SEPTEMBER 2011
THE PSYCHIC AND THE SPIRITUAL
The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above so it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man – the microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm – is the living witness to this Universal Law and to the mode of its action. We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. - The Secret Doctrine I p.274
~~~~Thus proceed the cycles of the septenary evolution, in Septennial nature; the Spiritual or divine; the psychic or semi-divine; the intellectual, the passional, the instinctual, or cognitional; the semi-corporeal and the purely material or physical natures. - The Secret Doctrine 1 p.267
~~~~Between the fear of, but respect for, the invisible which makes a student impotent, and the forceful pushing of himself in without proper comprehension of its dangers, which injures him seriously if it does not kill him spiritually speaking, there is the middle course. ... It is through "the small plain duties of life properly performed" that the Ego is often attracted to stream forth its radiance: "It is the little things the work is done through." Therefore, Home-Building provides a most excellent play-ground for our spiritual and psychic muscles. - B.P. Wadia “The Building of the Home”
~~~~Imagination, is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein Theosophy teaches not to seek dominance of Nature, nor dominance of one's fellow man, but to seek to co-operate with Nature and with the life in all evolving fellow beings; not to seek possessions but to work for the necessities of life. What are the necessities of life? The necessity of the Spiritual Life is Brotherhood; without that it starves as far as knowledge here is concerned.
... Every man sees from what to him is the highest, down to what to him is the lowest; that is his angle of Spiritual vision, because Spiritual knowledge is our perception of life itself as it is, and Spiritual knowledge must necessarily include all kinds of actions and manifestations good and bad. With that sheer distinction of good and noble and true and philanthropic and benevolent and fraternal, on down to the most devilish idea of preying upon our fellows, cannot we see which is the better path? Unless a man chooses the better, chooses the nobler, chooses the truer as he sees it and then practices it, he will infallibly use his powers according to the lower perception.
... We are Spiritual, however ignorant, however corrupt, however depraved we may be. To cure that corruption, to remedy that depravity, to once more see God as omnipresent; to once more see the Supreme Spirit in all things is the final step in the path of Spiritual evolution. All Nature exists for no other purpose than for the sake of the Soul's experience and emancipation, and that all shall to some degree be helped to see, is the purpose of the teachings of Theosophy. - Magazine Theosophy 11 p.564 to p.567
~~~~Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein
The goal of the aspirant for spiritual wisdom, is entrance upon a higher plane of existence; he is to become a new man, more perfect in every way than he is at present, and if he succeeds, his capabilities and faculties will receive a corresponding increase of range and power, just as in the visible world we find that each stage in the evolutionary scale is marked by increase of capacity. This is how it is that the Adept becomes endowed with marvellous powers that have been so often described, but the main point to be remembered is, that these powers are the natural accompaniments of existence on a higher plane of evolution, just as the ordinary human faculties are the natural accompaniments of existence on the ordinary human plane.
...Many persons seem to think that adeptship is not so much the result of radical development as of additional construction; they seem to imagine that an Adept is a man, who, by going through a certain plainly defined course of training, consisting of minute attention to a set of arbitrary rules, acquires first one power and then another and when he has attained a certain number of these powers is forthwith dubbed an adept. Acting on this mistaken idea they fancy that the first thing to be done towards attaining adeptship is to acquire "powers" -- clairvoyance and the power of leaving the physical body and traveling to a distance, are among those which fascinate the most.
To those who wish to acquire such powers for their own private advantage, we have nothing to say, they fall under the condemnation of all who act for purely selfish ends. But there are others, who, mistaking effect for cause, honestly think that the acquirement of abnormal powers is the only road to spiritual advancement.
...we would warn all our members, and others who are seeking spiritual knowledge, to beware of persons offering to teach them easy methods of acquiring psychic gifts, such gifts (laukika) are indeed comparatively easy of acquirement by artificial means, but fade out as soon as the nerve-stimulus exhausts itself. The real seership and adeptship which is accompanied by true psychic development(lokothra), once reached is never lost. - H.P. Blavatsky “Spiritual Progress”
~~~~Listen to your heart. it knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there. - Paulo Coelho
~~~~To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties – this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men... - Albert Einstein