Z.

* * * * *

As regards the practices of concentration suggested in this letter,

they are only stages in a life-long contemplation; they are means to

an end, means of a certain order among means of other orders, all

necessary, the highest path being that of constant devotion and entire

resignation to the Law. The above means have a physiological value

because the spots suggested for contemplation are, like others, vital

centers. Excitation of these centers, and of the magnetic residue of

breath always found in them, strengthens and arouses the faculties of

the inner man, the magnetic vehicle of the soul and the link between

matter and spirit. This is a form of words necessary for clearness,

because in reality matter and spirit are one. We may better imagine an

infinite series of force correlations which extend from pure Spirit to

its grossest vehicle, and we may say that the magnetic inner vehicle,

or astral man, stands at the halfway point of the scale. The secret

of the circulation of the nervous fluid is hidden in these vital

centers, and he who discovers it can use the body at will. Moreover,

this practice trains the mind to remain in its own principle, without

energizing, and without exercising its tangential force, which is so

hard to overcome. Thought has a self-reproductive power, and when the

mind is held steadily to one idea it becomes colored by it, and, as

we may say, all the correlates of that thought arise within the mind.

Hence the mystic obtains knowledge about any object of which he thinks

constantly in fixed contemplation. Here is the rationale of Krishna's

words: "Think constantly of me; depend on me alone; and thou shalt

surely come unto me."

The pure instincts of children often reveal occult truths. I heard a

girl of fifteen say recently: "When I was a small child I was always

supposin'. I used to sit on the window seat and stare, stare, at the

moon, and I was supposin' that, if I only stared long enough, I'd get

there and know all about it."

Spiritual culture is attained through concentration. It must be

continued daily and every moment to be of use. The "Elixir of Life"

(_Five Years of Theosophy_) gives us some of the reasons for this

truth. Meditation has been defined as "the cessation of active,

external thought." Concentration is the entire life-tendency to a given

end. For example, a devoted mother is one who consults the interests

of her children and all branches of their interests in and before

all things; not one who sits down to think fixedly about one branch

of their interests all the day. Life is the great teacher; it is the

great manifestation of Soul, and Soul manifests the Supreme. Hence all

methods are good, and all are but parts of the great aim, which is

Devotion. "Devotion is success in actions," says the _Bhagavad-Gîtâ_.

We must use higher and lower faculties alike, and beyond those of mind

are those of the Spirit, unknown but discoverable. The psychic powers,

as they come, must also be used, for they reveal laws. But their value

must not be exaggerated, nor must their danger be ignored. They are

more subtle intoxicants than the gross physical energies. He who relies

upon them is like a man who gives way to pride and triumph because he

has reached the first wayside station on the peaks he has set out to

climb. Like despondency, like doubt, like fear, like vanity, pride,

and self-satisfaction, these powers too are used by Nature as traps to

detain us. Every occurrence, every object, every energy may be used for

or against the great end: in each Nature strives to contain Spirit, and

Spirit strives to be free. Shall the substance paralyze the motion, or

shall the motion control the substance? The interrelation of these two

is manifestation. The ratio of activity governs spiritual development;

when the great Force has gained its full momentum, It carries us to the

borders of the Unknown. It is a Force intelligent, self-conscious, and

spiritual: its lower forms, or vehicles, or correlates may be evoked by

us, but Itself comes only of Its own volition. We can only prepare a

vehicle for It, in which, as Behmen says, "the Holy Ghost may ride in

Its own chariot."

"The Self cannot be known by the _Vedas_, nor by the understanding,

nor by much learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him alone the Self

can be gained."

"The Self chooses him as his own. But the man who has not first turned

aside from his wickedness, who is not calm and subdued, _or whose mind

is not at rest_, he can never obtain the Self, even by knowledge."

The italics are mine; they indicate the value of that stage of

contemplation hitherto referred to as that in which the mind has ceased

to energize, and when the pure energies of Nature go to swell the

fountain of Spirit.

In regard to the phrase in the above letter that the Adept "brings back

_what he can_" from Turya, it is to be understood as referring to the

fact that all depends upon the coördination of the various principles

in man. He who has attained perfection or Mahâtmaship has assumed

complete control of the body and informs it at will. But, of course,

while in the body he is still, to some extent, as a soul of power,

limited by that body or vehicle. That is to say, there are experiences

not to be shared by that organ of the soul called by us "the body," and

beyond a certain point its brain cannot reflect or recall them. This

point varies according to the degree of attainment of individual souls,

and while in some it may be a high point of great knowledge and power,

still it must be considered as limited compared with those spiritual

experiences of the freed soul.

The work upon which all disciples are employed is that of rendering

the body more porous, more fluidic, more responsive to all spiritual

influences which arise in the inner center, in the soul which is an

undivided part of the great Soul of all, and less receptive of the

outside material influences which are generated by the unthinking world

and by those qualities which are in nature. Abstract thought is said

to be "the power of thinking of a thing apart from its qualities;" but

these qualities are the phenomenal, the evident, and they make the most

impression upon our senses. They bewilder us, and they form a part of

that trap which Nature sets for us lest we discover her inmost secret

and rule her. More than this: our detention as individual components

of a race provides time for that and other races to go through

evolutionary experience slowly, provides long and repeated chances for

every soul to amend, to return, to round the curve of evolution. In

this Nature is most merciful, and even in the darkness of the eighth

sphere to which souls of _spiritual_ wickedness descend, her impulses

provide opportunities of return if a single responsive energy is left

in the self-condemned soul.

Many persons insist upon a perfect moral code tempered by social

amenities, forgetting that these vary with climate, nationalities, and

dates. Virtue is a noble offering to the Lord. But insomuch as it is

mere bodily uprightness and mere mental uprightness, it is insufficient

and stands apart from uprightness of the psychic nature or the virtue

of soul. The virtue of the soul is true Being; its virtue is, to be

free. The body and the mind are not sharers in such experiences,

though they may afterward reflect them, and this reflection may inform

them with light and power of their own kind. Spirituality is not

virtue. It is impersonality, in one aspect. It is as possible to be

spiritually "wicked" as to be spiritually "good." These attributes are

only conferred upon spirituality by reason of its use for or against

the great evolutionary Law, which must finally prevail because it is

the Law of the Deity, an expression of the nature and Being of the

Unknown, which nature is towards manifestation, self-realization, and

reäbsorption. All that clashes with this Law by striving for separate

existence must in the long run fail, and any differentiation which

is in itself incapable of reäbsorption is reduced to its original

elements, in which shape, so to say, it can be reabsorbed.

Spirituality is, then, a condition of Being which is beyond expression

in language. Call it a rate of vibration, far beyond our cognizance.

Its language is the language of motion, in its incipiency, and its

perfection is beyond words and even thought.

"The knowledge of the Supreme Principle is a divine silence, and the

quiescence of all the senses."--(_Clavis of Hermes._)

"Likes and dislikes, good and evil, do not in the least affect the

knower of Brahm, who is bodiless and always existing."--(_Crest Jewel

of Wisdom._)

"Of that nature which is beyond intellect many things are asserted

according to intellection, but it is contemplated by a cessation of

intellectual energy better than with it."--(_Porphyrios._)

Thought is bounded, and we seek to enter the boundless. The intellect

is the first production of Nature which energizes for the experience

of the soul, as I said. When we recognize this truth we make use of

that natural energy called Thought for comparison, instruction, and the

removal of doubt, and so reach a point where we restrain the outward

tendencies of Nature, for, when these are resolved into their cause and

Nature is wholly conquered and restrained, that cause manifests itself

both in and beyond Nature.

"The incorporeal substances in descending are divided and multiplied

about individuals with a diminution of power; but when they ascend by

their energies beyond bodies, they become united and exist as a whole

by and through exuberance of power."--(_Porphyrios._)

These hints may suffice for such minds as are already upon the way.

Others will be closed to them. Language only expresses the experiences

of a race, and since ours has not reached the upper levels of Being

we have as yet no words for these things. The East has ever been the

home of spiritual research; she has given all the great religions

to the world. The Sanscrit has thus terms for some of these states

and conditions, but even in the East it is well understood that the

formless cannot be expressed by form, or the Illimitable by the limits

of words or signs. The only way to know these states is to _be_ them:

we never can _really_ know anything which we are not.