

and in almost all instances from such erroneous points of view as to

render the one who must perforce listen to them in silence while

knowing that he has correct data to base certainties upon, all but

desperately anxious to give vice to the premises which might lead his

listeners to more correct conclusions.

But such a one is so handicapped m that respect by his knowledge

of the action of a certain irrevocable spiritual law that any effort he

might make to impart that knowledge to the unprepared would prove

futile. And it is ignorance of this law, or defiance of the karma which

will be the inevitable result of wilful disobedience to its mandates, that

is primarily responsible for the ease with which countless numbers of

both deceivers and deceived are bringing the subject of the return of

the Avatar into disrepute and even into the fields of caricature.

The words "Cosmic consciousness" have been coined to express a

state of spiritual uplift which the soul of man may enter under certain

conditions of development and where all knowledge is attainable. In

an effort to describe the indescribable in a few words we might say, it

is a state of being in which the consciousness of the individual is

merged in the consciousness of every living thing and being and all

sense of separateness is temporarily lost, while at the same tune the

sense of individuality remains. But no normal human being of the

present races of the earth could remain in bondage to form and

continue to function in that state of exaltation for any length of time ;

consequently when one attains to the state of spiritual consciousness

referred to, the experience is instantaneous. Such an experience cannot

be measured in terms of tune ; were it otherwise the rapid vibrations

of that Spiritual state would disintegrate his gross body. Therefore

when one claims to have attained to a permanent state of "cosmic

consciousness" he is either stating a deliberate falsehood or is self-

deceived as to the nature of the phenomena undergone. Whatever

degree of knowledge and power he had attained to during that

experience, [TT 357] if it were bona fide, would be transferred by

reflection to his brain consciousness, and if the memory tells of

developed they would record and retain the memory of the experience,

but if by any chance his power was limited by the possession of

undeveloped or degenerated memory tells, ambition, or by desire to

use the knowledge so gained for his personal advantage, and he should

forget, ignore, or repudiate one particular detail of the knowledge

gained in such an experience . a detail of infinite importance . and so

should absolutely contribute to the misuse or abuse of that knowledge,

he would plunge headlong into the left band path . the downward path

of life. That particular detail of knowledge is the individual certainty

which tomes during such an experience of the unity of all life, and

consequently the necessity for the entire subjection of his personal

will and desire if he is to take advantage of the knowledge gained.

He could never again say in truth, "I am", "I can", "I will", from

the personal standpoint. He could never again stand forth as an object

for personal aggrandizement. He could never again lay claim to any

personal thing or creature. Much less could he go out among men and

like a braggart make claim to his possession of "cosmic

consciousness." Even the Great Master had to die to, and in the world,

before He was "lifted up", i. e., before He attained to permanent all-

spiritual consciousness.

If it be true that a man has been so "lifted up", and has retained

the knowledge of his unity with all that lives, his associates will tome

to some understanding of that great reality as a result of the influences

set free by his acts and words, as well as his magneto-spiritual

emanations. They will never learn it from his lips ; for if it be indeed

that he has safely passed that supreme test of the disciple, even the

thought of separate interests, of personal deification would be of the

nature of torture to him.

Every Avatar, every Saviour of humanity has successfully passed

that test ere finally reaching Nirvana.

Knowing these facts, there will be no excuse for you if you permit

yourselves to be led astray into worship of "false gods" by

self-advertised "Avatars" ; and happy indeed are you if, knowing these

facts previous to such an experience as I have mentioned, you use

such knowledge to fortify your personal consciousness of the truth of

Unity when it shall be revealed to you by experience ; for in such case

your memory tells would be greatly strengthened, and you would not

be in so much danger of forgetting, denying or repudiating that appear

to lessen your personal importance. [TT 358]

...

THE NEUTRAL CENTER

—

LESSON 140

The evident attraction between people of totally different

character station is a puzzle to those who do not accept the ancient

teachings regarding the action of the lave of opposites.

To the great surprise of acquaintances some pure and innocent

girl will fend a point of attraction in some notorious libertine, or a

clean minded, intelligent young man will be caught in the snare set by

a vicious, depraved woman, and his life be jeopardized or ruined. The

world at large looks on and wonders, oblivious of the fact that there is

a direct current of force operating between the qualities we term virtue

and vice which if left unbroken in the case of any two individuals

caught in that current must inevitably draw the psychic desires of both

to a common center, and a bond be there created which it is well nigh

impossible to break until satiation has driven the two bodies apart.

When that current is consciously broken by an individual it is

done by virtue of an awakened conscience, and such an awakening

comes at a definite time in a life cycle, and always at the lowest point

of the particular spiral round of evolution which is typified in biblical

fore by the return of the Prodigal Son to a normal state of mind. It is at

such a period of satiation, of self analysis, that the victim of the

current of attraction determines to "arise and go to his Father", and ask

to be made a servant, instead of demanding his forfeited right of

sonship ; in other words, when the personal will becomes subservient

to the Divine Will.

But there is in fact the possibility of a prodigal at the pole of

virtue as well as a prodigal at the pole of vice, prodigals of natural

lave. Prodigality of virtue may result in as many complications as

prodigality of vice, and the results of the former serve to create the

environment in which the prodigal men and women will find their

mental and psychic habitat during the days or years of their penitence,

the habitat created by the judges and executioners of the moral and

psychical laves which have been~ broken.

One of these poles is typified by the eider son, of the payable of

the prodigal son, the other by the younger son. In either case when the

point of satiation, the point of self analysis is reached, a new departure

must be made, a new step taken, and that step must be in the direction

of renunciation, submission to the Divine Will, regardless of the

effects on the personality if the power of attraction is to be broken and

the pilgrim is to be freed from oscillation between [TT 359] the two

poles to which he has been subjected ; otherwise there will merely be

a change in position and circumstances in a succeeding incarnation,

instead of such a general rise in the cosmic scale of life, as there well

might be if both eider and younger sons . prodigals both . seized their

opportunities at the appointed time when the lave of evolution had

made such action possible, and so had broken the current first set up

by unfulfilled desire.

The recognized action of the farce of attraction between virtue

and vice has been attributed to the curiosity of those involved, to

abnormality, to fear, to almost everything but that which it truly is in

essence ; namely, one of natures means of testing the calibre, the soul

development, the possibilities, of the evolving soul, whether it be a

human or an animal soul, in order that it may be rightly placed in the

grand scale of life ; and the force used by nature is as material as is the

force of animal magnetism, and its operations are fulfilled by the

divine lave of opposites.

Its poles are positive and negative, masculine and feminine, and at

the point where the before mentioned current is broken, the neutral

center of the force manifests and equilibrium is set up.

The force of human magnetism is set in action between two

people of opposite tendencies and characteristics as soon as they come

together in any close relation on the physical plane, and it depends

altogether upon whether one or the other or both have reached the

point of equilibrium which corresponds to a neutral center, as to

whether the lower degrees of the force of magnetic attraction can be

broken, and one escape from the power of the other. If both are

equally well developed when they meet they will become subject to

higher degrees of the force of magnetism, which operate on a higher

plane of life, and so will transfer their desires to other fields of

endeavor, as for instance may be done by transferring desire from the

physical to the mental, or from the mental to the higher astral planes.

An increase of effort would naturally follow such transfer, but the

nature of the difficulties to be overcome, the limitations to be

conquered would be changed, an increase in power and vitality be

won, and final victory be proportionately greater.