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Letters on Occult Meditation - Letter VIII - Access to the Masters via Meditation
ACCESS TO THE MASTERS VIA MEDITATION September 12th, 1920 Who are the Masters? What access to a Master entails: From the standpoint of the pupil? From the standpoint of the Master? Methods of approach to the Master in meditation. The effect of this access on the three planes. [254] The Search for the Goal Today it may be possible to touch somewhat upon the subject of the Masters and how They may be approached through meditation. This I know is a subject close and dear to your heart, as it is to the heart of all those who earnestly follow the light within. I seek to handle this subject with you in such a way that at the close of this letter the Masters will be more real to you than ever before; the significance of approach to Them be better comprehended and the method more simplified; and the effect of contact with Them will be so demonstrated in the life that its immediate and practical attainment will be earnestly pursued. Let us, therefore, as we have always done, divide our subject into certain heads and divisions: Who are the Masters? What does access to Them entail: From the standpoint of the pupil? From the standpoint of the Master? Methods of approach to the Masters through meditation. The effect of this access on the three planes. Everywhere throughout the whole world is felt the urge that drives a man to seek out someone who, for him, embodies the ideal. Even those who do not admit the existence of the Masters seek some ideal, and then visualize that ideal as embodied in some form on the physical plane. They picture themselves, perhaps, as the exponents [257] of ideal action, or visualize some great philanthropist, some superlative scientist, some notable artist or musician, as embodying their supreme conception. The human being, - simply because he is himself fragmentary and incomplete - has always this urge within himself to seek other and greater than himself. It is this that drives him back to the center of his being, and it is this that forces him to take the path of return to the All-Self. Ever, throughout the aeons, does the Prodigal Son arise and go to his Father, and always latent within him is the memory of the Father's home and the glory there to be found. But the human mind is so constituted that the search for light and for the ideal is necessarily long and difficult. "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face"; now we catch glimpses through the occasional windows we pass in our ascension of the ladder, of other and greater Beings than ourselves; They hold out to us helping hands, and call to us in clarion tones to struggle bravely on if we hope to stand where They are now standing. We sense beauties and glories surrounding us that as yet we cannot revel in; they flit into our vision, and we touch the glory at a lofty moment only again to lose the contact and to sink back again into the murky gloom that envelopes. But we know that outside and further on is something to be desired; we learn also the mystery that that external wonder can only be contacted by withdrawing within, till the center of consciousness is found that vibrates in tune with those dimly realized wonders, and with those radiant Souls Who call Themselves our Elder Brothers. Only by trampling on the external sheaths that veil and hide the inner center do we achieve the goal, and find the Ones we seek. Only by the domination of all forms, and the bringing of those forms under the rule of the God within, can we find the God in all, for it is only the [258] sheaths in which we move upon the plane of being that hide from us our inner God, and that shut us off from Those in Whom the God transcends all outer forms. The great Initiate, Who voiced the words I quote, added still other words of radiant truth: "Then shall we know even as we are known." The future holds for each and all who duly strive, who unselfishly serve and occultly meditate, the promise of knowing Those Who already have full knowledge of the struggler. Therein lies the hope for the student of meditation; as he struggles, as he fails, as he perseveres, and as he laboriously reiterates from day to day the arduous task of concentration and of mind control, there stand on the inner side Those Who know him, and Who watch with eager sympathy the progress that he makes. Forget not the earlier part of the Initiate's remarks where he points out the way whereby the darkness is dispelled, and knowledge of the Great Ones is reached. He emphasizes that only by love is the path of light and knowledge trodden. Why this emphasis upon love? Because the goal for all is love, and therein lies the merging. To put scientifically what is oft a nebulous sentiment, we might express it as follows: It is by the attainment of the vibration which is analogous to the Ray of Love-Wisdom (the Divine Ray) that the Lords of Love are contacted, that the Masters of Compassion are known, and that the possibility of entering into the consciousness of the Great Ones and of all our brothers of whatsoever degree, becomes a fact in manifestation. This is the path to be trodden by one and all, and the method is meditation. The goal is perfect love and wisdom; the steps are the surmounting of subplane after subplane on all the three planes; the method is that of occult meditation; the reward is the continuous expansion [259] of consciousness that puts a man eventually en rapport with his own Ego, with other selves, with the waiting eager Master to Whom he is assigned, with fellow disciples and more advanced Initiates whom he may contact in that Master's aura, till he finally contacts the One Initiator, is admitted into the Secret Place, and knows the mystery that underlies consciousness itself.
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