THE QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED.
How, it may be asked, are we to make ourselves capable of sharing in
this great work? Well, there is no mystery as to the qualifications
which are needed by one who aspires to be a helper; the difficulty
is not in learning what they are, but in developing them in oneself.
To some extent they have been already incidentally described, but
it is nevertheless as well that they should be set out fully and
categorically.
1. _Single-mindedness._ The first requisite is that we shall have
recognized the great work which the Masters would have us do, and
that it shall be for us the one great interest of our lives. We must
learn to distinguish not only between useful and useless work, but
between the different kinds of useful work, so that we may each devote
ourselves to the very highest of which we are capable, and not fritter
away our time in labouring at something which, however good it may
be for the man who cannot yet do anything better, is unworthy of the
knowledge and capacity which should be ours as Theosophists. A man who
wishes to be considered eligible for employment on higher planes must
begin by doing the utmost that lies in his power in the way of definite
work for Theosophy down here.
Of course I do not for a moment mean that we are to neglect the
ordinary duties of life. We should certainly do well to undertake no
new worldly duties of any sort, but those which we have already bound
upon our shoulders have become a kârmic obligation which we have no
right to neglect. Unless we have done to the full the duties which
karma has laid upon us we are not free for the higher work. But this
higher work must nevertheless be to us the one thing really worth
living for--the constant background of a life which is consecrated to
the service of the Masters of Compassion.
2. _Perfect self-control._ Before we can be safely trusted with
the wider powers of the astral life, we must have ourselves perfectly
in hand. Our temper, for example, must be thoroughly under control, so
that nothing that we may see or hear can cause real irritation in us,
for the consequences of such irritation would be far more serious on
that plane than on this. The force of thought is always an enormous
power, but down here it is reduced and deadened by the heavy physical
brain-particles which it has to set in motion. In the astral world it
is far freer and more potent, and for a man with fully-awakened faculty
to feel anger against a person there would be to do him serious and
perhaps even fatal injury.
Not only do we need control of temper, but control of nerve, so that
none of the fantastic or terrible sights that we may encounter may be
able to shake our dauntless courage. It must be remembered that the
pupil who awakens a man upon the astral plane incurs thereby a certain
amount of responsibility for his actions and for his safety, so that
unless his neophyte had courage to stand alone the whole of the older
worker’s time would be wasted in hovering round to protect him, which
it would be manifestly unreasonable to expect.
It is to make sure of this control of nerve, and to fit them for the
work that has to be done, that candidates are always made, now as in
days of old, to pass what are called the tests of earth, water, air and
fire.
In other words, they have to learn with that absolute certainty that
comes not by theory, but by practical experience, that in their astral
bodies none of these elements can by any possibility be hurtful to
them--that none can oppose any obstacle in the way of the work which
they have to do.
In this physical body we are fully convinced that fire will burn us,
that water will drown us, that the solid rock forms an impassable
barrier to our progress, that we cannot with safety launch ourselves
unsupported into the ambient air. So deeply is this conviction
engrained in us that it costs most men a good deal of effort to
overcome the instinctive action which follows from it, and to realize
that in the astral body the densest rock offers no impediment to their
freedom of motion, that they may leap with impunity from the highest
cliff, and plunge with the most absolute confidence into the heart of
the raging volcano or the deepest abysses of the fathomless ocean.
Yet until a man _knows_ this--knows it sufficiently to act upon
his knowledge instinctively and confidently--he is comparatively
useless for astral work, since in emergencies that are constantly
arising he would be perpetually paralyzed by imaginary disabilities.
So he has to go through his tests, and through many another strange
experience--to meet face to face with calm courage the most terrifying
apparitions amid the most loathsome surroundings--to show in fact that
his nerve may be thoroughly trusted under any and all of the varied
groups of circumstances in which he may at any moment find himself.
Further, we need control of mind and of desire; of mind, because
without the power of concentration it would be impossible to do good
work amid all the distracting currents of the astral plane; of desire,
because in that strange world to desire is very often to have, and
unless this part of our nature were well controlled we might perchance
find ourselves face to face with creations of our own of which we
should be heartily ashamed.
3. _Calmness._ This is another most important point--the absence
of all worry and depression. Much of the work consists in soothing
those who are disturbed, and cheering those who are in sorrow; and
how can a helper do that work if his own aura is vibrating with
constant fuss and worry, or grey with the deadly gloom that comes
from perpetual depression? Nothing is more hopelessly fatal to
occult progress or usefulness than our nineteenth-century habit of
ceaselessly worrying over trifles--of eternally making mountains out
of molehills. Many of us simply spend our lives in magnifying the most
absurd trivialities--in solemnly and elaborately going to work to make
ourselves miserable about nothing.
Surely we who are Theosophists ought, at any rate, to have got beyond
this stage of irrational worry and causeless depression; surely we,
who are trying to acquire some definite knowledge of the cosmic
order, ought by this time to have realized that the optimistic view of
everything is always nearest to the divine view, and therefore to the
truth, because only that in any person which is good and beautiful can
by any possibility be permanent, while the evil must by its very nature
be temporary. In fact, as Browning said, “the evil is null, is naught,
is silence implying sound,” while above and beyond it all “the soul of
things is sweet, the Heart of Being is celestial rest.” So They who
know maintain unruffled calm, and with Their perfect sympathy combine
the joyous serenity which comes from the certainty that all will at
last be well; and those who wish to help must learn to follow Their
example.
4. _Knowledge._ To be of use the man must at least have some
knowledge of the nature of the plane on which he has to work, and
the more knowledge he has in any and every direction the more useful
he will be. He must fit himself for this task by carefully studying
Theosophical literature; for he cannot expect those whose time is
already so fully occupied to waste some of it in explaining to him what
he might have learnt down here by taking the trouble to read the books.
No one who is not already as earnest a student as his capacities and
opportunities permit, need begin to think of himself as a candidate for
astral work.
5. _Unselfishness._ It would seem scarcely needful to insist
upon this as a qualification, for surely everyone who has made the
least study of Theosophy must know that while the slightest taint of
selfishness remains in a man, he is not yet fit to be entrusted with
higher powers, not yet fit to enter upon a work of whose very essence
it is that the worker should forget himself but to remember the good of
others. He who is still capable of selfish thought, whose personality
is still so strong in him that he can allow himself to be turned aside
from his work by feelings of petty pride or suggestions of wounded
dignity--that man is not yet ready to show the selfless devotion of the
helper.
6. _Love._ This, the last and greatest of the qualifications,
is also the most misunderstood. Most emphatically it is _not_
the cheap, namby-pamby backboneless sentimentalism which is always
overflowing into vague platitudes and gushing generalities, yet
fears to stand firm for the right lest it should be branded by the
ignorant as “unbrotherly.” What is wanted is the love which is
strong enough _not_ to boast itself, but to act without talking
about it--the intense desire for service which is ever on the watch
for an opportunity to render it, even though it prefers to do so
anonymously--the feeling which springs up in the heart of him who
has realized the great work of the Logos, and, having once seen it,
knows that for him there can be in the three worlds no other course
but to identify himself with it to the utmost limit of his power--to
become, in however humble a way, and at however great a distance, a
tiny channel of that wondrous love of God which, like the peace of God,
passeth man’s understanding.
These are the qualities toward the possession of which the helper must
ceaselessly strive, and of which some considerable measure at least
must be his before he can hope that the Great Ones who stand behind
will deem him fit for full awakening. The ideal is in truth a high
one, yet none need therefore turn away disheartened, nor think that
while he is still but struggling toward it he must necessarily remain
entirely useless on the astral plane, for short of the responsibilities
and dangers of that full awakening there is much that may safely and
usefully be done.
There is hardly one among us who would not be capable of performing
at least one definite act of mercy and good will each night while we
are away from our bodies. Our condition when asleep is usually one of
absorption in thought, be it remembered--a carrying on of the thoughts
that have principally occupied us during the day, and especially of
the last thought in the mind when sinking into sleep. Now if we make
that last thought a strong intention to go and give help to some one
whom we know to be in need of it, the soul when freed from the body
will undoubtedly carry out that intention, and the help will be given.
There are several cases on record in which, when this attempt has been
made, the person thought of has been fully conscious of the effort of
the would-be helper, and has even seen his astral body in the act of
carrying out the instructions impressed upon it.
Indeed, no one need sadden himself with the thought that he can have no
part nor lot in this glorious work. Such a feeling would be entirely
untrue, for everyone who can think can help. Nor need such useful
action be confined to our hours of sleep. If you know (and who does
not?) of some one who is in sorrow or suffering, though you may not
be able consciously to stand in astral form by their bedside, you can
nevertheless send them loving thoughts and earnest good wishes; and
be well assured that such thoughts and wishes are real and living and
strong--that when you so send them they do actually go and work your
will in proportion to the strength which you have put into them.
Thoughts are things, intensely real things, visible enough to those
whose eyes have been opened to see, and by their means the poorest
man may bear his part in the good work of the world as fully as the
richest. In this way at least, whether we can yet function consciously
upon the astral plane or not, we all can join, and we all ought to
join, the army of invisible helpers.
But the aspirant, who definitely desires to become one of the band
of astral helpers who are working under the direction of the great
Masters of Wisdom, will make his preparation part of a far wider scheme
of development. Instead of merely endeavouring to fit himself for
this particular branch of their service, he will undertake with high
resolution the far greater task of training himself to follow in their
footsteps, of bending all the energies of his soul to attain even as
they have attained, so that his power of helping the world may not be
confined to the astral plane, but may extend to those higher levels
which are the true home of the divine self of man.
For him the path has been marked out long ago by the wisdom of those
who have trodden it in days of old--a path of self-development which
sooner or later all must follow, whether they choose to adopt it of
their own free will, or to wait until, after many lives and an infinity
of suffering, the slow, resistless force of evolution drives them
along it among the laggards of the human family. But the wise man is
he who eagerly enters upon it immediately, setting his face resolutely
toward the goal of adeptship, in order that, being safe for ever from
all doubt and fear and sorrow himself, he may help others into safety
and happiness also. What are the steps of this Path of Holiness, as the
Buddhists call it, and in what order they are arranged, let us see in
our next chapter.