Letters on Occult Meditation

by Alice A Bailey

  What now remains to be done? To indicate five things that may be looked for with conviction by the student who has endeavoured to conform his life to the lines laid down by me in these letters. If the student but provides the right conditions, if he conforms to the necessary [282] rules, if he aims always at regularity, at calmness, at that inner concentration that holds the mystery of the High Places, he will on certain occasions and with ever-increasing frequency awake to some definite realisations. These realisations will be the outer recognition of inner results, and will be the guarantee to him that he is on the right path. But I would here point out again that these results are only achieved after long practice, strenuous struggle, diligent disciplining of the threefold lower man, and consecrated service to the world.

  3 - Methods of approach and effects obtained.

  The methods of approach are broadly three and we might indicate five results that will eventuate from the employment of these methods. The three methods are:—

  1. Sanctified service.

  2. Love demonstrating through wisdom.

  3. Intellectual application.

  They are all three but diverse methods of expressing one and the same thing,—active one-pointedness that expresses itself in service for the race through love and wisdom. But some individuals express this in one way and some in another; some carry the outer appearance of intellectuality and others of love, yet before the attainment is possible intellectuality must be based on love, whilst love without mental development and that discrimination that mind affords is apt to be unbalanced and unwise. Both love and mind must be expressed in terms of service before the full flower of either is attained. Let us consider each of these methods separately and indicate the meditation to be followed thereon:—

  Sanctified Service. This is the method of the man who wields the law, the method of the occultist, and the rudiments of the method are laid down in raja-yoga [283] ..............The word “sanctification,” as you know, in the basic sense signifies the complete surrender of the whole being to one object, the Lord or Ruler. It means the giving wholly to the one the devotee aspires to. It means the consecration of the whole threefold man to the work in hand. It entails, therefore, the application of the entire time and self to the bringing of each body under the subjugation of the Ego, and the complete mastery of each plane and subplane. It involves the comprehension of each evolution and form of divine life as found on those planes and sub-planes, with one aim in view and only one—the furthering of the plan of the Hierarchy of Light. The method followed is that of the intensest application to the work of rounding out the bodies and of making them fit instruments for service. It is perhaps the hardest way that a man can tread. It leaves no department of the life untouched. All is brought under law. In meditation therefore the form of that meditation will be a threefold structure:—

  a. The laws governing the physical body will be studied and brooded over. This brooding will find expression in a rigid disciplining of the physical body. It will be set apart wholly for service, and subjected consequently to a process that will attune and develop it more quickly.

  b. The body of the emotions will be scientifically studied and the laws of water (occultly understood) will be comprehended. The significance of the term, “there shall be no more sea” will be known, and the sea of storm and passion will be superseded by the sea of glass, which directly reflects the higher intuition, and mirrors it with perfect accuracy, being unruffled and immovable. The emotional body will [284] be set apart wholly for service, and its place in the threefold microcosm will be regarded as corresponding to that in the macrocosm, whilst the occult significance of its being the only complete unit in the threefold lower nature will be apprehended, and the fact made use of to effect certain results. Ponder on this.

  c. The place of lower mind in the scheme of things will be studied, and the quality of discrimination developed. Discrimination and fire are occultly allied and just as the Logos by fire tries every man's work of what sort it is, so the microcosm on a lesser scale has to do the same. Just as the Logos likewise does this paramountly in the fifth round of judgment and of separation, so the microcosm on his lesser scale does the same in the last and fifth period of his evolution,—touched upon and described earlier in these letters. Every power of the mind will be utilised to the uttermost for the furtherance of the plans of evolution; first in the man's own development, then in the special field of work wherein he expresses himself, and lastly in his relationship with other units of the race, as he constitutes himself their guide and servant.

  See you therefore the synthesis of it? First the strenuous one-pointedness that is the sign of the occultist blended with the wisdom and love which are reflected from the higher in the mirror of the emotional body, and then the intellect forced to act as the servant of the Ego through one-pointed effort animated by love and wisdom. The result will be the true Yogi.

  I would point out here that the true Yogi is he who, after due carrying out of the set forms and times of meditation, merges that meditation in the everyday living, and will eventually be in the attitude of meditation all the day. [285] Meditation is the means whereby the higher consciousness is contacted. When the contact becomes continuous, meditation, as you understand it, is superseded. In this first method the occult student works from the periphery to the centre, from the objective to the subjective, from the form to the life within the form. Therefore through the emphasis laid in Raja Yoga on the physical body and its wise control the occultist realises the essential importance of the physical, and the uselessness of all his knowledge apart from a physical body whereby he can express himself and serve the race. It is the line of the first ray, and its affiliated or complementary ray.

  Love and Wisdom. This method is the line of least resistance for the sons of men. It is the sub-ray of the synthetic ray of an analogous vibration, of which our solar system is the objective manifestation. But I would seek to point out that the love achieved by the student of meditation who follows this line is not the sentimental conception that is so often discussed. It is not the non-discriminating love that sees no limitation, nor concedes a fault. It is not the love that seeks not to correct and that expresses itself in an ill advised attitude to all who live. It is not the love that sweeps all into service, suitable or unsuitable, and that recognises no difference in point of development. Much that is called love,—if logically followed out—would apparently dispense with the ladder of evolution, and rank all as of equal value. So potentially all are, but in present terms of service all are not.

  True love or wisdom sees with perfect clarity the deficiencies of any form, and bends every effort to aid the indwelling life to liberate itself from trammels. It wisely recognises those that need help, and those that need not its attention. It hears with precision, and sees the thought of the heart and seeks ever to blend into one whole the [286] workers in the field of the world. This it achieves not by blindness, but by discrimination and wisdom, separating contrary vibrations and placing them in position diverse. Too much emphasis has been laid on that called love (interpreted by man, according to his present place in evolution) and not enough has been placed on wisdom, which is love expressing itself in service, such a service that recognises the occult law, the significance of time, and the point achieved.

  This is the line of the second ray and its affiliated and complementary rays. Later it is the all-inclusive one, and the solvent and absorber. It can be followed, being synthetic, on either the Raja Yoga line or the Christian Gnostic line, owing to its synthetic significance....

  Intellectual application. Here the order is reversed and the student, being frequently polarised in his mental body has to learn through that mind to understand the other two, to dominate and control, and to utilise to the uttermost the powers inherent in the threefold man. The method here is perhaps not so hard in some ways, but the limitations of the fifth principle have to be transcended before real progress can be made. These limitations are largely
crystallisation and that which you call pride. Both have to be broken before the student who progresses through intellectual application can serve his race with love and wisdom as the animating cause.

  He has to learn the value of the emotions, and in so learning he has to master the effect of fire on water, occultly understood. He has to learn the secret of that plane, which secret (when known) gives him the key to the downpour of illumination from the Triad via the causal and thence to the astral. It holds the key also of the fourth etheric level. This will not as yet be comprehended [287] by you, but the above hint holds for the student much of value.

  This is the line of the third ray and of its four subsidiary rays, and is one of great activity, of frequent transference, and of much mental display in the lower worlds.

  Only when the student, who progresses by intellectual application, has learned the secret of the fifth plane, will he live the life of sanctified service, and so blend the three rays. Always synthesis most be attained, but always the fundamental colouring or tone remains. The next or fifth round will show the greatest exposition of this method. It will be the round of supreme mental development, and will carry its evolving Monads to heights undreamed of now.

  This round marks the height of the second method, that through love or wisdom. It is the fourth round, that wherein the emotional reaches a high point of vibration, and there is direct connection between the fourth plane of harmony, between the emotional body, or the fourth principle, the quaternary, the fourth root-race or the Atlantean which co-ordinated the astral. I give you food for thought in these correspondences.

  September 21st, 1920.

  4 - Five effects of Meditation in the three worlds.

  Today we are to take up the five effects in the three bodies in the lower worlds that the student of meditation will be conscious of if he has duly followed the course laid down.

  These effects are not specifically effects in the life as apparent to the onlooking world, such as greater love or [288] spirituality or capacity to serve. What I seek today to bring out are the indications in the physical brain consciousness of the student that he has done some of the necessary work and is attaining somewhat the desired object. Keep this very clearly in mind. I do not seek to make clear all the many and various results achieved by the successful following of the occult laws of meditation. I deal here only with one phase of the matter, and that is, the realisation, in the physical brain consciousness, of certain results along the line of our immediate topic,—access to the Masters.

  This narrows down our subject to that of a conscious realisation of the Masters and of some one particular Master by the student in his physical brain. This realisation is very largely independent of his place upon the Path, of his nearness to or distance from initiation. Some very advanced egos may be working at this problem, and be close indeed to their Master, without being able to bring through to the physical brain specific facts proving to them this nearness. Some effect this knowledge at earlier stages than others. It is dependent upon the type of body in use and the work done in previous lives, resulting in a physical vehicle that is a fairly just exponent of the inner man. Oft the man is of far greater calibre and attainment on the inner planes than he is on the physical. So many of our most earnest workers in this particular half century are working out evil karma through the possession of inadequate bodies. Through diligence, application, high endeavour, and the long and patient following of the rules laid down, there comes a time when the student is suddenly conscious—right within the physical brain—of certain unexpected events, an illumination or a seeing that has before been unknown. It is something that is so real yet so momentarily surprising that no amount of subsequent [289] apparent disproving can take away fron him the knowledge that he saw, he contacted, he felt.

  As often I have told you, it is not possible in any way in this work to do more than widely generalise. Sixty thousand million souls in process of evolving, each following certain rounds of lives totally different from those of others, offer a wide field to choose from, and no one experience is exactly the same as another. But it might be generally laid down that there are five ways (out of the many possible) which are of such frequent occurrence, comparatively speaking, as to warrant our enumerating them. All have been hinted at, but I may somewhat enlarge the already imparted data.

  Seeing the Master and the self within the cave of the heart. As you know, the student has often been told to visualise himself and the Master—about the size of a quarter inch—within the circumference of the etheric heart. He is told to picture, toward the close of his meditation the heart etheric, and therein build minute forms of the Master to Whom he is drawn and of himself. This he proceeds to do with due and elaborate care, with the aid of the imagination and loving effort, working daily on his figures till they become to him very real, and their building and forming becomes almost an automatic part of his meditation form. Then comes a day (usually when astrological conditions are fit and the moon approaches the full) when he becomes conscious within his brain that those figures are not the little puppets he thinks, but that he is within the figure representing himself, and that he stands literally and in all verity before the Master. This occurs at rare intervals at first, and the consciousness of the fact is held but for a few brief seconds; as progress is made, and every department of his nature and of his service develops, with greater frequency will come the experience, [290] with longer periods will it be marked, until there comes a time when the pupil can link up as easily in this manner with his Master as earlier he formed his figures.

  Just what did occur? The pupil had succeeded in doing three things:—

  1. Identifying himself with the figure within the heart, and aspiring to the Master.

  2. Making a definite channel between the heart centre (wherein he is endeavouring to focus his consciousness) and its corresponding head centre. Each of the seven centres in the body, as you know, has a counterpart within the head. It is in the linking up of the centre with its counterpart in the head that illumination comes. This,—in the case in point—has been accomplished by the student. He has connected the heart with its head centre.

  3. Not only has he accomplished the two above things but he has so purified that part of the physical brain that corresponds with the particular head centre that it can respond to the higher vibration necessitated, and therefore accurately record what has transpired.

  Recognition of vibration. In this instance the method is not quite the same. The student becomes conscious during his moments of intensest aspiration in meditation of a certain peculiar vibration or sensation in his head. It may be in one of three places:—

  a. At the top of the spine.

  b. In the forehead.

  c. At the top of the head.

  I speak not here of the sensation that comes when psychic faculty develops, though there is an alliance between the two, but I speak of a definite vibration that accompanies contact with one of the Great Ones. The student at first is only conscious of a feeling of momentary heightening, which takes the form of a ripple or movement in the head. [291] At first it may be attended with some discomfort, if felt in the forehead it may cause tears and weeping, if at the top of the spine or base of the skull exhilaration and even dizziness, and if at the top of the head a sense of expansion with a feeling of fullness, as if the limiting skull were too confining. This wears off with greater use. It is all caused by a contact, momentary at first, with some one Master. In time the student comes to recognise this vibration and to associate it with some particular Great One, for each Master has His own vibration which impresses itself upon His pupils in a specific manner. This method of contact is frequently attended by perfume. In time the pupil learns how to raise his vibration to a certain pitch. Having done this he holds the vibration steady until he senses the Master's answering vibration or the perfume. Then he endeavours to merge his consciousness with the Master's as far as may be, to ascertain the Master's will, and to understand what it i
s that the Master has to communicate. As time progresses and the response of the pupil grows, the Master on His side will attract his attention or signal to him approval (for instance by arousing this vibration within his head)....

  September 23rd, 1920.

  ......We have now our three remaining points to take up, having already dealt with the two that touched upon contact with the Master in the cave of the heart, and the recognition of His vibration. There are still three other ways (out of many, forget not) whereby the earnest student may be conscious in his physical brain of having contacted his Master.

  Bringing through into the physical brain consciousness the memory of the Master's ashram and the lessons imparted there. [292]

  As the student perseveres in his meditation, as he increases his facility to throw himself into the right vibration, he builds up a pathway (if so we may term it) that leads him direct to his Master. This is a literal statement of fact. Good work earns for the man in time the right to be with the Master at stated periods. This entails good work in meditation coupled with active service for the race. These intervals are rare at first but come more frequently as progress is made. He will then become aware of this contact through remembrance on awakening. He will see the room of the Master, and remember his associates in the work of the class. He will remember certain sentences, as spoken by his Master, and will bring back a recollection of work suggested or of admonition. This is one of the methods which are indicative to the pupil that he is succeeding, through the ability built up in meditation, in gaining access to the Master.