Contents

Seed Thought
Reading Assignment
Written Work
Letter from Teaching Staff
The Value of Thinking
The Spiritual Journal
Introduction to the Full Moon Work
Chart: The Spiritual Man is Reflected in the Outer Form Via Seven Etheric Centers
The Diverse Sounds of the Whole Man
Glossary of Terms

Reading Assignment:
Pages 257 - 269; 273 - 292; 125 - 153 "A Treatise on White Magic"

Please answer the following questions out of your own thinking, rather than searching through the book or study set for quotable answers. You are urged to give considerable attention to this aspect of the subjective work. The more time, the more thought you give to it, the more spiritual help you will receive through your studies. These are quite searching questions. If you wish, try to formulate written answers to these questions. The effort you give to expressing your thinking about them is in itself a method of calling into activity hitherto unused parts of your mental equipment.

1. What do you understand by "real service?"

2. What would be the most useful service you might render now on your way to becoming a world server?

3. Did this month's reading and meditation help you to discover any new meanings of "creativity?"

4. What is the relationship between creativity and service?

5. What, in your opinion, constitutes purity of thought? What is "purity" on the plane of mind? What is a pure mind?

Dear Fellow Student:

The first year's work in Arcana for most students, is a real adventure in consciousness. The twelve Study Sets in Series I. -- WHITE MAGIC are intended to develop a three-way acquaintance between:

1) The Tibetan's teaching with its distinctive quality,

2) Arcana, its methods and group life, and

3) Your particular background and present spiritual needs.

Also, you can count on becoming acquainted in a new way with the workings of your own mind, as you learn to concentrate and focus the mind and direct its motions in daily meditation.

Furthermore, Series I. builds the foundation for all subsequent study and expansion of consciousness through meditation. Therefore, a great deal of study material is presented, quite rapidly. More is presented in Series I. than can be thoroughly assimilated in one or two year's work.

Each idea, each esoteric principle that is introduced in Series I. will be dealt with more fully, and will be dealt with again and again, as the study work proceeds.

For example, this Study Set introduces the Full Moon Work, in section (f), and the Spiritual Journal, in section (e).

The theme of the Full Moon Work will be developed gradually and thoroughly as the study proceeds. This is one of the most important aspects of esoteric training. We recommend that you begin to train yourself to be aware of the full moon, for it marks the time in each month when a meditating group as a group can most easily contact and respond to the spiritual Hierarchy. At the time of the full moon, the Hierarchy makes an effort to reach spiritually awakened human minds with prompting in line with God's Plan. On the day of the full moon, we should make a particular effort to hold the mind attentive to the soul, and hold one's group brothers close to one's heart, because it is through the soul and through the group that the Teachers of humanity try to impress our consciousness and stimulate our spiritual intent.

The instruction on the Spiritual Journal will prove to have increasingly practical value as you become more experienced in occult meditation. As soon as you are quite familiar with the Meditation Outline so that the form of the meditation need not engage your whole attention, and you can give more attention to the process of raising your consciousness step by step, you should find that the period of meditating upon the seed thought is opening up a new area of thought, a new depth of meaning, a new clarity of understanding -- all directly related to the seed thought. (If it is not related to the seed thought, you are not really meditating, you're just letting your mind wander!) When a new area of mind begins to open up for you, you may find the experience quite fleeting. There it is -- there it went -- what was it? Whenever you penetrate into a new kind of awareness -- try to capture some of it, in words, in your Spiritual Journal. If you make this a regular practice, it will produce two excellent results;

1) It will enable you to resist the temptation to talk about your inner experiences. The more you talk about them, the less they will illumine and irradiate your life and consciousness. Too much talking dissipates and wastes soul energy.

2) It will enable you to anchor upon the physical plane (by actually writing with a pen or pencil upon a physical plane surface, i.e. upon a page of your notebook) the highest, most tenuous energy you are able to touch and tap during meditation. Think about it. Then try it.

At this point, we merely introduce the idea of the Spiritual Journal, leaving you to act upon the idea if and as the idea appeals to you. Later in the work, the use of the Spiritual Journal is emphasized. Eventually, you will discover by experiment a creative technique too effective to ignore.

Thus throughout Series I., ideas and concepts and principles and methods are being introduced; each will be given fuller explanation later on; each will eventually be found to fit into a beautifully cohesive pattern -- the planned, well-regulated life of service of the soul in full command of its personality instrument.

We expect the first year in Arcana to stimulate much thinking and questioning on your part. We do not expect you to digest completely all that your mind is touching. Neither do we expect you to answer all the questions in the assigned written work as fully, as capably, as you might answer those same questions, say, ten years hence.

What we do ask is that you keep an open enquiring mind; that you give careful thought to all assigned written work and answer the assigned questions to the best of your ability; that you persevere with establishing the steady rhythm of the daily and monthly group disciplines; and that you keep in close and constant touch with your group of spiritual companions via your meditation (which is a group effort and group training) and your written work (which is the outer reflection of the inner soul link between group members).

We send cheer and we wish you joy every step of this adventure, for we know in our hearts it leads to fulfillment of the longing of the indwelling soul.

In mutual dedication to the soul's high calling, which we understand to be growth in service-ability,

Your friends, the Staff of ARCANA

The basic law underlying all magical work is that "energy follows thought." (W.M. 249)

Subjectively, the mind is employed as an organ of sense, as a synthetic or common sense, and as an instrument of discovery by means of which a man unfolds the truly human consciousness. Through the use of the mind, he learns to protect himself, to guard his interests, and to preserve his identity. Through the use of the mind, he begins to discriminate and to cultivate slowly a sense of values which enables him eventually to lay the emphasis upon the ideal and the spiritual, and not upon the material and the physical. (S.R. Vol. I 331)

No matter how small or unimportant an individual thinker may be, in cooperation with his brethren he wields a mighty force. Only through the steady, strong, right thinking of the people and the understanding of the correct use of mental energy can progressive evolution go forward along the desired lines. (W.M. 367 )

Given a real thinker, you have an incipient creator and (unconsciously at first, but consciously later on) one who will wield power in order to "precipitate" or cause to emerge objective forms. (W.M. 552)

We can aid in the revelation of the truth by our clear thinking.

We need to realize that the etheric body is vitalized and controlled by thought and can (through thought) be brought into full functioning activity. (W.M. 77)

The problem of all disciples.....is to keep the channel of communication open between the soul and the brain, via the mind, so that when the Master seeks to communicate, He can do so at once and easily. Sometimes a Master has to wait weeks before He can get His disciple's ear, for the channel upward is closed and the soul is not en rapport with the brain. (W.M. 170-1)

With care he (the serious student) watches his acts, guards his words, and controls his thoughts so that no overt act, unnecessary word nor unkind thought will break the rhythm which.....has been set up. (W.M. 169-70)

The superficial student or the mystically inclined person is apt to feel that the technicalities of the teaching are of minor importance. The charge is often made that the "jargon" of occultism and its academic information is of no true importance where knowledge of the divine is concerned. It is claimed that it is not necessary to know about the planes and their various levels of consciousness, or about the Law of Rebirth and the Law of Attraction; is an unnecessary tax upon the human mind to study the technical foundation for a belief in brotherhood, or to consider our distant origin and our possible future. It is nevertheless just possible that if the mystics down the ages had recognized these truths we might have had a better managed world. It is only today that those forces are being set in motion which will lead to a truer understanding of the human family, a wiser comprehension of the human equipment and, therefore, to an effort to bring human living into line with the basic spiritual truths. The sorry condition of the world today is not a result of the intellectual unfoldment of man as is often claimed, but it is the working out of the unalterable effects of causes, originated in the past of the Aryan race.

Be not, therefore, afraid of the technicalities of the wisdom but seek for the reason of the undesirable reaction against them in the latent inertia of the mystical mind, plus the lowered vital condition of the entire race. (S.R. Vol. II 510-1)

Clear thinking involves capacity to dissociate oneself, temporarily at least, from all reactions and activities of an emotional nature. As long as the astral body is in a state of restless movement, and its moods and feelings, its desires and emotions, are powerful enough to attract attention, positive, pure thought processes are not possible. (W.M. 492)

Learn to control thought. It is necessary to guard what you think. These are days when the race as a whole is becoming sensitive and telepathic and responsive to thought interplay. The time is approaching when thought will become public property, and others will sense what you think. (W.M. 67)

The concrete mind is the form-building faculty. Thoughts are things. The abstract mind is the pattern-building faculty of the mind which works with the blueprints upon which the forms are modeled. The intuition or pure reason is the faculty which enables man to enter into contact with the Universal Mind and grasp the plan synthetically, to seize upon divine Ideas or isolate some fundamental and pure truth.

The goal of all the work of an aspirant is to understand those aspects of the mind with which he has to learn to work. (W.M. 365)

It is among the thinkers of the race that the first assured recognitions 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. (S.R. Vol. I 99)

When men, through meditation and group service, have developed an awareness of their own controlled and illumined minds, they will find themselves initiated into a consciousness of true being and into a state of knowledge which will prove to them the fact of the soul, beyond all doubt or questioning. (S.R. Vol. I 95)

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. (S.R. Vol. I 100)

When will they (aspirants) grasp the fact that until a man has contacted his own soul, and has learned to function as a controlled mind as well, there is little.....(the Hierarchy) can do for him? (S.R. Vol. I 115)

One of the first things that any teacher of the race has to do is to increase the mental equipment of the would-be server. The work is ofttimes handicapped by the devoted offering of the emotional aspirant. The Plan is ofttimes delayed in its fruition by the ill-timed and ill-judged efforts of the earnest follower of the Great Lord. .....The seat of all this trouble is to be found in the desire-feeling-emotional body, and in an undue attachment to externals and forms. These factors prevent that clear seeing which leads to wise and cooperative action. If the mental equipment and the mental apprehension of truth can be increased, then it may be possible for real work to be done, and then the groups (that form the One Group) can go forward into real usefulness. To this end it may be profitable to provide material whereby the mental bodies of the students can grow, and wherein they can find sustenance and the means to develop. Few people can evolve from within themselves the thoughts and the ideas which should lead them on in the realization of truth; and those of us, therefore, who are responsible for the teaching of the race must perforce provide that which is required. (S.R. Vol. I 231-2)

You would find it useful to keep what might be called a spiritual journal. This does not involve the daily entering of the day's events and has no relation to the happenings which may concern the personality. Note this. In this journal you should record the following:

1. Any spiritual experience which may come to you, such as contact with some Presence, contact with some disciple and eventually -- when your life and work and discipline warrant it -- contact with one of the Masters. Record this in an impartial way, preserving the scientific attitude and seeking ever a practical explanation before accepting a mystical one. A spirit of agnosticism (not of atheism) is of real value to the beginner and preserves him from the snares of the world illusion and of lower psychism.

2. Any illumination which may come to you, throwing a flood of light upon a problem and revealing the way that you or the group should go. Any intuition which -- corroborated by the reason -- carries one forward into knowledge and evokes the wisdom of the soul and its registration by the brain, via the mind.

3. Any telepathic happenings between you and your fellow disciples. This telepathic interplay should be cultivated but it must be most carefully checked and counter-checked and the strictest accuracy preserved. Thus we shall have the fostering of the spirit of Truth, which is the governing principle of all telepathic communication. An Ashram functions telepathically when fully and rightly organized.

4. Any phenomena of a mystical and spiritual kind should also be noted. The seeing of the light in the head comes under this category. Its brilliance should be noted, its growth and dimming; the hearing of the Voice of the Silence which is the voice of the soul but not of the subconscious; the registering of messages from the soul or from other disciples and world Servers; expansions of consciousness which initiate you into the conscious life of God, as it manifests through the hearing of the note of all beings. A close study of the third part of The Light of the Soul (the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali) will indicate the type of phenomena which should find its place in this journal.

5. Any experiences of a psychic kind which do not come under any of the above headings. Those mentioned above come under the heading of the higher psychism and concern the higher psychic faculties, spiritual perception, intuitive knowledge, mental telepathy and not the telepathy which is based upon the solar plexus activity). The lower psychic experiences can also be noted -- whether pleasant or unpleasant. Once noted, however, they should be forgotten for they are of no moment.

Days may go by and weeks with no record. Let this in no way disconcert you. The sensitivity of the mechanism (*note below) of the soul to spiritual vibration has to be cultivated and existing sensitivity to lower psychic impressions has to be turned out; so many voices clamor for attention, so many impressions -- emanating from the physical and astral forms around us -- register upon our consciousness, that the vibrations and sounds coming from the subjective and spiritual world are lost and not registered and recorded. You will find it interesting to note, at the end of a few years, the difference in the data recorded and the development of the sensitivity to the right kind of impression. This can only be realized after much time has elapsed and much spurious material has been eliminated, after being recognized for what it is: astralism, spurious claims and thoughtforms. (D.I.N.A. 14-15 Vol. I)

(*The mechanism of the soul is its triple instrument: physical body, emotional nature, mental equipment.)

Keep a most careful spiritual journal, noting every psychic happening, recording each time you may tune in telepathically on the need or with the thought of those around you, putting down every seeming extension of the ordinary sense consciousness. ....Reveal yourself to yourself on paper, not as regards your longings and aspirations but as regards your growth in sensitivity. Attempt to tune in more consciously with the consciousness of your group brothers. (D.I.N.A. 110 Vol. I)

I urge not the writing down of morbid thoughts and self centered ideas and aspirations. I urge you, however, to register in writing the fleeting ideas, the dimly sensed teaching and the intuitions which are sent to you from your soul or which surround you as a part of the group aura. (D.I.N.A. 476 Vol. I)

Man invokes divine Approach in various ways: by means of the inchoate, voiceless appeal or invocative cry of the masses and also by the planned, defined invocation of the spiritually oriented aspirants, the intelligently convinced worker, disciple and initiate -- by all, in fact, who form the New Group of World Servers.

The science of invocation and evocation will (in the near future) take the place of what we now call "prayer" and "worship." Be not disturbed by the use of the word "science." It is not the cold and heartless intellectual thing so oft depicted. It is in reality the intelligent organization of spiritual energy and of the forces of love, and these, when effective, will evoke the response of spiritual Beings Who can again walk openly among men, and thus establish a close relation and a constant communication between humanity and the spiritual Hierarchy.

This new invocative work will be the keynote of the coming world religion and will fall into two parts. There will be the invocative work of the masses of the people, everywhere, trained by the spiritually minded people of the world (working in the churches whenever possible under an enlightened clergy) to accept the fact of the approaching spiritual energies, focussed through Christ and His spiritual Hierarchy, and trained also to voice their demand for light, liberation and understanding. There will also be the skilled work of invocation as practiced by those who have trained their minds through right meditation, who know the potency of formulas, mantrams and invocations and who work consciously. They will increasingly use certain great formulas of words which will later be given to the race, just as the Lord's Prayer was given by the Christ, and as the New Invocation has been given out for use at this time by the Hierarchy.

This new religious science for which prayer, meditation and ritual have prepared humanity, will train its people to present -- at stated periods throughout the year -- the voiced demand of the people of the world for relationship with God and for a closer spiritual relation to each other. This work, when rightly carried forward, will evoke response from the waiting Hierarchy and from its Head, the Christ. Through this response, the belief of the masses will gradually be changed into the conviction of the knowers. In this way, the mass of men will be transformed and spiritualized, and the two great divine centers of energy or groups -- the Hierarchy and Humanity itself -- will begin to work in complete at-one-ment and unity. Then the Kingdom of God will indeed and in truth be functioning on earth.

The establishing of certain major festivals in relation to the Moon and in a lesser degree to the zodiac will bring about a strengthening of the spirit of invocation and the resultant inflow of evoked influences. The truth lying behind all invocation is based upon the power of thought, particularly in its telepathic nature, rapport and aspect. The unified invocative thought of the masses and the focussed, directed thought of the New Group of World Servers constitute an outgoing stream of energy. This will reach telepathically those spiritual Beings Who are sensitive and responsive to such impacts. Their evoked response, sent out as spiritual energy, will in turn reach humanity after having been stepped down into thought energy and in that form will make its due impact upon the minds of men, convincing them and carrying inspiration and revelation. Thus has it ever been in the history of the spiritual unfoldment of the world and the procedure followed in writing the world Scriptures.

Secondly, the establishing of a certain uniformity in the world religious rituals will aid men everywhere to strengthen each other's work and enhance powerfully the thought currents directed to the waiting spiritual Lives. At present, the Christian religion has its great festivals, the Buddhist keeps his different set spiritual events, and the Hindu has still another list of holy days. In the future world, when organized, all men of spiritual inclination and intention everywhere will keep the same holy days. This will bring about a pooling of spiritual resources, and a united spiritual effort, plus a simultaneous spiritual invocation. The potency of this will be apparent.

Let me indicate the possibilities of such spiritual events, and attempt to prophesy the nature of the coming worldwide Festivals. There will be three such major Festivals each year, concentrated in three consecutive months and leading, therefore, to a prolonged annual spiritual effort which will affect the remainder of the year. These will be:

1. The Festival of Easter. This is the Festival of the risen, living Christ, the Teacher of all men and the Head of the Spiritual Hierarchy. He is the Expression of the love of God. On this day the spiritual Hierarchy, which He guides and directs, will be recognized and the nature of God's love will be emphasized. This Festival is determined always by the date of the first Full Moon of spring and is the great Western and Christian Festival.

2. The Festival of Wesak. This is the Festival of the Buddha, the spiritual Intermediary between the highest spiritual center, Shamballa, and the Hierarchy. The Buddha is the expression of the wisdom of God, the Embodiment of Light and the Indicator of the divine purpose. This will be fixed annually in relation to the Full Moon of Taurus (May), as is at present the case. It is the great Eastern Festival.

3. The Festival of Goodwill. This will be the Festival of the spirit of humanity -- aspiring towards God, seeking conformity with the will of God and dedicated to the expression of right human relation. This will be fixed annually in relation to the Full Moon of Gemini (June). It will be a day whereon the spiritual and divine nature of mankind will be recognized. On this Festival for two thousand years the Christ has represented humanity and has stood before the Hierarchy and in the sight of Shamballa as the God-Man, the leader of His people and "the Eldest in a great family of brothers" (Romans VIII:29). Each year at that time He has preached the last sermon of the Buddha, before the assembled Hierarchy. This will, therefore, be a festival of deep invocation and appeal, of a basic aspiration towards fellowship of human and spiritual unity, and will represent the effect in the human consciousness of the work of the Buddha and of the Christ.

These three Festivals are already being kept throughout the world, though they are not as yet related to each other, and are a part of the unified spiritual Approach of humanity. The time is coming when all three Festivals will be kept throughout the world and by their means a great spiritual unity will be achieved and the effects of the Great Approach, so close to us at this time, will be stabilized by the united invocation of humanity throughout the planet.

The remaining full moons will constitute lesser festivals but will be recognized to be also of vital importance. They will establish the divine attributes in the consciousness of man, just as the major festivals establish the three divine aspects. These aspects and qualities will be arrived at and determined by a close study of the nature of a particular constellation or constellations influencing those months. For instance, Capricorn (December) will call attention to the first initiation, the birth of the Christ in the cave of the heart, and indicate the training needed to bring about that great spiritual event in the life of the individual man. I give this one instance to you in order to indicate the possibilities for spiritual unfoldment that could be given through an understanding of these influences and in order to revivify the ancient faiths by expanding them into their larger undying relationships.

Thus, the twelve annual festivals will constitute a revelation of divinity.

To sum up, therefore: on the basis of the fundamental truth already recognized the new world religion will be built.

The definition of religion which will in the future prove of greater accuracy than any yet formulated by the theologians might be expressed as follows:

Religion is the name given to the invocative appeal of humanity and the evocative response of the greater Life to that cry.

Today, slowly, the concept of a world religion and the need for its emergence are widely desired and worked for. The fusion of faiths is now a field for discussion. Workers in the field of religion will formulate the universal platform of the new world religion. It is a work of loving synthesis and will emphasize the unity and the fellowship of the spirit. This group is, in a pronounced sense, a channel for the activities of the Christ, the world Teacher. The platform of the new world religion will be built by many groups, working under the inspiration of the Christ.

Churchmen need to remember that the human spirit is greater than all the churches and greater than their teaching. In the long run, that human spirit will defeat them and proceed triumphantly into the Kingdom of God, leaving them far behind unless they enter as a humble part of the mass of men. Nothing under heaven can arrest the progress of the human soul on its long pilgrimage from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real, from death to immortality and from ignorance to wisdom. If the great organized religious groups of churches in every land, and composing all faiths do not offer spiritual guidance and help, humanity will find another way. Nothing can keep the spirit of man from God. (REAPPEARANCE OF THE CHRIST, pp. 151-9)

At the time of the full moon (over a period of five days) the moon and the planet are the recipients of more reflected light from the sun than at any other time. For this there is a subjective cause. I can only explain it to you by a symbol which may convey truth to you or which may act as a blind. Symbolically speaking, the period of intensest meditation of our planetary Logos comes around at the full moon period each month; just as you have your daily meditation so He in His high place, has His cyclic point of contact. This produces the pouring in of radiance and the entering in of energy both subjective and objective. For all true students, therefore, their work on the mental plane is facilitated; they are enabled then to meditate more successfully and to attain realization with greater ease. They definitely share in the achievement of the Lord of Shamballa.

The moon, as you know, is a shell, an ancient form through which the planetary Logos at one time sought expression. It is slowly disintegrating physically but not astrally as yet, and is therefore still closely linked with the astral body of the planetary Logos and therefore with the astral bodies of all people. Its influence is consequently more potent at the time of the full moon upon all who are unbalanced. This lack of equilibrium will eventually be found to exist between the astral body, the etheric body and the physical mechanism.

People who are definitely aspirants and people who are definitely mental, can profit by these full moon cycles; those who are definitely unbalanced, positively astral, and emotional, and frequently swept by uncontrolled desire, are hindered, overstimulated, and physically upset by these same cycles. The veil of illusion is lit up at that time with a consequent result of hallucination, astral visions, psychic urges, and those misinterpretations of life, of over-emphasis upon aspects of life which we call phobias, lunacy, etc. (ESOTERIC HEALING, Vol. IV, pp. 341-2)

We should remind ourselves again and again: it is the sun's motion, not the moon's, that provides spiritual direction.

The relation of the moon's motion to the motion of the sun indicates the rhythm, the timing, of the ebb and flow of spiritual influences. The sun's passage through the sequence of twelve signs indicates which energy is ebbing or flowing. The full moon meditation is based upon the sun sign.

What then is the significance of the full moon? It is the light of the sun reflected across space by its polar opposite. At the time of the full moon, the moon (without inherent light of its own) reflects the maximum solar radiance. Upon the broad stage of the world, stretching from eastern to western horizon, is enacted a drama of great beauty, portraying in simple eloquence the ideal relation between the soul of man (symbolized by the sun) and the form of his personality (symbolized by the moon). When the personality of man permits its own brightness to go unnoticed in the fullest possible reflection of the soul's inner light, does he not portray to his environment the utmost beauty and goodness in human nature?

When man brings his own inner god into right relation with his outer form, other relationships more beautiful and more valuable become possible to him, and through him. It is these larger than individual relationships that we attempt to establish and cultivate by utilizing the peculiar rhythmic pattern of the full moon occasions. This peculiar rhythm does not synchronize with our clocks nor our calendars, nor with any of the ordinary rhythms that normally govern our daily life; (full moons do not occur on the same day of the week nor the same day of each month); but this rhythm is clearly, even spectacularly indicated for Everyman by the easy-to-see sky-size metronome of the new and full moon.

Among the inter-relations that can be strengthened by attention to the full moon dates, are: 

The reflection of the Spiritual Triad in the personality is complete when the Ajna Centre is entirely under the control of the soul. There is no attempt in this diagram to picture the correct number of petals in each lotus. (Page 162 "Esoteric Healing")

The Physical Body says I AM CONTENT:

to be comfortable
to eat and drink and eat and drink and eat and
to loaf
to take my time
to read; watch TV
to exercise
- for fun
- to relieve boredom
to perpetuate my family and my kind
to increase my family and my kind

a Cadillac and things and things and things and
to be liked
to be loved
to be praised
to be noticed
to be thrilled
to be extraordinary
to be nervous
to be excited
to be irregular
to be mysterious
to fluctuate drastically
to be vague and elusive

Extremes:

-food - highly seasoned
-drink - ice cold or burning hot
-hilarious happiness
-depth of despair
-religious ecstasy
-"dark night of the soul"
-strong likes and dislikes
-dramatic overstatement
-intense color
- in clothes
-in speech
-in manner
-in decor

to know
to learn
to understand
to analyze
to penetrate beneath the surface
to prove and disprove
to compare
to clarify
to organize
to explore
to invent
to experiment
to elucidate
to rationalize

to excel
to compete
to assert
to express
to dominate
to impress
to coordinate
to organize
to integrate

in fellowship
in give-and-take
in another's welfare
in another's progress
in multiple interplay (group experience)
in cleanliness
in order
in creativity
in cooperation
in rhythm
in light
in betterment
in "the world of meaning"
in significant relationships, i.e.:
spirit - matter
cause - effect
plan - action
guidance - program
etc. - etc.

to be
to love
to manifest
to sacrifice
to energize
to initiate
to fulfill
to complete
to perpetuate

AGNI -The Lord of Fire in the Vedas. The oldest and most revered of the Gods in India. One of the three Vedic deities: Agni, Vayu and Surya; also all three, as he is the triple aspect of fire. Fire is the essence of the solar system. The Bible says: "Our God is a consuming fire." It is also the symbol of the mental plane of which Agni is paramountly lord.

ACCEPTED DISCIPLE (DISCIPLESHIP) - An accepted disciple is one who is in the process of preparation for initiation. An accepted disciple is not in reality one who has been accepted by the Master for training. This is the distortion of a true idea which in its progress from the mental plane to the physical, has achieved a complete reversal or distortion. An accepted disciple is one who:

1. Has accepted the fact of the Hierarchy with the implications of loyalty and cooperation which that acceptance involves.

2. Has accepted the fact that all souls are one and who has, therefore, pledged himself to seek expression as a soul. The service to be rendered is the awakening and stimulation of all souls contacted.

3. Has accepted the occult technique of service. His service to humanity determines all his activities and subordinates his personality to the need of the time. Note that phrase. Cultivate a fluid response to the immediate need and not a sensitive reaction to a distant goal.

4. Has accepted the Plan, as indicated by the Teachers of the race. He seeks to understand the nature of that Plan and to facilitate its manifestation. (Discipleship in New Age, Vol. I, p. 83).

ANTAHKARANA (OR ANTASKARANA) - The path or bridge in consciousness between the higher and lower mind, serving as a medium of communication between the two. It is built by the aspirant himself in mental matter.

ASTRAL MATTER - The substance of the emotional plane, the sixth subplane of the Cosmic Physical Plane, counting downward. The lowest but one (viz., physical) of the seven grades of matter. A substance normally invisible to the physical eye.

CAUSAL BODY - This body is, from the standpoint of the physical plane, no body, neither subjective nor objective. It is nevertheless, the center of egoic consciousness. It represents a repository of all previous experience in incarnation, stored as faculty rather than memory. It is relatively permanent and lasts throughout the long cycle of incarnations, and is only dissipated after the fourth initiation.

ENERGY and FORCE - It is well to remember that though "energy" and "force" are frequently used interchangeably, "energy" becomes a "force" to a higher energy than itself. That is, in comparing any two energies, we call the higher one an "energy" and the lower, a "force." These are relative terms. (See SUBSTANCE and MATTER.)

ETHERIC BODY (etheric double) - The physical body of a human being is, according to occult teaching, formed of two parts: the dense physical body, and the etheric body. The dense physical body is formed of matter of the three lowest (dense) subplanes of the physical plane. The etheric body is formed of the four highest (etheric) subplanes of the physical plane.

GURU - Spiritual teacher (An Oriental term).

MENTAL MATTER, Mind Stuff; often called Chitta - The substance of the fifth subplane of the Cosmic Physical Plane; that faculty of man which differentiates him from the animals. Mind is the Fifth Principle.

PLAN -As much of the purpose of God as can be fulfilled in any given cycle.

PRINCIPLES - a. The elements or original essences, the basic differentiations upon and of which all things are built. Seven different fundamental aspects of the One Universal Reality in Cosmos, and in man.

b. A thought-form, concept, or statement which embodies some aspect of the truth on which our solar system is based. "A principle is that which ensouls a statement dealing with the highest good of the greatest number." See W.M. pp. 114-6.

RISHIS - Adepts; the inspired ones. In Vedic literature the term is employed to denote those persons through whom the various Mantrams were revealed.

SUBSTANCE and MATTER - These (like "energy" and "force") are relative terms. They are often used interchangeably; but, in comparing two different grades of matter, the more dense will be called "matter" and the more tenuous will be called "substance."

Printable Version