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Esoteric Healing - Chapter VIII - The Laws and Rules Enumerated and Applied |
This moment of true freedom can be brief and fleeting as in the case of the undeveloped man, or it can be of long duration, according to the usefulness of the aspirant upon the inner planes; with this I have earlier dealt and have no need to repeat myself here. Progressively, as the urges and influences of the three lower levels of consciousness [683] weaken their hold, the period of dissociation becomes longer and longer, and is characterized by a developing clarity of thought and by a recognition of essential being, and this in progressive stages. This clarity and progress may not be brought through into full realization or expression when rebirth again takes place, for the limitations imposed by the dense physical body are excessive; nevertheless, each life sees a steady growth in sensitivity, and also the storing-up of esoteric information, using the word "esoteric" to signify all that does not concern normal form life or the average consciousness of man in the three worlds. Esoteric living (as it develops) falls into three stages, broadly speaking; these are carried forward within the consciousness of the man and parallel the recognition and ordinary aspects of form life on the three levels of experience:
Students are apt to think that death ends things, whereas from the angle of termination we are dealing with values which are persistent, with which there is no interference, nor can there be any, and which hold within themselves the seeds of immortality. I would have you ponder on this and know that everything that is of true spiritual value is persistent, ageless, immortal and eternal. Only that dies which is valueless, and - from the standpoint of humanity - that means those factors which emphasize and assume importance where the form is concerned. But those values which are based on principle and not upon the detail of appearance have in them that undying principle which leads a man from the "gates of nativity, through the gates of perception, to the gates of purpose" - as the Old Commentary expresses it. I have endeavored to show you how the first part of this Law X has a simple application to mankind, as well as an abstract and abstruse meaning for esotericists. The last paragraph in this Law X cannot be interpreted in this same manner nor applied in this way; it concerns only the "passing over" or the "discarding of hindrances" by very advanced disciples and initiates. This is made clear by the use of the words, "O Rising One" - a term applied only to those who have taken the fourth initiation and who are therefore held by no aspect whatsoever of the form nature, even so high or transcendental a form as the soul in its own vehicle, the causal body or the egoic lotus. Yet again, facility in response to this law must be and is developed in the earlier stages of discipleship, where listening, responsiveness and occult obedience are developed and have their extensions in the higher levels of spiritual experience. Here we must again consider words and phrases if we are to understand their true meaning. [685] |
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