Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00119)

Sunday, April 22, 2001

Extracts from LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME -- 7 --


LETTER # 7 ---


By William Q. Judge

Volume 1 compiled by Jasper Niemand; Letter 7,

The Letters in Volume 1 originally appeared in The Path, December
1888 to March 1890. W. Q. Judge first published them in book form
in 1891,
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"Seeking for freedom I go to that God who is the light of his own
thoughts. A man who knows him truly passes over death; there is
no other path to go." -- Upanishads

"We need a literature, not solely for highly intellectual
persons, but of a more simple character, which attempts to appeal
to ordinary common-sense minds who are really fainting for such
moral and mental assistance as is not reached by the more
pretentious works."

The experience of one student is, on the whole, the experience of
all. Details differ, however. Some are made more instantly rich
than others: they are those who
put forth more vigorous and generous effort; or they have a
Karmic store which brings aid.

Karma, or the law of spiritual action and reaction, decided this,
as it works on all the planes, physical, moral, mental,
psychical, and spiritual alike. Our Karma may be worked out on
any one of these planes when our life is chiefly concentrated
upon it.

The letters, in the hope that they may assist others, are here
published. They are hints given by one who knew that the first
need of a student is to learn how to think.

The true direction is pointed out, and the student is left to
clarify his own perceptions, to draw upon and enlarge his own
intuitions, and to develop, by his own inward exertions.
Such students have passed the point where their external
environment can affect their growth favorably. They may learn
from it, but the time has also come to resist it and turn to the
internal adjustment to higher relations only.

The brevity of these letters should not mislead. Every statement
in them is a statement of law. They point to causes of which life
is an effect. That life, arising from the action of Spirit in
Nature, is that which we must understand. It is to be manifested
within us before we can advance on the Path.


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Extracts from:

LETTER 7 - Vol. I

Doubt and Anxiety

Dear Jasper:

I have your letter, Comrade, in which you say how much you wish
there were some Adepts sent to the United States to help all true
students.

Yet you know well They do not need to come here in person, in
order to help. By going carefully over your letter there appears
to be the possibility of the seed of doubt in your heart as to
the wise ordering of all things, for all are under the Law, and
Masters first of all. Mind, I only say the "possibility of the
seed of doubt."

For I judge from my own experience. Well do I remember when I
thought as you say, how much better 'twould be if some one were
there. If that is allowed to remain it will metamorphose itself
into a seed and afterward a plant of doubt. Cast it right out! It
does not now show as a seed of doubt, but it will be a case of
metamorphosis, and the change would be so great as to deceive you
into thinking it were never from the same root.

The best stand to take is that it is all right as it is now, and
when the time comes for it to be better it will be so. Meanwhile
we have a duty to see that we do all we can in our own place as
we see best, undisturbed and undismayed by aught.

How much I have in years gone away said and thought those very
words of yours and to no profit! Why do you care what becomes of
a million human beings? Are not millions going to death daily
with no one to tell them of all this? But did you suppose that
all this was not provided for?

"And heavenly death itself is also well provided for."

Now, then, you and I must learn to look on the deaths or the
famishing of millions of beings with unfaltering heart. Else we
had better give it all up now.

Consider that at this moment are so many persons in various far
distant places who cannot ever hear these truths. Do you grieve
for them? Do you realize their state? No; you realize only
partially the same thing among those with whom it was your
present lot to be born -- I mean the nation.

Do you want to do more than your best? Do you covet the work of
another? No; you do not. You will sit calmly where you are, then,
and, with an unaffected heart, picture to yourself the moral and
physical deaths and famines which are now without the possibility
of prevention or amelioration. Your faith will know that all is
provided for.

I do not say that you must attain to that calm now or give up
seeking the Way; but I do say that you must admit that such an
attainment must be absolutely tried for. For of such is the
trial, and why should we care? We must some day be able to stand
any shock, and to get ready for that time we must be now
triumphant over some smaller things.
Among others is the very position you and I are now in; that is,
standing our ground and feeling ourselves so much and so awfully
alone. But we know that They have left us a commandment. That we
keep, although now and then objects, senses, men, and time
conspire to show us that Masters laugh at us. It is all a
delusion. It is only one consequence of our past Karma now
burning itself out before our eyes.

The whole phantasmagoria is only a picture thrown up against the
Screen of Time by the mighty magic of Prakriti (Nature). But you
and I are superior to Nature. Why, then, mind these pictures?
Part of that very screen, however, being our own mortal bodies,
we can't help the sensation derived therefrom through our
connection with the body. It is only another form of cold or
heat; and what are they? They are vibrations; they are felt; they
do not really exist in themselves.
So we can calmly look on the picture as it passes fragmentarily
through those few square feet contained within the superficial
boundaries of our elementary frame. We must do so, for it is a
copy of the greater, of the universal form. For we otherwise will
never be able to understand the greater picture.

Now, then, is there not many a cubic inch of your own body which
is entitled to know and to be the Truth in greater measure than
now? And yet you grieve for the ignorance of so many other human
beings! Grieve on; and I grieve too.
Do not imagine that I am what is there written. Not so. I am
grieving just the same outwardly, but inwardly trying what I have
just told you. And what a dream all this is. Here I am writing
you so seriously, and now I see that you know it all quite well
and much better than I do.

Yet, my dear Jasper, now and then I feel -- not Doubt of Masters
who hear any heartbeat in the right direction, but -- a terrible
Despair of these people.
KALI - YUGA
Oh, my God! The age is black as hell, hard as iron. It is iron,
it is Kali Yuga. Kali is always painted black. Yet Kali Yuga by
its very nature, and terrible, swift momentum, permits one to do
more with his energies in a shorter time than in any other Yuga.
But heavens, what a combat! Demons from all the spheres; waving
clouds of smoky Karma; dreadful shapes; stupefying exhalations
from every side. Exposed at each turn to new dangers. Imagine a
friend walking with you who you see is in the same road, but all
at once he is permeated by these things of death and shows a
disposition to obstruct your path, the path of himself.

Yes; the gods are asleep for awhile.

But noble hearts still walk here, fighting over again the ancient
fight. They seek each other, so as to be of mutual help. We will
not fail them. To fail would be nothing, but to stop working for
Humanity and Brotherhood would be awful. We cannot: we will not.

Yet we have not a clear road. No, it is not clear. I am content
if I can see the next step in advance only. You seek The Warrior.
He is here, somewhere. No one can find him for you. You must do
that. Still He fights on. No doubt He sees you and tries to make
you see Him. Still He fights on and on.

How plainly the lines are drawn, how easily the bands are seen.
Some want a certificate, or an uttered pledge, or a secret
meeting, or a declaration, but without any of that I see those
who -- up to this hour -- I find are my "companions." They need
no such folly. They are there; they hear and understand the
battle-cry, they recognize the sign.

Now where are the rest? Many have I halted, and spoken the exact
words to them, have exposed to them my real heart, and they heard
nothing; they thought that heart was something else. I sigh to
think how many. Perhaps I overlooked some; perhaps some did not
belong to me. There are some who partly understood the words and
the sign, but they are not sure of themselves; they know that
they partake of the nature, but are still held back.

Do you not see, Jasper, that your place in the ranks is well
known? You need no assurances because they are within you.

Now what a dreadful letter; but it is all true.

Karma of the Past

A student of occultism after a while gets into what we may call a
psychic whirl, or a vortex of occultism. At first he is affected
by the feelings and influences of those about him. That begins to
be pushed off and he passes into the whirl caused by the mighty
effort of his Higher Self to make him remember his past lives.

Then those past lives affect him. They become like clouds
throwing shadows on his path. Now they seem tangible and then
fade away, only a cloud. Then they begin to affect his impulse to
action in many various ways.
Sensitivity to Past Effects

Today he has vague callings, longings to do something, and,
critically regarding himself, he cannot see in this life any
cause. It is the bugle note of a past life blown almost in his
face. It startles him; it may throw him down. Then it starts
before him, a phantom, or, like a person behind you as you look
at a mirror, it looks over his shoulder. Although dead and past
they yet have a power. He gets too a power and a choice.
If all his previous past lives were full of good, then
irresistible is the force for his benefit. But all alike marshal
up in front, and he hastens their coming by his effort.

Into this vortex about him others are drawn, and their germs for
good or ill ripen with activity. This is a phase of the operation
of Karmic stamina.

The choice is this. These events arrive one after the other and,
as it were, offer themselves. If he chooses wrong, then hard is
the fight. The one chosen attracts old ones like itself perhaps,
for all have a life of their own. Do you wonder that sometimes in
the case of those who rush unprepared into the "circle of
ascetics" and before the ripe moment, insanity sometimes results?
But then that insanity is their safety for the next life, or for
their return to sanity.

Receive my brotherly assurances, my constant desire to help you.

-- W. Q. J.

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Comments by J. N.
KARMA and its effect on us.

In respect to Karmic action it is well to recall the statement of
Patanjali that "works exist only in the shape of mental deposits"
(Book 2, Aph. 12, A).

By "works" is here meant Karma, the stock of works, or Action.
Its results remain as mental deposits or potential energies in
the higher part of the fifth principle [Higher Manas]. And when
it reincarnates, those seeds are there to "ripen on the tablets
of the mind" whenever they are exposed to favoring circumstances.

Sometimes they remain dormant for want of something to arouse
them, as in the case of children. "The mental deposits of works,
collected from time without beginning in the ground of the mind,
as they by degrees arrive at maturation, so do they, existing in
lesser or greater measure (the sum of merit being less than that
of demerit, or conversely) lead to their effects in the shape of
rank, raised or lowered, . . . or experience of good or ill"
(Book 2, Aph. 13, B).

Power of the Mind

The mind energizes and impels us to fresh action. The impulse
lies within, in germ, and may be ripened by interior or exterior
suggestion. Can we, then, be too careful to guard the ground of
the mind, to keep close watch over our thoughts? These thoughts
are dynamic. Each one as it leaves the mind has a vis viva of its
own, proportionate to the intensity with which it was propelled.
As the force or work done, of a moving body, is proportionate to
the square of its velocity, so we may say that the force of
thoughts is to be measured by the square or quadrupled power of
their spirituality, so greatly do these finer forces increase by
activity.

The spiritual force, being impersonal, fluidic, not bound to any
constricting center, acts with unimaginable swiftness. A thought,
on its departure from the mind, is said to associate itself with
an elemental; it is attracted wherever there is a similar
vibration, or, let us say, a suitable soil, just as the winged
thistle-seed floats off and sows itself in this spot and not in
that, in the soil of its natural selection.
Virtue and Vice -- Their power on us

Thus the man of virtue, by admitting a material or sensual
thought into his mind, even though he expels it, sends it forth
to swell the evil impulses of the man of vice from whom he
imagines himself separated by a wide gulf, and to whom he may
have just given a fresh impulse to sin.

Many men are like sponges, porous and bibulous, ready to suck up
every element of the order preferred by their nature. We all have
more or less of this quality: we attract what we love, and we may
derive a greater strength from the vitality of thoughts infused
from without than from those self-reproduced within us at a time
when our nervous vitality is exhausted. It is a solemn thought,
this, of our responsibility for the impulse of another.

We live in one another, and our widely different deeds have often
a common source. The occultist cannot go far upon his way without
realizing to what a great extent he is "his brother's keeper."
Our affinities are ourselves, in whatever ground they may live
and ripen.

-- J. N.
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