Theos-Talk Archives (August 2006 Message tt00678)

BELOW are selections from HPB's THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE.

I have selected and rearranged various passages by theme.
Notice the underlying themes that emerge......

Does the "phoney" quote mentioned by Jake fit somewhere
in these themes?

First the "phoney" quote:

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"Your best method is to concentrate on the Master as a Living Man 
inside you. Make his image in your heart and a focus of 
concentration so as to lose all sense of bodily existence in the one 
thought. . . ." 

"Every one of you create for yourself a Master. Give him birth and 
objective being before you in the Astral Light. If he is a real 
Master he will send his Voice. If he is not a real Master, then the 
Voice will be that of the Higher Self."  Quoted from an E.S.T.S. 
document. 
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Now the material from THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE:

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Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one 
of her creators and make obeisance. 

And she will open wide before thee the portals of her secret 
chambers, lay bare before thy gaze the treasures hidden in the very 
depths of her pure virgin bosom. Unsullied by the hand of matter she 
shows her treasures only to the eye of Spirit -- the eye which never 
closes, the eye for which there is no veil in all her kingdoms. 

Then will she show thee the means and way, the first gate and the 
second, the third, up to the very seventh. And then, the goal -- 
beyond which lie, bathed in the sunlight of the Spirit, glories 
untold, unseen by any save the eye of Soul. 
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Three Halls, O weary pilgrim, lead to the end of toils. Three Halls, 
O conqueror of Mara, will bring thee through three states into the 
fourth and thence into the seven worlds, the worlds of Rest Eternal. 

If thou would'st learn their names, then hearken, and remember. 

The name of the first Hall is IGNORANCE -- Avidya. 

It is the Hall in which thou saw'st the light, in which thou livest 
and shalt die. 

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. 

The WISE ONES tarry not in pleasure-grounds of senses. 

This earth, O ignorant Disciple, is but the dismal entrance leading 
to the twilight that precedes the valley of true light -- that light 
which no wind can extinguish, that light which burns without a wick 
or fuel. 

Shun ignorance, and likewise shun illusion. Avert thy face from 
world deceptions; mistrust thy senses, they are false. But within 
thy body -- the shrine of thy sensations -- seek in the Impersonal 
for the "eternal man"; and having sought him out, look inward: thou 
art Buddha. 

Thy shadows live and vanish; that which in thee shall live for ever, 
that which in thee knows, for it is knowledge, is not of fleeing 
life: it is the man that was, that is, and will be, for whom the 
hour shall never strike. 

The name of Hall the second is the Hall of Learning.  In it thy Soul 
will find the blossoms of life, but under every flower a serpent 
coiled. 

If thou would'st cross the second safely, stop not the fragrance of 
its stupefying blossoms to inhale. If freed thou would'st be from 
the Karmic chains, seek not for thy Guru in those Mayavic regions. 

The WISE ONES heed not the sweet-tongued voices of illusion. 

And having learnt thine own Agnyana, flee from the Hall of Learning. 
This Hall is dangerous in its perfidious beauty, is needed but for 
thy probation. Beware, Lanoo, lest dazzled by illusive radiance thy 
Soul should linger and be caught in its deceptive light. 

This light shines from the jewel of the Great Ensnarer, (Mara). The 
senses it bewitches, blinds the mind, and leaves the unwary an 
abandoned wreck. 

The name of the third Hall is Wisdom, beyond which stretch the 
shoreless waters of AKSHARA, the indestructible Fount of 
Omniscience. 

Seek for him who is to give thee birth, in the Hall of Wisdom, the 
Hall which lies beyond, wherein all shadows are unknown, and where 
the light of truth shines with unfading glory. 

That which is uncreate abides in thee, Disciple, as it abides in 
that Hall. If thou would'st reach it and blend the two, thou must 
divest thyself of thy dark garments of illusion. Stifle the voice of 
flesh, allow no image of the senses to get between its light and 
thine that thus the twain may blend in one. 

If through the Hall of Wisdom, thou would'st reach the Vale of 
Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy 
of separateness that weans thee from the rest. 
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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. 

Silence thy thoughts and fix thy whole attention on thy Master whom 
yet thou dost not see, but whom thou feelest. 

Merge into one sense thy senses, if thou would'st be secure against 
the foe. 'Tis by that sense alone which lies concealed within the 
hollow of thy brain, that the steep path which leadeth to thy Master 
may be disclosed before thy Soul's dim eyes. 

The light from the ONE Master, the one unfading golden light of 
Spirit, shoots its effulgent beams on the disciple from the very 
first. Its rays thread through the thick dark clouds of matter. 

Now here, now there, these rays illumine it, like sun-sparks light 
the earth through the thick foliage of the jungle growth. But, O 
Disciple, unless the flesh is passive, head cool, the soul as firm 
and pure as flaming diamond, the radiance will not reach the 
chamber , its sunlight will not warm the heart, nor will the mystic 
sounds of the Akasic heights reach the ear, however eager, at the 
initial stage

Let not thy "Heaven-born," merged in the sea of Maya, break from the 
Universal Parent (SOUL), but let the fiery power retire into the 
inmost chamber, the chamber of the Heart and the abode of the 
World's Mother. 

Then from the heart that Power shall rise into the sixth, the middle 
region, the place between thine eyes, when it becomes the breath of 
the ONE-SOUL, the voice which filleth all, thy Master's voice. 

'Tis only then thou canst become a "Walker of the Sky" who treads 
the winds above the waves, whose step touches not the waters. 
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Before thou set'st thy foot upon the ladder's upper rung, the ladder 
of the mystic sounds, thou hast to hear the voice of thy inner GOD 
in seven manners. 

The first is like the nightingale's sweet voice chanting a song of 
parting to its mate. 

The second comes as the sound of a silver cymbal of the Dhyanis, 
awakening the twinkling stars. 

The next is as the plaint melodious of the ocean-sprite imprisoned 
in its shell. 

And this is followed by the chant of Vina. 

The fifth like sound of bamboo-flute shrills in thine ear. 

It changes next into a trumpet-blast. 

The last vibrates like the dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud. 

The seventh swallows all the other sounds. They die, and then are 
heard no more. 

When the six are slain and at the Master's feet are laid, then is 
the pupil merged into the ONE, becomes that ONE and lives therein. 
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He who would hear the voice of Nada, "the Soundless Sound," and 
comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dharana. 

Unless thou hearest, thou canst not see. 

Unless thou seest thou canst not hear. To hear and see this is the 
second stage. 

. . . . . . 

When the disciple sees and hears, and when he smells and tastes, 
eyes closed, ears shut, with mouth and nostrils stopped; when the 
four senses blend and ready are to pass into the fifth, that of the 
inner touch -- then into stage the fourth he hath passed on. 

And in the fifth, O slayer of thy thoughts, all these again have to 
be killed beyond reanimation. 

Withhold thy mind from all external objects, all external sights. 
Withhold internal images, lest on thy Soul-light a dark shadow they 
should cast. 

Thou art now in DHARANA, the sixth stage. 

Fix thy Soul's gaze upon the star whose ray thou art, the flaming 
star that shines within the lightless depths of ever-being, the 
boundless fields of the Unknown. 

Thy Soul-gaze centre on the One Pure Light.

When thou hast passed into the seventh, O happy one, thou shalt 
perceive no more the sacred three, for thou shalt have become that 
three thyself. Thyself and mind, like twins upon a line, the star 
which is thy goal, burns overhead. The three that dwell in glory and 
in bliss ineffable, now in the world of Maya have lost their names. 
They have become one star, the fire that burns but scorches not, 
that fire which is the Upadhi of the Flame. 

And this, O Yogi of success, is what men call Dhyana, the right 
precursor of Samadhi. 

And now thy Self is lost in SELF, thyself unto THYSELF, merged in 
THAT SELF from which thou first didst radiate. 

Where is thy individuality, Lanoo, where the Lanoo himself? It is 
the spark lost in the fire, the drop within the ocean, the ever-
present Ray become the all and the eternal radiance. 

And now, Lanoo, thou art the doer and the witness, the radiator and 
the radiation, Light in the Sound, and the Sound in the Light. 

And now, rest 'neath the Bodhi tree, which is perfection of all 
knowledge, for, know, thou art the Master of SAMADHI -- the state of 
faultless vision. 

Behold! thou hast become the light, thou hast become the Sound, thou 
art thy Master and thy God. Thou art THYSELF the object of thy 
search: the VOICE unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, 
exempt from change, from sin exempt, the seven sounds in one, the 

VOICE OF THE SILENCE.