PO Box 627, Caringbah NSW 1495
Tel: (02)9540 2391 Fax: (02) 9524 0025
www.sydneygoodwill.org.au

No 253 / May 2008

Dear Friends,

We live so consciously in the concrete world and yet we can live largely unconsciously in those subtle layers of existence which bring this physical world into being and form. We have been told about these other layers by those who have penetrated through to them while still present in the physical world. We may have come to the point of believing they exist because of the great respect and love we have for those guides, mentors and teachers. But how do we penetrate through to these realms of causation and great subtlety?

A direct and integral relationship with one who has penetrated the veils can draw us momentarily into an experience through shared relationship as when Christ said: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" [John 12:32]. This provides a vision of what is to be attained but lasting attainment comes through our own conscious movement and realisation. No one can do it for us and we can't do it for anyone else yet it is a shared process which flows through loving relationship and understanding.

The effort involves change and here we find ourselves at a crossroads between the deeply ingrained pattern of a familiar world view (and our current sense of identity, perceived responsibilities and priorities within it) and a completely new sense of values and goals that require a transformation of all that is known. The emphasis shifts from active strain, effort and force, in order to combat and constrain lower tendencies, to a new stance within a new sense of being that empowers yet is untouched by its effects in the outer world because a far more subtle movement directs action and influence.

Early last century the Tibetan Master wrote: "It is difficult … at this time to comprehend the nature of man when he has dropped all physical conflict out of his conscious life experience and when the urge to combat (upon the physical plane) has faded completely out of the human consciousness… Have you ever thought, my brother, that just as there is a discipline of pain and of sorrow, there may also be a discipline of joy and of achievement? This is a thought worthy of attention. Men need these days to learn this new truth, and its perception will greatly change human consciousness. That which is bliss is today here or on its way, and the disciples and aspirants of this present time must be taught how to recognise and implement it." [Discipleship in the New Age Vol II, p669 & 671]

It's often the things or events which we don't understand which have the most changing effect. Precisely because we don't understand, and are therefore not still in the grip of the mental nature, that we are more open to the energy of something new - to an extension and a possibility to expand and grow. We are open to an energetic impact when we suspend the circular path of a known logic. Deeper levels of being can then enter in to draw us beyond the already known and experienced. Confusion can be constructive if it brings about a new ordering and life pattern out of a perceived chaos. So we move from what we thought we knew towards emerging truth, from knowledge to wisdom.

As the world disengages from the processes of oppression and control by fear - fear of loss, pain or death and all the lesser anxieties and worries that cloud our vision and distort the truth - we enter a new realisation that is so vastly different that at first we simply cannot see it through our old world view and because so many around us still operate under the old mode and its illusion. We can become caught in the cross-currents of the transition. We may even lose our hold on the new vision if we succumb to a rising abhorrence of the continued oppression and misuse of power that stands out more starkly against a newer understanding and, still steeped by habit in the old combative mode, we may become lost in imposing our own vision and fighting for it out of fear that we might never attain it. Thus overwhelmed we may still be trying to force something that is not attainable by force.

When Aung San Suu Kyi was asked whether she feared for her life she replied that she didn't fear because she harboured no ill-will. "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it." [Film - Inside Burma, Land of Fear] And so a subtler sense of discrimination is needed between an old world view based on illusion and a new understanding based on emerging truth, between force on the one hand and, on the other, a new sensitivity and service to the flow and direction of the One Life in Whom we live and move and have our being. The Tibetan explains that:

"…When the personal lower self is subordinated to the higher rhythms and obedient to the new Law of Service, then the life of the soul will begin to flow through … to others, and the effect in (one's) immediate family and group will be to demonstrate a real understanding and a true helpfulness. As the flow of life becomes stronger through use, the effect will spread out from the small surrounding family group to the neighbourhood. A wider range of contacts becomes possible, until eventually … the effect of the outpouring life may become nationwide and worldwide. But it will not be planned, nor will it be fought for, as an end in itself. It will be a natural expression of the soul's life …; it will be coloured and ordered by environing conditions -by time, by period, by race and age. It will be a living flow, and a spontaneous giving forth, and the life, power and love demonstrated, being sent forth from soul levels, will have a potent, attractive force upon the group units with which the disciple may come in contact in the three worlds of soul expression. There are no other worlds wherein the soul may at this time thus express itself. Nothing can stop or arrest the potency of this life of natural, loving service, except in those cases wherein the personality gets in the way. Then service, as the Teachers on the inner side of life understand it, gets distorted and altered into busy-ness. It becomes changed into ambition, into an effort to make others serve as we think service should be rendered, and into a love of power which hinders true service instead of into love of our fellow men. There is a point of danger in every life when the theory of service is grasped, and the higher law is recognised; then the imitative quality of the personality, its monkey nature, and the eagerness of a high grade aspiration can easily mistake theory for reality, and the outer gestures of a life of service for the natural, spontaneous flow of soul life through its mechanism of expression.

… The need for an increasing subtlety of discrimination is constant, and all … are urged to take stock of themselves at this time. They face a new cycle of service and must avail themselves of a new day of opportunity. There is a great need to stand in spiritual being; where there is this poised standing, there will be no need for others to incite one to service. Let the "Forces of Light" flow through, and the ranks of the world servers will be rapidly filled. Let the "Spirit of Peace" use the lower nature as an instrument, and there will be peace and harmony within the personal field of service. Let the "Spirit of Good Will" dominate our minds and there will be no room for the spirit of criticism and the spreading of destructive discussion. It is for this reason … that there must be increasing emphasis upon the need for Harmlessness. Harmlessness prepares the way for the inflow of life; harmlessness dissipates the obstructions to the free outpouring of love; harmlessness is the key to the release of the lower nature from the grip of the world illusion and from the power of phenomenal existence." [Esoteric Psychology Vol II p128-9]

Harmlessness is described as "…the expression of the life of the man who realizes himself to be everywhere, who lives consciously as a soul, whose nature is love, whose method is inclusiveness, and to whom all forms are alike in that they veil and hide the light, and are but externalizations of the one Infinite Being. This realization …will demonstrate in a true comprehension of a brother's need, divorced from sentiment and expediency. It will lead to that silence of the tongue which grows out of non-reference to the separate self. It will produce that instantaneous response to true need which characterizes the Great Ones who (passing beneath the outer appearance) see the inner cause which produces the conditions noted in the outer life, and so, from that point of wisdom, true help and guidance can be given. Harmlessness brings about in the life caution in judgment, reticence in speech, ability to refrain from impulsive action, and the demonstration of a non-critical spirit. So, free passage can be given to the forces of true love, and to those spiritual energies which seem to vitalize the personality, leading consequently to right action." [A Treatise on White Magic p102-3]

"In the presence of him who has perfected harmlessness, all enmity ceases." [Light of the Soul p194]

Visit our Website at www.sydneygoodwill.org.au for information on literature, books, meetings…