Compass Newsletter Summer/Autumn 2006 No.5

 

Living Together in a World of Differences
Two Ancient Celtic Poems
The Two Paths
Why Do You Meditate?
Book Ordering and Contact

Living Together in a World of Differences

 

We are told by the ‘experts’ that we now live in a world of post-modernity. The structures that provided security for us have been dismantled and we are, as individuals, free, no longer relying on a collective security. Grand narratives to explain things are gone and all explanations are valid. We are told that liberty has arrived, we are persons with our own particular life and the future – and some say that there is no such thing as future – is down to us. Everybody is the centre. A world we all know too well. We have left the old ways behind, no one, no thing, or things, to rely on. As Dorothy said in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling where not in Kansas anymore’. We live in a quid pro quo world. I’ll do something for you, but only if there is something in it for me.

Everything is focused towards the ephemeral part of us, the part that, in reality, is the least durable. There is an urge towards immediate satisfaction, to be consumed quickly. The satisfaction should end just before the time needed for consumption, is up. Shorten our attention span, be impatient, restless. A quick fix. To live from attraction to attraction. and then there is that word ‘Flexibility’. We should all be flexible, amenable to changing conditions. As if those conditions are natural, out there somewhere, a part of nature. Move jobs, move house, retrain. Is this what the Buddha really meant by non-attachment? Now there’s nothing wrong with being flexible at all, but when it is linked with all the other things of desire, satisfaction, the whole big Sell, then being flexible isn’t an organic thing, it’s appropriated to fit in with the stirring of the more base parts of our being. Create a ‘norm’ by which all else is measured, and where does our ‘free choice’ fit in when all we are left with is just one choice? That choice is to be the ‘norm’. And isn’t consumption something we do alone, individually? We may all eat McDonalds or whatever our fast food choice is, dress in designer clothes, but we eat them, and wear them as individuals. To be individual in this sense is not the same as the individualism that makes us grow. We are a wanting society, not a waiting society. Do we own our clothes, or do they own us? Do we eat our food or does it eat us?

What place is there for duty? Fulfilling a duty does not fit in with the timeline of today’s society. Duty involves a time extensive logic, while ‘experiencing’ shows no good reason to be postponed. ‘Why waste an opportunity’, the lifestyle gurus tell us.

Free to make life choices, good or bad, the consequences will be borne by us. No interference from any ‘external agent’, so we’re led to believe. We can be what we want to be. Oh yes!? But isn’t there a wealth of external agents just ready and waiting to help us to achieve our innermost desires? If some don’t make it, well, must be a failing in them, they must be lazy, without ambition, because look!, some did make it. If only it was so easy. Their is an assumption that we all begin at a point marked ‘start’, at the same time, all equipped with the same resources. We don’t need to think to hard and look too far to see that this just isn’t so.

But wait a minute, isn’t this just what our teachings tells us. We are all individual, we are all made of the same stuff, started at the same time & place. We are free to make our choices in the knowledge that we shoulder the consequences. Free Will! So is it the same?

The modernists tell us that we stand alone. No religion, no beliefs, no gods (except the ‘self’ viewed as an economic being, so perhaps room for a god of sorts eh!). In order to promote and sustain this transition we should use the old deposed gods and reincarnate them as failures and diseases. The old ways were bad they tell us. As Jung said ‘individuals without belief, in order to give sense to what they do, and how they live, will find themselves trapped in self-absorbed compulsions, depressions, anxieties – psychopathology as the modern form off illness.” Indeed, the very term ‘psycho-pathology’ means suffering of the soul in the original Greek, but in modern usage soul has been dropped in favour of personality, our ego. So, the same words, but altered meanings. How easy the slippage takes place.

Of course the ego or personality only has one life, but the soul will live on and that’s not good for business. Best get rid of that idea then. Not much mileage in trying to sell to someone if they believe that there is more to all this than one life. Even most of the ‘self help’ books and paraphernalia deal with the immediate and the personal. So we are kept busy with fighting and keeping at bay an ever growing list of poisonous foods, fattening substances, carcinogenic fumes, unhealthy life style regimes and at the same time we are swamped with the promotion of foods and goods that are made out to be just too good to miss out on. If we don’t have the latest then we are out of the loop. There’s just not much time left for real food, food for the soul, food for the spirit. Gee whiz we’ve enough to do sorting all this lot out. And of course ‘celebrities’ are always on hand to guide us in the right direction. These people are famous for …….. well, what are they famous for? Oh yes! for being individuals, my way or the highway. For not caring what others think of them, I’m me and proud of it! And, if you don’t like it…well, we all know what we can do. The meaning of life seems to be the self gratification of the self, the person, no point wasting time on anything else. Step up to the scales at Weight Watchers only to be made to feel a failure for just not losing that extra pound, never mind the 10 pounds already lost. Life coaches proclaim the right to look great, be yourself, and take your life in your own hands. At the same time numerous pressures are put on us, telling us all how bad we are, how bad we look, why we feel so ‘not right’. Small wonder so many are confused. Differences are easy enough to deal with, when they are apparent and if we don’t see them be sure there will be someone, out there, who will tell us about them and also tell us about how, for a fee, they can show us how we can put it right. No matter what you are, they can squeeze you into a size marked ‘norm’. And then you really can be free and individual… and just like everyone else. But it’s when the differences are not so apparent, when indeed, they don’t seem like differences at all. When difference means the same, when the same words are used but mean almost the opposite; that’s confusing.

I saw, in a book shop, a book titled ‘A Guide for the Advanced Soul.’ The nonsense of this title had obviously not been picked up through all the processes that a book goes through prior to publication. Let’s look at it. So, here I am, a soul, browsing in a book shop, how I advanced to this particular point, I don’t know and it’s not explained in the book, I am just there, very post-modern. The only past is that which we can remember and the future is so fluid it almost has no trajectory. So, I obviously know that I am not just an ordinary soul, (because I am attracted to the book so there is a sort of awaken-ness), presumably because I’ve read the ordinary soul guide, but whatever, I’m in the shop and I see this book, which has obviously been written by someone more advanced than the advanced soul, and they have put it all down in a book for me. How kind. It will tell how having gone through the first stages, here is the next lesson. And, I suppose there will be ‘A Guide for the Much More Advanced Soul… and so on. Thinking, the real work, is done for me, it is no longer a verb. Don’t think, just follow. We have given up our freedom to a new class of priesthood. They don’t wear the robes of orthodoxy. They are casual, slick, you know, they’re one of us. The TV doctor who is so approachable and cool. The expert on how our life should be, who wears trainers and a track suit. The intellectual who can explain all sorts of things, just about everything, in a half hour programme on television. There is even a book titled, ‘The Explanation of Everything’ or something like that. The world in concision. Not much left for us to do except follow the band.

But don’t we read our books? Have they not been written for us to read and hopefully to advance. Sunrise magazine, The Secret Doctrine, Letters That Have Helped Me. What’s the difference? The difference is subtle but profound. The literature that we read doesn’t deliver it all neat and pretty. There are no rules, no dogmas. There is no club into whose membership guarantees spiritual advancement, no fees. What our books give, and they’re not really ours but are for all who wish to use them, is a map of the terrain that we inhabit and belong to. It says to us this is where you are, this is how you got here, this is why you got here and if you want to move from here there is a way of doing that. Like the new age and self help products they tell us it is us that has to do it, no one will do it for us, but the sweep and depth of the journey is so much more comprehensive. It is not easy, like losing that extra pound in order to find the Weight Watchers heaven. But there is one Big Difference, we are not to do it for ourselves, we are to do it for humanity, for all living things. It is not an obligation to ourselves, it is an obligation we have to all things. For without that motive we achieve nothing. Personal gains will fade and mean nothing. The Voice of The Silence advises, “But let each burning human tear drop on thy heart and there remain, nor ever brush it off, until the pain that caused it is removed.” We need to be aware of the similarities of differences. There is a story of a person who searched for lost pound coin under a lamp post – not because they lost it there, but because that part of the pavement was better lit.

The individualism that is promoted today is nothing like the individualism of the soul. It, to me, is a pathological individualism, an individualism gone wrong. The feeling of togetherness is lost. Individualism isn’t about being alone it’s about being yourself amongst what seems an infinite number of others. Being alone is cold and lonely. Being together is warm and safe. People are fun. Life is good, even the bad bits. Problems, pleasures, good, bad, are all things we encounter to develop our faculties, to make us whole. Make a mistake, sure, and consequences will follow, sure, but we are never given more than we can cope with, and no one does the giving other than that inner part of ourselves. We navigate the passages of life like a ship, but trying to avoid the currents and reefs that may sink us. Never easy, never completely successful, never dull.

We have entered in to a society, a world that has had the safety nets all but taken away. No rules anymore, just everyone for themselves, or so it seems, but we can take the modern cult of individualism and turn it on its head and throw a line from our own individual shore to some one on their individual shore, the first strand of a new, different, safety net. Not asking them to be like you, but being confident enough to know that you are still you, and that’s OK, and they are still them, and that’s OK too, but the world moves on unharmed, indeed strengthened by the act. KH tells us in The Mahatma Letters that discord is the harmony of the Universe. If we ‘do’ and ‘fail’, we, de facto, are saying that we are aware that there is something greater, something to aspire to, that the thing is still there waiting to be done. Moving into unknown territories is dangerous and uncertain. So much to lose if it all goes wrong. The horns of a dilemma. This is the predicament the new individualism gives us, but The Voice of the Silence encourages us, “…the more one dares, the more one shall obtain, the more he fears, the more that light shall pale.” In the Mahatma Letters they always encourage to TRY. Questions are hardly ever wrong, although answers might be so, but not questioning something is perhaps the worst answer of all.

The book on the shelf only has 264 pages in it. But our lives have an unknown number of chapters left unwritten, to be continued. I need more instruction. Something unique to me, not be jealously guarded, but to be experienced and having that feeling of uncontrollable desire to want others to see and feel what I see and feel. Not to be disappointed when they give me a strange look and think I’ve just landed from another planet. Knowing that they will not be left untouched by our encounter. We have to make a move under what seems imperfectly known and uncertain conditions. A world where there seems to be more answers than questions. Where ‘danger’ is euphemistically replaced by risk. A world where language can sometimes lead further in to the labyrinth than out of it. A very Zen world where there is only ‘now’, history and the future are nothing, we are told. But it is a world in which we have to negotiate through, translate, communicate, and understand those who also have the same rights and the same problems in doing all this, like us, and doing it differently. All the while understanding that differently is not the same as different. For none of us are different really. Doing all this, not to change humanity, but that humanity changes.

The world as presented to us today is not atomized, despite all the efforts. We do feel about others, we are aware of the pain and suffering of others, because they are ourselves, whether we understand it or not, we feel it, we know it, no matter how much we are channelled into believing otherwise. We don’t feel comfortable about not looking so let’s conspire, in the real sense of the word, ‘to breathe together’, to turn it around. That the fear we may experience wakes us up rather than frightens us and that we understand that not only can we make a difference but we may just be that difference . It is necessary; therefore, it is possible. It is only nocturnal moths that consider the domestic lamp a satisfactory substitute for the universal sun. The tighter the shutters are, the less light comes in. Although the sun may set on empires and ideas, it never sets on humanity. We are duty bound, once we feel the transformation that awareness brings, to ask the questions. It would seem that order pervades all things throughout the Universe. When the order is disrupted we become dislocated. We have lost our spot. We don’t feel right about it. And today many don’t feel right about it.

But ruptures in a system are not always bad. Either caused from the outside by pressures bearing down, or caused from the inside by pressures wanting release. Times of change don’t just happen and I believe that what we have is a false image, a confused state, of something much deeper and profound. A real desire and need for an outlet of what we really are, free, individual, a collective (meaning a union), of spiritual beings, filled with an innate understanding, however small, of what it really is all about. And the process we are seeing is just a phase when new meets old and old puts up a fight (here new means a new way of expressing our spirituality, the old, is the constant attempt to disable us from thinking independently and restraining us). It will lose, and it is our duty to hold fast and weather the storm and when the dust settles our understanding will remain. The truth will still be true, but the conditions will change and we will need that flexibility spoken of earlier to be sympathetic and tolerant, of others differences. Because that truth will be the same for them as it is for us, but received by them in its unique way for a unique them. In the end all will be well.

Being free, being individual, of course should not give us the right to do as we please. It should give us the opportunity to realise our responsibility to all others. Dostoyevsky said, ‘ everyone is responsible to everyone else, for everything’. And David Attenborough, talking on one of his latest world/man/nature programmes, said ‘man is no longer aware of the forces of nature. He now knows that he is a force of nature.”

And no Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. And we will never be able to go back. The magic word has been spoken and the genie is out of the bottle. And like the person looking for their lost coin, looking beyond the most obviously lit place on the pavement may yield us much more than we look for.

– Pat Powell

“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry”

William Butler Yeats

Two Ancient Celtic Poems

 

Had I heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

The soul’s treasury is enrichment and enlightened by whatever we experience upon our journey: for there are,

Three candles that illumine every darkness: truth, nature, knowledge.

Dawn and twilight are the times for changing for there is no ending of life in this place. Living things may change their cloaks, yet they never pass out of existence. All that is, remains, vulnerable to memory, rich with remembrance. Lives pass smoothly into other existences, so the pattern of the weaving is unbroken.

Unknown is wailing or treachery
In the homely well-tilled land:
There is nothing rough or harsh,
But sweet music striking on the ear.

Without grief, without gloom, without death,
Without any sickness or debility
That is the sign of Evin:
Uncommon is the like of such a marvel….

This Otherworld of wonders is stil a living dimension to which all mortals can relate. It transcends but also intersects the reality we call “everyday life.” It is the source from which all inspiration comes. It is accessible that burning glass of the soul – the imagination – which is nothing less than our doorway to the Otherworld, through which come the dreams, vision and ideas which transform ordinary reality.

– From The Little Book of Celtic Wisdom by John & Caitlin Matthews

The Two Paths

 

“In a profound sense the path of compassion, of renunciation, is a path of sorrow because it means living in and for the world when one has long ago finished with the trials of earth life. Still a bodhisattva returns, impelled partly by karma and partly out of a deep love for his fellow humans. To each of us the choice is given, whether to advance for ourself and at last slip into the ocean of infinite bliss, forgetful of the world, or whether, when illumination comes, to resolve: “I cannot keep this wisdom to myself; I must return and help my brothers who need what light I have. They are sorrow-filled, confused, crying in the wilderness with aching hearts, yearning for truth.” All the great teachers have chosen this pathway. They have come back to teach, to remind us of our divine lineage and to reawaken memory of our inborn knowledge, so that we may meet our destiny with courage and hope. This “deathless” path appeals to the altruism in us, in contrast to the path “for oneself.” To choose between spirit and matter is an ongoing necessity if we are to evolve; to choose between truth for oneself and truth for others is by far the greater challenge. The resolve to follow the bodhisattva lead is not made casually or for this one life only, but for all futurity: the consummation of divine awakening is ages in the making. All during the long and uphill wayfaring the soul’s intent deepens and matures — to touch, if fleetingly, every life-particle within the ambience of its love.”

To Light a Thousand Lamps, G. F. Knoche

Why do you Meditate?

 

Excerpts from the chapter ‘Western Occultism’ in Grace F. Knoche’s book To Light a Thousand Lamps may hopefully help recent queries on the subject of meditation. Having perused the various references to this subject in Blavatsky’s Collected Writings, as well as W. Q. Judge’s Echoes of the Orient and The Mahatma Letters, one very much appreciates Grace’s contemporary language and her distilled collation from these earlier writers. Equally clear are modern authors James Long and G de Purucker. The former’s advice in his Expanding Horizons reads “There is a world of difference between genuine contemplation and the so-called “practices of meditation,” many of which are an actual danger to the soul. In fact, when I am asked “how shall I meditate?” my invariable reply is: “If I were you, I would stop all set practices of meditation.” Anything unnaturally forced is a deterrent, rather than an aid, to spiritual growth. I like to think of contemplation as an inward, almost unconscious brooding with the soul-part of us reaching toward the Father within, so that our consciousness will be guided by true values rather than by false..” page 177.

G de Purucker in his The Dialogues Vol. 3 page 144 says: “….meditation’ ….. has often been misused by inaccurate writers of theosophical literature, so that many people consider meditation to be a difficult procedure to follow in order to live in the highest part of oneself. The best form of meditation that I know is the constant thought, yearning, aspiration, to be my best, to live my noblest, and to keep this thought with me day and night. It is indeed the best form of meditation. One does not need to go into his private chamber, or into his closet, and to sit or to stand or to lie, and with an effort of the will try to whip the brain to think of certain things. Indeed, I doubt whether that is at all advisable…”

To my mind Grace Knoche explains the negative aspects in comprehensive detail. Space is limited here so her perspective on yoga is omitted:

“Before entering upon any specialised training program we should examine our inner motives to be certain that the course we have in mind is one our higher self would approve. Self transcendence, if it is to be lasting, is not obtained by external means alone. It occurs without formality, in the still recesses of one’s inmost self. Moreover, as the teachings and the path they illumine enter more deeply into the core of our being, we progressively grow and learn. No exoteric training in self-transformation can match the inner transmutation of soul quality that takes place in the silence, the effects of which endure beyond death. They endure because they are registered in our spiritual nature.

”To work from without inwards may produce certain results fairly quickly, but as they seldom reach higher than the mental and emotional aspects of our nature they will be short lived. When our thoughts and feelings are other centered, they build solid spiritual character traits that will outlast cycles. Simply put, when our primary concern is wholehearted devotion to the ideal and practice of brotherhood so that eventually it is universally lived – if we cling to this goal, it will be our lifeline to esoteric reality.

”…Much emphasis also is placed on finding one’s inner center, and rightly so. This centering of oneself is a private individual process of “self-naughting,” self-stripping, as the mystics call it, emptying the nature of externals and becoming one with our essential self. It may take a lifetime, or several lifetimes, to achieve in fullness – no outer circumstances will be as effective as “losing the self that we may find the self.”

”Since the 1960s groups have sprung up all over the world sponsoring self-transcendence courses that offer various methods of achieving alternative states of consciousness: how to rouse the kundalini or “serpent fire” seated near the base of the spine; how to activate the chakras, how to meditate by focusing on a triangle, candle flame, crystal, lighted bulb, or by repetition of a mantra. These and other psychophysical practices are carried out in the hope of attaining nirvanic consciousness. I would not advocate any of these methods, not because they are essentially faulty, but because they can prove deleterious on account of our ingrained selfish proclivities.

”Today the hunger for new and better ways to live is very strong. People long to find meaning in a seemingly meaningless succession of crises and are experimenting with alternative routes, anything that is different from what they grew up with. This is part of the spiritual and psychic awakening going on worldwide, but to adopt without careful screening any method of self-development, especially those that promise instant results, is a high-risk venture. Where there is instability in the character (and who of us is perfectly pure in heart and in motive ?), the invasion of our psyche by baneful influences from the lowest levels of the astral light could be detrimental both to physical and mental health. Besides, concentration of mental and psychic energy on the transient elements of the nature has the drawback of diverting attention away from essentials to externals. This cannot have the beneficial effect that the altruistic and non self-centered approach of raja yoga has on the aspirant. All of this is old wisdom which many today are beginning to intuit and apply to their lives.

”In the Bhagavad-Gita there is a phrase: atmanam atmana pasya – “see the self by means of the self.” This may be interpreted in two ways: see the limited self, the personality, by means of the glowing self or atman within; or, see the atman within, the light of the true self, by means of the awakening personal self. The ideal is to have an unimpeded flow of energy, of consciousness, between our atmic source and the personality. When we seek first to offer ourselves to the noblest within, we quicken the fires of our highest chakra, the atmic center, which in turn will radiate its influence on all the other chakras.

”Viewing the seven principles of the human constitution as a pillar of light, each principle being sevenfold, supposing we try to reach to atman, we may fairly soon reach the subatman of our psychic center. But if we have concentrated too pointedly on that level there is every possibility with certain natures, not only of becoming deflected from our goal but, unhappily, of getting our principles out of alignment.

”If without strain or any sense of pride we offer ourself deeply and sincerely in the service of our inmost self, then the light from the highest atman – the atmic subprinciple of our atman – will illumine our whole being from above downwards. We will remain in alignment because our psychic and intellectual and other centers will be irradiated with the supreme atmic light, and there will be a transforming influence on our lives.

”The popularization of meditation practices in the West has had certain positive results and helped many to handle their deep-seated anxieties. Stilling the mind and calming the emotions for a few moments every day is therapeutic: by deliberately dropping our worries, we become free inwardly and can refocus ourselves for our life’s task. On the other hand, high-powered promotion of meditation may be self-defeating. For example, one is put off at the start when money is charged for a mantra that purports to raise one to cosmic awareness. No one needs a mantra in order to lift his consciousness unto the hills of the spirit and receive the benediction of momentary communion with the highest within.

”There are ways and ways to meditate, and ways and ways to attain a higher awareness. When we become inwardly still, our inner voice may be heard in those quiet yet clear intimations that move the soul. Every night upon retiring we can open the way for the intuition by stripping the nature of all resentments and irritations, ridding the heart of all arrogant and unkind thoughts and feelings about others. If we have slipped a little during the day, let us acknowledge it with the will to do better. We then enter into harmony with our real self, and the consciousness is freed to go where it will. This is a mystery which we do not really understand, but the wonder is that in the morning we wake up refreshed in spirit, with a new and warmer feeling for others, and often with answers to perplexing questions.

”To follow this simple practice is restorative on all planes, and we will be adding to rather than detracting from the harmony of our surroundings. Whatever course of self-betterment one pursues, sacrifice is required: we cannot hope to gain access to the higher realms of being if we have not earned the right of entry. Only those who come clean of anger, resentment, and selfish desire are fit recipients of the keys to nature’s wisdom. To expect otherwise is to run the risk of opening the door to elemental forces of a low kind that may be difficult to eject from the consciousness. Prayer, aspiration, meditation are effective in that they set up a vibratory response throughout all nature; the more ardent the aspirant, the greater power do they have to activate noble (or ignoble) energies both within the individual and in the auric envelope surrounding earth.

”True meditation is true aspiration, a “breathing toward” the divine, an elevating of the mind and heart toward the highest and, as such, is as essential for the soul as food is for the body. If we would orient our lives toward the light emanating from our inner god, we must aspire; but let us be careful in our intensity not to be led into blind alleys of a self-seeking nature which tend to focus attention on our own advancement, our own stature and achievements. After all, where we stand — spiritually or otherwise — is of small moment compared to the quality of our contribution to the whole. The real issue is: Are we giving the best of ourselves to this world so that we bring warmth and courage instead of chill and gloom to our surroundings?

”Meister Eckhart, 14th-century mystic, whose purity of life gives luster to his instructions and sermons even today, put it eloquently: In this life no man reaches the point at which he can be excused from practical service. – Sheldon Cheney, Men Who Have Walked with God, p. 194; cf. Meister Eckhart, A Modern Translation, trans. Raymond Bernard Blakney, p. 14.

”The finest type of meditation is a turning of the soul toward the light within in aspiration to be of greater service, without exaggerated longing for some special revelation. Any method of meditation that helps us to lessen our self-centeredness is beneficial; if it increases egocentricity, it is harmful.

”It is indeed our duty to search for truth, wherever it may be; also, to use our keenest discrimination in every circumstance, appreciative of worth yet alert for falsity, knowing that every human being has the inalienable right to follow the path which seems best to him. In reality, the only pathway we can follow is the one we unfold from within ourself as we seek to evolve and self-become what we inwardly are. Just as the spider spins from itself the silken threads that are to form its web, so do we unfold from the depths of our being the very path that is ours. Our challenge is to heed the mandates of our inner selfhood over and above the external pulls; if we don’t, we hurt ourselves — and others too — until we learn. At times those mandates call for a quality of self-discipline and courage we are not accustomed to, and the sacrifice of things we hold dear. But all that is offered in sacrifice is as nothing compared to what we in our innermost self long for.

”The most fruitful meditation, therefore, is an absorption of thought and aspiration in the noblest ideal we can envision. We will not need to worry about specific postures, techniques, or gurus; there will be a natural inflow of light into the nature, for our inner master, our real guru, is our Self.” – To Light a Thousand Lamps, ch.10

– Renée Hall

P.S. My thanks to Harry Young who went to a lot of trouble collating material on meditation from TUP sources.

In an e-mail, Harry comments that: “There is mention in The Mahatma Letters [Letter No. 20] on all that is required of the Westerner. In the long E. S. Instruction V, (Blavatsky Collected Writings) there is mention of meditation even though the entire lengthy piece focuses on the seven principles and the functioning of the human constitution. This is at the centre of this meditation issue, don’t you think? If we don’t have even a basic grasp of how our seven- and forty nine-fold nature works and is balanced, we won’t understand the potential dangers of meddling around with our consciousness…..”

“Those of us who think knowledge can be acquired without pursuing the path of love, mistake. The soul is aware of what it requires. It demands altruism, and so long as that is absent, so long will mere intellectual study lead to nothing. And especially in those who have deliberately called on the Higher Self does that Self require active practice and application of the philosophy which is studied.”

Echoes of the Orient Vol 3 p 450, W. Q. Judge