LIGHT ON THE PATH - 68 : Kill out all sense of separateness - 13

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 68 🌹

🍀 For those WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN - For DISCIPLES 🍀

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 5 - THE 5th RULE

🌻 5. Kill out all sense of separateness - 13 🌻

276. So with us; it is not in the least necessary that we should put ourselves into the worst conditions. On the contrary we can often help more effectively by not hampering ourselves in that way.

If a man finds himself in a peculiarly unpleasant crowd, perhaps filled with some savage feeling or outburst of passion, he can throw a shell round himself and so protect himself from the evil influence, but he cannot do very much with that crowd while he is occupied in doing that. On the other hand, if he were away from it he would be able to pour more force upon it. Even then, if a crowd of undeveloped men is under the sway of some crude passion, very little can be done with it from higher planes, because the force poured out could hardly affect it while it was in that state.

Therefore we need not enter evil surroundings unless we see clearly that we can do definite good there, although we must do the best we can if we find ourselves in such an environment. I have heard, for example of preachers who have gone into drinking saloons and started a religious service, and there have been cases where such a bold move as that was actually successful.

There would, of course, be many occasions when such a procedure would end in a fiasco. In these things, as in war, a very bold and apparently rash move may occasionally turn out well, but usually more can be accomplished by working in a reasonable way.

277. Remember that the sin and shame of the world are your sin and shame; for you are a part of it; your karma is inextricably interwoven with the great Karma.

278. We do not realize that down here, but on reaching the buddhic plane we see that it represents a real truth. There we feel: “I am part of that which humanity cannot avoid; something exists in it which is a shame to me” and we feel it so because we as part of humanity have caused it. On the other hand we have our share in every good that has been done. When one man has taken a step forward we feel it as a triumph for all; through him all humanity has come a little nearer to its goal.

279. And before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow.

And if you turn with horror from it, when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you. The self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain, not that yourself shall be kept clean.

Continues...

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05 Jan 2021