Theos-Talk Archives (June 2001 Message tt00017)

Saturday, June 02, 2001

Extracts from # 10 LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME

By William Q. Judge
Volume 1 compiled by Jasper Niemand;

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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Letter 10


Dear Jasper:



Three Qualities of Nature [ Gunas ]

You ask me about the "three qualities sprung from Nature,"
mentioned in the Bhagavad-Gita. They exist potentially (latent)
in Purush (Spirit), and during that time spoken of in the
Bhagavad-Gita as the time when He produces all things after
having devoured them (which is the same thing as Saturn devouring
his children), they come forth into activity, and therefore are
found implicating all beings, who are said not to be free from
their influence.

"Beings" here must refer to formed beings in all worlds.
Therefore in these forms the qualities exist [for form is derived
from Nature [ = Prakriti = Cosmic Substance. -- J. N.], and at
the same time implicate the spectator (soul) who is in the form.

The Devas are gods -- that is, a sort of spiritual power who are
lower than the Ishwara in man. They are influenced by the quality
of Satwa, or Truth. They enjoy a period of immense felicity of
enormous duration, but which having duration is not an eternity.

It is written: "Goodness, badness, and indifference -- the
qualities thus called -- sprung from Nature, influence the
imperishable soul within the body." This imperishable soul is
thus separated from the body in which the qualities influence it,
and also from the qualities which are not it. It is Ishwara. The
Ishwara is thus implicated by the qualities.


SATTWA - GOODNESS

The first or highest quality is Satwa, which is in its nature
pure and pleasant, and implicates Ishwara by connection with
pleasant things and with knowledge. Thus even by dwelling in
Satwa the soul is implicated.


RAJAS -- ACTION

The second quality is Raja and causes action; it implicates the
soul because it partakes of avidity and propensity, and causing
actions thus implicates the soul.


TAMAS -- INDIFFERENCE

The third, Tamo quality, is of the nature of indifference and is
the deluder of all mortals. It is fed by ignorance.


RAJAS and TAMAS oppose Spirit ( SATTWA )

Here, then, are two great opposers to the soul, ignorance and
action. For action proceeding from Raja assisted by Satwa does
not lead to the highest place; while ignorance causes
destruction. Yet when one knows that he is ignorant, he has to
perform actions in order to destroy that ignorance. How to do
that without always revolving in the whirl of action [Karma,
causing rebirths. -- J. N.] is the question.

He must first get rid of the idea that he himself really does
anything, knowing that the actions all take place in these three
natural qualities, and not in the soul at all. The word
"qualities" must be considered in a larger sense than that word
is generally given.


IMPERSONALITY

Then he must place all his actions on devotion. That is,
sacrifice all his actions to the Supreme and not to himself. He
must either (leaving out indifference) set himself up as the God
to whom he sacrifices, or the other real God -- Krishna, and all
his acts and aspirations are done either for himself or for the
All. Here comes in the importance of motive. For if he performs
great deeds of valor, or of benefit to man, or acquires knowledge
so as to assist man, and is moved to that merely because he
thinks he will attain salvation, he is only acting for his own
benefit and is therefore sacrificing to himself. Therefore he
must be devoted inwardly to the All; that is, he places all his
actions on the Supreme, knowing that he is not the doer of the
actions, but is the mere witness of them.


DOUBT and IGNORANCE

As he is in a mortal body, he is affected by doubts which will
spring up. When they do arise, it is because he is ignorant about
something. He should therefore be able to disperse doubt "by the
sword of knowledge." For if he has a ready answer to some doubt,
he disperses that much. All doubts come from the lower nature,
and never in any case from higher nature.

Therefore as he becomes more and more devoted he is able
to know more and more clearly the knowledge residing in his
Satwa part. For it says:

"A man who, perfected in devotion (or who persists in its
cultivation) finds spiritual knowledge spontaneously in himself
in progress of time." Also: "The man of doubtful mind enjoys
neither this world nor the other (the Deva world), nor final
beatitude." [ B. Gita ]

The last sentence is to destroy the idea that if there is in us
this higher self it will, even if we are indolent and doubtful,
triumph over the necessity for knowledge, and lead us to final
beatitude in common with the whole stream of man.


TURIYA -- Contemplation

The three qualities are lower than a state called Turya, which is
a high state capable of being enjoyed even while in this body.
Therefore in that state, there exists none of the three
qualities, but there the soul sees the three qualities moving in
the ocean of Being beneath. This experience is not only met with
after death, but, as I said, it may be enjoyed in the present
life, though of course consciously very seldom. But even
consciously there are those high Yogees who can and do rise up to
Nirvana, or Spirit, while on the earth.

This state is the fourth state, called Turya. There is no word in
English which will express it. In that state the body is alive
though in
deep catalepsy. [Self-induced by the Adept. -- J. N.] When the
Adept
returns from it he brings back whatever he can of the vast
experiences of that Turya state. Of course they are far beyond
any expression, and their possibilities can be only dimly
perceived by us. I cannot give any description thereof because I
have not known it, but I perceive the possibilities, and you
probably can do the same.

It is well to pursue some kind of practice, and pursue it either
in a fixed place, or in a mental place which cannot be seen, or
at night. The fact that what is called Dharana, Dhyana, and
Samadhi may be performed should be known.
(See Patanjali's yoga system.)

* Dharana is selecting a thing, a spot, or an idea, to fix the
mind on.

* Dhyana is contemplation of it.

* Samadhi is meditating on it.

When attempted, they of course are all one act.
Now, then, take what is called the well of the throat or pit of
the throat.

* 1st. Select it. -- Dharana.

* 2d. Hold the mind on it. -- Dhyana.

* 3d. Meditate on it. -- Samadhi.

This gives firmness of mind.

Then select the spot in the head where the Shushumna nerve goes.
Never mind the location; call it the top of the head. Then pursue
the same course. This will give some insight into spiritual
minds.

At first it is difficult, but it will grow easy by
practice. If done at all, the same hour of each day should be
selected, as creating a habit, not only in the body, but also in
the mind. Always keep the direction of Krishna in mind: namely,
that it is done for the whole body corporate of humanity, and not
for one's self.

As regards the passions: Anger seems to be the force of Nature;
there is more in it, though.

Lust (so called) is the gross symbol of love and desire to
create. It is the perversion of the True in love and desire.

Vanity, I think, represents in one aspect the illusion -- power
of Nature; Maya, that which we mistake for the reality. It is
nearest always to us and most insidious, just as Nature's
illusion is ever present and difficult to overcome.

Anger and Lust have some of the Rajasika quality; but it seems to
me that Vanity is almost wholly of the Tamo-gunam.

May you cross over to the fearless shore.

W.Q.J.


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Comments by Jasper Neimand


ON CONCENTRATION

As regards the practices of concentration suggested in this
letter, they are only stages in a life-long contemplation; they
are means to an end, means of a certain order among means of
other orders, all necessary, the highest path being that of
constant devotion and entire resignation to the Law.

The above means have a physiological value because the spots
suggested for contemplation are, like others, vital centers.

Excitation of these centers, and of the magnetic residue of
breath always found in them, strengthens and arouses the
faculties of the inner man, the magnetic vehicle of the soul and
the link between matter and spirit.

This is a form of words necessary for clearness, because in
reality matter and spirit are one. We may better imagine an
infinite series of force correlations which extend from pure
Spirit
to its grossest vehicle, and we may say that the magnetic inner
vehicle, or astral man, stands at the half-way point of the
scale.

The secret of the circulation of the nervous fluid is hidden in
these vital centers, and he who discovers it can use the body at
will.

Moreover, this practice trains the mind to remain in its own
principle, without energizing, and without exercising its
tangential force, which is so hard to overcome.


THOUGHT REPRODUCES ITSELF CYCLICALLY

Thought has a self-reproductive power, and when the mind is
held steadily to one idea it becomes colored by it, and, as we
may
say, all the correlates of that thought arise within the mind.
Hence
the mystic obtains knowledge about any object of which he thinks
constantly in fixed contemplation. Here is the rationale of
Krishna's [the HIGHER SELF] words: "Think constantly of me;
depend on me alone; and thou shalt surely come unto me."

The pure instincts of children often reveal occult truths. I
heard a girl of fifteen say recently: "When I was a small child I
was always supposin'. I used to sit on the window seat and stare,
stare, at the moon, and I was supposin' that, if I only stared
long enough, I'd get there and know all about it."


SPIRITUAL CULTURE

Spiritual culture is attained through concentration. It must be
continued daily and every moment to be of use. [ see more on
this in AN EPITOME OF THEOSOPHY by W. Q. Judge, p. 25, ]
The "Elixir of Life" (FIVE YEARS OF THEOSOPHY) gives us
some of the reasons for this truth. Meditation has been defined
as
"the cessation of active, external thought."

Concentration is the entire life-tendency to a given end. For
example, a devoted mother is one who consults the interests of
her children and all branches of their interests in and before
all things; not one who sits down to think fixedly about one
branch of their interests all the day.

Life is the great teacher; it is the great manifestation of
Soul,
and Soul manifests the Supreme.

Hence all methods are good, and all are but parts of the great
aim, which is Devotion. "Devotion is success in actions," says
the Bhagavad-Gita.

We must use higher and lower faculties alike, and beyond those
of mind are those of the Spirit, unknown but discoverable.


PSYCHIC POWERS

The psychic powers, as they come, must also be used, for they
reveal laws. But their value must not be exaggerated, nor must
their danger be ignored.

They are more subtle intoxicants than the gross physical
energies. He who relics upon them is like a man who gives way to
pride and triumph because he has reached the first wayside
station on the peaks he has set out to climb. Like despondency,
like doubt, like fear, like vanity, pride, and self-satisfaction,
these powers too are used by Nature as traps to detain us.


SPIRIT SEEKS FREEDOM FROM MATERIAL LIMITS

Every occurrence, every object, every energy may be used for or
against the great end: in each Nature strives to contain Spirit,
and Spirit strives to be free. Shall the substance paralyze the
motion, or shall the motion control the substance?


VORTICAL, CIRCULAR MOTION of the MONAD

The interrelations of these two is manifestation. The ratio of
activity governs spiritual development; when the great Force has
gained its full momentum, It carries us to the borders of the
Unknown. It is a force intelligent, self-conscious, and
spiritual: Its lower forms, or vehicles, or correlates may be
evoked by us, but Itself comes only of its own volition.


PREPARING OUR BODY FOR THE SELF TO USE

We can only prepare a vehicle for It, in which, as Boehme says,
"the Holy Ghost may ride in Its own chariot."

"The Self cannot be known by the Vedas, nor by the understanding,
nor by much learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him alone the
Self can be gained."

"The Self chooses him as his own. But the man who has not first
turned aside from his wickedness, who is not calm and subdued, or
whose mind is not at rest, he can never obtain the Self, even by
knowledge."

The italics are mine; they indicate the value of that stage of
contemplation hitherto referred to as that in which the mind has
ceased to energize, and when the pure energies of Nature go to
swell the fountain of Spirit.

In regard to the phrase in the above letter that the Adept
"brings back what he can" from Turya, it is to be understood as
referring to the fact that all depends upon the co-ordination of
the various principles in man.

He who has attained perfection or Mahatmaship has assumed
complete control of the body and informs it at will. But,
of course, while in the body he is still, to some extent, as a
soul of power, limited by that body or vehicle.

That is to say, there are experiences not to be shared by that
organ of the soul called by us "the body," and beyond a certain
point its brain cannot reflect or recall them. The point varies
according to the degree of attainment of individual souls, and
while in some it may be a high point of great knowledge and
power, still it must be considered as limited compared with those
spiritual experiences of the freed soul.

The work upon which all disciples are employed is that of
rendering the body more porous, more fluidic, more responsive to
all spiritual influences which arise in the inner center, in the
soul which is an undivided part of the great Soul of all, and
less receptive of the outside material influences which are
generated by the unthinking world and by those qualities which
are in nature.


ABSTRACT THINKING


Abstract thought is said to be "the power of thinking of a thing
apart from its qualities;" but these qualities are the
phenomenal, the evident, and they make the most impression upon
our senses. They bewilder us, and they form a part of that trap
which Nature sets for us lest we discover her inmost secret and
rule her. More than this: our detention as individual components
of a race provides time for that and other races to go through
evolutionary experience slowly, provides long and repeated
chances for every soul to amend, to return, to round the curve of
evolution. In this Nature is most merciful, and even in the
darkness of the eighth sphere to which souls of spiritual
wickedness descend, her impulses provide opportunities of return
if a single responsive energy is left in the self-condemned soul.


VIRTUE and MORAL CODES

Many persons insist upon a perfect moral code tempered by social
amenities, forgetting that these vary with climate,
nationalities, and dates. Virtue is a noble offering to the Lord.
But insomuch as it is mere bodily uprightness and mere mental
uprightness, it is insufficient and stands apart from uprightness
of the psychic nature or the virtue of soul.

The virtue of the soul is true Being; its virtue is, to be free.
The body and the mind are not sharers in such experiences, though
they may afterward reflect them, and this reflection may inform
them with light and power of their own kind. Spirituality is not
virtue.
It is impersonality, in one aspect.


BECOMING SPIRITUAL

It is as possible to be spiritually "wicked" as to be spiritually
"good."
These attributes are only conferred upon spirituality by reason
of its
use for or against the great evolutionary Law, which must finally
prevail because it is the Law of the Deity, an expression of the
nature and Being of the Unknown, which nature is towards
manifestation, self-realization, and reabsorption. All that
clashes with this Law by striving for separate existence must in
the long run fail, and any differentiation which is in itself
incapable of reabsorption is reduced to its original elements, in
which shape, so to say, it can be reabsorbed.

Spirituality is, then, a condition of Being which is beyond
expression in language. Call it a rate of vibration, far beyond
our cognizance. Its language is the language of motion, in its
incipiency, and its perfection is beyond words and even thought.

"The knowledge of the Supreme Principle is a divine silence, and
the quiescence of all the senses." -- (Clavis of Hermes.)

"Likes and dislikes, good and evil, do not in the least affect
the knower of Brahm, who is bodiless and always existing." --
(Crest Jewel of Wisdom.)

"Of that nature which is beyond intellect many things are
asserted according to intellection, but it is contemplated by a
cessation of intellectual energy better than with it." --
(Porphyrios.)


ENTERING THE BOUNDLESS

Thought is bounded, and we seek to enter the boundless. The
intellect is the first production of Nature which energizes for
the experience of the soul, as I said. When we recognize this
truth we make use of that natural energy called Thought for
comparison, instruction, and the removal of doubt, and so reach a
point where we restrain the outward tendencies of Nature, for,
when these are resolved into their cause and Nature is wholly
conquered and restrained, that cause manifests itself both in and
beyond Nature.

"The incorporeal substances in descending are divided and
multiplied about individuals with a diminution of power; but when
they ascend by their energies beyond bodies, they become united
and exist as a whole by and through exuberance of power." --
(Porphyrios.)

These hints may suffice for such minds as are already upon the
way. Others will be closed to them. Language only expresses the
experiences of a race, and since ours has not reached the upper
levels of Being we have as yet no words for these things.

The East has ever been the home of spiritual research; she has
given
all the great religions to the world. The Sanscrit has thus terms
for some of these states and conditions, but even in the East it
is well understood that the formless cannot be expressed by form,
or the Illimitable by the limits of words or signs. The only way
to know these states is to be them: we never can really know
anything which we are not.

-- J. N.
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