LIGHT ON THE PATH - 110 : Seek it not by any one road. - 3

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 110 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 8 - THE 20th RULE

🌻 20. Seek it not by any one road. - 3 🌻

419. People have sometimes been disposed to think that the Masters ought to be doing this lower work, that They should, for example, be working with individuals down here.

I have explained before that They do not do that, except in the comparatively rare cases of those who They see will very shortly repay Them for their effort. It is so entirely a case of what is best for the work that no sentiment of any sort enters into the matter at all.

They will work with a pupil if he can do good work in return, and if the amount of energy spent in teaching and guiding him will produce more result in that way in a given time than would be produced by the same amount of energy expended along higher and wider lines; that is, only if the man is apt to learn, and prepared to do a great deal himself whenever opportunity offers. Up to that point Their interest in him would be what one might call a general concern.

420. There is much work to be done at these lower levels, and it is a fact that a great amount and variety of it has not been done previously. New ways of service are constantly being opened up as mankind advances in brotherhood.

Our Masters had many pupils before the Theosophical Society came into existence, but most of them were Orientals, chiefly Hindus and Buddhists, Sufis and Zoroastrians. The trend of the Oriental mind is not quite the same as ours.

I think without offence we may say it is less practical in some directions than ours, and the majority of Indian pupils have occupied themselves chiefly with their own studies, of which they had an immense amount to do, and only when they had advanced a considerable way on that line did they then turn aside to help others. They had not the incentive that we have for the work of the invisible helpers.

Nobody in India – not even a coolie – is quite as ignorant as the average Christian about after-death states, so there is not the same need for rescuing them from the delusions created by the idea of eternal hell.

As soon as our students began to see what astral work involved they realized that there was a crying need for help. Here were people by the thousand suffering intensely from a nightmare, a sort of bogey, which they had made for themselves simply on account of foolish teaching.

A sight of that kind urges one at once to make some effort to relieve all that distress, consequently the work of the invisible helpers began, and increased like a rolling snowball. Every one who is helped sets to work to help others, so it has happened that in about thirty-five years, since the work was regularly taken in hand, the effect produced has been very great indeed.

421. A man may reach great heights by attending only to his own development, but along that line he will not reach Adeptship. The man who waits to attain Adeptship before he serves the world will never be an Adept.

He may escape into nirvana, or obtain liberation, but because he has not realized what the Logos wants of him, he will presently be overtaken by numbers of less advanced and less talented people who have realized that one important thing.

Then he will have to give up his life on higher planes and come back to learn what he has not learnt before – that humanity is one, and that a man who does not realize that fact cannot scale the loftiest heights of progress.


Continues...
🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


28 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 109 : Seek it not by any one road. - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 109 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 8 - THE 20th RULE

🌻 20. Seek it not by any one road. - 2 🌻

417. C.W.L. – People are almost always lop-sided in their development. Some are strong in devotion, some in intellect, some along the line of work.

Each man, according to his temperament, is taken naturally along the line which is easiest for him, yet he must not forget that all-round development is necessary before he can reach Adeptship. The Adept is above all things an all-round man, and if we are putting Him before us as an ideal, we ,must do what we can to develop ourselves in various directions.

It is a fine thing to be full of devotion, but we must have knowledge along with it, because the man who is merely blindly devoted is of little use. The converse is true of those who advance by intellect. They must also take care to acquire devotion, otherwise their intellectual development will lead them astray.

It is better to develop along one line than not to develop at all, but while every man should pursue his own line, he should nevertheless remember that there are other lines. Often the tendency is to criticize other paths, and to feel that they may be less useful than our own. They would be less useful to us, perhaps, but are not at all so to those who are following them.

Wherever we may be at present in our development we shall certainly have to become balanced, so if now we appreciate only the idea of work we shall nevertheless presently have to realize the position of the man who advances by wisdom, and again that of him who progresses by devotion, and not allow ourselves to think them less immediately useful than we are. I am afraid that the people who advance by devotion are often a little intolerant of those who wish to study and to work.

They sometimes say: “All that you are doing belongs to the outer plane or to the purely intellectual side of things, whereas the heart side of everything is always the more important, and if you neglect that you can make no real progress.”

It is perfectly true that the heart side must be developed, but nevertheless there are those who advance best through definite work, and others who cannot evoke from themselves the best that is within them without careful study and full understanding.

418. Men sometimes feel drawn to the higher life, and devote themselves to contemplation only. There are occultists who hold that to be the best way, at least in the early stages. A man might say: “I must first develop myself in order that I may be able to serve. When I am an Adept I shall serve perfectly; I shall make no mistakes.”

But there is work to do at all levels, and the man who has qualified as an Adept has to work at very much higher levels than any we can reach; therefore if we wait until Adeptship is attained before we are willing to work for the world, a great deal of the lower work will in the meantime be left undone.

Our Masters are working chiefly on the nirvanic level, on the egos of men by the million. They are doing at that higher level what we could not do, but there is a very great deal to do on the lower planes which we can do.

Continues...
🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


27 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 108 : Seek it not by any one road. - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 108 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 8 - THE 20th RULE

🌻 20. Seek it not by any one road. - 1 🌻

413. 20. Seek it not by any one road. To each temperament there is one road which seems the most desirable. But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labour, by studious observation of life. None alone can take the disciple more than one step onwards. All steps are necessary to make up the ladder.

414. A.B. – Rule 20 is the comment by the Chohan on the three short aphorisms 17 to 19, which were considered in the last chapter. It tells us that a man has not to develop only on that line where he finds the least resistance, but must unfold his powers on every line before he reaches the universal goal of usefulness.

His aim is to be a perfect instrument of the Good Law, and no man can become that unless he grows along every line. Each type or temperament must therefore supply what is lacking in itself before perfection can be achieved.

Humanity reaches the goal not by devotion, nor by religious contemplation, nor by self-sacrificing labour, nor by observation and deep thought alone. Ultimately we shall all need to have all these things, but while on the way people are limited by their temperaments, and for a long time to come the work of each disciple in helping humanity is likely to be limited chiefly to one of these ways.

415. It is clear why we must master all the ways. As men advance they must draw nearer together, must become welded into an organic whole. So if a man possessed great power of religious contemplation, but very little of the other powers it would be of little use for him to come into contact with a man possessing chiefly the quality of self-sacrificing labour.

He could not meet him on that ground, and that would limit his usefulness. So it is desirable that while the disciple is striving to perfect himself on his special line of work, is seeking to learn everything about something, he should at the same time not neglect to learn something about everything, so as to be able to make full contact with people of different temperaments with whom he must work.

416. The key-note is balance; we must be able to work to some extent on all lines. Toleration also is wanted, that we may be able to help all. We must see each man’s way as right for him – as one of the roads leading onwards it has to be recognized as good.

We must have respect for all types of people, and until we are able to help them all ourselves we should try to guide those whom we cannot help, to others who can help them, and not disparage the roads on which they are going, and seek to turn them into our own.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


26 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 107 : 18. Seek the way by retreating within. 19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without. - 3

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 107 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj


CHAPTER 8 - THE 18, 19 RULE

🌻 18. Seek the way by retreating within. 19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without. - 3 🌻

410. The ego, with all its mighty powers, is very much less accurate than the lower mind, and the personality, valuing above all the discriminating powers of the lower mind which it is intended to develop, often comes in consequence to despise the far higher but vaguer self, and acquires a habit of thinking of itself as independent of the ego.

411. Though the ego is vague in the earlier stages of its evolution and is therefore unsatisfactory to that extent, there is in him nothing that is evil – no moral defect. There is no matter in the causal body which could respond to the lower vibrations, but wherever there is a gap in its development there is always a possibility that the lower vehicles will run into some sort of evil action.

It sometimes happens in such a case that when an emergency arises the astral elemental takes possession of the man and he madly stabs another man, or, being in great need of money, he finds himself in some position where he can obtain it dishonestly, and succumbs to the temptation. The ego is then not sufficiently awake to step in and prevent the action, or perhaps he does not understand that the passion or greed of the astral body may force the lower self into the commission of a crime.

When we find evil turning up unexpectedly in a man’s character we must not think that it comes from the Higher Self. Yet it comes from a lack in the Higher Self; because if the ego were more developed he would check the man on the brink of the evil thought, and the crime would not be committed.

412. To seek the way by retreating within means for us that we must always endeavour to live up to our highest level, so that we may be able to bring down more and more of the treasures which the ego has garnered during innumerable incarnations.

But while seeking thus to realize the Higher Self we must remember that we must also seek the way by advancing without. We cannot afford to be ignorant of what is outside us, and we must do our best to study and to become acquainted with the world and what is going on in it.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


23 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 106 : 18. Seek the way by retreating within. 19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without. - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 106 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 8 - THE 18, 19 RULE

🌻 18. Seek the way by retreating within. 19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without. - 2 🌻

408. We get these samples sometimes, and should try to understand them as such; we often find, for example, quite an ordinary person showing great heroism when a sudden emergence arises. A workman will sacrifice his life to save his fellow-man. Now the possibility of doing that shows that the man inside is really at that level.

Whatever is the highest a man can touch is in reality the man himself, because he could not touch it, could not think it, if it were not himself. All the lower expression – the storms of passion, the baser feelings – belongs to the personality. They should not be there – that goes without saying – but they are not the real man. If sometimes he touches great heights, that is the level at which he ought always to strive to keep himself.

409. The high and noble things for which a man yearns must be to some extent developed in the ego, otherwise he could not be longing for them down here.

The people who do not wish for such ideals are those in whom those particular qualities do not exist even in germ. If we yearn for higher things they are in us not as a mere possibility but a living fact, and it remains for us to live at our highest level and in that way reach one still higher. The whole object of the ego in putting himself down is that he may become more definite, that all his vaguely beautiful feelings may crystallize into a definite resolution to act.

All his incarnations form a process by means of which he may gain precision and definiteness. Therefore specialization is our way of advancement. We come down into each race or sub-race in order that we may acquire the qualities for the perfection of which that sub-race is working. The fragment of the ego which is put down is highly specialized.

It is intended to develop a certain quality, and when that is done the ego absorbs it into himself in due course, and he does that over and over again. The personality scatters something of its special achievement over the whole when it is withdrawn into the ego, so that he thus becomes a little less vague than before.

410. The ego, with all its mighty powers, is very much less accurate than the lower mind, and the personality, valuing above all the discriminating powers of the lower mind which it is intended to develop, often comes in consequence to despise the far higher but vaguer self, and acquires a habit of thinking of itself as independent of the ego.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


22 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 105 : 18. Seek the way by retreating within. 19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without. - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 105 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 18, 19 RULE

🌻 18. Seek the way by retreating within. 19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without. - 1 🌻

404. C.W.L. – To seek the way by retreating within means in the beginning to seek out and follow the guidance of the Higher Self. As has been explained before, the first stage on the wa3’ is the unification of the personality with the ego.

Later the ego becomes a perfect expression of the Monad, and the man is then ready for the Asekha Initiation. Beyond that the Adept is striving to raise the consciousness of his Monad into the consciousness of the Logos. It is always himself at higher and higher levels that he seeks.

405. Whenever a man at any stage tries to pour devotion up into a higher level, such a flood of the divine power descends upon him that it quite overwhelms his effort, and the effect is not so much that he has reached up, as that power has been poured down on him.

The same thing happens between the pupil and the Master. The pupil sends out his love towards the Master, but it is surpassed by the response of the Master’s love, so that to him it seems that he has received a vast flood of love, though in the first place it was his action that made the downpouring possible.

406. Such, at a higher level, is the pouring down upon the Adept of the Holy Ghost, the power of the Third Aspect of the Logos, symbolized in the “cloven tongues, like as of fire” of Pentecost.

Thus in due course the Adept becomes one with the Third Aspect of the Logos manifesting on the nirvanic plane. His next step is to become one with that Aspect which is represented by the Christ in the bosom of the Father. Later on, though I know nothing about it, I am quite sure that he will draw ever nearer and nearer to the Deity of our Solar system. We shall ever approach the Light, but we shall never touch the Flame.

Not that we shall not rise one day to the height where He stands, but He does not stand still to receive us. He also is evolving, and therefore we shall not touch the Flame, though we shall ever draw nearer and nearer to it. The wonderful bliss of that experience cannot be described down here, because it is all of a nature which has no counterpart in the lower world.

407. In every man there is much to be found by seeking within. The personality, which most people think of as themselves, is only a very small fraction of the man. We are much larger people than we show ourselves to be. The ego can only put down one small part or facet of himself in a particular incarnation and even if that part is manifesting perfectly it is only a small part.

A great man is a fine and beautiful thing to see, even down here, but we may be sure that the whole is very much greater than the part which we can see. No one personality could express all the multiplicity of possibilities which lie within the ego, which has within it the essence of the experience of all the lives it has led.

The highest and very best of us down here might be taken as a fair average sample of the qualities we should discover in the ego if we were able to see it.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


19 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 104 : Seek out the way - 6

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 104 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 17. Seek out the way - 6 🌻

400. Whenever a higher level of consciousness is reached, our view of the world is so much widened that it becomes an entirely new thing to us. When we reach Adeptship we shall have an immeasurably wider horizon.

We shall understand exactly what we are doing because we shall be able to see the solar system as does its Maker, from above, instead of from below: we shall seethe pattern that is being woven, and what it all means.

Every additional step, every extension of consciousness brings us nearer to seeing the meaning of everything, so as we go on we become less and less likely to make mistakes and to misunderstand, but the perfect knowledge can only be that of the Adept, whose consciousness has become one with that of the Logos of the system, even though it be only as yet in one of His lower manifestations.

401. In any case, that choice is in the hands of the Monad, so we certainly need not trouble ourselves about it now. There is always a possibility that the Monad may have decided all that even now, and when such a choice is made the lower representatives or parts of him will simply fall into their place when the time comes, whatever ideas they may previously have been forming. All that is important for us to put before the personality now with regard to such choice is the idea of service.

It we can get it to understand that idea of always watching to serve it will very readily become a perfect channel for the ego and that will influence the individuality in turn to be a perfect channel or instrument for the Monad. Service is the highest ideal in life; did not the Christ Himself say: “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.”?

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


18 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 103 : Seek out the way - 5

 

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 103 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 17. Seek out the way - 5 🌻

396. Looking at it from a higher standpoint, there is but one thing that decides our choice, and that is the necessity of the world at the time. Where a place is empty, where help is needed – there are the things which decide the choice. 

Out of the different ways before him, the purified soul will go where help is wanted. Self-determined, he takes that course where help is needed by the Hierarchy, for the expression of the Will of the Logos. I was told by a Great One that it was a blunder to think that choice could be made at all down here; that the choice is always made to give the help which is wanted for the expression of the Will of the Logos.

397. One group of workers stands for help in the world. Only when re-inforcement is needed amongst Them, only when a channel is wanted, would the choice turn to the world’s work. I have emphasized this because it was given as a warning to myself, not to let my thoughts turn from useful activity to other lines of work not yet given us to do. In the Bhagavad Gita we are warned that the dharma of another is full of danger – our work lies where our dharma lies.

398. C.W.L. – The path which leads out of all human experience is the path of the Adept, which opens up before Him with a choice of seven ways, as we have already seen. 

I have heard many members say: “Oh, of course there is no question at all about what we should choose; we should remain to serve humanity.” It is wiser not to waste our strength in such decisions, because as a matter of fact we do not know anything about it. It is like a little boy making up his mind what he will do when he is a man. He wants to be a pirate or an engine-driver. 

We know as little now about the conditions that will determine our choice as the little child does of those which will determine his future. No one of the seven paths can possibly be in itself more desirable than another, though they all lead to work of different kinds.

399. Quite surely the idea that will be most prominent when the time of choice comes will be: “Where can I be of most use?” What we might perhaps safely prophesy of our action is that we shall say: “Here am I, Lord; send me wherever help is most wanted.” 

But even so it may well be that as we unfold we shall develop some special aptitude for one or other of these lines, and thus it will be obviously best for the whole system that we should be used in the line where we can do most good.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


17 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 102 : Seek out the way - 4

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 102 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 17. Seek out the way - 4 🌻


392. When the final secret of this great lesson is told, in it is opened the mystery of the new way – a path which leads out of all human experience, and which is utterly beyond human perception or imagination. At each of these points it is needful to pause long and consider well. At each of these points it is necessary to be sure that the way is chosen for its own sake. The way and the truth come first, then follows the life.

393. A.B. – When the liberated soul has completed the stages of progress to Arhatship, and is passing onward to the first of the great Initiations beyond, he makes a choice from a variety of paths open to him. They are of the sacred number of seven – he has seven ways of choice before him.

People often say that at that point there can be only one possibility – that a man must choose to be a Master – the underlying idea being that if he decides rightly he will choose to return to help the world.

Such a decision recommends itself when humanity itself is thought of, but I must remind you that this is a hasty conclusion. A hint is thrown out as to the nature of the choice, where the note says.: “At each of these points it is necessary to be sure that the way is chosen for its own sake.”

The words “own sake” give the key. The choice is to be made for the sake of the way only. The fact that there are more ways than one, ought to prevent our laying down the law as to our choice; still more should it stop any person from using the words: “If he chooses rightly,” as if any one could choose wrongly when the soul is liberated.

394. Yet an idea – a very subtle one – runs through us, that we can dictate the choice. We sometimes find ourselves choosing for our own future – for the far-off future – what to be and what to do; and that is really the lower consciousness choosing for the higher. This subtle tendency runs through our life.

Part of our consciousness feels itself as the ‘I’, and naturally inclines to choose the path of the future as it looks at it, forgetting that it is thereby choosing for the higher consciousness, in whose hands alone the choice really lies. Making up your minds as to what is to be done at the close of the Arhat stage, would be like a child choosing his profession in life.

His selection, not being guided by knowledge, would certainly not be one that his mature judgment would approve. A young child can have no choice as to his career in the future, and it is the same in these matters. The higher ego will choose, without regard to the lower; indeed, the lower will perish before the choice comes.

All that is important to put before the lower, then, is the idea of service – of its being made an instrument to serve. Unless it does this it becomes an obstacle to the higher consciousness. Remember it can throw obstacles in the way of that consciousness; as has often been said, it crucifies the higher ego.

395. Another thing to remember is that we cannot judge of any stage of consciousness that we have not experienced, and of which we do not know the relative value. When thinking of a higher condition of consciousness that you have not experienced, there is no possibility of your being able to form any judgment about it. When you reach that state the universe alters for you, bringing about a change in your nature, and causing you to know how such consciousness can act.

You must experience this change before you can know. So in forming any opinion as to a path in the future, it is a case of judging a state of consciousness of which you have no knowledge, and your judgment is worthless.


Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


16 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 101 : Seek out the way - 3

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 101 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 17. Seek out the way - 3 🌻

388. The delight to the pupil of that close union with the Master is intense. The joy of being in touch with so glorious an intelligence, with such splendid emotions, or rather powers – because such things as devotion, love and sympathy, in a Master cannot be called emotions; they are great powers – is wonderful, beautiful beyond words.

The more the pupil lays himself open to those higher influences the more do they flow into him, and the more does he become like the Master whom he serves. It is a matter of steady growth, but this growth is much helped by the constant flow of force between the Master and the pupil.

389. This union is a kind of foretaste on a lower scale of the higher unity that comes when the buddhic consciousness is fully developed; but short of that development I think there is nothing so close as the relation between pupil and Master.

Those who want to be in the privileged position of a pupil should already live as far as they can in the way they will feel it incumbent upon them to live when they do become pupils. The more we can bring that general calmness and serenity of action, feeling and thought into our lives, the more nearly we shall be fit for the closer association when it comes.

Unquestionably the way to deserve such a privilege is to live as though we had it even already. I know people often think that the small external things do not matter. They sometimes say: “Oh, perhaps such-and-such a thing keeps one back in evolution, but it cannot matter very much, it is such a small thing.” I have heard that said about meat-eating and smoking.

But we are not in a position where we can afford to neglect the slightest thing that is of help. The undertaking before us is one of considerable magnitude, and it is no easy task. That being so, it is not the part of the wise man to neglect even the smallest help. And these things are not small in reality. The Master further says, in His note:

390. There is a correspondence between this rule and the seventeenth of the second series. When after ages of struggle and many victories the final battle is won, the final secret demanded, then you are prepared for a further path.

391. The seventeenth rule in the second part of the book, to which the Master refers, runs thus: “Enquire of the inmost, the One, of its final secret, which it holds for you through the ages.” That means that just as now we must seek out the Higher Self, when we have reached that higher level we must seek out the one, the Monad. The final secret is always how to do more and higher work.

Many persons seem to think that rather a dreary prospect. There are large numbers of people whose great desire is rest; there is so much strain and stress and over-work all about us that they look forward to complete rest. That is a point of view which belongs exclusively to the physical body.

On higher planes we are never tired. I have known people who have remained in the astral world for a number of years waiting for a body which the Master thought suitable. In one case a man had to wait twenty-five years, in another, twenty. Both were devoting themselves absolutely without cessation to the Master’s work for the whole of that time.

Certainly neither of them had the slightest sense of fatigue, nor was he in any way less eager to work at the end of that time. So if there be such a thing as fatigue on the astral plane, it must be far removed beyond any time with which we have to deal.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


15 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 100 : Seek out the way - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 100 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 17. Seek out the way - 2 🌻

384. The force is poured through him in order that he may disseminate it, but he is not expected to be a mere machine in its distribution. He does lend to it something of himself, something of his own colouring; that is intended and expected, but it must be in perfect harmony with the Master’s attitude and feeling. That is possible because the pupil becomes one with the Master in a very wonderful way, as I have explained in The Masters and the Path.1 (1 Op. cit., Ch. V.) 

It is not only that all that is in the consciousness of the pupil is also in the consciousness of the Master, but that everything that takes place in the presence of the pupil is also in the Master’s consciousness – not necessarily when it is happening, unless He chooses, but quite certainly within His memory. 

If the Master happens to be busily engaged in some of His higher work for the moment, it does not necessarily follow that He is attending to a conversation which the pupil is carrying on at the time; but we have startling evidence that sometimes He may be, because occasionally He interjects a thought or a remark, and corrects something that is being said.

385. As I have explained elsewhere, any feeling which the pupil allows himself to have will react upon the Master; if it were such a feeling as annoyance or anger, the Master would shut it out in a moment; naturally the pupil does not want to give Him the trouble of doing that, though, perhaps, if one may say it with all reverence, it is not a very great trouble. Possibly the Master does this very quickly, in a single thought, but yet one does not wish to cause even that trifling interruption of His work.

386. Naturally also the pupil wants to avoid the shutting off of himself which necessarily happens at the same time: therefore he tries, as far as he may, to prevent any undesirable thought or feeling from entering his consciousness. He would keep away from a noisy crowd or from any place with exceedingly bad magnetism, unless he had to go there to do the Master’s work. 

In that case he would put a shell round himself and see that no unpleasantness reached the Master. Still, purely physical things in the consciousness of the pupil are also in the consciousness of the Master. If, for example, the pupil is startled by a sudden sound, it gives him a little shock. 

That little shock is communicated to the Master. He cares nothing for it; He puts it aside, but the fact remains that it is communicated, and that shows how close is the tie. A pupil who is wise tries to avoid any kind of shock; he is generally rather a gentle and quiet sort of person, for that reason.

387. It is one of the distinguishing marks of the pupil that he never forgets his Master, or the presence of his Master. So he does not allow within himself, if he can help it, except by inadvertence, any thought or feeling that he does not want recorded in the Master’s thought or feeling, and he even tries to avoid, as far as may be, exterior disturbances which might also be of a kind that would cause him to be temporarily shut off.


Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


13 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 99 : Seek out the way - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 99 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 17. Seek out the way - 1 🌻

379. C.W.L. – The three short aphorisms to which we have now come are closely intertwined, and both in the comment by the Chohan and the notes by the Master Hilarion they are practically taken together.

For this reason it is hardly possible to arrange them in separate groups as has been done hitherto, and so I shall take them in the order in which they appear in the book. It is evident that we have come to a very important part of the teaching, because there is a longer comment from each of these Great Ones than on any of the previous sentences.

380. The Master Hilarion’s note to the seventeenth rule begins as follows:

381. These four words seem, perhaps, too slight to stand alone. The disciple may say: “Should I study these thoughts at all did I not seek out the way?” Yet do not pass on hastily.

Pause and consider awhile. Is it the way you desire, or is it that there is a dim perspective in your visions of great heights to be scaled by yourself, of a great future for you to compass? Be warned. The way is to be sought for its own sake, not with regard to your feet that shall tread it.

382. The spirit in which we should approach the Path is beautifully expressed in these words. All the way through the personality must be put aside, and one must work from the point of view of the Higher Self. To do that is to seek the way. We have already seen that even when the man has left ordinary ambition behind, he finds it again and again in subtler forms.

His ambition now is to reach a higher level; he has made up his mind to desire no longer anything for the personal self, to put whatever power he has entirely at the service of the Great White Lodge. He thinks only of being a good instrument, of bringing himself into such a position in relation to the Master that His forces may play through him with as little hindrance as possible.

383. All forces coming down from higher planes naturally meet with great constriction when they come to work on a lower plane. The force which comes through any disciple can never be more than a very small part of the influence which some Great One may send through him.

That must be so by the very nature of the case, but one who makes himself, with all the imperfections that naturally cling to us on the physical plane, as perfect an instrument as possible for the Master’s force, can do very useful work. The object of the disciple is to let as much as possible of that force flow through him, and to discolour it as little as he can.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


12 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 98 : Desire possessions above all. - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 98 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 15. Desire possessions above all. - 2 🌻

375. All these forces thrown out from the man must recoil upon him so long as he projects them from himself in that way. However, every man has an interior connection with the Deity which is not through any of these concentric spheres, but through the centre itself.

By turning within he can reach the Logos himself, and so long as he sends all the force of his thought and desire in that way, it is not reflected back to him at all, but goes to reinforce the great outwelling of divine power which the Deity is always sending through His universe, by which He keeps it alive.

His force wells up in the centre; it does not come from without. If we look at a number of physical atoms clairvoyantly we shall see some drawing in force and others pouring it out. They must receive that force from somewhere. It does not go in at one side and out at the other; it wells up in the centre apparently from nowhere but is in reality coming from some higher dimension which we cannot see.

Thus the communication with God lies in the very heart of things, and the man who turns his eyes always upon the Deity, and thinks only of Him in the work that he is doing, pours all his force along that line. It disappears so far as he is concerned but, as I said before, goes to reinforce the divine strength which is always being outpoured everywhere.

There is no personal result for the man on lower planes, but with every such effort he draws nearer to the divine Truth within him – becomes a better and fuller expression of it and so it would not be true to say that he obtains no result. In a universe of law nothing could be without result, but there is no outward result such as would bring him back to earth.

376. That, I think, is what is meant when it is said that the Great Ones escape from the law of karma. They spend the whole of Their mighty spiritual force upon doing good in the name of humanity and as units of humanity, and so They escape from the binding of the law.

“Whatever result there is comes to humanity, not to Them. The karma of all the glorious actions of the Master is not held back that He may receive the result; it goes to humanity as a whole.

377. It is in that spirit of impersonality that we also should perform action. If we do anything, even a good action, thinking: “I am doing this; I want the credit of this,” or even if we do not think of receiving the credit for it, but only think: “am doing this,” like the Pharisees of old, we shall have our reward. The result will come back to the personal self, and it will bind us back to earth just as surely as though it were an evil result.

But if we have forgotten the personal self altogether and are acting merely as part of humanity, it is to the humanity of which each is a part that the result of the action will come. The more truly we can act without thought of self the nearer we shall be drawing to the divine heart of things. That is how the Logos Himself looks upon everything.

There could be no thought of self for Him; He acts always for the good of the whole and as representing the whole. If we act thinking only of Him, then the result will flow out in His divine force and will not come to us as anything that will bind, but rather as something which will make us a greater and greater expression of Him, and will raise us more and more into the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


11 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 97 : Desire possessions above all. - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 97 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 15th RULE

🌻 15. Desire possessions above all. - 1 🌻

372. But those possessions must belong to the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore by all pure souls equally, and thus be the especial property of the/ whole only when united. Hunger for such possessions as can be held by the pure soul, that you may accumulate wealth for that united spirit of life which is your only true Self.

373. C.W.L. – The possessions which we are to desire are qualities which shall be of use to all humanity. Every victory we gain is to be gained for humanity, not for ourselves. The desire to possess must be one to possess with all others – a desire that all shall share the same inheritance.

That is the old story of impersonality in another form. We see that beautifully illustrated in the lives of the Masters. I remember long ago feeling considerable wonder as to how it could be that the Masters appear without karma. They are even spoken of in some of the sacred books of the East as having risen above karma.

I could not understand it, because karma is a law just as much as gravitation is. We might rise as far as the sun itself, but we should not get beyond gravitation; on the contrary we should feel it very much more strongly.

It seemed to me just as impossible to escape from the law of cause and effect, since under its operation every person receives according to what he does. If the great Masters are all the time doing good on a scale which we cannot in the least hope to equal, and yet They make no karma, what then becomes of the stupendous result of all Their outpourings of energy?

374. Presently, after studying the problem, we began to see how it worked. If I describe what karma looks like clairvoyantly, it will perhaps help to make the matter more intelligible. The appearance of the working of the law of karma on higher planes is something as follows.

Every man is the centre of an incredibly vast series of concentric spheres – some of them quite near, others reaching to a prodigious distance into the far empyrean. Every thought or word or action, whether good or bad, selfish or unselfish, sends out a stream of force which rushes towards the surfaces of these spheres.

This force strikes the interior surface of one or other of the spheres at right angles to it, and is reflected back to the point from which it came. From which sphere it is reflected seems to depend upon the character of the force, and this also regulates the time of its return.

The force which is generated by some actions strikes a sphere which is comparatively near at hand and flies back again very quickly, while other forces rush on almost to infinity and return only after many lives – why we cannot tell.

All we know is that in any case they inevitably return, and they can return nowhere but to the centre from which they came forth.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


09 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 96 : Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 6

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 96 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 14th RULE

🌻 14. Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 6 🌻

369. It envisages itself on higher levels in a way something like this. We say the past was so-and-so and we cannot alter it. That was how it was when we were at it. How do we know what it is now that we have passed away from it?

That past still exists; it is the present to someone else somewhere. That idea is difficult to understand. On the physical plane, we know that we see an object; we know of it by the light which comes from it.

The light which showed us something yesterday is now many millions of miles away, and it is now showing that same thing far away; our yesterday may be the present for someone else as far as the message of that light is concerned. Whether that analogy holds good I do not know, but something like that seems to be true. The past is somehow progressing.

370. Looking down from the higher plane on the life down here is something like standing on a mountain and watching a’ railway train moving in the valley below. The train has passed certain points as far as the people in it are concerned. The points are passed, but they are still there. The trees and animals they saw at those points are still alive.

The past is still active, but because they are not in it any more most people imagine that their share in it is done with. I am not sure of that. I do not think that it is very profitable to try to understand that point, because one cannot make any coherent sense of it down here.

But I believe that the past is not irrevocable, and that when we in our turn reach the stage where we can look down upon it all, it will appear very much better than our present memory of it would indicate, because somehow all that past also is moving onward as part of the divine reality of things, and that also will become glorified and will blossom out into what it should have been – I cannot pretend to say how.

Still the idea is a stimulating one – the possibility that the things which we have failed to do, the mistakes which we have made, may not be so in the end, though they are so to us now. It is an idea which is difficult to understand down here, but I am sure there is some truth behind it.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


08 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 95 : Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 5

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 95 🌹
🍀 For those WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN - For DISCIPLES 🍀

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj


CHAPTER 7 - THE 14th RULE

🌻 14. Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 5 🌻


366. A few thousand years are as nothing in the long life of the soul, but we do not want to be delayed in that way. In the Lives of Alcyone we find, for example, the case of one young man who had remarkably good opportunities in connection with one, of the great Masters in a temple in Egypt.


367. He foolishly wasted his time, threw away his opportunities and lost them. The Master said then that He would always be ready to take him again when he came back. It is only in this life, six thousand years later, that he has come back. That carelessness lost him a good deal of time.


Think of what might have been done in that six thousand years, if he had taken the offer. At that time the Master who made it had not yet attained Adeptship. Certainly if the pupil had accepted, he might have now been very far on the road to Adeptship himself.


It cannot be a matter of indifference whether a man takes such a step as that six thousand years earlier or later. The man who took it so much earlier would have all the work of intervening years on the very highest levels to his credit – it seems impossible that it can be the same thing.


368. I do not know how far in the counsels of the Eternal what we call time matters. There is a point of view to which one may rise in which past and present and future all seem one eternal now, but even in that eternal now there are some things which are more opened and others which are less opened,


and therefore the acceptance or the neglect of an opportunity must make a difference, though there may be some way in which a mistake of that kind may be adjusted in the future, in which somehow the man’s regret that he did not succeed may be a force enabling him to work doubly well to try to overtake the past.


One can only guess at it, only attempt to imagine how such a thing would work; but there is very distinct reason to suppose that there will be a position in which the past can be rectified.


Continues...
🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


06 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 94 : Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 4

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 94 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 14th RULE

🌻 14. Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 4 🌻

362. The things which affect the higher progress are all exceedingly delicate – so carefully, so exactly balanced, that the least touch in the wrong direction will throw them back for weeks and months. It is possible to throw back the growth of months in a single day.

Therefore very much depends upon surroundings. One cannot always calculate upon obtaining again the same surroundings, so the occultist always strives to make the utmost use of whatever conditions he has at any time, while he is also watchful that none of them shall drag him down. One of the Puranas says:

363. Without a body no one attains the object of the soul; therefore should one take care of his body as a treasure, and perform good deeds. A village or a field or possessions or a house, or good and bad pieces of karma may be obtained again – but this body never again.1 1 Garuda Purana Saroddhara, xvi, 17, 18.

364. People sometimes say: I cannot do much in this life; I shall try what I can do in the next.” It is always well to keep before us the idea of the next life and what we can do in it, but it is not safe to depend too much on that, because the karma behind each person is sure to be more or less mixed and it sometimes asserts itself in waves. We may have karma at a certain time which will give us good surroundings. It does not follow that in the next life we shall have conditions equally good.

On the whole the probabilities are that our karma will flow on in much the same groove, but on the other hand there might be a block of unpleasant karma which the karmic authorities do not think the man strong enough to bear this time, and in the next life they might let that loose upon him, so that he might not get such good opportunities.

365. It is eminently wise to take all the opportunities available in this life. If we do that, and thus show the Lords of Karma that we are taking advantage of them, that will seriously influence the incidence of karma upon us in the next life.

It will constitute a sort of claim for good surroundings. It is not wise because we have many opportunities in this life, to assume that we shall have them again in our next life. We may or we may not. I do not like to hear people say: “I am too old to do anything in this life.”

If we make good use of what we have, and advance ourselves as far as possible, we create a condition of affairs in which it would be difficult for the karmic deities not to give us opportunities again; we can make such karma along a particular line that we may take the kingdom of heaven by storm – we can force the Lords of Karma to so arrange our karma that the opportunity must come because the causes we have set in motion cannot work themselves out except along a similar line.

Most assuredly it is well to make full use of every good opportunity that comes to us, lest by chance by neglecting it we might make a difference of a few thousand years in our evolution.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


05 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 93 : Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 3

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 93 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 14th RULE

🌻 14. Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 3 🌻

359. People do not in the least realize what they are doing when they destroy these things, as they so often do. I constantly see boys and girls who belong perhaps to ordinary parents, but are themselves quite promising; if they were taken in hand and brought along in the right way, they would make distinct progress in this life.

But their surroundings are utterly unsuited for such development and all the finer growth is lopped off and beaten back, and they go through life as quite ordinary people. I have seen cases where the same thing happened over and over again in as many as perhaps fifteen or twenty lives; the progress that might have been made in the first case was not made until the twentieth.

Probably the accumulated karma of living a little better in a quiet way in each of those lives made it necessary at last that the ego should be given better surroundings, and then he got his opportunity. But so far as we can see that same development could just as well have been made twenty lives before, if only the environment had been a little better.

360. It is a sad thing for the people who repress those delicate touches. I suppose there is no greater crime f than the repression of those who are trying to make progress.

361. Many people commit this crime against themselves as well as against their children. They do not give the higher part of themselves an opportunity to grow.

Children are often able to see nature-spirits and other beautiful things which older people cannot see. There is no reason why the older people should not see them also, if their sensitiveness had not been destroyed by the sort of life into which they have so often been plunged.

Sometimes later on in life with great difficulty they begin to recover the power, not only of clairvoyance, but also the power to appreciate all that is artistic and beautiful, all the subtle shades of feeling and perception that mean culture and real education.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


04 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 92 : Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 92 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 14th RULE

🌻 14. Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 2 🌻


357. It is said here that the holy flower grows upon the still lagoons. It is only in still water that the lotus can unfold itself to its best; it cannot do so if it is buffeted about by wind and storm.

It is only in peace that the soul can unfold. Storms of passion and desire are just like storms that beat down the flowers on the physical plane. All developments of the higher kind are like very delicate flowers, and if they are subjected to violent storms of passion they become crushed out, and disappear.

People who are always in royal rages, who constantly brood over all kinds of foolish personal matters, who are always thinking about their own feelings and are filled with jealousy and envy of others, cannot develop all the fine and delicate fronds and tendrils that mean progress.


358. People in general have very little scientific idea of what occult progress, real evolution, means.

Their methods of education alone show that they do not understand it. There is a certain amount of the evolution through which we have gone – up to about the level of the savage and a little higher than that – which we may consider as fairly definitely estabished; that is to say, we could not very well fall back below that point under any circumstances. But the growth that comes beyond that – beyond the almost animal part, or at any rate the lower and emotional part, of man – is a question of exceedingly delicate development of many sorts.

The things which differentiate the highly cultured and artistic person from the quite coarse and undeveloped person are all of a very subtle nature – matters of long and slow and careful growth; they are tender shoots of great promise, which have hardly as yet blossomed forth, and have certainly not yet reached what they shall be in the future. The first blast of unfavourable conditions destroys that finer growth.

The rough and tumble of modern education, in which children are frightened and sometimes even ill-treated, has the effect of crushing out all the delicate bloom of culture and refinement which souls that have come into these child bodies may have been acquiring for a very long time past – perhaps for twenty or thirty lives.

In consequence the children become very much like primitive savages. They are often full of fear and hatred and a great sense of abiding injustice, and all the finer development which really marks the difference between a later and, an earlier sub-race is swept away.


Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


03 Feb 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 91 : Desire peace fervently. That sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 91 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 7 - THE 14th RULE

🌻 14. Desire peace fervently. That sacred peace which nothing can disturb. - 1 🌻

The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons.

354. C.W.L. – This short aphorism is closely connected with the foregoing one. The power which we are told to desire leads to peace; unless we have power over self we can have no peace.

355. Only when we have gained peace can we give it to others; to be able to do that is surely one of the greatest and most beautiful of powers. Most people’s lives are full of worry and anxiety, of jealousy and envy.

All the -time they are just a swirl not only of emotions, but also of unsatisfied desires. Many of those who take up the study of occultism, that is, the study of the reality which lies behind, still expect to be able to go on living that kind of life.

Even some of those who are supposed to have been students of occultism for years, and are trying to draw nearer to the Masters, apparently cannot yet give up their desires. They make no serious attempt to get rid of all their foolish and disturbing emotions, and then they wonder why they do not make progress and why others seem to pass on in front of them.

How can they expect to advance until they have left all these things behind them? Until we are quite free from such disturbances it is absolutely impossible to make any real higher progress. If we want to set up communications with the Master, we must have perfect peace within.

356. It is said that struggle is a necessity for progress. It is certainly true that there is a long stage in the evolution of the soul when it is in a constant state of struggle and strife. On looking back into the past we can see that progress was then more rapid in a life of storm and stress than when the conditions were easier.

In that rough-hewing of the character all the troubles and difficulties which men encounter and the opposition which comes in their way no doubt teach them something; they learn their lessons from them. But at the higher stage at which the disciple has arrived that state of struggle is no longer of value.

For growth of the higher kind, perfect peace is necessary. A Master once wrote: “The law of the survival of the fittest is the law for the evolution of the brute; but the law of sacrifice is the law of the evolution of man.” Many people think they will get peace when their mad desires are satisfied, but they find by experience that it is not so.

They then begin to think what a sad thing it is that they have yielded to them, and they realize that they ought to have risen above them. There is no peace to be gained by the satisfaction of desire. Peace is to be attained in one way only: by putting aside the lower desires and developing the power which makes us “as nothing in the eyes of men.”

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹


01 Feb 2021