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...

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23 Feb 2021