Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - A Treatise on White Magic

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A Treatise on White Magic - Introductory Remarks

To the Master of the Wisdom, the nature of the spirit, or that positive center of life which every form hides is no more a mystery than is the nature of the soul to the esoteric psychologist. The source of the one life, the plane, or state from which that life emanates is the great Hidden Mystery to the members of the hierarchy of adepts. The nature of spirit, its quality and type of cosmic energy, its rate of vibration and its basic cosmic differentiations are the study of initiates above the third degree and the subject of their investigations. They [26] bring to that study a fully developed intuition, plus that mental interpretative capacity which their cycle of incarnation has developed. They employ the awakened and developed inner light of their souls to interpret and comprehend that life which (divorced from the world of form) persists on the higher levels of consciousness and penetrates into our solar system from some exterior center of being. They throw this light (which is in them and which they manipulate and use) in two directions therefore, standing as they do in the midmost state and functioning as they choose, to function on the plane of the intuition or of buddhi. They cast that light into the world of form and know all things, interpreting all with correctness; they cast that light into the formless realms of the higher three planes (formless from the standpoint of man in the three worlds below the intuitional plane) and seek to understand, through steady expansive growth, the nature and purpose of that which is neither body nor soul, neither force nor matter, but which is the cause of both in the universe.

Eventually, when the initiate has undergone the higher solar initiations and can function in the full consciousness of the monad, awareness of that which is divorced even from group form and from those nebulous sheaths which veil and hide the One, becomes possible. The highest types of consciousness work from the plane of the monad as the initiate of lower degree works from the plane of the soul and uses the organs of perception (if such an unsatisfactory phrase is legitimate) and means of knowledge of which average man has no idea; they penetrate or include within their radius of awareness that sum total of life, consciousness and form which we designate God. These initiates of high degree then begin to be aware of a vibration, a revealing light, a note or directional indicating sound which emanates from outside our solar system altogether. The only way in which [27] we can get an appreciation of the process followed in the expansion of the divine consciousness in man is to study the relation of the mind and the brain and note what follows when the brain becomes the intelligent instrument of the mind; then study the relation of the soul to the mind and what eventuates when man is directed by his soul and utilizes the mind to control the physical plane activities through the medium of the brain. In these three - soul, mind and brain - we have the analogy and the clue to the understanding of spirit, soul and body, and their mutual functions. This was the subject matter of the book, The Light of the Soul. Upon the perfecting of the conditions dealt with in that book there follows still another expansion when the spirit aspect, man's emanating source of energy, begins to use the soul (via the intuition) and to impress upon the soul-consciousness those laws, knowledges, forces and inspirations which will make the soul the instrument of the spirit or monad, just as the personal man became, at an earlier stage (via the mind), the instrument of the soul. In that earlier stage the development was two-fold. As the soul assumed control, via the mind, so the brain became responsive to the soul. Man was awakened to a knowledge of himself as he really was and to the three worlds of his normal evolution; later he became group conscious and was no longer a separated individual. As the soul is brought under the dominance of the spirit, an analogous two stages are likewise seen:

First, the disciple becomes aware not only of his group and allied groups, but his consciousness is expanded until it might be called planetary consciousness.

Secondly, he begins to merge that planetary awareness into something more synthetic still, and gradually develops the consciousness of the greater life which [28] includes the planetary life as man includes in his physical expression such living organisms as his heart or brain. When this takes place, he begins to comprehend the significance of spirit, the one life back of all forms, the central energy which is the cause of all manifestation.

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