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Glamor - A World Problem - The Causes of Glamor
c. Causes initiated by the Individual. If you have studied all the above with the needed care, it will be apparent to you that the individual man enters upon incarnation already handicapped by existent glamor of a very ancient origin and utterly beyond his power to control at this stage. It is of great potency. I use the word "handicapped" advisedly for lack of a better term. I would like, however, to point out that the true significance of the situation exists in the fact that these conditions offer the opportunity to the man of evoking the understanding and point of view of the soul, for they provide the means whereby experience is gained. This experience will lead eventually to the soul assuming control of the mechanism, the personality, and thus giving to that soul a definite field of service. The vehicles through which the soul is seeking experience and expression are normally and naturally subject to world glamors, and to the glamors of humanity as well as illusion. When the soul, in the early stages of experience, falls into the snare of maya, of glamor and eventually of illusion, the reason is that the soul is identifying itself with those forms and therefore with the surrounding glamor, and thus failing to achieve identification with itself. As evolution proceeds, the nature of the problem becomes apparent to the soul in incarnation and a process is then instituted whereby the soul frees itself from the results of wrong identification. Every soul in incarnation which succeeds in releasing its consciousness from the world of illusion and of glamor is definitely serving the race, and helping to free humanity from this ancient and potent thralldom. [115] But it must be borne in mind that when a man is nearing the stage of consciousness when both the astral body and the mental body are active and functioning, he himself becomes a manufacturer of glamor. He struggles with forces within himself and within the world in which he lives, and the increasing potency of the inflowing soul energy (which comes in conflict with personality forces) gradually produces around him a field of glamor and an environment of illusion that brings this third category of glamor into full play. These glamors are dependent upon the expression of the different forces which constitute a man's lower nature, of which he is becoming increasingly aware, and which pass through the stages of emergence into recognition, potency in expression, and violence in conflict until the struggling soul sits down - as did Arjuna - in the midst between the two opposing forces (personality force and soul energy) and asks himself: Which is right, this or that? How can I distinguish where my duty or my responsibility lies? How can I find my way out of this bewildering situation? How can I bring in the control of the Warrior so that the two groups of forces which I love may be resolved into a unity? How can I find my way out of this impasse? Why must I hurt that which I love and through which I have expressed myself for ages? How can I become aware of that mental illumination which will reveal the "middle way" between the pairs of opposites? How can I see God? or else the Form of God? [116] Many such questions arise in the mind of the aspirant. They indicate dilemma, bewilderment, a realization of surrounding glamor, a stage of illusion and a condition of impotency. Against the disciple are fighting all the forces of his own nature, and also those of humanity as a whole and of the planetary state. He feels helpless, inert, feeble and hopeless. He cannot even see the way out. Only one clear fact remains and that is the fact of the Soul, of the immortal Identity, the Warrior behind the scenes, the Charioteer, Krishna, the Christ within.
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