The Fire of the Pledge: Spiritual Will

It happens that people of very sensitive temperament are shaken to the depths of their Higher Self when they first make contact through chelaship (discipleship in which the student receives spiritual training under the supervision of a Master); often real anguish of heart and mind is experienced. All of this is perfectly natural. It is indeed the voice of the soul within that catches a momentary glimpse of the spiritual light; but because the brain cannot hold or comprehend it, what results is the soul's anguish. At times, too, as the twin sister of this inner anguish and pain, there comes an intense outburst of mental or emotional excitement, an exaltation so keen that it may be even harder to bear.

Most of the situations in which the aspirant finds himself under emotional or mental trial or pressure are typical examples of what H. P. Blavatsky called "the fire of the pledge." Unfortunately, although many experience it unconsciously or half-consciously, very few understand exactly what it is. The fire of the pledge can best be described as a feverish state of mind and emotion that often affects the body adversely as well. This state arises from the stirring up of the person's inner being, usually of the Kama-Manasic part (the part in which desire and the lower mind are interwoven).

The fire of the pledge may have a lower side as well as a noble one. As HPB stated in E.S. Instruction No. I, as soon as anyone pledges his life to the service of others, "certain occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the throwing outwards of everything lying dormant in the nature of the man: his faults, habits, qualities, or subdued desires, whether good, bad, or indifferent…" We all know our earthly ancestors; but which of us traces what has made us on every level of heredity, that is, our astral, psychic and spiritual connections? What are we made of?

Commenting on this statement of HPB's and on the effect of the fire of the pledge on the earnest student, William Q. Judge wrote:

"It is a kind of heat active throughout the whole nature of man; acting like a hothouse, it causes all seeds of every kind, good and bad, suddenly to sprout and show themselves. Its field of work is the field of the whole being; it therefore includes that hidden, unknown part of us which under ordinary conditions would await other incarnations and conditions to come in new centuries and civilizations."

In another circular, published in 1890, William Q. Judge added:

Suggestions and Aids

"It should be remembered that to take a pledge¹ is to set in motion both the forces that help and those that oppose. This appeal, made honestly and earnestly to the Higher Self, opens a channel through which flow all the subtle influences from the higher planes. This new power rewards every new effort; with every new step comes new courage. Be brave, then, be a student, and keep on your way amid the discouragements and successes that surround your first steps on the probationary path. Do not waste time mourning your mistakes; recognize them, and try to draw from each the lesson it holds for you. Nor be puffed up by your successes. Thus you will slowly attain to self-knowledge, and self-knowledge will lead you to self-mastery."

There are many kinds of the fire of the pledge, but most are rooted in the same purpose. Excessive and unwise enthusiasm without proper mental and emotional balance, for example, is another kind of psycho-mental fever. Bursts of energy followed by violent reaction; moods in which the student wishes to give up everything but a single aim, casting aside as worthless even the things he ought to value as a human being; the unfounded belief, when difficulties arise, that the fault always lies with others: all these are conditions created by the pledge, and they spring from an excess of enthusiasm filling the heart. This fire is a living sense of the responsibility one has sincerely taken on.

The fire of the pledge is a sign of sincerity and that both heart and mind have been deeply stirred. In fact it means that the student has begun to see the conditions of his life, whatever they may be, from a radically different point of view, and is trying to break the ties of the old self. In a sense, therefore, it is a good sign: it shows that his nature has been aroused and that the aspirant is advancing. It is better than the cold, lifeless indifference that is a state of spiritual and intellectual sleep.

The empty, hopeless chill and sense of "deadness" felt at times is only a reaction, a part of the cycle of the fire of the pledge, just as a bodily fever, once it has passed, leaves a person weak, exhausted and chilled. Yet the fire of the pledge is no more dangerous than the fevers that arise from nature's effort to cleanse and purify the body by throwing off poisons. It is far better if the student can willingly, and without giving way, regain the true poise and calm confidence of unconquerable strength, which is absolutely necessary. Horace says in one of his poems (Odes, Book III, 3): "Justum et tenacem propositi virum…," that is, "The man who is just and firm of purpose…" Neither the threats of tyrants, nor the thunderbolts of Zeus, nor the clamor of the crowd, nor the storms on the great seas can shake his focused and upward-turned mind.

In dealing with these situations we either give way to unhealthy sentimentality or grow cold toward everyone. We must find the sensible line between these two extremes and keep to it. We should not be indifferent to those passing through the fiery trials of souls seeking the light; but those still caught in the blinding veils of the emotions are in constant danger of going astray.

Once our foot is set upon the path, we can never turn back. It is impossible; the doors have closed behind us. We may fail, we may fall asleep, we may die; but after all of this we must still go forward. When inner unrest comes and the feverish state intensifies, the student must use his spiritual will and the divine wisdom in the higher parts of his being. For will is an energy, and like all energies it works both actively and passively. The active will is will consciously set in motion by the directing intelligence and the innate life. The passive will is the vegetative will, the aspect that governs the automatic functions of body or mind.² Anyone can develop the spiritual will. As W. Q. Judge wrote:

"True altruism is this: to be open to being guided, ruled and helped by the Higher Self; to develop a sincere and complete willingness to do, to suffer or to enjoy whatever the Higher Self prepares for one through discipline and experience; to be as humble as possible (as a self), pushing the merely personal self into the background day by day, little by little." (Subsidiary Papers, September 1894)

In a sense, the great teacher is life itself. The learner is the one who lives each day with its varied experiences, attractions and allurements, and the ups and downs of mental activity and emotional states. The way to meet these trials is a serenity that nothing can disturb, born of the steadfastness of both mind and soul; and also magnanimity, unshakable courage, and refusing to be daunted by failure.

Whenever an uncontrollable exaltation or a sense of empty despondency comes, the student should simply wait and do all he can to regain the calm awareness that he is in essence a spiritual being. As everyone knows, a person's past karma may be so noble that one day, like the sun breaking out from behind dark clouds, he is suddenly illuminated and realizes that his feet are on the path.

It is an interesting paradox that an outer teacher works in perfect harmony with the teacher who is beginning to make itself felt in the inner being of the aspirant (the inner teacher being, of course, the greatest of all). These things, sometimes spoken of only obliquely, are like dazzling flashes of light that enter the student's consciousness and illuminate the dark, gloomy night of his being. At such moments, through the intensity and reality of the effects that accompany them, one realizes that one is on a difficult path.

These flashes, however, which are the inner awareness of one's steady progress, must never be confused with the brain-mind vibrations noticed by the careless. Those who are unprepared, through overconfidence and personal selfishness, frequently mistake these vibrations for flashes of inner progress showing that they have set out and are on the path.

Perhaps the reason for thinking so is that the workings of the universe go on in silence and leave no direct, visible trace in their interaction with nature. At the beginning, great allowance is made for human failings; but as one advances, the rules are applied more and more strictly. For as the aspirant realizes his kinship with the gods, he begins to feel that it is all the more imperative to work in harmony with the laws of nature. This means holding to things as they are, not to one's own conceptions. This is also the meaning of the saying that the Mahatmas³ will never interfere with karma, will never dare to do so. They are servants of the law; they are instruments who serve with devotion the highest spiritual teacher of our globe, the silent watcher of humanity. The higher the Mahatma, the more willingly and joyfully he fulfills this devotion.

For anyone who might call himself a teacher to mislead eager students by promising things that are not based on truth is fraud; it is also an esoteric crime. There is no short cut, no easy way; for inner growth, inner unfolding, inner evolution is a matter of time and, above all, a matter of self-effort. There may be moments when truth seems cold and unacceptable; but this is the fault of the aspirant, not of the teacher, and it shows only that the student has not yet awakened enough to distinguish right from wrong, right from left.

It should be clear that no living Master can make a chela out of material unfit for chelaship. It would be like saying that it is possible to set fire to an incombustible substance. Even if it were possible to turn an ordinary person into a successful chela by some kind of magic, it would be a work of black magic of the worst kind. For it would do the student on the path no good at all; it would only turn him into an artificial mechanism without inner strength, inner light or the ability to advance on the path. There is no gain unless the individual achieves the progress himself. For this reason the Mahatmas do not interfere with the slow unfolding of the chela's inner faculties. If they did, it would be an interference with growth and would cripple and weaken the chela, which is the very opposite of what is needed.⁴

Treading the path leads a person to the high spiritual and intellectual levels of consciousness where the Masters live and have their being. But unless one actually does this and breathes their rare spiritual and invigorating intellectual atmosphere, it is wholly impossible to approach them. Those who wish to lead others should remember this constantly. For if at any time they mislead their followers with false hopes, if they listen to the siren songs of personal ambition, or if they think the path can be followed crookedly, a wound opens in their soul.

If someone believes that he can throw off the responsibility for his thoughts and lay it upon another, whether that other be god or devil, man or angel, or any other hypothetical thing, and acts accordingly, from that moment he enters upon a downward path. He has given up the will to his own salvation, achievement and conquest.

How did the Masters become the great and exalted beings they are today? It has been made possible by a self-directed evolution lasting through many ages. No one can attain success or follow the path unless his own inner powers and faculties are developed, unless his own vision passes beyond the veils of illusion surrounding his consciousness. It is a long but magnificent process.

Some students have been bewildered by W. Q. Judge's statement that after the age of forty-four it is "hard to enter the door" of the inner world, and almost impossible for those who only begin to think about these matters at that age (Subsidiary Papers, October 1895). The reason is that around middle age the veils of the self so enwrap the inner being that the light from within cannot easily reach the brain-mind. Someone who did not begin to reflect on these matters in youth or childhood will find them harder when he takes up the study of esotericism at this stage. There are, however, many exceptions.

In fact no one need think that he cannot progress because he has come to this path late. Nothing can stop the commanding energy of the spiritual will. That an individual of middle or even advanced age should desire to enter this glorious path is in itself proof that a will and determination are at work in his being. An enthusiasm and an intuition are possibilities showing that the light can be received; they are proof of its near certainty. Coming events cast their shadows before; and before the light enters, it stands behind future events and heralds their coming.

Chelaship makes it possible to exchange the darkness of the personality for the glorious sunlight of impersonality. It is a passage from the fantasies of thought and feeling and the morass of material existence to the unfolded splendor of the inner spiritual sun, and it leads at last to oneness with the spirit of the universe. This is the ancient path that leads the aspirant to oneness with his own spiritual essence, which means an immense expansion of the range of consciousness and of life. Since our spiritual nature is in a sense universal, it is at once evident that chelaship is a continual growth in thought and feeling toward universality, an expansion along this wonderful path from the inner bounds of the universe to its outermost veil.

What a magnificent thought: we travel without advancing, we advance without moving. We reach the heart of the universe by losing ourselves in order to gain the innermost cosmic self. The path we tread may be long and arduous, yet it is also lit with joy, with the fires of the spirit. This "journey" is in reality a change of consciousness, a spiritual alchemy. The heart of the universe is infinitely distant, yet nearer than our own soul; for it is our Self.