“And in Thy light shall we see light.”
We only need more light, in the esoteric sense, in order to see the soul, and that light will shortly be available and we shall understand the meaning of the words, “And in Thy light shall we see light.”
This intensification of the light will continue until A.D. 2025, when there will come a cycle of relative stability and of steady shining without much augmentation. In the second decanate of Aquarius [ii]
These three aspects will again be augmented by increased light from the fourth aspect, that is the light from the soul realm, reaching us via the universal “chitta” or mind stuff.
“When the true Dweller in the body is recognised and the laws of prevision are discovered, and when the power to foresee is generally prevalent, then we shall begin to find ample proof of the existence of the soul.”
…. There is an aspect of human consciousness which has for long baffled the materialistic psychologist, and this is the curious power of prevision, the ability to foresee and foretell with accuracy events coming in the immediate future, or distant happenings. There are warnings given by some inner monitor which have again and again saved man from death and disaster; there are the appearances, to their friends and relatives, of men or women who have just died, before any word of their death has been received. This is not in the field of telepathic knowledge of the death, but involves the appearance of the person. There is the power to participate in events in distant places and to recover the recollection of what transpired with accuracy as to place, personnel and detail. These powers and many similar previsions and recognitions have long bewildered investigators and must find correct explanation. In their wise investigation, in the accumulation of responsible evidence, and in the later substantiation of the prevision, it will begin to be seen that some factor exists in man which is not bound by space-time limitations, but which transcends the normal human consciousness. The present attempted investigation and explanations are inadequate and do not account satisfactorily for all the facts. When, however, they are approached from the standpoint of the soul, with its faculty of omniscience and its freedom from categories of past, present and future (for they are lost in the consciousness of the Eternal Now), we shall begin to understand the process a little more clearly. When the true Dweller in the body is recognised and the laws of prevision are discovered, and when the power to foresee is generally prevalent, then we shall begin to find ample proof of the existence of the soul. It will be impossible to account for the ordinary phenomena then current without admitting its existence.
The study of the soul will before long be as legitimate and respectable an investigation as any scientific problem, such as research into the nature of the atom.
Along these various lines proof of the soul will accumulate. In the massing of testimony and of evidence a fruitful field of activity lies. In the training of the higher types of men in the use of the soul force and soul powers, and in the trained control of the mechanism, that evidence so produced will be seen to be of so high an order and will be so scientifically presented that it will be regarded as of as much importance and as justifiable as any views presented by our leading scientists in their various fields of research today. The study of the soul will before long be as legitimate and respectable an investigation as any scientific problem, such as research into the nature of the atom. The investigation of the soul and its governing laws will, before long, engross the attention of our finest minds. The newer psychology will eventually succeed in proving the fact of its existence, and the paralleling intuitive and instinctive response of mankind to soul nurture, emanating from the invisible side of life, will steadily and successfully prove the existence of a spiritual entity in man,—an entity all-wise, immortal, divine and creative.
But the process would be slow were it not for the work now being done by a group of disciples and initiates working in collaboration with the Master P—, Who has His headquarters in America and Who, with His disciples, is doing much to stimulate the various psychological schools in the world today. It is needless for students to endeavour to ascertain His identity. He works through movements and schools of thought, and does no work with private individuals. He works practically entirely on the mental plane, with the power of thought, and is quite unknown and unrecognised, except by His fellow workers in the various countries in the world, and by the disciples on His ray, the fourth ray. Much that is opening in the world of psychology today is due to the work He does in stimulating the minds of the leaders of movements. He works with them on the mental plane, but does not contact them as physical plane individuals.
The urgency of the time is great, and the Masters are exceedingly active and profoundly concerned at this time with the work of salvaging the world.
The urgency of the time is great, and the Masters are exceedingly active and profoundly concerned at this time with the work of salvaging the world. They have not the time for personal work, except with Their own groups of accepted chelas, all of whom are active in the world work, or they would not be in the Masters’ group. Also They may work intermittently with small groups of probationers to whom They offer opportunity and give an occasional hint. Each of Them has a few, a very few, probationers in training, to take the place of chelas who pass on to initiation, but beyond these two groups, during this century, They do no personal work, leaving the many aspirants to the care of lesser initiates and chelas. Even Their work and Their personal chelas at this time are much restricted, and word has been sent out to the working disciples in the world to stand on their own feet, to use their own judgment and not handicap the Masters at this time of intense strain and danger by attracting Their attention needlessly.
[i] I reading this text, it might be noted that it was published in 1936. The Tibetan (DK) often takes a long view of the timing of events.
[ii] As far as I am aware, the book gives no further information on the timing of this. A second decanate is the second one-third of an astrological age. It lasts approximately 700 years. However, there seems no consensus among astrologers as to when the Age of Aquarius began, of even if it has yet begun at all, let alone when the second decanate is to begin.
e regarded as a step in the right direction. That something survives the process of death, and that something persists after the disintegration of the physical body, is steadily being proved. If that is not so, then we are the victims of a collective hallucination, and the brains and minds of thousands [Page 99] of people are untrue and deceiving, are diseased and distorted. Such a gigantic collective insanity is more difficult to credit than the alternative of an expanded consciousness. This development along psychic lines does not prove the fact of the soul, however; it only serves to break down the materialistic position.
It is among the thinkers of the race that the first assured recognition of the soul will come, and this event will be the result of the study and analysis, by the psychologists of the world, of the nature of genius and the significance of creative work.
Some men and women in the world tower above their fellow men, and produce that which is superlative in its own field; their work has in it the element of divinity and of immortality. The work of creative artists, the intuitive perception of great scientific investigators, the inspired imagination of the poets of the world and the vision of the illumined idealists, have all to be accounted for and explained, for the laws under which such men and women work have yet to be discovered. The close study, by the psychologist, of the abnormal and the subnormal, of warped and distorted minds and of defective equipments, has been over-emphasized, and due attention has not been given to the divinely abnormal, and to those types of consciousness which transcend the ordinary human state of intelligent awareness. These latter super-normal states find expression through the medium of the great artists, musicians, dramatists, writers, and the many other types of creative workers who have been the glory of the human kingdom down the ages, and who will flame forth during the coming century with greater glory still.
When the hypothesis of the soul is accepted, when the nature of the spiritual energy which flows through the soul is admitted, and when the mechanism of the force centres is [Page 100] studied, we shall make rapid progress towards knowledge. When, through meditation, experiment is made to produce creatively some of the beauty contacted, some of the ideas revealed and some of the patterns seen, we shall learn to cultivate genius and understand how to train people to work creatively. Then much will be discovered about the centres in man where the divine principle has its dwelling, and from which the Christ within[i] can work. The study of the super-conscious must be undertaken, and not simply the study of the self-conscious or of the sub-conscious. Through this study, carried forward with an open mind, modern psychology will eventually arrive at a recognition of the soul.
The range of investigation is so wide that I can only indicate some of the possible fields of research ….
It is, however, from the field of science that the greatest help will come. The fact of the soul will eventually be proved through the study of light and of radiation and through a coming evolution in particles of light. Through this imminent development we shall find ourselves seeing more and penetrating deeper into that which we see today. One of the recognised facts in the realm of natural science has been the cyclic change in the fauna and flora of our planet. Animals, plentiful and familiar many thousands of years ago, are now extinct, and by means of their bones we endeavour to reconstruct their forms. Flowers and trees that once covered the surface of our planet have now entirely disappeared and only their fossilized remains are left to indicate to us a vegetation vastly different to that which we now enjoy. Man himself has changed so much that we find it difficult to recognise homo sapiens in the early primitive races of the far distant past. This mutability and obliteration of earlier types is due to a major factor among many. The quality of the light which promotes and nurtures growth, vitality and fertility in the kingdoms of nature has changed several times during the ages, and as it has changed it has produced corresponding mutations in the phenomenal world. From the standpoint of the esotericist, all [Page 102] forms of life on our planet are affected by three types of light substance, and at the present time a fourth type is gradually making its presence felt. These types of light are:
- The light of the sun.
- The light in the planet itself—not the reflected light of the sun but its own inherent radiance.
- A light seeping in (if I may use such a phrase) from the astral plane, a steady and gradual penetration of the “astral light” and its fusion with the other tw
This is the concluding piece in this series of extracts on this question, as posed by the Tibetan Teacher, DK, in A Treatise on the Seven Rays Volume 1 (1936).
The world issues today are of such importance, and the opportunity before humanity is so great, and the Masters are so entirely occupied with world affairs and with the dominant and prominent figures in high places in the nations, that the instruction of unimportant people in the various little occult groups and societies is temporarily suspended. The time is relatively so short in which to accomplish and carry out certain aspects of the Plan as entrusted to the Great Ones, that all true chelas are going about their work and endeavouring to solve their own problems without having to call on the Master’s help, thus leaving Him free for more important work. The closer a disciple is to a Master, the more deeply he realises this fact, and the more he endeavours to fulfill his duty, learn his lessons, serve humanity, and lift some of the load of work off the shoulders of the Master.
The world today is full of disciples of varying degree, and each of them is, in his place, able to guide and help some aspirants. The world is full of teaching and of books able to inspire and help all true seekers after spiritual knowledge. The last fifty years have seen much teaching given out and much esoteric training given to the world and available now to all who earnestly seek it. Aspirants have much to work upon and much theory to render into practice, and this leaves the Masters free for more important work.
One of the interesting things that is happening, and one of the factors which will serve eventually in the work of demonstrating the fact of the soul, is the mass of communications, inspired writings, and telepathic dictations which is flooding the world today. As you know, the spiritualistic movement is producing a vast amount of this inspired or pseudo-inspired literature, some of it of the very highest order and unquestionably the work of highly evolved disciples, and some of it most mediocre in quality. The various theosophical societies have been the recipients of similar communications, and they are found in every occult group. True communications are frequently of deep spiritual value, and contain much teaching and help for the aspirant. Students of the times would do well to remember that it is the teaching that is of moment, not the supposed source; by their intrinsic value alone these writings and communications must be judged. These communications emanate in the majority of instances from the soul plane, and the recipient or the communicator (the intermediary or scribe) is either inspired by his own soul or has tapped the thought level and knowledge of the ray group to which his soul belongs. He tunes in on a reservoir of thought, and his mind and brain translate these thoughts into words and phrases.
In a lesser number of cases, the man who is receiving a dictation or writing is in telepathic rapport with some more advanced disciple than himself, and his mind is being impressed by some chela in his group. This chela, who is closer to the Master than he is, passes on to him some of the knowledge that he has absorbed through being able to live within the Master’s aura. But the Master is not concerned in the process; it lies between the chela and the aspirant. In these cases the receiver of the communication is often misled, and thinks that the Master Himself is dictating to him, whereas in reality he has—through a more advanced chela than himself—tuned in on the Master’s thought atmosphere.
None of the Masters of the sixth initiation (such as the Masters M. and K. H.) are at this time working through dictation with Their disciples. They are too much engrossed with world problems, and with the work of watching over the destinies of the prominent world figures in the various nations, to have any opportunity to dictate teaching to any particular disciple in some small field of activity and upon subjects of which sufficient is already known to enable the disciple to go ahead alone and unaided. Two of the Masters are working telepathically and through dictation with several accepted disciples, and Their effort is to inspire these disciples, who are active in world work, to greater usefulness in the Plan. They are working in this way in order to impress a few of the prominent thinkers in the field of science and of social welfare with the needed knowledge which will enable them to make the right moves in the emergence of the race into greater freedom. But I know of no others, in this particular generation, who are so doing, for They have delegated much of this work to Their initiates and disciples. The bulk of the communicators today (working through aspirants on the physical plane) are active working chelas of accepted degree who (living as they do in the thought aura of the Master and His group) are steadily endeavouring to reach all kinds of people, all over the world, in all groups. Hence the increasing flood of communications, of inspired writings, and of personal messages and teaching.
When you add to the above the equally large flood of communications which emanate from the transmitters’ own souls and from the realm of the subconscious, you have accounted for the mass of the material going out now. In all this there is need for deep thankfulness at the growing responsiveness and sensitivity of man.
That the first reaction and effect of such an outpouring of communications is oft an increase of spiritual pride and ambition, and that the stepping down of the teaching from the mind to the brain and from the brain into words and sentences often fails in adequacy is sadly true, and that there is frequently misapprehension as to the emanating source of the instructions is also true, for the lack of humility in man and the lack of a true sense of proportion are great. But out of this inflow from the subjective side of life are coming new knowledge, increased devotion to the Plan, and those indications which will eventually bring us assurance. Men will know, and know soon, that the soul is not an imaginary fiction, that it is not just a symbolic way of expressing a deep-seated hope, and is not man’s method of building a defense mechanism; nor is it an illusory way of escape from a distressing present. They will know that the soul is a Being, a Being that is responsible for all that appears upon the phenomenal plane.
A Treatise on the Seven Rays Volume 1, pp 106-109
