PRAYER

LESSON 21

Over and over again, in some slightly changed form, some of you

put the same questions to me ; over and over again I make the same

replies. Unconsciously to yourselves you often ask that the governing

laws of the Universe be changed in order that some personal

idiosyncrasy or desire be gratified. You ask that the great law of

Karma . cause and effect . be modified or changed in order that you

may obtain some favor or win some power which you have not earned

. that place, position, or opportunity be given you for which you are

as yet unfitted, unaware that unfulfilled duties pertaining to such

places or opportunities would result in unspeakable anguish to you.

You are told that hatred, unbrotherly conduct, harsh criticism of

others, whether deserved or not, generates within your own auras a

corroding, devitalizing form of force, which not only results in illness

of the physical body, but which acts on the astral body and the organs

of consciousness, on the mind plane, similarly to some of the noxious

metallic poisons on the physical body ; and yet some among your

number are passing cruel to each other and to others who are

dependent on you, and who justly or unjustly excite your anger. You

often think you are justified in assuming a judicial air, or in violently

condemning wrong doers ; but it is not your possible justification that

we are called upon to consider now ; it is the action of universal laws,

as applied to a would . be occultist. If you are satisfied to evolve with

[TT 51] the masses, well and good ; if you would pass beyond the

masses, you must be subject to higher laws than those which govern

material substance. You must try to realize that I, too, am limited.

I can tell you of things to come, as I am able to judge by the

visible signs, as well as by my knowledge of interior laws ; I can tell

you how certain catastrophes might be averted if the humanity of this

age would listen and obey ; but bear in mind, I cannot change the laws

that govern manifesting matter ; I cannot make two and two five, I

cannot take two pecans from five and leave four, although I might be

able to make you believe that I had accomplished that feat by means

of hypnosis or some other ultra . physical power.

One of the greatest difficulties you experience lies in your

inability to accept as literally true the statements given out by myself

and others in positions similar to my own, regarding the action of

universal laws.

The unyielding, unpliable man is invariably the man that is

broken on the wheel of the world ; the pliable man bends beneath the

storm, and the storm either passes over his head and leaves him

untouched, or touches him so lightly by comparison, that. his rebound

to a normal position is accomplished with very little difficulty when

the danger is over.

The strained, tense condition of the nerves from which countless

thousands of people are now suffering, is responsible for much of the

evil that falls upon them. The same law that renders a relaxation of the

body necessary, is behind an equal necessity for soul relaxation the

law commonly known as gravitation, and true prayer should result in

this relaxation of soul. The energy which should be evenly distributed

throughout all the nerves and muscles, is used up thoughtlessly or

ignorantly, in sustaining this tension, while for the time being it

enables the ambitious man or woman to accomplish herculean tasks in

business or pleasure ; consequently, the body is robbed of necessary

force, and the mind cannot function evenly and naturally ; antagonism

is engendered, and finally, incipient disease or decay manifests. You

must learn to relax this tension by power of will, and I have already

told you how you must evolve such will power if you are to obtain it.

If the positive energy of intense selfish desire is sent forth in

prayer, and the energy is not powerful enough to force

accomplishment of the desire that energy is dissipated, and the body in

which it was generated and by which it was sent forth, is broken or

beaten down by the reflex action.

If from the higher point of renunciation, the soul while in a

perfect state of relaxation sends forth a prayer to the Infinite . not

[TT 52] for some personal favor, but of faith, of love for that Infinite .

the same law which compels one pole of electricity to respond to the

other will compel a response from those Infinite domains, and the

response will be in accordance with the real needs of the aspiring soul.

You will frequently find that the surest way of winning a thing is to

give up even the desire for that thing.

Thought is one form of energy, words are other forms of the same

energy ; combined, they create a third form, and true prayer is of this

other form. Created and sent out from the human heart, it can go as far

as its inherent power can take it. If the prayer or aspiration is selfish, it

meets on an interior plane other forms of the same energy, the desires

of which are in opposition to it, and one neutralizes or destroys the

other, and the consequence is, that neither desire reaches ; those who

have the power to answer.

The wisdom of the ages is compressed in the words spoken by,

Jesus, "Not my will, but thine be done." It is only prayers preceded by

that sentence and winged by an unselfish love, that asks only ; to love,

not for love, that Omnipotence can answer. The highest power is only

won by renunciation. Renounce with thy whole heart . love with thy

whole heart . work with thy whole heart, and all things, in heaven and

earth are thine.

...

ENERGY OF REFLECTION AND REFRACTION

LESSON 22

The energy that controls the reflection and refraction of light

holds the mystery of the corresponding phenomena of words and

ideas. Hold a certain form of prism to the eye, and look at an object at

some distance, and you will see one object which subsequently

separates and becomes two objects, alike in form. Keep on looking,

with the determination to draw them together, and they will gradually

approach and merge into one. You are told the prism bends or refracts

a ray of light and produces this phenomenon. If this alone were the

case, you will ask for what purpose, then, is any action of will or

mind ; and the fact that will and mind do have something to do with

this phenomenon proves my conclusion, i. e., that the energy which in

reality performs the phenomenon is not in the material prism or in the

ray of light, as light is understood by Science, but in the mind [TT 53]

of Man and the mind of prism, for matter or energy cannot exist apart

from mind.

If granted that the potential energy of refraction is an operation of

mind directed by will, then the analogies between the action of mind

and will on light and prism, and the action of the same energy in the

control of Ideas and Words . the formation of language . become

evident, as does also the phenomenon of telepathic communication. In

thought transference of the highest kind, words are never required ; an

image of the whole idea is flashed on the sensitive surface prepared

for it in the human mind. In the next lower form of thought

transference, a single word which holds the main idea is mentally

spoken by the sender, and is caught on the sounder of the mind of the

receiver ; the intelligence of the latter seizes the one word, and by its

power of refraction breaks it into its component parts, and the

sentence embodying the idea is thus formed in the mind, and is then

spoken or written by means of the human senses and organs. You can

determine much of the truth of this statement for yourselves. You have

often heard or read a single word of a sentence, and lo ! almost

immediately, the whole idea embodied in the sentence becomes clear

to you.

You frequently confuse the ideograph which some one higher in

the scale of development attempts to send for your comfort or help,

with the remnants of your own thoughts or with half formed thoughts

caught from those you habitually associate with, which are floating

about in your thought sphere, and the consequence is, that you

misinterpret or mistranslate the ideograph . and then set about

convincing yourselves that no effort has been made to convey such

comfort or help. All these difficulties are due to the lack of the power

of concentration.

The sensitized plate of your mind is infinitely more susceptible to

the different degrees of light and shadow which make up the

experience of your life picture, than is the sensitized plate used in

photography to the light and shadow cast by the Sun ; and if the field

of vision is filled with rubbish, the central figure will be blurred

beyond recognition. Previous instructions given for the cultivating of

the Will, will aid in overcoming this condition.

When you realize that previous to your study along Occult lines,

you had made no attempt worth mentioning to clear that field of

interior vision . that the half formed thoughts of your whole life were,

practically speaking, holding you at their mercy, you can perhaps

understand that the Higher Self has much to overcome before the

Lower Self becomes capable of reading aright the language of the

Gods.

As you have been taught in previous instructions, the energy

under consideration is also back of all manifestation, whether it be

mental [TT 54] or physical. From the plane of unchangeable Spirit, all

things are reflected into the Astral plane, as the Moon is reflected into

the Ocean and the Energy of Refraction differentiates those reflections

into their component parts. A higher form of the same energy . the

word o God . or Fohat, lowers the vibration of the refranged

reflections, and physical matter is manifested. The same Energy

differentiates the Cosmic Alphabet and manifests words . from the

One Word which that Alphabet represents and is.

...

ORIENT AND OCCIDENT

From the Master M.

LESSON 23

As the waters of the Nile, the sands of the desert, the serpent

neath the bungalow creep on land and victim noiselessly, resistlessly,

purposefully, so creeps on the destructive power of divided interests.

Lethargy, treachery, cowardice, and unbelief on one side ; alert,

dominating, self . conscious activity on the other . creating,

moulding, dividing and subdividing class after class, laying the

foundations of its arsenals, planting shells in its harbors, casting its

nets into which the masses are drifting, as my beloved people drifted

centuries agone, first into the power of Moguls, Mohars, Rishis, and

Priests, and finally into the power of invading nations ; all of which

was primarily due, first, to their inhuman treatment of the weaker sex,

the feminine aspect of the race ; and secondly, to the mistrust and

hatred which existed between classes ; and to this day divisions

between such classes are so sharply defined as to admit of no possible

bridging . which leaves all classes at the mercy of the alien, who to

advance his own interests fosters and increases the bitterness between

Sikh and Afghan, between Behari and Bengali, between Warrior and

Priest. Knowing all this, loving my people as a father his children,

forced to see them sink into nothingness among nations, realizing that

their only hope lies in the Anglo-Saxon race now incarnated in

America . for from it a great karmic debt is due . is it surprising that I

should take some interest in the affairs of that nation, even to

identifying myself in a measure with it ? Yet the ignorant, the self .

blinded, can neither see the danger which threatens themselves, nor

the crying need of the Aryan race, nor [TT 55] understand my motives

in striving to draw closer together these long-divided peoples. They

can but stand aside and deny either my existence or my presence

among them, though they may have seen me face to face. It is nothing

. let it pass, the great law will determine the results. Alas for the bird

that befouls its own nest ; its neighbor's nest is still less sacred.

...

RADIOACTIVITY

LESSON 24

The rediscovery of, and interest shown by Scientists in, a certain

element christened radium, is of special interest to students of occult

science. Being a manifestation of the energy of light held in

suspension, its consideration brings you one step nearer the possibility

of bridging the gulf which separates two planes of life, i. e., Energy

and Matter.

The infinitesimal atoms which constitute space are set in motion

by a form of energy sometimes termed "the Word of God." Each rate

of motion or vibration eventually manifests, first, a form of force ;

secondly, a grade of matter ; i. e., it brings into outer manifestation the

substance which was already in manifestation on the interior planes,

and divides such substance into groups termed Elements. The wave-

motions by which such elements are manifested are not the Energies,

they are but the source of manifestation. On the spiritual plane, Sound,

Light and Motion are interchangeable. Light on the spiritual plane

may be Force or Energy on the physical plane. Radioactivity is the

action of the stored . up energy of light, as is also the reflecting

property of gold, which imparts much of its value to that metal. This

property of reflection is Prana . or life-essence . held in suspension in

grosser material. All forms of matter which are capable of reflecting

light are of much higher vibration than those which absorb the same,

and the former are of the same nature as that form of life . essence

which animates the nucleolus of the cell in all procreative matter.

Those who look and long for the power of creating matter, must first

find and segregate the energy which manifests in such substances as

that termed Radium surround it with the protoplasmic substance

which Nature always furnishes as a protection or vehicle to pranic

energy, and finally build the wall which confines it. [TT 56]

In answer to a request for more instruction regarding the action of

light in, the bodies of mankind, I would say that by referring to other

instructions on Light, you will see that Sound, Color, Form and

Number are four demonstrable qualities of the "I AM" in

manifestation.

The concealed radiance of the I AM is Spiritual Light, as is also

the concealed radiance of the Individual Egos which emanated from

IT, and which are now in manifestation. This one homogeneous

substance is the life . essence of all the planes of manifestation, and is

made visible or reflected into physical matter by means of the sun .

just as the power of reflecting the spiritual life . essence is made

possible by the sacrifice of Sun Sons . the Christs . for lower forms

of humanity. The sphere of light which surrounds every object or body

is such a reflection ; but the play of colors within that light is caused

by the action of the will and mind of the personal Ego. This light is

incognizable by the physical sense of sight, to all but a few of the

present humanity, but it will become visible to the masses of the. Sixth

Race.

The sphere of light or aura surrounding an individual whose life is

exceptionally pure and unselfish, becomes so dazzlingly bright that,

while it may not be visible to the physical eye, the sensations

experienced by the astral eyes of the observer are so acute that they

are translated in terms of feeling to the physical senses ; and sensitive

persons can, so to speak, feel the goodness or brightness of such a

person.

To the individual who has correlated his physical and astral sense

of sight, such spheres of light are made visible by act of will. Such an

observer can plainly see the play of color within and the changes

through which such spheres are passing. A few moments' indulgence

in selfishness, hatred, et cetera, will change the most beautiful tint in

an aura to a dull, lifeless shade, as the opposites of such conditions

will clarify and beautify corresponding shades of color.

One of the most surprising phases of modern mechanical skill will

appear at no late date in the form of a device by means of which some

of the difficulties in the way of correlating the physical and astral

planes may be overcome 6. The divisions of light rays now passing

[TT 57] under the names of individual discoveries, are in reality near

approaches to astral matter, when they are not the substance that

correlates other and inner planes of being.

...

SELFLESSNESS, THE ONE THING NEEDFUL

LESSON 25

Give, give, give . you cry, over and over again . to God, to the

World, to me. Ah, when will you learn, that as the dew of heaven

descends to water the earth, so the dew of heavenly wisdom is

dropping silently on the parched Soil of your Souls, even while you

6 Announcement has recently been made that Professor A. W.

Goodspeed, of the Randal Morgan Laboratory of Physics, of the

University of Pennsylvania, had accidentally discovered that rays of

light emanate naturally from the human body and that these rays are

visible to the eves of some of the lower animals. Divested of technical

terms, the discovery of Prof. Goodspeed means that the rays of light

shed from a living human body, although invisible to the human eye,

may have sufficient intensity to produce a picture on a plate properly

sensitized and in a room pitch dark. The discovery was made while X-

ray photographs were being taken. . Editor.

turn in a passion of self . seeking from its contemplation, and

absorption, to the noisy demonstrations of the multitude, which has

only lifeless husks to offer, in exchange for your hearts' best service.

I say to you, that not until you become capable of loving

unselfishly can you even enter the Path. Now, alas ! you are weak and

vacillating, even at the height of such love as you are capable of

reflecting. You are calculating, critical and discriminating, when the

reverse of such qualities are the first requisites of "a Son of God",

when the interests of his "younger Brothers" are at stake. So long as

you are capable of willfully withholding sympathy and assistance

from the meanest creature that lives, be it criminal, profligate, or only

unfortunate, you cannot pass over the Bridge, which has been built,

and is sustained, by the Selfless Mercy of the Hosts of Light.

The first lesson, as well as the last, the Alpha and Omega of

Occultism, is Selflessness ; and exoteric Selfishness . its opposite . is

the fundamental cause of your non . attainment of power, and

inability to exercise such necessary qualifications of Selflessness as

helpfulness and sympathy, where your younger Brothel's development

and interests are concerned.

I say to you, "follow me" (for I cannot carry you), and I point you

to the mile . stones along the Path which I have traveled. You are at

first fired by enthusiasm, and strike out bravely, crying out before you

have passed the first mile . stone, "Give me something harder to do",

Set me some difficult problem", "Pour out Secret Instructions upon

me, and you will see how quickly I can absorb them." say to you, you

must conquer certain characteristics, you must Purify your body,

before it is possible even for you to become [TT 58] individually

conscious of the Infinite to which you aspire ; and I show' you why

this is necessary, even from a scientific or selfish aspect ; and lo ! your

enthusiasm is dampened at once. I tell you that absolute. Faith, not

only in me, but also in those who represent me, is a necessary factor in

your development along both psychic and spiritual lines, and endeavor

to show you by correspondence and analogy, that the word Faith, as

understood by you, is in reality but another name for one of the most

potent forms of Energy in manifestation, and that its right application

and use are essential to the evolution of certain characteristics of the

Soul. But frequently one of you revolts and exclaims, "That is very

well in theory, but give us facts, let us see for ourselves", when it

would be just as reasonable to ask for an opportunity for investigating

the source of Electricity, though the effects of both forms of energy

are clearly demonstrable by means of material agencies.

If I were to ask some among your number to stand on one foot for

a certain number of hours a day, and assure them that by so doing they

would acquire the power of levitation, they would attempt to follow

such directions, after convincing themselves by some method of

reasoning that the power of levitation was essential to spiritual

development. If they had acquired such power, apparently by the

above mentioned or similar means, they would be loth to believe that

its acquirement would in reality be due, first of all, to the awakened

energy we term Faith, and finally to the spirit of obedience which

actuated the effort.

I repeat the direction given by countless great teachers .

"Condemn not", yet you frequently withdraw faith in and affection for

some friend upon learning that such an one has fallen, under some

great temptation . entirely ignoring or forgetting that you are cutting

him off from the energy he requires to correct the fault committed,

and oblivious of the truth that, back in your own nature lie coiled the

hidden causes for similar effects, which are only waiting the same

environment and temptation to manifest as the same or similar faults.

You grow weary of the recapitulation of those directions and

practices which are essential to the cultivation of higher spiritual

attributes ; but I ask, would it be to your advantage to begin to study

the problems of Euclid before you have mastered the Rule of Three ?

Knowledge is indeed power, and power may be yours ; but if such

power is to be used for the good of humanity it must rest upon a

substratum of spiritual understanding that cannot be shaken. Therefore

I say to you, whatever else you undertake, look first to the

development of the three great Energies, Love, Will, and Action, upon

[TT 59] which the Universe is built, and never permit yourselves to

consider them as simply certain attributes of your lower human nature.

The laws of Attraction, Repulsion, and Cohesion ; of Gravitation

and Chemical Affinity, are but other names and other modifications of

the above mentioned great realities. Consequently, the cultivation of

the latter developes or manifests the inherent powers of the former in

the individual aura as well as in the Cosmos, and also furnishes the

ability to direct such powers to the Ego . centre of each Aura.

Indications of such evolution must always be greeted with great

hope and encouragement by those who watch and wait.

...

THE ESSENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

LESSON 26

The commonly accepted truth that the Universe is divided into

three great states of consciousness, termed body, soul and spirit, is

also accepted by the occultist, and to him is an incontrovertible fact.

One great difference in the belief of the occultist and that of the

masses of humanity, lies in the fact that the belief of the former is

based on knowledge while that of the latter is based on tradition.

Another difference appears when the occultist refuses to accept the

hard and fast lines defined between such states of consciousness, and

proves to the intelligent thinker that no gaps or gulfs exist between

any two apparent divisions of matter, force, and consciousness and

that the seeming gaps are in reality filled by still finer grades of

matter, and life in finer states of consciousness.

The knowledge and power won by the occultist enable him

consciously to contact those intermediate states and lives, and to a

great degree to classify them, and therefore, instead of confining his

researches to the three primary states of consciousness, for

convenience in classification he divides the three first into six, and

then, counting the combined states as one more, makes seven in all.

Each one of the seven is again divided into seven lesser or still finer

degrees, making forty-nine. To complete the sum of its experience,

and win the crown of adeptship, the Ego must not only be able to

contact those planes or states of consciousness, but must be able to

dwell in each one, until long experience has taught it all that it is

possible to acquire. Its experience on each plane bears a strong

resemblance to its experience [TT 60] on all. For instance, on the

plane upon which your consciousness now acts, you are conscious of

the development of certain degrees of life, which you term spiritual,

moral, mental and physical. That is, you are conscious of the

development of the attributes which go t make up your moral nature,

and at the same time conscious of those : attributes which may be

summed up as mental, spiritual and physical. Therefore, the method

by which the acquisition of these attributes is accomplished, furnishes

a perfect correspondence to the methods by° which the Ego acquires

power and ability to use on any of the interior planes of being. The

essence of those attributes is the same on all planes of being, but the

laws which govern their manifestation on what are termed the spiritual

planes . the three higher planes . are very different in operation. For

instance, mind on the physical plane is invisible, not easily controlled,

formless and soundless. On the mental plane, it is visible in form,

under control, and its action is accompanied by appreciable sound. On

the spiritual plane, it is formless, soundless, invisible, as we count

form, sound and sight. It is a mode of motion, an eternal matrix into

which spirit is being eternally reflected, in and by which spirit lives,

moves and has its first manifested being. In other words, mind is as

one great ocean of force, the waves and ripples of which produce the

phenomena which we designate attributes, characteristics, habits, and

so forth. The eternally concealed spirit which governs this ocean's

modifications, decrees that some of these modifications or ripples may

become visible under certain conditions, such as, for instance, those

conditions which are operative on the plane of mind or soul, and

invisible on other planes and under other conditions. But always,

endlessly, it remains in essence one of the three indivisible, eternal,

great realities.

Some poor self-deceived teachers of psychic science are

encouraging their disciples to believe in and glibly talk of having

attained Nirvana while in their present physical bodies and

environment, insisting that the Rest-Angel, Death, has no more power

over them individually. This fallacy is made apparent by a careful

consideration of corresponding phenomena. As night and rest follow

day and work throughout a great age, so death follows life, invariably

and inevitably until the closing scene of the great manvantara. There

must always occur an interval between meals, in which to assimilate

the food taken into the stomach ; and equally important to the Ego is

the interval called death, and the interval or rest between notes, to the

science ' of music. The periods which we term death, rest, and

assimilation, are only applicable to the state of life, interval or note,

left behind. The consciousness of man takes no intervals in reality ; it

is [TT 61] just as active on the plane it enters after death as before,

and its activity is employed in assimilating its late experiences .

making up the essence of those experiences into substance for use in

another incarnation. The only difference there is in this respect

between the Initiates of a high order and the men and women of the

present day, lies in the fact that the outer lives of the former as well as

the intervals between become longer than those of the latter. There is a

vast difference in the length of time it takes different stars and planets

to travel around their orbits, but they are, nevertheless, eternally

traveling.

...

TO THE FAITHFUL

LESSON 27

My Beloved Disciples :

You who walk where the deadly nightshade breathes forth its

poisonous exhalations . you who lie down to rest conscious that the

basilisk eye of a hidden cobra is fixed upon you . who rise up

morning after morning expecting naught but the repeated sting of the

asp . the enfolding pressure of the boa . constrictor ; you whose

closest bedfellows are hunger and thirst, want and misery . not

necessarily the hunger and thirst of the physical body, but the hunger

and thirst of the soul for a word of appreciation, a glance of

understanding, a touch of a helping hand, any one of which would be

to you as dew to the desert sands . to you I come with a word, a

glance, a touch, though they be unheard, unseen, unfelt by ears too

dulled to hear, by eyes too weary to see, and by hands too powerless

to feel.

Look up, my beloved ! Waken from the nightmare by which you

are holden, and strive to realize that even the deadly nightshade holds

life as well as death in its leaves and flowers ; that the cobra is

powerless to strike at a Son of God, and that love rules it, as it does all

other creatures ; that the asp and boa . constrictor each has its

appointed place in the economy of things, and but for the hunger and

thirst, the weariness and pain, you could never know the fullness of

eternal love, could never taste the water from the fountains of eternal

truth or know the blessed joy and peace which follow upon righteous

toil and patient endurance of pain.

Anxious fathers and affrighted mothers, your sons cannot pass

beyond the care and watchfulness of the Sons of Wisdom . your

daughters cannot stray beyond the keeping of the great Mother . heart

of God. [TT 62]

Would you, if so be you might, restrain your child by force from

striving to examine the great mystery, Fire, because it might receive a

slight burn, if you knew that such fire was only the lowest note in the

scale of that glorious harmony . consuming fire . which only burns

all imperfections, all refuse substance, only destroys the chrysalis, and

prepares conditions for the advent of the perfected angels of radiant

light, Wisdom, Knowledge and Power, and knew that ignorance of the

power of that one note might jeopardize the advent of those angels ?

Desolate, weary burden . bearers, embryonic saviors of men and

worlds, your hearts will thrill with rapture, when at the close of your

journey, you stoop to undo the burden you have so long carried, and

find at the end of the last wrapping, the beautiful face of a beautiful

soul gazing out at a transfigured world. The food and drink for which

you are famishing, lie even now on the other side of the path you are

wearily treading . lie just another step within the confines of that

aching heart. Believe me, neither yourselves nor your dear ones can

pass beyond the power of the love which has loved you and them into

life.

Take heed, my little ones, lest the scalpel of life's surgeon lay bare

the tender buds of faith and trust in all that lives, to the fiery, blast of

the typhoon. For however dark the way and fierce the struggle, or

sharp the instruments of torture, however foul and poisonous the

stream through which you must sail your boat of life, the source of

that stream is pure, the end and the beginning of all things, all

experiences, is love, light and peace.

You have called to me in the dim vistas of past ages ; you call

again today ; and now as then I answer, "Cast off your burden of

attachment to results." Do the duty which lies closest to your hand. Be

not led away by specious tongues that strive to convince you that there

is some better, some quicker way. Believe the truth your stifled souls

would make you hear and heed . the truth that only as the bonds by

which you are enthralled are burst . because your growth can no more

be impeded by such means . can perfect freedom come to you.

Believe the promise made by me and others like me, in the olden days

while yet you wandered as a savage race through jungles, wilds and

forests ; while yet you sat on jeweled thrones and held within your

hands the sceptres of despotic power ; or toiled as slaves to raise the

hoary sphinx and pyramids which in another age far distant, your eyes

should once more see and ponder o'er ; while yet you toiled with

naked hands to wrest from Nature's barren breast the food to keep

your little ones from passing out, and leaving you yet more desolate

and lonely . the promise made by us that we would [TT 63] stand

upon the threshold of the great Initiation halls and gladly open those

closed doors when you had reached and placed your hands upon them

in token of submission, in evidence of your strength to reach to such a

height, and power to stand without assistance until the door should be

unbarred and opened.

...

THE EVILS OF DISTRUST

LESSON 28

If you would understand the difficulties which confront the

Initiates in the higher degrees of the Lodge in their efforts to solve any

one of the great world problems, consider what difficulties would

confront you, what dangers appal, what discouragements weaken,

were you to try to solve any one of even the minor problems of your

present city government from the height of a personal great ideal.

You might labor for years to convince your fellow citizens of the

advisability, righteousness, and wisdom of a certain course, and

finally be persuaded that you had succeeded. You might get together

your ammunition of arguments, promises, indulgences, etc., for their

use, mark out a straight course which, according to your inner vision,

would insure final success, brilliant achievement for all concerned,

only to find in the end that your great ideal was yours alone, that your

words had fallen on deaf ears ; to find your promises scouted, your

anticipated achievements as dust and ashes under your feet ; and

why? Mainly because your co-adjutors were almost without

exception governed entirely by ignorant self conceit. Your great

ideal might seem to them a beautiful theory, but unless they could

perceive some way in which they were to be immediately and

individually benefited, they would turn from you even at the eleventh

hour and cast in their lot with the opposing side.

The average man trusts no man, no God, deep down in his heart.

If he is honest with himself, he knows that he is not infallible, is not

entirely worthy of trust, knows that he too would fall if sufficient

pressure were placed upon him. Consequently, he believes that all

others are in a similar position, and if he gives trust at all, it is always

with reservations which in the end may triumph, and saddest of all sad

things is the truth that from his particular standpoint he is right.

But he does not know that he and others like him are continuing

the fiend Distrust in manifestation age after age ; that they are making

[TT 64] faith and trust impossible by continually generating and

living in distrust. Better far would it be for him in the end to suffer

from trust betrayed every day of his life than to help swell the great

river of distrust that paralyzes all human endeavor, that wrecks the

bodies and souls of millions of human beings yearly.

To be a Master means to have conquered distrust, to work on age

after age knowing his confidence will be betrayed, his best laid plans

defeated, his great ideals despised, but knowing also that some time

the God in man will triumph, knowing that notwithstanding his

present unworthiness and weakness, man is still worth loving, worth

serving.

Unfortunately, this sense of distrust reaches its height in the

intellectual giants of the human race ; men whose tendency towards

materialism has awakened a spirit of egotism far in excess of that of

the ignorant masses. They are men who are surpassingly ignorant of

the fundamental truth of all knowledge, i. e., that the Cosmos is a unit

men who believe the material universe is, as it were, a herd of cows

created for the express purpose of furnishing nourishment to the

individually and that they are justified in milking those cows ad

libitum, regardless of the wants and requirements of their weaker

brethren.

Blind leaders of a blind age ! Unable to perceive the dark clouds

of the threatening storm, unable to see that they are cutting off the

source of their own nourishment, even on the physical plane, and

tying themselves karmically to the people they are now using, both on

the physical and astral planes, for ages to come ! Self-conceit and self-

indulgence are twin destroyers.

...

BUILDING IN ACCORD WITH NATURAL AND DIVINE LAW

LESSON 29

The fearful and the unbelieving, as well as all sycophantic

devotees of the Beast of Mammon, have invariably attempted to stop

the progress of evolutionary development by building mental images

of disaster and failure, or spreading nets of discouragement to

entangle the energies directed by true lovers of the human race toward

a common goal and a common good.

Nature furnishes to each of her kingdoms a perfect form, and

correspondingly perfect principles of government. Only so far as man

[TT 65] has observed and followed that form, and embodied those

principles in a constitution, has been his measure of success in the

creating of a righteous government, whether of church or state. The

outlines of the government of the United States were taken from the

aborigines, the "Six Nations" of Indians. Those laws were given to the

Indians by Hiawatha, an Agent of the White Lodge. The ancient

Peruvians, the Atlanteans, and many other races and nations were

taught and governed by the same laws. These are the laws that govern

the bees, the ants, and every other division of insect and animal life

that has not. deteriorated through contact and association with

mankind.

The great rock of offense against which, one after another,

individuals, organizations and nations are hurled, and are either

crippled, or broken to pieces, is the selfishness, the heartlessness of

those in authority, whether these be self-constituted teachers, leaders,

presidents, or kings. In religion some one portion of a world .

embracing philosophy is separated from the whole, or is

misinterpreted by some seeker for power ; a certain coterie gathers

about its expounder or teacher, who isolates them, and ignores all

philosophy that does not corroborate his exposition, rendering it

impossible for others to associate with them because of their evident

narrowness, and they themselves become incapable of effort in a

larger field owing to the action of the laws of constriction which

immediately come into effect when one or more separates himself

from the mass of humanity in thought or feeling ; and these laws

energize a powerful force which bars one's progress as might a rod of

iron on the physical plane. We, as a race, must stand or fall together,

for WE ARE ONE. When one individual rises above another in any

phase of development, he does so by reason of the inherent good

which is manifesting in him ; for evil is negative, and leaves no lasting

effect.

The great plan of the Lodge for the development of the human

race is so superhumanly grand and perfect in its entirety as well as in

its minutiae, that it would be useless to attempt to make it intelligible

to the masses of the present age. It is like the foundation setting of a

beautiful mosaic, into which a bit is being set here and there by a

Master Workman, each stone being cut and fitted to suit each point in

the setting, and all emplaced from the under side. Only the Adept and

Master Workman is familiar with the design ; none other can form the

slightest concept of the transcendent glory that will flash from it when

the light of the Spiritual Sun falls on the completed work. I am here to

outline one little point of that setting for you to work upon.

In order to labor effectually, the Temple organization must direct

its work from a center strong enough to hold and conserve the forces

[TT 66] sent for its advancement ; and powerful enough to furnish an

object lesson to all that will turn their eyes in its direction. A dynamic

center which, while it may draw men who will scoff at first, will

compel them to remain and work. With the permanent organization of

the work, and as one of the objects of that work, there should be

outlined to all interested the building of a city where there may be

faithfully carried out the ideas of a righteous government of the

people, by the people and for the people, on a spot of ground in a

western state which will be selected by us and where all that nature

can do for the benefit of man has been done ; where two important

magnetic lines meet, and where once stood a city and reigned a people

far in advance of the present civilization, taught and governed by one

of the great Masters of the Lodge. The city which will some time be

built already hangs in the heavens in form. This form will be given to

you ere long.

All of the great centers of the world have arisen and gradually

developed from a small settlement. The failure of many attempts to

found such centers has been due to narrow and contracted lines of

thought and labor.

I have not touched upon advantages to occult students from the

site and the conditions that exist on the spot indicated. That must be

left until a future time.

(Given August 14, 1900.)

 

UNTO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION

LESSON 30

The action of karmic law in the affairs of nations and men, as well

as in the Cosmos, is of all things most interesting, though too often

incomprehensible to the average student. In the depths of every living

soul there resides a sense of abstract justice and a feeling of

abhorrence toward its opposite, or what is commonly termed injustice,

due to the operations of two poles of one inherent quality or state of

substance which manifests as wisdom.

However degraded the human being, a belief that he has been

unjustly treated by nature or man will awaken a strong, if it be but a

silent protest, and only too often such a protest long continued has

changed the nature of a normal human being and prepared the [TT 67]

way for his degeneracy. If all men were convinced that the action of

the negative Pole of karma was in reality the result of their own

mistaken or evil thought and conduct, the most bitter drop in the cup

of their afflictions would be dispelled. Recognizing the justice of his

punishment, man would gradually be led into a knowledge that what

lie had hitherto believed to be merciless or unjust chastisement, was

but the action of a most beneficent law, seeking only to establish a lost

equilibrium.

No thing or being lives to itself or is sufficient unto itself. The law

which brings retribution for a wrong done by you to your brother, is

the same law that controls the movements of the stars in their courses,

the government of the ants in their ant-hills, the return wave from the

distant shore of the Ocean of Life.

It is said "not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge

of the Father" ; no more can the star glide from its orbit into the

immensities of space without the knowledge of the Father ; and the

cause of either phenomenon may be found in a disturbed equilibrium,

and a discord of the eternal harmonies. The single sparrow under

consideration may not have been guilty of producing this discord, but

the entitized group-soul of all sparrows bas so disturbed the harmony

of the sphere in which it bas manifested, as to bring on all its atomic

creations the same fate which has overtaken this particular sparrow,

namely, death.

Unto the third and fourth generation, the curse . the d'evil .

which bas disturbed the equilibrium of love . the Father, descends (for

the biblical term generation is frequently intended to convey the idea

Of an age) : and until that group soul manifesting as evil bas once

more established harmony by yielding itself to the will of the Father ;

until the tone it had formerly sounded in the scale of creation once

more rings true and clear, the sparrows . its creations . must continue

to fall.

If a stone is thrown into a body of water, the ripples which ensue

as a result of the force generated by the movement of the stone and its

contact with the water, cannot cease their movements until they have

touched the farthest shore and returned to the point of their departure.

So is it when a discord or sin starts a vibration in the ocean of life. To

the circumference of its sphere of action and back to the centre of its

being must that discord or sin go and return ere its force be spent ; and

the power which impels it onward is the vehicle Of its punishment, for

only where such power is inoperative is there Peace, and only in peace

can there be perfect content, only in peace can love find its fulfillment.

[TT 68]

No great calamity occurs as the result of a single action by Nature

or Man. Age upon age has one little act, one little thing been added to

the collective mass, until the measure became full, and being full its

contents are precipitated by the last act or event, however trivial in

seeming.

You, yourselves, mentally, morally and physically, are the result

of ages of alternate growth and degeneration, and all that concerns you

is subject to the same laws. There are countless numbers of human

beings on the earth today, each one of whom is waiting for the one

word, one look, one act of some other person before he can take the

final step which will bring him under the direction of the Masters of

the White Brotherhood. There are countless numbers of others waiting

for a similar word, look or act from. some other person which will

result in their taking the final step which will plunge then eventually

into the depths of life . into the control of the Brothers of the Shadow.

It is almost impossible for me to make you understand and realize the

immense crisis which is now on in the affairs of men and nations, or

how important your thoughts and acts are and will be, for some time

to come. While in some instances such thoughts and acts may be

compared to the last little act or event required to precipitate a great

calamity . in others, your evolutionary status is such that you May

unconsciously exert a tremendous influence. Your thought, word or

deed may evoke the requisite elemental power, by which, finding a

channel or vehicle in some influential person in incarnation, a

connection is secured, and, the necessary preparations having already

been made, the torch is applied to the funeral pyre . so to speak . and

lo ! a conflagration will appear, the end of which no man knoweth.