Inheritanceby Michal EastcottWe all know that change is one of the most insistent notes sounding everywhere at present and we acknowledge its rightfulness at the end of the two thousand year Piscean cycle and the emergence now of different influences and aims. If we, ourselves, are not always fired by the new trends, we mostly adapt to them as best we can, but may be it is wise to pause sometimes to ponder and assess them rather than accept them without thinking.
Change being "in the air" means that the desire for it is apt to be all-powerful. It promotes its purposes and stimulates thinking towards its achievement. But this situation is rather like being on an escalator from which we cannot escape until the top - or bottom - is reached. On this every-moving stair there are also those around us who want to go even faster, and who brush past us up its track with a superior assurance. But there is need to watch our step because it is not just a matter of being a forward or backward looker.
We have some hundreds of thousands of years of inheritance of which we are custodians while we are on earth, and while we take advantage of this hard-earned treasure, this result of the evolution which we have established in ourselves and our world, we need to be sure that we do not discard any of it wantonly, that is, before it is no longer needed by ourselves or anyone else.
It is a strange anomaly that, having attained direct and amazing knowledge of so many of the powers and possibilities within the Universe - and beyond it - we have, to a great extent, cast out the sense of awe and wonder which in past times modulated and lifted up our attitudes and thinking. Now these seem to have been replaced by self-assertion and belief in the importance of personal and material goals. In this way a malaise of the spirit has been spreding. Like a virus, it has taken its infection wherever it found lodging, clouding our vision and weakening moral integrity.
Over recent years long-established standards and qualities seem to have been diminishing. It is not an impoverishment related to living standards or the meeting of need: on the contrary, we have never had so many aids to our well-being and our pleasure than we have in today's sophisticated society. It is more personal, more associated with our attitudes, with the qualities and habits we esteem, the value we uphold.
What is sacred today? Not a lot, sad to say. There are still those who respect the concept of Divinity and acknowledge that there must be Being of a greater nature than our own, but there is a ground swell of harsher, more materialistic attitudes and reluctance to acknowledge the reality of things beyond our own limited fields. It can be argued that these attitudes spring from the disappearance of the characteristics of the Piscean era and the increasing freer, more independent trends of Aquarius, but that, in fact, serves to alert us to the danger of letting go of the deeper, more substantial elements of our inheritance too readily. It is foolish to be careless of ageless principles.
Angela Tilby wrote in her valuable book Science and the Soul:
"In the process of turning God into an equation we have all lost something of our humanity. We have given shamanic status to the schizoid mind-set... and have asumed ... that is what gives access to transcendent truth".
She also reminds us of "the great ocean of Truth which lies undiscovered before us". To chart that ocean we shall need the sense of the sacred for many ages yet, for it is heart knowledge. It has upheld us through the aeons of our growth and will maintain our vision on the great ways we still have to traverse. 
Silence Is a Noisy Placeby Marguerite RompageA wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can't we be like that old bird?
That nursery rhyme might seem an odd thing to teach a small child. I learned it at a very early age and loved it - loved the lilting way the words were strung together.
Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folklore are not for adults; they aim straight to the soul of a child and the child understands directly.
A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
One can hear too much. Djwhal Khul mentions that if a person could register the total sound of the physical plane it would shatter his nervous system and do permanent damage.
A high strung, hypersensitive woman who lived and worked in a large city became so acutely and painfully aware of the city's sound, day and night, that she took leave of her work and rented a cabin deep in the forest of one of the national parks to find quiet and relief. But no one had told her about birds, and little animals scurrying through the underbrush, and lightning striking a tree. She returned home in a worse state than before. One can hear too much.
The next year she rented a seaside cabin, at least to escape from people and ambulance sirens and freeway noise; but no one had told her about the pounding surf, fog horns, and buoy bells. One can hear too much.
In a large market I found myself standing in a customer line next to a chatty woman. I mentioned the junky music piped through the store - unfortunatley, for it launched her into a tirade about the incessant noise of mourning doves around her house. As she went on and on, I tried to interject a comment about the pleasure I found in being gently awakened each morning by the cooing of mourning doves around my house but she heard not a word of that.
Both of those women were suffering, really suffering, from the same experience. They were fixing their attention upon sounds from which they were trying to escape. Dwelling upon how they felt about it.
Repeating to themselves over and over how they thought about how they felt about noise they were unable to break away from. All that resonance in their three bodies. More noise inside them than around them.
Sometimes earnest, sincere, persistent aspirants suffer, really suffer, from a similar experience in trying to learn to meditate. If they master the alignment and dedication stages of meditation form, which most students do readily, and if they move on to consider the seed thought, they may go over and over the thoughtform in which the seed thought is expressed, reacting to it aspirationally, idealistically; or reacting to it with distaste and rebellion.I don't like that seed thought! They dwell upon their personal interpretation of the seed thought, how they feel about it; what they think it is doing to them and how they feel about that. A lot of vibratory interaction between lower mind and emotion, building up to a distressing amount of resonance in the lower mind, astral body, etheric energy field, and nervous system.
Unable to move free from all that inner noise, they never reach the contemplative stage which takes place only in SILENCE
Where is silence? Not out there on the city streets. Not at the beach nor in the forest. Notout there at all.
A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
While a nursery rhyme appeals directly to the child's soul, it speaks to the adult mind through metaphor. We could read "owl" as "mind". We are familiar with the concept of "mind" as the soul's organ of vision. We are familiar with the thoughtform building mind as the soul's instrument of expression. Mind - your mind, my mind, anyone's mind, seesandspeaks. Those are its functions.
A mind that hears is a rare bird. The primary aim of a certain kind of meditation is to teach the mind to hear. Not to hear bird songs at dawn. Not to hear the incessant noises of the city. Not all that uproar in one's own bodies. The primary aim of trained meditation is to hear the prompting of the soul in Silence.
Where is Silence? Nowhere but in the deep recesses of a stilled mind, cushioned on a perfectly serene emotional nature. Silence is not to be found on the surface of the outer world at all.
When you find Silence inside your Being, you can learn therein by experiment and practice to register the Voice of Silence: without sound, without image, without colour, without sensation. A quality of light in which perception is extraordinarily clear.
Each plane of matter, each level of consciousness, has its own kind of light. Light on any plane reveals the way ahead, shows the way to go. In the light of Silence, the soul transmits to the listening mind a clear sense of direction. Once you find your inner sense of direction you will see the immediate next step.
And, in the light of Silence, the mind held steady and keenly alert at the point of receptivity, receives stimulation in the form of creative impulse.
In other words, interplay between the listening mind and the responsive soul produces notable effects in the etheric vehicle; (a)the focus of the ajna centre is stablised and (b)the throat centre is stimulated. To induce stimulation of any energy centre, or chakra, is to incur risk and make life more interesting.
Stabilising the focus of the ajna centre tends to strengthen the integrated personality. Stimulating the throat centre energises the mind's creative activity.
The human mind is like a city, which is also an energy centre. When too many people move into a city within a short time, public facilities are overworked:
traffic becomes clogged, water and energy supplies are depleted, police and fire departments are inadequate, shortage of housing is severe. When too many people move out of the city, it becomes a ghost town, dead.
If too much light and energy pour into the mind, its facilities are overworked; the brain becomes fevered and nerves become frayed from hyperactivity. If the mind's creative output is too fast and incessant, it may lead to excited and scattered activity with nonstop speech, resulting in burn-out.
The hyperactive lower mind sees too much, speaks too much. It needs interludes of rest, for health; it needs interludes of Silence in which to learn to hear.
The fevered lower mind, dancing and leaping among its own thoughtforms, doesn't hear anything. An overstimulated personality asserting itself continuously, doesn't hear well either; only with great difficulty can it be reached along any line of communication.
Yet this troublesome condition of over stimulation may be an early and temporary result of meditative practice that has been appropriately assigned and correctly practised. If the condition persists unduly, the trouble may deepen. So while episodes of overstimulation are not uncommon in the meditator's experience, occurence calls for wise, careful handling. Neglect or delay in bringing the affected area under control (self-control) is inadvisable.
When you first venture into the contemplative interlude, you may touch Silence for only a few seconds. That is alright. With experience you learn to assume and hold a listening posture of mind, in Silence.
Eventually, you learn to move at will into the depth of Being. In that state, the Spirit of the meditator communes with the Spirit of his God, In Silence, the Spirit in you invokes and evokes response.
Speak to Him for He hears,
Spirit with Spirit can meet -
Closer is He than breathing,
Nearer than hands and feet.*
(From the Higher Pantheism, Tennyson)
With long experience on the meditative path, a part of your consciousness abides in Silence. You, wise owl, live in your oak tree, leaving your leafy citadel only to fly forth on the soul's mission. Your home is the place of Silence. Your work, at the soul's prompting, is performedfromthe silent centre of Being. This will be apparent to the knowing observer by your habit (a subconscious habit) of pausing at the threshold of each motion on the outer level of living - at the moment of your entering a room, or of your starting to act or speak.
"The cry goes out for workers. I answer what shall I do?
The answer comes: the thing before thine eyes." Djwhal Khul
Invisible Constructionby Maguerite RompageFrom the beginning of human experience, people have appealed to an unknown unseen God. Always the unseen God responded and - except for such infrequent phenomena as a pillar of cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night - the response was invisible and silent. And, the response was appropriate and effective.
Since the beginning of human experience, interplay between men and God has been continuous, According to whatever way men regarded their unseen God - as God the Creator, God the Father, God the Provider, God the Law, God as Intelligence, God the Punisher - men have shaped and characterised the civilisation of their time.
Interplay between men and their unseen God covers a field of consciousness far broader than religious institutions. Each civilisation in the course of history is shaped by the way men - in their hearts, in their beliefs, in their doubts, their fears, their dreams - respond to their unseen God.
In those ages when the gods walked among men, institutionalised religion was the government and the government decreed religious doctrine. In other eras, the relation between the function of government and the influence of organised religion has been an uneasy stand-off; it is so today. The way men regard their unseen God, in their hearts, in their beliefs, in ther doubts, their fears their dreams - continues to determine the way of human affairs.
Today a new world religion is taking shape under the aegis of the Coming One Whom some call the Christ and some do not. By whatever name He is called, He is expected to keynote the next stage in the interplay between men and their unkown unseen God and to lift that interplay up out of the irrational sensational fantasies of the astral plane, into the clear light of the reasoning mind.
Aspirants and disciples who have elected to make themselves receptive and responsive to the influence of the Coming One, are expected to establish a calmer emotional climate in and around human affairs and more thoughtful, more benign human relations. Eventually, out of it all will emerge a co-operative world community.
It is a lovely dream. A noble goal.
Space is invisible. What goes on in that space is invisible. What goes on between men and the unseen God is invisible. What is going on between the Coming One and humanity is invisible.
All men are brothers, children of one God. What goes on between the brothers is human relations. Relationship is invisible; energy is invisible. Relationship is the domain of the soul and the soul is invisible. No one has ever seen or claimed to have seen a soul. Never.
Actually the greater part of what goes on in space is invisible.
The rays of the sun are invisible. Certain painters have tried to paint sunshine. They have captured on canvas the reflection of sunlight upon a landscape, but not the sunlight in space. And so far no one has been silly enough to paint space, although Salvador Dali's paintings examined it and added comment. Sculptured forms sometimes incorporate an area of space, while the space so shaped and defined remains in itself invisible.
You cannot see emotion. You can see and clearly recognise the impress of emotion upon the human face: joy which makes the countenance radiant and lovely; anger which makes the features ugly and repellent. But emotion, the feeling, is invisible.
Thought is invisible, intangible, silent. Thought can move dense forms and even impress substance. But you cannot see thought.
The mind is invisible. Its impress upon the brain can be observed in numerous ways. And the brain is visible if you remove its cover of skin and bone. The mind is forever invisible, intangible, silent.
Urges, ambitions, resistance, intention, and countless other motivating forces are invisible. They make our lives what they are.
If we expect to learn to operate consciously and effectively in the space between us all (in human relations) we must accustom ourselves to the invisible layers of life. If we are to become useful, dependable helpers in building the new world, we must learn to register impressions from and by invisible, intangible, silent energies and forces. For some perople, this will mean foregoing miracles and sensational psychic phenomena. It requires that we gain sufficient self-confidence not to try to astonish our friends.
Probably many of the people who wandered into dependence upon hallucinogenic drugs were simply seeking an extraordinary experience to strengthen their faith in the unseen. By historical record, the early use of alcohol in the Middle East was an experiment to discover Spirit through chemistry (al + koh'l).
Invisible, intangible, silent forces compose the field wherein long-range causes are set in motion. It is a field with its own laws, principles, and required skills. Invisible, intangible, silent factors make up the laboratory of esotericists and other psychologists. There is nothing mysterious about it. We can begin to study and build therein once we have curbed our appetite for sensationalism and have outgrown our longing to be amazing and the need to boost ourselves with phenomenal confirmation.
The present season, the beginning of a new yearly cycle of renewal and resurrection, invites us to do just that.
"I stand a point of peace,
and through the point which I can thus provide,
love and true light can flow.
I stand in restful poise, and through
that poise I can attract the gifts which I
must give - an understanding heart,
a quiet mind, myself." Djwhal Khul
Articles shared here throughout the year will be taken from present and past SunDial House Co-workers (www.creativegroupmeditation.org)
We all know that change is one of the most insistent notes sounding everywhere at present and we acknowledge its rightfulness at the end of the two thousand year Piscean cycle and the emergence now of different influences and aims. If we, ourselves, are not always fired by the new trends, we mostly adapt to them as best we can, but may be it is wise to pause sometimes to ponder and assess them rather than accept them without thinking.
Change being "in the air" means that the desire for it is apt to be all-powerful. It promotes its purposes and stimulates thinking towards its achievement. But this situation is rather like being on an escalator from which we cannot escape until the top - or bottom - is reached. On this every-moving stair there are also those around us who want to go even faster, and who brush past us up its track with a superior assurance. But there is need to watch our step because it is not just a matter of being a forward or backward looker.
We have some hundreds of thousands of years of inheritance of which we are custodians while we are on earth, and while we take advantage of this hard-earned treasure, this result of the evolution which we have established in ourselves and our world, we need to be sure that we do not discard any of it wantonly, that is, before it is no longer needed by ourselves or anyone else.
It is a strange anomaly that, having attained direct and amazing knowledge of so many of the powers and possibilities within the Universe - and beyond it - we have, to a great extent, cast out the sense of awe and wonder which in past times modulated and lifted up our attitudes and thinking. Now these seem to have been replaced by self-assertion and belief in the importance of personal and material goals. In this way a malaise of the spirit has been spreding. Like a virus, it has taken its infection wherever it found lodging, clouding our vision and weakening moral integrity.
Over recent years long-established standards and qualities seem to have been diminishing. It is not an impoverishment related to living standards or the meeting of need: on the contrary, we have never had so many aids to our well-being and our pleasure than we have in today's sophisticated society. It is more personal, more associated with our attitudes, with the qualities and habits we esteem, the value we uphold.
What is sacred today? Not a lot, sad to say. There are still those who respect the concept of Divinity and acknowledge that there must be Being of a greater nature than our own, but there is a ground swell of harsher, more materialistic attitudes and reluctance to acknowledge the reality of things beyond our own limited fields. It can be argued that these attitudes spring from the disappearance of the characteristics of the Piscean era and the increasing freer, more independent trends of Aquarius, but that, in fact, serves to alert us to the danger of letting go of the deeper, more substantial elements of our inheritance too readily. It is foolish to be careless of ageless principles.
Angela Tilby wrote in her valuable book Science and the Soul:
Change being "in the air" means that the desire for it is apt to be all-powerful. It promotes its purposes and stimulates thinking towards its achievement. But this situation is rather like being on an escalator from which we cannot escape until the top - or bottom - is reached. On this every-moving stair there are also those around us who want to go even faster, and who brush past us up its track with a superior assurance. But there is need to watch our step because it is not just a matter of being a forward or backward looker.
We have some hundreds of thousands of years of inheritance of which we are custodians while we are on earth, and while we take advantage of this hard-earned treasure, this result of the evolution which we have established in ourselves and our world, we need to be sure that we do not discard any of it wantonly, that is, before it is no longer needed by ourselves or anyone else.
It is a strange anomaly that, having attained direct and amazing knowledge of so many of the powers and possibilities within the Universe - and beyond it - we have, to a great extent, cast out the sense of awe and wonder which in past times modulated and lifted up our attitudes and thinking. Now these seem to have been replaced by self-assertion and belief in the importance of personal and material goals. In this way a malaise of the spirit has been spreding. Like a virus, it has taken its infection wherever it found lodging, clouding our vision and weakening moral integrity.
Over recent years long-established standards and qualities seem to have been diminishing. It is not an impoverishment related to living standards or the meeting of need: on the contrary, we have never had so many aids to our well-being and our pleasure than we have in today's sophisticated society. It is more personal, more associated with our attitudes, with the qualities and habits we esteem, the value we uphold.
What is sacred today? Not a lot, sad to say. There are still those who respect the concept of Divinity and acknowledge that there must be Being of a greater nature than our own, but there is a ground swell of harsher, more materialistic attitudes and reluctance to acknowledge the reality of things beyond our own limited fields. It can be argued that these attitudes spring from the disappearance of the characteristics of the Piscean era and the increasing freer, more independent trends of Aquarius, but that, in fact, serves to alert us to the danger of letting go of the deeper, more substantial elements of our inheritance too readily. It is foolish to be careless of ageless principles.
Angela Tilby wrote in her valuable book Science and the Soul:
- "In the process of turning God into an equation we have all lost something of our humanity. We have given shamanic status to the schizoid mind-set... and have asumed ... that is what gives access to transcendent truth".
Silence Is a Noisy Placeby Marguerite RompageA wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can't we be like that old bird?
That nursery rhyme might seem an odd thing to teach a small child. I learned it at a very early age and loved it - loved the lilting way the words were strung together.
Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folklore are not for adults; they aim straight to the soul of a child and the child understands directly.
A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
One can hear too much. Djwhal Khul mentions that if a person could register the total sound of the physical plane it would shatter his nervous system and do permanent damage.
A high strung, hypersensitive woman who lived and worked in a large city became so acutely and painfully aware of the city's sound, day and night, that she took leave of her work and rented a cabin deep in the forest of one of the national parks to find quiet and relief. But no one had told her about birds, and little animals scurrying through the underbrush, and lightning striking a tree. She returned home in a worse state than before. One can hear too much.
The next year she rented a seaside cabin, at least to escape from people and ambulance sirens and freeway noise; but no one had told her about the pounding surf, fog horns, and buoy bells. One can hear too much.
In a large market I found myself standing in a customer line next to a chatty woman. I mentioned the junky music piped through the store - unfortunatley, for it launched her into a tirade about the incessant noise of mourning doves around her house. As she went on and on, I tried to interject a comment about the pleasure I found in being gently awakened each morning by the cooing of mourning doves around my house but she heard not a word of that.
Both of those women were suffering, really suffering, from the same experience. They were fixing their attention upon sounds from which they were trying to escape. Dwelling upon how they felt about it.
Repeating to themselves over and over how they thought about how they felt about noise they were unable to break away from. All that resonance in their three bodies. More noise inside them than around them.
Sometimes earnest, sincere, persistent aspirants suffer, really suffer, from a similar experience in trying to learn to meditate. If they master the alignment and dedication stages of meditation form, which most students do readily, and if they move on to consider the seed thought, they may go over and over the thoughtform in which the seed thought is expressed, reacting to it aspirationally, idealistically; or reacting to it with distaste and rebellion.I don't like that seed thought! They dwell upon their personal interpretation of the seed thought, how they feel about it; what they think it is doing to them and how they feel about that. A lot of vibratory interaction between lower mind and emotion, building up to a distressing amount of resonance in the lower mind, astral body, etheric energy field, and nervous system.
Unable to move free from all that inner noise, they never reach the contemplative stage which takes place only in SILENCE
Where is silence? Not out there on the city streets. Not at the beach nor in the forest. Notout there at all.
A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
While a nursery rhyme appeals directly to the child's soul, it speaks to the adult mind through metaphor. We could read "owl" as "mind". We are familiar with the concept of "mind" as the soul's organ of vision. We are familiar with the thoughtform building mind as the soul's instrument of expression. Mind - your mind, my mind, anyone's mind, seesandspeaks. Those are its functions.
A mind that hears is a rare bird. The primary aim of a certain kind of meditation is to teach the mind to hear. Not to hear bird songs at dawn. Not to hear the incessant noises of the city. Not all that uproar in one's own bodies. The primary aim of trained meditation is to hear the prompting of the soul in Silence.
Where is Silence? Nowhere but in the deep recesses of a stilled mind, cushioned on a perfectly serene emotional nature. Silence is not to be found on the surface of the outer world at all.
When you find Silence inside your Being, you can learn therein by experiment and practice to register the Voice of Silence: without sound, without image, without colour, without sensation. A quality of light in which perception is extraordinarily clear.
Each plane of matter, each level of consciousness, has its own kind of light. Light on any plane reveals the way ahead, shows the way to go. In the light of Silence, the soul transmits to the listening mind a clear sense of direction. Once you find your inner sense of direction you will see the immediate next step.
And, in the light of Silence, the mind held steady and keenly alert at the point of receptivity, receives stimulation in the form of creative impulse.
In other words, interplay between the listening mind and the responsive soul produces notable effects in the etheric vehicle; (a)the focus of the ajna centre is stablised and (b)the throat centre is stimulated. To induce stimulation of any energy centre, or chakra, is to incur risk and make life more interesting.
Stabilising the focus of the ajna centre tends to strengthen the integrated personality. Stimulating the throat centre energises the mind's creative activity.
The human mind is like a city, which is also an energy centre. When too many people move into a city within a short time, public facilities are overworked:
traffic becomes clogged, water and energy supplies are depleted, police and fire departments are inadequate, shortage of housing is severe. When too many people move out of the city, it becomes a ghost town, dead.
If too much light and energy pour into the mind, its facilities are overworked; the brain becomes fevered and nerves become frayed from hyperactivity. If the mind's creative output is too fast and incessant, it may lead to excited and scattered activity with nonstop speech, resulting in burn-out.
The hyperactive lower mind sees too much, speaks too much. It needs interludes of rest, for health; it needs interludes of Silence in which to learn to hear.
The fevered lower mind, dancing and leaping among its own thoughtforms, doesn't hear anything. An overstimulated personality asserting itself continuously, doesn't hear well either; only with great difficulty can it be reached along any line of communication.
Yet this troublesome condition of over stimulation may be an early and temporary result of meditative practice that has been appropriately assigned and correctly practised. If the condition persists unduly, the trouble may deepen. So while episodes of overstimulation are not uncommon in the meditator's experience, occurence calls for wise, careful handling. Neglect or delay in bringing the affected area under control (self-control) is inadvisable.
When you first venture into the contemplative interlude, you may touch Silence for only a few seconds. That is alright. With experience you learn to assume and hold a listening posture of mind, in Silence.
Eventually, you learn to move at will into the depth of Being. In that state, the Spirit of the meditator communes with the Spirit of his God, In Silence, the Spirit in you invokes and evokes response.
Speak to Him for He hears,
Spirit with Spirit can meet -
Closer is He than breathing,
Nearer than hands and feet.*
(From the Higher Pantheism, Tennyson)
With long experience on the meditative path, a part of your consciousness abides in Silence. You, wise owl, live in your oak tree, leaving your leafy citadel only to fly forth on the soul's mission. Your home is the place of Silence. Your work, at the soul's prompting, is performedfromthe silent centre of Being. This will be apparent to the knowing observer by your habit (a subconscious habit) of pausing at the threshold of each motion on the outer level of living - at the moment of your entering a room, or of your starting to act or speak.
"The cry goes out for workers. I answer what shall I do?
The answer comes: the thing before thine eyes." Djwhal Khul
Invisible Constructionby Maguerite RompageFrom the beginning of human experience, people have appealed to an unknown unseen God. Always the unseen God responded and - except for such infrequent phenomena as a pillar of cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night - the response was invisible and silent. And, the response was appropriate and effective.
Since the beginning of human experience, interplay between men and God has been continuous, According to whatever way men regarded their unseen God - as God the Creator, God the Father, God the Provider, God the Law, God as Intelligence, God the Punisher - men have shaped and characterised the civilisation of their time.
Interplay between men and their unseen God covers a field of consciousness far broader than religious institutions. Each civilisation in the course of history is shaped by the way men - in their hearts, in their beliefs, in their doubts, their fears, their dreams - respond to their unseen God.
In those ages when the gods walked among men, institutionalised religion was the government and the government decreed religious doctrine. In other eras, the relation between the function of government and the influence of organised religion has been an uneasy stand-off; it is so today. The way men regard their unseen God, in their hearts, in their beliefs, in ther doubts, their fears their dreams - continues to determine the way of human affairs.
Today a new world religion is taking shape under the aegis of the Coming One Whom some call the Christ and some do not. By whatever name He is called, He is expected to keynote the next stage in the interplay between men and their unkown unseen God and to lift that interplay up out of the irrational sensational fantasies of the astral plane, into the clear light of the reasoning mind.
Aspirants and disciples who have elected to make themselves receptive and responsive to the influence of the Coming One, are expected to establish a calmer emotional climate in and around human affairs and more thoughtful, more benign human relations. Eventually, out of it all will emerge a co-operative world community.
It is a lovely dream. A noble goal.
Space is invisible. What goes on in that space is invisible. What goes on between men and the unseen God is invisible. What is going on between the Coming One and humanity is invisible.
All men are brothers, children of one God. What goes on between the brothers is human relations. Relationship is invisible; energy is invisible. Relationship is the domain of the soul and the soul is invisible. No one has ever seen or claimed to have seen a soul. Never.
Actually the greater part of what goes on in space is invisible.
The rays of the sun are invisible. Certain painters have tried to paint sunshine. They have captured on canvas the reflection of sunlight upon a landscape, but not the sunlight in space. And so far no one has been silly enough to paint space, although Salvador Dali's paintings examined it and added comment. Sculptured forms sometimes incorporate an area of space, while the space so shaped and defined remains in itself invisible.
You cannot see emotion. You can see and clearly recognise the impress of emotion upon the human face: joy which makes the countenance radiant and lovely; anger which makes the features ugly and repellent. But emotion, the feeling, is invisible.
Thought is invisible, intangible, silent. Thought can move dense forms and even impress substance. But you cannot see thought.
The mind is invisible. Its impress upon the brain can be observed in numerous ways. And the brain is visible if you remove its cover of skin and bone. The mind is forever invisible, intangible, silent.
Urges, ambitions, resistance, intention, and countless other motivating forces are invisible. They make our lives what they are.
If we expect to learn to operate consciously and effectively in the space between us all (in human relations) we must accustom ourselves to the invisible layers of life. If we are to become useful, dependable helpers in building the new world, we must learn to register impressions from and by invisible, intangible, silent energies and forces. For some perople, this will mean foregoing miracles and sensational psychic phenomena. It requires that we gain sufficient self-confidence not to try to astonish our friends.
Probably many of the people who wandered into dependence upon hallucinogenic drugs were simply seeking an extraordinary experience to strengthen their faith in the unseen. By historical record, the early use of alcohol in the Middle East was an experiment to discover Spirit through chemistry (al + koh'l).
Invisible, intangible, silent forces compose the field wherein long-range causes are set in motion. It is a field with its own laws, principles, and required skills. Invisible, intangible, silent factors make up the laboratory of esotericists and other psychologists. There is nothing mysterious about it. We can begin to study and build therein once we have curbed our appetite for sensationalism and have outgrown our longing to be amazing and the need to boost ourselves with phenomenal confirmation.
The present season, the beginning of a new yearly cycle of renewal and resurrection, invites us to do just that.
"I stand a point of peace,
and through the point which I can thus provide,
love and true light can flow.
I stand in restful poise, and through
that poise I can attract the gifts which I
must give - an understanding heart,
a quiet mind, myself." Djwhal Khul
Articles shared here throughout the year will be taken from present and past SunDial House Co-workers (www.creativegroupmeditation.org)
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can't we be like that old bird?
That nursery rhyme might seem an odd thing to teach a small child. I learned it at a very early age and loved it - loved the lilting way the words were strung together.
Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folklore are not for adults; they aim straight to the soul of a child and the child understands directly.
A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
One can hear too much. Djwhal Khul mentions that if a person could register the total sound of the physical plane it would shatter his nervous system and do permanent damage.
A high strung, hypersensitive woman who lived and worked in a large city became so acutely and painfully aware of the city's sound, day and night, that she took leave of her work and rented a cabin deep in the forest of one of the national parks to find quiet and relief. But no one had told her about birds, and little animals scurrying through the underbrush, and lightning striking a tree. She returned home in a worse state than before. One can hear too much.
The next year she rented a seaside cabin, at least to escape from people and ambulance sirens and freeway noise; but no one had told her about the pounding surf, fog horns, and buoy bells. One can hear too much.
In a large market I found myself standing in a customer line next to a chatty woman. I mentioned the junky music piped through the store - unfortunatley, for it launched her into a tirade about the incessant noise of mourning doves around her house. As she went on and on, I tried to interject a comment about the pleasure I found in being gently awakened each morning by the cooing of mourning doves around my house but she heard not a word of that.
Both of those women were suffering, really suffering, from the same experience. They were fixing their attention upon sounds from which they were trying to escape. Dwelling upon how they felt about it.
Repeating to themselves over and over how they thought about how they felt about noise they were unable to break away from. All that resonance in their three bodies. More noise inside them than around them.
Sometimes earnest, sincere, persistent aspirants suffer, really suffer, from a similar experience in trying to learn to meditate. If they master the alignment and dedication stages of meditation form, which most students do readily, and if they move on to consider the seed thought, they may go over and over the thoughtform in which the seed thought is expressed, reacting to it aspirationally, idealistically; or reacting to it with distaste and rebellion.I don't like that seed thought! They dwell upon their personal interpretation of the seed thought, how they feel about it; what they think it is doing to them and how they feel about that. A lot of vibratory interaction between lower mind and emotion, building up to a distressing amount of resonance in the lower mind, astral body, etheric energy field, and nervous system.
Unable to move free from all that inner noise, they never reach the contemplative stage which takes place only in SILENCE
Where is silence? Not out there on the city streets. Not at the beach nor in the forest. Notout there at all.
A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
While a nursery rhyme appeals directly to the child's soul, it speaks to the adult mind through metaphor. We could read "owl" as "mind". We are familiar with the concept of "mind" as the soul's organ of vision. We are familiar with the thoughtform building mind as the soul's instrument of expression. Mind - your mind, my mind, anyone's mind, seesandspeaks. Those are its functions.
A mind that hears is a rare bird. The primary aim of a certain kind of meditation is to teach the mind to hear. Not to hear bird songs at dawn. Not to hear the incessant noises of the city. Not all that uproar in one's own bodies. The primary aim of trained meditation is to hear the prompting of the soul in Silence.
Where is Silence? Nowhere but in the deep recesses of a stilled mind, cushioned on a perfectly serene emotional nature. Silence is not to be found on the surface of the outer world at all.
When you find Silence inside your Being, you can learn therein by experiment and practice to register the Voice of Silence: without sound, without image, without colour, without sensation. A quality of light in which perception is extraordinarily clear.
Each plane of matter, each level of consciousness, has its own kind of light. Light on any plane reveals the way ahead, shows the way to go. In the light of Silence, the soul transmits to the listening mind a clear sense of direction. Once you find your inner sense of direction you will see the immediate next step.
And, in the light of Silence, the mind held steady and keenly alert at the point of receptivity, receives stimulation in the form of creative impulse.
In other words, interplay between the listening mind and the responsive soul produces notable effects in the etheric vehicle; (a)the focus of the ajna centre is stablised and (b)the throat centre is stimulated. To induce stimulation of any energy centre, or chakra, is to incur risk and make life more interesting.
Stabilising the focus of the ajna centre tends to strengthen the integrated personality. Stimulating the throat centre energises the mind's creative activity.
The human mind is like a city, which is also an energy centre. When too many people move into a city within a short time, public facilities are overworked:
traffic becomes clogged, water and energy supplies are depleted, police and fire departments are inadequate, shortage of housing is severe. When too many people move out of the city, it becomes a ghost town, dead.
If too much light and energy pour into the mind, its facilities are overworked; the brain becomes fevered and nerves become frayed from hyperactivity. If the mind's creative output is too fast and incessant, it may lead to excited and scattered activity with nonstop speech, resulting in burn-out.
The hyperactive lower mind sees too much, speaks too much. It needs interludes of rest, for health; it needs interludes of Silence in which to learn to hear.
The fevered lower mind, dancing and leaping among its own thoughtforms, doesn't hear anything. An overstimulated personality asserting itself continuously, doesn't hear well either; only with great difficulty can it be reached along any line of communication.
Yet this troublesome condition of over stimulation may be an early and temporary result of meditative practice that has been appropriately assigned and correctly practised. If the condition persists unduly, the trouble may deepen. So while episodes of overstimulation are not uncommon in the meditator's experience, occurence calls for wise, careful handling. Neglect or delay in bringing the affected area under control (self-control) is inadvisable.
When you first venture into the contemplative interlude, you may touch Silence for only a few seconds. That is alright. With experience you learn to assume and hold a listening posture of mind, in Silence.
Eventually, you learn to move at will into the depth of Being. In that state, the Spirit of the meditator communes with the Spirit of his God, In Silence, the Spirit in you invokes and evokes response.
Speak to Him for He hears,
Spirit with Spirit can meet -
Closer is He than breathing,
Nearer than hands and feet.*
(From the Higher Pantheism, Tennyson)
With long experience on the meditative path, a part of your consciousness abides in Silence. You, wise owl, live in your oak tree, leaving your leafy citadel only to fly forth on the soul's mission. Your home is the place of Silence. Your work, at the soul's prompting, is performedfromthe silent centre of Being. This will be apparent to the knowing observer by your habit (a subconscious habit) of pausing at the threshold of each motion on the outer level of living - at the moment of your entering a room, or of your starting to act or speak.
"The cry goes out for workers. I answer what shall I do?
The answer comes: the thing before thine eyes."
Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folklore are not for adults; they aim straight to the soul of a child and the child understands directly.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
One can hear too much. Djwhal Khul mentions that if a person could register the total sound of the physical plane it would shatter his nervous system and do permanent damage.
A high strung, hypersensitive woman who lived and worked in a large city became so acutely and painfully aware of the city's sound, day and night, that she took leave of her work and rented a cabin deep in the forest of one of the national parks to find quiet and relief. But no one had told her about birds, and little animals scurrying through the underbrush, and lightning striking a tree. She returned home in a worse state than before. One can hear too much.
The next year she rented a seaside cabin, at least to escape from people and ambulance sirens and freeway noise; but no one had told her about the pounding surf, fog horns, and buoy bells. One can hear too much.
In a large market I found myself standing in a customer line next to a chatty woman. I mentioned the junky music piped through the store - unfortunatley, for it launched her into a tirade about the incessant noise of mourning doves around her house. As she went on and on, I tried to interject a comment about the pleasure I found in being gently awakened each morning by the cooing of mourning doves around my house but she heard not a word of that.
Both of those women were suffering, really suffering, from the same experience. They were fixing their attention upon sounds from which they were trying to escape. Dwelling upon how they felt about it.
Repeating to themselves over and over how they thought about how they felt about noise they were unable to break away from. All that resonance in their three bodies. More noise inside them than around them.
Sometimes earnest, sincere, persistent aspirants suffer, really suffer, from a similar experience in trying to learn to meditate. If they master the alignment and dedication stages of meditation form, which most students do readily, and if they move on to consider the seed thought, they may go over and over the thoughtform in which the seed thought is expressed, reacting to it aspirationally, idealistically; or reacting to it with distaste and rebellion.I don't like that seed thought! They dwell upon their personal interpretation of the seed thought, how they feel about it; what they think it is doing to them and how they feel about that. A lot of vibratory interaction between lower mind and emotion, building up to a distressing amount of resonance in the lower mind, astral body, etheric energy field, and nervous system.
Unable to move free from all that inner noise, they never reach the contemplative stage which takes place only in SILENCE
Where is silence? Not out there on the city streets. Not at the beach nor in the forest. Notout there at all.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard. . .
While a nursery rhyme appeals directly to the child's soul, it speaks to the adult mind through metaphor. We could read "owl" as "mind". We are familiar with the concept of "mind" as the soul's organ of vision. We are familiar with the thoughtform building mind as the soul's instrument of expression. Mind - your mind, my mind, anyone's mind, seesandspeaks. Those are its functions.
A mind that hears is a rare bird. The primary aim of a certain kind of meditation is to teach the mind to hear. Not to hear bird songs at dawn. Not to hear the incessant noises of the city. Not all that uproar in one's own bodies. The primary aim of trained meditation is to hear the prompting of the soul in Silence.
Where is Silence? Nowhere but in the deep recesses of a stilled mind, cushioned on a perfectly serene emotional nature. Silence is not to be found on the surface of the outer world at all.
When you find Silence inside your Being, you can learn therein by experiment and practice to register the Voice of Silence: without sound, without image, without colour, without sensation. A quality of light in which perception is extraordinarily clear.
Each plane of matter, each level of consciousness, has its own kind of light. Light on any plane reveals the way ahead, shows the way to go. In the light of Silence, the soul transmits to the listening mind a clear sense of direction. Once you find your inner sense of direction you will see the immediate next step.
And, in the light of Silence, the mind held steady and keenly alert at the point of receptivity, receives stimulation in the form of creative impulse.
In other words, interplay between the listening mind and the responsive soul produces notable effects in the etheric vehicle; (a)the focus of the ajna centre is stablised and (b)the throat centre is stimulated. To induce stimulation of any energy centre, or chakra, is to incur risk and make life more interesting.
Stabilising the focus of the ajna centre tends to strengthen the integrated personality. Stimulating the throat centre energises the mind's creative activity.
The human mind is like a city, which is also an energy centre. When too many people move into a city within a short time, public facilities are overworked:
traffic becomes clogged, water and energy supplies are depleted, police and fire departments are inadequate, shortage of housing is severe. When too many people move out of the city, it becomes a ghost town, dead.
If too much light and energy pour into the mind, its facilities are overworked; the brain becomes fevered and nerves become frayed from hyperactivity. If the mind's creative output is too fast and incessant, it may lead to excited and scattered activity with nonstop speech, resulting in burn-out.
The hyperactive lower mind sees too much, speaks too much. It needs interludes of rest, for health; it needs interludes of Silence in which to learn to hear.
The fevered lower mind, dancing and leaping among its own thoughtforms, doesn't hear anything. An overstimulated personality asserting itself continuously, doesn't hear well either; only with great difficulty can it be reached along any line of communication.
Yet this troublesome condition of over stimulation may be an early and temporary result of meditative practice that has been appropriately assigned and correctly practised. If the condition persists unduly, the trouble may deepen. So while episodes of overstimulation are not uncommon in the meditator's experience, occurence calls for wise, careful handling. Neglect or delay in bringing the affected area under control (self-control) is inadvisable.
When you first venture into the contemplative interlude, you may touch Silence for only a few seconds. That is alright. With experience you learn to assume and hold a listening posture of mind, in Silence.
Eventually, you learn to move at will into the depth of Being. In that state, the Spirit of the meditator communes with the Spirit of his God, In Silence, the Spirit in you invokes and evokes response.
Spirit with Spirit can meet -
Closer is He than breathing,
Nearer than hands and feet.*
(From the Higher Pantheism, Tennyson)
With long experience on the meditative path, a part of your consciousness abides in Silence. You, wise owl, live in your oak tree, leaving your leafy citadel only to fly forth on the soul's mission. Your home is the place of Silence. Your work, at the soul's prompting, is performedfromthe silent centre of Being. This will be apparent to the knowing observer by your habit (a subconscious habit) of pausing at the threshold of each motion on the outer level of living - at the moment of your entering a room, or of your starting to act or speak.
The answer comes: the thing before thine eyes."
Djwhal Khul
Invisible Constructionby Maguerite RompageFrom the beginning of human experience, people have appealed to an unknown unseen God. Always the unseen God responded and - except for such infrequent phenomena as a pillar of cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night - the response was invisible and silent. And, the response was appropriate and effective.
Since the beginning of human experience, interplay between men and God has been continuous, According to whatever way men regarded their unseen God - as God the Creator, God the Father, God the Provider, God the Law, God as Intelligence, God the Punisher - men have shaped and characterised the civilisation of their time.
Interplay between men and their unseen God covers a field of consciousness far broader than religious institutions. Each civilisation in the course of history is shaped by the way men - in their hearts, in their beliefs, in their doubts, their fears, their dreams - respond to their unseen God.
In those ages when the gods walked among men, institutionalised religion was the government and the government decreed religious doctrine. In other eras, the relation between the function of government and the influence of organised religion has been an uneasy stand-off; it is so today. The way men regard their unseen God, in their hearts, in their beliefs, in ther doubts, their fears their dreams - continues to determine the way of human affairs.
Today a new world religion is taking shape under the aegis of the Coming One Whom some call the Christ and some do not. By whatever name He is called, He is expected to keynote the next stage in the interplay between men and their unkown unseen God and to lift that interplay up out of the irrational sensational fantasies of the astral plane, into the clear light of the reasoning mind.
Aspirants and disciples who have elected to make themselves receptive and responsive to the influence of the Coming One, are expected to establish a calmer emotional climate in and around human affairs and more thoughtful, more benign human relations. Eventually, out of it all will emerge a co-operative world community.
It is a lovely dream. A noble goal.
Space is invisible. What goes on in that space is invisible. What goes on between men and the unseen God is invisible. What is going on between the Coming One and humanity is invisible.
All men are brothers, children of one God. What goes on between the brothers is human relations. Relationship is invisible; energy is invisible. Relationship is the domain of the soul and the soul is invisible. No one has ever seen or claimed to have seen a soul. Never.
Actually the greater part of what goes on in space is invisible.
The rays of the sun are invisible. Certain painters have tried to paint sunshine. They have captured on canvas the reflection of sunlight upon a landscape, but not the sunlight in space. And so far no one has been silly enough to paint space, although Salvador Dali's paintings examined it and added comment. Sculptured forms sometimes incorporate an area of space, while the space so shaped and defined remains in itself invisible.
You cannot see emotion. You can see and clearly recognise the impress of emotion upon the human face: joy which makes the countenance radiant and lovely; anger which makes the features ugly and repellent. But emotion, the feeling, is invisible.
Thought is invisible, intangible, silent. Thought can move dense forms and even impress substance. But you cannot see thought.
The mind is invisible. Its impress upon the brain can be observed in numerous ways. And the brain is visible if you remove its cover of skin and bone. The mind is forever invisible, intangible, silent.
Urges, ambitions, resistance, intention, and countless other motivating forces are invisible. They make our lives what they are.
If we expect to learn to operate consciously and effectively in the space between us all (in human relations) we must accustom ourselves to the invisible layers of life. If we are to become useful, dependable helpers in building the new world, we must learn to register impressions from and by invisible, intangible, silent energies and forces. For some perople, this will mean foregoing miracles and sensational psychic phenomena. It requires that we gain sufficient self-confidence not to try to astonish our friends.
Probably many of the people who wandered into dependence upon hallucinogenic drugs were simply seeking an extraordinary experience to strengthen their faith in the unseen. By historical record, the early use of alcohol in the Middle East was an experiment to discover Spirit through chemistry (al + koh'l).
Invisible, intangible, silent forces compose the field wherein long-range causes are set in motion. It is a field with its own laws, principles, and required skills. Invisible, intangible, silent factors make up the laboratory of esotericists and other psychologists. There is nothing mysterious about it. We can begin to study and build therein once we have curbed our appetite for sensationalism and have outgrown our longing to be amazing and the need to boost ourselves with phenomenal confirmation.
The present season, the beginning of a new yearly cycle of renewal and resurrection, invites us to do just that.
"I stand a point of peace,
and through the point which I can thus provide,
love and true light can flow.
I stand in restful poise, and through
that poise I can attract the gifts which I
must give - an understanding heart,
a quiet mind, myself." Djwhal Khul
Articles shared here throughout the year will be taken from present and past SunDial House Co-workers (www.creativegroupmeditation.org)
From the beginning of human experience, people have appealed to an unknown unseen God. Always the unseen God responded and - except for such infrequent phenomena as a pillar of cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night - the response was invisible and silent. And, the response was appropriate and effective.
Since the beginning of human experience, interplay between men and God has been continuous, According to whatever way men regarded their unseen God - as God the Creator, God the Father, God the Provider, God the Law, God as Intelligence, God the Punisher - men have shaped and characterised the civilisation of their time.
Interplay between men and their unseen God covers a field of consciousness far broader than religious institutions. Each civilisation in the course of history is shaped by the way men - in their hearts, in their beliefs, in their doubts, their fears, their dreams - respond to their unseen God.
In those ages when the gods walked among men, institutionalised religion was the government and the government decreed religious doctrine. In other eras, the relation between the function of government and the influence of organised religion has been an uneasy stand-off; it is so today. The way men regard their unseen God, in their hearts, in their beliefs, in ther doubts, their fears their dreams - continues to determine the way of human affairs.
Today a new world religion is taking shape under the aegis of the Coming One Whom some call the Christ and some do not. By whatever name He is called, He is expected to keynote the next stage in the interplay between men and their unkown unseen God and to lift that interplay up out of the irrational sensational fantasies of the astral plane, into the clear light of the reasoning mind.
Aspirants and disciples who have elected to make themselves receptive and responsive to the influence of the Coming One, are expected to establish a calmer emotional climate in and around human affairs and more thoughtful, more benign human relations. Eventually, out of it all will emerge a co-operative world community.
It is a lovely dream. A noble goal.
Space is invisible. What goes on in that space is invisible. What goes on between men and the unseen God is invisible. What is going on between the Coming One and humanity is invisible.
All men are brothers, children of one God. What goes on between the brothers is human relations. Relationship is invisible; energy is invisible. Relationship is the domain of the soul and the soul is invisible. No one has ever seen or claimed to have seen a soul. Never.
Actually the greater part of what goes on in space is invisible.
The rays of the sun are invisible. Certain painters have tried to paint sunshine. They have captured on canvas the reflection of sunlight upon a landscape, but not the sunlight in space. And so far no one has been silly enough to paint space, although Salvador Dali's paintings examined it and added comment. Sculptured forms sometimes incorporate an area of space, while the space so shaped and defined remains in itself invisible.
You cannot see emotion. You can see and clearly recognise the impress of emotion upon the human face: joy which makes the countenance radiant and lovely; anger which makes the features ugly and repellent. But emotion, the feeling, is invisible.
Thought is invisible, intangible, silent. Thought can move dense forms and even impress substance. But you cannot see thought.
The mind is invisible. Its impress upon the brain can be observed in numerous ways. And the brain is visible if you remove its cover of skin and bone. The mind is forever invisible, intangible, silent.
Urges, ambitions, resistance, intention, and countless other motivating forces are invisible. They make our lives what they are.
If we expect to learn to operate consciously and effectively in the space between us all (in human relations) we must accustom ourselves to the invisible layers of life. If we are to become useful, dependable helpers in building the new world, we must learn to register impressions from and by invisible, intangible, silent energies and forces. For some perople, this will mean foregoing miracles and sensational psychic phenomena. It requires that we gain sufficient self-confidence not to try to astonish our friends.
Probably many of the people who wandered into dependence upon hallucinogenic drugs were simply seeking an extraordinary experience to strengthen their faith in the unseen. By historical record, the early use of alcohol in the Middle East was an experiment to discover Spirit through chemistry (al + koh'l).
Invisible, intangible, silent forces compose the field wherein long-range causes are set in motion. It is a field with its own laws, principles, and required skills. Invisible, intangible, silent factors make up the laboratory of esotericists and other psychologists. There is nothing mysterious about it. We can begin to study and build therein once we have curbed our appetite for sensationalism and have outgrown our longing to be amazing and the need to boost ourselves with phenomenal confirmation.
The present season, the beginning of a new yearly cycle of renewal and resurrection, invites us to do just that.
Since the beginning of human experience, interplay between men and God has been continuous, According to whatever way men regarded their unseen God - as God the Creator, God the Father, God the Provider, God the Law, God as Intelligence, God the Punisher - men have shaped and characterised the civilisation of their time.
Interplay between men and their unseen God covers a field of consciousness far broader than religious institutions. Each civilisation in the course of history is shaped by the way men - in their hearts, in their beliefs, in their doubts, their fears, their dreams - respond to their unseen God.
In those ages when the gods walked among men, institutionalised religion was the government and the government decreed religious doctrine. In other eras, the relation between the function of government and the influence of organised religion has been an uneasy stand-off; it is so today. The way men regard their unseen God, in their hearts, in their beliefs, in ther doubts, their fears their dreams - continues to determine the way of human affairs.
Today a new world religion is taking shape under the aegis of the Coming One Whom some call the Christ and some do not. By whatever name He is called, He is expected to keynote the next stage in the interplay between men and their unkown unseen God and to lift that interplay up out of the irrational sensational fantasies of the astral plane, into the clear light of the reasoning mind.
Aspirants and disciples who have elected to make themselves receptive and responsive to the influence of the Coming One, are expected to establish a calmer emotional climate in and around human affairs and more thoughtful, more benign human relations. Eventually, out of it all will emerge a co-operative world community.
It is a lovely dream. A noble goal.
Space is invisible. What goes on in that space is invisible. What goes on between men and the unseen God is invisible. What is going on between the Coming One and humanity is invisible.
All men are brothers, children of one God. What goes on between the brothers is human relations. Relationship is invisible; energy is invisible. Relationship is the domain of the soul and the soul is invisible. No one has ever seen or claimed to have seen a soul. Never.
Actually the greater part of what goes on in space is invisible.
The rays of the sun are invisible. Certain painters have tried to paint sunshine. They have captured on canvas the reflection of sunlight upon a landscape, but not the sunlight in space. And so far no one has been silly enough to paint space, although Salvador Dali's paintings examined it and added comment. Sculptured forms sometimes incorporate an area of space, while the space so shaped and defined remains in itself invisible.
You cannot see emotion. You can see and clearly recognise the impress of emotion upon the human face: joy which makes the countenance radiant and lovely; anger which makes the features ugly and repellent. But emotion, the feeling, is invisible.
Thought is invisible, intangible, silent. Thought can move dense forms and even impress substance. But you cannot see thought.
The mind is invisible. Its impress upon the brain can be observed in numerous ways. And the brain is visible if you remove its cover of skin and bone. The mind is forever invisible, intangible, silent.
Urges, ambitions, resistance, intention, and countless other motivating forces are invisible. They make our lives what they are.
If we expect to learn to operate consciously and effectively in the space between us all (in human relations) we must accustom ourselves to the invisible layers of life. If we are to become useful, dependable helpers in building the new world, we must learn to register impressions from and by invisible, intangible, silent energies and forces. For some perople, this will mean foregoing miracles and sensational psychic phenomena. It requires that we gain sufficient self-confidence not to try to astonish our friends.
Probably many of the people who wandered into dependence upon hallucinogenic drugs were simply seeking an extraordinary experience to strengthen their faith in the unseen. By historical record, the early use of alcohol in the Middle East was an experiment to discover Spirit through chemistry (al + koh'l).
Invisible, intangible, silent forces compose the field wherein long-range causes are set in motion. It is a field with its own laws, principles, and required skills. Invisible, intangible, silent factors make up the laboratory of esotericists and other psychologists. There is nothing mysterious about it. We can begin to study and build therein once we have curbed our appetite for sensationalism and have outgrown our longing to be amazing and the need to boost ourselves with phenomenal confirmation.
The present season, the beginning of a new yearly cycle of renewal and resurrection, invites us to do just that.
and through the point which I can thus provide,
love and true light can flow.
I stand in restful poise, and through
that poise I can attract the gifts which I
must give - an understanding heart,
a quiet mind, myself."
