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Glamor - A World Problem - The Ending of Glamor
This process of recognition, focusing, dissipation and consequent revelation goes on continually from the time a disciple treads the Path of Accepted Discipleship until the third initiation. The clue to all success in this process is, therefore, connected with meditation and the holding of the mind steady in the light. Only through steadiness can the beam of light be formed, intensified, focused and projected and then - at [205] the right moment - withdrawn. I cannot here enter upon an elucidation of the process of meditation, based on the right understanding of the nature of concentration. I have written much upon the subject and the Raja Yoga discipline is well known. Mental concentration and control is now the ordinary theme of all instructions given by educators and enlightened parents. It is difficult for the average person today to realize that there was a time when such phrases as "Use your mind" or "If you will only think" or "A little mental control on your part would be useful" were totally unknown because the mind was so little developed. It was then only recognized as a functioning factor by those with initiate consciousness. The Path of Evolution is in fact the path of recognitions, leading to revelation. The whole process of evolution is initiatory in character, leading from one expansion of consciousness to another until the worlds of the formless and of form stand revealed in the light which the initiate generates and in which he walks. These lights are varied and variously revealing; there is: The light of matter itself, found in every atom of substance. The light of the vital or etheric vehicle - a light which is the reflection of the One Light because it unifies the three types of light within the three worlds. The light of the instinct. The light of the intellect or the light of knowledge. The light of the soul. The light of the intuition. From light to light we pass, from revelation to revelation until we pass out of the realm of light into the realm of life which is, as yet to us, pure darkness. It will be obvious to you that this increasing light brings with it a constantly developing series of revelations which, [206] like all else in the world of human experience, unfolds before the eyes first of all the world of forms, then the world of ideals, then the nature of the soul, of ideas and of divinity. I am choosing but a few of the words which embody the revelation and are symbolic of its character. But all these revelations constitute one great unified revelation which is slowly unfolding before the eyes of humanity. The light of the personal lower self reveals to man the world of form, of matter, of instinct, of desire and of mind; the light of the soul reveals the nature of the relation of these forms of life to the world of the formless and of the conflict between the real and the unreal. The light of the intuition unfolds before the vision of the soul within the personality, the nature of God and the unity of the Whole. The restlessness of material desire, seeking its satisfaction in the three worlds, eventually gives place to aspiration towards soul contact and soul life. This in its turn is recognized as a step towards those great fundamental experiences to which we give the names of the five major initiations. These reveal to man the hitherto unrealized fact of his non-separateness and of the relation of his individual will to the divine will. We are now going to study the mode whereby these phases of work upon the astral plane are carried forward: first, the individual learns to use the light of the mind, generated by the soul as it becomes closely related to the personality and impulsed by the intuition. By means of this light the disciple learns to dissipate his personal and private glamors. I mention this because I would have you appreciate the extent of the task a man undertakes when he consciously sets about ridding himself of glamor preparatory to extended service. He is in conflict then with the whole glamor of the entire plane and is apt to be overwhelmed by a realization of what he is facing. This is one of the [207] causes of the deep depression and those profound inferiority complexes which render some people completely futile or lead eventually to suicide. Their own personal glamors tie them in to national or planetary glamor and thus condition their life expression and their thinking. I would ask you to remember this as you deal with people and find them set in their ideas and unable to see the truth as you see it. They are as they are because their individual glamor is fed by the greater glamors, and this is as yet too much for them.
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