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iv
i
An Occult Perspective
Spiritual and Philosophical Insights
regarding Humanity’s Search
for Truth
By
A Student of The Ageless Wisdom
First edition: 2016
Cover Design by: The Author
This book is copyrighted ©2016 to the Author. No reproduction can be made in
any form without written consent.
ii
Contents
PAGE
Preface ..................................................................... iii
Definitions ............................................................... iv
Chapter 1: The Mountainous Journey ....................... 1
Chapter 2: The Path of Initiation ............................... 6
Chapter 3: The God Within ..................................... 16
Chapter 4: The Making of Rules ............................. 22
Chapter 5: Mistaking The Low for The High ......... 37
Chapter 6: A Light-bearer’s Sacrifice ..................... 58
Chapter 7: Continuity of Consciousness ................. 81
Chapter 8: Oneness and Hierarchy ........................ 110
Chapter 9: Own Two Feet ..................................... 124
Afterword: ............................................................. 133
iii
Preface
The object of this book is to offer some personal
insights with regards to treading the Great Path
towards Truth. I admit that my experiences may be
entirely unique, and my thoughts not necessarily
accurate or even original in every case, yet in the
spirit of wanting to help others who also tread the
Path in earnest, I offer this material for thoughtful
consideration. It is hoped that anyone reading this
book who has an interest in the occult might find
something therein of value to assist them on the
path of discrimination and recognizing spiritual
legitimacy. It is also presupposed that the reader has
some familiarity with the subject matter.
The Author
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Definitions
Atlantis: An ancient continent that, according to the
ageless wisdom, was sunk through a gradual
process involving many thousands of years in the
area of the Atlantic Ocean.
Atmic: This is the seventh principle in the sevenfold
constitution of man. It is the universal spirit and
represents Divine Will.
Buddhic: This is the sixth principle in man. It is true
intuition, knowing, and pure reason
Mahatma: Means “great soul”. A term given to
beings (sometimes referred to as “Masters”) who
have achieved perfect mastery over their lower
bodies (principles). They are at a higher order of
evolution than Man, yet Man has the potential to
achieve that level just as they did.
Mahamanvantara: This is a great cycle of
manifestation and activity that can run the course of
billions of years in which (human bearing) planets
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come into objectivity then proceed back to
subjectivity as part of an evolutionary plan (Divine
Plan).
Monad: The Divine Immortal Spark – the real self
- that reincarnates in the denser planes of existence,
evolving through myriads of life-forms, through the
human kingdom, and into the superhuman
kingdom, and back to its own plane, thusly
completing a cycle of manifestation.
Occult: Beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or
understanding; that which exists but is not readily
perceived.
Planetary Logos: A great spiritual entity that is, for
all intents and purposes, the personal God of our
planet. It is one of the seven great spirits before the
throne which has its Christian correspondence in
the seven archangels. It is the top hierarch of our
planet Whose consciousness encompasses
everything and every happening in our world.
Sat-Chit-Ananda: Sanskrit term meaning truth,
consciousness, knowledge, bliss. It is the experience
of the ultimate subjective unchanging reality that is
called, in Hinduism, Brahman.
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Yoga: An ancient school of spiritual practices that
results in union with the object or concept
concentrated upon.
vii
Once a person not merely senses Oneness but
knows it as fact then it becomes impossible to act
against it.
1
Chapter 1
The Mountainous Journey
It has often been written in occult literature that
treading the spiritual path in earnest requires
determination and courage. In fact, the Path Itself is
like a great alchemical refinery, turning lead into
gold, as it were, something which is typically
viewed as an impossibility on the one hand, and
something that only a mad-man would dream up on
the other. The occult path can also seem to promote
a sense of stark isolation coupled with an
uncompromising relentlessness in order to make
any headway in it and so, for many, it can make
them question the sanity of anyone who is interested
in it. It also has an unfortunate and unhappy
association with the ‘dark arts’, or people who make
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pacts with demons or the like, but this is not true
occultism. True occultism is selflessness and the
study of forces and energies (and their causes) for
the purposes of an altruistic goal. The life and path
of Jesus is an example of the difficulties that are
involved for those courageous enough to begin to
ascend the mountain of Truth, whether His story is
taken literally or allegorically. If we follow the
story of His life we can see how he eventually
became stripped of everything held dear, and in the
end even God appeared to have abandoned Him.
This is why, perhaps, people prefer to admire Great
Seekers of Truth rather than to emulate them. One
of the main problems for those who tread the occult
path is discerning spiritual legitimacy, for to arrive
at legitimacy a person has to leave behind that
which is not authentic (in terms of values, beliefs,
and perceptions). This means that even the most
precious and sacred beliefs, no matter how much
happiness they may bring, can be left by the
wayside in favour of the more real, just as a child
abandons its childish perceptions in the
achievement of adulthood.
In the new age movement there is a broad display
of sensual therapies, philosophies, and healing
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techniques that seem to promote a very pleasurable
and indulgent approach to treading the spiritual
path. This is in great contradistinction to the
realities of the true spiritual path as attested to by
the great Mahatmas, saints, disciples, and
philosophers throughout our history. Yet in this
movement there is a strong bias towards the idea of
spiritual development being an easy and even
profitable journey, and this is where, for many
people, the attractiveness lies. However, according
to those Great Souls who have trodden the Path
before us there are certain rules and very strict
requirements that must be adhered to before any
real progress can be made. For example, these rules
can include: self-sacrifice and self-abnegation,
complete discrimination and discernment,
renunciation of earthly pleasures, freedom from
superstition and fear, and a commitment to secrecy.
Vanity, for example, can often be a hindrance as
people seek to pick up a philosophy that may be part
of a trend or fad and so appear to be part of
something attractive to themselves and to others.
Buddhism, for instance, or more occasionally,
images or statues of the Buddha, are often used to
promote a more peaceful approach to spirituality
that results in a seeming negation of growth, for the
interpretation held by the unknowing is that that
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philosophy is, for the most part, one of unchanging
non-confrontation. This is very appealing to world-
weary people, or even new-comers, and can often
seem to be like having the best of both worlds ie:
having a connection to a deep and meaningful
philosophy to be nurtured by, and seemingly to not
have to become too involved in worldly affairs.
This is an example, purely, in that it illustrates how
we make of things to suit our purposes. The Path the
Buddha took was difficult and resulted in Him
almost dying in the achievement of it. True
spirituality, then, can never be something we take
as a form of philosophical retirement.
There are certain books that can be studied by
people who have an interest in the occult that may
help them to sharpen their discriminative faculties
and so become more aware of the glamourous,
aggrandizing, and tantalizing pitfalls that beset the
spiritual wayfarer. Some of these books are: “At the
feet of The Master”, by Krishnamurti; “The Secret
Doctrine” and “Practical Occultism”, by H.P.
Blavatsky; “Brother of the Third Degree”, by Will
L. Garver; and “Initiation: Human and Solar", and
“Discipleship in the New Age Vols. 1 and 2”, by
Alice A. Bailey. In the following chapters, whilst
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the strict and refining perspective of the Great Path
is maintained, and rather than to simply advocate a
kind of perverse drive towards pain, it will be seen
that these perspectives serve to bring about a true
union with the real self, resulting in great
happiness; a happiness that pervades the rest of the
world, thusly being a true blessing to others. The
painful crucifixion, as related in the story of Jesus’
life, resulted ultimately in resurrection which raised
not only the consciousness of Him personally (and
therefore the world partook of that experience), but
also demonstrated that we all could achieve
likewise; for who but a true mad-man would
promote a pathway that lead only to sorrow!
6
Chapter 2
The Path of Initiation
As cited in the previous chapter, there is an occult
book called "Initiation: Human and Solar" by Alice
A. Bailey. Described within it is a concept called
the “Path of Initiation”. It also gives information
regarding the Spiritual Hierarchy of our planet
which comprises a body of men, women, and
advanced beings of varying degrees of high
consciousness that organize, guide, and even
protect at times the spiritual evolution of Mankind.
At the head of this organization is a great being
occultly called a Planetary Logos and He is known
by the name Sanat Kumara. It is also stated that, if
we choose, we will all one day find ourselves
working within the ranks of this Hierarchy. Part of
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the reason for this is that during the time of Atlantis,
many millions of years ago, there occurred in our
solar system an event that caused many of these
advanced beings (though not the Planetary Logos)
to move onto other areas of work away from our
planet. This naturally left positions to be filled by
other worthy participants and presented, to certain
souls willing to make the extra effort, the
opportunity to move up in rank through the means
of a strict and extremely arduous method known as
the Path of Initiation[1]. These initiations involve an
expansion of consciousness, or a series of
revelations, that occur over many lifetimes
through the process known as reincarnation. It is a
path that can be, and is, trodden in all the many
philosophical, religious, scientific, political, social
and artistic endeavours, and activities, of humanity.
Some might wonder what, then, is the attraction to
this Path of Initiation that would make anyone want
to consider entering it. As cited in the above
paragraph the training is hard and the discipline
[1] Bailey, Alice. A. (1922). Initiation: Human and Solar. New York. Lucis
Publishing Company
8
required is practically superhuman so what
enticements could there be? For some the
enticement is to gain more knowledge about Life
and its workings. For others it represents a pathway
to emancipation from the wheel of rebirth. To not a
few it provides a means to help their fellow beings
in the world. Yet whilst motive does count, the
motive, whether selfish or selfless, requires effort,
for even a selfish seeker of Truth is still prepared to
discipline him or herself for the end gain. And just
as every person is prepared to do what is needed for
their own happiness, then that preparation and
discipline used in the acquisition of it must be a fact
of nature - hence there being nothing impractical in
legitimate occult rules. Yet the Path of Initiation, as
described in certain occult literature, often gives the
impression of being almost distinctively harsh and
even frightening. Why would anyone want to
subject themselves to such discipline, pain and self-
sacrifice, to suffer abnegation and loneliness for
some far off fantastical goal? The truth is that no
one has to. But those who do do it have learned that
the difference between a person on the Path of
Initiation looking for the Absolute-Existence-
Knowledge-Bliss (Sat-Chit-Ananda), and a person
in average ordinary earth life seeking the same,
though they might not call it as such, in the last
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analysis, is duration. The Path of Initiation simply
allows a person to acquire it sooner and over a
shorter period of incarnations. And we mustn't
confuse self-mutilation and extreme religious
penance as desirable forms of sacrifice for how can
anyone be happy and in such ludicrous pain at the
same time?
But it is all this talk of self-abnegation and strict
discipline that causes some to view the spiritual
path (no matter what it is called) with distaste. Yet
they are forgetting that many of the earthly
materialistic goals to which the multitudes aspire
are almost always acquired - by the most successful
- through sheer discipline and self-sacrifice. When,
for instance, an aspiring athlete wants to achieve a
certain physical goal, he knows the goal, even
though as a young person he has only tasted part of
it. He has seen others far in advance of himself
achieve the goal, and even break sporting records in
the process, and he has decided that that is where
his happiness lies. He subjects himself to very
serious training and puts his body through all sorts
of painful disciplines and in the end he achieves his
goal and thus he is happy. What then is the
difference between the painful rigors of an athlete
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and that of a person on the Path of Initiation also
subjecting himself to serious disciplines?
Fundamentally not much. Both are seeking
happiness but both view happiness in different
ways. One is temporary, for the athlete (putting
aside the religiously inclined) knows that at some
stage his body will die and his happiness along with
it e'en though happiness was his for a while.
Whereas the person interested in treading the Path
of Initiation knows, or at least believes, that the
happiness he seeks is permanent. And which
happiness is worth having, the temporary or the
permanent? Is not a little temporary pain and self-
sacrifice born out over relatively few life-times
spent in achieving bliss-consciousness more
worthwhile than achieving ultimately the same
thing over many much more lifetimes? For when a
person does decide to step onto the Path of
Initiation, even as a probationer, they accelerate
their own growth by the extra effort and
concentration. Whereas the person who treads the
ordinary way develops much more slowly, just as
anyone who is mildly enthusiastic about acquiring
a thing, an object, a relationship, a skill, or
whatever, is most likely to acquire it far more
slowly than those who make more serious effort.
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As it stands, a life spent in developing and
controlling the physical vehicle, even in a purely
athletic sense, is part of the early stages of the Path
of Initiation for it is one step closer to controlling
ALL the bodies (the etheric, astral/emotional, and
mental). Therefore, sports aren't necessarily a
mindless waste of time, as some philosophers
would have it. That happiness we all seek comes
from within, and to control the physical body first
is a natural step towards inner realities, and yet why
should this be so? When you practice controlling
your physical body in terms of making it do what
you want in the name of acquiring happiness (an
inner reality) aren't you making at that very moment
your happiness actual instead of unrealized? And if
so why not strive to make that actual happiness
permanent? And why stop at the physical body, for
the astral/emotional, and mental bodies can all be
disciplined in this manner. So, if even temporary
happiness is worth the trouble to acquire then surely
permanent happiness is worth even more so. The
first step towards happiness, then, is to learn to
control matter, by an effort of the will, and it matters
not whether it is the control of one's own physical
vehicle, or learning to control the development of a
new business venture, or the control of the mind,
just so long as the end result is gained, for all of
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these imply an expansion of consciousness which is
what the Path of Initiation is about: It is really about
the steady climb towards permanent happiness and
Love-consciousness.
The great criteria for entering the Path of Initiation
is ultimately selflessness. And to many people a
little selflessness is a fine thing. But some suppose
that to become completely selfless is to become
always miserable from making sacrifices all the
time because the term sacrifice to them means
giving up some form of pleasure in the doing of it.
Yet why would anyone advocate entering the Path
of Initiation if the end result was personal misery?
Surely if to bring happiness unto others makes them
happy why should we not feel happiness also in the
giving? If like attracts like would we not attract to
ourselves more of that Love-consciousness, just as
one plus one doesn't equal one but actually equals
two? And if in addition this love and happiness
comes to those who are its recipients, then surely
further increase is the only result. But some might
say that to give a little happiness is to receive
exactly a little happiness in return, yet this is not the
accounting methods of the universe, otherwise there
would be no such thing as evolution. To give is to
13
love, and to love is to grow, which is, from an occult
perspective, an expansion of consciousness. The
truth is that those who feel no real happiness when
being selfless to others are under the misguided idea
that sacrifice of that sort should be an unhappy
experience and for that reason even deserving of
merit or praise, as though their unhappiness is
meant to point out to others that their sacrifices are
a tragic but necessary step to the salvation of others!
But what use is there in praising the miserable? And
how can anyone make the world a better place by
being unhappy? If it is logical for them to be
unhappy when making others happy - because of all
the sacrifices - then those recipients would have to
then make themselves unhappy again to return the
favour! True sacrifice is a stage of growth in
consciousness if rightly applied; for just as a child
could be said to sacrifice its childhood in favour of
becoming something more than itself, ie: becoming
an adult, so too does the giving up of the things we
love for ourselves, in favour of giving that love, be
it through charity, teaching, or whatever, to others,
result in an expansion of Love-consciousness
within our being, thusly becoming more than what
we currently are. When walking the difficult Path
of Initiation it is well to deliberately think and feel
happiness in the walking of it, and in our sacrifices
14
and strenuous discipline think not of what we are
losing but of what we are gaining - an ever growing
permanent Love-consciousness, and, in
consequence, a greater facility to be of service to
others. Some might argue, however, that you can
give something to someone and they can give
nothing back, not even a hint of Love, so where is
the return of Love for the effort there? The answer
to that lies in Oneness, for appearances can be
deceiving, and whilst there may seemingly be no
outward return, the vibration of Love has gone out,
and as all things in the universe are held together by
attraction, which is Love, then even in the least of
us there is that response to, and development of, the
vibration of Love, else how could the seemingly
loveless ones exist at all unless they were, by the
breaking down of logic, independent of Oneness.
Some might question: “Are we as self-conscious
beings creating (or growing) Love at that very
moment of concentration upon it, or does it already
exist in the universe and we somehow 'pick up' on
it and depending on our level of evolution express
it either well or poorly through that concentrated
effort?” The answer to that is both, for one of the
Laws of Life is Attraction, which is Love, and the
15
other is Evolution, which is growth, and to think
and feel Love is to be that Love and in so doing
expand* it as well by Attraction. It might be a case
of the chicken or the egg but what does that matter?
The sooner a person acquires a permanent
perspective that brings peace, love, and
contentment both to him or herself, and others, the
better!
*It should here be stated that the word “expand” is really meant to imply
inclusion.
16
Chapter 3
The God Within
Throughout this book there are frequent examples
of analogous correlation that are used to explain our
relationship, as self-developing self-conscious
beings, with what we call Life, Nature, or God. For
example, our own Sun - our true ‘spiritual source’ -
will sometimes be used to illustrate a greater
“version” of ourselves (our true selves). This
concept has its basis in the occult axiom “as above,
so below”. What this really means is that within
each of us is a developing and evolving form of
consciousness, and that this phenomena is also to be
found, at some stage of development or another,
greater or lesser, in every other area of life. This
includes the tiniest atoms through to the stars and
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galaxies, and, of course, our own Sun. This concept
also must perforce include the process of the greater
“begetting” the lesser, for if Nature shows us
nothing else, it shows us that it perpetually
reproduces. All of these aforementioned individual
units are part of one great whole, and it is like a
great light poured itself into space, with each
seemingly separate particle of energy being a
reflection of that light, eventually surrounding and
enveloping itself in what we call solid matter, yet
retaining the ‘link’ to the original source through a
sublime connection, hence the ‘God within’.
Therefore, when the biblical observation states that
God made Man into a likeness of Himself it is not
so much to say that God is a universe-sized, human-
shaped Being but rather that we, as these forms of
consciousness (or sparks) in the form of our true
selves, are a reflection of a pattern of the greater and
infinite animating life, that some give the name
“God”. For all intents and purposes that animating
life has its greatest representation in our solar
system in the form of the Sun, hence its use in
analogous correlation.
Part of the problem has been that for long ages men,
in certain areas of belief have, if truth be told,
18
thought or conceived of God as being something
more like themselves. Yet from an occult
perspective this is an inversion of what is actually
true. In the dense matter of our bodies and
personalities, blinded for the most part by solid
matter, we see ourselves (as our personalities) more
readily than we see God. This is why we (for those
of us who believe in God in a certain way) often
cannot help ascribing to God our own
characteristics, declaring that God is kind, God
condemns other religions, God is offended etc. Yet
these limited qualities or characteristics are really
something of our own making, and we justify them
because we consider them to be God’s qualities. But
the philosopher states: “How can God be offended
by anything seeing as He created absolutely
everything, which logically means He created the
so-called offensive things as well, and besides
which, knew that they would be offensive in the first
place seeing as He is also all-knowing? And with
all the power He has at his disposal why would He
make himself bothered and miserable through the
act of littering His landscape with offensive objects
and events, and also people to complain about them,
for surely to be offended by something is at the
same time to be made miserable by it as well?” And
again this same philosopher might also ask: “How
19
can God be kind for wouldn’t an act of kindness
demonstrate a lack of knowing of how events turn
out to be for some people, in that in their
misfortunes they thusly seem to prompt, cause, or
remind Him to be kind to them? Yet if He really did
know all things, the past, present, and future, would
He not simply pre-empt their sorrows with an even
greater act of kindness by way of changing their
misfortunes from the very start instead of halfway
through them or even waiting until the very end?”
Some here might say that if God were kind the
whole time then we wouldn’t learn anything, yet
surely what we might learn is to be kind the whole
time ourselves thusly making all our burdens that
much more lighter, which is, as described in the
various spiritual texts, our greatest lesson or goal.
And besides which, if the very best way to learn
something is through an absence of God’s kindness
why then doesn’t He be unkind to everyone instead
of only to some? The truth to all this is that it is
really we who are offended, or we who are kind or
unkind, but because there is some religious book
that tells us God is offended by such and such a
thing, or is kind and loving about something else,
we accordingly justify our attitudes. Yet it is really
our attitudes that betray certain “weaknesses” such
as favouring the easier way of condemning our
20
fellow brothers and sisters due to our ignorance and
bigotries instead of taking the stronger and morally
courageous viewpoint of intelligent loving
tolerance towards their activities which is really
more God-like. Yet, perhaps, in consideration of
our world’s problems and the domination of the
dark forces, and the increasing levels of social and
criminal violence, some might say that that
particular train left the station long ago and that
tolerance now would be like giving the dark forces
a continuing free hand and is therefore a worthless
point of view. Yet from an occult perspective
tolerance doesn’t equate to inaction or being aloof
to the world’s problems. For be it remembered that
the dark forces wouldn’t have nearly any of the
power and influence over the populace that they
have if there were nothing within our natures to be
swayed by in the first place, hence a need for the
understanding of the various components of our
being.
Part of the purpose of this book, then, is to give the
reader an occult perspective on the real self,
primarily via the medium of the soul, and its
relation to its representation on Earth ie: the
personality, and the qualities it possesses. For it is
21
the soul’s qualities that reflect the greater light from
whence it came, namely the Sun, as per the axiom
“As above, so below”. Those qualities will be
discussed in the following chapters.
22
Chapter 4
The Making of Rules
From an occult perspective the personality of a
human being is comprised of a physical body, an
etheric body (which is the real “physical body” or
blueprint), an astral/emotional body, and the lower
mental body (this body dissects, infers, deduces,
categorizes, develops and plans, and is necessary
for survival). These bodies all interpenetrate each
other and are perceptible to some people who
possess clairvoyant abilities. The soul of a human
being has its own ‘body’ which is made up of a
higher mental body, a Buddhic body, and an Atmic
body. These three comprise what is called in occult
terminology the causal body. The Monad (meaning
23
“One”), on its own level, is the Absolute-Existence-
Knowledge-Bliss, identifying itself with the All and
Its inherent endlessness, being not an individualized
thing. Since the Path of Initiation involves a series
of stages of expansions of consciousness,
identification with the soul then could be said for
many people to be the next point of achievement,
for it represents the height of our individuality. It is
really an extension of the Monad (the real self), and
is therefore infinitely more permanent than those
bodies that comprise the personality. But some
might say: “If the Monad is the ultimate reality then
why bother with the soul at all?” As suggested
above, it all comes downs to stages of
consciousness. When someone climbs a mountain
you could say that the top of the mountain, being
the object of climbing, is the ultimate reality, the
Monadic experience. What part would we then
consider to be the soul and what part is the
personality? The personality would naturally be the
body of the climber in that it ideally contains, and is
made up of, everything required for the physical
aspect of the assent, and is capable of gathering
everything it needs for the climb – in other words,
experience. The soul could be said to be will, desire,
or even knowing there is anything to climb at all,
being an ever-present idea or notion in the mind of
24
the climber, even when he or she has stopped
climbing for a rest, or even before beginning the
journey. The Monad, or top of the mountain, has yet
to be experienced, so for most people who have
only just begun the ascent, or are on their way
(though still far from the top) the soul aspect, the
will, desire, and knowing, is like the real self,
serving as a link or guide to that ultimate Great
Truth. To refer to the soul, then, is to refer to the
extension of consciousness for the Monad, or
Divine Spark. And to refer to the personality is to
refer to the extension of consciousness of the soul.
By way of another analogy we could say there is a
child (the personality) that through the natural
course of its growth and evolution is really an adult
(the soul), for although it is still a child the purpose
of its growth is towards adulthood (soul
recognition). This “adulthood”, then, could be
considered, from the perspective of the child, to be
a permanent and ever-present reality, for the goal of
all things in nature is to mature. Yet behind (or
within) this adult is the real self, the Monadic divine
spark, extending itself, as it were, into the concept
of adulthood (the soul), with the appearance of
childhood (the personality) really being a temporary
phase, necessary for this recognition. It is the soul,
then, that is attempting to master the experiences of
25
earthly existence through the agency of the
personality. And it is the soul that finally merges
with the Monad making the personality a pure and
direct reflection of God.
_________________________________________
In Chapter 1 there were cited a few rules pertaining
to those who wish to walk the Path of Initiation.
These rules included: discrimination, discernment,
self-abnegation, freedom from superstition and
fear, and secrecy. There are other rules besides
these and some are particular and relevant to certain
disciples whilst others are not.* This chapter hopes
to demonstrate the difference between the
application and need of rules for a person on the
Path of Initiation, and so on the way to being
governed by his or her own soul, and the application
of rules or laws that are created by human beings
*Some might say: “If these rules are so strict then why do they not pertain to each
and every disciple instead of being pertinent to some and not others?” The simple
answer is that some disciples have learned the rule of discretion, for example,
perfectly, so they do not need to obey a rule they have already mastered.
26
for the multi-various activities of life, in that they
are governed by their personalities.
For practical purposes it could be said that the
appearance of a person on the earth plane is that of
a soul enshrouded in a complete personality, and
certainly it is so because for many people it is the
personality that features most prominently as the
actor in the world, often successfully masking the
true divine principle within - and even going so far
in some cases as to live completely contrarily to it.
It is because the personality is given undue
importance - in so far as that most people think that
they are their personalities, and so act out the
desires of their personalities rather than being
governed by their own souls, that much of our
demands of making laws and rules for each other is
so thoroughly endorsed and sustained.
But why should the physical body, the
astral/emotional body, and the lower mental body
be the cause of our making rules and laws for each
other? The simple truth is that it is through these
vehicles that separatism most easily manifests
itself. And it is through separatism that we seek to
27
apply and enforce our own ideas (on ourselves
and/or others) about right conduct. This is because
we, by thinking ourselves disconnected from others
in this way, feel our ideas are the most right ones
and so need to coerce others into our perceptions of
right living because we fear the result of the
absence of that coercion. A man lives in the world
and is afraid because he thinks his neighbour will
injure him (whether the injury is physical,
psychological, financial, or something else doesn’t
matter). He doesn’t understand that if his neighbour
did injure him it is because of his own previous
karmic actions that brought it about, so he creates a
law that will hopefully minimize that undesirable
outcome. But when this law fails and he is injured
he wants recompense for his suffering and creates a
law that denies his neighbour the right to move
freely or, in extreme cases, to live at all. In this case
the personality dominates and through an astral fear
of harm to his physical body, it uses the lower
mental body to conjure up laws to protect its
survival. On the other hand, a man, governed by the
laws of his soul, has a neighbour who desires to
injure him. He is not afraid because he knows
himself to be immortal, and that any temporary
injury that comes to him is the result of past actions
generated by himself. Because of this he does not
28
wish to injure the neighbour in kind but instead
pours out a wave of love upon him in an act of
compassion, and even goes so far as to create a
viable and attractive avenue for that neighbour to
find happiness in a less painful and self-defeating
way - if he so chooses. Certainly this neighbour may
need to be restricted, for the man governed by his
soul has the right to live as unmolested as anyone
else. But being a little further along the path to
happiness he has incurred a responsibility towards
his fellow beings just as an adult has responsibility
towards its child, and he can try to help minimize
not only the harm that the child may do to others,
but also to itself.
But to accomplish the above example of a man
governed by his soul is not easy (and some would
say unrealistic), for a very potent characteristic of
human beings is to think and tell other people how
they ought to behave and live. This is particularly
pronounced in our world through instant access via
the internet as people are constantly being brought
before the world court of public opinion for their
actions. Someone in the world (putting aside gross
criminal activities for the moment) does something
“wrong”, whether it’s bragging about shooting an
29
endangered animal, refusing to go along with
vaccination practices, leaving a child in a car on a
hot day, or simply littering, and people are up in
arms petitioning and demanding retribution to the
offending party. This is all due to what human
beings view as being right conduct - which
naturally varies from person to person. This isn’t to
say that right conduct isn’t necessary to right living
for it is a necessary step where approaching the Path
of Initiation is concerned because right spiritual
conduct comes with discrimination, discernment,
and freedom from fear. And if people are willing to
follow basic social ethics and values because they
believe they are good then they may be willing to
follow occult values further down the track for a
similar reason. So, it is well when a person takes
responsibility for their role in society and tries to act
to a perceived “good”, but let them do it for
themselves instead of foisting their rules, or ideas of
what constitutes “goodness”, on others. Some might
say: “Surely we have the right to make the world a
better place by straightening out all the
objectionable people no matter what the method?”
And by “objectionable” we could include anything
from stealing, murdering, cheating, and
vandalizing, to those self-same objectionable acts
carried out on a much larger scale through war,
30
terror, manipulating the economy, and mass
hypnotism through the media. Yet these things are
viewed as objectionable and condemnable because
they ultimately cause suffering and a lot of people
like to think they don’t deserve to suffer. And so
they see the best way to deal with it is through
punishment of some kind which is revenge in
action. But can punishment and condemnation ever
appease suffering or eliminate it completely? Surely
as two wrongs never make a right, so, too, does an
objectionable act, and the condemnation of it, never
make a sure-footed pathway to soul-liberation and
true understanding.
It is the intention, need, and feeling of punishment
in our world that is really the same as climbing a
mountain to reach the summit whilst
simultaneously stepping on the hands of those
further down because we happen to dislike their
particular way of climbing. Not only do we stop
them from climbing any further, and so deny them
the possibility of learning the right way of climbing,
but we also halt our own ascent because our hands
and feet are too busy with ‘punishing’ those behind
us. This isn’t to say that when someone does
something “wrong” that we should do nothing, but
31
it is our attitudes that can make all the difference.
Of course it is necessary to apply restrictions and
reformations to certain criminal types but let them
be reformed with Love, not through an attempt to
give back to them the same pain that they inflicted
on others. Nature balances by her own methods, yet
until this is fully understood the rules and laws of
our world will always reflect the numerous points
of views of our separate personalities rather than
our own souls which seek to synthesise all actions.
The difference then between the rules applied to
those on the Path of Initiation and those applied by
people for people in the affairs of the world is that
the occultist applies his or her understanding of
Natures permanent laws (gained through
discrimination, self-sacrifice, and freedom from
superstition), an understanding of the various
bodies that make up our being, and knowledge of
the Infinite true self to various circumstances,
whereas the masses apply conditioning rules and
laws to what is temporary - the not self - and the
circumstances involved. The result of the former is
peace, tolerance, understanding, humility, and
unity; the result of the latter is conflict, suffering,
ignorance, pride, and hypocrisy. Take the trite
32
example of the man who kills a wild animal for
sport or pleasure, and goes so far as to even brag
about it and post it on the internet. People are quick
to respond with outcries: “He shouldn’t have done
that!” they say, and then go on to organize petitions
or campaigns of condemnation (which is really
hatred) to do something about it. They even develop
pride about it because they believe their perspective
is the most superior. But why shouldn’t he have
done that? Is he not seeking happiness like everyone
else? Whilst it is true that he brought suffering to
another creature surely he has as much right to
search for happiness as anyone. Millions upon
millions of animals die every year due to human
beings looking for pleasure or happiness in the form
of food. They may tell themselves that they actually
need to eat meat to survive (a superstition), but
surely to “survive” means to enable them the further
pursuit of happiness. This is an example of people
demanding and exacting certain behaviours in
others but not realizing that their own behaviours
are more like a facet of that which they condemn
rather than a mirror of Truth. And the Laws of Life
lean far more heavily on the shoulders of the
hypocrite than they do on the honest hunter.
33
But can our personality-based rules and laws teach
us anything? They can if they point out our
weaknesses - such as fear of what other’s think
about us, our tendencies to criticize and condemn
others, or our desire to exact revenge - which we
need to overcome if we are to arrive at soul
liberation. But what about the laws that govern our
society such as legislature? These laws can, again,
point out our weaknesses, but instead are commonly
used to placate and satisfy someone’s need to
control and govern others, and this in turn usually
causes those governed to think highly of themselves
if they adopt the same perspective. Rules of any
kind should ideally lead a person to higher levels of
consciousness, not temporary moral inhibitions.
When a person is being told what to do, being made
to apologize for so-called inappropriate behaviour,
certain things happen. That person is usually made
to feel finite. Some might not call it “finite” but
when a person is told to act a certain way to please
others (for that is what is really comes down to) and
then to apologize - be that apology a public affair or
through a jail sentence (where if he is not made to
say he is sorry for breaking human rules then he is
certainly made to feel it) - then the shadow of
34
inhibition creeps into his life. He learns to grow by
the rules of temporary human concepts and not in
the light of the Infinite. He learns that the temporary
is of more value than anything else. From an occult
perspective there is little value in inhibiting growth
but there is value in teaching the Nature of the Soul
by living in accord with it. No harm really comes to
anyone in this world no matter what the
circumstances, for as divine sparks we are
indestructible, and what happens to us in terms of
earthly suffering is but the balancing of effects
caused by us, reaped by us. It has no meaning
beyond giving us insight into our own true natures.
The question could now be asked: “What kind of
world would we live in if everybody was governed
by their souls, rather than being governed by laws
and rules born out of the desires and expectations of
our personalities?” Perhaps, in the last analysis, the
world would be a model of understanding of the
Law of Karma, or cause and effect. Yet the answer
really lies in the way we teach and raise ourselves
and our children, in other words: education.
Teaching about the soul from a young age, and
allowing that soul to demonstrate its presence and
govern our actions by the occult Laws of Life,
35
would result in an absence of the personality laws
and rules with which society abounds for they
would become redundant just as a person who has
outgrown the drinking habit no longer needs to
remind him or herself every day to avoid alcohol.
With regards to the domination by the dark forces
and their activities in the world today human beings
can resist their machinations not necessarily by
aggressively revolting and applying human laws
and ideas about retribution or by exacting revenge,
but by invoking our own souls and the powerful
forces of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Earth to aid us
whilst applying an understanding of Cosmic Laws
such as Cycles, Analogous Correlation, and Karma.
Much of the control they exert over us comes
through our desires and attachments and fears. Yet
we, as souls, have the right to demonstrate our
Divine Natures, our Love, Power, Intelligence, and
Endlessness, and through these inherent qualities
create a platform on which a world can be built that
is free from fear (which almost all temporary human
laws and rules are based upon) and temporary
concepts of right and wrong. When we resist the
dark forces and their machinations we are resisting
the temporary and by so doing are gaining greater
36
control over our personalities through applying the
occult values of discrimination, discernment, and
freedom from superstition (fear).
37
Chapter 5
Mistaking The Low for The High
To recite from Chapter 2, there is an occult book
called "Initiation: Human and Solar" by Alice A.
Bailey. Described within it is a concept called the
“Path of Initiation”. It also gives information
regarding the Spiritual Hierarchy of our planet
which comprises a body of men, women, and
advanced beings of varying degrees of high
consciousness that organize, guide, and even
protect at times the spiritual evolution of Mankind.
At the head of this organization is a great being
occultly called a Planetary Logos and He is known
by the name Sanat Kumara. It is also stated that, if
we choose, we will all one day find ourselves
38
working within the ranks of this hierarchy. Part of
the reason for this is that during the time of Atlantis,
many millions of years ago, there occurred in our
solar system an event that caused many of these
advanced beings (though not the Planetary Logos)
to move onto other areas of work away from our
planet. This naturally left positions to be filled by
other worthy participants and presented, to certain
souls willing to make the extra effort, the
opportunity to move up in rank through the means
of a strict and extremely arduous method known as
the Path of Initiation[2]. These initiations involve an
expansion of consciousness, or a series of
revelations, that occur over many lifetimes through
the process known as reincarnation. It is a path that
can be, and is, trodden in all the many
philosophical, religious, scientific, political, social
and artistic endeavours and activities of humanity.
As indicated in the above statement souls on the
Path of Initiation undergo rigorous training which
means that they have teachers and guides (occultly
known as Initiates, Masters, or disciples) to train
and help them tread this difficult journey through
[2] Ibid.
39
successive lifetimes. Much of this training involves
the practicing of discrimination.
In this regard it is important to know the difference
between the vehicles of the personality and the
vehicles of the soul for it is just as important to
distinguish between the low and the high as they
form these two ‘sets’ of vehicles, through which
consciousness expresses itself, as it is to distinguish
it in other people or circumstances. It is equally as
important to be able to discriminate between the
low and the high within the personality itself as
well. It should also here be clarified that these
Masters, Initiates, or disciples have no desire
whatsoever to be held up as objects of worship or
adoration.
To recapitulate, the vehicles of the personality are
the physical, the etheric (which is the real 'physical'
body or blueprint), the astral/emotional body, and
the lower mental body (which dissects, infers,
deduces, categorizes, develops and plans, and is
necessary for survival). The vehicles of the soul are
the higher mental body (abstract thought,
inspiration), the Atmic body (spiritual will), and the
40
Buddhic body (true intuition or knowing) which
combined form what is known as the causal body.
Yet why is it important for us to be able to make the
distinction between the personality and the soul in
relation to our treading the occult path? It is because
the soul discerns The Divine Plan more accurately
than the personality does just as an adult can
understand its environment more completely than a
child can. The soul (with the higher mental body) is
also a ‘point of contact’ that the Masters use to
communicate ideas. The personality can, therefore,
interpret Truth with accuracy if it is dominated by
the soul, for ideally the personality becomes as a
perfect musical instrument with the soul being the
player. And just as a master musician would hardly
take the trouble to play an instrument that has
various defects and broken parts our own souls do
not take the trouble with us until we (as
personalities) provide it with something it can really
use well, hence the importance of discipline,
training, and building of character etc. In this
occultism knows no compromise.
To the occultist the soul is the permanent link to the
Monad (the real self) and he or she no more regards
the personality as the real self any more than a
41
person regards themselves as being an item of their
clothing when they put it on. Yet this is what many
people do with regards to their possessions,
achievements, ambitions or whatever, in that they
view them as being very much a part of their ‘make-
up’, identifying themselves only with the temporary
(personality) instead of the more permanent, which
is the soul. This may be confusing to some for the
idea that our souls are, for all intents and purposes,
a more real “us” or “I”, means that those of us who
are still dominated by our personality aspects, and
so think and act out our personality lives on earth,
are therefore somehow not real. The questions
might be asked: “Where, then, do our personalities
end and our souls begin? And at what point do we
identify with our souls?” Some might say that the
performing of good and helpful acts of selfless
service to our fellow beings is when we identify
with (or at least begin to be impressed by) our souls,
and whilst this is true it can seem a little simplistic
to certain intellectual mental types. From an occult
perspective we can again take the example of an
infant that grows into an adult. Naturally, at the time
of its infancy, the infant cannot possibly
comprehend its inevitable and natural trajectory
into adulthood, let alone there being a sort of
“invisible” truer adult, or Philosopher Sage,
42
standing in the background all the while waiting for
the infant to develop, and only occasionally
showing an interest when the infant, on its journey
into adulthood, shows signs of being something it
can work with, guide, and train. Yet what is the
infant other than the personality which, at the time
of its infancy, comprehends only its infancy, and
then later on, as it develops and grows, identifies
itself with the varying stages of its growth, and so
on and so forth, regarding each seemingly separate
stage as being “real” until a stage is, of course,
outgrown and may include the thinking: “I thought
I was a child but now I am a youth so that my
thoughts as a child are no longer real for I now take
in a larger picture which includes more youthful
concepts.” And then later: “I concluded I was a
youth but now I am an adult and the things of my
youth don’t seem so real to me now as the horizon
has broadened to include the things of adulthood.”
It is when our personalities start to come under the
gradual dominance and rhythm of our souls in some
one life or another that soul identification begins to
take place and may include several incarnations that
are spent within the influence of religious, spiritual,
or philosophical schools. This does not necessarily
mean an instant introduction to some mysterious
unorthodox viewpoint, for even a conventional
43
religious upbringing can teach valuable lessons. Yet
to trace it back to some specific point would
naturally be difficult, but suffice it is to say, there
begins, in the interior life of the person, a change in
values of some kind. Just as the infant that grows
into a child, then a youth, then an adult, and
accordingly involves an adjustment of values at
each stage, so, too, is it for the adult that wishes to
look beyond the appearances of the material world,
no longer being willing to take things at face value.
It should also be borne in mind that some
personalities can be quite strongly impressed by
their souls yet never have a “spiritual” thought their
whole lives, for though it sounds strange to say, a
person can become side-tracked from his or her
soul’s purpose by beginning a personal inquest into
the existence of the soul itself. Perhaps we can get
an idea of this interesting point of view when we try
to do a certain important job well, yet find we are
preoccupied with some internal thought or feeling,
which thusly results in the job being poorly done. In
any case, it is these changes in perceptions, whether
interpreted accurately or inaccurately, that go into
building a growing recognition that we are indeed
something more than just our personalities. In short,
we are not our personalities, but paradoxically it is
only through controlling our personalities that we
44
can become cognizant of this occult recognition of
our truer self being the soul in incarnation, just as
the stilling of the water of a lake reveals what is
really beneath the surface. And so Life, in all its
abundance, supplies us with much more than air,
food, and heat, generally-speaking, but more
importantly it gives us our ability to discriminate
and discern our very being, an ability which guides
us through the myriads of experiences that this
planet has to offer.
In the developing new age distinction between the
personality and the soul will help to alleviate some
of the problems the Spiritual Hierarchy has when
seeking to impress part of the Divine Plan upon the
consciousness of Humanity – which is made up of
Initiates, disciples, probationers, and the general
mass of people - and part of that Plan is
discrimination. Some of these problems for those
who are upon the Path are: blind devotion,
sensualisation, superstition, inaccuracy, over-
dependency, pride, presumption, and
misinterpretation.
45
Discriminating between the soul and the personality
will also reduce time-wasting and develop the right
perspective to distinguish between what is
important and what is not important on the Path of
Initiation. This last example is common for many
aspirants often think that whatever they do, say, or
read regarding anything spiritual must therefore be
very significant or important, particularly when
discovered for the first time, and that they, too, are
important for knowing or agreeing with it, and this
in itself is a superstition. Many sincere aspirants
read about a particular line of work a Master is
working on, or chance to hear that such and such a
Master works with artists or poets, for example, and
as a result it preoccupies or even dominates their
general thinking, and if they happen to be artistic or
a poet they think that they must therefore be
associated with that Master and His work. They also
often begin to think that they themselves are also
important by that very connection. This isn’t to say
that an artist or poet can’t be associated with a
particular Master because of this problem but rather
to point out that it is very easy for the personality to
make aggrandizing generalizations and
assumptions and end up blocking, through
developing pride, any higher inspiration. How
many instances of people are there who, in the
46
world of purely physical plane knowledge, assume
an air of importance because they happen to ‘know’
some line of thinking or concept that is accepted by
the masses and promulgated by the intelligentsia
and intellectual community? Yet this is equally true
of those who embrace what they consider to be an
unconventional line of thinking such as believing in
the Masters. Yet those who claim to be “into
something” such as the Masters, or the Great
Brotherhood of Light, can often in varying degrees
really fall prey to being more “into” themselves, for
whilst they have certainly responded to, in many
cases, a faint recollection of a connection with these
beings, the initial thrill assumes a level of
importance and thus selfishness, in the form of
spiritual or intellectual contentedness, creeps in.
This is one of the downfalls of initiates who fail to
realize that they love themselves more than they
love those they claim to serve (ie: Humanity or the
Masters) because of what they know or believe, and
the sense of temporary fulfilment, satisfaction, and
importance it gives them.
To understand what the soul wants to accomplish is
no easy task. Some aspirants may think that
dominating one of their vices, for example, must be
47
what their soul wants and so this action can assume
an undue importance in the life of the personality.
Yet sometimes it is not that particular vice that
needs to be conquered or ousted but another one. Or
the soul may not be interested in that vice as such,
but may want the personality to do something that
may not seem to be spiritual at all. An example of
this could be a soul that is trying to prompt the
personality to take up a study course in commerce
or industrial engineering in order to accomplish
some work for the human race as a whole - yet the
personality can regard this as being not very
spiritual. In this case the soul, being more far-
seeing, would have placed hints or suggestions
regarding this course of action in front of the
personality in some form or another. But because
the personality thinks to study either of these is not
very spiritual, pure, (or even relevant), it thinks that
it must become somehow even more spiritual or
pure, possibly through intensifying meditation
practices, or indulging in the hermit life (as if to
prove a point), whilst substantiating its perspective
with quotes from its favourite books, and so waste
a lot of time, and possibly an entire incarnation, in
not only ignoring the promptings of its soul in its
attempt to contribute to the betterment of Mankind,
but also in becoming too lop-sided and even
48
fanatical as a result. This person may think that
becoming more unconditionally loving and more
deeply spiritual is more “right” than doing what
they consider to be a mundane study course, but this
simply means that their grasp on what is actually
spiritual is inaccurate.
Another example could be the person who thinks
that they can serve “two Masters” at once and
adhere to a so-called occult life and continue in a
material marriage or relationship living a material
life. This person might think that if they can do both
quite successfully (and some can) then surely they
have mastered a great lesson. The soul, however,
may have hinted at something more important to
accomplish in the life of the personality than the
trivial (to it) concept of a family life. That the soul
can think along these lines may disgust the
personality (and the personality’s friends and
family) and so the well-meaning individual may
think that it is not his soul after all trying to
communicate something to him but either a
tempting “demon” or his own lower-self. And so
not a few aspirants think that they are viewing
things from their higher-selves but it is often a
lower-self, or personality, perspective
49
masquerading as a higher morality. They may also
have a new-age-style philosophy to support them
with an attitude of ‘everything is right and good’
where spirituality is concerned, but this point of
view is to be abhorred by the true occultist because
it hinders the practice of discriminating occult
values.
The ‘everything is right and good’ philosophy
would not contribute well to the mental atmosphere
of, for example, an inspired composer who has to
discriminate between certain notes, chords,
rhythms, and time signatures to produce a particular
effect in line with a musical vision. This trained
composer would know that if he or she were to play
the entire keyboard at once the result would be
unpleasant and ineffective. This is analogous to one
of the current problems in the commercially-
oriented new age arena where practically everything
has an equal value under the banner of “Oneness”.
Yet the effect on the consciousness of the rest of the
members of the human race who are its intended
recipients can be extremely divisive.
Fundamentally we are all “one” but practically we
all evolve differently. The Spiritual Hierarchy has
to practice wise discrimination as to what part of the
50
Divine Plan It can reveal to the world and even
which disciple It will send to do the work (and into
which country), but this action can fail due to lack
of occult values held by the intended recipients,
hence the need for legitimate occult schools. There
is a time and place for certain philosophies and even
a time and place for them to “appear” to run
contrary to a higher line of thinking.
Another common example is mistaking certain
emotions or sensed ‘vibrations’ for something
highly spiritual. There are many psychic people in
the world today who can easily sense, see, hear or
interact with the other subtle planes and because the
vibrations of some of these planes are technically
higher than the physical (being the densest), just as
a gas is lighter than a mineral, then it can often be
mistaken for the highest, little realizing that whilst
they have certainly sensed something beyond the
physical plane, it is by no means certain that what
they have sensed is the acme of vibrations. In fact,
even though being able to contact other planes can
give a person happiness, and is an extraordinarily
useful talent, it can easily become a distraction and
assume the proportions of dogma because of the
sense of personal importance it can give him or her.
51
Many well-meaning people who are polarized in
their emotional bodies, and are sincerely looking for
something with deeper meaning in their lives, often
forego any critical thinking and routinely utilize
their so-called ‘intuition’ instead which seemingly
guides them to attend emotionally or commercially-
driven spiritual platforms and events. Yet these
events often cost a lot of money and are, as a
consequence, impractical in light of our current
economic problems – these problems being
something the Spiritual Hierarchy is trying to warn
and advise us about through its disciples in
incarnation right now (some of whom may work as
economists or financiers). These intuitions that
people claim lead them to the right person, teacher,
or place are sometimes an attempt by the soul to
teach them discrimination, which would be more
like the development of real intuition which is
knowing. Think on this. The soul, in its wisdom,
aims at the practical and the useful where the
problems of the world are concerned. People
waking up to the lies of their governments and a
collapsing economy is sometimes more indicative
of an expanding consciousness and developing
intuition, and therefore potential usefulness to the
Spiritual Hierarchy, than those spending large sums
of money on spiritual fads promoting self-
52
realization. Therefore, to know something
intuitively is different to being led somewhere
emotionally. But, to allude again to the problem of
the philosophy of “everything is right and good”
you could say that a trip on an expensive cruise ship
to take part in a spiritual tour to an exotic locale
would be (an usually is) seen as just as valuable as
actually refraining from that self-same trip in lieu
of something more practical. Hence, interested
people are becoming hypnotised to the belief that
new age spirituality is good because of the abundant
expression of choices and philosophies it often
unquestioningly supports and promotes. But the
real good would be in practicing unrelenting
discrimination in spite of what the majority believes
or supports - whether that majority is of the new age
movement or of the whole world.
Another problem is the personality resisting
promptings from the soul. A person lives in an area
and has a good job, both of which will soon be
drastically affected by Earth upheavals and
economic woes, and the soul has dropped the hint
to the personality to take action by moving
elsewhere. Yet due to an attachment to his or her
lifestyle this person is very reluctant to move.
53
Suddenly, this person starts to suffer some kind of
illness or relationship issue or finds him or herself
at ‘loose ends’. The soul has planted the seed of the
idea to do whatever it takes to relocate (which may
include quitting the job, selling the home, and even
separating from the spouse if necessary) in order to
fulfil some spiritual purpose, yet the personality
resists and this often results in a ‘problem’ or
crossroads. This person (a new age type, for the
sake of furthering the illustration) then tries energy
healings and seeking spiritual guidance from
mediums and invisible entities who tell him or her
that they have an emotional block and energy needs
to be moved. They are told that the problem stems
from some mundane problem such as failed
relationships, or career choices, or lack of parental
love etc., yet all the while ignoring the straight and
unalloyed prompt from the soul. This is mistaking
the low for the high. There is indeed a block but
rather than it being something to do with the above
cited reasons, it may really have its origins in the
personality’s reluctance to move, or take action,
which may stem from laziness or fear. But the
personality will very often choose the multiple
voices of sympathy, comfort, and ego-caressing
over the solitary and stark voice of uncomfortable
action.
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The above examples are some of the problems the
Masters have when dealing with people whose
concept of Them as teachers and guides, and more
importantly Their work, is not fully understood, and
this is because of the yet-to-be mastered
understanding of the personality and the soul. This
can be a great stumbling block for people in large
numbers who are attracted to gurus, priests, or great
teachers for many will go along with what their
neighbour does or thinks, because through their
personality they think they have found everything
they have ever looked for in this teacher (or set of
teachings) and in many ways stop discriminating.
Yet to sense the initial attraction to these teachers
(presumed to be legitimate) is right for it implies
love and growth towards the real, even in its
extreme infancy. However, even a virtue carried to
extremes can become a vice, hence much of the
imbalances and fanaticisms found in the Christian
churches, for example, which is one of the
drawbacks of ultra-devotion. Additionally, many
well-meaning devotional types bring a sense of the
finite in their worship in the form of an idea they
have about what a Master actually is because they
lack perfect vision and comprehension of that
Master, and so rather than have nothing they would
rather have a little of something and so proceed to
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put the energies into that little something – such as
being fixated on one or two of the Master’s
utterances yet ignoring everything else He may
have said – because of the satisfaction it gives them.
Yet all the while the picture they have is incomplete
for the instrument used, the personality, is not under
the dominance of the soul and so is liable to error
through lack of critical thinking, discrimination,
self-analysis, and, above all else, honesty.
Thinking, as an act, in certain spiritual
philosophies, is often seen as an impediment of
some kind to spiritual progress, seemingly only
necessary and admired with regards to purely
material concerns such as buying a house, acquiring
food, or getting a material education. This is a
drawback of the popular philosophy of feeling
everything and ignoring the ‘mind’. There are many
church-goers who are highly critical thinkers in
their respective fields, some being scientific, who
do not (or are forbidden to) apply it to their own
religious creeds. Yet surely there is no logic in a
Deity bequeathing Its children a developing mental
body if it is only ignored or wished away into non-
existence because so many people have a tendency
to feel more than think. For just as a person who
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goes for a swim in the ocean can be said to “feel”
the whole ocean even though they are in reality only
occupying a small part of it, it must be remembered
that that person has almost their entire body
submerged with just their head being required to
stay above the surface, a thing being necessary to
personal survival. The same could be said that those
who are prone to only feel their way through their
spirituality would indeed be at risk of drowning in
the psychic ocean of our planet, as it were, with only
a relatively small part staying above it providing the
‘link’ to the soul. And it is this very link, ie: the
personality, that requires the balanced exercise of
all of its parts, for the mental body, like the
astral/emotional body, is still a conduit to convey
impressions from the soul and therefore has a very
necessary function. Each body of the personality,
the physical, astral/emotional, and lower mental,
must ultimately be caused by the soul to function
and interpret accurately that part of the Divine Plan
which is its privilege to portray, and neither of these
can be left unregarded, neglected, dismissed, or
even over-emphasized any less than the certain
dietary requirements needed to maintain a healthy
nutritional balance for the physical body.
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It was asked above: “Where exactly do our
personalities end and our souls begin?” and it may
well be asked when exactly does night end and the
day begin with the answer being it is a matter of
perspective, for to one person standing in some part
of the world it begins at a certain time, for others
the Sun has not yet risen, and for another group it
rose some time ago, meaning that the soul (likened
to the Sun) makes Its presence felt when a person
positions him or herself (esoterically-speaking) to
receive Its light in accordance to his or her efforts
and intentions. From an occult perspective there is
nothing in our earthly lives that cannot be sacrificed
for a higher perspective, and it is just a matter of
knowing which perspective is the higher one. And
surely the perspective that truly benefits all and
admits into the world more intelligent Love in
action is indicative of a soul-governed personality
which is a true blessing in this world.
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Chapter 6
A Light-bearer’s Sacrifice
In the previous chapter there were described certain
instances that discrimination could be applied to in
regards to helping the seeker of Truth become a
more useful force for good in his or her
environment, and ultimately the world, as per the
Divine Plan. In fact, myriad are the examples that
can really be cited as each individual (on the Path
of Initiation) seeks to become a soul-infused
personality and thusly encounters obstacles, and the
need to choose between one thing and another, in
order to facilitate this usefulness. That those
“things” could actually end up being some of our
most cherished social agendas, and even be
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considered as “obstacles” as well, can be shocking
to some people.
Let us take the example of a regular working man
who is married with children yet who also entertains
aspirations that involve some kind of beneficial
work for the good of the world along occult lines.
This could be setting up a series of lectures upon
spiritual subjects, for instance, that go beyond the
norm of conventional religious thinking in his part
of the world. This potent idea, dropped into his
mental body by his soul, has been growing in his
mind and has even become quite preoccupying. His
wife notices and queries him about it and he initially
responds with a vague description of his personal
thoughts and noncommittally shrugs it off as a
passing idea. But it is enough to cause his wife a
subtle suspicion that something isn’t quite right.
She may even entertain unflattering aspersions on
her husband but chooses to remain silent. In the
meantime the man’s idea becomes intensely more
interesting to him and it begins to affect his
relationship with his wife and family. He talks more
and more about his idea expecting some enthusiasm
in return yet at the same time becomes aware of a
growing resentment coming, at any rate, from his
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wife. He is fast coming to a point where he has to
make a choice, and it will seem to him, when the
choice is truly upon him, that life is unfair. Thusly,
he is at a crossroads. He thinks for a while that if he
can convince his wife and family to follow his line
of thinking then they, too, will reap the benefits of
his project (in the form of being part of something
that, to him, is truly worthwhile), but his family sees
no benefit in being part of something they don’t
even understand. To them it may seem as though he
has been keeping a secret for a long time and that
he isn’t who they think he is, and so begin to doubt
him. In fact, things get so bad that his wife threatens
to leave him on the grounds of what to her is
amazing selfishness, neglect, and foolish
impractical dreaming on his part, for she sees his
changed attitude and ideas as being a threat to the
marriage and the life they have set up for
themselves. The man is torn, for he longs to have
the best of both worlds, the love, support, and
understanding of his wife and family, and the
fulfilment of his spiritual vision. In the end he
chooses to abandon his idea and goes back to being
what he was before.
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Now let us look at this scenario from another angle:
A great sage approaches a spiritual aspirant on the
path and tells him of a wonderful idea he has that
will bring enlightenment and peace to people. Being
naturally cautious he gives a partial picture of what
that idea is and asks the man if he would be willing
to help him put it into concrete form, as it were
almost useless to anyone were it devoid of practical
tangibility. The man, who is struck by the veracity
of the sage and his idea, and sees little to doubt,
readily agrees, and begins to busy himself with
preparations and the telling of his friends about it.
His friends, however, being far from eager to join
him in his enterprise prove instead to be the source
of much animosity and ridicule which was entirely
unexpected by the man. He tries to explain the
benefits that they will reap, the enlightenment, the
peace etc. but they are more interested in their
material lives and so come to regard he, whom they
once counted as a brother and a friend, as someone
they feel they no longer know and someone they
can no longer trust. The man is bewildered and torn
between these dramatic reactions and his attraction
to the words of the sage, and, in the end, chooses to
settle back into his old life and ways and is
welcomed back into the comfortable nest of his
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earthly life by his friends. The sage merely moves
along and disappears from view.
If we analyse this story we find that the sage was
really the man’s own soul, who saw an opportunity
for growth that would also benefit the human race
as a whole. His soul gave him a glimpse into the
nature of that opportunity to test the reaction, as it
were, and saw that there was a reasonably positive
response. The unsympathetic friends in the story are
none other than the man’s wife and family, who
cannot see the vision imparted to this husband and
father, but are glad when it departs.
During the process of this opportunity that was
offered to the man by his soul his family actually
served as a magnet to draw out from hiding certain
weaknesses within his own nature that he can now
fix, if he chooses, ‘ere another opportunity passes
his way. One of those weaknesses could be
described as fear, as in fear of the potential loss of
his family and the emotional upheavals that would
follow. Pride could be another weakness in that he
fears a loss of his reputation held in the eyes of his
friends by following through with his idea. And
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another weakness could be lack of faith in his own
soul. This may all sound like a harsh criticism of a
simple family life but be it remembered that the
man’s wife and children are, in truth, sparks of the
Divine as well – each the real Infinite-self, the
Absolute-Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, and that the
choices they have made as personalities,
influencing the man’s final decision towards their
favour, ended up with them all placing more value
in their finite personality-oriented lives than
anything else. They may also become further prone
to pride and conventionalism resulting in the sort of
narrow-mindedness that besets many a traveller on
the way to Truth. But to their own souls even a
negative reaction will yield positive results for
eventually through this experience they will learn
that their material life, and all the faith they put into
it, really is a temporary thing no matter how
laudable and praiseworthy it is deemed in the eyes
of the world, and that the great family of souls that
is Mankind ultimately is more permanent and real
and therefore more worth the helping along the
great Path of Life. This is one example of the sort
of discriminatory choices each light-bearer* may
*The term “light-worker” or “light-bearer” connotes someone who is on the
spiritual path actively engaged in the work of the Spiritual Hierarchy.
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have to act on in some of the more obvious social
platforms of our world.
It might here be asked: “Why is it so important, or
necessary at all, for any idea coming from the soul
to be materialized into concrete form? Why can’t it
just stay as an idea and be a benefit that way instead
of causing so much trouble?” But one might well
ask: “Why can’t a tree that produces fruit only need
to look as though it can produce fruit instead of
actually producing fruit?” with the result being that
if that were the case we would never know the
sweetness or sourness of its product due to it forever
remaining in the realm of non-materialization, and
so miss the opportunity to experience and
discriminate one of the countless wonders of life,
not to say that if every other food producing form
in nature did the same we would all starve and die.
The truth is that everything in nature is a
demonstrable materialized product of its own
power, and whether this power results in the making
of a tree, a planet, the building of a school, or the
building of a whole universe, Nature is perpetually
pouring Itself into manifestation of some kind or
another and the soul, being a more truer part of
nature than the personality, does the same with the
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same definite purpose. And to anyone who says that
this is all just vague and dreamy unsubstantiated
nonsense then they must have never been in love for
who cares for love if it just floats around
somewhere in our atmosphere and is impossible to
‘catch’, as it were. Yet countless billions around the
world try to do that very thing and have it manifest
in their lives in some form or another, whether it be
in the form of having children, meeting someone
special, or enjoying mountainous scenery. What,
then, is the difference between that and a soul-
prompted inspiration or idea (which is based on
love) seeing as both are far sweeter to have than to
have not, or to be ignored completely?
The personality of this man was impressed by his
own soul to demonstrate this reality (in the form of
a new school that teaches such), and as Nature
wastes nothing in Its expressions the man’s soul
would hardly waste its time in presenting an idea to
the world in concrete form if it served no practical
purpose or was, in fact, impossible to carry out. This
would only prove that the man’s soul is prone to
stupidity instead of being wise and far-seeing. The
effects of this impression on the man’s
consciousness by the soul were like the appearance
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of ripples on a still pond after having been touched,
as it were, by a passing gentle breeze. The
personalities of his wife and family, however, view
this effect as being more like a rock being thrown
through a plate-glass window. Yet nobody objects
when a bird breaks the literal shell of its own birth
in order to live, so why object when Life provides
us with the impetus to do the same, the plate-glass
window being none other than the limits of our own
consciousness. The processes of nature that go into
creating one form are constantly replacing it with
another form in the name of Evolution - and so it
goes through all avenues of earthly life.
This does not mean, however, that certain people
with spiritual tendencies should go around in
disregard causing suffering to each other thinking
that there is a higher motive behind their ideas, for
light-workers can be just as prone to selfishness and
mistakes as anyone else. Light-workers should
exercise complete discrimination with regards to
what they think is a prompting from their soul yet
may actually be a desire of their personality. This
could be seen in the example of a man who wants
to pursue an occult life and convinces himself that
his seemingly high-minded aspirations are the cause
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(and certainly the proof) of the various negative
reactions he gets from his wife and children yet all
the while he actually harbours an unconscious
desire to escape the duties of a family life because
he views his spiritual aspirations as being more
interesting and more important. This man may have
spent his previous life (or lifetimes) living a solitary
life pursuing spiritual interests – perhaps as a monk
or a priest – and as a result has become quite selfish
and focussed on his own spiritual growth. And
whilst in this life his aspirations along occult lines
are certainly genuine, his soul has placed him into a
life of marriage and its attendant duties to teach him
to focus less upon himself and more upon others.
These are difficult conclusions to arrive at for both
examples can be viewed from any perspective that
the personality can conjure up. This is where
unequivocal honesty plays its part and the ability to
look well into our own heart to see the true cause of
our personality reactions.
But some might ask: “Why can’t light-workers just
commit to doing half of what the soul has hinted at
and spend the other half attending to family duties?”
The answer is that they can if they wish, but the
results may or may not be as far-reaching. It
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depends on many things, for it goes without saying
that those things done in half-measures (for no-one
can deny that a person’s energies would be divided
and so lose some potency) are not as effective as
those done with total commitment. Yet if you were
to ask someone why they admire the total
commitment of a well-known entrepreneur, for
example, who influences thousands of people, yet
reject the same level of commitment that their
significant other has in some other type of
endeavour, also potentially influencing thousands
of people, the answer would be: “Well, that’s
different!” But in that non-specific statement we
can suspect other reasons for them to object. Fear
and vanity often surface in the personalities of loved
ones when they are directly affected by the actions
of those who are truly impressed by their souls.
Fear, in that their lives will somehow be disrupted,
and vanity, in that they realize they are no longer
the centre of their loved one’s universe and so suffer
a blow to the ego. However, blanket statements
such as recommending to everyone who has a soul
mission to accomplish to divorce their
misunderstanding spouse is not wisdom, for every
case is different.
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Let us now look at the scenario from the perspective
of a family unit who are governed by their souls.
The husband, who loves humanity, gets an idea to
start an esoteric school and so dedicates a lot of time
in building it. His wife, who loves her husband and
humanity more than herself (just as her husband
does for he would not do it if it didn’t bring
happiness to her as well) makes every effort to
assist him, and in the very least gives him
unmolested freedom to pursue his course of action.
In fact their whole lives have been very similar to
each other from a young age so a definite soul
affinity is in place when they finally meet. Their
bodies are in tune with their souls, their hearts and
minds are at peace, and their children grow in an
environment of wisdom and happiness, for all are
happy to do the work of their souls and to “forget
self”, and so reap the benefits of being true
blessings to the world. Does this sound far-fetched?
Whilst people acknowledge that our world is indeed
in dire straits, it might seem that to do a ‘little good’
is really all that people can do, but surely the above
example of a far higher order of living in the form
of a family unit of soul-governed personalities
committed to benefitting humanity, as this family
illustrates is possible, is truly worth the attainment,
just as a school filled with the most intelligent and
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compassionate teachers is better and more helpful
to the school than if it were not. Is this idealized
family, then, to be held in contempt and scorn for
the current state of affairs in our world which was
really caused by people living lives governed by the
selfish inclinations of their personalities rather than
their own souls?
On the Path of Initiation it comes down to how
much a light-bearer is willing to sacrifice in order
to carry out the part they can play in helping
Humanity (part of that plan being to develop and
awaken self-consciousness in all beings respective
to their positions on the great ladder of evolution).
For sacrifice is a fact of nature in that true growth
involves giving up one stage in life for another, just
as a child can be said to sacrifice its childhood to
become an adult, yet no-one would call it a
‘sacrifice’ as such for that sort of growth is typically
viewed as completely natural. But moral or spiritual
sacrifice, however, is typically viewed as something
painful and distinctly unpleasant, yet why should
this be so? If it is natural for an infant to grow into
a child, and then from a child into a youth, and so
on and so forth, why should it not be natural for a
person to grow from one moral or spiritual
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perspective to another that includes a larger picture,
possibly encompassing the whole world, in the
same way that the adult views things with a larger
perspective than does the infant it once was? The
pain, of course, comes in the form of attachments.
Attachments, to marriages, relationships, material
acquisitions, money, and other comforts. For to be
attached to anything is to be forever in risk of losing
that thing, for nothing on earth lasts forever.
It could be asked: “Why do the sacrifices of the
light-bearer matter so much to Humanity in the first
place?” Sacrifice, again, is a fact of nature, for the
mother or father (likened to the light-bearer) could
be said to be further along the Path of Life than the
child they raise (likened to Humanity) and so are
ever ready to make willing sacrifices – often
forgoing any personal goals – to help that child
develop and grow and gradually become more and
more self-conscious on its path towards happiness.
It is the same for the light-workers who are just a
little further ahead along the Path of Life and
experience, and who simultaneously acknowledge
that there are many who are further along than they,
and so hold a similar place of responsibility to
Mankind as the mother or father hold to their child.
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But some might object and deem these light-bearers
or light-workers to be conceited and suffer
superiority complexes but with the same tongue
will laud the many examples of bright lights in
Humanity’s history who verily have been as
guiding “parents” to the masses with their
respective viewpoints.
_________________________________________
Another problem encountered by the Spiritual
Hierarchy when they strive to bring out the right
qualities in light-workers in order to help humanity
is that they (the light-workers) can be prone to think
so much along occult lines that they start thinking
nothing else on earth is worth knowing, and in so
doing fall in love with the idea they have of
themselves and thus the glamour of pride and
selfishness creeps in. Take the example of a young
man who is introduced to occult books by a friend.
This new kind of information causes in the man a
bestirring within his being for he has had access to
this kind of information before (in a previous life)
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and is just picking up the thread again in this life,
though he may not at first grasp this fact. But
because he is not rounded-out enough and has not
mastered his emotional body or his mental body,
and has been raised in a typical family environment,
he utilizes these bodies with regards to occultism in
the same way he has (up until now) been utilizing
them for everything else in his life: to gratify his
personality. In other words, whilst no doubt he has
responded in some measure to a true “clarion call”
to be of some service in the world with this new
information, he feels it can also really make him
‘shine’ - to be a thing of power, authority, respect
and righteousness to others, yet really developing a
superiority complex all the while. This trait, made
of ancient habits that have persisted into this current
incarnation, has found, yet again, fertile ground
upon which to grow, and he wields occult lore like
he wielded the bible, or even a sword, in previous
lives, ie: to the detriment of himself and of others.
He may also likely have a rich fantasy life and live
out his dreams in the malleable atmosphere of the
astral plane (the plane of desires and emotions) and
so life for him is almost entirely viewed unclearly
or inaccurately. It is here that the occult material
could really benefit him by breaking the glamour of
the thought-forms of his own making but instead he
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takes the parts he likes the most, those that seem to
justify his own personal ideas about things such as
socialization, religion, attitudes and behaviours of
friends and family, etc. and uses them to bolster
those ideas with the result being a life spent
believing he is right all the time. He has become a
rigid specimen, and may even risk wasting a whole
incarnation in loving himself and what he thinks he
is, both in the practical world and in the dramatic
fantasy life he lives on the astral plane, because he
is not ready to forget self.
But it is here that the sword of discrimination can
be applied with ruthlessness, for he must examine
his motives far more than the ordinary person on the
street, seeing as he is climbing into thinner air and
any misstep on the mountain (for he has been
climbing) means certain death. In his thoughts he
should look for ideas about himself that give rise to
pride and lust for recognition and replace them with
the concerns of others and a due sense of
proportion. In his heart he should look for warmth
in that it can be used to warm others, and not merely
give him personal satisfaction. These are the sorts
of things that must be considered if discrimination
is going to be taken to the heights of realization: He
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is in his fellow beings, and they are in him. The
“sword” in the story is none other than his own
willingness to face truth. A lifetime spent in
developing self-love is a life probably wasted, but it
is never too late to remedy this with the balm of
humility.
In our modern society, both humility and pride are
equally deemed worthy qualities yet what does this
mean to light-bearers trying to demonstrate occult
laws and superphysical realities? It means that they
must choose between one and the other no matter
how painful the choice. Yet it depends on what is
truly meant by these two concepts. Pride is love of
anything that glorifies ourselves in the eyes of
others, and in the eyes of ourselves, even if there is
literally no-one else around. Humility is
consecration to values we perceive as being
worthwhile, whether those values are embodied by
a “God” or a set of philosophies, or the desire to be
useful to humankind. A person can humbly
recognize something greater than him or herself and
yet become full of pride when they attain that self-
same thing, just as the young man who encountered
something that he knew was greater than he yet
developed pride because he knows it. This is the
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razors edge, and the earnest disciple must keep
forever watch for any new (or old) glamour that
creeps subtly into his or her life before it takes a
strong hold and he or she finds themselves having
to climb back down the mountain to start again,
hence many a wasted incarnation. Forgetting self,
and loving others in demonstrated service is the
cure, and every consideration that a person walking
the Path of Initiation has will not be unwise if these
are kept in the forefront of the mind.
As cited in the last chapter also, there are many
light-workers who have abilities that enable them to
interact with other planes or dimensions. In
occultism these abilities are often called
clairvoyance, clairaudience, or clairsentience (to
name a few of them) which roughly translates as
having the ability to see or hear clearly, and to sense
clearly. They can interact with other entities,
beings, or people in general (such as the recently
passed-over) or ‘read’ inanimate objects, and as
such have a great potential to help mankind
understand the spiritual realities that make up our
universe such as the endlessness of our true selves.
There are, in fact, multitudes of souls on the ‘other
side’ who range from recently deceased people who
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want to communicate with their loved ones, to great
and highly developed souls known occultly as
Mahatmas or Masters, to entities who want to take
advantage of people with psychic faculties in order
to manipulate them into doing something for them,
and to even possess them entirely. At this point one
could ask: “Why would these selfish and
manipulative beings want to have anything to do
with the material earth plane seeing as they are
technically far freer out of the body, not even being
dependent on food, drink, or even air to keep them
going?” The answer is that the earth plane for these
entities, who may be quite young souls, still has a
very strong pull, and the thrill of being in contact
with it, in some form or another, is more real to
them than their own souls. Be it remembered that
they, too, are searching for happiness, but in a way
that still gives them pain (in the form of
unappeasable desires and addictions to food,
alcohol, power, sex, money, and war etc.) and to
give up on these truly means death, just like a
person who has a lot of possessions suffers when
those things are taken away. So, for these young
souls there is always a reason or incentive to their
actions and desires to communicate with the earth
plane, just as there is a reason for any of us in that
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the earth still holds for each of us some kind of lure,
else why would we be here?
Because many light-bearers seek communications
with what they hope are a far higher order of beings
such as Masters, or Angels etc. these younger souls
must attract their attention by impersonation. If we
consider that practically any person on the street
could memorise a few sentences uttered by an
actual highly evolved soul, and then recite them to
someone else and cause that person to think that the
speaker of them is quite spiritual, then the same is
true with regards to the types of communication
going on in the new age movement which is where
most light-bearers gravitate to. In fact, some of
these entities can easily read the thoughts and
feelings of a person and appear as quite miraculous
to the more credulous light-worker with regards
their apparent insight and knowledge. But as far as
discriminating between an actual high being and a
charlatan things can become quite difficult. Part of
the reason for this is the open door policy and wide
acceptance of almost all philosophies in the new age
movement creating an atmosphere of “everything
being right and good” which means that there is
hardly going to be a soul to refute them. And those
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who do refute them are sometimes labelled as being
behind the times, or being too negative and
judgmental. Yet what else is being judgmental other
than discrimination applied with motive. And as
motive is everything when treading the Path of
Initiation surely the motive should be investigated
first to see if there be an element of truth behind it
rather than take a defensive view. In any case, the
outcome usually is that many of these manipulative
entities have a virtually unobstructed pathway to
carry out their designs – whatever they may be.
The problem is that real, personal, and direct
exposure (clairvoyantly or otherwise) to a real
Master is still rare (or at least not overly publicised).
Those who do have that kind of karma would be in
a position to know the difference in vibration
between their own Master and an entity posing as
one, which, owing to the severity of the tests, trials,
and disciplines that are part of the Path of Initiation,
acts, through these experiences, as a sort of
guarantee against these kinds of errors. It becomes
an undisputed fact, just as a child raised by a loving
mother can never be told that a stranger is their own
mother when they know she is not.
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It may also be worth considering that whilst none of
these manipulative entities can pass through what
has been described as an exceedingly narrow door
to the Kingdom of Heaven (think of the camel and
the eye of a needle) they can easily put on an
impression of ‘coming through’ as though from the
other side of that door - for how many of us can say
we as disciples and aspirants are so very successful
ourselves in getting through that narrow door and
into the greater realms, being largely dependent for
its description on information given to us from other
people?
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Chapter 7
Continuity of Consciousness
Throughout this book there is an over-arching
theme that within our physical vehicle is a more
permanent aspect that is termed the “soul”. It states
that this soul is the link to the real self, known
occultly as the Monad, and that this Monad or
consciousness is essentially an immortal spark, or a
piece of a Greater Light, which has Its highest
representation in our solar system in the form of the
Sun. It also states that to recognize and truly realize
this concept is to discover true happiness in that all
that one ever needs is contained within this infinite
self, and that the temporary physical garment is
merely one of the instruments that are used for the
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recognition of this occult fact. Moreover, it is put
forth that there is a process called the Path of
Initiation whereby people can develop this
consciousness through a series of ‘expansions’
evolved over multiple lifetimes (occultly known as
reincarnation). This more permanent consciousness
that transcends physical plane limits, such as death,
is the underpinning of all occult endeavour which is
to prove and know that which is real; in other words
to develop self-consciousness. It is also maintained
that identification with the soul is one of the stages
on the Path of Initiation that precedes identification
with the Monad. Part of the object of this book,
then, is to give the reader a point of view that not so
much illustrates non-existence of the soul as being
wrong thinking, but that endlessness of
consciousness is a more accurate line of thinking,
and productive of real joy.
In this chapter the term “continuity of
consciousness” is meant to cover the basic concept
of there being a consciousness that survives after
death, and as stated above, is essentially endless.
Yet this term really implies a level of consciousness
that is unbroken not only where death is concerned
but also when a person goes to sleep. In other
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words, a person at a certain level of spiritual
development can become just as conscious of where
they go and what they do when they are asleep as
when they are awake, yet without the confusion and
strange imagery that dreams usually give us. A
simple illustration could be that of a person in a
room (being awake) who is perfectly sensible of her
surroundings, but at some stage goes into an
adjoining room (likened to the sleep state) and is
just as sensible of her surroundings there. In fact
when she returns she can recall with great ease,
clarity and detail what she saw and did in the second
room as much she can in the first room just as a
person who in ordinary waking life can go from one
room in their home to another and back again being
completely capable of functioning in either of them.
It should also here be mentioned that the terms
“materialist”, “atheist”, and “sceptic” et al used
throughout this chapter are meant primarily to
indicate a basic non-belief in God or spiritual
phenomena, but are not necessarily meant as an
indication of absolute closed-mindedness.
From an occult perspective to prove to disbelieving
people the existence of the soul is not necessarily to
give them instant enlightenment any more than to
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give sight to a blind person is to give him or her the
ability to see the whole word at once. It is a gradual
change in perception that leads the person on to
greater and greater realities and vistas and is
naturally important to our evolution, for if we, as
developing self-conscious beings, aspire to nothing
else, surely what is real is the most important
aspiration of all.
Part of the problem is demonstrating that the
physical side of the world (as we know it) didn’t
produce the soul or consciousness. Yet to many
intelligent people our consciousness is the outcome,
or by-product, of biological and chemical
processes, and it ceases to exist when we die. If this
is true then our biological existence is biased
towards a sort of ‘fantasy’ preoccupation that has
produced billions of human beings that have,
throughout history and in various cultures, been
believing that they are more than a physical body,
and even to go so far as to envision a Great Being
that created all of them. To augment this point of
view some might say: “After all, what is this belief
in God or the soul but a wish or fantasy conjured up
by people throughout time to counter and resist
what is the most inevitable outcome of all, which is
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death, thus giving themselves comfort in their
temporary existence.” Yet if this is right, and there
truly is no life either before birth or after death, one
could then legitimately ask: “What is the point in
living?” The point would ultimately be gratification
of some kind - gratification in the having of friends,
family, money, sex, power, the ability to travel and
explore, etc. But not everyone’s desires are so easily
met, and some live very unfulfilling lives. In fact
the world is full of some people excessively
quenching their thirst at the fountain of human
desire or gratification, seemingly being able to
obtain it with ease, whilst others are only able to
drink from it every once in a while. And certainly
not a few miserable people cannot even get a drop,
seeming to live a life of almost nothing but
restrictions and dead ends. There are pure
materialists who say that, in any case, it’s all about
the quality of life and therefore try to inject as much
meaning into whatever constitutes their material
lives as they can. But if our consciousness ceases to
exist when we die then where is that quality, and
where is the meaning? For no matter how beautiful,
enlivening, or profound that meaning is we
certainly won’t be there to enjoy or remember it
when we are dead (according to this perspective)
and neither will our widowed wives or husbands, or
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family in general, for they, too, will one day die and
be no more. The apparent benefits, then, of having
quality of life yet devoid of a consciousness that
continues after death are really an illusion, for, like
a passing fad, each earthly enjoyment has an end.
Even our planet will one day die when our Sun dies,
which practically makes our existence meaningless,
and this is so because in order for something to have
meaning there must be a consciousness of some
kind around to derive that meaning and be capable
of considering its worth. An optimistic argument
could be that one day our species will travel to the
stars and carry our legacy with it so that a sense of
human continuity (and therefore meaning) is
propagated. And perhaps we may even develop an
ability to extend the human lifespan in the
adventure. But what is prolonging our lifespan other
than prolonging the illusion of that continuity in that
at some point in time - untimely accidents
notwithstanding - death will still arrive and
consciousness will cease. In fact, it could be argued
that, from the perspective of the materialist, we
spend infinitely more time not existing than we do
existing, which, of course, causes the notion of our
being very precious to spring to mind. The fantasy
elements, then, that are derided by the sceptical
materialists are just as pronounced in their minds as
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they claim to be in the minds of the spiritual or
religious, seeing as the former must needs conjure
up a belief in the importance of their material lives
(which is the same as saying the importance of
themselves) in order to qualify their existence - for
why would anyone qualify their material life if it
didn’t appeal to their vanity; whilst the latter also
consider their beliefs, and therefore themselves, as
important for more or less the same reason, ie: to
give themselves a sense of comfort, security and
purpose.
These fantasy elements not only obtain in the realm
of religion, spirituality, and philosophy, for the
world is full of people who fantasize everyday
about things that run contrary to what is actually
real, their dream and thought-life being made of a
sort of psychic and psychological atmosphere of the
‘not-true’. Think of the multitudes of people who
habitually day-dream about anything from what it
must be like to be some rich or famous person they
have heard about and admire, to how life would be
better if their upbringing had been different, to
meeting some perfect man or woman. Even the
ordinary person that goes to work on Monday, and
fantasizes about it being 4:00pm on Friday already
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just to escape the reality of it really being Monday,
lives in the ‘not-true’.
The problem, then, isn’t perhaps so much what
consciousness is, whether it’s purely biological,
spiritual, or something else, but rather the
conditions we impose upon it, just as a great Truth
can only be important, significant, or efficacious
depending on how it is perceived. For to view the
world as does the materialist, who thinks that there
is only one life and nothing beyond, is to condition
it with a limited and finite perspective, undoubtedly
bringing comfort and peace to that person for
various personal reasons, yet colouring it with a
little tinge of sorrow in that it one day must end. Yet
at the same time these modern day materialists, who
view life as a one-off deal, try also to instil in others
a happy resignation in the acceptance of this fact.
But who would want to encourage people to find
happiness in inevitable oblivion? To condition is to
circumscribe, and even those who believe in their
souls, and the Great Being that created them, are
liable to perceive life in a way that is coloured
somewhat by their personalities, upbringings, and
circumstances.
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However, strange as Life can be, there is indeed one
portion of our species that requires definite proof
for various concepts such as immortal
consciousness, whilst another portion does not,
believing in it through association with various
spiritual and religious philosophies. And this latter
view does not necessarily apply to religious people
who have had concepts such as the immortal soul
indoctrinated into them from birth, for there are
many people who sense or suspect that there is
some truth to continuity of consciousness without
having ever been influenced by religion, or at least
not influenced to the point where other
considerations must be denied. The strangeness,
then, perhaps lies in what seems to be a real conflict
of interests and butting of heads regarding this
matter. But why should this be so? Human beings
have a need to understand themselves but the
subject of proof is a curiously difficult, divisive, and
even convenient one (depending on which side of
the fence you sit). The more religiously inclined
often claim that to prove is to somehow insult or
disrepute the thing they believe in, escaping then
the outcome, or activity, of knowing; whilst the
non-believers consider any absence of proof to be
proof enough of the non-existence of, at any rate,
the soul, thereby escaping or avoiding the outcome,
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and activity, of investigating it. From an occult
perspective both sides combined can bring light to
this subject whilst apart, and vehemently defended
as irreconcilably separate, they lead to darkness, of
which conflict is a major attribute. As suggested
above lasting consciousness, from an occult
perspective, is not dependent on religion or even
philosophy for its existence, any more than time is
dependent on our making clocks, and yet neither is
it dependent on scientific approbation. Yet both are
stepping stones to this Truth and both are really the
closest of allies instead of being enemies. For what
is required to discern Truth but a faith that
something is more real or truer than something else
(it doesn’t matter what) and so worth the seeking,
and conjointly proving it to be such by the making
of Truth an established fact through the exercise of
practical reason.
But to further discuss the materialistic side of the
coin we could perhaps consider the formation of our
own planet. Science believes that at some stage in
the far distant past there was an enormous explosion
which resulted in massive amounts of gas and dust
being thrown out into space. The debris from this
explosion collided with a cloud of gas which then
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resulted in the bringing together of those elements
to form our Sun. Due to massive amounts of energy
there was enough heat and ingredients for things to
begin to form or ‘cook’. Clusters of these
ingredients began to form and one in particular
grew large and hot enough to ignite itself and thusly
was born our Sun. The remaining ingredients
formed a disc around the Sun and went through
their own clustering process eventually forming our
planetary system, and with some help from the
energy and heat from our Sun (due to proximity)
life on our world began to develop[3]. As a crude
analogy perhaps we can then liken our existence to
being the result of a large bucket of marbles (each
marble representing various lines of what will
ultimately become human activity developing over
the course of a few billion years) being thrown out
into space, down a slide, and into a finite pit below.
Our state in life, then, is merely the result of all
those marbles rolling and tumbling down the slide,
some bouncing in one direction, others bouncing
and colliding with each other in another direction
causing various effects, then finally collecting at
[3] Ravilious, K. (2008). How did our planet form? Retrieved September 25,
2016 from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/apr/28/starsgalaxiesand
planets.geology
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the bottom with our current consciousness being
only capable of acknowledging this process and
little else. It might also be said that it would be
highly improbable for each marble to touch every
single other marble meaning that some events (from
our perspective) are unlikely to happen whilst
others will happen no matter what – those events
ranging from anything such as the formation of our
atmosphere, to the meeting of two friends, to the
building of a civilization. This therefore means that
whatever joys, sorrows, or the myriads of other
sensations and perceptions we experience in life, is
simply the result of the way those marbles happened
to fall down that slide. Yet, strangely, if this is all
true then this great process has given us the
perplexing ability to lament or rejoice over our
particular conditions and circumstances.
At this point someone might ask: “If this cold and
chaotic perspective is true then why do we take
things so personally?” As no-one takes something
personally when happiness comes their way, being
only too glad to receive it, the answer is more
associated with why we take things personally
when misfortune comes our way. And that answer
is that whilst many people may not believe in any
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continuing states of consciousness after death, nor
any Great Being that created us, they certainly
believe in themselves. Or to be more accurate they
view themselves through the four lower aspects
which are the physical, the etheric, the
astral/emotional, and the lower mental, together
forming the personality, and, like a bleak landscape
devoid of pure sun-light, their reactions to
misfortune are devoid of the pure light and
knowledge of their own souls. To an occultist this
is the true misfortune. Can we really give any worth
or value to a consciousness based upon a series of
random and haphazard circumstances that at the
same time also gives us an ability to rejoice or
complain about them even though there could
seemingly be no other way that these circumstances
could’ve been arranged? Surely this perspective
would mean that our consciousness is really more
like a slave than anything else.
Yet if there is really no permanent consciousness
and we exist merely as physical organisms with, at
best, a temporary consciousness, we could ask why
we as a species have this subjective, spiritual, or
abstract side to our nature that gravitates towards
concepts such as continuity of consciousness, as
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well as a practical objective side that demands that
if anything can exist it must first be susceptible of
proof? Is it, again, just a by-product of our
developing biological chemical processes, or even
an abnormality? Are some of us destined to believe
in things we can’t see whilst others are destined to
need to see something before they believe in it? And
are we destined to debate or argue about it for all
time? A religious person, already having
expectations regarding what happens to their
consciousness when they die, might appear to have
the personal upper hand in the argument in the form
of a happy faith that brooks no such opposition
despite evidence to the contrary. This is because
typically they don’t know how to explain it, don’t
feel the need to explain it, or, again, are told not to
question it. But why does a Great Being such as God
supply his children with a means to know (in the
form of reflection, meditation, and practical
investigation) yet be forbidden to know at the same
time? People are often impressed by the
inquisitiveness of children and certainly many a
great world thinker and contributor to the welfare of
humanity applied this trait well into adulthood, and
even old age. So why must inquisitiveness, from a
certain religious perspective, only be a virtue where
the life of this temporary material world is
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concerned, but a sin or vice where the greater
permanent life that is Truth, or God, is concerned?
For what is the inquisitive child but the world at
large, with Truth being the adult that it will one day
grow into, and who stops a child from becoming an
adult but those who stand to lose something along
the way. However, the answer to the question at the
beginning of this paragraph might lie in the
personality. For it is the personality that is really the
‘mistaken identity’, the thing that we think is our
true self, and it tends to have a mind of its own, or
one that is easily influenced by prevailing opinions.
But those opinions may also have their source in a
perfectly natural function of Nature which is to
express Itself in duality. Even in the fact that there
are people in the world who believe in the afterlife
and those who don’t you will still find instances of
duality in those separate beliefs themselves. In the
atheist or materialist you will find the duality of
someone only wanting to know about something if
it is real and is proven to ‘exist’, yet be content to
remain in the dark about anything else despite there
being recorded instances of other phenomena. And
in the believer you will find usually a person who
is merely content to believe in phenomena yet not
wanting to know how it works. Both really exhibit
the duality of the known and unknown with their
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personalities being content to have one or the other
predominate their thinking.
To those who ponder the point of view of a strict
religious injunction being not to overly question
anything concerning the continuity of
consciousness, yet to blindly accept it, this
perspective could lead them to the assumption that
those who proceed to heaven after death must have
no further need for a mental body. How could this
be any other way if they are told not to think too
much about it even when they are alive? Yet this is
contrary to the occult perspective of there being an
infinite and ongoing unfoldment of consciousness
that must exercise all its attributes (including a
discriminating mental body) up unto the very
summit of Truth Itself and beyond. In our world of
duality discrimination is important, for to know
what is is also to know what isn’t. But that doesn’t
necessarily mean that a discriminating mental body
is of no further use to anyone in the afterlife either,
any more than saying a person no longer needs to
use their discriminative faculties when they reach
adulthood because they were only necessary as a
child to get them to that particular point. This puts
the concept of evolution in a dangerous position of
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being unnecessary. Imagine a child born in a
religious family dies, having used only a small part
of its discriminative faculties in its short life. Being
dead the child now lives in what could be described
as an eternal exhibition of Truth or God and
according to the religious beliefs of its family is
now in a constant state of union with them. This
would mean it has no further need to grow because
it now has everything. An adult, who whilst on
Earth spent some time developing her
discriminative faculties also dies, and being a
devout religious person, is posited in the same
existence as the child – her discriminative faculties
really being of no further use in what is commonly
called “heaven”. From this angle a person could
have wonderful faith yet be very intellectually
deficient even and, upon death, gain his heaven,
whilst a great intellectual giant could also achieve
the same. This means that to teach material
education to the impaired and the intellectual alike
(who are believers) is a waste of time seeing as
simple faith, or to be born into a faith, is all that is
needed to gain their spiritual rewards. In fact, one
could say that an infant that dies not long after birth
is really in the most enviable position of all, not
having to go through the pain of mental
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development, and still finishing up in ecstatic union
with its creator for all eternity!
It seems as if Life wants to pull us towards some
kind of comprehension of awareness, or that our
consciousness exists in a state of permanent
developing tension between a concrete measurable
physical existence and something seemingly
invisible and abstract. The drawback to this is that
conflict is often the result instead of harmony; the
conflict resulting from people being predisposed to
one side of the argument or to the other and seeing
no mutual point of connection or ‘middle road’. Yet
this tension seems to be capable of adjustments as
per the circumstances for a person can change his
or her perspective through effort and desire, or time
and inclination. In truth a person can cause his or
her perspective to move in different directions and
even though there are apparent limitations to this,
those limitations are really the conditions he or she
imposes upon the understanding of some kind of
great Truth such as continuity of consciousness. For
what it comes down to is asking where that
understanding is to be found – in the thing itself, or
in the perception of the thing?
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And what if this tension, the pulling between the
objective and the subjective, was our actual
consciousness? What if the subjective side of life
was actually measurable but in another way and
acted with a sort of gravity of its own, pulling
certain temperaments towards itself, just as certain
kinds of music or poetry attracts different types of
appreciation. Why cannot true consciousness be the
soul looking at a piece of art (in the form of a whole
human life), for example, studying it intently,
deriving a certain analytical, appreciative, and
discriminatory perspective on it and finally
assimilating it into itself, and then when it is
finished studying it looks at something else
altogether, the looking away resulting in what we
call death? But people will always argue: “Where is
the proof?” The proof lies ultimately in a person’s
willingness to change their perspective, just as the
opening of some curtains across a window allows a
little more light into a dark room thusly proving to
our eyes what is actually in the room, as opposed to
being only able to discern those things through
touch. Yet with the opening of the curtains a new
sense in the form of sight begins to make its
presence known. To see means that we no longer
need to touch, for whilst touching was ultimately
necessary to gain sight, it is a kind of belief (which
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can often become a crutch) which is discarded the
moment the thing believed in is known, just as a
person who sees a certain animal for the first time
no longer needs to see a picture of it to prove what
it looks like. This means that the scientific need for
concrete evidence is really a direction towards a
new perception (sight), and just as that light through
the window brings us sight, and adds more to our
knowledge, so, too, does adding the concept of
“continuity” to “consciousness” add more to our
existence.
One thing certain is that practically everyone is
willing to make some kind of effort in the search for
what they consider to be fulfilment, for no-one can
deny that to have true happiness is surely to possess
an understanding of true happiness; even if that
happiness is based on no known earthly conditions.
And furthermore, just as the best sense of happiness
lies in its permanency, so too must our under-
standing of it be devoid of temporary conditions
that limit and restrict it. For why, then, would any
Great Sage talk of philosophy, permanent peace,
happiness and joy at all, if it dissolved at death?
Would that Sage be really a fool in disguise by
advocating these ideal states of being to someone if
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that person were to be killed the next day, not even
being able to enjoy the philosophy for more than
twenty-four hours? And certainly it would be of no
use for people of a more advancing age group
seeing as they wouldn’t be around for too much
longer to enjoy it anyway. And a new born babe
would also have to wait a long time for its faculties
to develop to even comprehend it, presuming it will
live to that age. And furthermore it would be
practically useless to the intellectually impaired,
lunatics, and people prone to gross
misinterpretations and prejudices, which puts the
numbers of people to whom this philosophy would
be of no great use potentially in the millions upon
millions.
But that Great Sage is none other than the more
permanent soul consciousness seeking to reflect a
part of itself into the bodies that make up its
personality (the physical/etheric body, the
astral/emotional body, and the mental body)
relaying, as it were, the reality of existence, the true
infinite self, the Absolute-Existence-Knowledge-
Bliss, developing itself by enveloping itself in
apparent limitations just as the exercise of a muscle,
through pushing against what is thought to be its
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limits, ultimately produces its strength. Yet perhaps
also, in his kindness and love of people, that Sage
could see that everyone understands things at
different levels, and so gives forth a philosophy that
people can apply to what they do or can only believe
in instead of what they should believe in. This is the
hallmark of wisdom.
To prove to unbelieving people the existence of the
soul is not easy, and perhaps not even advisable in
the initial stages in that through bringing a more
practical line of thinking to their own beliefs or
convictions they may then take the first steps
towards understanding the conditions they bring to
their beliefs, which may later lead them on to
accepting the soul as real. Take the example of a
materialist who is utterly unmoveable in his stance
on life. As far as he is concerned he is a product of
biological and chemical processes and that when his
body dies his sense of self dies with it. He gratifies
himself in the course of his life by seeking pleasures
here and there. He encounters health and disease
alike, has lived, loved, and generally behaved like a
typical human being of his mindset. To persuade
him of the existence of a more real and permanent
part of himself, in the form of a soul, is doubtful for
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he denies everything that cannot be proven and
cannot be seen. As far as he is concerned, he, the
physical biological being with all its desires, is the
real self. Yet he is intelligent, and may be receptive
to certain ideas. It is explained to him that all the
happiness he has ever sought could not really have
come from those things in which happiness was
seemingly found, for each person is different, and
what to one person is the source of happiness is not
the source of happiness to another, and what is the
source of happiness to that person is not the same to
a third, and so on. Additionally, if true and lasting
happiness did lie within those things then he would
surely only ever have to try them once. This means,
at the very least, that happiness is not within those
sources. Therefore, that happiness must have been
inside the person all along, in other words, himself
- unless of course he thinks that happiness floats
around like some random cloud of energy that
touches one person here, or another person there,
causing them to think they are feeling happy
because they happened to taste a particular food, for
example, at the same time the cloud touched them.
But from an occult perspective this has a bearing on
the case, for the world at large is surrounded and
interpenetrated by energies that are conditioned, to
certain degrees, by the activities of human beings,
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and our thoughts and feelings do float or move
around and become attached to someone not by
chance but by attraction, intent, and potency. In any
case, our materialist is affected inwardly by
something external to himself, and may consider
that there may be a difference between his reactions
to material things – as a personality – and his
reactions, as a personality, to qualities of his soul –
those qualities being unconditional happiness, joy,
love, intelligence, endlessness, etc. But it is these
reactions that ultimately form conditions, and it is
these conditions that must be examined and
weighed in that as he pushes through each sense of
what he thought was happiness only to find that it
wasn’t, he gains an insight into what it actually is.
In other words he truly contemplates his existence
by fearlessly removing conditions that really act as
diversions, or blinds, no matter how sacred they
may be to him. He gains gradual assurance or
confidence in what lies behind these qualities, ever
directing him to what is real, just as a person who,
looking at light being reflected on the ground
(likened to conditions), gradually turns around to
see the Sun (likened to the Soul) shining
unconditionally the whole time behind him, not
being dependent on the ground for its existence. Yet
without the initial ‘mistaken impression’ he would
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not have known to look elsewhere. And it doesn’t
really matter whether he calls this light a “soul” or
something else, for the qualities and effects of it
upon his life are in many ways more important. He
is just beginning to sense the real self, himself as he
truly is.
It might here be argued that even if this person did
at least come to the conclusion that, tritely put as it
is, happiness lies within, it by no means proves that
that awareness of happiness will last beyond death.
Yet if this same person were to apply the logic of
the philosophy of happiness being an internal
procedure, and remarkably more real and intense
than anything the external world can provide thusly
removing the condition of needing something
outside of himself to supply it, why cannot the
notion (or condition) of death of consciousness be
removed in likewise a manner to reveal LIFE
ETERNAL permeating every particle of his
consciousness, even being independent of the body
altogether? For LIFE is everywhere present, not
being something created out of nothing, for that is
impossible, always existing, before the creation of
our Sun, before the creation of our galaxy even, and
continuing through and forever after either of these.
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It is us and we are IT. This materialist can, if he is
courageous and motivated enough, strip away every
condition until he sees, and more importantly
knows, things as they really are, an endless
unfoldment of consciousness through form. He
could, if he really wanted, outstrip all the great
philosophers and spiritual teachers that have ever
graced our planet by following through with these
ideas. He may even one day wonder why he ever
thought of himself in such conditioning and limiting
ways, as though he were just some kind of walking
soulless sack of flesh trudging ultimately towards
permanent unconsciousness!
_________________________________________
The issue behind the question of life after death
versus oblivion is sometimes not so much a
technical issue but more about the conflict resulting
from a desire for the personality to dominate
another’s thinking. It can well be argued by the
atheist that religion, being the messenger of this
concept, has probably brought and wreaked more
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pain and suffering on earth than anything else in
history and therefore should be stricken from
people’s minds. This is a perfectly sound argument,
for religion does lie behind much of our woeful
state of affairs. A man is told God says this or God
expects people to do that. He takes it upon himself
to act out God’s wishes on His behalf, and if He is
a vengeful punishing God then such are the actions
of the man. The man then gathers other like-minded
people around him in order to make the point, and
even produces children to carry on the work long
after he is gone. Another man from another religion
thinks and acts likewise (with differing opinions on
the theme) and soon both men (and their families)
are in a state of conflict that lasts through many
generations and as many centuries with countless
deaths and lost minds as a result due largely to
people trying to dominate and control others. How
could an atheist not be disturbed and repulsed by all
things spiritual after all this? Additionally, the
atheist finds it absurd that someone could believe
there is continuity of conscious or some Great
Being that created them primarily because of lack
of proof and, frankly, because he or she considers
much of what the average religious person believes
and says on the subject is ludicrous and illogical.
Yet there are probably many things that atheists
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‘believe’ in that cannot be proven also. Ask them if
they believe if they will be alive next week. They
may answer that they don’t know and that it isn’t
relevant, but then surely they have made plans,
perhaps a dinner with their wife or husband, or a
birthday party for a friend, or they’ve booked an
appointment with the dentist; all this because they
believe they will be alive next week. If they didn’t
then why on earth did they make those plans? They
presage on with a certain amount of faith, but
absolutely no proof, that next week they will be
alive. Therefore, their interpretation of ‘existence’
is not as rock solid as what they might like to
believe. Yet their beliefs make them happy, just as
the beliefs of religious people make them happy as
well. There can be no legitimate reason for a truly
spiritual or religious person to dominate another’s
thinking and at the same time there is no legitimate
reason for atheists to do the same no matter what
sort of intellectual argument they may present. We
already are familiar with the drawbacks of religious
fanaticism so how could the fanaticism of the
atheist be any less disastrous? Stripped of its
analysis and scientific assuredness Atheism
reduces us practically to animals, with the
difference being that we have some morals or so-
called values that really are quite fantastical in
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themselves if only because they cease to matter
when we die. They may be useful in trying to
promote a common decency between one person
and another but they certainly don’t stop death, and
everyone has different ideas about what is right and
wrong in any case. Religion, on the other hand,
often reduces us to animals that beg and pray and
fear God and think one way of thinking is better
than all the other ways. It could here be truly argued
that the only real benefit that continuity of
consciousness (as a thing unto itself) gives us in the
long term is more time to better our understanding
and develop an all-round perspective.
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Chapter 8
Oneness and Hierarchy
In the world today, and particularly in the
influential new-age movement, the concept of
Oneness has gained a tremendous emotional and
mental foothold. Charities, political parties,
environmental activist groups, and artistic and
cultural platforms alike all promote the Oneness of
our species and our environment. From an
environmental perspective a simple example of the
basis of this is when we separate the recyclables
from other household waste with the idea being that
by recycling the materials we play our part in
reducing the negative impact that certain waste
products have on the natural environment, of which
we are a part. In other words, we are becoming
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increasingly aware of our connection to nature and
the harm, or good, we can do to it (as we see it), by
that connection. Socially we see a connection with
our fellow beings and the common struggle of all,
and in the world of commerce we recognize more
and more the benefits of working purposefully in
groups towards cooperative endeavours as opposed
to the philosophy of “every man for himself”. We
recognize, scientifically, theoretically, and
psychologically that we are all connected on the
physical level and are therefore “One”. Yet in many
ways the values that are based on this, ie: the
importance of planetary and human life, have led to
a belief in a kind of natural fragility of our world
even in spite of what is meant to be a sign of the
inherent power in Oneness. And this is because
through that connectedness we have learned there is
a balance, and more so, a delicate balance due in
part to our seeing the harm we have done (over
time) and this, presumably, because in that
harmfulness we can now see a possible end to our
species and way of life. Hence many people believe
that life on earth now is not only precious because
of its fragility or seeming rarity but the living of life
should be viewed as a “one-off” deal thereby
reinforcing its finite value. Yet to recognize the
Oneness of Life is to ideally recognize the processes
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that make up its parts such as natural destruction
and human destruction even. From an occult
perspective, however, natural destruction or human
destruction does not equate to fragility any more
than death equates to the end of consciousness. And
whilst the seeming fragility of our environment can
cause people to consider more thoughtfully their
impact on it they can be apt to forget that many
things in their day to day lives involve harm or
destruction of another kind in the realm of the
infinite variety of choices they can make, such as
choosing to turn down a particular street, which
may in turn slow down another driver, who then
ends up missing a parking space near to his
destination, which results in him parking much
further away making him late for an important
meeting which, in turn, makes his boss angry,
which he then later takes out on his co-workers, and
so on and so forth. Yet there is nothing fragile about
this stream of events and, likewise, neither is there
anything fragile in Nature either by way of our
bringing harm to it, or through its own natural
processes. Oneness, and a delicate and vulnerable
ecological system, are two distinct things: the one
being an endless ongoing cyclical process of
Infinite Power in Action, the other being an
impossibility in light of the first. In other words, in
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light of what has been said about our own true
selves (which are part of Nature) being inherently
endless, so, too, can there never really be a delicate
balance; for how can anything in Nature be
considered delicate when in essence it never dies?
Oneness really means that not only are we all
connected but that there is nothing outside of
Oneness that could ever make it seem like, or be,
two. Yet in our world of duality we experience such
things as beginnings and endings, construction and
destruction, and so on and so forth. Yet how can this
be so? It comes down to a matter of degree. Whilst
in a temporary form (the human body, for example)
we are bound by apparent limits and dualities such
as birth and death, health and disease, night and day,
good and evil etc. out of which grow our prejudices
about right and wrong action. But our spiritual
distance, as it were, from the truth of Oneness, is at
a point where a dichotomy can be seen. By way of
analogy, imagine living on a planet in a solar system
that is very far from its star. On this planet we would
be subject to light and dark as it rotates, yet even in
the “daytime” it would seem that the darkness still
greatly outweighs the light, just as the darkness of
night-time on Earth dominates, even when there is
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a full moon. Now if we were to move from that
planet to another one much closer to the star, and be
held in more of its light, the effect of light might
appear, as the planet rotates, to be more or less equal
to the darkness. And if we were to leave that planet
and move to the middle of the star would not
everything seem to be One with the light and that
the duality of light and dark vanish? Yet that light
(or Oneness) was ever present the whole time. And
yet, strange to say, if we were any further away
from that star it might seem like darkness was
everywhere present instead and so be as much like
the Oneness that we find in the light. This helps us
to realize how easy it is to think of ourselves as our
bodies only and nothing more. Yet the journey to
soul realization is very much like the journey
towards that star. Oneness, then, just like our
happiness, rests truly in the hands of a certain point
of view! This doesn’t mean, however, that if all
mankind were to deny Oneness through the process
of adopting a certain perspective (separatism) then
Oneness would cease to exist, for the Truth of
Oneness is not conditioned by our perception of it,
yet, paradoxically, its effect on the consciousness is
potent.
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To use the concept of Oneness, then, as it is known
in popular thought, is perhaps misunderstood and
amounts to the undesirable quality of
grandstanding, for whilst we live in this world of
duality we must learn those lessons of duality
before we go higher in the understanding of them -
those very lessons embodying the idea that good
and evil, light and darkness, masculine and
feminine, etc. are all really two sides of the same
coin. But how many of us can say we have arrived
at that point? How many of us can say we are One
with our neighbours or they are One with us? How
many can say they are One with their enemies or
people who have done them wrong?
If we look again at the idea that human beings are
made up of the soul and the personality (and the
qualities that each possesses) can we then honestly
say that our personalities are One with our souls?
For to be One with something means also that there
must be a true recognition of the thing that we are
One with. And surely to be One with something
means that we find that thing desirable as well, for
why would anyone want to be One with something
they don’t even like? Yet surely if true Oneness
includes absolutely everything, the good, the bad,
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the beginning and the ending, the not-beginning and
the not-ending etc., then it must be unconditional
(from our perspective) which means that our
concept of Oneness is inaccurate, for if we, as a
species, have nothing else, we have preferences.
And even though true Oneness includes the
diversity of our attractions and repulsions (being
unconditional) and is therefore impersonal, in our
duality-based world our desires and relations are
very much conditional, and very personal. In other
words, the concept of Oneness is sound in the
abstract, but materially understood it can easily
promote hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is notable, for
example, in our governments and leaders who have
been known to promote the need for world unity yet
could hardly be said to be One with the world seeing
as there seems to be no area of life which they do
not try to interfere with, control, and condition,
even in warfare, to point out that one way of living
(usually their way) is better than the other. Some of
the conspiratorial theories about a ‘One World
Order’ seem to darkly illustrate this activity. In one
sense this is analogous to a parent who has a child
that demonstrates great spiritual potential yet
enforces his own beliefs, superstitions, and opinions
in every area onto the child as it develops. The child
is potentially, or even actually is, more mature and
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advanced in thinking than the parent by trying to
outgrow old parental perceptions and, if truth be
told, should be helping the parent to grow rather
than the reverse. To further this illustration by way
of a short story there once was a father who was
deeply religious and often read from his bible,
frequently quoting from its pages. He went to
church every week and loved his God. He possessed
a daughter as well, who, as time went by, and much
to his dismay, fell away, as it were, from her initial
interest in the church. She felt she had outgrown it
and often regarded it as an obstacle to higher
thinking. The father tried and tried again to
persuade and coerce her to return to her faith to do
God’s bidding. In the end he asked her if not for
God then would she return to the church for him
instead to assuage the feelings in his heart. But the
daughter replied by saying that in such a request as
this her father must surely think he is more
influential and more powerful than God, for thus
would be the case if she did go back to church for
him instead of for God signifying to her, at any rate,
that her father didn’t really understand God, or his
bible. But before long another family member
intervened and said that it was God speaking
through her father in asking this of her and that she
should obey him. But she again replied by stating
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that seeing as God is perfect and her father is
imperfect (as evidenced by his lack of
understanding and tolerance) then what is allegedly
God coming through him must be imperfect as well,
just as the purest of sun-light can be tainted as it
passes through a smeared window, and therefore
whatever he says cannot be considered as reliable
authority. So, in truth, it was not so much “God’s”
bidding that the father was trying to promote but
actually his own bidding for he, like the
governments and leaders mentioned above, was
prone to use a concept beyond his understanding to
the advantage of his personality.
As suggested before, part of the danger lies in
people taking the idea of the fragility of our lives to
promote a finite existence which then cultivates the
philosophy of living as though there is no
tomorrow. From an occult perspective this can be
fatal to progress on the Path of Initiation for it binds
a person to, and causes them to mistake, the unreal
for the real. It is therefore important to place even
the concept of Oneness in perspective, even if it
means placing it in a seemingly “lesser” position to
something else. The question might here be asked:
“A lesser position to what?” One consideration is
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the Law of Hierarchy. Not all beings on earth
evolve at the same pace, yet all are developing,
therefore it could be said that there is wisdom in
recognizing those souls who are our teachers in
some area or another, and those souls to whom we
are as teachers (as illustrated above with the parent
and the child). This system of hierarchy has its roots
in Nature for in all the kingdoms there is evidence
of a revolution around a central point. There is
always a ‘leader’, point of direction, or greater light
that we can identify in the vast scope of life. From
the planets orbiting the Sun and other stars, to
moons orbiting planets, to leaders and followers
(great or small) within our political, scientific,
religious, family, and social arenas, to the dominant
and subordinate creatures within groups of species
in the animal kingdom, to the tiniest electrons
orbiting the nucleus of an atom. Along these lines
we can also examine the instances of hierarchy
found within the enormous commercial, industrial,
and military structures that are divided up into
grades of expertise and learners, supervisors and
workers, and various grades of command. This
hierarchal organization is found also in the spiritual
kingdom with countless and various levels of
beings that are all evolving, each one recognizing
those beings who are further ahead than they are and
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so recognize their teacher, and also to whom they
themselves serve as teachers. Yet in our world we
have ambition and competition and the dominance
of the ‘ego’ as people consider their ideas, actions,
and opinions as superior to others and position
themselves to be leaders in the various fields of
interest. Some of these people may be proven to be
incorrect in their viewpoints (such as in the
scientific or political arenas), or illogical and
hypocritical (as is commonly found in religions) but
they refuse to allow others who are perhaps more
worthy to be the real leaders. A typical and obvious
example is the constant bickering, backstabbing,
lying and cheating going on in political circles by
people who claim to be leading us towards a more
unified, moral, and harmonious world (Oneness).
Therefore, through understanding our respective
positions on the great evolutionary path of Life we
can truly see its natural function as a whole.
As each personality seeks expression, sometimes
under strong influence of the real self, yet most of
the time not, we can see that these conflicts are
really born out of our desires (sometimes a desire
for power), attachments, and attractions to one thing
or another. In other words, as was suggested in the
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previous chapters, it is through the personality, its
physical body, astral/emotional body, and lower
mental body, that separatism manifests so easily,
and it is through our seemingly separate desires and
attractions that we think that our desires are perhaps
the best ones to have, and certainly worth defending
at the cost of others. And so a hint of superiority
creeps into our lives as we relegate one thing or
another, one creed or another, one opinion or
another, or one person or another to a category of
being liked or disliked, superior or inferior.
Oneness then, as many people understand it, can
easily be used to augment and justify a personal and
highly conditional perspective that really serves the
separate self. As another example, take a woman
who is very passionate about protecting the
planetary environment, and talks enthusiastically
about the Oneness and connectedness of life on this
world. She thinks she has a high-minded
perspective but at the same time bears a lot of
resentment towards people who seem to not care
about the environment in the same way she does, or,
indeed, seem to not care about it at all. In fact she
regards them as inferior and at certain times even
hates them through the act of condemnation.
Philosophically-speaking it could be said that even
in her hatred she is technically One with them for
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there is a connection there even if it be built on
negative emotions. However, she believes in the
Oneness of our planetary life yet cannot see that the
attainment of that perspective has been millions
upon millions of years in the making as each
person’s consciousness traverses the Great Cycle of
Manifestation (occultly known as a
Mahamanvantara) of which we are a part and, more
importantly, at varying degrees of progress. But
what good is her Oneness to her when she is mostly
miserable - a state of mind that hatred and
condemnation has certainly fostered? The solution
to this, then, is Love, not Oneness. By way of an
attempt by her own soul to teach her something
valuable and true (placing Oneness in a lesser
position, or at least putting it to the side) she learns
to love not only the world and the environment and
Nature but she comes to love and seek to lovingly
teach her fellow beings as well, if they be willing to
learn, regardless of what they do or don’t do, for in
unconditional Love she is truly One with All and so
no longer miserable, but full of joy and beneficial
happiness instead. And at this point it probably
doesn’t matter whether technically she is One with
anything or nothing even, seeing as Oneness is
dependent on neither labels nor terms which is, after
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all, what true Oneness is, asking nothing in return,
not even to be named.
However, none of this is meant to say that we
should disregard our impact on the environment just
because Nature or Oneness is impersonal to it all.
Like our bodies, which are vehicles through which
the real self develops, and so require good and wise
care, the environment, in the form of our planet, is
the body of a much greater Being (occultly known
as a Planetary Logos) and so should be seen as a
vehicle through which a greater consciousness is
expressing itself, and is likewise worthy of respect
and care. But what greater care is there than that
care which doesn’t exist in order to protect
something, someone, or ourselves only because of
fear of death or damage. For it has been suggested
that we can really do no real harm to Nature, and
therefore it can be also said that we cannot improve,
or do “good” to it either, but simply to exalt and
glorify that which in reality it, they, or we really are,
which is the Absolute-Existence-Knowledge-Bliss.
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Chapter 9
Own Two Feet
The purpose of this book has been to offer a
psychological and analogous approach in treading
the Path to Truth. Some approaches are more direct
with a possible drawback to this being dogmatism
and imposition; others yet are more emotionally-
oriented, with the possible drawback to this being
fanaticism; and some utilize a more ceremonial
approach, the drawback sometimes manifesting as
superficiality. To this end each person must find
their own way, and rise or fall by their own efforts.
This is, perhaps, where for many people the
unattractiveness of treading the occult path comes
into view. For in taking serious responsibility for
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our own actions, causes and effects, throughout our
many lifetimes, we evolve through what appears to
be a ruthless determination to transcend the great
illusion, maya, or glamour that our lower-selves are
so invested in, and in so doing must needs
seemingly part from our family, friends, and loved
ones who prefer the path that winds slowly around
the mountain instead of the more arduous direct
ascent. Thusly the occult path is frequently
perceived as a horribly lonely one, with the spiritual
wayfarer being viewed by the public as a person
standing companionless on a mountain ledge
staring out at a dark and fathomless abyss. But to be
part of any philosophy in order to be purely
comfortable is to seek truth like an animal looking
for shelter only for the night (the temporary). Yet,
like everything in life, this has its purpose too. One
of the problems someone treading the Path
sometimes encounters is trying to develop a rational
consistency in thinking. But what is meant by this?
From an occult perspective it means that Truth
cannot be arrived at by vagueness or lack of
definition. It also cannot be arrived at by adopting a
philosophy because it appeals to the concrete
intellect alone, for the lower mind is very prone to
pride and separatism. And rational consistency in
thought cannot be a solitary mental drive towards
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personal excellence either. To give an illustration of
this need for consistency a simple story might here
again be helpful: There once was a daughter whose
beloved father had passed on after a painful and
protracted illness. She loved her father dearly and
missed him very much. Both were devoutly
religious and believed in the supreme state of bliss
in the heaven-world that is the reward for their lives
spent in devotion to their God. The daughter prayed
for her father continuously after his death and it was
not long before, by way of an unusual and unrelated
happenstance, that she came into some wealth. With
this she made for herself a better yet still modest
life, something she and her father had never known,
and often she wished he was there to enjoy it as
well. Still, she was full of sorrow and prayer. Then
one day a Sage came along and asked her who she
was praying for and what was the cause of her
sadness. She told him, and he listened, and when
she was finished he smiled at her in kindness, and
said: “Why do you pray for your father when he is
in the highest state of happiness possible, in other
words, union with God? And furthermore, what
possible condition on earth, no matter how high or
happy, could serve to draw him away from his place
in Heaven which is the consummate of all joys and
happiness? For if such condition did serve in this
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manner then surely it would serve to diminish the
Almighty instead of making of Him a thing worthy
of such sacrifice and great praise, thus running
contrary to your beliefs, seeing as that if all it takes
is a little weeping and some fleeting material gains
to break down such a momentous union then
perhaps it is not worth the attainment thereof?” But
she replied by saying that she thought that her father
might at least be glad in the sight of her newly
acquired material comforts. Again, with kindliness
the Sage responded: “Both you and your father
spent your lives in the understanding that the
greatest happiness to ever be known is in the
heaven-worlds and not in the delights of earth. Yet
this knowledge has seemingly forsaken you, or
more likely it was never fully imbibed, for to wish
your father back to the shadows of the material
world, aside from being selfish, is contrary to the
theme of the Lord which is eternal bliss
commensurate with one’s devotion, something both
of you were not lacking. Hence it behoves you to
think earnestly on the rational of your devotion and
what God actually is and be content that He can be
subject to such like analysis for it will bring you
peace in the end like none other.” At this response
the daughter rejoiced for she realized her childish
and selfish longings for her father had caused her to
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disregard the fundamental logic of her own beliefs
and had made of them a murky window through
which to perceive her God. In other words, whilst
focussed on the temporary she couldn’t see the
permanent and therefore real, and so was prone to
say and do things that were inconsistent with Truth.
And so she ceased from wishing her father back to
take pleasure in her trivial material improvements
and to appease her sorrows, and focussed solely on
God, which sooner or later would result in a lasting
bliss-filled consciousness that was in perfect union
with all things.
By way of another illustration, though with not such
a fortunate outcome (at least for the time being),
there is a tale of a young man who was very
religiously devout. In a previous life he had been a
priest but his soul had need of learning a life outside
of the monastery and so planned a rebirth into a less
solitary environment. The inclinations towards
religious devotion, however, followed him to some
degree into his current life and he applied the one-
sided philosophy he had gained in his last life, in
other words: that his religion was the most right
one, to his new existence. He viewed other religions
as being grossly incorrect and heretical, and
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laughed at their particular ways of worship and
generally complained about their values. Yet it was
not long before a kindly Sage happened along and
asked him why he felt it necessary to condemn
others who are also seeking God. The young man
replied: “It is written in the scriptures that the way
of the Lord is through my religion alone and the
spectacle of the so-called religious practices of
these others make them appear as ridiculous and
laughable.” But the Sage responded severely
saying: “As God created all life and placed people
according to His inclinations, it stands to reason that
he could’ve easily placed you in one of the religions
you now so mean-spiritedly decry.” The young
man, however, took offence to this, and retorted:
“God could have, but He didn’t. He put me into the
right religion in order to promote the right religion
and deliver these others from their mistaken
philosophies.” But the Sage replied: “To consider
their philosophies as mistaken is to say that God is
capable of error of some kind, and this to a large
degree seeing as there are literally millions upon
millions of souls who are, as you claim, on the
wrong path. Yet do not the scriptures tell, again, that
God created everything, and therefore it is a divine
impossibility for God to make mistakes. Nay, were
it possible for God to make these errors then surely
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the whole universe would fall apart. And yet this is
exactly what is happening with your argument in
that through it you make special allowances for the
conditions, prejudices, and particulars of your own
birth and upbringing, both of which were as
inauspicious as any other, yet make no allowances
whatsoever for what is fundamentally the exact
same conditions, prejudices, and particulars of
others births varying only in superficial traits. For
know that without a shadow of a doubt many of
those believers in other Gods are thinking the exact
same thing about you; they and you both being
doomed to perpetual anguish, suffering, and
conflict until you capture the true spirit of the Lords
message to people down through the ages and see
the God in all.” But, alas, that young fanatic of a
man could not completely understand the logic of
the Sage’s argument which resulted, after a life of
religious one-sidedness, in his soul placing him into
another life, being born into a different religion this
time, and there to learn that the true path to God or
Truth lies in a consistent and well-rounded
perspective.
And so, consistency, as a method to Truth, has to be
practiced in everyday life, in the mental body, in the
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emotional body, and in the physical body, and most
definitely in the meditative life. Beliefs come and
go, like the Sun, the wind, and the rain over a garden
of flowers, but what is left is the person, still
struggling, growing, and developing. And such is
our consciousness, likened to the flowers, in that
whilst it is true that without the Sun, the wind, or
the rain they wouldn’t grow at all, it is our growth
that matters perhaps more than anything else just as
it was suggested in the previous chapters that it isn’t
Truth that matters so much as our perception of it.
But to progress more quickly we can bring our
thoughts into a pattern of consistency like the
arranging of letters to form a word, as it were, for
without this ability the result would surely be
unintelligible. At some stage, the continual
practicing of self-correction, the dissipation of
glamour, the changes in our perceptions, and the
accuracy of our interpretations must amount to
something. And that something is the ability to look
facts squarely in the face, and at whatever the cost,
hence standing on our own two feet. This
perception might initially seem to present as a dark
and gloomy cliff that a person teeters on because
through standing alone without any crutches of any
kind, with neither friends nor family, nor even the
personality (the not-self), there is just nothing. Yet
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if this is the case then that person has forgotten, at
so momentous a point in revelation, that the
incentive to all their actions has been happiness and
Truth (for themselves and others) and that each step
of the way has been to draw these qualities out, in
that they have been there in existence the whole
time and in all things. The true practice of spiritual
development, then, is to bring one’s self into union
with those things which we wish to become,
concentrating on them eternally, hence the science
of yoga.
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Afterword
In closing this book it is important to remember that
it is based on one person’s experience on the
spiritual path. Yet nonetheless a practical-minded
person would agree that there are some common
and basic mistakes and assumptions that people on
the Path do share. So, the words offered in this book
are meant for those in that category. That this book
can be accepted as having some value, or rejected
as having none, is entirely up to the reader. It is a
book that is mainly sincere in its attempts to offer a
particular point of view. In fact, the author has
attempted to look at certain problems from very
many points of view in that to truly understand
another’s difficulties it is better to try and see things
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from their perspective. Therefore, those who would
attain to wisdom should learn to recognize their
own limits and approach the heights of self-
realization with humility and perspective.
* * *
Once, in a time of antiquity, there was an embittered
and callous man who was walking along a grassy
verdure by a river. As chance would have it he met
a Sage seated on a small bench gazing out across
the water. The Sage paid the man no heed but the
man thought to harass the Sage for no other reason
than to cause trouble to another person. He spoke
roughly to the Sage, often making no sense, until
finally the Sage asked him what he really wanted.
Was it advice? Was it money? The childish-minded
man said he was just looking for trouble, so the Sage
told him to look at the river and tell him the first
thing he thought of doing when he saw it. The man,
thinking to be a wiseacre, said he would relieve
himself in it. The Sage replied that that was fine, but
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also reminded the man that at some stage he would
also need to drink from it as well. The man said he
would drink from another river, but the Sage
responded by saying that any other river he could
find would doubtless have had its fair share of other
people and countless animals using it as a personal
toilet as well so he would eventually have to drink
either from it, or come back to the first river. The
man laughed and asked what good is any river, then,
if it’s only function was to be a source of tainted
water, full of animal and human waste, and unfit to
drink? The Sage smiled and said the function of the
river was simply to be itself. Should any creature
derive benefits or harm from it was entirely their
own business and would in no way impede its
worth. The man then said that he could find a way
to dry the river up and so erase its existence. The
Sage looked at him sternly and said that he would
naturally end his own existence, then, because he
would have nothing else to drink; in this aspect the
river was greater than fool or Sage alike.
Furthermore, he continued saying, as the river is
like Life, it gives us what we put into it, being a
perfect receptacle for ALL human activity no
matter what. And as all humans are on a quest for
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happiness, then it behoves us all to put happiness
into the river and nothing else. The man, now being
greatly aroused by the words of the Sage, asked him
by what magic then can he cease to fill the water
with waste seeing as long as he eats or drinks, he is
bound to produce excess and must needs dispose of
it. The Sage then looked deeply into the man’s eyes
and replied, the magic required was moderation in
all things, for no human function is unnecessary, on
the contrary, all human functions are completely
necessary, and as it is natural for God’s creatures to
require sustenance – yet at the same time have an
ability to expel the unused portions - so, too, is it
natural for us to remove from our own
consciousness our sorrows, which, in light of the
Eternal, become as insignificant as the losing of a
toy in childhood in the far flung past of our life, yet
qualified with the philosophy that all things have
their place, time, and season. But as long as we cling
to our sorrows and petty emotions and criminal
thoughts, so long does the river appear to be
polluted with them, being nothing more than a
device of Nature to reflect our true selves. After
hearing this the once bitter man immediately sought
joyful discipleship into the Sage’s ashram of
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Wisdom and Peace and learned with patience and
resolution to see purity in all things and to put purity
into all things, thusly increasing the world’s
happiness a thousand-fold.
The Author.
