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Discipleship in the New Age II - Teachings on Initiation - Part II
The Formulas Now that you have, presumably, brooded for some months on my instructions on the Formulas, I will seek to impart to you some of the deeper implications. Formula One. "A line of fire between two blazing points. A stream of water blue, again a line, emerging from the earth and ending in the ocean. A tree with root above and flowers below. "Out of the fire and always at the midway point appears the eye of God (Shiva). Upon the stream, between the two extremes, there floats the eye of vision; a thread of light unites the two. "Deep in the tree, between the root and flowers, the eye again is seen. The eye that knows, the eye that sees, the directing eye - one made of fire, one fluid as the sea, and two which look from here to there. Fire, water and the earth - all need the vital air. The air is life. The air is God." These formulas and their implications have caused some of you concern because of their extreme difficulty of interpretation. I would ask you to bear in mind that you are [263] individually quite unable to grasp the extent of your own comprehension because the mind (the major conditioning factor in a disciple's life in the early stages of his training) knows far more than the brain is capable of recording. Later, in the life of the initiate, the soul registers consciously for the disciple who can identify himself with the soul, far more than the concrete mind is able to register. I would ask you, therefore, to cease gauging your capacity to understand and instead simply to brood and reflect. Let me briefly summarize for you some of the things I indicated anent these formulas in my previous instructions: They are concerned with the six relationships, as the disciple succeeds in establishing them. These six relationships are not six initiations but six intermediate expansions of consciousness, occurring between the major initiations. They are definitely formulas of integration: They concern integration progressively into a Master's group. They also concern integration into some state of group sensitivity, on some one plane, for consciousness of sensitive response is the keynote of all the planes throughout the solar system. They are also formulas of revelation. This is peculiarly so in connection with Formula One. They bring about, when rightly used: The revelation of group feeling. The revelation of the Master as he is, the center of light and power within the circle. The revelation of the point of life at the center of all forms. These effects, resulting from right comprehension of the formulas, might be regarded as reactions - automatic and inevitable; I used this word "reaction" in my last instruction. These reactions are frequently, and I might say usually, unconscious and it is only gradually that the disciple wakes up to the fact that by quiet reflection upon the formula, certain [264] expansions of consciousness, a greater sensitivity and an intuitive recognition of the hitherto unseen and unrealized have wrought definite changes in his subjective nature. He does the required work and the results naturally and simply happen. Here is a hint as to the need for occult obedience. I have the responsibility of indicating to you the work I want done and the steps to be taken. You subsequently have to do the work. Most of you, living normally as you do in the world of effects and not in the world of causes, are preoccupied with the possible results and the phenomenal differences (if I might call them so) which are expected by you to eventuate from the work. Therefore, instead of concentrating upon exactitude of work and meticulous obedience, your energy goes into the thought of what will happen, into the consideration of the difficulties of the work, and into your belief that no results are demonstrating in your particular case. Primarily what I am doing in giving you these formulas is to aid you to work in the world of causes and so draw you consciously out of the world of effects. Therefore, I would ask you to do the indicated work, to concentrate your minds upon these formulas of power - "working without attachment," as the Gita expresses it - and refrain from looking for results, knowing that they will be there, e'en though unrecognized by you, until your focus is more definitely subjective. I did not say "introspective," my brother, but "subjective." To be an introvert really means that you, as a thinking personality, are always looking in to your inner feeling and thought life. That is not living subjectively; it is living as an outer observer who looks within. To live subjectively means that the focus of your consciousness is within and that from that point you look in two directions: outward at the personality upon the physical plane and inward at the soul. Ponder on this. The distinction is very real and one that you should grasp. The man who knows the difference between living an introspective life and a subjective life is well on the way to being a true esotericist. Let us look for a minute at Formula One and seek its [265] simplest interpretation, and yet an advanced one from the angle of the neophyte (which you should not be). I will take one or two general ideas which emerge from an analysis of the whole and then a few sentences which - when interpreted - may throw light upon certain basic and practical significances. I would first have you note the emphasis upon the "eye" in this formula. It is a keynote and appears in various guises. Behind all the ideas lies the concept of seeing, of a Seeing One, looking on at the created Whole. This same concept is to be found in the fundamental Masonic symbol of the Eye of God which dominates everything within the Temple. In this formula we have: The Eye of God. Shiva is the first Person of the Trinity, the Destroyer, but at the same time the Final Absorber, the Whole and yet the part. This is the organ of the divine Will or Power, the Eye, through whose directed gaze the power flows outward to its created Whole. In the case of the human spirit, it is the Monad. The Eye of Vision, indicating this time not the directing energy, but the conscious Observer, the Soul, whether cosmic, solar or human. The Eye that Knows. This is the disciple who, from stage to stage, reacts increasingly to the direction of the spiritual will and to the growth of sensitive response, and in both his brain and his mind consciousness in the three worlds knows. That knowledge is limited in the neophyte, deepening in the disciple and profound in the Master, but it is all related to vision. At the same time this formula tells us that there are four eyes: "One made of fire" the eye of God. "One fluid as the sea" . . . the eye of vision. "And two which look from here to there, the eye that knows." These are the eye of the disciple and the eye of the personality. There is a clue to this in a statement in The Secret Doctrine that the right eye [266] is the eye of buddhi and the left eye the eye of manas - these are the eyes of the high grade integrated personality, en rapport with the soul. "Fire, water and the earth all need the vital air. The air is life." The clue again to this is to be found in The Secret Doctrine, I.8o, where we find the words "Matter is the Vehicle for the manifestation of Soul on this plane of existence, and Soul is the Vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit and these three are a Trinity, synthesized by Life, which pervades them all." You can see, therefore, upon careful reflection how simple this matter is, exoterically considered, and how the key to understanding lies in conscious identification with all three, both sequentially through growth and simultaneously through initiation. I have here given you an occult hint. Secondly, I would have you note how this formula refers to the antahkarana: "A line of fire between two blazing points" - the monad and the soul. "A line, emerging from the earth and ending in the ocean" - referring to the sutratma which, when the antahkarana is completed, blends all types of consciousness, spirit and matter, into one living whole, the ultimate Reality. These are some of the more obvious significances; deeper ones will emerge when these are realities and not speculative theories in your life. It will be apparent to you consequently the need for definite work upon the instructions given you upon the antahkarana. In connection with the above, I would call your attention to some words I wrote in my last instruction to you in reference to Formula Two. I there said that alignment "will be our next consideration when Formula One has brought about certain changes in consciousness. I shall not consider these formulas at present. I will only point out their major implications which will be seldom what you think, conditioned as you are by the terms and the interpretations of the lower concrete mind." [267]
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