William Meader: The Magic of Spiritual Creativity

so what I'd like to do today is to share with you an overview of how the esoteric philosophy looks at the magical process and what I'd like to do is first sort of lay out a fundamental principle to set the stage for that and that principle is this that that every human soul is destined to be a creative agent every human soul is destined to be a magician in that sense and the word magic here is not about hocus pocus magic really is really a story about how to manifest anything and in a certain sense when I say that the the destiny of every human soul is to be a magician it's in the fabric of the nature of the soul which is what we call that the causal body that the the soul has a creative intention capacity and it must in in a way evolution is such that full enlightenment doesn't really isn't even possible unless the fullness of your soul's creative nature finds expected expression in the outer world and one of the measures of that effectiveness is in the actual service that you render and is it of uplifting value the soul in each of us is the part of us that wants to work through a personality the lower self and that's that's this is the instrument for it mental emotional physical instrument and it wants to do that but it wants to do it without the personality getting in the way and that's the problem and in the process it wants to make an uplifting contribution to something that transcends itself something that is not related to itself something bigger than that and so the fundamentally the soul is destined to make manifest its creative potential now what that creative potential is will vary it varies from a variety of perspectives one of the most important is that in the esoteric philosophy we're told that there are seven types of souls seven unique types of human souls sometimes they're called the Seven Rays and that each type will have a different way of thinking about life how a different way of framing the perceptions of how they see the outer world and a different goal of of trying to approach a creative expression that makes that uplifting contribution and people of different rayline's you might say these are people that will pursue different contexts in society in order to serve so there's you know there are some soul types that are doing fantastic creative work within the Department of Education others in the Department of Business others in the world of religion or the arts or science or government all of those are social institutions that are indeed themselves governed by great Raye tendencies of consciousness and people will tend to gravitate to those social institutions that have an energetic affinity with their own higher nature and and find that is the place to express themselves which is why in this philosophy it's understood that that all social systems are sacred also a you know sometimes we think that that somehow spirituality is the prerogative of religion and that's not so that's one department but there's there's the department of government there's the Department of Education the the the area of the Arts as I say all of those represent categories of human consciousness and all of them have a higher and lower nature every social institution in this philosophy anyway it's understood that every every every social institution in a way as an entity it's a category of consciousness and it has a higher potential and it has a lower tendency and it's absolutely no different than you and I in the sense that it is a soul and it is a personality so so so the same can be said of each one of us and so I guess I'm just trying to lay out this idea that service comes in many forms and creative expression therefore comes in many forms and one of the most fundamental distinctions is the REA of the soul itself what is its nature so there are some people that are really really living from as much of their soul as possible that may be in the business world for instance some of the most advanced spiritual people I've ever met had been CEOs of corporations and also some the least advance of and CEOs of corporations you're going to get the full spectrum in that sense and so it's important to see spiritual creativity and service in that broader way of looking at it seeing each of these institutions as evolving systems and people being inclined according to their inner nature to gravitate to one versus another that is consistent with their inner nature so now let me kind of share with you how the the inner process is viewed in terms of how is it that the soul tries to work with that personality that lower self you know the lower self the personality is the sum total of form consciousness it's the consciousness that where we have identified ourselves with our physical impulses we've identified ourselves with our emotional experiences and we've identified ourselves with our concrete mental thinking processes and all of those things represent areas of of awareness but they're form based mental plain emotional plain physical plain perceptions but there's this higher thing in each of us this whole quality this causal body and it seeks to work worth with that personality and so the first thing I want to share with you is this that we are told in the ancient leader that the soul itself is in meditation throughout the entire duration of the the outer life right now your soul but by the way that's you but your soul is in meditation right now but it's so interesting because even the word meditation has to be defined in a different way because we're going to understand that the soul meditates in three directions throughout the course of the life sometimes it's meditating outward and the soul is found on the higher mental plane sometimes it's meditating outward establishing rapport with the inner group that it's a part of sometimes it's meditating upward and that's when it's trying to come into relationship with the greater life that it's a mere cell within and sometimes it's meditating downward toward the personality for creative intention and that's that's been called the downward gazing soul the downward gazing soul and it's in those moments when the soul is downward gazing that we have the beginnings of what can be cursed as a the creative insight process emerging down we're gazing now when the soul is downward gazing it is it is believed that it really has to gather its energy to do it effectively because it's got to it's got to assert its intention into a muddy place called the personality filled with currents that are in have measures of impurity the personality our lower natures have there are parts of us that are you know physically we are not as pure as we could be from an emotional point of view there are still going to be more base emotions that are still cropping up in our system and we could also rather than unitive emotions and and uplifting emotions we could have very base emotions and we also have thoughts in our mental body that are separative rather than unitive all of those are distorting factors so we're given to understand that the soul has to assert itself with a lot of power to actually make penetration into the consciousness of that personality to give it the insight it wants to give you see now it said that's something that maybe some of you have this happen where if them if the soul is meditating in three directions if you ever had this happen to you where you have a really really good meditation maybe you really really feel like you're aligned you're on the beam great morning meditation and you begin your day that way and it's good but later on in the day it seems to go away it sort of vanishes you had it and you lost it and sometimes you can't determine why you lost it even if you go back and think what happened today did there anything was there anything that sort of got in my way or and sometimes there's nothing and the answer the reason there there's many explanations for why that happens but one of the explanations is the soul has turned its gaze it was downward gazing early on when you were in meditation and now it's let us say outward gazing so one of the interesting things about this question of the soul's creative gaze is that the further we develop our consciousness and near enlightenment the more the soul is able to learn itself how to gaze in three directions at the same time and when the soul can downward gaze outward gaze upward gaze all at the same time with equal Fallot at faculty they give you another name they call you master that's enlightenment that's enlightenment it's or there's I could define enlightenment in a hundred ways but that's one of the ways of understanding it you see so it's so interesting to think about the idea that the soul itself is actually something that's evolving we tend to think that the soul is a perfect thing it's not perfect it's perfect only in one way it's perfect in its potential it's it's perfect it's potentiality is to bring forth something that the world needs but it's imperfect in its capacity to express itself through that personality without income berman and in many ways we could define the whole evolution of consciousness as the gradual actualization of the soul's creative intention over time you see so the creative process is one that is understood as a bi-directional phenomenon that is to say the soul is trying at times to make impression in the mind first the mind nature or the emotional nature of the personality and at the same time there has to be a measure of purification in the lower self for right registration of that in the inside but also there has to be a kind of conviction by the personality - you might say upward gaze and that's what we when you meditate when you sit down in the morning and meditate that's the personality that's sitting down to meditate that's the personality that's saying I want to lift myself in my polarization and my sense of inner realization to a higher subtler place and so we sit down and we meditate in hopes of doing that so in a way that could be viewed as the upward gazing personality and when you have an upward gazing personality occurring at the same time that you have a downward gazing soul that's it those are the moments of magical opportunity and the sky's the limit of what you could do in those moments you see so so much of this has a lot to do with this idea of getting into sync vertical synchronization between the two parts of yourself the the divinity within you and the lower nature to make them as if they are incomplete synthesis and cooperative rapport and meditation is that one of the main tools used on a personality level to facilitate that process or is everybody with me are you following me okay okay now so imagine that the when the soul is going to speak it's creative intention to the personality it's going to do it through intuition the soul speaks in faint intuitive whispers and so we could say that the soul speaks in formless patterns you know intuition in a way is formless knowingness formless knowingness it's kind of a funny thing about intuition you know that the interesting thing about intuition is that true the moment you have an intuition say this is my intuition that's the moment that you're no longer having it you get that because because by the very fact that you've now said this is it what it is you've already given you've made a form of it called a thought form called a thought form and so that's the amazing thing about a intuition when you express what it is that's the moment you no longer are having it and and and yet that's okay because that's also understood as part of the physics of this process the physics of it the question is can we can we not only receive it and an intuition and build thought forms around it but then can we bring those thought forms into the outer world as a function of service and creative expression that's the question yeah it's all about it's all about realizing that we want to we want to be able to still the mind in order to sense those faint whispers and then we want to begin to build thought forms around that process or that that insight and then the meta meta the real question is can we can we then take those thought forms and elaborate on them build texture to them more detailed to them without distorting it and that's a big challenge you know in the ancient rules of white magic given to us through Theosophical literature and even maybe some you're aware the Alice Bailey material it's a remarkable process of understanding that there are certain steps along the way where there are dangers where there are profits along the creative inner process where the lower self can you might say or the ego let us say can weasel in can weasel in very very in a clever hidden way okay so it's it's it's been said that magic is really the art of thought form building the art of thought form building and it's also about learning how to have those insights build those thought forms and yet remain an observer of it and not be captured by it how to describe that the whole process is to create thought forms but not allow your any part of yourself to identify with that thought form not a single part of us should say this is my idea not a single part of us should say I am that there should be every it should be it should be ideally ideally it's it's about learning how to separate three things in our consciousness to get this right realize that there's the thinker that's you as a being there's the process of thinking and there's thoughts thinker engages mind which creates motion and through that motion thoughts arise but we tangle those things together and we don't even realize it those three things tend to be woven together and yet much of the evolutionary journey is to untangle it to know the difference in your experience between the sense of beingness which is the center of your existence it's the ultimate place of business in you which we often called the monad I don't know if you're familiar with that term pure spirit and then a sensitivity to how does the mind move and a recognition that through those motions something something is assembled called a thought form so a thought form becomes the product of those motions so when you really get into the study of the magical process it's also really a study of our own inner dynamics what's happening what's happening and can i distinguish between the thinker and the product of those thoughts the the product of that thinking process because the moment I lose that there's a risk that a measure of distortion can be built into that thought form you see I don't know if you're familiar with the term AHA Makara maybe some of you are this is theosophy after all that's a hum cara levansky spoke of it ah hum cara is a is a word that represents the tendency to relate your thoughts and your experiences back to yourself even if it's very subtle ah hum cara and the moment that ahamkara starts to weave itself into that inner creative process the more we we run the risk of a potential distortion you say and then we want to take those ideas that let's say that we were able to hold ourselves as as separate from our creation we had a sense of that then the idea is to bring that emote that that that new thought form that great idea build more texture to it build more detail to it but then we got to bring it into the emotions into the emotional field of the personality and and and give it warmth and give it magnetism because that's the function of the use the use of the emotional body in the magical process is to create two things it's to take that thought form that you've now realized its to take it and what I would call a magnetic appeal that is to say you make it attractive and also to give it a sense of vitality you know you're much more likely to manifest an idea if there's a certain measure of emotional conviction attached to the idea you see rather than just an idea that's cold and with no feeling so there's a whole science of understanding how do you deliberately bringing motion into the system in the right way to create vitalization of an idea to help propel this process forward and at the same time make it magnetic that's the challenge and and and yet and yet and there's some dangers there too we can get too close to it and and I want to get into that a little bit more in in greater detail in a minute but just to show you that this is a story really about taking something that is formless at the very beginning the soul's intuitive prompting bringing it into your mental body and giving it a form called a thought form bringing that thought form into your emotional body and giving it a feeling nature making it magnetic making it vital and then externalizing it into the outer world to to create some sort of an effect that will have an uplifting result and in each of those steps there are certain skills that are suggested by the Masters of old that we all should develop and areas of caution because each of those steps has a place or a feature to it where distortion can arise okay so let's now go back and I want to take you through a couple of those areas so that you get a feel for this let's look at the area of the beginning of a thought form as I said earlier it's important that you we have a creative thought but not own it and and keep us a measure of separateness from it you know a great master once said this and it one of those little phrases that I've always treasured for years and I want to share with you he said this he says always realize that you are the director on the stool never leave the stool to become one of the characters on the stage you are the director on the stool never leave the stool to become one of the characters on the stage you are the beingness behind the phenomenon of consciousness you are not that consciousness itself you are you are the you are the beingness 'get that gives impulse to a new idea but you're not that new idea so there's that sense of remaining separate one of the big things that's important to realize when it we talk about the creative process from the plane of the mind is that when an idea is trying to crest on the shores of your consciousness through the impulses of the soul it's more often going to be vague and nebulous at the beginning if you think about this just conceptually for a minute what are we really doing when we talk about we're trying to bring something from a formless place and we want to bring it into greater degrees of density and externalize it as a densed form expression so it's about a movement it's all about a movement from formlessness to form from internal existence to an external existence and so there's a certain understanding that when we first get an inkling of a soul's intuition it maybe it makes sense that it would likely be more tenuous not very clear at first a lot of times people will have a full-blown you know the meditator they'll have a some dream or something and it'll be a full-blown picture of everything all the detail all the detail my recommendation when I hear that is be cautious and may be dubious I loved with Kyle Gibran says in the prophet d and maybe some of you know the book he says vague and and nebulous is the beginning of all things but not their end and who knows but a crystal is just missed in decay missed in decay and and the idea here is that I think it's important to realize that sometimes the soul is trying to create the fundamental patterns in your consciousness to begin the creative process and it may not appear as a full-blown idea it may be the beginnings of it is often simply just the beginnings of a patterning of perception a pad see the soul is something that let's say the soul is hovering over the mental body of the personality the soul begins often by trying to impress the patterning of perception of that mental body not creating a form itself but a way of looking at things as a beginning to the process now later through the maturation of that process slowly more clarity of definition specifics come out and it texture in the thought form emerges but at first it's more often than not something that is rather vague and nebulous and that's an important concept you know probably some of you have been in groups and and and I it makes me smile because I I did this to Tom it's guilty as anybody but have you ever sat in a meditation group and everybody's in a circle and you're meditating and when you get done the first thing that's when everybody's finished the the first thing that somebody says is what you get what you get well yeah the truth is the highest meditations would seem to get nothing that's the truth because it's all about entering into the realm of the formless so when I'm quickly saying what did I get it's it's suggesting that either I didn't get very deep or the second possibility is that the imposter of the soul has woven itself into this now that's a big subject but there's a part of the lower self a part of the personality that is called the imposter of the soul it's like a subpersonality the imposter of the soul and each of us have an imposter to the soul it's the part of the personality that falsely believes it is the soul it's a wolf in sheep's attire it's selfishness disguised as selflessness and that imposter is also in this game of creativity and so for instance when the person says would you get a lot of times it's the impostor within that is looking for some something to lay claim to does this all make sense you followed me I'm actually taking a variety of subjects then and tying them all together for you these are all big subjects I could spend a whole day on the imposter of the soul but I just want you to know that each one of us has an impostor that wants to get in the game and a reason I why I know all of us have it is because the imposter the impostor doesn't go away fully until the fourth initiation and that's equivalent to being perfected and that's the master and so the very fact that you're here suggests you probably have the Impostors delaford fair bet okay so our process is to try to bring something from formlessness down to form but realize that's that there's the part of the lower self that wants to weave itself in and take subtle ownership of it and so there's a this always this sense of creating but then looking at yourself and saying hmm you know I always think that one of the best things we could do in every situation is in life when you something comes confronts you ask yourself the question which one of me is looking at this now which one of me because we are all dual we all have a higher nature and a lower nature and so the more we can start to recognize the nature of consciousness of the higher versus the nature of the lower and then become discerning in the moment-to-moment aspects of life that's an it's essential prerequisite to creating ultimate enlightenment down the road it's we have to know the duality before we can transcend it see so I'm this is a story about creativity but it's also a story about our evolution the evolution of our own consciousness now when that thought form is being brought into the emotional level as I said let's say that we've done a good job of creating we've got an idea something's come to us we've let it mature over time it started out vague and nebulous but over time I'm getting clarity I'm getting a sense of what I need to do with this and so now it's about bringing the emotion into it and you're trying to it's like taking a thought-form and adding a watery sheaf to it a watery sheaf you see in many ways this whole process of creating something in the outer world is is based upon the process of giving birth to something and it's the physics of it are very similar to actually like a human being giving birth to a baby I mean when a when a person is when the sould incarnates that it's just Lucy look at it this way when the soul incarnates it first begins it descends into the mental plane and begins to wrap itself in a layer of mental substance which later on will become the mental body of the personality it then descends further and it wraps itself in another layer of substance that becomes the emotional body of the personality and then finally the dense physical and so there is there's three layers that ultimately constitute the personality which is why we often call the personality the threefold personality but in a way that's exactly what we're talking about when we talk about spiritual creativity because the soul is bringing forth an intuition what and that intuition is like a new soul and it's trying to first close itself in a mental sheath that's the thought form then it needs to close itself in an emotional sheath that's the the feeling the sentient aspect of the thought form and then finally it closed itself in physical expression it's out in the world it's happening it's taking form so in it's so interesting to think about this is just the same process of giving birth to a human being or a incarnation you're trying to incarnate a divine ideation you see now as that as that thought form has brought deliberately into the emotional body did you catch I use the word deliberate that's an important concept here because it's so so common and and I know this in my own experience for you know you have a great idea and and and and yet on the heels of that great idea arises sort of an emotional enthusiasm around it but if I were to follow what I've what the what some of the Masters have said about this process is actually you don't want the emotions to take you you want to choose the process of building in the emotional substance into it it's it's really the story of it's the story of choosing deliberately when is the best time what is the best circumstance when I start to really build a feeling nature to this and that's a tall order because as I say from Oh of us certainly for myself it's sort of a I didn't I didn't say to myself you know I got I got a good idea when should I give it a motion we don't usually think in those terms and yet from a deep inner perspective that's exactly what has to happen we want to use the instruments and not be used by the instruments we meaning we the soul view the soul want to utilize the mental emotional and physical sheath or outer garment but not be used by that garment and when when the emotion captures us and takes us it's now using us we need that emotion but we want to have such mastery that we choose when to give it that feeling and we also have to choose how much feeling to give it you know because it's so interesting there's this idea that there has to be the right amount of feeling built into this new idea because if you if you know if you put too much feeling into an idea well you can make a mountain out of a molehill right you've all had that happen too much passion and it exaggerated things and therefore distorts things but then if you don't have enough emotion what happens it doesn't have enough oomph anymore it's dry it doesn't have enough power to push that vitality to move it forward so it becomes it doesn't go anyplace they all saying is that when there's too much water the thought-form drowns not enough and it dies of thirst it's a really important thing to think about what is the right degree of emotion that will facilitate what you want and at the same time not distort the idea this is actually where some of the greatest challenges in the creative process occur this is where some of the many people get stuck here because it's a very very difficult phase in the creative process you know if I looked at it from an elements point of view from an elements point of view let's look at mind as B fire the fire of mind and and so we've got a fiery new idea we want to bring into the world and let's look at it the emotions as being water so what are we really saying here we're saying I want to bring fire into water and when I put fire into water what you get you get steam and steam obscures vision and many people make a wrong turn here because they don't realize that they have obscured vision because the emotions have been added and it's actually creating a steam and they don't know it I like to look I there's a little imagine this this is a visualization for you to kind of symbolically depict what I'm trying to say here imagine that you're in a field out in a pasture and imagine that it's just sunrise and you're out there and it's beautiful and but but but there's a ground fog and now imagine that this ground fog you can see this thickness of it and it's moving it's undulating okay now imagine that because it's moving you're standing there and you see this opening in in the fog and there's the brilliant gold orange sunrise right there and it's like there's the way to go there's the light there's the way to go and you look over here and it's it's just gray gray gray but then you look back at where you just were looking when you saw this and now that's gone and opens over here by analogy by metaphor that's exactly the challenge that that is faced it this phase of the creative process and so many people are are inclined to move to where they see the light initially the Sun initially only to get a little ways down it and it covers it up and it's gone and that's why so many things don't come to fruit because it's one of the reasons is because there's a there's a catch here the key is to be able to pause to be able to let the let the fog settle but the fog settle see there's two things that work against us at this phase of the creative process the first is that that there's an added probability of obscured vision that's not realized the second is that when you add emotion to the thought form that creates a greater impulsivity to act so we have both obscured vision and heightened impulsivity which really can cause us to go the wrong way you know some of the masters say that there's one that there's one of the rules and white magic rule 9 where it has to do with this idea that that the that that this is the place where a person can go down the right hand go down the left-hand path falsely believing it is the right hand path and then you get you get down over a ways and then it takes a sharp turn to the left but now it's too late see so you know sometimes when I think about this i if you if it's easy to think oh boy that arrests my creative sense you know and this is not about arresting creativity at all it's remember the destiny of the soul is to be that creative agent but it means know the difference between a personality that's being created creative and the soul that's being creative and realize that the soul has certain rules in its process and it's it needs to use an instrument that's cooperative but nots but it's not distorting okay now you get for you but we take it further I mean let's let's let's take it to the next level where okay now we want to bring it into physical expression we've got this great idea let's say we've built it well and now let's say I'm going to give it that feeling and now I feel you know I've got that that eight conviction and that emotional magnetism and and I'm still able to hold myself detached because this is oh this is also an area where we can easily over identify with the feeling nature so we still have to be the observer okay okay now I'm going to bring it into the world there's some huge challenges in the massive magical process when it comes to this final step of externalizing something one of them has to do with just right timing just so that's the right timing and but what I feel is so interesting about the souls right timing is that it has nothing to do with watches and calendars and lists and that sort of thing right timing from the souls perspective has to do with two things it has to do with timing in a larger context that is to say the soul works in larger units of time the the personalities in a hurry but the soul there's many things that may be coming into your mind and slowly being shaped now where the actual externalization process may not be most suitable if for another 20 years but the beginnings of the construction of it are taking place now and yet the personalities is 20 years forget it tomorrow let's go for it you know you know it's just like the personality it always it wants enlightenment now you know as a great master once said there is no hurry and yet there's no time to lose and so this this idea of larger seasons the cycles there's astrological cycles that are crucial in the magical process there are certain transits and progressions in your chart that show where there are unusual opportunities for bringing something forward and also periods of time when there there would be a greater challenge associated with so that's one area of timing the sort of how do you fit what is the timing of what you're trying to create and bring forward how does it fit into the the rhythmic nature of the law you're living system that you're not only trying to serve but you are a mere cell within and that's one area of timing the other area of timing is what we call the theory of timing a theory timing and that has to do with this idea of the etheric body itself now I'm not sure let's see I'm not sure how theosophy if they is caught is it calleth Eirik here that chakra system that's referred to as the etheric and it's it's the it's the energy system underlying and it's the natives and and if you you know your your your Theor body is also called your vital body it's the sum total of the vitality underlying the fullness of your physical expression and that etheric body Ed's and flows if you watch it during the day you know you have your highs your lows you know every day you it's good to measure that to get a sense of what is my etheric rhythm when does my system tend to vitalize when does it tend to D vitalize and so part of the process of understanding right timing of delivery has to do with a monitoring of this etheric field and myself when am i depleted when am i charged the other has to do with the same concept but now looking at it environmentally so for instance in this room there's an etheric field right now in this room and this room has if we were to spend a whole day together and all of you would be you know engaged in discussions and so forth and relating to each other and everything that goes on in a day's workshop let us say everything that happens is facilitating the building of an etheric sheath in the field what is the end the magician must try to intuit what is the condition of the etheric field in any given moment because that's the nature of right timing in in one sense because as a teacher I can give you an example of this you know there are times when you can feei I can feel my own etheric body is depleted at certain times of the day and sometimes it's vitalized but you can also feel in the field in in the ebb and flow of vitality within the the room within the environment all of that is measurable all of that needs to be measurable because it's in that flow and the sensing of when it is high when is it low and when are the lesser cycles found within the greater cycles so it's not just a big high and a low but there are less secondary cycles within the bigger cycles all of that is there's a there's a kind of a tuning to that that is useful and important ok and what's so interesting about that is that you might think that well look it's obvious that let's say as a teacher if I were to let's say that we're in that phase of the day we're a lot often time the after-lunch phenomena you know about that I'm glad I'm not there now but because it's always a tough period to work with but you have to work with it but you know obviously that's not the time when you want to deliver your best fair enough right because it's just gonna fall on deaf ears in a certain sense comparatively but but it's also true to say that when you're let's say this is the you're in a field and the group is very vital it's like a lot of in the morning mid morning just had your coffee or whatever mid morning and so everybody's alive actually that's not the best time to bring forth the best as well because both of them represent extremes both represent a hot ones a high point one's a low point we're given to understand that the magical moment is the midway point the midway point in the etheric field where you're in that transition between a high and low and when if you if the field reaches its midway point and you yourself you the magician you the creator happened personally to reach your own midway point if those synchronized that's it that's the moment of magical opportunity unparalleled that's when you plant the seed that's when you deliver that's when you deliver the the one thing that is the most important you know I've done talks to groups of people in different countries and and there have been cases and this is not one of them I'm going to share with it but there have been cases when I've been asked to do a talk on some subject in the esoteric philosophy and really it's a subject that there's only one thing I want to say one sentence that I want to say and yet I have to fill an hour I'm gonna work that field I'm gonna work with that field I'm gonna sense that field and I might say it may take 45 minutes for the field to get exactly where it needs to be both in terms of preliminary foundational understanding but also that about but also in terms of general vitality it may take 45 minutes for that moment to arise and so there's that sense of attentiveness to the field and it's its degree of vitality or lack of it so think of it this way as a magician and and as a teacher it's easy but I mean this is true if you're an artist this is true whatever whatever kind of service you render you know I render through language but some people through arts some people through labor and activity there's many many ways to understand service but but the point is that see it as if see the feel that you're working with as if it were wound as if it were wound and just like a woman who wants to become pregnant in her monthly cycle she has a very very narrow though of opportunity where this can happen by analogy it's the same thing the field is like a big room and your job as a magician is to impregnate that room with whatever it is you're trying to bring forward to germinate Allah and in hopes that it will germinate because if it if the timing is wrong if the etheric timing is wrong well the old the Masters would say this they say they say that when this isn't properly considered oftentimes the seed that is planted becomes a stillborn child it dies at the moment of its birth and you've had that happen haven't you you know so you know you had a great idea but just didn't go anywhere or it just fell on deaf ears so that's a big part of a big consideration in this final phase of bringing it forward another consideration and I'll be very brief here because I realize I'm running out of time but another and another consideration is something called the ancient fires when you're trying to bring something into the world from a soul perspective create creatively remember the soul wants to make an uplifting contribution to something that transcends yourself beyond yourself and and yet think about the bigger picture for a moment what is that what is going on in humanity well in this philosophy is understood that humanity is one entity and that you and I are cells of consciousness within its nature and that we as a species we as a species evolve over time through our relationship to ideation we have new insights that come to us we build those that ideas we create create things from those new insights and all of that's good and it it contributes to our cultural and social evolution but as I often tell my students that which is your temple today will become your prison tomorrow as long as ideas give us growth and they feed us and expand our awareness of things great but the day will come were an idea or a set of ideas has outlived its relevance and becomes an obstacle a prison rather than a temple that's true of everything that's true of that it's true of all of us but that and we get trapped in the old prison of ideas old ideas you know it has been said that what is evil well there's many definitions but one definition of evil is evil is the good that has outlived its usefulness evil is the good that is outlived its usefulness it's the thought forms that at one time may have been very cutting edge and progressive and helpful to you but no longer are and yet the lower self has a alized its relationship with those old ideas so resistance now think of it from a larger perspective all of humanity is one entity the collective consciousness of humanity it has progressive thinking going on but there's a strong element of old archaic thinking and that is important because those old ideas in the ancient literature they're called the ancient fires that the power the power inherent in old ideas and though that those old ideas are strong and lethal and I've seen many a spiritual person who had a great idea and brought it into a field and was not prepared for the ancient fires and the ancient fires attacked and I mean it was like they were incinerated by those fires crawling out never to walk again of course I'm being symbolic here but the point is that the status quo has is going to fight and in a way that you know it's so interesting because there are it it has been said that you know if you're really aligned with your soul really working with the the greater life the door should open for you synchronicities should happen right people cross your path at the right time and although that's true although that's true but it's also true to say that there the day will come when you will you will have to confront the enemy and there's two enemies actually there's the enemy of your own lower nature that you're constantly trying to transform but there's also the enemy out there called the ancient fires the ancient water what is the enemy it's never people ever it's never people it's old archaic ideas and you see in this understanding of things thought forms are not just things held in the brain thought forms exist on the mental plane and our entities in their own right they're beings an idea is an entity and it has a soul and it is a pre it has a personality and I just shared with you a little earlier of how to understand that you're trying to give an intuition an intuitive truth that's its soul but the form becomes its personality as you manifested and eventually that form becomes so rigid over time that it squeezes out or you no longer can see the soul at its core you see so there's this idea that that each of us in your creative work are going to run into the the oppositional force the the ancient fires and if we're not prepared for that it can pretty much dot not only stop you but sometimes stop you for the rest of your life in terms of feeling the courage to go out and do something and these ancient fires are things that want there's a lot that could be said about how to deal with them but the most fundamental thing to realize is this that you can never deal with the ancient fires unless you remember one thing and that is that those old ideas that are really powerful at one time they were new ideas at one time they were cutting-edge perspectives the key is to realize that we want to try to intuit the what I can my book I call the sacred principle held within those old ideas the sacred principles the the Tibetan masters were all cool who was the inspiration for a lot of Alice Bailey's work provided what are called the 15 councils and one of the councils reads this way I'm going to paraphrase it but I'm pretty close on the wording find the gold and threat of truth with an illusion find the gold and threat of truth we're going to lose an illusion in other words that old idea as archaic and resistant as it is there's still going to be some eternal principle at its core but the the form itself is a gross distortion of it now and the way you have the way you deal with these ancient fires is to try to intuit what is the truth of the essence of truth embedded within that incredibly distorted old pattern and then through your language through your influence through through the way you interface with with this person or these people or the situation find a way of helping them recognize the essence of truth at the core and lift it with honor lift it with honor and hold that high and try to see if you can continue to hold it while you begin to reshape another language around how to give it a different form and so it's holding the essence which is eternal past present and future but reshaping the form so that it's more suitable to the to the present in the future but if you drop this hand you're done so so what I'm trying to say to you is the idea the way we have to deal with the ancient fires is to recognize their duality to recognize the sole nature of that old idea which is an eternal thing and to recognize the distorted expression of the in as a thought or is an action that that's that's a distortion that's at the personality it's it's rigid personality and that your ability and my ability to sense that and start working with it to help transform it can only occur if we can sense the same thing in ourselves if I can sense my sacred nature which is my sole nature and I can clearly see it as a as something embedded in a lower self that has impurities and distortions to the extent that I can see my own duality I'm more able to see the duality in the other and in those old thought forms that are getting in the way so it's it's it's a direct reflection of our consciousness and when I can do that then I can start to transform that because you're gonna run into it if you haven't already you're going to run into the ancient fires and they can be lethal there's so much I could say about this but it's it's it's just part of the magical process it has to be considered so as you can see this is a deep subject and I think I'm going to stop here and offer an opportunity if you'd like to ask some questions and I can make myself available for that thank you for people who do have questions just raise your hand and not bring the microphone to you so that we can actually record the question as well as the answer and we are taking questions from people online as well who would like to go first very good let's see how I can phrase this is the stole involved all the way from the fire to the form or does the personality take over at some point and have to push that forward or is the soul involved all the way through the process okay that's a great question and in the the soul being involved in the whole process is the goal but rarely is the goal truly lived okay what often happens is the personality can be strong in its own right and sort of in sort of sort of takes over and the soul loses the grip of the process but ideally it's all about the soul working through the personality and that personality recognizing itself as a mere servant to that greater thing all the way down to the bottom all the way down in this philosophy there's something called soul personality fusion where the soul is once we recognize our duality then we want to infuse the soul into the personality so that the personality slowly lets go as it goes the reins now there's a whole thing in this this philosophy has this whole subject of initiation initiation is really all about understanding how much infusion has occurred the more soul personality fusion that has occurred the more capable the soul is of making that full extension of its creative intention to the bottom no soul personality fusion it can't be done a little bit a little can be done you see and so there's a whole facet of this philosophy that talks about how much fusion is there and what does that suggest in terms of creative creative capacity what does it suggest also about responsibility to make a service contribution it's all based upon the proportional measurement of soul infusion through that personality yeah I really don't have a question but for those of us who were here if you heard that whistling earlier that was an owl oh and I just think it's rather synchronistic that and I was flying around during this talk our old truths subject to distortion yeah measures and Distortion yeah that's why that's why well to quote Gibran again cabrón he said say not I have found the truth say rather I found a truth I often I often say they like to put it this way and let's talk about it just for a moment from what is religious truth spiritual truth or religious truth I firmly stand on this principle that no religion has found the truth but every religion has found a piece of it no religion has found the truth but every religion has found a piece of it but many of them believe they found the whole thing and that's causing so many problems but what part of a religion what part of a religion believes it's found the whole thing it's personality because religion is an entity to every world religion is a being and it has a higher nature and it has a lower nature and some of the greatest problems we have in a religion in that department of human life is that its personality has incredible sway and it's sometimes hard to see it's mystical soulful nature [Music] if the soul speaks to us been a whisper how do we know we're listening to the soul or listening to another part of herself than my buddy be as has much wisdom that might what might not have as much wisdom yeah that's a I think I the first let's never forget that in the truest sense you are the soul so so having said that it's one of the big measures of which part of me is speaking here is to what extent is it decentralized to what extent am i perceiving something that has little to do with me personally or my own benefit but truly represents an insight into the betterment of the human condition in some way but it never at it never it it it's not going to be based upon size of effect you know the a measure that is really useful to Saul ways remember this the soul always evaluates itself with quality measures the personality always evaluates itself with quantitative measures the personality is always saying how much how many how often the soul is saying how well and so that's another thing that that is sort of encouraged in this philosophy is to not only be attentive to the the parts of you that give impulse to perceptions but also be alert to what how much of it is quantitive versus quality and when I say quality by the way I'm just to complete this I mean that like the Seven Rays are sometimes called the Rays of quality you know it's love knowledge beauty harmony wisdom all of those are quality measures they're not quantitive measures yes I think you've mentioned several already but do you have any other suggestions of how to aid the soul's infusion into and through the personality and also is that something that you'd have to worry then that the false self would take advantage of the opening Wow good question yeah well I mean obviously yeah I mentioned a few things in meditation of course is so important but but you know I think it's I think it's one of those things where the the more we can be alert to the subtleties of how our mind persuades us in one way or the other and to notice how that moves the better off we are the more introspective we are and alert to how we fool ourselves the better off we are the impostor is tricky though because one of the things you and maybe some of you read my book because I have a whole section on this that talks about the impostor and that I try to lay out about a dozen I think a dozen discernments that would be helpful to know because it gets tricky you see the further you are on the path the more sarap Tisha's the impostor is that's the amazing thing about it the more hidden it is and the less that the more well disguised it is and there's a whole reason behind all of that but the key is to realize that this that that there are certain differences that are worth noting I'll give you another example and I kind of alluded to it earlier but let me make it fuller for you the relationship you have with time the the personality tends to want things now and it wants to see results now it wants to see the fruits of its labor now or soon and and yet there are many many things that your soul and my soul are developing now that won't bear fruit until the next incarnation now when the personality hears that it goes oh I don't like that that doesn't sound good to me but it is the truth of it now there are some things that your soul will manifest in this life and of course the news is that many of the things that were really developed in the last incarnation are now showing themselves in this incarnation so you have to think in the whole picture but ask yourself what's your relationship to time how do you look at time and you know so often we instead of thinking about what's gonna happen tomorrow or next week how about asking the questions where should I be in this work in 10 years think in those larger terms even even you know I think of Stephen Covey the man who with the seven Habits it is that what yeah the seven Habits he does also a magnificent thing on time management but it's amazing because when you're really the read it he's really talking about an understanding of the dynamics between sold and personality and how they relate to time differently and he says in a totally agree with it is we've got to start thinking in terms of longer views a longer perspective look real briefly your soul has a different relationship to time because the personality the lower self it's only connection to time is its litmus test is is a single incarnation it only no it only exists for a single incarnation so the personality is going to be in a hurry because that's all it knows the soul is a multi incarnational perspective the soul and i don't know what that is how many but I often think it's probably about seven that it's attentive to three before the current incarnation three after those seven incarnations together from the souls perspective boom that's one unit of evolutionary intention next seven incarnation boom that's another unit of evolutionary intention so just the very fact that that in itself you can see I hope is inclining us to realize that it probably would be helpful if we think in longer units of time instead of five minutes or five days think of five or ten years what do you want to bring forward to make a difference in the world in ten years within ten years it's an exercise in the right direction anyway how would the consciousness of happiness joy bliss Campbell Joseph Campbell talks about following your bliss how does this fit in with what you've been saying what Joseph Campbell was fantastic mythologist and he funny you should say that I just relisted to hit all of the audio tapes of his I hadn't heard them for years but on the power of myth that notion of follow your bliss has a lot of merit but I would from an esoteric perspective I would phrase that slightly differently here's how I would phrase it follow the trend of the follow the trend of your thought life that gives rise to lists what is the you know a great master what set once said if you want to know what your soul's purpose is look to the trend of your thinking looked if your trend of your thinking but I'm talking about in those more lofty moments your high moments when you're thinking about life the world what it needs and what your mind always wants to go back to over and over and over again because in the middle of all of that there's a golden thread and that's it and if you can grab that golden thread the experience is bliss you see so I would just say that Campbell's idea is fantastic and I'm just saying but let's add the notion of the trend of thinking and its relationship to what evokes bliss because that's the clue you know we're told that the soul the causal body is found on the higher mental plane deep within so if with that understanding it kind of makes sense that it may launch trends of lofty thought so one of the ways to get a handle on your own nature and soul nature is what do you like to think about and I don't mean in your day-to-day life but I mean in the larger patterns of passion and interest and potential bliss you know so and and just to highlight it further the personality is preoccupied with happiness the soul is agents of joy the monad is really the agent of bliss so bliss is much higher than joy even yeah I see some big people back here oh you have mentioned the seven race is each of those race associated with a particular master yes of Chauhan yes yeah we know all but one of them is that'd your book the Masters names and the association's I don't think so I'd look at say we're dead Oh smen my workshops but yeah I don't know if I put I do a whole section on each of the Rays but I don't remember putting the Masters names in there if you want them I can give them to you but yeah yeah no thank you you're welcome I'm still quite interested in holding essence of an idea or contribution of service whatnot hi and working to change the form yeah perhaps the location perhaps something about the association's of the form can you go can you talk a little more about that well okay I think the best way to talk about it is just to give us an example in history that will give you a sense of what we're talking about let's you know let's use somebody you know I think of somebody like Osama bin Laden as perhaps an example we can use where or if sometimes we use Adolf Hitler is always a great target we can use Adolf Hitler too but in the case of a sama bin Laden and and jihadism this is listed the bigger picture this sort of militant jihadism that's a thought form or that's a series of thought forms is very very destructive to the outer world obviously so step number one is to look at that thought form and realize that it's ultra conservative but at one time it was actually cutting edge philosophic spiritual thinking but it's now ancient fire because what is it it's an idea that was really really really cutting edge thinking a thousand years ago a thousand years ago but you see how long thought forms hold and and they are reinforced and reinforced and solidified become a prison remember that that which is your temple will become your prison a religion is a great example of that when it steps into its fundamentalist department we've got a prison we've got ancient fire but let's look at an Osama bin Laden and some of the principles underlying I mean this is a man that had a strong devotion to God whatever you know no matter how but his narrow view of God but the energy of devotion to the greater life was that was central to his existence the energy of devotion to the greater life and that's a principle the devotion to greater life is a sacred principle it's as sacred as the principle of love and yet it's clothed in a thought form that outlived itself a thousand years ago you see so one of the things that we need to do is to wreck it to hold in honor the principle of devotion to greater life yeah and and and and and somehow if you you know and I'm not a person who's ever dealt with jihadist so I can't use it as an experience here but I can say this that that that the more you can communicate in such a way with the jihadist in a way that somehow shapes an understanding that you see their strong devotion to the greater life that's essential put step number one is to see the golden threat of truth within the illusion you say because you're no we can't get anywhere unless we can see a simpler example would be look at politics you know in our country today the Republican platform and the Democratic platform those are just thought forms and by the way they're both distorted and and each has a set of sacred principles at their core the Democratic Party has a huge emphasis on the sacred principle of concern for the welfare of the larger whole the Republican Party has a huge sacred principle called the sacred principle of individual liberty and actually both occult lis are equal as sacred principles but one looks at the other because we polarize ourselves and try to identify with one over the other we tend to only see the distorted shell and have difficulty seeing the sacred principle so here it would be my challenge to you is a way of closing I guess is think of the think of the political platform that you are in opposition to or the social issue that your op is in my opposition to or the person that you're in opposition to and ask yourself what is the golden thread in that party that I'm not putting enough respect and honor to that's going to be a challenge because it means you actually have to go look deeper and and and that's not so easy that's why in the Alice Bailey writings the Tibetan says you know it would one of the ways to start that process is to never use the term Pro this or anti that because in itself those are terms that are divisive people on the path today from the perspective our sitar is supposed to be the bridges bridging all dualities bridging left and right masculine and feminine the bridges of all oppositional dualities and you can't really bridge unless you can see both thus the truth and the distortion on each side and then it's also a greater bridge which is the bridge between form and spirit or the past and the future how do we bridge and bring the essence of the old ideas from the past and carry it into the future but let go of the form that that those that essence has been trapped within that's the ancient fire we want to liberate it and carry the principle so the principle of sake to back to Osama bin Laden the principle of devotion of greater life is gotta be carried into the future it's just that the form is no longer adequate to the times so just think about it in your own life and what are you most oppositional to and then ask yourself what's the golden thread of truth in this thing that I don't like it's a good exercise you

Channel: Theosophical Classics

Views: 5,662

Rating: 4.9469028 out of 5

Keywords: theosophical society, theosophy, ancient wisdom, Soul Wisdom, Spirituality, Creativity, Creative Service, Creative Energy, William Meader, Theosophical Society in America

Id: qEMkaZMclSw

Length: 78min 49sec (4729 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 09 2020