Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
Gods in Exile
by
J.J.Van Der Leeuw
Published 1926
TO MY TEACHER C.W.LEADBEATER
TO WHOM I OWE MORE THAN CAN EVER BE REPAID
FOREWORD
THE
following pages are based on an awakening of Ego-consciousness which came to me
some little time ago. It brought with it knowledge which, though it came in but
a single moment, has taken many days to realize and many pages to describe.
I do not
claim any credit for the teachings. I received them as we receive all things on
the Path, and pass them on to others in the hope that they may help them as
they have helped me.
J. .J. VAN
DER LEEUW
CHAPTER 1
THE DRAMA
OF THE SOUL IN EXILE
THE Path
of Occultism is often called the path of Woe.There is
no reason why we should call it a Path of Woe rather than a Path of Joy; the
same achievement which means woe to our lower nature, spells joy to our higher
Self, and it depends on the standpoint we take whether our experience
will be joyful or sorrowful. The immediate goal on
the Path of Occultism is to accomplish the union of these two, of what we
commonly call our lower
and our higher Self; and this union is achieved
in the first of the great Initiations. Since the moment of individualization
there is no greater event in
the history of the human soul than Initiation. It
is, as the word implies, a new beginning, the beginning of a new life, of conscious
life in our own true Self
or Ego.
THE
AWAKENING OF THE SOUL
As long as
man, in his pilgrimage through matter, identifies himself entirely with his
bodies and follows entirely their dictates, in utter oblivion of his own true,
divine nature, he does not suffer, but is contented in an animal way.
It is only
when the soul in her earthly prison begins to recall the divine Home from which
she lives exiled, when through love, beauty or truth,
consciousness of her own true nature awakens, that suffering
begins. We are like Prometheus, chained to the rock of matter, but it is not
until we become
conscious of what we truly are, that we are at all
aware of being prisoners, of being exiles. Thus might one live, who in the days
of his youth had been banished from his native land and who, for many years had
been among strangers, hardly remembering, in the privations and miseries of his
exile, that once he knew different surroundings. But some day, perhaps, he
hears a song which he
knew in his youth, and in sudden agony remembers
all he has lost, realizing in pain that he is an exile, far from all that was
dear to him. In that memory the yearning for his native land is born again, and
becomes stronger than it ever was. It is only then that suffering and struggle
begin; suffering
because of the knowledge of what he has lost,
struggle in the attempt to regain that which once he possessed.
In a
similar way, the awakening of the soul, when it comes in the course of human
evolution, brings not only joy, but also suffering in its wake. As long as
man lived
the animal life of his bodies, he knew contentment of a sort; but with the
remembrance of his true nature, with the vision of the world to which he
belongs, there is born that age-long struggle in which he tries to free himself
from the entanglement with the worlds of matter which he has brought about by
identifying himself with his bodies. Where up to this moment he was not
conscious
of his bodies as a limitation, they now become to him as the burning garment of
Nessus, clinging to him the more he tries to free
himself from their contact. From now onwards, he is to know himself as two
persons in one; he is to
be
conscious of a higher divine Self within, ever calling him back to his divine
Home; and a lower animal nature, which is his consciousness bound to and
dominated by the bodies.
MORAL
STRUGGLE IN MAN
There is
no greater problem, no greater difficulty in human life than this consciousness
of being two persons in one. Thus
the strife of the law of his members against the
law of the spirit and exclaimed in distress: "For the good that I would I
do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?" (Roman. 7, 19-24.)
Nowhere
perhaps is this struggle in man more profoundly described than in the
Confessions of
thine own Beauty; and I was torn from thee by my
own weight, throwing myself with groanings upon these
lower things, and this weight was the custom of my flesh." (7,17.) And
again he says: "The joys of this my life which deserve to be lamented, are
at strife with my sorrows which are to be rejoiced in, and which way the
victory will incline, I yet know not." (10, 28.) It is the eternal experience of striving man,
expressed by Goethe where he
exclaims: "Two souls, alas, live in this breast
of mine." It is the experience of
every aspirant on
the Path
of Occultism, or even of any human being who tries to live nobly according to
the dictates of his higher Self, and finds himself retarded and
impeded by the desires of his lower self. There is
not a human life free from this fundamental struggle; in countless forms, this
many-headed Hydra confronts us, and the life of many a candidate for Occultism
is a tragedy because of this inner strife, which not only causes acute
suffering and self-contempt, but which exhausts the bodies and drains the
vitality. Is there anything in human life harder to bear than to see the vision
of the spirit and the next moment to deny that vision in the practice of our
lives? We, then, feel the self-contempt
of which P.B.Shelley speaks as “bitterer to drink
than blood,” the despair of failing again and again to live as we would live.
Great as
is this human tragedy, the most tragical part of it
is that it is largely unnecessary and a result of our ignorance; ignorance with
regard to the working of our own consciousness.
IGNORANCE
THE CAUSE
The last
thing man discovers is himself. It is a
strange yet universal truth that man's thirst for knowledge should begin with
that which is furthest and end with that which is nearest. Primitive man
already has studied the heavens, but only modem man is beginning to explore the
mysteries of his own soul.
Most men
are a mystery to themselves; many are even unaware of the existence of the
mystery. If we were to ask the average man what he, the living human being,
really is; what happens when he feels, and thinks, and acts; what the cause is
of the struggle between good and evil of which he is conscious in his own
breast, he would not only be unable to answer, but the very questions would
seem strange and novel to him. Yet, what could be stranger than that any human
being should go through life and bear with all its vicissitudes, suffer the
miseries common to all men, rejoice in the evanescent pleasures of life, bear its
incessant burden and never ask why?
If we were
to see a man travelling under great discomfort and many hardships, and if, when
we asked him whither he was going, he were to answer that the question had
never occurred to him, we
should certainly consider such a man crazy. Yet that is exactly the case of most people
in ordinary life. They go on the journey from birth to death, they toil along
the weary road of life, and never ask why, or if they do, they ask the question
in a superficial way, not really caring whether they find
the answer or not.
But the
time comes for every soul in her long pilgrimage, when life becomes impossible
to her unless she does know why; when, disillusioned by the world around in
which lasting satisfaction can never be found, the soul ceases for a moment her
frantic chase after illusions and in utter exhaustion, rests silent and alone.
It is then
that within the soul is born the consciousness of a new world; it is then that,
having turned her face away from the glamour of the world around, she discovers
the abiding reality of the world within, the world of the Self. Then, and then alone are
questions of life answered,
but, as Emerson has it, the soul answers never by
words, but by the thing itself sought after.
THE KNOWLEDGE
OF OUR TRUE NATURE
During the
period of struggle, questions as to the purpose of life and man's own being had
formulated themselves, but when the answers come they do not answer the questions
but rather obliterate them in the experience of the reality
itself. Thus, with regard to the mystery of man's
own being, the answer is not an intellectual exposition of the constitution of
man, but rather an awareness of his own inner Self and as a result, the
discovery of the world of that Self. When, in that world, we consider the
problem of the duality which we all experience in daily life, of a higher Self
on the one hand and a lower self on the other, we find a wonderful truth.
Man is essentially
divine; as a son of God he partakes of the nature of his Father and shares His
Godhead. Man's own and true home is therefore the world of the Divine; there we
live and move and have our being "from eternity to eternity". In his
own world the Ego of man has his own activities and lives a life of joy and splendour beyond all earthly conception. There is, however,
one lesson or experience which he cannot learn in his own world, but for which
he has to put forth his consciousness into the worlds of outer
manifestation where there is manifoldness and the
antithesis of "I" and "not-I".
It is
there alone that, through the medium of bodies composed of the matter of these
outer worlds, the Ego can gain self-consciousness, that is to say,
consciousness of himself as a separate individual.
The divine
world which is the true home of the Ego is a world in which there is not that
distinction between Self and not-Self, but in which
every part shares the universal consciousness of the whole.
That is
why in this world the particular self-realization which is necessary to the Ego
cannot be gained. It is only in the three-fold universe of
outer manifestation, the physical world, the
emotional world and the mental world, that we find the duality of subject and object
necessary for
the gaining of self-consciousness. Thus it is
truly for the gaining of knowledge that the Ego puts himself forth into these
outer worlds and assumes bodies of the matter of these worlds. It is this going
forth of the soul into the worlds of darkness which we find symbolically
described in the story of Genesis.
Primitive
to know the worlds of matter, the soul is
clothed in "coats of skin," the bodies of matter, and henceforth has
to live under the conditions of material existence, "labouring
and bringing forth in pain".
The end of
this long exile is the redemption or regeneration, which takes place when the
soul
regains knowledge of her own divinity, and Christ is
born in the heart of man.
Then
THE DRAMA
OF THE SOUL
We may
thus look upon the repeated incarnations of the divine soul in the worlds of
outer manifestation as an especial activity of the Ego, for the specific
purpose of acquiring knowledge which can only be gained in this manner.
With this
putting forth of the divine consciousness into the three bodies, the physical body, the body of
emotions and the body of thought, there
takes place the tragedy, the true fall into matter,
which is the cause of all subsequent suffering in the pilgrimage of the soul.
For in the
process of putting forth a part of her consciousness into the three bodies,
that part
identifies itself with the bodies into which it is
extended, and in that identification, feels itself to be the bodies which are
meant to be its servants. Feeling itself to be these bodies, the incarnate
consciousness no longer shares the all-embracing consciousness of the divine
Self to which it
belongs, but shares the separateness of the bodies
and becomes an entity, separate from and opposed to other beings - the
personality. It is the ancient
story of Narcissus, who, beholding his image
mirrored on the surface of the pool, yearns to embrace that image and in so
doing is engulfed in the waters which mirrored him. Thus the incarnate
consciousness is engulfed in the sea of matter and, in its identification with
the separate bodies, is shut off from the Self of which it is part and no
longer knows itself as that which it truly is - a son of God.
Then
begins the age-long tragedy of the soul in exile, oblivious of her own divine heritage and degraded in her unconscious
submission to those bodies which should be her willing instruments. It is the
old Gnostic myth of Sophia, the divine soul, living in exile amongst thieves
and robbers who abuse and humiliate her until she is redeemed by the Christ and
returns to her divine home.
Can there
be a greater tragedy and a more profound degradation than that in which the
divine soul, member of the highest Nobility, that of the Godhead itself, is
subject to the humiliation and indignity of an existence in which, forgetful of
her own high rank, she suffers herself to be enslaved by matter?
Sometimes
when we see humanity at its worst, ugly in its hatred, disharmonious in its
estrangement from Nature, coarse and brutal or stupid and superficial, we feel
this intense tragedy of the exile of the soul and are acutely conscious of the
degradation suffered by the immortal Self within.
A CHANGE
OF ATTITUDE NECESSARY
Thus then
our consciousness of being dual, of being a higher Self within and a lower self
without, is based on ignorance. We are not two, but one.
We are the
divine Self and nothing else. His world is our world, his life our life. What
happens is that when we put forth our divine consciousness into the bodies
through which we have to gain certain experiences, we identify ourselves with
these bodies and become oblivious of what we truly are. Then the imprisoned
consciousness, enslaved by the three bodies, follows their desires and we call
it the lower self or personality.
The voice
from within, our own true voice, we
feel as the call of the higher Self; and between these
two, Ego and personality, our struggle and suffering, our veritable
crucifixion, takes place.
Yet most
of that suffering is due to our ignorance and ceases when we realize our true
nature. This, however, means an entire change of attitude. To begin with, our
conception of the duality of our nature is wrong.
We always
speak of the soul, spirit, higher Self, Ego, or whatsoever else we call our
higher nature, as of something or some one up above, while we ourselves, the
lower nature, or personality, live down below. We then look upon our efforts to
reach the higher as the attempt to gain something essentially foreign to
ourselves and consequently hard to obtain. So, often we speak of the
"tremendous effort" required to reach the higher Self; at other times
again we speak of inspiration
or knowledge, spiritual strength or love, as
coming from that higher Self to us down below.
In all
these cases, we commit the fundamental error of identifying ourselves with that
which we are not, and we approach the entire problem in that attitude. The
first condition of spiritual achievement is the certainty beyond any doubt that
we are the spirit or higher Self; and the second condition, as important and
essential as the first, is the confidence in our own powers as the Ego and the
courage to use them freely, Instead of looking upon our usual state of
consciousness as natural and normal, and looking upwards towards the Ego as a
lofty being to be reached by continuous and tremendous effort, we must begin to
look upon our ordinary state of consciousness as abnormal and unnatural and
upon the life of the spirit as our own true life, from which by continuous
effort we keep ourselves estranged.
SEPARATENESS
THE ABNORMAL STATE
It hardly ever
occurs to us what persistent and formidable effort we all have to make in order
to maintain the illusion of our separate personalities.
All day
long we have to assert ourselves, defend our beloved individuality from attacks
by others, see that it is not ignored, slighted,
offended or in any way denied that recognition which we feel is owing to it.
Then, again, in all the things which we desire for ourselves we seek to
strengthen our separate personalities by the acquisition of the desired
objects.
It is by
the identification of our true spiritual Self with the
temporary bodies through which the Self is manifest, that the illusion of our
separate self is born. It is as if the consciousness of the true Self or Ego
were stretched downward into the bodies and there got entangled and twisted in
such a manner that it forms a separate sphere of consciousness centered round
the bodies to which it is thus attached. But it is not a normal state, it is
distinctly and essentially abnormal and unnatural.
As well
might we call it normal and natural if a band of India-rubber were to be pulled
down and
stretched out in one particular spot and the extension
thus formed be attached to some fixed object.
The
attachment is abnormal and the moment it is
disentangled from that fixture it will resume its natural
shape and the band of rubber will once again be one harmonious whole. In like
manner we need only release our consciousness from the bodies to which we have
attached it. We need only surrender the illusion of separateness which we so
tenderly foster all day long, and the extension of consciousness, which forms
the separate
personality, will naturally and automatically flow back
into the greater Self which we really are. We speak a great deal about the
effort and strain needed to attain to spiritual consciousness, but how much
attention do we ever give the appalling strain and effort needed to maintain
the illusion of separateness?
It is
true, we are not conscious of maintaining it, it has become a second nature to
us to assert ourselves at the cost of our surroundings, to get what we want and
to keep what we have, and in consequence, the gigantic effort needed for this
self-assertion and magnification of the personality is unnoticed by us. It is
there nevertheless.
Let us,
then, by a definite effort of the will shake off that mighty superstition which
holds us enslaved to the worlds of matter and prevents us
from seeing what we truly are; and let us
recognize, assert and maintain our own divinity. There is never pride or
separateness in that assertion, for the keynote of that world in which we thus
enter, our own true world, is unity, and such a thing as self-conceit or pride
in personal greatness cannot exist in that atmosphere. Pride is a plant which
can only flower in the heavier regions of the worlds of matter; the moment we
enter our true Home such things must necessarily cease to be.
It is only
by thus liberating our consciousness from the thralldom of the bodies, by
realizing the powers which we, everyone of us, have as a divine Self or Ego,
and finally, by refusing to become entangled again in the web of material
existence, that we can attain that which we set out to reach; freedom from the
exhausting and embittering struggle between higher and lower self which poisons
the life of so many an earnest aspirant; withdrawal of lower into higher
Self -
Initiation.
DOING, NOT
AGREEING
There is
no use in reading a thing and recognizing that it is true, appreciating, as it were, its correctness from a distance. If we would benefit
by it, it must become more than a teaching, it must become practice. And so in
the following pages we shall try to make the experiment, not merely of
recognizing that we in our true consciousness are the
Ego, but of actually disentangling that consciousness from the limitations, in
which it is
imprisoned, and bringing it, thus released, into the
world of divine joy and freedom where it belongs.
It has almost
become a platitude to say that what we want in our times is action and not
words, but yet it is profoundly true, and it should be carried
out in a
type of lectures and books, in which the author or speaker does not merely say
things which may or may not be appreciated by his public, but in which he and
his readers or hearers together go, as it were, on an
expedition into the realms of the unknown, where one may
lead and others may follow, but where all have to go for themselves.
Thus our
lectures should be action-lectures, our books action-books and those who read
or listen
should
undergo in their own consciousness that which is
spoken about. Let us then do so in our attempt to know ourselves as that which
we truly are, not reading these pages in an objective way as if contemplating a
spectacle outside ourselves, but
trying to identify ourselves with what is said, and
doing in our own consciousness that which we read about in these pages.
CHAPTER 2
THE WAY TO
THE EGO
BEGIN then
by thinking about yourselves and watch what comes into your mind when you do so
think. You will find that you naturally think of yourself as you appear
physically, as you look in the mirror with the face which is familiar to
you and bearing the name which is at present
yours. This is the first illusion you have to conquer, for as long as we think
of ourselves as the physical body we continue to identify ourselves with that
body and that is exactly what we should not do.
By
identifying ourselves with the physical body, or its subtler counterpart the
etheric body, we make ourselves subservient to their desires and their
conditions of existence; consequently our body responds to every change of
circumstances to which it is subjected and it follows its own
way instead of ours. The result is weakness and
ill-health, and a certain heaviness or dullness in the body which makes it
unable to respond to the Self
within.
THE CHANGE
IN THE PHYSICAL BODY
All that
changes when we overcome the illusion of being the body and see it as just what
it is, as our servant or instrument in the physical world. We must, as it were, change the polarity of
the whole relation; instead of the physical world dominating us through the
physical body with which we have
identified ourselves, we must control the physical world
through the physical body which we have made subservient to ourselves. The
centre of gravity must be shifted from the physical body to the consciousness
which is ours, we must as it
were feel that we withdraw the centre of our
consciousness and feel ourselves standing behind and working through the
physical body, not one with it.
The result
produced by this change of attitude towards the physical body is profound; as
small particles of iron filings group themselves round one common centre when a
magnet is brought near, and become all arrayed along the lines of force in the
magnetic field thus caused, even so the particles of the etheric and physical
bodies, instead of being chaotic and aimless and subject to any chance influence
from without, become subservient to the one controlling influence of the will
within.
We must
feel them like that, feel the change
brought about by our assertion that we are not the
body but that the body is ours. We must feel that henceforth it is vitality
from within which nourishes and energizes the etheric and physical bodies, more
so than vitality from without. The entire change is one which must be
experienced and felt rather than thought about and discussed. We must feel our
physical body becoming vibrant and
responsive to the consciousness within, subject to its
laws and conditions rather than to those of the physical world around.
In all we
do during our daily life that attitude must be maintained. We must feel all the
time that we consciously work through the physical body and that it does not
work of its own accord. Thus we must give it regularity of habits, of eating
and sleeping and of exercise, so that it may be a perfect instrument.
Unless the
muscles of our physical body are trained daily by physical exercise we cannot
expect our body to be resilient and responsive, and far more depends on
physical health than is recognized in practice. In a similar way we must
regulate our eating so that it becomes possible for the physical body to be
alert and responsive. Instead of eating any food in any way, we must eat only
those forms of food which will make the body a cleaner, stronger and finer
instrument for us to use, and while we eat we must be conscious of what we
are doing, building the nourishment into the body
from within.
This again
is something we must do and experience rather than approach intellectually. We
must
have the feeling that we eat consciously and that
while we take a mouthful of food, we spiritually build it into the texture of
the body. Those amongst
Christians
who belong to a church which recognizes the value of the Sacraments know the
meaning of Communion, know also the particular way in
which the consecrated elements are consumed. In just the same way we should
take
all food, for all matter is consecrated by the
presence of Christ, and His Life is in all things, even though in the
consecrated Host and Wine that Presence is manifest in fullness.
In those
and in many other ways we can assist the change in the etheric and physical
bodies, which the Hermetic philosophers knew so well as the
regeneration of the body, and make them perfect
instruments for the Self within.
It is a
very real change and, when accomplished, for ever breaks the dominion of the
physical body over our consciousness, making it a well-attuned instrument for
us to use.
THE CHANGE
IN THE ASTRAL BODY
Now
withdraw the centre of consciousness from the physical body, a process which
takes place naturally when we change our attitude with regard to the body. Of
course we do not withdraw the consciousness entirely, for then we should fall
asleep or go into a trance, but we no longer keep our consciousness in the
body, we keep it at a higher level and work through the body, and that is a
very different matter.
Having
done so we must bring about the same change with regard to our emotional or
astral
body as we did with regard to our physical body.
Again we
find the same difficulty. As a rule we allow our
emotional bodies to belong to the emotional world, we allow that world to
determine them and allow desires and emotions to be formed in the emotion-body
by influences from without. Of course
we do not always know it; we have not yet
learned the distinction between "I" and "not-I" with regard
to what we call the "inner" worlds, the
world of the emotions and the world of thought, and
in consequence we feel emotions and thoughts "coming up within us",
whereas in reality they come over us from without or at least are incited from
without. The result, when looked at
clairvoyantly, is that the astral body shows different
patches of colour, distributed irregularly over it and changing readily under
external influences.
All that
must be changed. We must see our emotion-body and realize it as our vehicle in
the astral world. We must take it in the firm grip of the Ego and effect the
same change in it which we made in the physical body; we must vitalize the
emotional body from within and send through it the emotions which we determine
to have.
Try to
feel that change in yourself. Try to feel your astral body swept clean of all
those petty desires and emotions which are so troublesome, and determine what
emotions you, the divine Self, are going to allow in that emotion-body of
yours. Feel these emotions and let them radiate out consciously. First of all
feel love, not love which desires to possess, but love which goes out freely to
all beings and all things. Then feel devotion -
devotion to the Master, devotion to the great work, devotion to the highest you
know - and flood your astral body with that devotion. Next feel sympathy for
all who suffer; feel that your heart goes out in compassion to everyone who
suffers in the wide world.
Finally
feel spiritual aspiration; feel yourself aspiring with intensity to higher
things, and feel that true spirituality radiating out through your
emotion-body. When in this way you, the Self, determine
what feelings to have and consciously send out these higher emotions through
your astral body, it becomes a very different thing indeed.
Instead of
showing drifting, cloudy emotions which change constantly, it becomes a radiant
object, steadily sending forth the emotions which you determine to have and
throbbing rhythmically under the impulse from within. Seen clairvoyantly also
it becomes a very different object; instead of showing cloudy patches of colour
it shows a few clearly defined emotions, concentrically arranged, radiating out
steadily from the centre of the astral body. Thus again the same change is
brought about in it, of which we spoke in connection with the physical body.
Here again
we can compare the change to that in a mass of iron filings brought under the
influence of a magnetic field. There is now in the astral body
a central governing, dominating Will and
consequently it is now vitalized and determined by that Will from within.
It has now
become our servant, and no excitements, emotions or temptations from without
can awaken within it emotions or desires which we do not wish. The astral body
is no longer just part and
parcel of the astral world around it, but has been
singled out from the remaining astral world and becomes co-ordinated
with the Self within. The
polarity has, as it were, been changed; it is now
vitalized from within and radiates out steadily the higher emotions for the
helping of the world around.
In
bringing about this change in the astral body we have taken one more step towards
overcoming that duality of higher and lower self which caused us so much trouble
in the past and was due to our ignorance in allowing part of our consciousness
to be dominated over by the bodies. In making the astral body subservient to
the Self within, we again withdraw the centre of consciousness from it,
disentangle the consciousness, as it were, from the body in which it had become
entangled, and lead it one step nearer to the world where it belongs, holding
it like that, vitalized from within, our servant.
THE CHANGE
IN THE MENTAL BODY
Next we
must consider the thought-body and change it round too. In some ways the change
to be brought about in that mental body is the most essential of all, for in
that thought-body our real danger lies, even though we may be ignorant of
such danger.
We never act, we never speak unless we have first thought, first made
an image of what we are going to do, first "imagined" it. We are not
aware of this; the workings of the mind are so rapid and our consciousness is
such unknown territory to us that we do not know the things that happen in it.
But when
we so much as lift our hand we first think the movement, we make an image of it
and that image, being creative, is realized in action.
Thought in
us is the manifestation of the Holy Ghost, God the Creator, and it is that
supreme
creative Energy which is manifest in our power of
thought, making it a double-edged sword, all the more dangerous to us when we
do not know its power.
When we
think we make an image in the mental body, we create a thing and fill it with
divine creative Energy, which must discharge itself in action.
Sometimes
a number of repeated thoughts are necessary before the total charge of creative
energy is sufficient to bring about action, and,
when often repeated, thoughts set up a habit or custom and many a time we
become powerless to resist the thing we ourselves have created.
All that
would not be harmful if we determined our thought-images from with-in, if we,
the divine Self, made the image in full consciousness. The
danger,
the terrible danger to our entire life, lies in the fact that we allow the
creation of thought-images to be incited from without, that we allow stimuli from
the outside world to call up images in the mental body, to throw the creative
mental matter into thought-forms, charged with energy, which will necessarily
seek to discharge and thus realize themselves. In this ungoverned activity of
the mental body lies the source of practically all our inner struggle and
spiritual difficulties.
It is
ignorance which allows the undisciplined function of a body which should be
ours to use and which should not use us. When we do so allow our mental bodies
to be roused from without to
the making of images we are lost and our struggle
begins.
THE DANGER
OF AN UNDISCIPLINED IMAGINATION
Consider
the example of a man craving for drink. He knows the misery caused by his
weakness, he knows how it wastes his wages and starves his family, and, in his
sane moments, he determines to give it up.
Now he
passes a place in the street where he can get drink, sees people go in and out
and perhaps even smells the drink. Up to that moment he is safe from
temptation, safe from struggle; but what happens now? In that short fraction of
a second he imagines himself drinking; he makes a thought-image and for a
moment lives and acts in
that thought-image of himself enjoying his drink.
He feels
how it satisfies his craving, but in reality it has only increased it and made
the ensuing action
almost unavoidable. Then, having created the image,
he belatedly calls upon his will and says: "I do not want to do this
thing." But then it is too late,
then the struggle is practically futile. Once the thought-image has been
created, realization in action generally follows.
Sometimes
of course the image is not quite strong enough and he succeeds in repressing
it. But even then there is all the struggle and exhaustion of the bodies and
the suffering which results. The better way is to prevent the creative
thought-image from being formed, to intervene when intervention is still
effective.
More
suffering is caused by this undisciplined imagination than we think. All the
countless occasions to be found in the lives of so many where they fail to control
their lower passions, especially sex-desire, are the result of an undisciplined
imagination, not of a weak will.
A strong
desire may be felt, but it is creative thought which
brings about action. Most people ignore their imaginings, day-dreams or
thoughts and think they are harmless because not
tangible or visible to the ordinary eye.
In reality
they are the one and only danger. For the man with strong sex-desire there is
no danger in seeing or thinking of the object of his desire unless in so
thinking he begins to imagine the satisfaction of his craving. It is when he
has made the image of
himself as giving way to his desires, and when he has
allowed his desires to strengthen the image which he has made, that his danger
begins.
A man
might be surrounded by objects of desire and yet not experience any difficulty
or struggle if he could only prevent his imagination, his creative
thought-power, reacting on the objects he sees. We never realize sufficiently
that there is no power whatsoever in objects of desire unless we allow
ourselves to react upon them, unless we indulge in imaginations which are
creative.
But once having
done that, struggle is certain to ensue. We then call upon what we think to be
our will, and try to escape from the results of our own imagination by a frantic
resistance. Few people have learnt as yet that anxious or frantic
resistance inspired by fear is something very different
from the will.
THE USE OF
THE WILL
When M. Coué, in his epoch-making exposition of the power of the
imagination or the creative power of thought, said I that when the will and the
imagination are at war the imagination always wins, he was quite right as long
as by will we
understand only that frantic and anxious
resistance which to most people is the substitute for
will. Thus when we learn to ride a bicycle and,
seeing a solitary
tree in our way make straight for the one obstacle which is sure to bring us to
grief, our mistake lies in an uncontrolled imagination; we allow ourselves to
imagine that we are going to hit the tree, create a thought-image of ourselves
doing that and then strengthen it by emotion, in this case fear. Then we begin
to resist it, but we should not call this anxious and frantic resistance
"will". That resistance certainly strengthens the imagination and
even assists in bringing about the event from which we try to escape.
But if we
used the real will we would not allow the imagination to react on the tree at all,
in fact, having noticed the tree and calmly registered its
existence, we would not allow it to influence our
consciousness, but on the contrary keep our imagination busy with the clear and
open road, which we desire to take. The tree would then be practically none
existent for us and all we
would see would be the open road.
There is
an old story of three archers who had a contest as to who could hit a bird in a
far-off tree. The first one saw the tree but missed the bird; the
second one saw the bird, but only touched it; the
third aiming at the bird (it must have been a very placid bird) saw neither the
tree nor the bird but only the eye at which he aimed, and he succeeded.
That is
the power of the real will, the power to see only the one object we desire to
achieve and nothing else. If the drunkard used his real will he would only see
the one purpose of going along the road to his real destination, and passing a
public house would not cause him any struggle or temptation. It is by the power
of the real will
that we can keep the imagination concentrated on
the one purpose we have determined to achieve; the especial function of the
will is not to do things or
to struggle against things, but to hold one
purpose in the consciousness and exclude all else.
THE MENTAL
BODY, THE VITAL SPOT
Thus it is
in the mental body that the wedge must enter; we must refuse to allow any
images to be formed in the mental body without our sanction, unless we, the Self
within, determine it. Sweep the mental body clean of all thought-forms, all
images, all trains of thought which are irrelevant.
Then do the
same to it as we did to the other bodies, change the polarity, make all its particles
responsive and obedient to the consciousness within and no longer subservient
to the world around. Here again the change is readily evident to
clairvoyant sight and the whole mental body appears
luminous with the light of the Self within, a radiating object, attuned to and
in line with our own true consciousness.
But even
that is not enough; thus we can prevent the mental body from harming us and
becoming an obstacle in our way, but no more. We must make the creative power
of thought a definite power for good, not merely preventing it from harming us
but using it to help us.
This means
that we must create and strengthen with our emotion those thought-images which
we desire to see realized in our daily life. The goal of our evolution is
perfection, not for the selfish
purpose that we may be perfect, but rather that
through us the burden of the world may be lifted a little. Instead of imagining
ourselves, as we often
unconsciously and unwittingly do, as being the things and
doing the things which in reality we neither want to be nor to do, we must
imagine ourselves as the perfect man we desire to be and shall be one day.
Think with
all the creative thought-power you have of yourself as divine in love, divine
in will, divine in thought and word and action, and fill your whole mental body
with that image, strengthening it with emotions of joy and love, of
consecration and aspiration.
This image
too will realize itself, the same law holds good for it as for the undesirable
imaginations which caused us so much trouble.
Now we
have wielded that power of the imagination consciously we are no longer its
slaves,
no longer used by it, but we ourselves use it;
the same power which was our enemy has now become our friend.
There is
no limit to the different ways in which the creative power of the imagination
can be used constructively instead of destructively. Not only in our behaviour and daily actions, but in the work we do and in
the way in which we recreate ourselves we can use this unlimited power when we make
our mental body our servant and willing instrument.
Now
withdraw the centre of consciousness from the mental body also and hold it
responsive to the Self within, as you are holding the physical and astral
bodies. We now hold the three bodies as our servants
in the three worlds of illusion; they are the three horses which draw our
chariot in the lower worlds, but the Self is the divine charioteer, no longer
allowing the horses to run their own way, but making them run his way. He has
withdrawn the consciousness from its entanglements with the three bodies. He
has brought it back to the world where it truly belongs, and from there he can
henceforth use these bodies as his willing servants.
CHAPTER 3
THE WORLD
OF THE EGO
WHEN the
consciousness is liberated from the three bodies in which it was imprisoned, it
will naturally be reunited to the Self which it truly is.
Try to
bring back the consciousness into the ego, more than that,
try to realize - to know beyond a shadow of a doubt - that you are that Ego, a
divine soul which was in exile. Bring it back to that world where it belongs,
enter the world which is truly your world and in that self-same moment you will
know yourself as the divine Self within, one with the divine in all things.
Henceforth
there cannot be any doubt as to what we are, the higher or the lower self, no
longer can there be the exhausting struggle between the two opposite poles of
our nature; they are no longer two; the imprisoned and exiled consciousness has
been brought back into the parent-consciousness from which it strayed, and once
again man is one, the divine Self within, consciously using the three bodies as
his instruments, but no longer bound to them.
Do not
bring the consciousness back into the Ego merely in thought, do not agree
merely intellectually that you are the Ego, but do it in reality, be the Ego
and live in your own world. If you have succeeded in disentangling the
consciousness from the bodies, there can be no difficulty
in bringing it back into the Ego, for it is the consciousness of the Ego and
the world of
the Ego is our own true home.
When we
thus re-enter the world from which we have been exiled for so long, our first
experience is an overwhelming sense of freedom and joy. Like a man who has been
imprisoned for many years in a place where the rays of the sun do not penetrate
and who, released from his prison, is almost blinded by the light without; so
are we, entering our own world after our long exile in the
prison-house of matter, overwhelmed by the light
surrounding us and the freedom from the limitations which held us. Here in this
world all is truly light and joy; the Ego in his own world lives a life of such
incomparable bliss and beauty that, even though we were to see it but once, we
can never again fall a victim to the world of illusion. We now know who we are.
We have
seen ourselves in our own divine beauty in the world which is our home, and no
power
on earth can ever again entice us into believing
that we are the bodies. The spell is broken which held us, and now for the
first time we know peace and absence of struggle.
It is
wonderful how simple everything suddenly becomes when we reach that world of
the Ego; how natural it now is to do the right thing. Our former life seems
full of complications, almost incomprehensible in its problems; once we
have dared to recognize ourselves for what we
truly are all struggle and effort vanish and life becomes simple and natural,
flowing harmoniously
along.
THE LIFE OF