...
THE SEVENTH BREATH
—
LESSON 241
The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Breaths are Universal and
Illimitable. The four lover Breaths are involved with the limitations of
the matter of the corresponding lover planes of existence, and are of
the nature of aspects of the three higher, that is to say, the three
Breaths on the Higher plane become four Breaths on the lover plane
due to the immutable law of the materialization and crystallization of
spiritual forces in and with matter. The Three becomes Four due to
this law of solids as the Triangle with its Three fines on a plane
surface takes on Four sides when it becomes a solidified or material
body. The first solid body possible is the Tetrad, each fine, surface
and angle of which is pregnant with Deific truths.
The four lover Breaths may be briefly defined before considering
the mystery of the Seventh.
The First Breath. This is purely elemental and automatic and is
the lowest of the four lover or outer breaths is [TT 579] rhythmic
molecular respiration, that is, respiration of the molecules. This is
really the lover astral breath which by repercussion on the physical
envelope or body causes the function of outer breathing through the
lungs. Death results when the molecular respiration ceases as the outer
mass breathing must then also cease.
The Second Breath. This is the Vital Breath or Rhythm pulsing .
breathing . in and out of the cells and tissues of the Microcosm. It is
the analogue in the Microcosm of the Great Breath in the Macrocosm.
It is an aspect of Atma in which the synthetic becomes differentiated
and yet retains its synthesis.
Atma is everywhere and yet its lover Breath or rhythm may be
modified, tinctured or colored by the will and desires of the creature.
Thus the creature . man . becomes a builder with the Divine and can
help or retard nature in her, evolutionary purpose as he keeps pure or
pollutes the Second Breath with his images . creations.
The Third Breath. The Third outer Breath is the lover positive
pole of the Sixth which is negative on its higher plane to the Atmic or
Great Breath. The Third is Rupic and its respiratory impulses
materialize the essence of Form by drawing from the Sixth Breath and
so keeps the Rupic or Form principle in manifestation. This applies to
all of the planes. Were this Breath lacking it would be impossible to
clothe our thoughts or ideas in any kind of form whatsoever and the
process of thinking would be impossible with the brain mind. Abstract
thinking is only possible on the highest plane . the so-called planes of
the Formless. Thought on the lover planes is the flashing of a
succession of images (forms) on the sensitive akasic screen of the
inner sensorium of the brain.
The Fourth Breath. This Breath is negative to the Third and Fifth
Breath. It has important functions and is a respiratory rate of balance
between the higher and lover planes. The Fourth Breath inbreathes in
all things and creatures the Light of intelligence . the Knowing
Principle, through being receptive and negative to the impulses of the
Fifth.
The Divinest mysteries centre in the Seventh Breath which is the
Auric Breath. The Seventh Breath is Self-Creative . it has no organ of
action but every cell and atom breathes rhythmically with the Auric
All. When the Seventh Breath is active every cell, molecule and atom
of the nature breathes in perfect unison with the Universal All . the
Great Atmic Breath. Breath is the life, spiritual and material. The
Breaths of all the planes should be coordinated and when this is
accomplished man becomes more than man, he is a Master of Life . a
Master of Breath and is omnipotent. [TT 580]
One-half of man is dead, a corpse, or let us say one-half is still
unborn. It has no breath. Every centre, organ, cell and tissue should
breathe-have its rhythmical vibration or expression. Inner potencies
are thus released as in the seed expressing its germinal potencies by
growth. Every living thing has breath and as everything is alive all
things breathe, including the minerals. Sometimes it is one breath,
sometimes another of the seven breaths, according to the plane and
grade of matter involved. Modem science illustrates this in the case of
seeds which breathe, taking in oxygen and giving out carbon dioxide.
Placed in airtight containers mort seeds will die in a short time. When
about to germinate, wake up, seeds breathe more rapidly and require
more air. Minerals function the inner breath attuned to Universal
Nature. The sun breath has an eleven-year period. The unborn child
functions the inner breath, the mother representing universal nature.
The seventh or Auric Breath is synchronized breathing on all the
planes of self simultaneously and this synthetic breath makes the full
correlation of man with the Higher Self. This Auric Breath marks in
reality the identification of the individual with the universal and the
Auric Breath is the true utterance of the Sacred Word . the Ineffable
Name . as every plane of the self and every cell and atom on every
plane of the Self is in harmonized aspiration with Divine
Consciousness.
July, 1923.
...
THE DUAL POWER
—
From the Master M.
—
LESSON 242
If the ruling hierarchy of a world or a ration does not prepare for
the inevitable counter . attack at the same time it prepares for an
assault on any defended position in life, it will mort surely meet with
final defeat. The name law which makes necessary such provision
holds good in every department of life, cosmical or individual. If man
neglects to prepare for the negative action of a positive act in the line
of religions, business, personal, or family life, it matters not how
successful may be the first effects of his positive act, he will be caught
in the toils of the negative action of the force he has set in motion as
surely as the sun rises and sets each day.
It takes humanity a long time to learn to apply the knowledge it
has gained of mechanical laws to those problems which mort closely
concern his mental and spiritual progress. If the progress of higher
orders of life must depend upon their knowledge of the action of the
raid laws, what chance has the average man of the world to win and
keep what he has won as aids in progression if he refuses or neglects
to act in accordance with the demands of those laws, and consequently
makes no commensurate effort to protect and hold that to which he
aspires to the effort he has put forth to win the same ?
The great failures in all fields of life lie at the doors of indolence
or of ignorance of the one vital necessity for success, i. e., preparation
for the inevitable rebound of the force or object set in motion.
Indolence or excessive self-confidence will leave man open to
disaster, when normal sane methods of procedure in meeting the
reaction of a precipitated force with a like ratio of strength and
endurance to that set free in precipitation would bring success.
You will fend the name laws govern every phase of life, if you
search deeply enough. Life in action is never singular ; it is always
dual. Consequently, no greater service can be given to those units of
humanity who have had no opportunity for absorbing knowledge of
the action of this law Chan by giving constant, unremitting effort to
supply this deficiency.
...
THE STILL SMALL VOICE
—
LESSON 243
The still small voice, wherein alone may man hear the speech of
God, can only be heard at the neutral center of round. The positive
pole of sound is loud and large ; the negative pole is silence. As the
positive decreases in volume as it nears the center, so the negative
increases. When they meet at a given point one strives to overcome
the other, and as a result of the struggle there is manifested something
infinitely higher in the realm of round.
The stillness and smallness indicate equilibrium, peace. On the
battleground of life is born the Androgyne. So it is in all aspects of
life, spiritual and material. Love is the greatest thing in life because it
comprises, compounds, and correlates all lesser things. In the battle
between love (passion) and hate in the mind of man something higher
than either the love or hate of the physical plane is born, namely,
Compassion, Understanding. In the struggle between sunlight and
[TT 582] darkness are born the dawn and the twilight hours of Peace
and Beauty. In the stress of battle between good and evil is born the
power of Renunciation, the must difficult power to attain. In the battle
between pleasure and pain is born Endurance.
So through all the aspects, attributes, qualities, energies in or out
of manifested life on the planes of matter and force, it is in the neutral
center, the place of peace, the point of equilibrium . the Dawn, the
point of Renunciation, that we shah find God ; never at either end
where noise, confusion, dissatisfaction or silent non-being,
disintegration, and disruption occur. So while man may be a
microcosm of God, he is an epitome of the ends of all the above-
mentioned aspects, attributes, qualities, and forces . a battleground
wherein is being fought out to a finish the battle of the ages. When he
has established the neutral center of all these aspects, attributes,
qualities, and forces in himself, he enters the Macrocosm . where God
alone dwells.
...
THE CAUSE OF FAILURE
—
LESSON 244
How many of your number have ever fathomed the underlying
cause of some individual, family, or national effort to thwart the
execution of any commonly accepted social or religious custom or
law ?
How many realize the futility of pitting your individual, feeble
will and desire against cosmic or national Will and Desire ?
You may be able to convince yourself that you are entirely in the
right, and that the great majority are in the wrong, if so be you are
involved in a controversy where such a question is called up ; but you
know you are merely trying to deceive yourself and others if you
attempt to justify some personal social or religious offense, by loudly
claiming the right of the individual soul to "lead its own life in its own
way", regardless of the effects of its actions upon others.
You know that the soul impulse of the great majority . that
interior force sometimes designated "the public conscience" . working
for the greatest good of the human race, has been evolved by means of
the blond and the sweat of uncounted millions of human beings . your
own forebears . men and women who have gone down into the depths
of hell, and who finally crawled out of those depths, shorn of
everything that had formerly been held precious in their sight, and
who, because of what they had suffered, had been made ready to stand
at the foot [TT 583] of the cross of sacrifice, with arms extended in
pleading to their descendants . to you and to me . that we spare
ourselves and those that will follow us the needless stain, the perfectly
avoidable agony, that surely results from contemned and broken law.
When one realizes that he must pass in review before all these
"souls crucified", as a rebel against established law and order, on his
way to the commission of some act, which if indulged could only
momentarily satisfy the changeable part of his lower nature . some
impulsive act induced by the opinion he is holding at the moment . it
is evident the underlying cause for the commission of that act is
something deeper than the revolt against seeming injustice and
wrong ; and that cause lies at the base of his human nature.
There is much said in these days regarding "the rights of man",
and the "Free Soul." My children, there is no such thing or creature in
the Universe as a free soul, and there never has been, or ever will be
such a soul. Back of all desire or demand for freedom, in the case of
every normal human being, there is a still deeper desire, or more
correctly speaking, a deeper aspiration . a louder cry for a personal
recognition of and a closer unity with God . the Over Soul ; a desire
to combine individual strength with the energy generated by others,
for a definite purpose, and we never can reach such unity as we desire
while we willingly tread under foot the rights of the companion souls
who are struggling along the path, it may be with us, crying to us to
sustain them in their hour of peril.
We never can reach conscious unity with all souls until our feet
are firmly fixed on the sacrificial stone at the foot of the Alter of
Crucifixion ; and I say emphatically, from the depths of whatever
knowledge and experience I have gained with the human race, that not
a single well developed, mature soul can truthfully deny its knowledge
of its responsibility for others, when it bravely faces itself in the
silence of its own divinity, however much it may desire to do so.
It knows that as long as another fragment of itself is liable to be
worsted in the great fight, by anything it individually has dope or left
undone, or may do, that sacrificial stone will stand silently pleading
for a victim, and until that victim, itself, is ready, its way to the throne
of power is blocked.
Understand me, I speak not of such instances as those which
occur when awakened conscience arouses the desire of a nation or a
body of people for justice, and, from the demand wrought out from a
divine impulse, there arises an overwhelming determination to right a
national or social wrong, to free a slave, to overcome the soul-killing,
life-sapping lethargy, which sometimes seizes upon a whole people.
[TT 584]
I speak of the selfish or corrupting desire of one or more people to
overrule some long established, wise, beneficent purpose or law of a
nation or race, and when unlicensed, unlimited freedom for one,
means abject slavery or unnecessary woe for others, who are to come
after them.
If you will seek out the basic reality, the fundamental law, upon
which even the most corrupt nation or race was founded, you would
fend that law true to nature, and to nature's God.
Had it not been so, the nation or race could not have existed for a
single century ; and only in accordance with a certain measure of
obedience to that law, even though such obedience were rendered by a
limited number, could that nation or race have any true and normal
sustained growth. You fend this exemplified in the legend of the
destruction of Gomorrah. Could even one righteous man have found
in the city it might have been saved from destruction.
When the demand for such an one tomes from God, think well, if
you are tempted to teach that any man has the right to overrule the
laws and customs of his people for his self-interest, lest you urge on a
day in which there could not be a single righteous, law-abiding man
left in any body of which you are a part, and that body be doomed
thereby.
True it is, that "in freedom lies thy strength", but that freedom is
the release of the soul from the ancient bondage of the lower self.
Having paid the price demanded by the Higher Self, by perfect
obedience to the law it has previously broken, the soul is free indeed,
free of all things save the Law ; and having become one with the Law,
through that perfect obedience, it is its own lawmaker thereafter.
December, 1909.
...
CAUSE AND EFFECT
—
LESSON 245
"As ye sow, so shall ye reap :" When, by means of culture and
concentration, the door of Spiritual perception (the spiritual energy
resident in the Pineal gland) has been opened and aroused to action by
that vibration of the "Great Breath" which operates through the
Pituitary body, the consciousness of man passes unimpeded into and
through the various critical states of matter which separate, or rather
join, the several distinct states of consciousness ; and [TT 585] at will
the semi-intelligent individualized lives which have their habitat in
those states of matter, and which are sometimes called the handmaids
of Karma. The law of Karmic action has been so little understood, and
its phases of operation so travestied, that I have determined to make
another effort to bring to your attention the existence of innumerable
grades of living creatures which were originally created by yourselves
and others, and which are under the control of the Seven Sublime
Lords of Karma . Godlike beings with a Cosmic mission for creating,
adjusting, and balancing all forces in manifestation. Once having been
created by the human race by means of thought and word, these lives
naturally rise or sink to the level of the beings who created them,
through their subjection to the law of affinity.
Many ancient myths and legends refer to spoken or written words
as jewels and flowers, or poisonous plants and malignant elves. Few
among modern interpreters will admit that such myths and legends
convey wonderful scientific and spiritual truths, and would therefore
be unable to see any convection between them and the law which is
indicated by the words, "As ye sow, so shah ye reap" . the law of
cause and effect, as applied to words whether spoken or written, or to
the deeds of man-all of which is due to their inability to observe the
action of their own creations, the Karmic handmaids. In order to throw
a little light on the subject, we will take certain portions of the Pledge
given by chelas to the Lodge, on entering one of its degrees.
"I promise to give of Time ; Money and Thought, all I
conscientiously tan, for the support of the Temple work."
First, consider to Whom or What you address these words. In
nearly all cases they are addressed to the highest Being or Beings the
Chela is capable of cognizing, and they are carried and registered by
the higher light and sound . waves into the consciousness of that
Being. Invariably before the chela has brought himself or herself to
take such a pledge, he has, consciously or unconsciously, made a
demand for help, or aid in personal development, and in making the
demand, he has given a promise to pay, for such is the law. It is a
foregone conclusion that the Lodge will give such help, whether or not
the method is apprehended by us. If the chela repudiates or neglects to
fulfill that promise, the law itself compels its fulfillment by setting in
action the handmaids which he has created. The Being to whom the
promise has been made is a conscious, active part of the Godhead . a
World-builder, and the Temple, with its constituent parts or members
is a part of It. On the higher planes, substance is interchangeable ;
therefore, a debt contracted between any two parts of the Temple puts
the World-builder in the position of creditor to itself and its
constituent parts ; and, as on the plane of real life, personality as
[TT 586] you know it disappears, such debts, if not paid to the
personal, lesser creditor, will be collected by the Greater Creditor, and
when collected, may assume entirely different characteristics.
Therefore the repudiated debt of time, thought and money will be
collected perforce ; it may be by shortened life, by lack of power for
thought, by loss of money, or by some other corresponding method.
The Karmic handmaids . elementals . live a certain definite tune,
i. e., as long as the force which has precipitated them into being
endures . which is long enough to permit them to accomplish the
purpose that the law has determined ; then they return to a state of
undifferentiated substance, to be recalled in other forms on demand,
until their particular cycle of necessity is exhausted.
Thinking it of less importance, another chela may fulfill all other
obligations, but neglect or refuse to fulfill the one which promises
Love, Protection and Obedience, for and to the representatives of the
Lodge ; such refusal or neglect incites to action other grades of the
same class of Karmic handmaids, and the love, protection and
obedience when refused to a representative and bestowed unworthily
or where it is not appreciated, only serve as a whiplash to punish the
recreant, or rather to awaken him to a sense of neglected duty.
Do not mistakenly imagine that there is anything unjust or
arbitrary in such action of Karmic law. It is simply the fulfillment of
the law of Justice or Equilibrium ; for by your pledge of chelaship you
have called for the precipitation of Karma, and it is in response to that
call that Karma acts so unerringly and swiftly.
The unpledged portions of the human race are as amenable to the
Law as are the pledged chelas, but the action of the Law is slower, and
consequently less violent in effect. A chela who comes under the
personal direction of a Master of the White Brotherhood for the
purpose of developing more rapidly than the remainder of his race,
always provokes more rapid precipitation of Karmic action.
...
THE CURSE OF MAMMON
—
(Given 1899)
What I am about to say may seem to contradict statements
previously made by those teachers of occult science whom you most
revere, but in reality this is not so, for I shall only take some of those
threads that have for the time being been permitted to hang loosely in
the web of philosophy expounded by the Masters. [TT 587]
Rightly have you been informed that the fall of the angels into
generation was the first fall of man ; and that, with the attainment of
the highest physical and mental powers by those of the human race
now classed among the pre-historic peoples, there occurred a still
worse fall whereby man, having attained the power of the Gods, fell
below the level of the beasts with whom he cohabited. As a result of
this fall there came upon, or within man, the curse that has hung as
might a millstone around his neck, over his soul, dragging him back
into the dark stream of ignorance and oblivion over and over again .
the curse of forgetfulness, the doom of slavery. Never since that far
distant age has collective humanity been free ; never since has it been
able to remember the blessedness of its previous lot, nor the cause
thereof ; nor has there lived a nation, a people, or a race, devoid of an
innate sense of its own sinfulness, its own powerlessness ; nor without
a desire to propitiate some offended Deity, which represented Infinity,
however crude its concept ; and this seeming curse is the result of the
division of human interests.
However broad its declaration of principles, each form of
government had buried within its constitution the seed of its own
decay ; and, as it has been in the past, so it is now in this present great
cycle.
The accumulated evil of the age has reached the zenith of its
power and readjustment must follow. A short day of grace is still ours,
a single century ; for, if before the end of that century the peoples of
the earth have not awakened sufficiently to enable them to behold the
canker in the bud of their great so-called civilizations, and destroy that
canker, nothing can save them from decay and annihilation. The
kingdom of Satan or Evil, and the kingdom of God or Good, cannot
exist simultaneously in one place and age ; one must give way and the
kingdom of God, holding all the positive power of the Infinite, must
eventually overwhelm the kingdom of Satan, or negative power.
Let the mind of man reach out over the Universe in any direction
where the great upward evolutionary forces are in full control, and it
will find no evidence of that separateness which is the curse of the
human race. The sun shines alike on the good and on the evil ; the dew
and the rain fall alike on the just and on the unjust ; the earth yields its
treasures of usefulness and beauty alike to the poor and the rich ; only
one principle is involved . Labor. Those fields upon which man
bestows the most thought' and service, yield most abundantly ; but
nature covers with luxuriant beauty even the untilled fields ; each is
dependent on each, all is for all ; even the tiny blade of grass is not a
slave to the flower, but grows all the more luxuriantly for being
shaded by it. [TT 588]
With the seizure of the first plot of ground by a king or ruler of a
people and its apportionment for the benefit of his favorites, with the
first piece of money given in exchange for human service, with the
first captured and enslaved human being, entered the triple curse into
the world we now inhabit, the entering wedge that divided the
kingdom of God, and set up the kingdom of the Devil ; and not until a
nation arises as one man to throw off this curse, tan the seed of
suffering and sorrow be eradicated . destroyed forever, thon opening
up the waste places, that the light of the Infinite may shine into souls
darkened by ages of ignorance, superstition, idolatry and inhumanity.
No slavery ever existed on the earth more binding, more evil in its
effects, thon the present system of wage slavery, excepting only that
of the slavery of women. The latter are, in one sense, their own worst
enemies, for many of them do not recognize their position . do not
know that they are in slavery. Never so long as woman is not the
mistress of her awn body, is she free. Never, so long as children are
born into the world as a result of passion clone, tan children be free-
born, for on every atom of their little bodies is impressed the seal of
their slavery.
The petted, pampered, idolized, but still enslaved woman, who
tan look abroad on the degradation of women in many parts of the
earth and hold her peace, or put a straw in the way of others who are
working for the emancipation of the sex to which she belongs, is
preparing a Karma for herself of which she little dreams. No woman
with the truly feminine instincts of the Saul desires for herself, or for
her sisters, aught that will detract from her own loveliness in the eyes
of those whom she loves ; and only the exigencies of the times and the
overpowering intuitive perception that she is a part of God and
therefore part of man, could give her courage to face the sneers of her
own sex, the ridicule and inane expressions of contempt from the
opposite sex, in making an effort to win the recognition that is her
right. As well might man strive to invent an electric dynamo without
negative power as to strive to create a Righteous Government and
leave out of his scheme the power of women.
The coral reefs of some of the deep sec islands furnish an
example of the unity of all life. The polyps building these structures,
which are massive enough to founder the largest ship, constitute a
primitive nation in themselves in a world which they have created on
natural fines of self-sacrifice and true Brotherhood. Four classes of
these tiny creatures are required to complete a reef which rises to any
height above the level of the sec. The clans that lays the foundations in
the depths of the sec cannot live above a certain lower level of the
water. When that point is reached, another class of the same polyps
takes up the [TT 589] work ; this clans carries the work several feet
above the point the first laid down their tools, or bodies. Then another
clans arises to complete the structure. Finally, still another clans tomes
upon the scene and these fill in the spaces and round out the reef.
polyps of the first designated clans are laboring on their allotted
portion of the work, the stress and strain undergone by them in
reaching beyond their natural habitat result in the birth of a of polyps,
a clans that tan labor naturally on a higher level. Each clans literally
sacrifices itself to its progeny, and the whole work when completed is
a perfect example of self-sacrifice. Whatever its highest use in the
economy of the Universe, a single reef will outlast by ages any work
performed by humanity on the physical plane.
This is only one of the many examples furnished by Nature to the
student who is willing to learn the lesson of unity and sacrifice, as
opposed to disunion and self-indulgence. Until we begin to work with
Nature, by finding out and obeying her Laws, evidences of the
workings of which are scattered profusely about us, we shall never
have Nation, State, or Organization that will outlast the impulse which
gave it birth.
From the lips of the great Master Jesus once came an expression
pregnant with force which will yet tear asunder the curse from the
cursed : "Ye cannot serve God and mammon :" The term, "The
mammon of unrighteousness" has a broad and deep significance. It
comprises all slavery, whether it be of lands, money or human
chattels ; it is deep enough to include every single molecule of matter
that has ever been bought and sold by the human race.
You will be told that a Government devoid of all medium of
exchange must of necessity be a failure. I ask you : How do you
know ? Has it ever been tried within the memory or history of man ? I
answer you : No ; not as man is now constituted. It is the one thing
that never has been tried in the world you now inhabit, since the fall of
man to which I have referred ; but there are worlds . many of them,
whose forms of government have never, for ages upon ages, been
materially changed, and where never a thought of the curse that has
blighted this fair earth has found lodgment in mortal brain ; where life
on physical fines is one joyous service, only exchanged for greater
joys ; and such a one tan this poor planet become, when its inhabitants
awake to the cause of what they term "original sin", the corse that
hangs like a pall over the soul of every human being that enters upon
his heritage of woe therein.
That curse which has raised every man's hand against his brother,
which has filled prisons and insane asylums and has made man deny
[TT 590] the God within himself ; for light has no fellowship with
darkness and God is Light.
Have you nothing to do in the work of regeneration, the labor of
preparing for the Kingdom of Christ . the Kingdom of Unity as
opposed to separateness ? Dare you stand idle through all the long
day, and let the shadows of night descend on this fair world, without
an effort to arrest their falling ?
...
THE WHITE BROTHERHOOD AND ITS CONNECTION
WITH THE TEMPLE
The humanity of a "Manvantara" or period of creative energy,
past, present or future, manifests in seven major stages or grades of
evolution. These stages correspond to, and are one with the seven
degrees of Occultism into which the Great Lodge is divided. Each one
of these Degrees is divided into seven minor steps, making forty-nine
in all. Every human being on "the Path", or in manifestation during
such a Cyclic period, is in, or on, one of these steps or Degrees.
The Seventh Degree of the present Cycle, is composed of all
those people who have reached a certain definite point in spiritual
development, and have been admitted into this Degree by the Masters
without any self-conscious act on their part, on the outer plane of
manifestation, i. e., the Physical world.
The Sixth Degree is composed of those in the position of
Teachers or Leaders of men, who are working on purely ethical fines
or under some personal concept of the Infinite and Trinity thereof, but
who have sot yet realized their position in the Lodge or the assistance
given them by higher entities, because of that position.
The Fifth Degree is composed of such members of Esoteric or
Exoteric Societies for Psychical Research, and students of Occultism
as are familiar with the truth of the Lodge as a fact in natural life, and
who are working consciously under the direction of one or more
Masters for the advancement of the human race. Many of the most
noted Professional men, Scientists, and Investigators along all fines
have reached this point, but do sot realize the position of the Degree to
which they belong in the great scale of life. Many belonging to the
Masonic Fraternity, in past ages, were members of this Degree.
The Fourth Degree . The Temple . is composed of those who
have come into close personal touch with the members of the White
Brotherhood [TT 591] (the Initiates and Masters), whether they are
members of the Temple Organization or sot, and who are in process of
preparation for more sacred Degrees, having taken a self-conscious
step in evolution.
All things connected with the three Inner Degrees are very sacred
and secret, membership in them leading up to conscious union with all
the component parts of the Lodge. But little can be said by us, of these
Degrees, to any but pledged members of the Temple. By earnest
aspiration and rightly directed effort, we may hope, however, to reach
one or all of these Degrees, the members of which are trained
Occultists, Seers, and Initiates. The advanced souls who constitute the
higher Degrees are the Instructors or Teachers of the members of the
lesser, or before mentioned, Degrees. In different parts of the world
there are organized bodies under the leadership of one or more of
these Initiates, the members of which have no idea of the real standing
of their Teachers.
It is known to be a law, that no effort for good can be made
without awakening an opposite pole of evil . so there are also to be
found in the world, groups of people under evil guidance that cast sad
reflections on the term Occultism.
...
THE TEN RULES OF DISCIPLESHIP OF THE 4TH DEGREE
OF THE GREAT WHITE LODGE
God is Love, and Love is the fundamental source of Being.
Therefore, if thou sis against Love, that sis is against God.
1. "Thou shah love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." This is the highest law.
2. Thou shalt obey the laws of life. The Higher Law will hold
thee accountable for the breaking of every lesser law.
3. Thou shalt sot sis against thine own body nor against the
body of thy neighbor, by concupiscence ; for the Lord thy
God will demand an accounting of thee for all of the Creative
Fire enthroned within thee.
4. Thou shalt sot needlessly take the life of any thing or
creature.
5. Thou shalt sot speak falsely, unnecessarily or critically
against thy neighbor, and so put in action the converse force
of creative sound and word ; for the Higher Law will reverse
the action of the force thus directed and bring back upon thee,
with intensified strength, the results of the broken law.
[TT 592]
6. Thou shalt bear constantly in mind the unity of the human
race, and treat every member of the Great White Lodge as
though he were of blond kin ; for unity is the law of
discipleship and, if thou sin against this law, thou shalt be
greatly hindered in thy progress
7. Morning and evening thou shalt lift the eyes of thy soul
toward the Throne of thy God, with strong aspiration,
gratitude and devotion ; for according to thy desires . thy
demands . upon the Center of all Being, desires expressed in
purity, thanksgiving and unselfishness, shall the supply be
vouchsafed thee.
8. Thou shalt give of thine abundance to all the poor, but of thy
poverty, the price of thine own pleasures, and that which
would minister to thine own desires shalt thou give to the
Great Mother and to the Guardian of the Shrine, through
which the Great Mother love of the universe radiates for thine
own eternal good.
9. Thou shalt not despise nor ill-treat any thing or creature.
Matter, Force and Consciousness are but different degrees of
the one eternal, all-pervading principle of Love . which is
God ; and he who despises and reviles his body, because it
does not radiate the light of his soul, despises God as
certainly as does the man who despises and reviles the soul
and spirit of God.
10. When the law of Love . of karma . has brought thee out of
the morass of spiritual darkness to the beginning of the path
which leads to spiritual illumination, woe be unto thee if thou
obstruct that path for thyself or others, by refusing to obey
the Master to whose feet that law has brought thee.
Only by implicit obedience to the commands of the Master-
Teacher shalt thou be able to lift one foot after another while treading
that path of discipleship.
Commune long and earnestly with the God within thyself ere thou
darest to make demand to tread that path, for once thou hast entered it,
thou canst no more return to thy former state of irresponsibility than
thou canst re-enter thy mother's womb.
Behold the Path before thee ; a clean life, pure aspiration and
unselfish service. Art thou prepared to tread that Path ?
...
"MY FATHER'S HOUSE IS A HOUSE OF PRAYER"
It is not wise to look upon the depressing aide of natural forces,
but it would be unwise not to recognize their power when danger is
[TT 593] near. Man has created and sent into space through many
longs long ages the forces that are now gathering for his overthrow. It
matters not how loudly he calls upon the Gods, the Gods combined
cannot avert the action of the Universal Law. As he has sown so must
he reap ; and in the reaping (and here is where the joy in the sorrow of
the universe manifests) he can redeem the past, and that is what so
many forget entirely who have thrown aside the truths of the Christian
religion.
For the last thirty-five years there has been but little said of the
New Testament among occult students of H. P. Blavatsky and others
who came after her. It was in a manner put in the background for a
good reason. As I have told you before, the New Testament holds in
its pages all the knowledge of the universe. All the diffuse
philosophical literature of the ages that preceded the Christian era was
preparatory. The New Testament synthesizes all, but it has been so
misunderstood and misinterpreted that we deemed it best to go back to
the older philosophies, that they might explain the New Testament. It
is only through the old philosophies that it can be understood, for it
contains copies of the most occult manuscripts in the world ; and the
treasures of the hidden chambers of the East, of which I have spoken
to you before, are, as I have said of the western philosophies, but
explanations of all that you fend between the pages of Matthew and
Revelations. You cannot study that book ton much. It will open to
your understanding, with the explanations you have already had, as
nothing else can.
On one page in that book is the sentence, "My Father's house is a
house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." My children,
do you suppose for a moment that the Master Jesus meant the temple
in which he was standing at that time ? By no means. He meant the
human heart, the human mind, and it has been a den of thieves. It
should be a place of aspiration and inspiration. Instead of these the
golden calf has been set up, and the lower man has fallen down in
worship before that, and it is filled with the sacrifices he has made of
his brother's blond. It is the curse of all curses, and today the astral
atmosphere about you is loaded with the effects of that curse.
Is it any wonder that you have all felt at times a sense of
depression that almost bowed you to the ground ? The weight of that
house within you that should be a house of prayer, that has been made
a den of thieves through all the ages that have gone since your
innocence passed away, is enough to cause it.
I would not have you think, my children, that life is all a curse,
that there is nothing but blackness and darkness and destitution for the
[TT 594] children of men. But I do desire to awaken those who are
sleeping. I do desire to bring them to the point where they can
recognize the fact that their destiny is in their own hands . not in the
bands of a God, not in the bands of a Master. When you can make
yourself that house of prayer which is meant in the passage above
referred to, you can turn everything around and about you into
joyfulness and peace. You can attract to yourself from the ends of the
universe all that it holds of truth, of righteousness. You can make it a
place of peace where the Angels of Light will be glad to dwell. You
have but one alternative ; there is death and worse than death, and
there is joy and peace, and you are the master. You are to say which it
shall be.
[TT 595]
GLOSSARY
The following is a partial list of terms used in Temple Teachings :
ADI . The First, the Primeval.
ADI, SONS OF . Sons of the Fire Mist. The Great Creators.
AETHER . With the ancients, the luminous substance that
pervades the Universe. The Garment of the Supreme ; with the
moderns, Ether. (See Dictionary.)
AKASA or ALAYA . The basis and root of all things.
ALCAHEST . The Wine of Life. The Universal Solvent.
ALCHEMY . The Divine Science of Life, from which modem
chemistry is descended.
ANDROGYNOUS . Male and female combined.
ANTASKARANA . The Bridge between Matter and Spirit. The
Understanding, or power of comprehension.
ASTRAL BODY . The ethereal counterpart or shadow of man
and animal, existent in the Astral Light.
ASTRAL LIGHT . The invisible plane (to mortal eye) which
surrounds this and all other worlds, and in which exists, throughout
the great world periods, the astral body of every living thing or person
until it dies a second death, and the informing principle bas passed on,
leaving the shell to finally disintegrate.
ATMA . The Divine Monad. The Supreme Soul, or Seventh
Principle in Man.
AUM . The Sacred Word or Syllable. The Three in One.
AURA . A psycho-electric force, which emanates from all bodies
and things, and which surrounds the body in an egg-shaped form. Its
colors change with development of mind and soul, and are clearly
distinguishable by the Occultist, and oftentimes by the mere psychic.
divine Incarnation. The descent of a God or some other exalted
being who bas progressed beyond the necessity of rebirth. There are
two kinds of Avatars : the parentless or mind-born, and those born
from women.
BUDDHI . Universal Soul. The Spiritual Soul or Christos in
man.
CADUCEUS . The Caduceus is formed of two serpents twisted
around a rod ; it symbolizes the fall of primeval matter into gross
terrestrial matter ; it also symbolizes the restoration of lost
equilibrium.
CHELA . Disciple. Student and servant to Initiate. [TT 596]
DEVACHAN . Heaven ; the Place of Rest between Incarnations.
EGO . The Incarnating Spirit ; the Thread-soul, which passes
from life to life, and finally unites with the Higher-Self in Devachan
or in Nirvana.
ELEMENTALS . Beings who people the elements evolved from
the Kingdoms of Earth, Air, Fire and Water ; the Peris, Djins,
Banshees, Fairies, Elves, etc., and subject to the control of the
Occultist, and also of the Elementary. Irresponsible, blind forces.
ELEMENTARIES . The disembodied souls of the depraved,
which have been separated from the Higher Self and who have lost
their opportunity. These souls remain in the Kama-rupic shells, and
are irresistibly drawn to familiar earthly scenes and companions.
FOHAT . The energy awakened by the "WORD." Cosmic power
of round. The propelling power and resultant of Vital force, or the
Essence of Electricity.
GURU . Guide or teacher of the secret laves of life and its
mysteries.
HIEROPHANT . A title belonging to the chief of Adepts or
Initiates in Ancient Temples. The Great Teacher.
KALPA . A period of mundane evolution.
KAMA-MANAS . Lower mind.
KAMA-RUPA . Lower desire body . a form which survives the
death of the physical body ; a shell from which the real soul has
departed. A spook, capable of being drawn into observation by the
mediums, and, once having learned the way, it returns again and
again, vampirizing the body of the medium.
KUNDALINI . One of the forces of nature latent in all men, and
developed in those who, by concentration in Yoga, have opened the
way for its manifestation.
LINGA SHARIRA . Astral body. It is born previous to birth on
the physical plane, and dies with the last molecule of matter.
MANAS . Mind.
MANASA-PUTRAS . Sons of Universal mind. Beings who live
and work on the Third Plane of Universal consciousness.
MANTRAMS . Verses or single sentences from metaphysical
works, used in connection with certain sounds, numbers and letters in
those sentences.
MANTRAS . Verses from the Vedic works, used as incantations
or charms.
MANVANTARA . A period of manifestation as opposed to
Pralaya or Rest. A cycle of 4,320,000,000 solar years.
MAYA . Illusion. Applied to all four lower planes of
consciousness.
MONAD . The immortal part of man, which reincarnates in the
lower kingdoms, and gradually progresses through them, raising at the
same time all grades of matter with which it is associated, by
imparting a higher rate of vibration.
NEOPHYTE . A beginner. Also applied to the students or chelas
of the lower degrees of the Great Lodge of Universal Life.
OCCULTIST . A student of occultism or the secret laves which
control the Universe.
PRALAYA . Period of rest between two periods of
manifestation. Corresponds to sleep of human and animal kingdoms.
PRANA . The Life Principle. The Breath of Life.
PSYCHE . The animal, terrestrial soul. Lower Manas.
PSYCHIC . From PSYCHE, or soul. Applied to two different
planes of consciousness, or what is sometimes called the higher and
lower astral light.
RUPA . Form. The body of anything or person.
SAT . The Indivisible. That. The Eternally Concealed.
SKANDA . A characteristic. A finite principle brought into
manifestation by a thought, word or deed ; and thereafter attached to
the aura of the incarnating Ego through its series of lives.
TATWA . A fundamental principle of Nature, correlative to
some one physical sense. There are five Tatwas exoterically ; there are
seven Tatwas esoterically, two of which are still latent in the human
race.
WARRIOR, THE . The Higher-Self. The first manifestation of
The Christos.
YOGA . Concentration in meditation for the purpose of attaining
Enlightenment.
YUGA . The one-thousandth part of a Kalpa or great World-
Period.
END OF THE BOOK I.