Leo is perhaps most famously known through its characterisation as the lion killed by the classical warrior Hercules. The king of the beasts is terrorizing the village folk and Hercules is called to kill this terrible predator. Hercules trails the lion up hill and down dale, but the cunning creature constantly evades him until Hercules realises he must face the lion in its own lair. This is risky because once in the lion’s den Hercules will be trapped and the fight will be to the death.

Being a pledged disciple however, Hercules does not shrink from fear and faces the beast head-on. They circle and snarl, tear and rip until finally Hercules uses his legendary strength and skilful intellect to grasp the beast by its neck strangling the life from it. He then returns to the village wearing, with great humility, the lion’s skin around his shoulders. This tale tells us that to defeat the negative, destructive beast within, we must track it to its hiding place or our own desire-mind. There we must squarely face our fears and taking them by the throat, squeeze the life from them.

The throat centre is the source of our lower mind’s often destructive and hurtful thought, words and actions. Combined with an unredeemed solar plexus we are always thinking and acting fuelled with desire for personal satisfaction. If we choose to battle this form of our dweller, we won’t get out alive unless we win, and to defeat the lion of our personality we must call on the strength and power of our soul. There are two sides to the sign Leo as there are for all signs.

We can again characterise this sign in the form of the tawny-maned lion Aslan in C. S. Lewis’ tales of this same beast as a Christ figure or the Will-To-Good. Aslan summoned four children to the land of Narnia, to help him battle the wicked witch who was trying to dumb-down and control the creatures living there. At first frightened by their littleness in the face of such a task, the children gradually learned through the trial and error of their little lion or personality-self, to become more than they ever dreamed possible. With the power of Aslan’s belief in them, the children defeated the wickedness threatening the land. Through ordeal and great sacrifice, the children evolved into a better version of themselves and their task completed, they returned to their own land now well equipped to serve and save.

We can see this as a metaphor for the struggle along the path of discipleship and up the mountainside towards the light supernal governed by Capricorn. We need all our Leo will-power to stay with the task and follow the light of service wherever it may lead us. When we reach the top we’re told that the mysteries are for a moment revealed and we never again doubt their validity. This is the transition from adolescent or young adult, to full adulthood. It takes the pure love of the soul and the relentless power of the spiritual will to earn the right to wear the lion’s skin.

The next stage is to return down the mountain in Aquarius the polar opposite sign of Leo. This sign bequeaths us with the psychic knowledge of white magic which is the soul’s reality. It sees not separated forms, but light in constant movement creating shapes that to us are crystallised forms. It’s interesting to note that the light supernal in Capricorn could be equated with the light in the head found during meditation and moments of deep thinking and insight. It’s also the light we meet at death which according to Tibetan traditions of dying, is a significant opportunity for us to transform. It’s the light that shows us the illusion of solid forms. This light is a concentrated moment where everything is packed into ‘nothing and everything’. The Tibetans say that this light is the ‘everything’ and, ‘because it’s so brilliant, unless we’re prepared for this light of the mind, it is blinding. Instead of waking up, the intensity of the light stuns us back to sleep’.(1)

If we have worked on our spiritual development, renounced and served then we may know this light at death as pure mind. It’s possible to attain this while in a body but more easily after death when the physical vehicle no longer acts as a filter, refracting the white light into illusory forms of itself. We are advised to practice conscious dying every night so that when we are presented with this opportunity to see the true light, we can use the moment to transcend ourselves. Leo can help us prepare for this transition through the lessons of strength, love, and power in humility. Hercules knew that by earning the right to wear the lion skin he had accepted responsibility for the higher expression of this beautiful creature. It is only when our fully integrated personality can kneel in obedience to the soul and serve others, that the true journey of discipleship in Leo begins; ending with our embodiment of the Will-To-Good.

Love
While the Sun transits Leo we have the opportunity to find the lion within and truly roar. But this is the roar, not of a noisy highway or a chattering cafe; not the deafening sound of wailing sirens or the agonising sounds of vulnerable, suffering humanity. Rather it is the roar of triumphant silence that comes from the spirit liberated from the relentless friction of spirit in matter. This silence is like the intense light of death and the power put into our hands at initiation. Until we reach that place of the ‘peaceful silent will’, we must manage the Cosmic Law of Economy which governs the life of matter in the three worlds. The wisdom teaching’s tells us that this law rules the rotary motion of the atom as its movement from one moment to another creates our sense of time. It is this same atom’s movement that humans have harnessed through a program of codes, so that instead of obeying its pre-programming from the anima mundi or planetary soul, the atom is magnetised into a new order of algorithms imposed by a human mind.

We are changing the atom’s program by using the electric power of our mind redeemed through love. This combination gives us the magnetic potency to cause atoms to cohere or line-up according to our will over them. If we’re using the attractive power of love and the will-to-good, we’re acting as conscious co-creators with the divine Plan and Mind of God. We’re transcending the Law of Economy through the Law of Love to channel spirit into matter. We’re raising the vibration of the atom by magnetising it’s motion into forms. This is the atom’s ‘upwards’ or evolutionary tendency – to return to its Source which is the same for an atom or a human. Through the power investment from our thought, the atom increases its attractive energy and so repulses its not-self to become more. It is striving to be a better version of itself.

Every moment, through sacrificial death, particles of matter are striving towards light, and in the process of becoming something greater, they release light. The atom is not conscious of this process because it’s blindly responding to heat or energy causing it to act. But if we consciously work with matter or lunar devic substance that is in and around everything, we’re not just making the atom smarter to serve us, but to serve the planet’s purpose of divine evolution. On a human level we experience this atom’s movement as time. As atoms’ vibrations speed up and more rapidly transmute, so does our collective sense of haste, rush and the need to organise or be swallowed up by time’s demands.

In the same way we are speeding up as our personality becomes increasingly obedient to our soul or the magnetic influence on the atoms of our personality causing them to align with the higher purpose. We attract the higher and reject the lesser parts of ourself. Life is getting hotter and faster as the planetary buzz of life increases. Gradually as we repel the lower lion we learn to control time by observing the new rhythms of the soul. With great hardship from our personal viewpoint, we sacrifice or redeem the matter of our physical, emotional and mental bodies. Like the atom, we are propelled forward towards the light supernal through the energy input of our spiritual will, magnetically attracted towards that peaceful, silent Will of God in Shamballa.

Just as world servers are aligning themselves to the divine Will held in the planetary Logos’ Plan for our planet, so too is science re-discovering the ancient mystery of magnetism. This ‘discovery’ has the power to revolutionise the way we live because it will release us from the chains of friction caused by atoms blindly bumping into each other. Using magnetic power we can align atoms or make them cooperate, enabling a clearer channel though which energy or light can flow. This liberates us into new forms of living. For instance magnetic levitating trains can hover above a set of rails containing magnets and so minimise the friction that causes our sense of time and fatigue. These trains are being tested in Japan, Germany and China and promise a faster, more comfortable ride for minimal cost. (2)

As we repel the lesser way of the past, and attract the future, we find our consciousness opened into greater love. This is the love of cooperation, sharing and goodwill caused by the magnetic lining up of our collective intentions to serve each other and the planet’s purpose. Leading edge science is like a barometer of the collective human consciousness, and experiments with magnetism along with the re-emergence of other free or minimal cost energy sources, is an indication that, despite the surface chaos, all is progressing well towards finally trapping the lion in its lair. Then we will collectively be able to take the first initiation and together create a sustainable world.

According to Esoteric Astrology, Leo channels Ray Two through the Sun in its physical, soul and monadic expressions. This month we each have the opportunity to squarely face our lunar lord or personality in its dark lair of our lower mind and desires. We can each assist the collective human evolution towards a better world for all, by shining the full light of our soul into our suppressed and hidden selves. We can more clearly see the choices, attitudes, behaviours, fears and phobias that keep us in the thrall of the lower lion of our past. Science is pushing everyday living beyond friction and economy towards magnetism and love, but this needs to be the love, not for comfort, things, status, money or personal satisfaction. It must be the higher love of pure-reason which is wise because it sees consequences and acts to ameliorate them for the good of all. We won’t get far if technology is invented only for the satisfaction of our curiosity to see how far we can push the envelope on human ‘smartness’ and ingenuity.

Those on the spiritual path have a responsibility to guide the hands and minds of these intelligent creators using materially-focussed science and technology so that their human tendencies are balanced by the wisdom of the soul. We must use the Law of Economy or electricity, with intelligent love which means replacing our black/white, yes/no, them/us, self/other, binary way of doing business with a more magnetic one which encourages us to seek alignment or a more cooperative, inclusive approach with others. If we can do this then we’ll find the scientific breakthroughs waiting in the wings – crystal computers, magnetic transport, energy from the air, fusion power, alternative agricultures, non-intrusive medicine – will easily reveal themselves. But not until science and her masters work for the betterment and good of all with no thought of selfish return.

Paralleling this scientific output, occultists will be perfecting the subjective side of science through communication with the higher or solar devas who know the divine Plan. These devas willingly work with those who are soul-infused because the plan for our planet’s future lies not in bettering material living per se, but revealing and manifesting the consciousness behind this illusory phantom of matter. If we use our minds to create better forms then they must be only for the purpose of liberating humanity towards its proper and sacred reason for being – planetary redemption. This is part of a far greater divine Plan for the whole solar system and beyond. We can but do our part with gratitude that being human is so much more than the last few centuries would have us believe.

As we serve and save we will re-discover our hidden powers and be able to work consciously with the planetary Logos or Mind of God, through the solar devas, to build the new world civilisation based on the etheric and astral realities rapidly emerging from behind the outer forms.

The Will
Many scientists are a good example of the practical effect of group work. Each scientific discovery is a breakthrough into the world of the past; of matter and the ether behind it; of light in its different manifestations and the ways we can control and manipulate it. By standing on the shoulders of past experiments and ‘eureka’ moments, science in all its many disciplines, is building a scaffold enabling our understanding and control of physical, astral and mental matter. In the same way world servers are individuals working cooperatively in groups building a spiral-cycling lattice revealing the spiritual realities.

This lattice forms the scaffold of etheric, astral and mental substance from which these insights and inventions made by science and technology can be built. Group work is a natural progression in evolutionary history as the atom joins with others to make forms. We humans also join with other groups to form a super-group of world servers. This has practical value in our soul work because to meditate together strengthens our resolve when our mind wanders. A project is done better when shared with co-workers who bring companionship and joy. Shared insights encourage us when we feel alone and isolated. Together we are better than apart, whether objectively or subjectively so.

Like Aslan in the story of Narnia, the group mind and heart is often unseen but ever present. It’s a comfort, giving us the will to keep on track as we battle the distractions for action, excitement and sensation, and strengthens us as we enter the lair of our fears. The subjective and objective groups we are involved with can help us as we walk the burning ground of discipleship and initiation. This is the way of renunciation or detachment akin to little deaths.

The ancient Tibetan practice of conscious dying teaches that we can learn to control our eventual physical death by developing the habit of renunciation every day of our lives. They say that dying, with all its physical ugliness and loss of control, is the soul’s way of detaching itself from the physical, astral and mental bodies. It’s a reversal of the way we were built before incarnation and birth. It can be scary and undignified, but will be less so if we have practised the graceful and sacred art of dying before it is upon us. Esotericists call it ‘burning the dross’ and scientifically it’s the process of transmutation when one element turns into a more rarefied one. It’s the sacrificial act of the atom aligning with the magnet’s poles to form a clear channel minimising friction. Whether we’re building a new body or dismantling an elderly one, the laws of electricity and magnetism work their art. They enable scientists to manipulate matter to attract and build things, keep the atoms magnetised together for the duration, and then ensure these creations shatter or are repelled at the time of decay and death when their time is over.

It’s the same laws that enables occultists working with white magic or the soul’s laws, to create the new world. The other Cosmic Law is called Synthesis. It governs the ‘through’ movement of atoms. It is the force that pulls everything both up towards itself the divine Source and back to its primal source. In human terms it’s the divine Purpose of our planetary Logos, and the peaceful, silent Will of Shamballa. This will gathers all back to the Father or as The Gayatri puts it, to, ‘…journey to thy sacred feet.’

We now have the rotary, cyclic-spiralling and through motion of evolution, or that set of laws which perhaps creates the life-force and triangular structure of every particle of substance. The same sacred trinity is represented by God immanent, and God transcendent. The keynote for Leo is, ‘I am That, and That am I’. While the Sun transits Leo we have the opportunity to clarify what we each stand for; whether we are taking full ownership of this triangle that is our own and our planet’s destiny.

This personal and planetary control comes in three phases: From the personal and rotary-cyclic motion of ‘I am’, to the group-conscious spiralling motion of ‘I am That’, and finally the planetary conscious, through motion of, ‘That am I’. The combination of the three cosmic laws and three atomic movements, creates what we humans call the burning ground. Alice Bailey says, ‘the Leo subject treads this burning ground with will and self-effacement…undeterred by pain.’(3)

It’s a hard path and that’s why our history is only now seeing groups of individuals treading it, supporting each other along the way. As we struggle along we find our group brothers, and as their heat adds to our own, the demands of the burning ground intensifies, increasing the vibration of the atoms in and around us. Everything is on fire, changing, transmuting and transforming as we form a single flame made of many sparks.

Together we walk as the pain and suffering changes to joy and love and the will we have generated carries us through the blinding light of the portal of initiation. Transfigured we have consciously died to our past. The light supernal that has forever showed us the Way, is now a part of us. Through the power of Leo’s will we have achieved our place on the mountain top. Turning back now, we shine this light before us as our collective aura radiates like a star in the darkness.

Sources:
Alice Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’, p. 285-311
1. Andrew Holecek, ‘Preparing to Die’
2. Michio Kaku, ‘Physics of the Future’
3. Alice Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’ p. 285-311

Monday 28 July 2014

When I think of the sign of Leo I’m often reminded of the tawny-maned lion ‘Aslan’ from C.S. Lewis’ stories of four children in the land of Narnia. Aslan was Lewis’ metaphor for the Christ consciousness – love of all, kindness, patience, gentleness, inclusiveness, selflessness, focus on the highest good of the greatest number, intelligence in action and wisdom, yet also great power, strength of will, belief and fortitude.

Could we discuss the Aslan-type figure as a metaphor for the type of person or group of people the world now needs to lead it, ‘out of darkness into light’?  Is this the new group of world servers talked about by Alice Bailey?

As a unit of energies we can see this group providing all the qualities we need in those who should govern us. The individuals and groups serving the world may be working on their own projects yet they can be seen as one in consciousness. Combining their different methods and aims they look like a rainbow of colours together forming a perfect light which when focussed by one overriding purpose – of planetary and human betterment – gives us a Christ or Aslan-type leader. Could we be witnessing the emerging prototype of a new form of world governance by the spiritual groups acting as one mind, heart and will?

Put aside all prejudices — think freely. Be not downcast but full of hope. Flee not from life, but walk the path of salvation. Nicholas Roerich

Cancer rules our birth from the realm of the soul which is free from illusion, into this world of glamour and maya, pain, suffering and escapism. It all sounds a bit dismal when you think of it like this, especially as we appear to have no knowledge of this process. But what we do know is that we can change this from an unconscious act into one of lighted understanding. We have choice – do we identify ourselves with all these illusions and continue the wheel of rebirth, or do we set to work to unchain ourselves?

To misquote Nietzsche, we’re all free but we keep putting ourselves in chains. While the Sun transits Cancer we can utilise the energies of this constellation to see more clearly the chains that bind us. To do this we start with the mother and the home, two ideas, along with birth, attributed to Cancer.

It can be said that we’re all like children chained to the apron strings of the Great Mother Nature. Bounteous, sacrificial and beautiful in her role as giver of life to our body, she is also the possessive, over-protective mother who tries to hold us close to her ample bosom promising endless sustenance if we don’t threaten her dominance.

Our task is to cut these luxurious apron strings that bind us to her, but not out of anger or rejection, but with a loving understanding that this is the best and only way. Difficult as this is due to our closeness to this great being – she is us and we are her – it is something we all must do. It’s a slow process done over lifetimes of practicing dispassion, detachment and discrimination. We can perhaps help ourselves by asking: ‘What am I hanging onto in my life that I once needed and served me well, but is now only a form of bondage?

The French called it liberty. It’s the search for freedom which is, in essence, that which if we didn’t still have it, or didn’t have to do it, would leave us freer to do that which we are truly here to do. It is not freedom to satisfy our lower personal self, but to be truly free as a soul to serve and work. What chains do we now need to sever so that we can step back a little further from the mother’s alluring charm – the glamours, maya and illusions in our life? It’s never been easy to do and that’s why we need avatars like the Buddha and Christ to show us how to do it.

An example of one such illusion on a world scale is that of refugees. This is a problem close to the heart of Cancer because it’s about home. The word ‘home’ is so highly emotive that it seems to be the source for most of the world’s problems – the many battles and wars fought over territory and the rights of ownership. This is perhaps because with the word ‘home’ comes all those things provided by the great mother Nature – food, shelter, security, family, stability, approval, warmth, withdrawal, control, status, power and the sense of ‘I’ in a scary world.

When we see millions or perhaps billions of homeless people roaming the planet, devastated and uprooted, massing across borders; when we see family’s breaking down and children pawns of parental agendas or dragged from one foster family to the next; and when our own family or loved ones leave or die, we feel as does every human – the pain of losing a sense of home. In a vain effort to stave off this pain we try to hang onto what apparent security we have believing this will help us cope with the travesties of life.

If we do open our self to the plight of others then possibly our first response is to pull up the draw-bridge and turn of the TV. Or maybe we give money to help the NGOs working with the refugees, or perhaps we book a flight to volunteer in a strange land. We may try to open our hearts and minds to the pain of others by using creative visualisation to fill the ether with healing light and love. Our response is probably determined by our own relationship with the mother-matter and all her goodies.

The ageless wisdom teachings say that the mother-matter and father-spirit are really one. Helena Blavatsky tells us that spirit is matter at its highest vibration and matter is spirit at its lowest vibration. They are relative degrees of light and dark. There is no wrong in holding onto things believing we own them, trying to control people – our partners and children believing we need them, or choosing to ignore what’s happening to others. None can judge another’s decisions except by judging our own. So when we see others struggling to survive because the Mother matter-nature seems to have deserted them, we will react according to our own relationship with this all-encompassing material being.

Light
The beliefs that make us who we are – our values, attitudes, likes and dislikes, fears and loves – are all based on what illusions govern us. These illusions are all a consequence of one thing and that is a lack of light. The sign of Cancer is all about light. Its keynote is, ‘I build a lighted house and therein dwell’.

Cancer is a water sign and water is the symbol for the astral realm and the place of human and world glamour. The ancient teacher known as Hermes, who also goes by the names of the Egyptian god Thoth, the wise Mithra and the planet Mercury, taught us about light as the key to dissipating the steam of glamour. He is reputed to have said: “What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that below.” This sets out the basic principle on which alchemy, magic and astrology are founded as well as being the fact behind all laws natural and spiritual including those of materialistic science, economics, politics, education and philosophy.

In other words, it is a profound phrase and worthy of deep contemplation for it holds the key to all we know as life. The Corpus Hermiticum attributed to Hermes, says that: ‘Alchemy is the secret art of transmuting force into energy. This means the transmutation or increasing the vibration of our personality force into soul energy’.(1)

This can be demonstrated in the way that a loving thought or action can transform a negative into a positive through the action of light into the substance of the matter. This material or mother from which our thoughts are made is devic substance and as it’s always moving or vibrating it can be keyed up or down by our thoughts. We can counter a lower vibration with a higher one and so dissipate a potentially harmful thought-form from hurting others. This is so simple that it can be done anytime and anywhere. By changing negative thoughts – ours or others – into positive ones we are taking responsibility for another brick in the wall of the mass of illusions in which we all swim and struggle daily.

Harm and hurt in our thoughts are only the result of the illusion of separateness. It is caused by our seeing the world from one part of the spectrum of light and thinking we either don’t want to, or can’t see, any further. We may have managed to cut some of the apron strings binding our consciousness to the mother matter, but we still hold onto many more. This is the beauty of re-incarnation – the opportunity to keep up the good work of personal redemption through the unfolding revelation of light.

The great thing about Hermes statement that what is above is also below lies in the idea that the above needs the below just as light needs dark. The yin/yang symbol says it all – the higher needs the lower in which to see, intention and then create itself into form. In turn the lower needs the above as a template on which to model its emerging reality. When these two forces meet you have ‘eureka’, lightning, orgasm, birth of a human, an artist’s idea for beauty or a scientist’s brilliant theory that will help the world. This is the basis for the statement by the wisdom teachings that we are living through a transition from one civilisation and culture to another one. We are living in an aeonic moment when spirit and matter are meeting and creation is occurring.

This is the birth of the new age which will be built on a plan for our planet which is known to the spiritual hierarchy and to which we can each contribute by accessing our intuition. The same thing happens on a personal level when we reach up to our soul for insight into our life’s purpose. Both planet and individual are trying to build a new self that is more inclusive of the greater life in which the lesser life finds itself. By meditating on this greater life’s purpose we can shape ourselves and the world to a higher version of ourselves.

When we call on the power of our soul for light so that we can see further into the tunnel of life, we are calling on the Christ consciousness or that light Christ was referring to when he said, “I am the Light of the World”. The light is always available but we may not yet have developed our equipment to register it.

When we consciously redeem our mother or personality bodies we are acting as divine alchemists purifying our baser self so that we can catch the rays of light bouncing from all things. This is referred to by the ageless wisdom as the dim light in the mother. Our task is to increase this light in Mother Nature by increasing it in ourselves.

In our daily use of Cancer’s keynote during the month of July, we are assisted to re-build ourselves into a lighted house. This is the key to rebirth because we can die daily to our conscious limitations or bondage to the mother matter and consciously re-birth ourselves by moving towards the livingness of father spirit via Christ’s light.

As we use our thoughts to creatively visualise a positive from a negative; a nasty thought into a beautiful thought; we are performing an alchemical act. This is the esoteric basis for the sacred marriage of spirit and matter, and by observing our every thought and emotion, we can gradually transform our body into a beautiful radiant vehicle for our soul. The same thing is going on in the lowest parts of the planet’s body – the three sub-human kingdoms of nature. As science has shown, matter is energy which is in constant movement. This is the motion of transmutation from a lower state or slower vibration to a higher. We can see it demonstrated daily when we make a cup of tea. As the water in the kettle heats it moves because the particles are alive and respond to heat by vibrating faster, releasing or transmuting the water sprites or devas into their airier form as steam or gaseous devas.

Whether a human being or a water sprite, we are all struggling towards the light personified by great avatars such as the Christ. We have been given a clear path to follow via the processes of evolution which is a grand plan drawn in that ancient and powerful geometric form, the triangle or divine trinity. Along this path we all travel whether particle of rock dust or human being, from the light of the mother, to the love of the son and then to the father’s power. This is the spiritual way and it demands that as we walk it, we serve, because this trinity is a symbol for the law of life.

This law of service and sacrifice is obvious in the natural ecosystems and symbiosis that underpin our existence. On the human level some of us have forgotten this law and hence the ugly chaos in which we now live. But increasingly we are re-membering or putting back these three members of the trinity so that we can see the whole. By pondering this symbol we can gain access to our true purpose for being here. We are standing on the shoulders of the dim light in the mother to contact the brighter light of the son or soul. This entity is naturally group conscious just as the devas of the natural world are. But our human soul is also self-conscious and we have free-will to follow the divine path of light or our own selfish path. Of course this is how we learn and in the process of fixing up the wrong turns we’ve made in the past, we struggle again towards the light and so redeem mother matter. Nothing is lost in the great scheme of things except our personal time.

We’re told that as we raise the vibration of matter we are able to see the light in it because ‘in that light shall we see light’. As a new way of seeing etherically is developed we will again be able to see the devas of nature and communicate with them, but only once we have separated ourselves from dependence on the mother. Then we can again approach her but now as her loving master, not as her slave.

An example of this process can be seen in the many groups forming to serve the planet rather than only reap her benefits. World service is emerging as we collectively step back and look at the great mother earth in a different light. By cutting many ancient apron strings we can see that we need not own, attack and conquer her, tame or control her from a position of fear. Rather we now see that we can live with and in her with an attitude of love. We can see that this planetary body is the Logos’ vehicle for manifesting his purpose which is the new civilisation. We can see that our own body is also a vehicle through which our soul must manifest its light and love as part of this greater planetary purpose.

Applying Hermes mantram we bring the ‘above’ or father; the transcendent God-spirit, ‘down’ into matter to meet and redeem the ‘below’ or mother-matter. As we utilise this chain of command from higher to lower we see that there is a flow around the triangle much as the return – re-use – recycle symbol suggests. This is referred to as the divine circulatory flow and as we change our attitudes to encompass more of the world and all those in it, we unblock our illusions enabling the love, light and power to do their work of planetary redemption.

From instinct to intellect and thence to intuition we progress as we learn to let more light into our minds, brains and hearts. Alice Bailey says, ‘In the light which enlightenment brings we shall eventually see Light, and the day will come when thousands of the sons of men and countless groups will be able to say with Hermes and with Christ: “I am (or we are) the light of the world.”’(2)

Light & Dark
Cancer can help us see that duality of light and dark in ourselves that makes us and everything, visible. As we know, it’s the relationship between light and dark that enables forms to be seen. We could liken it to our personality or that part of us that is most readily visible, for our soul is often hidden under this bushel.

The personality is like a cave. One well-known ancient avatar Plato, told his pupils a famous story about a cave. It was like a great house where light flickered through cracks in its dense corridors and rooms, throwing shadowy reflections onto the walls. He explained that the inhabitants of the cave believed that the flickering images were the real thing. Then he spoke of those curious and courageous souls who decided to cut the strings of security chaining them to their darkened, musty home. They dared to follow the light that led to an opening through which they bravely ventured. The cave’s inhabitants held their breath wondering what calamity would befall that brazen few, sure they would never return. Yet return they did, full of stories about the outside upper-world where light shone, birds sang and the sky was blue. Of course, the cave-dwellers refused to believe such nonsense, ridiculing them, and so fearful of the unknown were they that they chose to stay in the darkness chained to their illusions.

This familiar tale is the stuff of many great movies about the search for a better life. Those of us who join in group meditations such as this one, who struggle in our lives to see more light, to reject the pedestrian explanation of things, who strive to see and tend our own lamp by which we can walk, are each escaping the lure of mother matter to find father spirit. This climb out of the cave is not so much a leaving behind as a redemption of what was once useful but no longer serves a purpose. It is the process of building a lighted house from the essence or the best of the old house. This is what is happening in the world right now.

By involving ourselves in this process we are using our intelligence and the skills of the occult scientist or alchemist. We are inviting the magical work of our soul into our cave to do its sacred art. This art of spiritual living is based on a ritualised, ordered approach to the everyday so that magic can happen in the truest sense. In the symbolic language of esotericism, a cave is regarded as the place into which we are born and from which we must be re-born. This is the sacred art of transmutation.

Alice Bailey (3) suggests that the stable in which Jesus was born was actually a cave because in those days a stable was hollowed out of the ground. In other stories we’re told that Mithra was also born in a cave before embarking on a life of service and of sacrifice, and we note that all great avatars came from humble beginnings – an allegory of their personality, the mother or cave. Their life showed how they redeemed themselves and then went forth to bring light and revelation to humanity often being sacrificed in the process. Who sacrificed them? Possibly you and I preferring the darkness of our cave – hiding, ridiculing, hating, criticising, or fearing anything we can’t understand. Or worse still, knowing and not acting on what we know.

Cancer is both the sign of imprisonment in matter but also of the opportunity for salvation from this constant wheel of pain suffering and rebirth through its opposite sign of Capricorn and transfiguration of the personality on the mountaintop. As we approach close to the light supernal at the top of the mountain, our own house, our entire body, becomes filled with light. We radiate this light to others and show them the path we have trodden and the way we have come.

The ancient Teacher, Veda Vyasa said that death is not the end and many now know this to be true. To step out of the cave is not death but a new birth. Death is the beginning of life in a new form, whether from a physical death and rebirth, or from the hard work and discipline of the life of discipleship on the spiritual path.

We have transmuted the dark light of instinct found in all matter by developing our intellect to bring in more light. We realise there’s a big world out there waiting for us to govern through love, as we learn to govern ourselves. As our soul light blazes strongly it breaks through to yet another level of light as the limits of our intelligent lower mind are realised and then illumined. We can see further as new vistas beckon and this we call the intuition.

We have utilised the energies of Cancer to travel our path from instinct to intellect to intuition and now we can see that we are part of something much bigger because we have transcended our personal limits. We have transmuted the duality of matter-spirit into a union of great light and beauty. Standing now on the mountaintop in Capricorn we realise a new level of liberty – we can see clearly that we are one. Our task now is to accord this same privilege to all others whether they be our family, our group brothers, the natural and deva kingdoms, or the whole human family.

Sources:
Alice Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’, p. 311 -343
1. Alice Bailey, ‘The Rays and Initiations’, p. 247-285
2. ibid, p. 755-761
3. ibid, ‘From Bethlehem to Calvary’.

Image: ‘Song of the Waterfall’ by Nicholas Roerich

‘Fire and Ice’

Discussion topic: The ‘Boat People’.

Perhaps the key to this new moon in Cancer discussion is: what does ‘home’ mean?

Boat people, refugees, illegal immigrants, scared, desperate, queue jumpers, job takers, scammers… depending on our perspective of these people seeking asylum and a new life in Australia will be how we describe them. And our perspective is formed from our own experiences, attitudes, conditioning, prejudices, and fears. In turn all these things contribute to our concept of who ‘I’ am and what is acceptable for me and what is okay for others. In turn it is said that we mirror the world through the lens of our own sense of who we are.

So what does that mean for our thoughts on the ‘boat people’ and what we each want to say about them?

This is one of the more sensitive subjects we could choose to discuss and I want to re-iterate that there are no right and wrong answers or viewpoints in our group discussions. It’s just a great place to come together in safety and trust to share our ideas and learn from others while contributing to the thought-form of solution to world problems.

Our discussion group focusses on bringing a spiritual perspective to the world’s really hard issues like this one. So perhaps we can ask: ‘what does my soul think of this issue?’

Well, what is the soul? According to Plato it has three parts: ‘One, an immortal or rational part, coming from God; another a mortal, animal or sensitive part, the seat of appetite and sensation, belonging to the body; and a third, lying between these and making their interaction possible—will or spirit—by means of which reason conquered desire. Plants have the lowest part; animals the two lower; but the rational part is exclusively human.’

The Christian teachings say that, ‘there dwells in each human being a potentiality which is called by him “Christ in you,” and which, through its presence, enables every man eventually to attain the status of the Christ.’

Then there’s the Eastern belief in the Akasha, Prana and Fohat. Akasha is the mother aspect or matter – the essence that is the substance for all the forms that we see, hear, touch, taste and experience. It enables the prana or soul to live out its existence in any incarnation. Prana is the soul force or son aspect – the urge to move, to be animated. It is the urge to live, grow and evolve in every atom and person. While Fohat is analogous to what the Christian regards as the spirit; it is the will-to-exist or the Ego of the individual. It is that in us which drives us forward to betterment. In its highest form it is the life principle of God or divine purpose. We’re also told that is the planet’s purpose – to increase the light or intelligence in the soul of humans so that we can radiate that light and love into the Akasha or mother aspect creating eventually the greater glory of the One Life.

This may sound high-fluting but it’s interesting to consider how the choices we make and the attitudes we carry can affect not only other humans but the whole substance of which our world is made. It may perhaps help our discussion to look at the question from this perspective.

What do we share with all others that make us human? The ageless wisdom teachings say that we are each a trinity of soul in form willed by spirit. And this essential self, without worrying about the personality differences of skin colour, face shape, hair type, culture, language or beliefs, is that part of each that seeks betterment, growth, evolution and movement towards the next better thing, whether we realise it or not. In whatever way we express it – getting a better job, meditating, doing a good turn, overcoming a bad habit, practicing the violin, buying a better house or trying to find a new life in a new country – these are all ways our soul is struggling towards the light.

In our decisions each day we can consider whether we are enabling this soul or prana motivated by spirit or fohat, to grow. And if we are, can we allow the same of others? If we are stifling this spark of radiance within ourselves, is this perhaps causing us to try and stifle it within another? If our task is to radiate light and love into the great mother-nature or matter aspect of our planet, how are our choices, attitudes and actions towards other humans affecting the ultimate evolution of our planet?

Do we all have a right to live in peace with sufficient food, shelter, education and all the other rights we take for granted in Australia? Not only from a human perspective but from the greater purpose of the planet, God or divine purpose. It’s not easy to work out this problem when unemployment is rising, housing is often unaffordable and many in Australia are living below the poverty line.

Source: Alice Bailey, ‘The Soul And Its Mechanism’, p.92-109
Image: Photo by Sienna Dean. Sap from a tree symbolises Cancer – birth, the Mother, home.

This New Moon discussion group held on 27 June 2014 at The Box Factory, Regent St South, Adelaide, South Australia. For more on these New Moon groups.

As we walk our spiritual path we may feel as though many friends are dropping off and the things we used to enjoy now hold no interest for us. People we used to feel close to, or who understood us no longer do, and we want to share our true self but no one can really understand. It can be a lonely time torn between the comfortable closeness of the past and the enticing wonders of the spiritual that lie before us.

We know that the path of self-betterment and service is of utmost importance to us and that our own little interests are paling into insignificance against the cry of humanity and the environment for our help. We struggle to find our place in this new way of life – how to serve most effectively given our skills, knowledge, experience and resources?

How to bridge the divide that seems to deepen between the part of us that must live and survive – work and have relationships in the world – and the new self being born. Here is a quote from Alice Bailey that seems to sum up the path of the server:

“The path of the disciple is a thorny one; briars beset his every step, and difficulties meet him at every turn. Yet in the treading of the path, in the overcoming of the difficulties, and in a single-hearted adherence to the good of the group, with a proportionate attention to the individuals and their evolutionary development, comes at length fruition, and the attainment of the goal. A SERVER of the race stands forth. He is a server because he has no ends of his own to serve, and from his lower sheaths goes out no vibration which can beguile him from his chosen path. He serves, because he knows what is in man, and because for many lives he has worked with individuals and with groups, gradually expanding the range of his endeavour until he has gathered around him those units of consciousness whom he can energise, and use, and through whom he can work out the plans of his superiors. Such is the goal, but the intermediate stages are fraught with difficulty for all who stand on the verge of self-discovery, and of becoming the Path itself.’

The key to service is to remember that we are not doing this alone. There are millions world-wide helping to alleviate suffering and build the new world amid the rubble of the old. We are each part of this one world group of servers. There are smaller sub-groups of this international group and they exist in every town – esoteric groups who practice meditation, creative visualisation and who meet to discuss world issues from a spiritual perspective, and who experiment with new forms of living that will characterise the new civilisation and world culture. Then there are the many exoteric groups who give physical aid and succour to help animals, the poor and destitute, the environment and the planet. We can choose which suits us best, join and make a positive difference to the world.

It is important to maintain a positive demeanour amid the pain and suffering in the world. As we walk the spiritual path we become more sensitive to our fellow humans agony, we shudder at the unnecessary suffering of animals and the ignorant decisions made by law-makers that seem to exacerbate the problems, we look at ourselves and see the ways we are contributing to the negativity and try to change our behaviour. While we work on ourselves we can also remember that we humans learn through trial and error so that we can do a better job of tomorrow than we did of today.

As Alice Bailey says, ‘cultivate happiness, knowing that depression, an overmorbid investigation of motive, and undue sensitiveness to the criticism of others leads to a condition wherein a disciple is almost useless. Happiness is based on confidence in the God within, a just appreciation of time, and a forgetfulness of self. Take all the glad things which may come as trusts to be used to spread joy, and rebel not at happiness and pleasure in service, thinking it an indication that all is not well. Suffering comes as the lower self rebels. Control that lower self, eliminate desire, and all is joy.’

The secret to spiritual service and walking the path of self-development and transformation is will, love and courage. These three lead to intelligent action based on wisdom which is love in action. With the intention to always serve with self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech, we will keep ourselves on track through the dark times. Then the reward of more light, love and power to serve will be ours.

Source: Alice Bailey, p. 75-82‘Initiation Human and Solar’
For information on service groups worldwide go to Lucis Trust
For information on New Moon and Full Moon and spiritual Discussion Groups in Adelaide

During June while the sun passes through the constellation of Gemini, we have the opportunity to celebrate the soul of humanity. We can each join with our fellow humans in declaring, ‘I am one with all beings; I am one with the Soul of the World’. By this we mean two things: I am a soul in form, and as a soul, I am one with all souls and the One Over Soul. This great soul is sometimes called the anima mundi or Great Mother.

The anima mundi is the intelligence within every particle of substance, the Universal Soul and the basis for every visible and invisible thing. It reflects itself in every object of the Universe and is the matter-moving Nous found in all forms from the stone with its almost inert consciousness through the flower, dog and human on into higher life forms. It is the pantheistic idea of Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature. (1)

When we come together at the Full Moon in June to celebrate the Festival of Humanity known also as the Festival of the Christ and World Invocation Day, we are acknowledging our oneness with and within this anima mundi or World Soul. We are also recognising that all avatars down the ages and into the future, including the Christ, are examples of this world soul revealing itself to humanity. In Christ we can each see the potential humanness to which we can struggle and aspire because this is our mission. Christ gives us a vision of how we each can and will be, and so also gives us an indication of what the world can look like if we all live as he did. The coming avatar will show us another aspect of ourselves to round-out the picture for the modern era and for this coming we all work and prepare buoyed by the Gemini festival period.

Spiritual Festival of Christ
Gemini is the final full moon that culminates three full moons which together are known as the high point of the spiritual year. The momentum has been building from the festivals of Easter and Wesak and now in this third festival period known as Christ’s Festival, World Invocation Day and Humanity’s Festival, we disperse the energies held in spiritual tension. We have been custodians of this energy as a group mind and soul, and during the five day period of the full moon we are asked to use the Great Invocation as much as possible to maximise the impact of this spiritual energy into our planet.

These three festivals are really one time period just as the trinity is the three aspects of the one Life. In the same way we humans are made of the trinity of personality, soul and spirit, and we find that all forms are really a trinity down to the tiny atom made up of proton, neutron and electron.

Each unit in the world made up of this sacred trinity demonstrates the fact that all forms are part of the one Life and that humanity is one human family and in turn that our family is one with the family of souls in all kingdoms in nature. These first three spiritual festivals of Aries, Taurus and Gemini are really one celebration of the Will or Spirit of God – the Source or the Logos of Light – working through three aspects of itself; its mind, its love and its body. In the months following June we take the energies garnered at this high point and disperse them through the next nine festivals from Cancer through the Pisces.

Christ is a name for humanity’s consciousness of its one soul manifesting through many forms. Within this one soul are different groups made of many individuals. We see the rule of diversity within unity everywhere and this reality is the key to the new age. During this Gemini festival we have the opportunity to each ponder on our place as one diverse unit in the sea of unity. We can wonder at how far we’ve come in our own evolution, and then look forward to a vision of where we have yet to go. With humility we then see our place within our group, the many groups, and the world group.

The Christ consciousness in us holds that vision of who we really are, and when we meditate or in high moments of insight, we can see it. This is what keeps us going towards the light of our true self even during the darkest hours. Our soul knows its personality as an individual consciousness – a highly developed, long-lived and hard-won prize that is not about to give itself up easily to this will-of-the-wisp soul. Yet our solar angel is love and peaceful silent will. It persists in presenting us with a gentle pressure to move forward along the path of service, sacrifice and renunciation, no matter what the cost.

The keynote for Gemini is, ‘I recognise my other self and in the waning of that self, I grow and glow’. In Gemini we have the opportunity to choose between our two selves – personality and soul; and later even between our soul and monad – and, in the waning of that lesser self, to grow and glow. That which grows and glows is the higher expression of itself. The soul stands on the shoulders of its personality so that both soul and personality can see further and be more. The key to Gemini’s purpose is service, for through service to that which is not our ‘other self’ we evolve. We can define service as, ‘a scientific mode of expressing love-wisdom under the influence of one or other of the seven rays, according to the soul ray of the serving disciple’. (2)

The practical effect of service is a constant sloughing of the selfish personal habits and attitudes in favour of seeing and acting as one who lives to serve others. To do this requires constant little renunciations and this can only be done with the courage of the spiritual will. It’s always easier to maintain the known and status quo than to move forward into the unknown, yet we know that life and light are qualities of this unknown, testified to when we do something out of the ordinary and feel that surge of life and joy in our veins.

This ability practised as a regular daily habit, helps to dissipate glamour, maya and illusion because these three are like mould breeding in dark, moist, undisturbed places. The ageless wisdom teachings say that our soul is an angel. We are collectively facing a time when the solar angel or soul of humanity is being called forth by humanity’s own act of invocation. The mould of our selfishness, greed and materialism is choking us and only the most insensitive can pretend the world is all-right. The world is not all-right, it is all-wrong. Any sane and aware person would agree that wherever even one is suffering from limitations put upon its freewill by another, then we are all responsible to change the situation.

Humanity’s angel is ready to assist any individual or group who demands light and love to help this crying planetary need. We need not hide behind the belief that we do not have the power or position to help. When we meditate alone each day, use the Great Invocation, meditate in groups such as this full moon meeting, think positive thoughts, use creative visualisation to send out light and love, take care with our every breath that it be sent on the wings of love, we are using our incarnation to serve and save others and the world.

The ageless wisdom teachings say that through occult meditation or Raja Yoga, we can achieve ‘Samadhi’ which is demonstrated when our rational mind and the abstract mind function as a unit, and the motivating principle for our actions is love. Then our individual soul, expressing love and abstract intelligence, is at one with the brain in our physical body, having achieved alignment between our soul and personality. (3)

As our alignment increases so too does our value to our fellow humans, the plan and the planet because our power to serve is increased ten-fold over one who has no such control over themselves. We are empowered because we are standing on the shoulders of the past truths but only to strengthen us as we reach forward to the future. The force of evolution is destroying all outmoded or past forms of truth that revered matter, forms, phenomena, and the individual’s supremacy and separateness.

This capacity to break with the past is being demonstrated in those who are voluntarily living more simply,from needs rather than unnecessary wants, whilst also being actively engaged in the manifestation of the new world. With a will tempered by daily renunciation of the unnecessary, courage is forged, and it becomes easier to ignore the many temptations of our material world that the status quo still insists are important. Whilst many still stand in the midst of such glamour, millions see the light and vision of a better way. When Christ comes these many individuals and groups will be ready to recognise, support and distribute his teaching to the world.

Balance Through Discipline
Our purpose in service not only assists our own individual evolution but equally as importantly, serves the whole plan laid down by the thinker of our planet, the Logos, the Mind of God. As disciples we have accepted our part in assisting to manifest this plan.

The word ‘disciple’ means disciplined and we learn that the only way to grow our soul’s light, to evolve and more fully serve, is to benchmark our daily life on the industry’s best-practice. For that you can’t go past two well- known avatars – the Christ and the Buddha. In their qualities of discrimination, dispassion and detachment coupled with unconditionally loving human relations, these two avatars showed us the way of the disciple. If we can aspire to this in our daily life then we are on the Way and our life is of increasing value because we are now consciously helping the Buddha and the Christ in the work they began. When the next avatar known by various names, returns, he will show us how to do on a planetary level, what we are each striving to do on a personal level – demonstrate this best practice. This works out as a perfect blend of the past and future, old and new ages, so that the world can be re-built in the image of the humanity that it is to come.

Many are already hard at work on this blending experiment, trying out new and better ways to live together and share our planet and its resources. We’re trying to see a common vision that will guide us forward – a vision of the highest good of the greatest number that respects diversity in unity. It is living by the motto ‘all for one, and one for all’ which is the true meaning of forgiveness and self-sacrifice. This forgiveness draws forth from us the will to sacrifice our lesser nature’s myopic vision in favour of a broader, more synthetic way so that we can see the need and then breathe life into every person, circumstance and situation we meet.

We understand it starts with us managing and mastering ourselves and extends out to others, our society, nation and planet. It’s about how we live in and relate to the anima mundi in a practical way. This world soul is really a hierarchy of consciousness manifesting through different forms so the way we treat a plant, animal and our fellow humans is an indication of our awareness of their soul. When we relate soul to soul we are sharing essence to essence which is really unconditional love and this is the backbone and reality of the whole sacred nature of Life.

The key to best-practice is seeing all life in its essential relationships. Our past and present perception is based on the duality of ‘heaven and hell’ of ‘us and them’ or ‘life and death’ where the line is drawn across a square separating two parts. The new way of seeing is a level playing field where there are no separating lines because all are the same yet also different. We can see this because we can embrace a new multi-dimensional paradox that is in dynamic equilibrium, as different from the old rigid duality which is a static set of opposing states – great for soapy dramas and the two-party system of adversarial politics, but increasingly useless for our emerging humanity.

At present in this change-over time we can see many embracing this paradox but only on the horizontal plane so that increasingly anything goes. The trend of the intelligentsia is towards an acceptance of any lifestyle, belief or choice because it’s seen as un-intelligent to see right or wrong in anyone or any action. But the new world needs not just a loosening up on the horizontal or exoteric plane of existence. If that’s all we did there would be a new form of chaos as the planet became increasingly personalised, fragmented and separated as groups and individuals went their separate ways and anarchy or the right to do as you like, reigned. Some may like this but the planetary law is that if it can’t work for all, it can’t work for any. The only solution into the future is for a balance between the horizontal world of the individual free-will, and the vertical planes of spiritual law and aspiration. Or of a reverence for both God transcendent and immanent.

The planetary hierarchy is the pathway through the horizontal and vertical which becomes the spiritual path all disciples follow towards greater light. Like the world tree this hierarchy holds in its trunk, branches and leaves every life-form enabling it to emanate its unique essence whilst becoming increasingly aware that it is part of this great tree. The hierarchy is the template of joyful sacrifice and love underpinning all life which will eventually demonstrate as unity in diversity where each knowingly contributes his part to the greater whole. This is perhaps the reality behind the divine Plan and Purpose of our planetary and solar Logos – to extend in consciousness both upwards and outwards to greater levels of sensitivity whilst also acting as a conscious channel for energy to flow into, around and through, enabling perfection of the divine circulatory flow..

We humans have a place in this great tree of life, the anima mundi, and we need to neither struggle nor fear for none is forgotten. This is the reality behind the inner knowing many of us have that abundance not scarcity, love not hate, peace not strife and meaning not alienation, should be and will be, the governing qualities of our life and our world. The more who sense this are making testimony to the wisdom teachings statement that, ‘Nothing under heaven can arrest the progress of the human soul on its long pilgrimage from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real, from death to immortality, and from ignorance to wisdom’. (4)

While the sun transits Gemini we can individually and collectively, deepen contact with our own soul and that soul in all forms. As the metaphysician Hegel says: ‘the essence of man is spirit…only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man as man in whom the Unity of god-man…appeared, has in his death and history…presented the eternal history of Spirit – a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.’ (5)

It is this Christ consciousness, the anima-mundi, the soul within each of us that makes of us heroes. On World Invocation Day we celebrate life’s true heroes – the mostly unsung individuals and groups that make up the world workers striving in every avenue of the globe to bring light into dark places.

It takes daily courage, discipline and constant renewal to be able to stay on top of the lure of matter or the past. As the Agni Yoga teachings say: ‘The present-day hero is sustained by the realization that from no earthly quarter can he expect cooperation. When he says, ‘I will not abandon the field of battle’, he already finds new strength. We are ready to provide the strengthening current in accordance with the firmness of his decision not to abandon the battle. We do know… how difficult it is to carry light in the darkness, because this light is seen by others, but not by the one who carries it. Besides, those who sleep cannot stand the light… We are told once again, create heroes.’ (6)

Gemini is a mutable sign and change is an ever present factor in our current age of transition. According to esoteric astrology, Gemini channels the second ray of Love Wisdom into our planet and this is the prime quality of the soul. The Great Invocation voiced by millions during World Invocation Day, is the voice of the soul of humanity crying, ‘hallelujah’ to this fact. We celebrate our task in world salvage – the task we or our solar angel has chosen even if our personality has forgotten. On World Invocation day we have the opportunity to give thanks for the hierarchy of support – the world soul – that exists because we do, and that enables us to exist because it does.

As the Bhagavad Gita says, ‘Whenever there is a withering of the law and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides, then I manifest Myself. For the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of such as do evil, for the firm establishing of the Law, I come to birth age after age.’(7)

In this ongoing and rhythmic revelation of the next phase in planetary evolution, we can be assured that, ‘at the founding of a new race, or in the awakening of a prepared humanity to a new and wider vision, the Heart of God—impelled by the law of compassion—sends forth a Teacher, a World Saviour, an Illuminator, an Avatar. He gives the message which will heal, which will indicate the next step to be taken by the race, which will illumine a dark world problem and give to man an expression of a hitherto unrealised aspect of divinity. Upon this fact of the continuity of revelation and upon the sequence of this progressive manifestation of the divine nature is based the doctrine of Avatars, of divine Messengers, divine Appearances, and inspired Prophets. To all these history unmistakably testifies.’ (8)

The Great Invocation is humanity’s soul voicing an appeal, and it’s also that appeal being met by the spiritual hierarchy. It is a call from one soul to another, from the lesser to the greater, asking for help in a time when the resources of the lesser are not enough to deal with the task at hand. If we shy away from saying this invocation, feel foolish or disbelieve its potency, it’s only because our lower self, like the dark moon, is getting in the way of the light.

Using the Great Invocation is not a reneging of human responsibility for making the necessary changes and finding solutions to the problems we’ve caused. The balanced way is to see what we can do with our limited human vision, whilst also acknowledging the assistance available to us from higher spiritual beings who have a broader perspective. The law of karma ensures that we must heal what we have damaged, but we can also ask for help once we’ve gone some way to doing the work ourselves. As the old adage says, ‘The Lord helps them that helps themselves’; or as any wise parent says to a child whining because they have to clean up their toys: ‘you begin and then I’ll help you’.

Sources:
Alice Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’,
1. Helena Blavatsky, ‘Secret Doctrine, Vol I, p. 48-51)
2. Alice Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’, p. 477
3. ibid, ‘Treatise on White Magic’, p.89
4. ibid, ‘Reappearance of the Christ’, p. 136-159
5. Philosophy of History’ p. 340, quoted in SD I, p.52
6. Agni Yoga, sutra 290
7. The Bhagavad Gita, Book IV, Sutra 7, 8
8. Alice Bailey, ‘Externalisation of the Hierarchy’, p. 285-313

.

‘World Invocation Day is a world day of prayer and meditation when men and women of every spiritual path join in a universal appeal to divinity and use the Great Invocation. Together they focus the invocative demand of humanity for the light, the love and the spiritual direction needed to build a world of justice, unity and peace.

As we begin the new millennium, we face the fact that materialistic values have led humanity to a state of profound crisis. Our very survival is threatened, not only by militarism, but by our lack of wisdom and will to feed the hungry, to share our plentiful resources, and to solve the many other critical problems which confront the human family.

Yet the solution exists. One of the greatest insights of our time is that of the interdependence and interrelatedness of all life. Today millions of people share the conviction of an inner spiritual unity within humanity which transcends any outer differences of race, nation and creed. As men and women of goodwill the world over give expression to this conviction in their lives, a process of planetary transformation is taking place. A new civilisation is emerging which embraces all peoples and is founded upon the recognition of our common humanity and right human relations.

The world’s problems are of humanity’s making and they are for humanity to solve. But the essence of the spiritual life lies in knowing that we are not alone. The energies of divinity are abundantly available and, on World Invocation Day, an appeal is made for the release of the energies which will enable humanity to create the new civilisation.

Today the reappearance of the World Teacher is expected by millions, by those of every faith who expect the Avatar under such names as the Christ, the Lord Maitreya, Krishna, Messiah, Imam Mahdi and the Bodhisattva. The use of the Great Invocation is one of humanity’s most potent tools in preparing human consciousness for the reappearance of this World Teacher.

To use the Great Invocation is world service for it speaks directly to world need today. We need light to illumine the way ahead and reveal the vision of a new civilisation; we need love to govern the relationships between people and bring to an end the reign of hatred and separatism; we need the power of the will-to-good to direct human choice and decision making. The universal use of the Great Invocation on World Invocation Day charges this day with deep spiritual significance, for it builds a channel through which light, love and power can reach and irradiate the hearts and minds of people everywhere.

Most of the festivals of the major world religions are held in accordance with the lunar calendar. The date of World Invocation Day is also determined in this way. It follows on two months from the Christian Festival of Easter and one month from the Buddhist Festival of Wesak.

Each year, since 1952, people everywhere have celebrated World Invocation Day, joining in the affirmation of the oneness of humanity, the livingness of our relationship to God and the responsibility of humanity for the working out of the divine Plan on earth.

Will you join in observing World Invocation Day through the united use of the Great Invocation, and will you join in making this day widely known?’

Source: Lucis Trust

Download a World Invocation Day 2014 flyer on World Invocation Day celebrations in Adelaide, South Australia.

THE GREAT INVOCATION*

From the point of Light within the mind of God
Let light stream forth into human minds
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into human hearts
May the Coming One return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide all little human wills
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the human race
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

*In accordance with the changing conciousness and language of humanity as we enter into the Aquarian Age, this “adapted” wording for the Great Invocation is offered in the hope that it will encourage wider distribution of this world prayer.

New Moon meeting Thursday 29 May, 2014

Topic: The Reappearance of the Christ

‘Whenever there is a withering of the law and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides, then I manifest Myself.

For the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of such as do evil, for the firm establishing of the Law, I come to birth age after age.’
THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Book IV, Sutra 7, 8.

Below is a quote from Alice Bailey’s book, ‘The Reappearance of the Christ’. Given that the next Full Moon on Friday 13 June is the climax of the three spiritual festivals, and called the Christ’s Festival or World Invocation Day, I thought it may be useful to discuss what The Christ means to each of us and how we view the idea of his reappearance. Part of this question could also discuss the concept of the spiritual Hierarchy of which, we’re told, Christ is the head. Below are a few questions that we could address in the light of a quote from Alice Bailey on this topic.

• Do we believe it will happen?
• Do we think it needs to happen?
• Who is ‘The Christ?’ How does this translate to other religions, cultures and times before religion?
• What does this statement below mean to us each personally?

As always in our discussion there are no right and wrongs. No one of us has the absolute truth, we just come together in a spirit of love and goodwill to share our ideas and perhaps thereby help to expand our views. The main purpose is to do our part to open up the cracks to let more light in.

‘Right down the ages, in many world cycles and in many countries (and today in all countries), great points of tension have occurred which have been characterised by a hopeful sense of expectancy. Someone is expected and His coming is anticipated. Always in the past, it has been the religious teachers of the period who have fostered and proclaimed this expectancy and the time has always been one of chaos and difficulty, of a climaxing point at the close of a civilisation or culture and when the resources of the old religions have seemed inadequate to meet men’s difficulties or to solve their problems. The coming of the Avatar, the advent of a Coming One and, in terms of today, the reappearance of the Christ are the keynotes of the prevalent expectancy.

When the times are ripe, the invocation of the masses is strident enough and the faith of those who know is keen enough, then always He has come and today will be no exception to this ancient rule or to this universal law. For decades, the reappearance of the Christ, the Avatar, has been anticipated by the faithful in both hemispheres—not only by the Christian faithful, but by those who look for Maitreya and for the Boddhisattva as well as those who expect the Imam Mahdi.

When men feel that they have exhausted all their own resources and have come to an end of all their own innate possibilities and that the problems and conditions confronting them are beyond their solving or handling, they are apt to look for a divine Intermediary and for the Mediator Who will plead their cause with God and bring about a rescue. They look for a Saviour. This doctrine of Mediators, of Messiahs, of Christs and of Avatars can be found running like a golden thread through all the world faiths and Scriptures and, relating these world Scriptures to some central source of emanation, they are found in rich abundance everywhere. Even the human soul is regarded as an intermediary between man and God; Christ is believed by countless millions to act as the divine mediator between humanity and divinity.

The whole system of spiritual revelation is based (and has always been based) on this doctrine of interdependence, of a planned and arranged conscious linking and of the transmission of energy from one aspect of divine manifestation to another—from God in the “secret Place of the Most High” to the humblest human being, living and struggling and sorrowing on earth. Everywhere this transmission is to be found; “I am come that they may have life” says the Christ, and the Scriptures of the world are full of the intervention of some Being, originating from some source higher than the strictly human. Always the appropriate mechanism is found through which divinity can reach and communicate with humanity, and it is with this communication and these Instruments of divine energy that the doctrine of Avatars or of divine “Coming Ones” has to do.’ (p. 0-14)

NOTES:
ref: ‘Reappearance of the Christ’ by Alice Bailey.

1. An Avatar focusses or anchors a dynamic truth, a potent thoughtform or a vortex of magnetic energy in the world of human living. This focal point acts increasingly as a transmitter of spiritual energy; it enables humanity to express some divine idea and this in time produces a civilisation with its accompanying culture, religions, policies, governments and educational processes. Thus is history made. History is after all only the record of humanity’s cyclic reaction to some inflowing divine energy, to some inspired leader, or to some Avatar.’ (p. 0-14)

2. The reason He has not yet come again is that the needed work has not been done by His followers in all countries. His coming is largely dependent, on right human relations. This the church has hindered down the centuries, and has not helped because of its fanatical zeal to make “Christians” of all peoples and not followers of the Christ. (p. 13)

3. In any acceptance of the teaching that Christ will come, one of the difficulties today is the feeling that the teaching has been given for many centuries and nothing has ever happened. The expectancy of His coming is nothing new; in it lies nothing unique or different; those who still hold to the idea are regarded tolerantly, or with amusement or pity, as the case may be. A study of times and seasons, of significances, of divine intention or of the will of God, plus a consideration of the world situation, may lead us, however, to believe that the present time is unique in more ways than one, and that the Christ is confronted with an unique occasion. This unique opportunity with which He is presented is brought about by certain world conditions which themselves are unique; there are factors present in the world today, and happenings have taken place within the past century which have never before occurred; it might profit us if we considered these matters and so gained a better perspective. The world to which He will come is a new world, if not yet a better world; new ideas are occupying people’s minds and new problems await solution. Let us look at this uniqueness and gain some knowledge of the situation into which the Christ will be precipitated. Let us be realistic in our approach to this theme and avoid mystical and vague thinking. If it is true that He plans to reappear, if it is a fact that He will bring His disciples, the Masters of the Wisdom, with Him, and if this coming is imminent, what are some of the factors which He and they must take into consideration(p. 16):

i)He will come to a world which is essentially one world. His reappearance and His consequent work cannot be confined to one small locality or domain unheard of by the great majority, as was the case when He was here before. The radio, the press and the dissemination of news will make His coming different to that of any previous Messenger; the swift modes of transportation will make Him available to countless millions, and by boat, rail and plane they can reach Him: through television, His face can be made familiar to all, and verily “every eye shall see Him.”
ii)The sensitivity of the people of the world to what is new or needed is also uniquely different; man has progressed far in his reaction to both good and evil and possesses a far more sensitive response apparatus than did humanity in those earlier times. If there was a quick response to the Messenger when He came before, it will be more general and quicker now, both in rejection and in acceptance. Men are more enquiring, better educated, more intuitive and more expectant of the unusual and the unique than at any other time in history.(p.17)
iii)Christ will find a world uniquely free from the grip and hold of ecclesiasticism-there has been a useful and wholesome swing away from Churchianity and from orthodox religion during the past century, and this will present a unique opportunity for the restoration of true religion and the presentation of a simple return to the ways of spiritual living.
iv)He may reappear in a totally unexpected guise; who is to say whether He will come as a politician, an economist, a leader of the people (arising from the midst of them), a scientist or an artist? (p.18)
v)The common people are today awakening to the importance and responsibility of government; it is, therefore, realised by the Hierarchy that before the cycle of true democracy (as it essentially exists and will eventually demonstrate) can come into being, the education of the masses in cooperative statesmanship, in economic stabilisation through right sharing, and in clean, political interplay is imperatively necessary. (p. 19)
vi)The development of spiritual recognition is the great need today in preparation for His reappearance; no one knows in what nation He will come; He may appear as an Englishman, a Russian, a Negro, a Latin, a Turk, a Hindu, or any other nationality. Who can say which? He may be a Christian or a Hindu by faith, a Buddhist or of no particular faith at all; He will not come as the restorer of any of the ancient religions, including Christianity, but He will come to restore man’s faith in the Father’s love, in the fact of the livingness of the Christ and in the close, subjective and unbreakable relationship of all men everywhere.
vii)Everywhere, in all countries, there are thousands who are interested in the fact of that Hierarchy, who believe in the Masters of the Wisdom. The churches in all countries have familiarised the public with the phrase “the Kingdom of God”; the esotericists and occultists everywhere have publicised the fact of the Hierarchy during the past century; the spiritualists have laid the emphasis upon the aliveness of those who have passed over into the hidden world of being, and their Guides have also borne testimony to the existence of an inner, spiritual world. All this creates a unique preparedness which presents the Christ with unique opportunities and unique problems.(p.20)
viii)Penetration of the Buddha’s teachings into the West. The Buddha is the symbol of enlightenment and there is everywhere today a unique emphasis upon light. Countless millions down the ages have recognised the Buddha as the Light Bearer from on high. His Four Noble Truths exposed the causes of human trouble and pointed to the cure. He taught: Cease to identify yourselves with material things or with your desires; gain a proper sense of value; cease regarding possessions and earthly existence as of major importance; follow the Noble Eightfold Path which is the Path of right relations—right relations to God, and right relations to your fellowmen—and thus be happy.
viv)The present time is unique in that it is (as never before) a cycle or period of conferences—communal, national and international—and of men getting together. Clubs, forums, committees, conferences, and leagues are forming everywhere for the discussion and study of human welfare and liberation; this phenomenon is one of the strongest indications that the Christ is on His way. He is the embodiment of freedom, and the Messenger of Liberation. He stimulates the group spirit and the group consciousness, and His spiritual energy is the attractive force, binding men together for the common good. His reappearance will knit and bind together all men and women of goodwill throughout the world, irrespective of religion or nationality. His coming will evoke among men a widespread and mutual recognition of the good in all.

4. Before Christ could come with His disciples, our present civilisation had to die. During the coming century, we shall begin to learn the meaning of the word “resurrection,” and the new age will begin to reveal its deep purpose and intention. The first step will be the emergence of humanity from the death of its civilisation, of its old ideas and modes of living, the relinquishing of its materialistic goals and its damning selfishness, and its moving forward into the clear light of the resurrection. (p.24)

The Next New Moon meeting in Adelaide is on Thursday 29 May, 2014 from 5.30 – 6.30pm at The Box Factory Community Centre. For more information go to New Moon tab on this site.
For information on the next Full Moon meeting in Adelaide celebrating World Invocation Day go to the Full Moon tab on this site. Further information on World Invocation Day 2014 will be posted soon on this site or go to Lucis Trust.

While the Sun is transiting through the constellation Taurus we have the opportunity to understand more about our purpose here on earth. ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What is it to be a human?’ These are age-old questions and many of us fall back on these ponderings when a crack appears in the fabric of our apparently safe life.

When our life’s fallen in a hole and our outer props have collapsed, we tend to fall back on something bigger – some find this to be within, others look without themselves. No matter where we look, it’s our values that seem to come under the microscope because by pondering the big questions like, ‘am I on the right track?’ We must re-evaluate our trajectory.

As we mature, and this question and answer process becomes commonplace in our daily life, we realise that there are no black-and-white easy answers to life’s big questions. The process of discrimination refines from good and bad to shades of grey, yet always it is our values that are being challenged and re-shaped.

In Australia at present we’re experiencing an interesting process of house cleaning as the two-party system of government polarises more than it has for a long time. This makes us feel both uncomfortable and exhilarated. At last we can see more clearly what makes up our populous – the extremes and all those in between. We may not like what we see.

The Australian Government recently released its 2014 budget and many are not happy. But to try and see clearly what’s really going on perhaps it’s useful to draw on the Taurean energies of illumination shining onto our planet during May. We can demand more light be shone onto the matters being raised so that we can add a wise and carefully thought through comment to the voice of public opinion.

LightTaurus and the Buddha are associated with illumination. The ageless wisdom teachings say that the Buddha clarified for us the nature of desire and its unhappy effects caused by persistent unenlightened wishes and demands for things, experiences or people to satisfy us.

The key to transmuting desire into aspiration is seeing a higher vision for ourselves and our life’s purpose. In ‘Esoteric Astrology’ we read that, ‘… in Taurus, the man comes to the point wherein the real goal or the true vision appears.’(1) When the Sun is in Taurus we celebrate the Eastern Festival of Wesak or Vaisakha. This is the festival of the Buddha who, says the wisdom teachings, embodies light and divine purpose.

We can wonder as we listen to endless commentary, at how much wisdom is contained in the din of voices each shouting their own agenda into the crowd. How many of us can really rise above the politics of our own positions and demonstrate statesman-like power in the quality of our discussion?

Just as last month we celebrated Easter and the forces of restoration or the way to a consciousness of livingness rather than of death, so this month we celebrate the forces of enlightenment. These are forces or spiritual entities that bring light into our planet so that we can each access more light and so see our way more clearly. During the Taurus full moon we can gain a clearer vision of our way forward.

It can be helpful to take time out from the demands of the desire body of our physical needs, our emotional drives and our lower mind’s demand for constant excitement, to ponder deeply the problems of our time. In Australia we can wonder at what good may come from a budget and now a government disliked by so many – will it help to lift us out of our complacency? The shock of seeing our darker side via our politicians may urge us to think through to a clearer vision of what sort of nation we want to be? What IS right – not just for the rich or the poor, for the middle working class or the self-funded retirees, the students or the young, but for all? We perhaps need to look at the principle of the highest good of the greatest number.

This principle may be a useful guiding light that we can use to consider the myriad of problems faced by all nations: resources, employment, equality, sharing, justice, immigration, and the corporate and government corruption being revealed across the globe.

This may sound an idealistic principle but it really means considering how our individual lifestyles impact on the higher good. We can blame the servants we choose to be our masters, or we can take mastery of ourselves and thereby one day perhaps, the world will be served by the spiritually enlightened.

We can also consider what drives nations or people to elect governments and how much does a government reflect the people? Better perhaps to begin by changing ourselves in line with the type of government we do want. Then we can also speak clearly about the principles that lie behind our choices whilst checking that they fulfil the principle of the highest good of the greatest number. This ensures that each individual is able to exercise their free will while ensuring this will is seen as part of a greater whole.

Taurus governs the second house of the zodiac; the house of values and material resources as well as the vision. The energies released during Wesak help us to get a clearer vision of something larger than ourself – from our family, social and national affiliations, through our group work and global human family of nations and individuals. With this expanding vision of who we are, our values grow and become more inclusive. Many are realising the wonderful task ahead for humanity: to live as a planet of globally aware citizens, practising goodwill and positive relations whilst consciously acting as a funnel for the higher spiritual energies into the lower kingdoms in nature.

Liberation Through LightMany of us now see our future role as planetary custodians, we are pushing to the threshold of the limits of the lower mind to solve our global problems. We know that nations, countries and individuals acting in isolated self-interest can’t show us the way ahead. That is why information about the new group of world servers, group meditation, the spiritual Hierarchy and the plan is important. We can’t do this alone – as individuals or nations – we need each other. Those who are working together in groups with a spiritualised consciousness, are showing the way ahead through their practice of goodwill and cooperative human relationships. As a group each individual can become telepathic and access the vision of a plan for the whole world and all humans. A plan that values the individual yet also works for all individuals.

The key to successful group work or any cooperative venture, is a shared vision. In the new age this doesn’t mean a leader telling us what to do, but it does require that each individual carefully consider who they are and what they stand for. In Taurus we can trim our lamp, refine our values so that they can be clearly shared with others. Then we are each empowered and motivated to take ownership of our world and try to live to the highest we can and so show others the way forward.

The process is fraught with difficulty as we know. It’s a good idea but hard to practice because as each shows their light, they want others to see it the same way. So we can have vying opinions believing our way is best. In groups we may argue about how to proceed. This is why a shared vision is paramount to any family, group or nations ability to work together. In the end we need a global or planetary vision, combined with goodwill to all humans which allows for each to differ in their method of living, yet with all aiming at the same goal. Tolerance without being patronising, caring without stultifying the need for experience and experiment, and allowance for a hierarchy of individual development which leaves us each free to be who we need to be at any time whilst aware that we are also part of one unfolding whole. This is the basis of the divine plan held in custody by the spiritual Hierarchy of our planet.

Taurus is the bull in astrological symbolism, and the Buddha has been called the ‘diamond eye’. In Esoteric Astrology we read that, ‘The ‘diamond shaped formation…is the prototypal pattern which lies behind the etheric network and is its final, conditioning influence as far as the earth is concerned. It is…the ‘diamond soul’ of which the Buddha is an exponent.’ (2)

In the Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky we read that the Pleiades are found in the neck of the Bull, the constellation Taurus; that they are in the Milky Way and are considered as the central point around which our universe of fixed stars revolves.(3)

As we study our place here on earth we cannot but wonder at how far our influence extends out into the universe and how much we are affected by the constant bombardment of cosmic rays into our planet. Astronomers tell us that hundreds of cosmic rays from sources within the Milky Way pass through our thumbs every minute, while slightly lesser amount of higher energy waves from outside our System are also continually passing through us.(4) So it’s obvious that we must be affected by energies coming also from places like the seven stars of the Pleiades and the constellations and stars of the zodiac through which we circuit annually.

This journey round the zodiac and through incarnations, as well as learning to handle so many powerful energies and forces, necessitates persistence, endurance and continuity of effort – qualities of the will – if we are to achieve our goal. This is different from the usual interpretation of the will which is rushing forward treading on all obstacles in our fervent belief that it’s our way or the highway. The divine will is the power underlying the purpose held in trust by the diamond eye in Taurus. It’s called the peaceful, silent will. The divine plan is the next phase of this divine will ready for us to manifest into reality on our planet.

To gain a vision of this plan and so help others to also see the path ahead for all humans and the whole planet, we each need also to be willing to re-evaluate what we hold to be true as the light shown to us increases the area of our consciousness. As we participate in group meditation we will find that the light that is in us is expanded and so we are challenged to grow and change our values. This is a painful and difficult process.

The keynote for Taurus is, ‘I see and when the eye is opened, all is light’. With the help of the Taurean energies this month we can learn more about how to use our will for the highest good of the greatest number. In turn this can open up a greater sense of our individual purpose as part of the greater purpose. As we clean up our own act, we are performing a valuable service to the planet because we are not acting as yet another brick in the wall. We are refining our light body so that more light, love and power can shine through us. As well as perhaps speaking our truth, we also walk and live our truth. We join with others doing the same and become a lighted network throughout the planet, revealing through our words and deeds, what the New Age can look like for everyone.

Sources:

1. Alice Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’, p. 370-404
2. ibid p. 605
3. Helena Blavatsky, ‘Secret Doctrine’ vol II. p. 582. and ‘Esoteric Astrology’ p. 678-679
4. Nadia Drake, ‘In search of a Cosmic Engine’, in ‘Cosmos Magazine’ no 48, p. 68-70

There are many traps along the spiritual path and one of them is called the glamour of sentiment. According to the ageless wisdom teachings, a glamour is like a mist or fog in which we wander and which distorts all that we see and contact. It prevents us from ever seeing life truly or clearly. Think of the word glamour applied to make-up, make-overs, fashion and ‘good taste’.

We may be aware of this particular glamour of sentiment as a type of false love in our own life. We can become aware of it in a flash or sudden insight about our behaviour and attitudes to others that aren’t working well for us or them. We can clearly see a higher truth or way of loving. But just as quickly as the insight came, the glamour settles over us and again we find it hard to see clearly. We revert back to our old behaviours. But we’re never the same. Now we feel frustrated with ourselves because we know we’re in a fog, we don’t like our behaviour, yet can’t work out how to escape it. We are constantly deceived by appearances and forget what the appearance veils. We continue on as before but now less glamoured than before.

This glamour of sentimental love holds many good people in its thrall. As we progress along the path of our evolutionary journey, many of us are rejecting materiality and love of possessions for love of people and their plight. We are turning our desire for things into desire to help and to love. But, as the ageless wisdom teachings say, this desire can demonstrate in unhealthy ways and becomes the glamour of sentiment. It is the desire to be loved, appreciated and approved of. It comes from our still wanting to be the centre of our love. It can stem from a pride that we are better than others, doing more than them to save others, ambitious to shine in our efforts to save the world.

‘Love, for many people, for the majority indeed, is not really love but a mixture of the desire to love and the desire to be loved, plus a willingness to do anything to show and evoke this sentiment, and consequently to be more comfortable in one’s own interior life. The selfishness of the people who are desirous of being unselfish is great. So many contributing sentiments gather around the sentiment or desire to show those amiable and pleasant characteristics which will evoke a corresponding reciprocation towards the would-be lover or server who is still completely surrounded by the glamour of sentiment.

It is this pseudo-love, based primarily on a theory of love and service, which characterises so many human relationships such as those existing, for instance, between husband and wife, parents and their children. Glamoured by their sentiment for them and knowing little of the love of the soul which is free itself and leaves others free also, they wander in a dense fog, often dragging with them the ones they desire to serve in order to draw forth a responsive affection.’

The true meaning of “affection,” is not love but the desire we express through our astral body which in turn affects those with whom we come into contact. This is different from true love which comes from the, ‘the spontaneous desirelessness of the soul which asks nothing for the separated self’.

It is worth considering what effects this glamour of sentiment may be doing to those we think we love and try to help. It may be tying them to use in webs of conditions and obligations which should never exist and which must eventually be dissipated by the pouring in of true and selfless love.

A Solution
When we find ourselves in the midst of the fog and glamour of sentimentality we may be advised to ‘call in the soul’ to fix the problem and throw light on it. But this may only intensify the glamour. The ageless wisdom teachings suggest that for this type of glamour it is more effective to, ‘subject one’s astral and emotional nature to the effect of hard straight thinking, using the mind as the instrument whereby glamour can be dispelled.’

‘The mind is the means whereby light can be brought to bear on all conditions of glamour, and students would do well to bear this thought constantly in their consciousness. The process is one of linking up the mind with the soul and then focussing oneself consciously and with precision in the mind nature or in the mental body, and not in the soul nature or the egoic form. Then, through analysis, discrimination and right thought one proceeds to deal with the problem of glamour.’

This is not an easy problem to overcome – glamour besets most of us. The task is to be constantly vigilant and remember that anything we do that has its basis in pride, separativeness and criticism, or the need to be loved, to control or to be appreciated, are probably based on glamour. Another important consideration is that we are not alone in trying to improve the world. When we realise our task is just a tiny part of a global network of individuals and groups working together to heal the world, we can at least help to rent a hole in the veil of the glamour of separativeness. This may be the last bastion of glamours – that makes us believe we’re alone. From this glamour spring all others especially the glamour of sentiment, for this is the glamour that drives our incessant desire to find, control and hold onto love no matter what the cost to others.

(from ‘Glamour: A World Problem’ Alice Bailey p. 25-93)