Letters on Occult Meditation

by Alice A Bailey

  The attainment of a certain amount of causal consciousness. This is indicative of the pupil's having developed (mayhap in small degree, yet definitely realised) the power to enter somewhat into Their world. The faculty of abstract thought and contemplation, the power to transcend the limitations of time and space, are powers of the body egoic, and as all egoic groups are—as aforesaid—controlled by some one Master, the development of egoic consciousness (when consciously recognised) is indicative of contact and access. Many souls unconsciously contact their Ego, and temporarily have flashes of egoic consciousness but when the pupil can consciously raise himself, when he with deliberation intensifies his vibration, and transfers his polarisation into the body egoic, even if for a brief moment, then he can know that he is for that brief moment vibrating to the key of the Master of his group. He has made contact. He may not remember [293] in his physical brain, at first, the details of that contact, he may not realise the appearance of the Master or the words that passed His lips, but having consciously conformed to rule, and entered within the silence of the high places, the law ever works, and he has made his contact. Some disciples know their Master intimately on the inner planes and work under His direction, but many lives may elapse before they comprehend the law and with deliberation can make the channel of access, through power developed in meditation.

  As time elapses this ability to contact increases until the point is reached when the pupil can at any time find out what is the will of the Master and have access to His heart.

  This fifth method is not so usual but it is known to some natures. Through sound the aspirant is aware of success. He follows his usual form of meditation. He perseveres from day to day and works on all the three planes over the work to be done. He continuously raises his vibration and aspires in the needed endeavour, coupling all interior effort to the external life of loving service. At some one meditation he will suddenly become aware of a note of music, that seems to be sounded within his head or to emanate from his heart. It will not be evoked by the sounding of the Sacred Word, which Word when sounded by the man on a certain key may call forth a musical response from the Ego, but it will come as a result or culmination of the meditation, and the sound of the note will vibrate within the centre so distinctly as never to be forgotten. It is again an indication of success. The Master has been contacted, and has responded by sounding the tone of the man's own Ego. This is really the basis of the custom of the doorkeeper responding to the would-be aspirant to the mysteries of the group. When the work [294] is properly done, the aspirant will sound the admission word in his own key or tone, endeavouring to strike the note that will evoke the Ego. The doorkeeper will respond and chant forth the reply in the same full sonorous tone, thereby, through the power of sound, linking the man up with the Master of the coming ceremonies. This puts each member of the group—through his own effort and through the third factor, the doorkeeper—en rapport with the Master. In time this will be more fully understood and effort will be made to keep the tone reverberating between those who enter and those who guard the Threshold. When perfectly accomplished (a thing impossible now) it forms a perfect protection. Groups will be formed according to egoic formation and the particular Master. The note of the group will be known to the one who guards the entrance, and no one can get in who sounds not the note in either the higher or lower octave. This applies to groups consecrated to inner spiritual development, and that are directly concerned with the work of a Master with His affiliated pupils or disciples or probationers. Other groups, formed of units diverse and under different rays and Masters, will guard their door by another method, later to be revealed.

  When, in meditation, a student hears this inner musical note, he should endeavour to register it, and cultivate the faculty of both recognising it and utilising it. This is not easy at first, as the sounding is both unlooked for and too brief to catch. But as time progresses, and the pupil succeeds in again and yet again getting a similar response, then he can begin to find out the method and watch the causes that set the vibration in motion.

  As I have said before, many are the methods whereby a pupil becomes aware of success in the path of access. Above are but five out of these many. Later, when the [295] Schools are organised and watched over by a Master in physical plane consciousness, records will be kept of the times and modes of contact and in this manner much knowledge will accrue. I would in conclusion point out that always the calling forth of the response must be the work of the pupil, and that the hour of that response depends upon the earnestness of his work, the consecration of his service and his karmic liabilities. When he merits certain response it will be demonstrated in his stars, and naught can hinder or delay. Equally, naught can really hasten, so the pupil need not waste time in doleful ponderings upon the lack of response. His the part to obey the rules, to conform to the forms laid down, to ponder and wisely adhere to the prescribed instructions, and to definitely work and to ardently serve his fellowmen. When he has done all this, when he has built the necessary vibrating material into his three lower bodies, when he has aligned them with the body egoic (even if only for a brief minute) suddenly he may see, suddenly he may hear, suddenly he may sense a vibration, and then forever he may say that faith is merged in sight, and aspiration has become recognition. [296]

  LETTER IX - FUTURE SCHOOLS OF MEDITATION.

  September 26th, 1920.

  [297] We take up today another of the series of letters on occult meditation, that dealing with “Future Schools of Meditation”. In this letter I shall attempt somewhat to show how the training and development indicated in the other letters will be applied and I shall deal somewhat with prophecy, pointing out what will some day be possible and present, and not what is as yet in any way approachable. Always it is necessary to have high ideals, and ever the human mind leaps forward to some appointed goal. If I here outline what may seem a visionary impossibility it is but that I seek to hold up such an ideal, and to give to the race an objective well worth their highest endeavour.

  Preliminary remarks.

  Let us pause a moment and lay down certain postulates anent the present that will (so to speak) clear the ground for future action.

  The value of meditation is becoming everywhere admitted. Schools for concentration and methods of mental development are commonly advertised in the daily papers.

  True meditation is as yet little understood. Concentration is but the foundation upon which the future work is to be based.

  As yet the future structure cannot be raised, due to two causes primarily:— [298]

  a. The inherent inability of mind at this juncture to attain the causal level and the consciousness of the causal level.

  b. The absence of a Master in personal presence, able and equipped to teach the true scientific development which is the aim of true meditation.

  The troubled condition of the world at present is sufficient barrier to any general acceptation of training, and of the scientific development of the vehicles.

  These premises are laid down here as a starting point. That some individuals here and there achieve the goal, that some people do master the system of Occult Meditation and make the desired progress is undeniable, but they are only few in number and those numbers are inappreciable when set against the vast bulk of human beings in incarnation at the same time. They achieve by right of age-long effort, and because in previous lives they trod the Path or neared the portal of initiation. But even the average man of intelligence of today—the product, for instance, of western civilisation—is far from being ready for occult training. Experiments are being made now, unknown oft to the subjects themselves, to see how quickly a man may be pushed through experience and a general hastening of the evolutionary process into a position where it will be safe to train him further. People in many civilised countries are under supervision, and a method of stimulation and intensification is being applied which will bring to the knowledge of the Great Ones Themselves a mass of information that may serve as
a guide to Their future efforts for the race. Especially are people in America, Australia, India, Russia, Scotland and Greece being dealt with. A few in Belgium, Sweden, and Austria are likewise under observation, and should the response [299] be as hoped they will form a nucleus for further expansion.

  Future Schools of Meditation

  In handling this matter we might, as is our usual custom, divide the subject matter under different heads:—

  1. The one fundamental School.

  2. Its national subdivisions.

  3. The location, personnel, and buildings of the School.

  4. The grades and classes.

  Now I would emphatically point out to you the fact that all that I now impart is a portion of a tentative plan, which has in view the hastening of the evolution of the higher mind, and the bringing under control of the bodies of men, through the power of the God within. This plan has been drawn up in view of the crying need of a world in which the mental equipment of men is increasing out of all proportion to their emotional balance and to their physical equipment. The rapid advance of knowledge, the spreading of the educational system which brings the product of many minds into the environment of the very poor, the ability of all to read and write in such a country as America or among the other Anglo-Saxon races, has been the cause of a very real (I might almost say an unexpected) problem arising to confront the Great Ones.

  Mental development when paralleled by emotional stability and a strong healthy body is the aim for all. But now you have mental development paralleled by an unstable astral and a weak, underfed, badly raised physical. Hence disorder, lack of balance, the clouding of the vision and disproportionate discussion. Lower mind, instead of being a means to an end and a weapon for use, is in fair [300] way of being a ruler and a tyrant, preventing the play of the intuition and shutting out the abstract mind.

  Hence the Masters, if it can in any way be accomplished, purpose a movement that has in view the harnessing of the lower mind through the instrumentality of the people themselves. With this object in view They plan to utilise the incoming Ray of Ceremonial Law or Organisation, and the period immediately co-incident or following the coming of the Great Lord, to start these schools (in a small inconspicuous way at first) and bring to the consciousness of men everywhere the following four fundamentals:—

  a. The evolutionary history of man from the mental side.

  b. The septenary constitution of the macrocosm and the microcosm.

  c. The laws governing man's being.

  d. The method of occult development.

  A beginning has already been made........through the various schools at present extant.......All these are the beginnings of the plan. When they are firmly grounded, when they are working smoothly and with public recognition, and when the world of men is being somewhat coloured by them and their subjective emphasis, when they are producing scholars and workers, politicians and scientists and educational leaders who make their impress on their environment, then mayhap will come the time for the founding in exoteric fashion of the true occult school. By that I mean that if the earlier schools and colleges do their work satisfactorily they will have demonstrated to the world of men that the subjective is the true reality and that the lower is but the stepping stone to the higher. This subjective reality being universally admitted will, therefore, permit of the founding of a chain of inner schools [301] ...that will be publicly recognised. This will never at any time obviate the necessity for always having an esoteric and secret section, for always there will be certain truths and facts of dangerous import to the uninitiated; but what I seek to point out is that the mysteries will eventually be admitted as facts for universal recognition and for universal aim and goal. They will be prepared for and entered from schools that definitely undertake, under expert guidance, to train novitiates for the mysteries.

  Such schools have existed before and in the turning of the wheel again they will be in manifestation.

  You ask, when? That depends on humanity itself and on all of you who work with faith and aspiration at the beginnings of the plan.

  H. P. B. laid the foundation stone of the first school in this particular lesser cycle (which is nevertheless a relatively important one, being an outgrowth of the fifth root-race, the efflorescence of the fifth principle). This is the keystone. The work proceeds in the founding, as aforesaid, of the various schools, and mental science also has its place. It will go forward as desired if each one who is now under occult training strains every nerve and bends every effort to the work in hand. If all that is possible is done, when the Great Lord comes with His Masters the work will receive a still further impetus, and will gradually expand and grow till it becomes a power in the world. Then will come the day of the occult schools that will definitely train men for initiation.

  September 27th, 1920.

  We must today take up our first point for it is only as we lay the foundation aright that the superstructure measures up to requirements. [302]

  1 - The one fundamental School.

  It is therefore very essential that the emphasis is laid on the fact that no matter what the offshoots, the basic school of occultism is that one which has its root in the sacred centre of the planet, Shamballa. At that place, directly under the eyes of the One Initiator Himself, Who is—as is seldom realised—the highest expression of the Teaching Ray upon the earth, is found what might be termed the central office for the educational disciplinary training work of the Hierarchy. There will be found the Chohan Who is directly responsible for the various endeavours, and to Whom the Masters Who take pupils, and the Heads of the various occult schools are directly responsible. All proceeds under law and order.

  One point that it will here be necessary to emphasise is that the Brotherhood of Light, as represented by the Himalayan Masters, has its other representatives elsewhere who all carry out specific work under proper and adequate supervision. Too apt are the Theosophists to think that they alone are the repositories of the wisdom religion. Not so is the fact. At this particular moment (with the aim in view of the development and tendering of opportunity to the fifth subrace) the Himalayan Brotherhood is the main channel of effort, power and light. But the work with other races proceeds simultaneously and numerous other projects, all emanating from the central office at Shamballa, are paralleling the Himalayan work. Get this clearly in mind, for the point is important. The Himalayan School and Lodge is the one that principally concerns the Occident and the only school without any exception that should control the work and output of the occult students in the West. It brooks no rival nor contemporary work with its pupils, not for the [303] sake of its own teachers but to ensure the safety of its pupils. Danger lurks in the path of the occult student and the Himalayan adepts know adequately how to protect their pupils, provided those pupils stay within the periphery of Their united auras, and wander not out to other schools. All true occult schools demand this of their pupils, and all true Masters expect Their pupils to refrain from taking other occult instructions at the same time as they are receiving it from Them. They say not: “Our method is the only right and true method.” They say: “When receiving instructions from Us it is the part of wisdom and the line of safety to refrain from occult training in another school or under another Master.” Should a pupil desire so to do he is perfectly free to seek out other schools and teachers, but he must first break his connection with the old.

  The one fundamental school may be recognised by certain outstanding characteristics:—

  By the basic character of the truths taught as embodied in the following postulates:—

  a. The unity of all life.

  b. The graded steps of development as recognised in man, and by the graded steps of its curriculum, which lead a man from one expansion of consciousness to another until he has reached that which we call perfection.

  c. The relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm and its sevenfold application.

  d. The method of this development and the
place of the microcosm within the macrocosm as revealed through the study of the periodicity of all manifestation and the basic law of cause and effect.

  By the emphasis laid on character building and spiritual development as a foundation for the development of [304] all the faculties inherent in the microcosm.

  By the requirement, demanded of all affiliated pupils without exception, that the life of inner unfoldment and development should be paralleled by a life of exoteric service.

  By the graded expansions of consciousness that are the result of the imparted training; these lead a man on from step to step till he contacts his higher self, his Master, his egoic group, the First Initiator, the One Paramount Initiator, until he has contacted the Lord of his Ray and has entered into the bosom of his “Father Which is in Heaven”.

  These are the outstanding features that are descriptive of the one true fundamental School.

  This fundamental school has three main branches and a fourth that is in process of forming and which will make the four branches of this fourth round. These branches are as follows:—

  1. The trans-Himalayan Branch.

  2. The southern India Branch. (these are Aryan Branches)