taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
In considering what it means to be pro Truth vs. pro a variation on Truth, or a half-Truth, we must consider the words attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, spoken during His Crucifixion experience. The plea on the sake of an ignorant Humanity runs thus:
Strangely, and sadly, it is often the Christian devotee, and even the otherwise-disciple of amazing intellectual prowess, who ought to know better ... who turns out to be the subject of this earnest prayer of Christ Jesus. And this will come as a great shock to many, when it does finally dawn.
In the one case, the reason for the blindness is essentially the emotional nature, which remains unchecked by an intellectual or Intuitive perception. And the result? The well-intentioned man or woman, seeking only to follow in the footsteps of the Saviour, ends up crucifying the very Christ within ... which s/he ought to be expressing. This also becomes all too easily externalized, and before long, s/he perceives an enemy at every step ... so that instead of acknowledging or seeking to recognize the Christ within the Heart of one's neighbor, one perceives through a lens of fear, suspicion and doubt. No wonder there is so much talk about war against Satan!
This kind of thing occurs in the majority of cases where the spirit of fervor and devotion motivates the aspirant toward service, yet where this service cannot be fulfilled due to the blindness already mentioned. The karma in these situations is, fortunately, minimal, because the motivation is right and sound ... while it is only a case of narrowness of interpretation, and of perception, that results in error.
In the case of the man of great intellect, however, there is a deeper karmic penalty, because the emotional nature has been somewhat balanced by the mental, and thus, to put it bluntly, he ought to know better. Often the person in this category is s/he who still follows the dead-letter of the religion of birth or upbringing, either because it is simpy most comfortable to the personality nature ... or because s/he is actually bound to the repetitive motions of ritual & ceremony, just as to any other action repeated habitually.
And yet, here again, the karma is not nearly so considerable as when we encounter the disciple treading the DUAL-path of light and dark magic simultaneously. This category includes a great many of the more intellectually developed men & women in the world today. However, it is THIS group which can become a powerful ALLY of the Hierarchy and an expression of the Christ Energy, when motivated by Goodwill ... while they can just as easily aid in the resistance to the Plan of Love & Light, simply by falling back into the well-worn grooves of the religions, thought-forms, and ideologies WHICH ARE PASSING OUT (of manifestation).
An esotericist, or an earnest student who bothers to pursue the study of God's Plan, will find that Christianity, as well as other Great world religions, will not disappear from the face of the Earth ... even as the New World Religion slowly begins to emerge over the course of the next several centuries. Instead, s/he will find that the Plan affords for, and requires, an increasing Unity among and between all of the Great religions of the past & present ... such that the BEST that is within each one will definitely survive. The original intent of the Founders, which is always in cooperation with the Plan of Love & Light, will be more & more focused upon, so that it will gradually become clear that Religion has been given to Man in order to guide him back to God, and not to provide yet another source of endless controversy, bloodshed or bickering.
Meanwhile, even as Christ's own closest Disciples aid Him, and as esotericists & men of Goodwill labor worldwide for the above mentioned Unity between and Unification of Faiths ... we will continue to see a diminishing, though outspoken minority of resistors, who will THWART Christ's own plans ... often in the very name of the God, Teachers & prophets whom they so fervently desire to follow & serve.
This is grievous, as anyone will be able to understand who can possibly imagine the Christ as a living, breathing individual, and as something OTHER than a legalistic, token sacrifice offered up by the angry, tribal god of yesteryear ... in exchange for Humanity's endless & unforgivable sins.
Only in taking this proverbial theological bull by its bloody, well-sharpened horns ... can we begin to see just what ERRORS Christ had in mind, when he spoke those oft-quoted words from upon the Cross at Golgotha.
The man in the 2nd and 3rd categories mentioned loves to make excuses. He is more or less adept, well experienced and quite content at turning the tables on every effort to assist him, or to demonstrate that he is only fighting a war within himself ...
Such a man, be he Christian, Jew, or hardline scientist, an atheistic skeptic & materialist, will ever insist that HIS OWN interpretation is the correct one. He will scapegoat those who have labored hard to reveal the Truth, especially (and understandably) where his own ideology or beliefs have been challenged. Yet never, not by any means in such a way that others might become aware, will he admit his error ... or even begin to question that in fact, he might be wrong about his assumptions - and his lifelong conclusions.
You see, this kind of man walks among us, and he makes his influence felt ... and it is a powerful influence, unfortunately. He does not have one name, because in fact, this man lives to a degree within us all, even within those of us who would sit in solitude, or in the quiet of the forest, in a mountain retreat, or by the rolling waves of the ocean. There is nowhere we can go where we will escape this influence, and thus we cannot blame the man who only knows how to externalize ... and to scapegoat, in an effort to exorcize himself of the darkness.
But, My Friend, it is a human darkness, it is the karmic creation of All of Humanity ... and thus in a sense it IS the Anti-Christ, while to the Hierarchy it is already known as a Spirit (or an entity, a false-entity) whose days are numbered.
The sadness one encounters, however, is sometimes spurred on by the continuous, unrelenting assault against all that is held Sacred and Dear ... because KNOWN to be True - though as yet unfelt, unsensed, NOT understood, and certainly NOT appreciated by one's Brother upon the Path who has as yet encountered another aspect ... of this same Truth!
Sadness, when it cuts deep, turns to anger, and it is nothing less which leads to violence and bloodshed, and this has everything to do - with war. `The Holy Land' is now far from holy ... and just remember: I am not the messenger, maybe not even a messenger. Yet I have become aware of a portion of - The Message. And so have you.
And while we make ourselves out to be learned lecturers, and esteemed esotericists, we demonstrate that in fact, we are the only real pseudo-occultists preaching a false gospel ... when we show how ignorant we are of the lessons of Humanity's Greatest Teacher to emerge from the East:
It is good that we cannot advance upon the Path until we have learned self-discipline, and earnest self-Sacrifice for the Good of All. The consequences of our folly are already - shameful, unimaginable, cause for greatest sorrow ...
The esotericist knows that these two opposing energies are completely natural. S/he knows that the SOUL is the Consciousness Nature - it is the Christ within, in a childlike state (to which Christ made definite reference). As the Soul matures, the man naturally becomes a disciple, an Initiate, then finally a Master ... and eventually a Christ. Yet he must first overcome, along the way, the equally natural lower nature, the pull of the form, which asserts itself in every astrological sign slightly differently.
And thus, in this month of Virgo, I affirm: "I am the mother and the child. I, God, I, matter am."
Clearly, I can only do this by seeking to act AS A SOUL. I seek to ACT AS IF - and this is what we each do, as we aspire to embody the example provided for us by Christ, and by other Teachers.
The Christian Church has its own special Wisdom concerning the Holy Trinity, and while the Divine Feminine has as yet been eclipsed by an over-emphasis upon the Divine (and also the not-so-divine) Masculine ... we may rest assured that this error will correct itself, soon enough.
Let the Wise among us show that he is not a fool, by recognizing that his own portion of the Truth is at best adequate, but not unlimited, and that he can always stand to learn a thing or two about himself, and even his God, from his Brother Soul. His alternative, the worship of his own EGO, definitely has its own set of rewards & advantages. But that man who wittingly embraces such self-deceit and such vanity, plunges headlong into great peril and spiritual danger ... and courts the very Devil he would otherwise overcome.
Namaskar,
~andrew
"Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." -- Luke 23:34
Why did Jesus speak these words, and what did he mean by them?Strangely, and sadly, it is often the Christian devotee, and even the otherwise-disciple of amazing intellectual prowess, who ought to know better ... who turns out to be the subject of this earnest prayer of Christ Jesus. And this will come as a great shock to many, when it does finally dawn.
In the one case, the reason for the blindness is essentially the emotional nature, which remains unchecked by an intellectual or Intuitive perception. And the result? The well-intentioned man or woman, seeking only to follow in the footsteps of the Saviour, ends up crucifying the very Christ within ... which s/he ought to be expressing. This also becomes all too easily externalized, and before long, s/he perceives an enemy at every step ... so that instead of acknowledging or seeking to recognize the Christ within the Heart of one's neighbor, one perceives through a lens of fear, suspicion and doubt. No wonder there is so much talk about war against Satan!
This kind of thing occurs in the majority of cases where the spirit of fervor and devotion motivates the aspirant toward service, yet where this service cannot be fulfilled due to the blindness already mentioned. The karma in these situations is, fortunately, minimal, because the motivation is right and sound ... while it is only a case of narrowness of interpretation, and of perception, that results in error.
In the case of the man of great intellect, however, there is a deeper karmic penalty, because the emotional nature has been somewhat balanced by the mental, and thus, to put it bluntly, he ought to know better. Often the person in this category is s/he who still follows the dead-letter of the religion of birth or upbringing, either because it is simpy most comfortable to the personality nature ... or because s/he is actually bound to the repetitive motions of ritual & ceremony, just as to any other action repeated habitually.
And yet, here again, the karma is not nearly so considerable as when we encounter the disciple treading the DUAL-path of light and dark magic simultaneously. This category includes a great many of the more intellectually developed men & women in the world today. However, it is THIS group which can become a powerful ALLY of the Hierarchy and an expression of the Christ Energy, when motivated by Goodwill ... while they can just as easily aid in the resistance to the Plan of Love & Light, simply by falling back into the well-worn grooves of the religions, thought-forms, and ideologies WHICH ARE PASSING OUT (of manifestation).
An esotericist, or an earnest student who bothers to pursue the study of God's Plan, will find that Christianity, as well as other Great world religions, will not disappear from the face of the Earth ... even as the New World Religion slowly begins to emerge over the course of the next several centuries. Instead, s/he will find that the Plan affords for, and requires, an increasing Unity among and between all of the Great religions of the past & present ... such that the BEST that is within each one will definitely survive. The original intent of the Founders, which is always in cooperation with the Plan of Love & Light, will be more & more focused upon, so that it will gradually become clear that Religion has been given to Man in order to guide him back to God, and not to provide yet another source of endless controversy, bloodshed or bickering.
Meanwhile, even as Christ's own closest Disciples aid Him, and as esotericists & men of Goodwill labor worldwide for the above mentioned Unity between and Unification of Faiths ... we will continue to see a diminishing, though outspoken minority of resistors, who will THWART Christ's own plans ... often in the very name of the God, Teachers & prophets whom they so fervently desire to follow & serve.
This is grievous, as anyone will be able to understand who can possibly imagine the Christ as a living, breathing individual, and as something OTHER than a legalistic, token sacrifice offered up by the angry, tribal god of yesteryear ... in exchange for Humanity's endless & unforgivable sins.
Only in taking this proverbial theological bull by its bloody, well-sharpened horns ... can we begin to see just what ERRORS Christ had in mind, when he spoke those oft-quoted words from upon the Cross at Golgotha.
The man in the 2nd and 3rd categories mentioned loves to make excuses. He is more or less adept, well experienced and quite content at turning the tables on every effort to assist him, or to demonstrate that he is only fighting a war within himself ...
Such a man, be he Christian, Jew, or hardline scientist, an atheistic skeptic & materialist, will ever insist that HIS OWN interpretation is the correct one. He will scapegoat those who have labored hard to reveal the Truth, especially (and understandably) where his own ideology or beliefs have been challenged. Yet never, not by any means in such a way that others might become aware, will he admit his error ... or even begin to question that in fact, he might be wrong about his assumptions - and his lifelong conclusions.
You see, this kind of man walks among us, and he makes his influence felt ... and it is a powerful influence, unfortunately. He does not have one name, because in fact, this man lives to a degree within us all, even within those of us who would sit in solitude, or in the quiet of the forest, in a mountain retreat, or by the rolling waves of the ocean. There is nowhere we can go where we will escape this influence, and thus we cannot blame the man who only knows how to externalize ... and to scapegoat, in an effort to exorcize himself of the darkness.
But, My Friend, it is a human darkness, it is the karmic creation of All of Humanity ... and thus in a sense it IS the Anti-Christ, while to the Hierarchy it is already known as a Spirit (or an entity, a false-entity) whose days are numbered.
The sadness one encounters, however, is sometimes spurred on by the continuous, unrelenting assault against all that is held Sacred and Dear ... because KNOWN to be True - though as yet unfelt, unsensed, NOT understood, and certainly NOT appreciated by one's Brother upon the Path who has as yet encountered another aspect ... of this same Truth!
Sadness, when it cuts deep, turns to anger, and it is nothing less which leads to violence and bloodshed, and this has everything to do - with war. `The Holy Land' is now far from holy ... and just remember: I am not the messenger, maybe not even a messenger. Yet I have become aware of a portion of - The Message. And so have you.
There are certain areas of evil in the world today through which these forces of darkness can reach humanity. What they are and where they are I do not intend to say. I would point out, however, that Palestine should no longer be called the Holy Land; its sacred places are only the passing relics of three dead and gone religions. The spirit has gone out of the old faiths and the true spiritual light is transferring itself into a new form which will manifest on earth eventually as the new world religion. To this form all that is true and right and good in the old forms will contribute, for the forces of right will withdraw that good, and incorporate it in the new form. The "Holy Land" is no longer holy, but is desecrated by selfish interests, and by a basically separative and conquering nation. -- Rays and the Initiations, by Alice Bailey
Early on, those who seek to tread the Path of Service (and of Sacrifice) are encouraged: Learn Detachment. Yet without having learned anything of detachment, and without understanding in the least the true perspective of the Soul (which is Ageless), we pretend that we are qualified to interpret the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus, Who gave far, far more than His physical body ... for the sake of His fellow man. And while we make ourselves out to be learned lecturers, and esteemed esotericists, we demonstrate that in fact, we are the only real pseudo-occultists preaching a false gospel ... when we show how ignorant we are of the lessons of Humanity's Greatest Teacher to emerge from the East:
THREE ARHATS
HREE Arhats persistently besought Buddha to permit them to test the power of miracle. Buddha assigned each of them to a dark room and locked them in.
After a considerable time the Blessed One called them out and asked them what they had seen. Each related his different visions.
But Buddha said, “Now one must agree that miracles are useless because the supreme miracle you have not perceived. Because you could have sensed existence beyond the visible. And this sensation could have brought you beyond the limits of earth. But you continued to realize yourselves as seated on earth and your thought attracted waves of the elements to earth. The inflation of the elemental images evoked cataclysms in various lands. You shattered rocks and destroyed ships in the gale.
“You, for instance, have seen a red beast with a flaming crest. But the fire evoked by you from the abyss demolished the houses of the defenseless ones. Go and help!
“You saw the lizard with the face of a maiden. You impelled the waves to wash away the boats of the fishermen. Hurry to bring help!
“And you have seen the eagles in flight and the whirlwind has destroyed the harvest of the toilers. Go and repay them!
“Then where, Arhats, is your usefulness? The owl in the hollow of the tree has spent its time to greater use. Either you labor on earth with the perspiration of your brow or at the moment of seclusion exalt yourself above the earth. But let not senseless invocation of the elements be the occupation of a sage!”
Verily, the feather which falls from the wing of a tiny bird creates thunder in the far-off worlds. -- On Eastern Crossroads, by Helena Roerich
If I were an arhat, in the above context, I daresay many worlds would already have met their destruction. If one of my adversaries here, were an arhat in the above context ... yet again, the rained-down destruction would be as nothing any of us can imagine. And he knows this well.
After a considerable time the Blessed One called them out and asked them what they had seen. Each related his different visions.
But Buddha said, “Now one must agree that miracles are useless because the supreme miracle you have not perceived. Because you could have sensed existence beyond the visible. And this sensation could have brought you beyond the limits of earth. But you continued to realize yourselves as seated on earth and your thought attracted waves of the elements to earth. The inflation of the elemental images evoked cataclysms in various lands. You shattered rocks and destroyed ships in the gale.
“You, for instance, have seen a red beast with a flaming crest. But the fire evoked by you from the abyss demolished the houses of the defenseless ones. Go and help!
“You saw the lizard with the face of a maiden. You impelled the waves to wash away the boats of the fishermen. Hurry to bring help!
“And you have seen the eagles in flight and the whirlwind has destroyed the harvest of the toilers. Go and repay them!
“Then where, Arhats, is your usefulness? The owl in the hollow of the tree has spent its time to greater use. Either you labor on earth with the perspiration of your brow or at the moment of seclusion exalt yourself above the earth. But let not senseless invocation of the elements be the occupation of a sage!”
Verily, the feather which falls from the wing of a tiny bird creates thunder in the far-off worlds. -- On Eastern Crossroads, by Helena Roerich
It is good that we cannot advance upon the Path until we have learned self-discipline, and earnest self-Sacrifice for the Good of All. The consequences of our folly are already - shameful, unimaginable, cause for greatest sorrow ...
There is but one road to the Path; at its very end alone the "Voice of the Silence" can be heard. The ladder by which the candidate ascends is formed of rungs of suffering and pain; these can be silenced only by the voice of virtue. Woe, then, to thee, Disciple, if there is one single vice thou hast not left behind. For then the ladder will give way and overthrow thee; its foot rests in the deep mire of thy sins and failings, and ere thou canst attempt to cross this wide abyss of matter thou hast to lave thy feet in Waters of Renunciation. Beware lest thou should'st set a foot still soiled upon the ladder's lowest rung. Woe unto him who dares pollute one rung with miry feet. The foul and viscous mud will dry, become tenacious, then glue his feet unto the spot, and like a bird caught in the wily fowler's lime, he will be stayed from further progress. His vices will take shape and drag him down. His sins will raise their voices like as the jackal's laugh and sob after the sun goes down; his thoughts become an army, and bear him off a captive slave. -- The Voice of the Silence, taken down by H. P. Blavatsky
The enemy of Truth, it turns out, lives within each & every one of us. And yet, in each astrological sign, we can affirm and meditate upon the keynote of the disciple, and then labor throughout that sign to embody that keynote ... as that of Scorpio (the Disciple's Sign), for example: "Warrior am I and from the battle I emerge triumphant." This is a far cry from the affirmation of the form, the path of least resistance, which says in Scorpio, "Let maya flourish and deception rule."
The esotericist knows that these two opposing energies are completely natural. S/he knows that the SOUL is the Consciousness Nature - it is the Christ within, in a childlike state (to which Christ made definite reference). As the Soul matures, the man naturally becomes a disciple, an Initiate, then finally a Master ... and eventually a Christ. Yet he must first overcome, along the way, the equally natural lower nature, the pull of the form, which asserts itself in every astrological sign slightly differently.
And thus, in this month of Virgo, I affirm: "I am the mother and the child. I, God, I, matter am."
Clearly, I can only do this by seeking to act AS A SOUL. I seek to ACT AS IF - and this is what we each do, as we aspire to embody the example provided for us by Christ, and by other Teachers.
The Christian Church has its own special Wisdom concerning the Holy Trinity, and while the Divine Feminine has as yet been eclipsed by an over-emphasis upon the Divine (and also the not-so-divine) Masculine ... we may rest assured that this error will correct itself, soon enough.
Let the Wise among us show that he is not a fool, by recognizing that his own portion of the Truth is at best adequate, but not unlimited, and that he can always stand to learn a thing or two about himself, and even his God, from his Brother Soul. His alternative, the worship of his own EGO, definitely has its own set of rewards & advantages. But that man who wittingly embraces such self-deceit and such vanity, plunges headlong into great peril and spiritual danger ... and courts the very Devil he would otherwise overcome.
Namaskar,
~andrew
