Login screen

Ik heb mezelf even Aurobindo gewaand en een inlogscherm geprogrammeerd in C#. Het werkt!

Money as debt

Marlies en Kristof

Sri Aurobindo - Lettres on yoga.

The hostile Forces are Powers of Darkness who are in revolt against the Light and the Truth and want to keep this world under their rule in darkness and ignorance. Whenever anyone wants to reach the Truth, to realise the Divine, they stand in the way as much as possible. But what they are specially against is the work the Mother and myself are doing, to bring down the Light here into the earth and establish the Truth—that would mean their own expulsion. So they always try to destroy the work as a whole and to spoil the sadhana of each sadhak. It is not only you who are attacked: all are attacked more or less—especially when there is a great progress, these forces try to interfere.

The only way to avoid it is to be entirely turned towards the Mother and to refuse any opportunity to these Forces.

[...]

Sometimes they possess men in order to act through them, sometimes they take birth in a human body. When their use in the play is over, they will either change or disappear or no longer seek to intervene in the earth-play.

[...]

These things [such as temptation by Apsaras] are possible but they do not usually happen—because it is difficult for beings of the subtle worlds to materialise to such an extent or for a long time. They prefer to act by influencing human beings, using them as instruments or taking possession of a human mind and body.

[...]

There are two kinds of Asuras—one kind were divine in their origin but have fallen from their divinity by self-will and opposition to the intention of the Divine: they are spoken of in the Hindu scriptures as the former or earlier gods; these can be converted and their conversion is indeed necessary for the ultimate purposes of the universe. But the ordinary Asura is not of this character, is not an evolutionary but a typal being and represents a fixed principle of the creation which does not evolve or change and is not intended to do so.

These Asuras, as also the other hostile beings, Rakshasas, Pisachas and others resemble the devils of the Christian tradition and oppose the divine intention and the evolutionary purpose in the human being; they don’t change the purpose in them for which they exist which is evil, but have to be destroyed like the evil. The Asura has no soul, no psychic being which has to evolve to a higher state; he has only an ego and usually a very powerful ego; he has a mind, sometimes even a highly intellectualised mind; but the basis of his thinking and feeling is vital and not mental, at the service of his desire and not of truth. He is a formation assumed by the life-principle for a particular kind of work and not a divine formation or a soul.

[...]

Yes. Some kinds of Asuras are very religious, very fanatical about their religion, very strict about rules of ethical conduct. Others of course are just the opposite. There are others who use spiritual ideas without believing in them to give them a perverted twist and delude the sadhaka. It is what Shakespeare described as the Devil quoting Scripture for his own purpose. At present what they are most doing is to try to raise up the obscurity and weakness of the most physical mind, vital, material parts to prevent the progress or fulfilment of the sadhana.

[...]

The Asuras are really the dark side of the mental, ormore strictly, of the vital mind plane. This mind is the very field of the Asuras. Their main characteristic is egoistic strength and struggle, which refuse the higher law. The Asura has self-control, tapas and intelligence, but all that for the sake of his ego. On the lower vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshasas which represent violent passions and influences. There are also other kinds of beings on the vital plane which are called the Pisachas and Pramathas. They manifest more or less in the physico-vital. On the physical plane the corresponding forces are obscure beings, more forces than beings, what the Theosophists call the elementals. They are not strongly individualised beings like the Rakshasas and Asuras, but ignorant and obscure forces working in the subtle physical plane. What we in Sanskrit call the Bhutas mostly come under this class. But there are two kinds of elementals, the one mischievous and the other not. There are no Asuras on the higher planes where the Truth prevails, except in the Vedic sense—“the Divine in its strength”. The mental and vital Asuras are only a deviation of that power.

[...]

The Gandharvas are of the vital plane but they are vital Gods, not Asuras. Many Asuras are beautiful in appearance and can carry even a splendour or light with them. It is the Rakshasas, Pisachas, etc. who are ugly or evil in appearance.

[...]

Some of the vital beings are very intelligent—but they do not make friends with the Light—they only try to avoid destruction and wait their time.

[...]

The hostile forces exist and have been known to Yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and Chaldea and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times. These things of course cannot be felt or known so long as one lives in the ordinary mind and its ideas and perceptions—for there there are only two categories of influences recognisable, the ideas and feelings and actions of oneself and others and the play of environment and physical forces. But once one begins to get the inner view of things, it is different. One begins to experience that all is an action of forces, forces of Prakriti psychological as well as physical which play upon our nature—and these are conscious forces or are supported by a consciousness or consciousnesses behind. One is in the midst of a big universal working and it is impossible any longer to explain everything as the result of one’s own sole and independent personality.

You yourself have at one time written that your crises of despair etc. came upon you as if thrown on you and worked themselves out without your being able to determine or put an end to them. That means an action of universal forces and not merely an independent action of your own personality, though it is something in your nature of which they make use. But you are not conscious, and others also, of this intervention and pressure at its source for the reason I state. Those in the Asram who have developed the inner view of things on the vital plane have plenty of experience of the hostile forces. However, you need not personally concern yourself with them so long as they remain incognito.

[...]

It is true that all comes from the Divine and it is true also that a Divine Presence and a Divine Will is behind all that happens and leads the world towards a divine goal.

At the same time it is also taught in the Gita that this world is a world of obscurity and ignorance and to attain to the Divine one must overcome certain forces of Nature, such as Desire, which the Gita calls the enemy difficult to overcome. It is in this sense that we speak of hostile forces—those which stand in the way of coming out of the Ignorance and attaining to the consciousness of the Divine.

It is again true that those who have a complete and living faith in the Divine and a perfect sincerity in their vision of the Divine everywhere and a pure sattwic nature need not trouble themselves about the hostile forces—for from them the forces of the Ignorance fall back and cannot take possession of their nature.

The teaching about the hostile forces (Asuri Rakshasi forces) is necessary for those who have a divided consciousness or a more rajasic temperament—for if they are not on their guard they may fall into the control of undesirable forces of Desire and Ego.

[...]

The psychic being, if allowed to manifest from the first in Life and lead the evolution instead of being relegated behind the veil, would have been the principle of a harmonious outflowering; everyone who has felt the psychic at work within him, freed from the vital intervention, can at once see that this would be its effect because of its unerring perception, true choice, harmonic action. If it has not been so, it is because the dark Powers have made Life a claimant instead of an instrument. The reality of the Hostiles and the nature of their role and trend of their endeavour cannot be doubted by anyone who has had his inner vision unsealed and made their unpleasant acquaintance.

[...]

It is likely that as the supramental principle evolved itself the evolution would more and more take on another aspect—the Daivic nature would predominate, the Asuro-Rakshaso-Pishachic prakriti which now holds so large a place would more and more recede and lose its power. A principle of greater unity, harmony and light would emerge everywhere. It is not that the creation in the Ignorance would be altogether abolished, but it would begin to lose much of its elements of pain and falsehood and would be more a progression from lesser to higher Truth, from a lesser to a higher harmony, from a lesser to a higher Light, than the reign of chaos and struggle, of darkness and error that we now perceive.

For according to all occult teaching the evolutionary creation could have been such but for the intervention of the Powers of Darkness—all traditions including that of the Veda and Upanishads point under different figures to the same thing. In the Upanishads it is the Daityas that smite with evil all that the gods create, in the Zoroastrian tradition it is Ahriman coming across the work of Ahura Mazda, the Chaldean tradition uses a different figure. But the significance is the same; it is the perception of something that has struck across the harmonious development of creation and brought in the principle of darkness and disorder. The occult tradition also foresees the elimination of this disturbing element by the descent of a divine Principle or Power on earth, but gives to it usually a sudden and dramatic form. I conceive that the supramental descent would effect the same event by a progressive elimination of the darkness and evolution of the Light, but with what rate of rapidity it would be rash to try to forecast or prefigure.

[...]

When there is a pressure on the vital world due to the preparing Descent from above, that world usually precipitates something of itself into the human. The vital world is very large and far exceeds the human in extent. But usually it dominates by influence not by descent. Of course the effort of this part of the vital world is always to maintain humanity under its sway and prevent the higher Light.

The vital descent cannot prevent the supramental—still less can the possessed nations do it by their material power, since the supramental descent is primarily a spiritual fact which will bear its necessary outward consequences. What previous vital descents have done is to falsify the Light that came down as in the history of Christianity where it took possession of the teaching and distorted it and deprived it of any widespread fulfilment. But the supermind is by definition a Light that cannot be distorted if it acts in its own right and by its own presence. It is only when it holds itself back and allows inferior Powers of consciousness to use a diminished and already deflected Truth that the knowledge can be seized by the vital Forces and made to serve their own purpose.

[...]

Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flows from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth,—truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half truth, half error.

It is this that some of the ancient thinkers like Shankara, not perceiving the greater Truth-Force behind, stigmatised as Maya and thought to be the highest creative power of the Divine. All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.

Falsehood, on the other hand, is not this Avidya, but an extreme result of it. It is created by an Asuric power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its wilful distortions or reversals of the Truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the Ignorance are put forward as the truth of things, that is the Falsehood.

[...]

These are the forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pisachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes)who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they too have their cosmic field in which they exercise their function and authority and some of them were once divine Powers who have fallen towards the Darkness by revolt against the divine Will behind the cosmos. The word “Appearances” refers to the forms they take in order to rule the world, forms often false and always incarnating falsehood, sometimes pseudo-divine.

[...]

Yes, they [the hostile forces] have their own world and, if they kept to it, there could be no objection to their existence. There is a world that is natural to them and has its own rhythm, its own dharma—just as the lesser gods have theirs. But, they want to dominate the evolution and for that purpose they have taken their station in the vital worlds which influence the earth nature and give it its materials for life.

They were created or rather manifested like other orders of being as a type or several types expressing some cosmic stress, some possibility in the Infinite, the expression of a certain kind of consciousness and force. When the work that they are permitted to do on earth, the work of negation, perversion, miscreation is finished they will be destroyed here, but there is no reason to suppose that they may not exist in their own universe, as it were, outside the system here. For here their presence is an Adharma, a disturbance of the true harmony and natural evolution there should be on the earth plane; it is an intrusion and not a natural presence.

How did the Ignorance come into being out of Sachchidananda? Or ego? The Hostile Forces in their own world embody ego self-fulfilled and having its own free play—ego on earth is not self-fulfilled and not meant to be, it is in conflict with a cosmic Force greater than itself and is only a temporary expedient for bringing forth individuality out of the indeterminateness of just conscient life and inconscient Matter.

[...]

If there were no hostile forces and there were still the evolutionary world, there could be ignorance still but not perversity in the ignorance. All would be a partial truth acting through imperfect instruments but for the best purposes of this or that stage in a progressive manifestation.

[...]

The mere intensity of the force does not show that it is a bad power; the Divine Force often works with a great intensity. Everything depends on the nature of the force and its working; what does it do, what seems to be its purpose? If it works to purify or open the system, or brings with it light or peace or prepares the change of the thought, ideas, feelings, character in the sense of a turning towards a higher consciousness, then it is the right force. If it is dark or obscure or perturbs the being with rajasic or egoistic suggestions or excites the lower nature, then it is an adverse Force.

[...]

The hostiles have themselves bodies though not of a gross physical kind—they see, but with a subtle seeing that includes not only bodies, but movements of forces, thoughts, feelings.

[...]

Very great [are the occult powers of the hostile beings]—it is their occult powers and knowledge of occult processes that make them so strong and effective.

[...]

The lesser forces of Light are usually too much insistent on seeking for Truth to make effectivity their logic or their rule—the hostiles are too pragmatic to care for Truth, they want only success. As for the greater Forces (e.g. Overmind) they are dynamic and try always to make consciousness effective, but they insist on consciousness, while the hostiles care nothing for that—the more unconscious you are and their automatic tool, the better they are pleased—for it is unconsciousness that gives them their chance.

[...]

The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out—if we reject the way out of the old sages—the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.

[...]

It [the adverse force] is the Power that keeps up ignorance and darkness in the world—it can only be destroyed when mankind is no longer in love with ignorance and darkness. Each sadhak has to push it out of contact with his being. When it has gone from him, then there will be no longer any serious difficulties in his sadhana.

[...]

The evil forces are perversions of the Truth by the Ignorance—in any complete transformation they must disappear and the Truth behind them be delivered. In this way they can be said to be transformed by destruction.

[...]

The Gods are Personalities or Powers put forth by the Divine—they are therefore in front limited Emanations, although the full Divine is behind each of them.

Of course, the gods exist—that is to say, there are Powers that stand above the world and transmit the divine workings. It is the physical mind which believes only in what is physical that denies them. There are also beings of other worlds—gods and Asuras etc.

There are Gods everywhere on all the planes.

[...]

While the Gods cannot be transformed, for they are typal and not evolutionary beings, they can come for conversion—that is to say, to give up their own ideas and outlook on things and conform themselves to the higher Will and supramental Truth of the Divine.

The higher beings are not likely to be in disharmony with each other as they are not subject to the lower ignorance.

The Gods have their own enjoyments, though they may not be of a material character.

[...]

The natives of the Overmind are Gods. Naturally the Gods rule the cosmos.

The Overmind is the world of the Gods and the Gods are not merely Powers, but have Forms also.

In the Overmind the Gods are still separated existences.

The Formateurs of the Overmind have shaped nothing evil—it is the lower forces that receive from the Overmind and distort its forces.

[...]

As far as I can see, once the supramental is established in Matter, the transformation will be possible undermuch less troublesome conditions than now are there. These bad conditions are due to the fact that the Ignorance is in possession and the hostile Powers an established authority, as it were, who do not care to give up their hold and there is no full force of Light established in the earth consciousness which would not only meet but outweigh their full force of darkness.

It is the darkest nights that prepare the greatest dawns—and it is so because it is into the deep inconscience of material life that we have to bring, not an intermediate glimmer, but the full glory of the divine Light.

[...]

This aim suggested to you seems to be part of a seeking for occult powers; such a seeking is looked on with disfavour for the most part by spiritual teachers in India because it belongs to the inferior planes and usually pushes the seeker on a path which may lead him very far from the Divine. Especially, a contact with the forces and beings of the astral (or, as we term it, the vital) plane is attended with great dangers.

The beings of this plane are often hostile to the true aim of spiritual life and establish contact with the seeker and offer him powers and occult experiences only in order that they may lead him away from the spiritual path or else that they may establish their own control over him or take possession of him for their own purpose. Often, representing themselves as divine powers, they mislead, give erring suggestions and impulsions and pervert the inner life.

Many are those who, attracted by these powers and beings of the vital plane, have ended in a definitive spiritual fall or in mental and physical perversion and disorder. One comes inevitably into contact with the vital plane and enters into it in the expansion of consciousness which results from an inner opening, but one ought never to put oneself into the hands of these beings and forces or allow oneself to be led by their suggestions and impulsions. This is one of the chief dangers of the spiritual life and to be on one’s guard against it is a necessity for the seeker if he wishes to arrive at his goal.

[...]

Ordinarily, all the more inward and all the abnormal psychological experiences are called psychic. I use the word psychic for the soul as distinguished from the mind and vital. All movements and experiences of the soul would in that sense be called psychic, those which rise from or directly touch the psychic being; where mind and vital predominate, the experience would be called psychological (surface or occult). “Spiritual” has nothing to do with the Absolute, except that the experience of the Absolute is spiritual. All contacts with self, the higher consciousness, the Divine above are spiritual. There are others that could not be so sharply classified and set off against each other.

The spiritual realisation is of primary importance and indispensable. I would consider it best to have the spiritual and psychic development first and have it with the same fullness before entering the occult regions. Those who enter the latter first may find their spiritual realisation much delayed—others fall into the mazy traps of the occult and do not come out in this life. Some no doubt can carry on both together, the occult and the spiritual, and make them help each other; but the process I suggest is the safer.

The governing factors for us must be the spirit and the psychic being united with the Divine—the occult laws and phenomena have to be known but only as an instrumentation, not as the governing principles. The occult is a vast field and complicated and not without its dangers. It need not be abandoned but it should not be given the first place.

[...]

A sincere heart is worth all the extraordinary powers in the world.

Sri Aurobindo

Source: Letters on Yoga

Quotes by Mehal Rockefeller & Eleanor Roosevelt

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I ...I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost

Many people allow their need for other people's approval to control their lives. They spend their lives worrying about what others think of them. Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

One of the natural, but unfortunate, human characteristics is the sense of a need for approval. It is wonderful to show your appreciation of others and to thank them whenever possible. It is also pleasing when others show appreciation and thank you. But making any significant life choices based on whether or not others approve sets one on a course of emotional destruction.

Make your important choices in life based on your values and your long-term objectives rather than on a need for approval.

Mehal Rockefeller

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it.
One must work at it.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Dagen zo mooi!

Ik heb gemerkt dat er nog een foutje zat in mij berekening van de formule Claeys met de zelfgeschreven software in C#. De volledige formule vind je hier: http://www.formuleclaeys.be/. Ik vul mijn dagen met oefenen in programmeren en veel tijd door te brengen met Marlies. Regelmatig gaan we een vriend en/of vriendin bezoeken, maken we een wandeling richting een plaatselijk spelend bandje van gekende en/of bevriende muzikanten, en zaterdag gaan we naar een trouwfeest van vrienden van Marlies. Verder maak ik elke dag één You Tube filmpje met de eenvoudige software Windows Moviemaker voor Vitalski omdat zijn muzieksite weldra komt te vervallen. Woensdag zie ik een maatschappelijk assistent, donderdag ga ik mijn uiteindelijk studietraject voor de opleiding informatica - optie programmeren bespreken met de trajectbegeleider en schrijf ik mij gelijk in voor 3 modules in februari. Maandag volg ik dan weer - als alles doorgaat als gepland - een les strafrecht in Plantijn Hogeschool. Ik weet nog niet of ik in februari les zal hebben in de voormiddag, tegen de avond of eventueel via afstandsonderwijs, en hoe mijn studieschema er zal uitzien, maar de ritjes naar de Campus aan het Schoonselhof zullen wennen worden, want ik heb een hekel aan volle trams. Doorbijten is nu de boodschap want ik wil zo graag een hoger diploma, hoewel ik vooral geloof in zelfstudie als de motor achter het vergaren van kennis.

In mijn relatie gaat het nog steeds heel goed. Het is een wonder dat we eind december alweer 8 maanden samen zijn, vast besloten om er nog geen eind aan te maken want we zien elkaar graag. Als er gestudeerd moet worden, zal dit wennen worden, want we kunnen elkaar moeilijk missen. Alles gaat dus goed, nu maar hopen dat de opleiding vanaf 2014 niet te zwaar wordt.

The New Group of World Servers - Djwhal Khul

They are being gathered out of every nation, but are gathered and chosen, not by the watching Hierarchy or by any Master, but by the power of their response to spiritual  opportunity, tide and note. They are emerging out of every group and church and party, and will therefore be truly representative. This they do, not from the pull of their own ambition and prideful schemes, but through the very selflessness of their service.

They are finding their way to the top in every department of human knowledge, not because of the clamor they make about their own ideas, discoveries and theories, but because they are so inclusive in their outlook, and so wide in their interpretation of the truth that they see the hand of God in all happenings, His imprint upon all forms, and His note sounding forth through every channel of communication between the subjective reality and the objective outer form.

They are of all races; they speak all languages; they embrace all religions, all sciences and philosophies. Their characteristics are synthesis, inclusiveness, intellectuality and fine mental development. They own no creed, save the creed of Brotherhood, based on the one Life. They recognize no authority, save that of their own souls, and no Master save the group they seek to serve, and humanity whom they deeply love.

They have no barriers around themselves, but are governed by a wide tolerance, and a sane mentality and sense of proportion. They look with open eyes upon the world of men and recognize those whom they can lift and to whom they can stand as the Great Ones stand, -- lifting, teaching and helping. They recognize their peers and equals, and know each other when they meet, and stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow workers in the work of salvaging humanity.

It does not matter if their terminologies differ, their interpretations of symbols and scriptures vary, or their words are few or many. They see their group members in all fields -- political, scientific, religious, and economic - and give to them the sign of recognition and the hand of a brother. They recognize likewise Those who have passed ahead of them upon the ladder of evolution, and hail Them Teacher, and seek to learn from Them that which They are so eager to impart. (Treatise on White Magic, p.398-401)

This group has a specific mission, and some of the facts about it might be stated as follows:

It is first of all an attempt at an externalization of the Hierarchy upon the physical plane, or a small working replica of this essentially subjective body. Its members are all in physical bodies but must work entirely subjectively, thus utilizing the inner sensitive apparatus and intuition...composed of men and women of all nations and ages, but each must be spiritually oriented, all must be conscious servers, all must be mentally polarized and alert, and all must be inclusive.

One of the essential conditions...is that they must be willing to work without recognition, on the subjective levels. They must work behind the scenes as do the Great Ones. Its members must therefore be free from all taint of ambition, and of all pride of race and of accomplishment. They must be also sensitively aware of their fellow men and of their thoughts and conditioning environment.

It is a group that has no exoteric organization of any kind, no headquarters, no publicity, no group name. It is a band of obedient workers and servers...--obedient to their own souls and to group need. All true servers everywhere therefore belong to this group, whether their line of service is cultural, political, scientific, religious, philosophical, psychological, or financial. They constitute part of the inner group of workers for humanity, and of the world mystics, whether they know it or not. They will thus be recognized by their fellow group members when contacted in the casual ways of world intercourse.

This group gives the word "spiritual" a wide significance; they believe to mean an inclusive endeavor towards human betterment, uplift and understanding; they give it the connotation of tolerance, international synthetic communion, religious inclusiveness, and all trends of thought which concern the esoteric development of the human being.

It is a group, therefore, without a terminology or Bible of any kind; it has no creed nor any dogmatic formulations of truth. The motivating impulse of each and all is love of God as it wo5rks out in love for one's fellow man. They know the true meaning of brotherhood, without distinction of race. Their lives are lives of willing service, rendered with utter selflessness and without any reservations.

The personnel of this group is known only to the Elder Brothers of the race, and no register of names is kept, and there are three main requirements:

1. A certain at-one-ment between the soul and its mechanism is essential, and that inner triplicity, usually dormant in the majority, of soul - mind - brain, must be in alignment and active.

2. The brain has to be telepathically sensitive in two directions and at will. It must be aware of the world of souls and also of the world of men.

3. There must also exist a capacity for abstract or synthetic thought. This will enable a man to leap over racial and religious barriers. When this is present also, there is an assured belief in the continuity of life and its correlation to the life after death. (A Treatise on White Magic, p. 413/5) 

They are not interested in dogmas or doctrines, and have no shibboleths. Their outstanding characteristic will be an individual and group freedom from a critical spirit. This non-criticism will not grow out of an inability to see error, or failure to measure up to an ideal; falsity, impurity and weakness will be recognized for what they are, but when noted will only serve to evoke a loving helpfulness. (A Treatise on White Magic, p. 426)

You ask me: What keeps a man from becoming a member of such a group? I tell you with emphasis that four things only keep a man from affiliation.

First: An uncoordinated personality. This involves necessarily an untrained mind and a feeble intellect.

Second: A sense of separateness, of distinction, and of being set apart or different from one's fellow men.

Third: The possession of a creed. No matter how good a formula of beliefs it may be, it inevitably produces exclusiveness. It bars some out.

Fourth: Pride & ambition.

You ask again: How shall one qualify? The rules are simple, and are three in number. First learn to practice harmlessness; then desire nothing for the separated self, and thirdly, look for the sign of divinity in all. Three simple rules but very hard to accomplish.

Behind this group...which includes thinkers in every department of human thought...and of human knowledge, stands the Hierarchy of Masters, and in between these two groups stand also a band of teachers, of whom I am one. These act as intermediaries and as transmitters of the energy. May I repeat, and beg you to attend, that this group which is slowly forming is gathered out of every imaginable group of thinking and intelligent men. As yet, and this may surprise a f3ew, there are not very many occultists (so-called) among them. This is due to the fact that the occultists are numerically few in relation to the masses of humanity, and also to their tendency to be sectarian, exclusive and self righteous. Selfless humanitarian workers are there; political leaders and economists and scientific workers in the world's laboratories are also there; churchmen and religious adherents from all of the world religions are there, and the practical mystics and a few occultists. The true occultist is rare.

The group is and will be kept entirely subjective. Its members are linked telepathically, or they recognize each other through the quality of the work they are doing in the outer world and the inclusiveness of the note they sound. It is inspired from above by the souls of its members and the Great Ones and is energized into activity by the need of humanity itself. It is composed of living conscious souls, working through coordinated personalities. Its symbol is a golden triangle, enclosing an even -armed cross with one diamond at the apex of the triangle. This symbol is never reproduced in form at all. It shines above the heads of all who are in the group, and cannot be seen by anyone (not even a clairvoyant) except a group member, and then only if -- for purposes of the work -- his recognition needs stimulation. The motto of the group is ' The Glory of the One. ( A Treatise on White Magic, p.430/1)

Now [an]...attempt is being made to free the "prisoners of the planet". The Hierarchy, through the Group of World Servers now... is seeking to externalize itself, and to restore the mysteries to humanity to whom they truly belong...it is basically necessary that all of you who have sensed the vision, or seen a part of the intended plan, should re-dedicate yourselves to the service of humanity, should pledge yourselves to the work of aiding to the utmost of your ability (ponder on these words and search out their significance) all world servers, and should sacrifice your time, and give of your money, to further the endeavor of the Great Ones. Rest not, above all from your meditation work; keep the inner link; think truth at all times. The need and the opportunity are great and all possible helpers are being called to the forefront of the battle. All can be used in some way, if the true nature of sacrifice is grasped, if skill in action is developed, and if work without attachment is the effort of each and all of you. (A Treatise on White Magic, p.521)

---

The Lucis Trust is a non-profit tax-exempt educational corporation founded in 1922. No royalties are paid on the books. Training for new age discipleship is provided by the Arcane School. The principles of the Ageless Wisdom are presented through esoteric meditation, study and service as a way of life. Contact the publishers for information.