Theos-Talk Archives (September 2006 Message tt00086)

Jake writes:

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Well, for one thing, it seems strange
to me to visualize someone else "in the
heart" as a spiritual source, when one
has HIS OWN spiritual source in the heart.
The goal, seems to me, is to get in
touch with one's own spiritual source,
and not head in the direction of
depending on someone else's spiritual
source instead. It seems out of character
with the Theosophical idea of self-reliance.
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Now compare and contrast what is found in the
letter from KH. SEE BELOW.  Notice how many
times the Higher Self, Higher Consciousness is mentioned
in the Master's letter.  Is the Master in this letter
ACTUALLY saying that we should be "depending on someone else's 
spiritual source" INSTEAD OF "one's own spiritual source" as Jake 
views it?  Are there TWO Higher Selves?  or only ONE???

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Concentrate on the idea of the Higher Self., say for one half an 
hour at first. Permit no other thought. By degrees you will be able 
to unite your consciousness with the Higher Self. The Higher Self is 
always to be sought for within. To look outside is a fatal mistake. 

The effort to be made is to reach the highest state of which you are 
capable and to hold yourself there. The registration of 
consciousness of this higher plane takes place at the last moment of 
the passage back to the physical, and this, together with the fact 
that "the Double" is often active, often produces a state of double 
consciousness, and the latter is a source of error. 

In acquiring the power of concentration the first step is one of 
blankness. Then follows, by degrees, consciousness, and finally the 
passage between the two states becomes so rapid and easy as to be 
almost unnoticed. During the moment of concentration the body is in 
a brown study and retains a sort of dream perception (this of course 
applies only to chelas). 

The great difficulty to be overcome is the registration of the 
knowledge of the Higher Self on the physical plane.  To accomplish 
this, the physical brain must be made an entire blank to all but the 
Higher Consciousness; and the double (or astral body) must be 
paralyzed or error and confusion will result.

In the first place, try to put yourself in such a state as not to 
feel anything that happens to the physical body, in fact to separate 
yourself from your body. If in this attempt you feel anything, any 
foreign influence coming into you from outside, break off the 
concentration at once.

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. 

During concentration, one must make oneself as positive [resistant] 
as possible to spooks and all astral lower influences, but as 
negative [receptive] as possible to the influence of the Master.  

The idea of the Master will prove the best influence against spooks, 
etc. The effort is far more dangerous for psychics than for others 
because their bodies are much more sensitive and attract more 
various other powers of nature. 

Spooks and astral influences act through the physical man on the 
astral body.   This astral body is the noumenon of the physical, but 
without the latter it has no intelligence or consciousness. Its 
senses are the noumena of the physical senses, and its feelings are 
those of the physical body.

A sense of freedom is one of the marked characteristics of the 
Higher Consciousness and the will effort needed to silence the body 
is much the same as that needed to forget pain. No two men pass 
through the same experience in effecting the union with the Higher 
Self. 

The true Higher Self is "the Warrior" referred to in Light on the 
Path; it never acts on this plane, where the active agent, the real 
actor is the Manas. This union with the Higher Self is the best 
means of killing out the "sense of separateness," and therefore man 
must become the slave of the Higher Self.

The Higher Self is shapeless, sexless, formless. It is a state of 
consciousness, a breath, not a body or form. The highest form is the 
Mayavi Rupa, which contains the whole man minus physical body and 
life. The form is that of the physical body, unless modified by 
will. The Higher Self  is the perfect o, Manas or Mayavi Rupa plus 
Buddhi and Atma, which together form a mirror in which is reflected 
Parabrahm which is the One Self. 

The Higher Self is a spark of the Universal Spirit - Atma-Buddhi - 
universal, eternal, senseless on this plane. The Higher Ego is 
Manas. When it rises to Atma-Buddhi it completes the trinity which 
is the One. Manas is the self-consciousness. It is limited to one 
Mahamanvantara. Buddhi passes from Mahamanvantara to Mahamanvantara

The Mayavi Rupa is the middle self, and is the body used by adepts 
with the Kama Rupa as its vehicle. It is the human soul, the seat of 
the emotions and feelings as well as thoughts. When in the body it 
is the Manas. The 7 principles are aspects of one and the same 
entity, the form and character which are assumed depending upon the 
will.

In 19th century man instinct (Kama) has been to a great extent 
crushed by the development of Manas or Intelligence.  The Manas is 
the fallen Angel, the inbreathed essence of the Manasa Putras, or 
those beings who collectively form the Mahat or manifested Logos. 
The Monad, Atma-Buddhi, does not really belong to this plane at all, 
but is, so to say, Parabrahmic. Therefore on this plane, Manas is 
the highest principle in man, and it is this Manas which makes of 
man either a God or Devil, according as the Divine Monad acts on 
this plane through the Manas, or as the Manas produces effects on 
this plane, by acting upon the God-Life power of the lower part of 
the Buddhi.

Masters are those who are born with a Nirmanakaya in them.  

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.

Everyone will receive according to his own inner merits and 
development.
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Quoted from: http://blavatskyarchives.com/khconcentration.htm