- All disease
(and this is a platitude) is caused by lack of harmony - a disharmony to be found existing
between the form aspect and the life. That which brings together form and life, or rather,
that which is the result of this intended union, we call the soul, the self where humanity
is concerned, and the integrating principle where the subhuman kingdoms are concerned.
Disease appears where there is a lack of alignment between these various factors, the soul
and the form, the life and its expression, the subjective and the objective realities.
Consequently, spirit and matter are not freely related to each other. This is one
mode of interpreting Law I, and the entire thesis is intended to be an exposition of that
Law.
- This lack of
harmony, producing what we call disease, runs through all the four kingdoms in nature, and
causes those conditions which produce pain (where the sentiency is exquisite and
developed) and everywhere congestion, corruption and death. Ponder on these words:
Inharmony, Disease, Pain, Congestion, Corruption, Death, for they are descriptive of the
general condition governing the conscious life of all forms, macrocosmic and microcosmic.
They are not causes.
- All these
conditions, however, can be regarded as purificatory in their effects, and must be so
regarded by humanity if the right attitude towards disease is to be assumed. This is oft
forgotten by the fanatical healer and by the radical exponent of an idea, finitely grasped
and in most cases only part of a greater idea. [13]
- Methods of
healing and techniques of alleviation are peculiar to humanity and are the result of man's
mental activity. They indicate his latent power as a creator, and as one who progresses
towards freedom. They indicate his discriminative ability to sense perfection, to vision
the goal, and hence to work towards that ultimate liberation. His error at this time
consists in:
- His inability to see the true uses of pain.
- His resentment at suffering.
- His misunderstanding of the law of non-resistance.
- His over-emphasis of the form nature.
- His attitude to death, and his feeling that the disappearance of the life out of visual
perception through the medium of form, and the consequent disintegration of that form,
indicates disaster.
When human
thought reverses the usual ideas as to disease, and accepts disease as a fact in nature,
man will begin to work with the law of liberation, with right thought, leading to
non-resistance. At present, by the power of his directed thought and his intense
antagonism to disease, he only tends to energize the difficulty. When he reorients his
thought to truth and the soul, physical plane ills will begin to disappear. This will
become apparent as we study later the method of eradication. Disease exists. Forms in all
kingdoms are full of inharmony and out of alignment with the indwelling life. Disease and
corruption and the tendency towards dissolution are found everywhere. I am choosing my
words with care.
Disease is
not, therefore, the result of wrong human thought. It existed among the many forms of life
long before the human family appeared on earth. If you seek verbal expression, and if you
want to talk within the limits of the human mind, you can say with a measure of accuracy:
God, [14] the planetary Deity, is guilty of wrong thinking. But you will not be expressing
the truth, but only a tiny fraction of the cause, as it appears to your feeble finite
mind, through the medium of the general world glamor and illusion.
From one
angle, disease is a process of liberation, and the enemy of that which is static and
crystallized. Think not, from what I say, that therefore disease should be welcomed, and
that the process of death should be cherished. Were that the case, one would cultivate
disease and put a premium on suicide. Fortunately for humanity, the whole tendency of life
is against disease, and the reaction of the form life upon the thought of man fosters the
fear of death. This has been rightly so, for the instinct of self-preservation and the
preservation of form integrity is a vital principle in matter, and the tendency to
self-perpetuation of the life within the form is one of our greatest God-given capacities
and will persist. But in the human family this must eventually give place to the use of
death as the organized, freeing process in order to conserve force and give to the soul a
better instrument of manifestation. For this liberty of action, mankind as a whole is not
yet ready. The disciples and aspirants of the world should now, however, begin to grasp
these newer principles of existence. The instinct to self-preservation governs the
relation of spirit and matter, of life and form as long as the Deity Himself wills to
incarnate within His body of manifestation - a planet, or a solar system. I have in the
above statement given to you a hint as to one of the basic causes of disease, and to the
endless fight between the imprisoned spirit and the imprisoning form. This fight uses for
its method that innate quality which expresses itself as the urge to preserve and the urge
to perpetuate - both the present form and the species. [15]
The law of
cause and effect, called Karma in the East, governs all this. Karma must be regarded in
reality as the effect (in the form life of our planet) of causes, deep seated and hidden
in the mind of God. The causes that we may trace in relation to disease and death are in
reality only the working out of certain basic principles which govern - rightly or
wrongly, who shall say? - the life of God in form, and they must ever remain
incomprehensible to man until such time as he takes the great initiation which is
symbolized for us in the Transfiguration. All along in our studies, we shall be dealing
with secondary causes and their effects, with the phenomenal results of those
subjective effects which emanate from causes too far away for us to grasp. This should be
admitted and grasped. This is the best man can do with his present mental apparatus. When
the intuition rarely works, and the mind is seldom illumined, why should man arrogantly
expect to understand everything? Let him work at the development of his intuition and at
achieving illumination. Understanding may then come his way. He will have earned the right
to divine knowledge. But the above recognition will suffice for our work and will enable
us to lay down those laws and principles which will indicate the way humanity may gain
release from the form consciousness and consequent immunity from the victory of death and
those disease-dealing conditions which govern today our planetary manifestation.
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