Theos-Talk Archives (January 2004 Message tt00458)

Sunday, February 01, 2004

"The Mind is the great slayer of the Real"

Dear Friends:

To me this appears to indicate that the VOICE OF THE SILENCE is an
important study in the probations of chelaship -- on the Path of
Occultism.


In recent days some discussion concerning this topic arose and various
opinions were offered. Here is one that seem very useful to us to
consider: --


"THE MIND IS THE GREAT SLAYER OF THE REAL"


The asceticism which The Voice of the Silence advocates is that of the
thinking principle - the withdrawal of the mind from its present
position in which it is a slave. 

The mind is a victim of internal images composed of elemental-lives
which form the desire-principle, and these awaken the senses to activity
and make them the feeders of that principle. Man's objective world is
but a reflection - a shadowy emanation - of this subjective plane of
desire-images. 

In the waking state of consciousness man does not live in the world of
the mind but in that of the senses ensouled by desires within which the
mind is captive. Man's so-called reasoning is not a pure activity
engendered by the mind but is premised on sense- impressions which are
permeated by desires. 

Even men of Science in using their minds proceed from sense-data to
deductions, and, though in most of them personal desires in connection
with the objects of observation are in abeyance, they yet suffer from
their dependence on desire-shot senses. The eyes of a drunken man see
things askew: the mind of one who in drawing his conclusions depends on
the senses fraught with the desire-principle also sees askew. 

Sense-data to be true and sense-observations to be accurate must be
devoid of the forces of the desire-principle. When Esoteric Philosophy
calls the world of objects illusory it means that it is so not in the
sense that the objects do not exist but in the sense that our valuation
of them is false. The objective world may well be compared to a great
bazaar in which desire-enslaved minds, not knowing the true prices of
things, are taken in, have to bargain, to haggle and to wrangle for
things needed and have to be tempted to want and to acquire other
things. The mind thus exploited in the bazaar of the objective world
gains experience and learns to evaluate each object at its proper worth,
and then - and not before then - man begins to live in that world. 

Our difficulty, then, as will be readily seen, does not inhere in the
objects but in our ignorance of the true values of those objects, due to
our desires in which the mind is imprisoned. Desires by themselves,
unaided by the power of thought, would be innocuous; energized by it
they make man the worst of the animal kingdom. 

Therefore our textbook [the "Voice"] calls this mind the Slayer of the
Real and at the very outset gives the injunction to the Disciple to slay
the Slayer. It also states the method - "become indifferent to objects
of perception." This mind, captivated by desire, which courses in the
nervous system of the body, is called the chief of the senses, and it is
this mind-sense which makes man different from the animal - capable of
becoming superior to it as also of developing into the most cunning and
the most carnal of beasts. 

[7] Having become indifferent to objects of perception, the pupil must
seek out the Rajah of the senses, the Thought- Producer, he who awakes
illusion. The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real. Let the Disciple
slay the Slayer. 
Voice, pp. 1-2 ULT; 1 TUP

It is the activity of this mind in the objective world which has first
to be handled by the aspirant-chela. Unless we see that these objects
become channels, offer food to internal images and help to satisfy our
cravings we shall not be able to evaluate them correctly. We value an
object in terms of the satisfaction or the delight which it gives to our
desire-fraught senses. This is the cause of illusion which is ignorance
- not total absence of knowledge but the false evaluation of objects,
mistaking lust for love. 

If thou would'st cross the first Hall safely, let not thy mind
mistake the fires of lust that burn therein for the sunlight of life.
[pp. 7; 6] 

The Thought-Producer" makes love out of lust and when this is seen in
actual life-experience a real step forward is taken by the practitioner.
When this is seen the weakness of the world of objects compared to the
strength of the world of images is recognized. It is this seeing, when
not understood, which tempts the aspirant to run away from the world to
the jungle. 

When a seeker after the Light within sees the activity of the outer
world of objects he naturally attempts to close the windows through
which the objects attack him. In that retreat, psychological or
physical, a short respite from that attack is all that he obtains. Very
soon he locates the root of his trouble: the attraction or the aversion
which the objects exert over him are not in the external objects but in
the internal images - memory pictures of the past, not only of this life
but also of previous incarnations. 

Withhold thy mind from all external objects, all external
sights. Withhold internal images, lest on thy Soul-light a dark shadow
they should cast. 
[pp. 20; 19] 

This is the formidable work compared to which retreating from the
objects of the senses is easy. If in the first exercise the chela learns
the illusory nature of the objective world, now he encounters the
delusive nature of his own subjective world. Looking for the God within
he comes upon the devil; seeking soul- light, he finds darkness - so
thick that he does not realize that it is a shadow. "O dark, dark, dark,
amid the blaze of noon." [Milton, Samson Agonistes line 80] It is in
that dark that we meet our fancy-created idols, our thought-created
images, our desire-created phantoms. 

But that darkness has the peculiar power of deluding our consciousness.
Very soon the sphere of darkness looks to us the region of pearly light
- of soothing, restful, twilight sleep. The Maya of the objective world
is but an effect caused by the Moha-delusion of this sphere of
self-created subjectivity, lighted up by human passions. 

This is the world of Probationary Learning, which the Chela has to
abandon, [8] and he cannot do so till he understands it. The first real
pitched battle of the greatest of all wars is in this region, called the
Astral Light. When the Power of his Vow, made in the objective world,
stirs in him, the fighter in the Astral Light feels that he is in a
place where he ought not to be; that he must not listen to the sounds of
these images, but to the word of the Soul within. 

Theoretically every student knows that Lower Manas is different from
Higher Manas, that Kama-Manas is demoniac and Buddhi-Manas divine. But
the truth has to be experienced and we know the nature of the Soul's
mind when we overthrow some of the enemy troops, i.e., when we destroy
some of our thought-created images. 

The great temptation for the Probationary Chela issues forth from the
enhanced sense-delight when the plasticity of astral light is handled
and absorbed; it is like the exhilarated state of the person who has
just taken strong drink. Often, instead of fighting right away the
already created images, he falls prey to the temptation of creating new
ones. In the objective world we have to control the wandering mind, but
here we have to fight the creative mind. Thus come a period of intense
fight, and victory ensues when the soldier-soul has grasped this truth: 

Ere thy Soul's mind can understand, the bud of personality must
be crushed out; the worm of sense destroyed past resurrection. [pp. 13;
12] 

The grasping of this truth means that the Probationer has seen that he
is other than the Personality, that the worm which early and late feeds
upon the senses, once crushed, would lead to the death of the separative
and ever-separating self which makes the Personality the supreme enemy.
The glimpse of the Soul which uncovers the inimical nature of the
Personality makes the fighting Probationer take refuge in that Inner
Soul. And this implies some knowledge of the nature and the powers of
that Soul. 

Silence thy thoughts and fix thy whole attention on thy Master,
whom yet thou dost not see, but whom thou feelest. [pp. 17; 16] 

Thyself and mind, like twins upon a line, the star which is thy
goal burns overhead. [pp. 21; 19] 

THE MASTER IS THE HIGHER SELF, "the equivalent of Avalokitesvara, and
the same as Adi-Budha ... Christos with the ancient Gnostics." [3fn.;
73-4 note 4] 

Unless this Master is felt as a Presence in Hall the second, that of
Probationary Learning, entrance into the third, the Hall of Wisdom,
remains closed. It is through the mind of the Soul that we touch the
radiance of the God within, and it is through contact with the great
Gurus that we touch the radiance of the God within Nature - Compassion
Absolute. 

When the mind-activity is silenced, the soul, aided by the Light of the
Spirit, perceives itself as distinct and separate from the mind. Freed
from Kama, it sees the possibility, nay, the certainty of a perfect
unison with its Star - its Father in Heaven. In the translucent lake of
the pure mind the star in high heaven reflects itself, and even that
reflected [9] influence stirs the mind to behold the glory that is - the
greater glory to be. It is not sufficient to silence the thoughts; it is
necessary to perceive the Star of Hope - the PARENT STAR, THE
DHYANI-BUDDHIC SOURCE OF OUR EXISTENCE. 

The obliterating of the internal images is the same as crushing the
craving for sensuous existence. The process demands that we centre our
attention on the inner Light. But turning away from internal images is
not to be accompanied by turning away from the objective world. To be in
the midst of objects but not to be their slave makes the fight a long
one; for, in the long past we have created a whole army of personal
thought-images; by our moods we have given birth to a brood of vices; by
our mental indulgence we have committed many sins. One by one we have to
slay them. 

Woe, then, to thee, Disciple, if there is one single vice thou
has not left behind ... . Woe unto him who dares pollute one rung with
miry feet ... .His sins will raise their voices like as the jackal's
laugh and sob after the sun goes down; his thoughts become an army, and
bear him off a captive slave. 
[Voice, pp. 16-17; 15-16] 

This does not mean that the Probationer is expected to be flawless ere
he starts, but he has to learn and attain purity ere he passes through
the Golden Gate into the Hall of Wisdom, and has won the right to abide
therein permanently. 

As a Probationer he has his day when he basks in the radiance of the
Spiritual Sun, and then his night - the dark night of the Soul, during
which his mind-sins laugh the jackal's laugh which is the cry of agony,
terrifying to him, tempting him to his fall, nay, to his very doom. The
jackals move in packs and therefore are able to hunt down sheep and even
antelopes. When unable to obtain living prey they feed on carrion, and
cunningly they follow cheetahs and even lions in order to finish the
carcass after the latter have eaten their fill. 

The comparison of our lower thoughts to jackals is most apt, for they
attack in packs our high thoughts and our noble aspirations, and when
they cannot prey upon these living images they sniff out slumbering and
dying ones and gorge on the latter - a phenomenon which is related to
precipitation of Karma and the like. Also, like the jackal, our lower
thought-images have an offensive odour, for they, too, like the jackal,
secrete foulness from the base of their tails.
 
Now, we are told how we should deal with these our past creations: 

One single thought about the past that thou hast left behind
will drag thee down and thou wilt have to start the climb anew. Kill in
thyself all memory of past experiences. Look not behind or thou art
lost. [pp. 18; 16-17] 

If we do not choke off the memory of the past, if we dwell in it, we
re-live the past subjectively and rejuvenate the thought- images. But
now we have increased our power of thought and so those images express
themselves more strongly. All students of Theosophy know that a [10]
storehouse of past Karma exists, but all do not know that in the
subjective realm ghosts and elementaries of dead objective actions often
work havoc. 

The last quotation of the first Fragment of our textbook that we should
consider is this: 

Before the path is entered, thou must destroy thy lunar body,
cleanse thy mind-body, and make clean thy heart. [pp. 12; 11] 

In a footnote H.P.B. explains that the astral form produced by Kama has
to be destroyed. The Kama-rupa, ordinarily, is formed after the death of
the body and ere the Ego goes into Devachan, freeing itself from that
form. 

But in the life of the Probationer, as he enters the kingdom of the
quickened, leaving behind that of the dead, there is the Kama-rupa
phenomenon related to that of the Dweller on the Threshold. 

The quickened soul becomes consciously alive when, by chasing away from
the field of the mind all Kama-fed thought-images, he begins to live by
the power of the clean heart, i.e., by the influence of Buddhi. For this
dual process - dispersing the Kama-rupa and awakening Buddhi so that it
can ensoul Manas, the objective world proves of great benefit. 

The objective world of actions is not only valuable for enabling us to
compare, to contrast and discriminatively to learn to concentrate, but
it also proves a most helpful sphere when the strife of the subjective
kind is on, of which mention is made above. 

The way the Probationer has to learn to make use of the objective world
is through the right performance of duty. Duty is the axis round which
his objective world rotates: mistakes made about Duty, neglect of or
dilatoriness in that which should be done, undertaking that which is not
our business, etc., all become sins of omission and of commission. 

If a Probationer is rightly busy with real duty he finds no time for
"mischief" - unconsciously done. Furthermore when attacks come from the
subjective side of his lower nature, a wise engagement of the senses and
the brain in objective functioning weakens the attack. 

Occultism advocates that we do not strengthen the enemy by brooding
about him, nor by directly fighting him. Take no particular notice of
the enemy, but keep the consciousness busy with protective and
profitable mental and physical work. 

No Probationer can meditate and study hours on end and therefore calls
of mundane duty like the earning of livelihood, etc., are highly
beneficial and very necessary. Not the invention of special work but the
doing of what there is to do expands the field of duty till humanity
becomes our family and the world our country. Duty is the Divinity that
shapes our objective world to perfection: Duty is the God of the
objective world - that is the Truth: 

OM TAT SAT. 

[ by B. P. Wadia]
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Best wishes 


Dallas