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A Treatise on White Magic - Rule Ten - The Founding of the Hierarchy
The characteristics of the individual who is beginning to function as a personality might be briefly enumerated as follows. They are simple and clear and pre-eminently selfish. Let it not be forgotten that the primitive step on the way to selfhood of necessity is selfishness. Let it be equally well remembered that the prime hindrance to the advanced and highly evolved personality is selfhood, or the prolongation of the selfish attitude. The characteristics therefore are in their sequential development as follows: The ability to say I am, I wish, I desire, I will. The consciousness of being in the center of one's tiny universe. "Around me the Heavens move and the stars in their courses revolve" is the motto of this stage. [394] The sense of drama and the capacity to visualize oneself as the center of one's environment. The sense of responsibility and the aptitude to regard the surrounding members of the human family as dependent upon one. The sense of importance - the outgrowth of the above. This demonstrates in power and influence where there is a real and steadily awakening entity behind the "persona", and in braggadocio and bombast where a small selfish creature functions. The power to use the entire equipment so that the mind and brain function synchronously and the emotional nature is thereby subordinated, inhibited or controlled. This involves the steady growth of the power to use thought. Capacity to live a coordinated life so that the entire man functions and is guided by purpose (expressing the energy of will), by desire (expressing the energy of the emotional or psychic nature), and by vitality which swings the physical vehicle into line with purpose and desire. Power to influence, sway, guide and hold others within the range of individual purpose and desire. When this stage has been reached the three energies which constitute a personality have been successfully fused and merged and the mechanism or instrument of the indwelling self is a usable and valuable asset. The man is a potent personality and becomes the center of a group; he finds himself to be a focal point for other lives, and is an influential magnetic individual, swaying others, coordinating human units into groups, and organisms. He becomes the head of organizations and of parties, of religious and political bodies and of nations in some cases. Thus do the dominant personalities come into being and find themselves; they discover thus the distinction [395] between the center of power, the self, and the equipment; they finally become conscious of vocation in the true sense of the term. It should be noted that this sequential development is paralleled by an inner growth of soul awareness, though the mode of expression of that inner growth is largely dependent upon the ray upon which the spiritual Entity is found. One point should be here noted and upon this point aspirants should exercise care. The usual connotation of the words "spiritual growth" is largely that of religious growth in understanding. A man is deemed spiritual if he is interested in the world Scriptures, if he is a Church member and if he lives a saintly life. But this is no true definition for it is not sufficiently comprehensive. It has grown out of the impress set upon human thought and terminologies by the Piscean Age, and through the influence of the sixth ray, and the work of the Christian Church - all most necessary and all inherent in the great plan, but which (divorced from their eternal context) lead to the over-emphasis of certain divine expressions, and the overlooking of other as vital manifestations of the divine consciousness. The true significance of the words "spiritual growth" is far wider and more inclusive than their manifestation through the medium of religious and mystical literature and organizations for the imparting of metaphysical truth. Power, purpose and will are divine qualities and expressions, and show themselves with equal clarity through a Mussolini or through a Pope. In both cases the mechanism of expression modifies and steps down the qualities and serves as a handicap. A potent personality may function in any field of human expression and his work will warrant the word spiritual just in so far as it is based on high idealism, the greatest good of the largest number, and self-sacrificing endeavor. [396]
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