Letters on Occult Meditation

by Alice A Bailey

  Similarly, mental trouble has to be dealt with directly from the causal level, and necessitates therefore the assistance of the Ego, and the help of someone who has causal vision and consciousness. This latter method, and the major part of these types of trouble, lie far ahead for the race, and therefore little concern us at this time. Nevertheless the curing of physical ailments that have their seat in the emotional body is already beginning to be known and slightly studied. In the study of psychology and in the comprehension of nervous diseases and troubles and their linking together will come the next step ahead in medical science. The link between the body of the emotions and physical body is the etheric body. The next immediate step is to consider the etheric body in two ways, either as a transmitter of prana, the life force, vitality or magnetism, or as the vehicle which links the emotional nature to the dense physical. The physical invariably follows the behests of that nature as transmitted via the etheric.

  In forming groups for healing under ideal conditions you would have at the head of the group a person with causal consciousness, who can deal with any trouble in the mental body, and who can study the alignment of all [246] the bodies with the Ego. The group will also include:—

  a. A person, or persons who can clairvoyantly view the subtle body of the emotions.

  b. A number of people who know somewhat the rudiments of the law of vibration, and can definitely, by the power of thought, apply certain waves of colour to effect certain cures, and bring about, through scientific comprehension, the desired results.

  c. Some member of the group will also be a member of the medical profession, who will work with the physical body, under the direction of conscious clairvoyants. He will study the resistance of the body, he will apply certain currents, and colours, and vibrations, which will have a direct physical effect, and by the co-operation of all those units in the group, results will be achieved that will merit the name of miracles.

  d. In the group, also, will be a number of people who can meditate occultly, and can, by the power of their meditation, create the necessary funnel for the transmission of the healing forces of the higher self and of the Master.

  e. Besides this, in each group will be found some person who can accurately transcribe all that takes place, and so keep records that will prove to be the literature of the new school of medicine.

  I have here touched on the ideal group. It is not as yet in any way possible, but a beginning can be made by the utilisation of any knowledge and powers that may be found amongst those who seek to serve their race and the Master.

  As you will note from the above, colours will be applied in two ways:— [247]

  1. On the subtler planes by the power of thought, and

  2. By means of coloured lights applied to the physical body.

  On the physical plane the exoteric colour will be applied, whilst on the subtler the esoteric. The work therefore will be (until the esoteric becomes the exoteric) largely in the hands of the occult students of the world, working in organised groups under expert supervision.

  You ask, just what is the point at which these groups may now begin to work with colour? The thing that now lies ahead to be mastered and done is to develop the knowledge necessary anent the etheric, to inculcate the building of pure bodies, and to study the effect of different colours on the dense physical. It has been but little studied as yet. It will be found that certain colours will definitely affect certain diseases, cure certain nervous troubles, eradicate certain nervous tendencies, tend to the building of new tissues, or to the burning out of corruption. All this must be studied. Experiments can be made along the line of vitalisation and magnetisation, which involve direct action on the etheric, and this again will be found hid in the law of vibration and of colour. Later.......we can take up with greater detail the work of these healing groups when gathered for meditation. Here I would but add that certain colours have a definite effect, though I can only as yet enumerate three, and them but briefly:—

  1. Orange stimulates the action of the etheric body; it removes congestion and increases the flow of prana.

  2. Rose acts upon the nervous system and tends to vitalisation, and to the removal of depression, and [248] symptoms of debilitation; it increases the will to live.

  3. Green has a general healing effect, and can be safely used in cases of inflammation and of fever, but it is almost impossible as yet to provide the right conditions for the application of this colour, or to arrive at the adequate shade. It is one of the basic colours to be used eventually in the healing of the dense physical body, being the colour of the note of Nature.

  This seems to you sketchy and inadequate? So it is, even more so than you can grasp. But forget not that which I have often told you, that in the following up of brief hints lies the path that leads to the source of all knowledge.

  September 11, 1920.

  We come now to the final part of our thoughts on the use of colour in meditation. We have dealt with the matter in such a way that if the hints that are scattered throughout the communication are adequately followed up they will form the basis of certain inevitable conclusions. These conclusions will eventually prove to be the postulates upon which the newer schools of medicine or science will base the continuance of their work. We might sum up the imparted data under definite statements:—

  1. That the basic colours of the Personality must be transmuted into the colours of the Triad, or the threefold Spirit. This is effected by the truly occult meditation.

  2. That the colours with which the beginner will be primarily concerned are orange, rose and green.

  3. That the violet ray holds the secret for this immediate cycle. [249]

  4. That the next point of apprehended knowledge will be the laws governing the etheric body.

  5. That in the development of the intuition comes cognisance of the esoteric colours which the exoteric veil.

  6. That colour is the form and force of virtue (in the occult sense) in the inner life.

  I have summed up the practical points requiring immediate attention for the purposes of clarification. With this as the basis of study the student may expect eventually to see the complete transformation of the type of work done both by the schools of medicine and by chairs of psychology. Certain prophecies I may here make which you can note down for the benefit of those who may come after.

  Forecasts anent the future.

  1. The phraseology of the medical schools will more and more become based on vibration and be expressed in terms of sound and colour.

  2. The religious teaching of the world and the inculcation of virtue will be likewise imparted in terms of colour. People will eventually be grouped under their ray-colour, and this will be possible as the human race develops the faculty of seeing auras. The number of clairvoyants is already greater than is realised, owing to the reticence of the true psychic.

  3. The science of numbers, being in reality the science of colour and sound, will also somewhat change its phraseology and colours will eventually supersede figures.

  4. The laws that govern the erection of large buildings and the handling of great weights will some [250] day be understood in terms of sound. The cycle returns, and in the days to come will be seen the re-appearance of the faculty of the Lemurians and early Atlanteans to raise great masses,—this time on a higher turn of the spiral. Mental comprehension of the method will be developed. They were raised through the ability of the early builders to create a vacuum through sound, and to utilise it for their own purposes.

  5. Destruction, it will be shewn, can be brought about by the manipulation of certain colours, and by the employment of united sound. In this way terrific effects will be achieved. Colour can destroy just as it can heal; sound can disrupt just as it can bring about cohesion; in these two thoughts lie hid the next step ahead for the science of the immediate future. The laws of vibration are going to be widely studied and comprehended and the use of this knowledge of vibration on the physical planes will bring about m
any interesting developments. They will be partially an outgrowth of the study of the war and its effect, psychological and otherwise. More was effected by the sound of the great guns, for instance, than by the impact of the projectile on the physical plane. These effects are as yet practically unrecognised, and are largely etheric and astral.

  6. Music will be largely employed in construction, and in one hundred years from now it will be a feature in certain work of a constructive nature. This sounds to you utterly impossible, but it will simply be the utilisation of ordered sound to achieve certain ends. [251]

  You will ask, what place has all this in a series of letters on meditation? Simply this:—that the method employed in the utilisation of colour and sound in healing, in promoting spiritual growth, and in exoteric construction on the physical plane, will be based on the laws that govern the mental body, and will be forms of meditation. Only as the race develops the dynamic powers and attributes of thought—which powers are the product of meditation, rightly pursued—will the capacity to make use of the laws of vibration be objectively possible. Think not that only the religious devotee or mystic, or the man imbued with what we call higher teaching, is the exponent of the powers attained by meditation. All great capitalists, and the supreme heads of finance, or organised business, are the exponents of similar powers. They are personifications of one-pointed adherence to one line of thought, and their evolution parallels that of the mystic and the occultist. I seek most strongly to emphasise this fact. They are the ones who meditate along the line of the Mahachohan, or the Lord of Civilisation or Culture. Supreme concentrated attention to the matter in hand makes them what they are, and in many respects they attain greater results than many a student of meditation. All they need to do is to transmute the motive underlying their work, and their achievement will then outrun that of other students. They will approach a point of synthesis, and the Probationary Path will then be trodden.

  The Law of Vibration will gradually, therefore, be more and more understood, and be seen to govern action in all of the three departments of the Manu, the World Teacher and the Mahachohan. It will find its basic expression and its familiar terminology in those of colour and sound. Emotional disorder will be regarded as discordant sound; mental lethargy will be expressed in terms of low [252] vibration, and physical disease will be numerically considered. All constructive work will eventually be expressed in terms of numbers, by colours, and through sound.

  This suffices on this matter and at this juncture I have naught further to communicate. The subject is abstruse and difficult, and only by patient brooding will the darkness lighten. Only when the ray of the intuition strikes athwart the pall of darkness (which pall is the ignorance that hides all knowledge) will the forms that veil the subjective life be irradiated and known. Only when the light of reason is dimmed by the radiant sun of wisdom will all things be seen in their just proportions, and will the forms assume their exact colours, and their numerical vibration be known.

  "This diagram is an outline of a portion of the Hierarchy at the present moment, and gives only the outstanding Figures, in connection with human evolution. A similar diagram from the standpoint of the deva evolution would be differently arranged."

  (The connecting lines indicate force currents)

  LETTER VIII - ACCESS TO THE MASTERS VIA MEDITATION.

  September 12th, 1920.

  The search for the goal.

  [256] Today it may be possible to touch somewhat upon the subject of the Masters and how They may be approached through meditation. This I know is a subject close and dear to your heart, as it is to the heart of all those who earnestly follow the light within. I seek to handle this subject with you in such a way that at the close of this letter the Masters will be more real to you than ever before; the significance of approach to Them be better comprehended and the method more simplified; and the effect of contact with Them will be so demonstrated in the life that its immediate and practical attainment will be earnestly pursued. Let us, therefore, as we have always done, divide our subject into certain heads and divisions:—

  1. Who are the Masters?

  2. What does access to Them entail:—

  a. From the standpoint of the pupil?

  b. From the standpoint of the Master?

  3. Methods of approach to the Masters through meditation.

  4. The effect of this access on the three planes.

  Everywhere throughout the whole world is felt the urge that drives a man to seek out someone who, for him, embodies the ideal. Even those who do not admit the existence of the Masters seek some ideal, and then visualise that ideal as embodied in some form on the physical plane. They picture themselves, perhaps, as the exponents [257] of ideal action, or visualise some great philanthropist, some superlative scientist, some notable artist or musician, as embodying their supreme conception. The human being,—simply because he is himself fragmentary and incomplete—has always this urge within himself to seek other and greater than himself. It is this that drives him back to the centre of his being, and it is this that forces him to take the path of return to the All-Self. Ever, throughout the aeons, does the Prodigal Son arise and go to his Father, and always latent within him is the memory of the Father's home and the glory there to be found. But the human mind is so constituted that the search for light and for the ideal is necessarily long and difficult. “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face”; now we catch glimpses through the occasional windows we pass in our ascension of the ladder, of other and greater Beings than ourselves; They hold out to us helping hands, and call to us in clarion tones to struggle bravely on if we hope to stand where They are now standing.

  We sense beauties and glories surrounding us that as yet we cannot revel in; they flit into our vision, and we touch the glory at a lofty moment only again to lose the contact and to sink back again into the murky gloom that envelopes. But we know that outside and further on is something to be desired; we learn also the mystery that that external wonder can only be contacted by withdrawing within, till the centre of consciousness is found that vibrates in tune with those dimly realised wonders, and with those radiant Souls Who call Themselves our Elder Brothers. Only by trampling on the external sheaths that veil and hide the inner centre do we achieve the goal, and find the Ones we seek. Only by the domination of all forms, and the bringing of those forms under the rule of the God within, can we find the God in all, for it is only the [258] sheaths in which we move upon the plane of being that hide from us our inner God, and that shut us off from Those in Whom the God transcends all outer forms.

  The great Initiate, Who voiced the words I quote, added still other words of radiant truth: “Then shall we know even as we are known.” The future holds for each and all who duly strive, who unselfishly serve and occultly meditate, the promise of knowing Those Who already have full knowledge of the struggler. Therein lies the hope for the student of meditation; as he struggles, as he fails, as he perseveres, and as he laboriously reiterates from day to day the arduous task of concentration and of mind control, there stand on the inner side Those Who know him, and Who watch with eager sympathy the progress that be makes.

  Forget not the earlier part of the Initiate's remarks where he points out the way whereby the darkness is dispelled, and knowledge of the Great Ones is reached. He emphasises that only by love is the path of light and knowledge trodden. Why this emphasis upon love? Because the goal for all is love, and therein lies the merging. To put scientifically what is oft a nebulous sentiment, we might express it as follows:—It is by the attainment of the vibration which is analogous to the Ray of Love-Wisdom (the Divine Ray) that the Lords of Love are contacted, that the Masters of Compassion are known, and that the possibility of entering into the consciousnesses of the Great Ones and of all our brothers of whatsoever degree, becomes a fact in manifestation.

  This is the path to be trodden by one and all, and the method is meditation. The goal is perfect love and wisdom; the steps are the
surmounting of subplane after subplane on all the three planes; the method is that of occult meditation; the reward is the continuous expansion [259] of consciousness that puts a man eventually en rapport with his own Ego, with other selves, with the waiting eager Master to Whom he is assigned, with fellow disciples and more advanced Initiates whom he may contact in that Master's aura, till he finally contacts the One Initiator, is admitted into the Secret Place, and knows the mystery that underlies consciousness itself.

  September 14th, 1920.

  1 - Who are the Masters?

  It might be of value to us in our consideration of the subject of access to the Masters via meditation if we started with a few fundamental statements, dealing with the Masters and Their place in evolution. We will therefore take up our first point. We shall thus bring before the readers of these letters some idea as to Their status, Their comprehensive development, and Their methods of work. Needless to say, much that will follow will carry nothing new in import. The things that concern us most closely and the things that are to us the most familiar are oft the most frequently overlooked, and the most nebulous to our reasoning faculty.

  A Master of the Wisdom is One Who has undergone the fifth initiation. That really means that His consciousness has undergone such an expansion that it now includes the fifth or spiritual kingdom. He has worked His way through the four lower kingdoms:—the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human—and has, through meditation and service, expanded His centre of consciousness till it now includes the plane of spirit.