Esoteric Disciplines: Meditation and Yoga

To be a chela means to live continually in the higher part of one's nature; there one finds not only wisdom and knowledge but also a ceaseless expansion of the heart in compassion and love, so as to share in an understanding that embraces the whole universe. The beauties of this life are so sublime that a veil has almost always been deliberately drawn over them, lest the unprepared be tempted to trespass into the rarefied, life-giving regions of the ether which their lungs cannot yet breathe.¹ Despite the beautiful ethical teachings of the religion it adopted, the West long ago forgot that the life the soul leads while in the body is the only life worth living, and that this life is in fact a preparation for living consciously beyond the gates of death, without losing anything of its power.

Chelaship is therefore learning to be "at home" in the realms outside the physical. It is clear that if an untrained person were suddenly thrust into these other worlds, he would be as helpless as a newborn infant before the extraordinarily changeable conditions he would meet at every step.

The Stages of Esoteric Training

Esoteric training is the product of painstaking work carried on through almost countless ages by the greatest sages and noblest minds the human race has produced. It is not a set of arbitrary rules to which the student must conform. Of course it is both assumed and expected that he will observe certain rules; but what is really at stake is the setting aside of all the limitations belonging to ordinary life, in proportion to the student's growth, in favor of the faculties, powers, and wider fields of action that belong to initiates or Masters.

Nothing is so deceptive as the false lights of maya (illusion). In the bud and the thorns of flowers that look beautiful there is often a deadly poison; the honey of those flowers brings death to the soul. No chela is permitted to develop any psychic power before the great foundation has been laid by bringing together the spiritual and intellectual energies and faculties. That foundation is vision, willpower, absolute self-control, and a heart full of love toward all. Such is the law. Therefore not only are neophytes forbidden to acquire and use powers that are still latent and to awaken faculties not yet active within them; those who are born with such inner faculties already awakened through their past karma must also stop using them when they begin their training. Such training is therefore many-sided: before one can walk safely, every part of one's nature must be brought into a harmonious and balanced relationship with every other part.

Nevertheless, a time comes when the student is taken in hand individually. He is taught how to free his soul so that the body hinders him less, how to become nobler in every respect, and how to further this through definite rules of practice, conduct, and thought. The first stage is philosophy, that is, knowing something about the life of the universe; the second is discipline; and the third is the Mysteries. These follow a sequence and to some degree run concurrently, but each is especially emphasized when its time comes.

To go into more detail: the first stage is the teaching of philosophy, accompanied by a certain amount of discipline and an intimation, a hint, of what the Mysteries are. Then comes discipline; here too the teachings continue, but what is chiefly taught is how the neophyte should control himself, what he should be and how he should behave, together with a clearer hint of the Mysteries to come. The third is the Mysteries, what is called practical occultism. At this stage the person is worked upon directly; while he is taught how to free the soul and the faculties within him, he learns by living a higher discipline and a higher philosophy.

There are seven degrees of initiation. The first three are schools of discipline and learning. The fourth is similar but far greater, because the real cycle of initiatory training begins with it. How far a person goes depends on him alone. The student is a free man with free will, and his destiny is to become a divine being playing a conscious part in the governance of the universe. He must therefore choose his own path. But in using the divine faculty of free will he must take care, if any remnants of them remain, that his egoism and selfish tendencies do not draw him onto the left-hand path (black occultism serving selfish ends). Danger lurks at every step; but that danger is not outside, it is within oneself.

The Simple Rules of Discipline

Discipline is therefore essential at every stage of the path, for it is the source of the spiritual and ethical principles that guided past civilizations and the peoples who founded them, unlike the principles that rule every field of human relations today. The basis of this discipline is self-forgetfulness, which is the same thing as impersonality. To achieve it, the sages and seers who founded the mystery schools of ancient times laid down other small rules.

The rules are simple in themselves; so simple that the neophyte who does not know occult literature, forgetting that the greatest truths are always the simplest, is often disappointed at not finding something harder to attain. One of these rules is never to answer back, never to retaliate; it is better to bear injustice in silence. Another is never to try to justify oneself, to be patient, and to leave the matter to the higher law to balance through karma. Another, and perhaps the greatest, rule of this discipline is to learn to forgive and to love. Then everything else follows of itself, quietly seeping into consciousness; one knows the rules intuitively, endures long and patiently, and becomes compassionate and great-hearted.

Can we see the beauty of not retaliating, of not attempting to justify ourselves, of forgiving those who wound us, of silence? You may not take these rules very seriously; but what is said here should be followed in an impersonal spirit, so as not to brood over sufferings real or imagined. Every kind of feeling of having been wronged becomes deadly; it means that one is passively doing what one should avoid, whether passively or actively.

The reason all effort to defend ourselves when we are attacked or accused is forbidden is training: training in self-mastery, training in love. For no discipline is as effective as the effort a person initiates himself. Moreover, the defensive attitude does not merely harden the shell of the auric egg (in Theosophy, the egg-shaped aura surrounding a human being); it thickens it throughout. Each time, it brings forward the lower personal self, which tends toward fragmentation, unrest, and hatred; and this is training in the opposite direction. Let the law of karma work in its own way. When one becomes conscious of the effect of this practice, one begins to exercise a very high kind of judgment and discernment. The more a person feels that he is acting rightly in the light of conscience, the smaller and less necessary become the feeling of being hurt, the wish to retaliate, and that burning need to justify oneself. The consciousness of being on the right path brings forgiveness and the wish to live in compassion and understanding.

Let us not, however, confuse the rule about not justifying ourselves with the responsibilities we may be asked to fulfill as honest people. To defend a principle that needs defending, or to stand beside someone who is unjustly attacked, may be a clear duty of the student on the path. There is a nobility in being open and consistent, in refusing to be party to wrongdoing. To condone wrongdoing before our eyes because we are afraid of hurting someone's feelings, and so become party to it, is an emotional offense, a moral weakness that leads to spiritual decline. But when the attack is directed at us, it is better to bear it in silence. We only rarely need to justify our own actions.

Overcoming that itch in our lower vehicles to prove that we are "right" may seem a negative exercise; but we shall see that it requires a very positive inner action. It is a definite spiritual and intellectual exercise that teaches self-control and brings serenity. The person who practices it gradually and instinctively begins to see another's point of view. But here too there is a subtle danger: this practice, faithfully kept up for a while, can become so attractive that a spiritual pride may arise and grow from the success achieved so far. One must watch for this and cast it out of one's soul.

I have known people who struggled so hard to be good that they left behind them broken hearts, the shattered hopes of other people, that is, the traces of the misery their frantic desire to be good brought upon others. They wanted so much to progress that they forgot to be human. Is it wrong to read a good book, to take healthy exercise, or to enjoy the food we eat? Of course not. But if a person is tightly attached to something that gives him extraordinary pleasure and neglects a duty because of it, he must overcome that attachment; for it is now doing harm, and has become not an innocent pleasure but a fault. The simple answer is this: if we forget ourselves and do our best to be useful to others, we become happy people, spiritually and intellectually natural and strong, and respected; and above all, we respect ourselves.

The Shadow of Virtue

This brings us to another thought: we seldom make our worst mistakes because of our bad habits. For once we recognize our faults as such, we are not much affected by them; because we recognize them, we naturally loathe these vulgarities and try to keep them out. In fact our most serious mistakes, in the realm of both feeling and judgment, usually arise from our virtues.

We can illustrate this by looking at the history of medieval Europe. I believe it is wrong to suppose that the fanatical monks or clergy who incited those appalling religious persecutions were devils in human form, deliberately seeking ways to torture the minds and bodies of the unfortunate fellow beings who fell into their hands. What they did was devilish, but it was an entirely unconscious devilry; it was born of their virtues, which had turned into base faults because they were grossly abused. The cruelest people are often not the indifferent but those devoted to a false ideal backed by a misdirected moral force. Their virtues have turned into vices that are no longer recognized or noticed as vices; such people in time become utterly heartless.

Great thinkers such as Lao-tse say, in a way that bewilders the unthinking, that the man armed with an aggressive virtue is a bad man. Though this is an exaggerated paradox, it is a paradox that expresses a profound psychological truth. The truly dangerous person is not the bad person, for his intellectual and moral distortion repels us. What seduces is beauty misunderstood and misused; not only physical beauty, but also the beauty in a virtue that has been distorted and wrongly applied. Virtue raises us to the gods; yet it is also our virtues, when practiced selfishly, that drive us to do our worst deeds.

Impersonal Love

There is a profound esoteric meaning in an ancient precept: "Love all things, both great and small." Hatred is limiting; it builds veils around a person. Love tears and dissolves these veils and gives us freedom, insight, and compassion. It is like the cosmic harmony expressed in the Music of the Spheres as the stars and planets sing in their orbits. Love, impersonal love, brings us into harmony with the universe; and this union with the universe is the final and greatest goal of all the stages of the cycle of initiation.

Personal love, on the other hand, because it is concentrated on a single object, is pitiless and often unlovely; it thinks more of itself than of the other. Impersonal love gives itself wholly and reflects the spirit of self-sacrifice. Personal love is remembering oneself; impersonal love is forgetting oneself. Here lies the test for telling the two apart. Sentimentality has nothing to do with it; in fact it is harmful, because it brings the personality to the fore. The feeling of love is not love itself; it belongs to the psycho-mental and animal side of our being. When we set no limits to the stream that flows from our heart, when we lay down no conditions for reaching out a hand of protection and help, we become like the sun, which sheds light and warmth on all. When love is wholly purified of selfishness it is spiritually like the vision of the seer, for that vision penetrates to the essence of the universe.

Besides the other good and simple rules there is also that of always thinking impersonally. In our daily actions, when some benefit to ourselves is involved, it is fruitful work to try to detach our interest from that benefit. If we can do our actions, whatever they may be, as a labor of love, we naturally become impersonal in them; for in serving others we have ceased to be concerned with ourselves. This is the noble road to self-knowledge; for as long as our attention and thought are concentrated on a limited point of selfishness, we cannot be the universal self.

The Buddha's Rule

Another magnificent rule is the one the Lord Buddha gave his disciples as his favorite teaching:

"When evil and unworthy thoughts, images of lust, hatred, and delusion, arise in the mind, the disciple should turn from these thoughts to other and worthy images. When he thus calls up other and worthy images in his mind, the unworthy thoughts, the images of lust, hatred, and passion, come to an end; and because he has overcome them, his inner heart becomes firm, calm, unified, and strong." (Majjhima Nikaya, I, 288)²

All this means that when we are troubled, perhaps even tormented, by selfish and personal impulses and thoughts, we should immediately think of their opposites and hold these steadily in mind. If we have a thought of hatred, we should call up a picture of compassion and kindness; if we are doing something bad, we should bring before our eyes a lofty and splendid deed; if our thought is selfish, we should imagine ourselves doing a kindness, and doing it always in an impersonal spirit. I am inclined to consider this the best rule. Beyond its usefulness it is a fascinating exercise: it strengthens the will, clarifies the vision, purifies the emotions, awakens the powers of the heart, and contributes to a general growth in strength and nobility of character.

Nevertheless, once a thought has left the mind it is impossible to withdraw the energy we have given it; for it is now an elemental entity (a form of force animated by thought and acting on its own) and has begun its journey. Yet if "neutralizing" thoughts of an opposite quality (thoughts of beauty, mercy, forgiveness, the wish to help, and lofty aspiration) are sent out immediately after the first thought, the two combine and the effects of the bad one are lessened. H. P. Blavatsky speaks of this in The Voice of the Silence (p. 55).

But I repeat: a thought can never be recalled. A thought is like an action that, once done, spreads out forever and never ends. Although we cannot undo the harmful effects that follow an evil impulse, thought, or deed, by thinking a noble thought or doing a good deed we can at least make our wrong thought or our wrongdoing less harmful.

The Power of Impersonality

We human beings are individualized spiritual beings to the degree that the rays produced by the lower parts of our constitution are scattered. When we lose the personality, we are freed from the influence of these undeveloped elements on our real being. This means gathering together the rays hitherto scattered among the various atomic entities of our lower principles, uniting them in the sheaf of the self, and so reconstituting our true self: "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 10:39).

If we can try to be self-sacrificing at every moment, we find that we have forgotten our personal wants. Attending to our needs is a duty, but this does not usually interrupt the flow of the soul. As we strive to be impersonal, we find in time that we are entering universal consciousness. (In these few sentences lie the secret and essence of esoteric training.) But let us not kill our personality; on the contrary, let us make it useful and change the direction of its evolutionary tendencies so that its currents of vitality flow into the higher consciousness of our individuality. It is wonderful to think that as our individuality increases and our personality decreases, we rise on the ladder of life toward a closer union with the cosmic god at the center of our solar system. This holds true for the great majority of the human hosts³ as much as for every other being at an equivalent level of evolution that possesses self-consciousness and the other qualities that make a human being human.

Impersonality, altruism, and self-sacrifice: their effect on our fellow beings is almost magical. When we have truly learned to forgive and to love, we shall remember that the aspiration of our soul is to be individuals who have forgotten themselves in the service of humanity. No one is too lowly to practice this, and no one too exalted to ignore it. The higher the position, the more imperative the call to duty. We may have to fight alone against the whole world; but though we fall again and again, we can rise to our feet and remember that the forces of the universe are behind us and beside us. The heart of being is with us, and in the end we shall win; for nothing can withstand the subtle, all-pervading fire of impersonal love.

The Path to Wisdom Lies Within

The path to wisdom lies within the human being. One who knows himself, whose spiritual nature is fully unfolded, can grasp the movements of the planets. One whose inner self is still further developed can exchange ideas with the beings who govern and guide our solar system. And one whose whole being is unfolded further still can penetrate at least some of the secrets of the macrocosm, and does so naturally and indefinitely. The higher the development, the wider the vision and the deeper the understanding. The path to the Universal Self is one that every individual who wishes to grow and develop must walk for himself. No one can grow in our place; and we can grow only along the line nature has drawn, that is, in keeping with the structure of our own being.

The human being is truly a mystery: beneath the surface and behind the veil lies the mystery of the self, of individuality, of a life reaching out into distant eternities. Man, in essence, is a divine energy wrapped in veils.⁴