LIGHT ON THE PATH - 138 : 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 5

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 138 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 11 - Master Hilarion’s note on Rule 21.

🌻 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 5 🌻

🍁 527. Know, O disciple, that those who have passed through the silence, and felt its peace and retained its strength, they long that you shall pass through it also. 🍁

528. Certainly they do, because those who have unfolded the faculties of the soul know the whole system, and see it all in action before them, and because they see it, they yearn that every one shall see it.

They realize that part of that plan is that we should all help. Therefore they desire that every one as soon as possible should be brought to see that his duty is to assist, that that is the real work of the world.

We all have subsidiary work to do; we have our part to play on the stage of the physical world, and we must play that part as well, as nobly, as we can; it does not matter what it is, it matters only that we should play it well. But we must remember that behind that is the real soul-life, and that is the thing of greatest importance.

529. We live in an atmosphere where the means is taken for the end. Most of our education is built on that plan. For example, people are taught geometry and mathematics, but are never shown that these lead to a comprehension of how the great Architect has constructed His universe. So long as we take them as ends in themselves they lead nowhere in particular; but if we follow them up as did the ancients who invented them, we shall find they are of great use.

Pythagoras taught the value of numbers and of geometry, but he taught it to the physikoi, that is, to those who were learning the secrets of life. They learnt them in order to comprehend life better, and it is from that point of view that we should study all things, not merely to make material and commercial calculations.

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28 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 138 : 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 4

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 138 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 11 - Master Hilarion’s note on Rule 21.

🌻 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 4 🌻

523. We come now to the Master Hilarion’s note on Rule 21.

🍁 524. The opening of the bloom is the glorious moment when perception awakes; with it comes confidence, knowledge, certainty. The pause of the soul is the moment of wonder, and the next moment of satisfaction – that is the silence. 🍁

525. The opening of the bloom is a gradual process. Even while the bud is still tightly shut it is slowly swelling under the influence of the sun and rain and the manifold influences that play upon it. The actual bursting of the bud is comparatively sudden, but the growth is continuous.

The growth has been progressing before that; it will go on after. To take another analogy: the growth of the chicken has been taking place inside the egg before, and it continues after, the breaking of the shell; there is a particular point when the shell is broken that is for us the dramatic moment, though it is really only part of a steady growth. It is the same with the growth of the soul.

526. This passage refers also to a particular stage in the disciple’s life. It describes the feelings of the man when the first great truth of Initiation is put before him. People are apt to think that the things that will be taught at Initiation are many and various. I violate no pledge in saying that the great truths are not all given at the same time.

At each stage one single fact is communicated – a fact that changes the face of the earth for the man, in the same way that the knowledge of reincarnation and karma has changed our lives. One would expect that, having a new fact put before him, it would be necessary for the Initiate to grow into it and prove it. It is not so. The moment the man has the truth he recognizes it at once as true: he needs no proof.

Then comes the moment of wonder; he marvels at the beauty and perfection of it. Only later does he see that this is not everything. Later vision brings more into view, but for the moment it is perfection. He wonders also that what is so obvious has escaped his notice before. Then comes the moment of satisfaction that is the silence.


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24 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 138 : 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 3

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 138 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 11

🌻 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 3 🌻

520. Indeed, when we have had this direct experience we find it very difficult to think ourselves back into the condition m which we were before. It changes our whole attitude towards everything in the world. Happenings which seemed of great importance before are seen to be of much less significance; now that we know the great inner truth of the life which really matters, the outer life which does not matter takes its proper place.

Yet we have to remember that most people whom we meet are still where we were before we had that expansion of consciousness, and it is sometimes a little difficult not to lack sympathy with them, because they are pursuing will-o’-the-wisps. We forget that until yesterday we were doing the same thing.

521. The silence may last a moment of time or it may last a thousand years. But it will end. Yet you will carry its strength with you. Again and again the battle must be fought and won. It is only for an interval that nature can be still.

522. The actual moment of complete unfoldment may take place at any point of a man’s career; that is to say, when the time comes for the soul to unfold it can do so whether it has a physical body or not at the time; the silence would last only a moment, or only a very short time, here on the physical plane, but it might well last a thousand years if the man were in the heaven-world. It will come at some time to all, and once attained it can never be lost.

Yet it is only for a moment that-nature can be still, because evolution is steadily going on, and to stand still is not to evolve. It has been said that in occultism no man stands still, that he is always either retrograding or advancing. I do not know whether that is actually so, but it is quite certain that if he is not advancing he should examine himself, and try to find out why. There ought to be steady and continuous progress.


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22 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 137 : 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 137 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 11

🌻 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 2 🌻

518. The whole world is crying out, as it were, for that certainty about the higher things. So eager are the people that any charlatan who professes to have direct knowledge is at once assured of a following. Any teacher who is in earnest always draws people round him, because the religions of the world have failed sadly to give any real satisfaction.

The weak point of most religious teaching in regard to all the subjects is that it does not explain; it simply lays down the law – perfectly good law – such as “Thou shalt not kill,” but it does not explain in detail why all these things are wrong.

519. The first step towards gaining direct certainty about spiritual or super physical truth is that which is in effect - the first step in all occult progress - the dominating of the personality. When we have achieved that, peace comes at once, and we then find we have been living in the midst of an atmosphere of peace and did not know it; because we ourselves made a little storm around us for us the peace was not, even though some of our neighbours may have been living in it all the time.

When this soul faculty, this certainty, is attained, nothing ever seems the same again, because then we can no longer have any sense of hopelessness. That which we merely believe may fail us at a critical time, because the basis of belief which satisfies a man at one time does not always satisfy him at another, when perhaps he is under tremendous strain. But this certainty always satisfies.

When once we have seen and known for ourselves, even though that sight and knowledge may fall away from us and we may no longer be able to cling to them, we can always say: “I have seen; I have known; just now I am not able to see or to know but I have seen, I have known,” and that certainty carries us through.

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20 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 136 : 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 136 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj


CHAPTER 11 -

🌻 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then - 1 🌻

515. It shall grow, it will shoot up, it will make branches and leaves and form buds, while the storm continues, while the battle lasts. But not till the whole personality of the man is dissolved and melted – not until it is held by the divine fragment which has created it, as a mere subject for grave experiment and experience – not until the whole nature has yielded and become subject unto its Higher Self, can the bloom open.

Then will come a calm such as comes in a tropical country after the heavy rain, when nature works so swiftly that one may see her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed spirit. And in the deep silence the mysterious event will occur which will prove that the way has been found.

Call it by what name you will, it is a voice that speaks where there is none to speak – it is a messenger that comes, a messenger without form or substance; or it is the flower of the soul that has opened. It cannot be described by any metaphor. But it can be felt after, looked for, and desired, even amid the raging of the storm.

516. C.W.L. – The blooming of the flower is the development, the unfoldment of the soul. The worst feature of sorrow and suffering down here is the feeling that one is helpless. People engage in all sorts of struggles, and in many cases think they are predestined to fail.

They will say: “I have heard of certain people making rapid progress, but there is no chance for me.” They are hopeless about it because they do not know. We can never again have that feeling when once the soul has unfolded itself, because we know. We shall still have struggles and troubles and difficulties, but we know for certain that as souls we are invincible.

517. As is said here, it is in the silence and the calm that the soul grows. People tell us, and I think that they often emphasize it quite unduly, that the soul grows through suffering. Put that way the statement is not quite correct. It is by making mistakes and correcting them that the soul learns how to grow, and suffering invariably comes as the result of the mistakes; but as I have explained before, the growth does not take place during the suffering, but afterwards.

A person may be very much better after a surgical operation, but the improvement does not take place while the operation is being performed.1 (1 Ante. p. 100.) In like manner while people are in the throes of all sorts of terrible difficulties they are not growing, but by the way in which they meet those difficulties they may be learning to grow after they have surmounted them.

It is in the silence which follows the storm that the flower grows. It is possible that plants may develop strength within themselves by enduring a storm, but growth can come only when the buffeting of the storm is over. We must have gone through the turmoil of battle before we gain that great reward of victory, the real unfoldment of the soul, which brings with it a calm certainty which nothing again can ever shake.


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18 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 135 : 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 4

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 135 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 4 🌻


She thought that to take them to some extent into her confidence in that way was giving them a chance.

I cannot tell, and she could, how near they may have been inwardly to taking it, but on the surface their attitude was the conventional sneering attitude. We never heard any more of them, but they had had their chance. Some past karma had evidently given them the right to the opportunity, and though it meant nothing to them then, it may possibly help them a little towards taking it when another such chance comes to them.

511. On this occasion Madame Blavatsky carried out very fully the idea of not blaming people who are in darkness. She knew that the more self-satisfied they were the more they were to be pitied. It is useless to blame anybody for being what he habitually is, because that is his level in evolution; that is as far as he has got.

If he falls below his average level we may reasonably say: “You know, that is wrong; you ought not to have done that,” and it may possibly help him not to do it again. But the level where a man habitually is shows where he is in evolution, and however far back he is there is nothing to be gained by blaming him. It would be as foolish as to blame a child of five years old because he is not yet ten.

512. Then again, those very people who frequently exhibit the least pleasant characteristics have in them the potentiality of the high and noble things as well, and sometimes these come out in a great burst when an emergency arises.

As I explained before, there are men whose ordinary lives are certainly at- a very low level, yet in some great emergency they may show an unselfishness which enables them to throw away their lives for the sake of a comrade. Man always has the god within, and it shows out sometimes when we least expect it. Because it is there, it is always possible to appeal to it. We cannot always reach it, because it is so deeply buried, yet in most cases we are able to catch a glimpse of it in some way.

513. The sight of the suffering of the world also brings, it is said here, terrible toil; once having seen this vast mass of backwardness and misery we cannot help working all the time to alter it. There is nothing else to be done. We can never go back into the world and be careless of the existence of the suffering and sorrow when once we have really felt it. Yet behind the toil is a great and ever-increasing delight.

This comes from the recognition of the law; we see the meaning of suffering and the good that is to come out of it. Note the words: “You enter into a partnership of joy.” That is the real beauty of this higher life. We come into partnership with the greater people. We feel ourselves to be working for and with Them, and that is of itself so great a joy that it supports us through work which otherwise we might feel it impossible to carry out.


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16 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 134 : 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 3

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 134 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 3 🌻

That is only natural, but at the same time one does feel that many of them might take up the new ideas a little more quickly, and it is certain that things of this sort do spread in a definite sort of ratio. One man can state a view and make a little impression; ten men can make more than ten times the impression; a hundred men can make vastly more than a hundred times the impression that one man could, unless he happened to be a rare genius.

We have some thirty thousand members in our Society; I think if all of them were really taking this higher philosophical view of life, and were thereby obviously avoiding a great amount of suffering, they would form a powerful and striking example. In that way we could help a vast number who as yet do not know anything about the higher side of things.

509. When we begin to see that what is being done is always the best – the best under the circumstances for everybody – our sorrow is no longer of the same kind as before. We are just as sympathetic towards others, but we are no longer overwhelmed by their suffering; we sympathize with them but do not share their feelings. The Masters are profoundly sympathetic with people who are suffering, and yet we could not say that They Themselves share in that suffering, because of Their insight.

As I have said before, a Master is never sad, never depressed. It has seemed to me sometimes, however, as though even They could be disappointed with people. I do not know that I ought to say even as much as that, but I know this, that They make very strong efforts sometimes to bring about certain results, and yet those results, through the failure of Their instruments, are not brought about. I do not know whether They foresee from the beginning that those efforts will fail.

I cannot but feel that in many cases They do, but yet They make them precisely as though They expected them to succeed. For example, much work was done before the great war in an attempt to avoid it. That effort failed, but whether the Adepts who inaugurated it knew from the beginning that such would be the result I do not know: They worked at it as though They expected it to be successful.

510. Madame Blavatsky in many cases offered people opportunities in a similar way. Sometimes she made every endeavour to persuade them to take them, when she knew from the beginning that they would not do so. I well remember one occasion on which some people came to her to make enquiries. They seemed to me obviously unsuited for any Theosophic knowledge or -work, since they were not at all in the frame of mind in which it would be of use to them. She spoke to these mere casual strangers, and told them about quite intimate things which she hoped to do in the Society.

They were rather sneering people, who did not seem in the least worthy of such confidence, and when they went away the Countess Wachtmeister said: “Madame, why did you tell those people these things? It seems certain they are not the sort of people to whom it would do any good. They will only go away and sneer, and perhaps do us harm.” Madame Blavatsky replied: “Well, my dear, some karma has brought them to me, and I must give them their chance, and do all I can for them.”

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14 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 133 : 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 133 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 2 🌻

505. C.W.L. – You enter into a partnership of joy, but it brings also terrible toil and profound sadness, says the Master’s note. All of that is true, but it is also true that the ever-increasing joy counterbalances the sadness.

506. Every student who has developed his faculties fully is, by the hypothesis, a sympathetic man; he must pass through a period of sadness and almost of despair, because of all the sorrow and suffering which he sees.

Because people are backward in evolution and are not yet reasonable, there is in evidence much more of suffering and sorrow, of anger, hatred, jealousy, envy and the like than of high virtues, so that there is a preponderance of unpleasant vibrations from humanity. This shows itself in the astral world, so that any man who becomes fully developed astrally becomes at the same time aware of the sorrow and trouble of the world – aware of it only in a vague way, but it is ever present with him as a weight resting upon him.

Constantly individual instances of the astral sorrow and suffering which happen to occur in his neighbourhood also press strongly upon him. In addition any catastrophe involving a great deal of sorrow to a large number of people distinctly influences the astral atmosphere of the world.

507. The student has to learn how to receive that without being weighed down by it, and that takes a considerable time. He gradually learns to look more deeply, and as time goes on he begins to see that all this trouble is necessary under the circumstances which men themselves have created. The suffering that comes is a necessity because of their great carelessness and laxity.

If men had been a little more careful a very great part of it could easily have been avoided. I have mentioned before that the real suffering brought to us by karma from past lives is perhaps a tenth of that which comes to us, and the other nine-tenths is the result of our own wrong attitude here and now, in this life. In that sense there is a vast amount of entirely unnecessary suffering.

But the other side of the shield is that while people persist in taking the wrong attitude, in thinking and acting foolishly, under the eternal law suffering must come upon them; in an indirect way that is distinctly good, because it is bringing them to a sense of their own folly. The pity is that they need so very much reminding, that they cannot at once take the hint and alter their attitude – so much suffering might be saved if that could be.

508. This seems to all of us who have studied the matter very easy to see. I cherish a hope, therefore, and I think a well-founded hope, that the suffering of the world will diminish very rapidly as soon as the common-sense view of things is accepted by a fairly large minority of people.

They will come to see that they are making their own trouble for themselves, and in process of time they will refrain from all that is undesirable, purely from the common-sense point of view. Members of the Theosophical Society ought to be displaying before the world an example of the Theosophical attitude towards life, but there are many of them who, although they know these truths, find it hard to put them into practice.


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12 Apr 21

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 132 : 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 1

 

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 132 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight. - 1 🌻

501. The disciple enters into a partnership of joy, but this very partnership brings toil and profound sadness, because he oscillates from one condition to the other. He must learn to feel the inner joy, and yet not lose touch with the lower principles of others, in which their sorrow is felt. He must feel that too, but must not be overwhelmed by it.

The Path is as narrow as the edge of a razor, but we are to maintain perfect equilibrium upon it, while the pairs of opposites play upon us. One great function of the Master is to preserve our balance. The pupil will be swaying from one side to the other. When the gloom comes the Guru will send to him remembrance of the partnership of joy: when he tends to lose complete touch with the sorrows of the world the reminder of sorrow will come.

502. For a long time the disciple is subject to these oscillations. We should not attain perfection unless we experienced the different things separately, before we reached equilibrium. It is the experience of mankind that we have to learn one lesson at a time, that we may give it full attention.

The disciple who is treading the path is thrown from one side to the other, until he learns to keep the balance. Sometimes an entirely causeless gloom comes down, and he finds himself deep in the shadow. He finds no reason for it; he only knows that it is there – a gloom that he cannot shake off. If he has learned the lesson rightly he will accept that quietly and patiently, and will not try to escape from it.

He will then learn sympathy and patience, and other lessons which can be learned in the gloom, not in the light. Accepted in this spirit the period of gloom is not such an unwelcome thing, for all the worry and trouble have gone out of it. We should take the lessons, and learn without suffering. People do not suffer so much from gloom as from images. Like a child afraid of the dark, we fill the darkness of the soul with shapes of horror.

The darkness is simple darkness and nothing else; it contains nothing more than the lessons which it has to teach us, and all the phantoms will, in time, disappear. The darkness can never crush us; at first it paralyzes us with fear, but at last we learn its lesson.

503. At the last Initiation, that of the Master, the atma is seen as a clear light, a star, and when it spreads out, at the last breaking down of the wall, it becomes the infinite light. Before that the Arhat can feel the underlying peace of atma when in meditative mood, but constantly he returns to the sorrow.

But when a man rises to the atmic plane in full consciousness, and the buddhic consciousness merges into that, there is but one light seen. This is beautifully put in The Voice of the Silence: “The Three that dwell in glory and in bliss ineffable, now in the world of Maya have lost their names. They have become one star, the fire that burns but scorches not, that fire which is the Upadhi of the flame.”

504. While the man was in the causal body, he saw the Sacred Three as separate, but now he sees Them as the three aspects of the triple atma. Buddhi and manas, which were “twins upon a line” in the buddhic consciousness of the previous stage, are now one with atma, the star which burns overhead, the fire which is the vehicle of the monadic flame.

Then says the Teacher: Where is thy individuality, Lanoo, where the Lanoo himself? It is the spark lost in the fire, the drop within the ocean, the ever present ray become the All and the eternal Radiance.” He who was disciple is now a Master. He stands in the centre, and the triple atma radiates from him.

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10 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 131 : 20. Blame them not. Shrink not from them, but try to lift a little of the heavy karma of the world - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 131 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. Blame them not. Shrink not from them, but try to lift a little of the heavy karma of the world - 1 🌻

496. Blame them not. Shrink not from them, but try to lift a little of the heavy karma of the world; give your aid to the few strong hands that hold back the powers of darkness from obtaining complete victory.

497. C.W.L. – We must be careful not to misunderstand this passage. The few strong hands are the Great White Brotherhood. The struggle is not against the devil as the Christian puts it, nor must we think of the black magicians as holding the powers of evil. It is the overpowering strength of matter which is meant here by the powers of darkness. Our help in the effort to overcome them is needed and is calculated upon – it is part of the scheme.

498. There are only a few strong hands helping at present because our humanity has as yet evolved very few Adepts. The Logos has based His plan on the idea that as soon as there are those who understand it they will co-operate with it.

That is shown by the fact that up to the middle of the fourth root-race, indeed, even a little past that time, all the great offices in connection with the evolution of the world were held by people who did not belong to our humanity. Some came to us from Venus, others from the Moon. These were great Adepts who were really free, who might have gone off altogether into higher realms.

But after the middle point of evolution we ourselves were expected to develop our own Teachers, and the Lord Gautama Buddha was the first of These. It is clearly intended that we not only furnish the very great officials, such as the Buddhas and Christs, but also that all of us at our very much lower level should be intelligently co-operating, and trying to push on evolution as much as we can.

499. Then do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight.

500. A.B. – This means that we have come into relation with Those whose life is bliss, but side by side with that experience there is still sadness because we feel the darkness people are in. You have sadness for people, because you are not yet at the point to say, when you see suffering: “Yes, it is well.”

At this stage there comes a subtle feeling about pleasure and pain that does not exist in the lower world; you feel the more keenly until the light has become perfectly clear, because the light shows up the darkness. Yet an increasing delight will come, by recognition of the law. More than that, no being is unhappy in the fundamental depths of his consciousness, because all are parts of the divine life, which is happiness itself.

More and more as he progresses does the disciple contact those depths, until at last he realizes, to use the words of the Gita, that he was grieving for those who should not be grieved for, that the wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. Why should one grieve for a being who is fundamentally happy?

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08 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 130 : Do not condemn the man that yields - 2

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 130 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. Do not condemn the man that yields - 2 🌻

491. A.B. – When we look up to the region of atma and worship the light within, we shall see the light as it grows stronger. When you first see that light you get a touch of consciousness by which you see the darkness in which it burns; the contrast shows it to you. It is then that darkness within that will help you to understand the helplessness of those who have seen no light. It is for them that real compassion is necessary.

There is no need to feel suffering for people after they know that there is light. Compassion is needed for those who do not know that they are in darkness, but are immersed in trivial things, and yet think themselves wise. Their darkness is so great that they really do not know what causes them so much suffering. They are the people to whom the Great Ones send compassion.

492. Those who have seen even a little light are making progress in things of which men in the world have not caught a glimpse. When once the light is seen this kind of compassion is not wanted. If such a man is seen to be suffering, it is recognized that he is breaking down the wall quickly, and that it is good for him that he is able to do it.

493. C.W.L. – When we begin to have knowledge of the existence of the soul, we realize a great fact of which the vast majority of mankind knows nothing. Most people – even so-called religious people – have no certainty of the existence of the soul. Most of them are living entirely with a view to this world. They may hold a theoretical belief in the immortality of the soul, but the things of the world are more important to them and their lives are only in comparatively few cases guided by this belief.

494. That the “star of the soul” may show itself we must first be sure of the existence of the soul, we must know it as within ourselves. When we have set our affections on things above, when we know certain truths within ourselves and nothing can shake their reality for us, the star is beginning to show its light – there is a faint reflection of it. By that tiny gleam we see how densely ignorant we have been and still are; that is the first feeling we get when we gain a little more knowledge.

495. “The first great battle” is the battle with the senses. In his steady fight against them the man has arrayed himself against his lower nature, and has won through. When the gleam of light comes we see how dark the way has been, how all our actions, and even our affections, have been without that direction which makes them real. The little light makes all seem hopelessly wrong; it makes us feel helpless, but we must not be appalled by the sight.


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06 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 129 : Do not condemn the man that yields - 1

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 129 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - The Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. Do not condemn the man that yields - 1 🌻

487. But do not condemn the man that yields; stretch out your hand to him as a brother pilgrim whose feet have become heavy with mire.

Remember, O disciple, that great though the gulf may be between the good man and the sinner, it is greater between the good man and the man who has attained knowledge; it is immeasurable between the good man and the one on the threshold of divinity. Therefore be wary lest too soon you fancy yourself a thing apart from the mass.

488. A.B. – Here we are told that we must not condemn the man who yields to temptation. When you have passed through the stage of trial, there is no fear of your condemning anyone. When temptations are transcended, and you think of the time when you still felt them, you will not condemn the man who yields.

489. The difference between the virtuous and the vicious man is comparatively little; both are struggling in the early stages, and when looked at from either side the difference is small.

But when a man has attained knowledge and has seen the meaning of virtue and vice, he has made an enormous step. When he sees virtue and vice only as the pair of opposites, he has transcended knowledge; he stands on the threshold of divinity, and the difference is immeasurable.

We have the warning here that if we too soon think ourselves apart from the mass there will come the temptation to despise those below us, and then we shall fall. A person who has reached divinity looks down on no one; he can feel with all, and is one with the lowest.

490. When you have found the beginning of the way the star of your soul will show its light; and by that light you will perceive how great is the darkness in which it burns. Mind, heart, brain, all are obscure and dark until the first great battle has been won.

Be not appalled and terrified by the sight; keep your eyes fixed on the small light and it will grow. But let the darkness within help you to understand the helplessness of those who have seen no light, whose souls are in profound gloom.

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04 Apr 2021

LIGHT ON THE PATH - 128 : Seek it by testing all experiences - 4

 

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 128 🌹

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

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 10 - THE Note on 20th RULE

🌻 20. Seek it by testing all experiences - 4 🌻

484. Suppose such persons did not exist; there would be no link between humanity and the Great Ones. They preserve a link, and in Their perfect purity They feel in Themselves the sufferings of others. This stage comes immediately before that of the Master; it is the last stage of the Arhat.

A Master cannot suffer pain, His consciousness is so perfect; He can image past experiences without suffering. The experience is to Him a perfect image, without pain. But in the advanced condition of the stage before that, though the man cannot sin, and the personality is pure, it yet transmits a sense of suffering.

485. In exoteric books this stage is sometimes confused with that of the Masters, and a feeling of suffering is attributed to Them. It is in the stage before that that there is suffering, where those in the stage of Arhatship are sharing the work of the Master, without having lost the susceptibility of feeling pain.

The Master transcends all suffering. The Arhats take part in building the “guardian wall”, but they build it with pain. People are apt to apply to the Master what is true of higher disciples only, who are still in a stage where sin is transcended, though the power to suffer is left.

486. At the lower level we may sympathize with friends until we lose all sense of difference, and we must suffer if we sympathize thus deeply. Until ahamkara is transcended sympathy and suffering must go hand in hand. If we go out of this stage too soon we lose our power of sympathy; that is one of the temptations on the Path.

Great Ones fall back even when they have reached the last stage, because if they lose suffering altogether, they lose sympathy, and if sympathy is not perfect, the wall of separateness is not thrown down.

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02 Apr 2021