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A Treatise on White Magic - Rule Ten - The Founding of the Hierarchy
The Founding of the Hierarchy The various energies which play upon the human being and produce his unfoldment constitute his field of experience. Those two words - unfoldment and experience - should ever be linked, for each produces the other. As one is subjected to experience in the form world, a paralleling unfoldment of consciousness is carried forward. As that unfoldment produces constant changes in realization and a consequent constant reorientation to a new state of awareness, it necessarily leads to new experience - experience of fresh phenomena, of new states of being, and of dimensional conditions hitherto unknown. Hence the frequent reaction of the disciple to the fact that for him, as yet, there is no point of peace. Peace was the objective of the Atlantean aspirant. Realization is that of the Aryan disciple. He can never be static; he can never rest; he is constantly adjusting himself to new conditions; constantly learning to function therein, and then subsequently finding them pass away to give place, in their turn, to new. This goes on until the consciousness is stabilized in the Self, in the One. Then the initiate [375] knows himself to be the unlocking Unity, watching the phenomenal phantasmagoria of life in form. He passes from one sense of unity to a sense of duality, and from thence again into a higher unity. First, the Self identifies itself with the form aspect to such an extent that all duality disappears in the illusion that the Self is the form. We have then the form constituting apparently all that there is. This is followed by the stage wherein the indwelling Self begins to be aware of Itself as well as of the form, and we talk then in terms of the higher and the lower self; we speak of the self and its sheaths, and of the self and the not-self. This dualistic stage is that of the aspirant and of the disciple, up to the time of his training for the third initiation. He begins with a knowledge that he is a spiritual entity confined in a form. His consciousness for a long period of time remains predominantly that of the form. Gradually this changes, - so gradually that the aspirant learns the lesson of endurance (even to the point of enduring the not-self!) until there comes a life of balance, wherein neither preponderates. This produces in the man a state of apparent negativity and inertia which may last for one life or two, and he seems to accomplish little in either direction. This is, for workers, a valuable hint in their dealings with people. Then the point of balance changes, and the soul appears to dominate from the standpoint of influence, and the entire consciousness aspect begins to shift into the higher of the two aspects. Duality however, still persists, for the man is sometimes identified with his soul and sometimes with his form nature; this is the stage wherein so many most earnest disciples are at this time to be found. Little by little however he becomes "absorbed" in the soul, and thus comes en rapport with all aspects of the soul in all forms until the day dawns when he realizes that there is nothing but soul and then the higher state of unity supervenes. [376] These points need consideration and are valuable, for there are schools of thought (such as the Vedanta and other mystical groups of thinkers) which emphasize the life aspect and appear to negate duality. Other schools (such as the Theosophical, in spite of denial) teach the fact of the self and the not-self, and hence can be interpreted in terms of duality. Both are right and both need each other. It should be remembered that in the process of manifestation we work from a relative unity, through duality, to another unity, in the following way: The unity of form, wherein the self is identified apparently with the form, and is absorbed in form life. Duality, with a fluctuating shift backward and forward between the self and the form, the focus of consciousness being sometimes in one and sometimes in the other. The unity of the soul, wherein naught but soul is seen to exist, and only being is registered in consciousness. Thus it will be found that both schools are right, and that the dualistic concept is a step upon the way to essential union with the One Life.
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