PRACTICE OF THE WAY

This is a work copy of a re-editing of Vitvans lesson course. The original lessons are here combined, and are in the process of being compared to the original tapes for full and accurate transcription. ---webmaster May 2008

PRACTICE OF THE WAY PRECEPTS

Vitvan, 1952 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Grant freedom to each and claim freedom for yourself. Respect the integrity of each. The value one gives reacts upon him according to the quality of the value given. Practice describing the meaning signified, or symbolized, by each word used. Meditatively study analogical representations of the world of reality. Learn to disregard cortical justifications, excuses and alibis as mentalizations that have no functional value. (paraphrased) That which you know, you can control; that which you do not know controls you.

OPENING REMARKS ON TAPE 5 PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Let us prepare ourselves for our lesson this morning by joining together and lifting our forces to our highest and best. And if we do not do anything else by meeting together than receiving the blessing of that presence, because that is what it is, that is what was meant by the comforter. Those of you who have studied your Bible will remember that it is alleged that the representative of the Christos spoke of the Comforter. So long as you have me with you, you will not receive that consciousness of the presence, the Comforter. Because you may depend upon the darshan, the radiance of his field. But if I go away, the Comforter will come. That is, that presence, which simply means the frequency of the higher level, the Christos level, or the Christos state of the cosmic process. That force, that influence from that state is called the Comforter. Now believe me, there are those in this room and many others who have reached that state where they have contacted that. And after contacting it and living in it they simply cannot live without it. The are disconsolate, they dont feel at peace; they are not at rest until they get back in it. It is so precious, so wonderful, that when we live in it and carry it with us, that is, it dwells with us, there is a buoyancy. I never like to use the word happiness because there are so many connotations that can be put upon the word happiness. Especially the connotation of emotional enthusiasm, which will vanish just as fast as it comes. But a continuing peace, joy, ecstacy, gladness, bliss in the presence. Now when we lift our forces and we meditate together and sing our mantra together and that resonant quality of the AUM, the symbol of the synthesis of all creative force of the universethats what that AUM isjust a sounding forth a synthesis of the whole creative power of the universe. And by doing that we lift ourselves to a higher level where that influence can be contacted, the Comforter. Cultivate that when you are at home. Cultivate that every day, every day, every day, as often as you have opportunity; cultivate it, cultivate it, cultivate it. That is, cultivate lifting your forces to that leveluntil it dwells all the time in you, until you are never without it. Whatever you do, there it is, a buoyant gladness, a joyousness. Now that is the pearl beyond all price. And this opening every time we assemble together, our form of opening is a form of cultivating it so that we may live in it, and so that w cannot live without it, just dont want to live outside of it. Now there is another symbol. It is called the Fathers house. If you live in the house of the Father you live in the Fathers influence. All right, thats a nice metaphorto enter the Fathers house and go out therefrom no more. We could exhaust our descriptive adjectives and couldnt describe it. You must know it; you must experience it; you must cultivate it to know what we are talking aboutif you dont already know it, I mean. And it is worth everything, everything you can imagine, it is worth all of that and more. Now Im supposed not to give my talk, but Im getting wound up here over this because this is something that hits me where I live, or where I cannot live without. If it were not for this Comforter, the presence, its influence, its happiness, its bliss, its joy, everything, so far as I am concerned, everything to me would be futile, idiocy, without rhyme or reason or meaning. Now one more point. That is the level upon which this teaching is based. That is the level out of which this teaching is given, and that is the level regarding which we here in our School of the Natural Order will make no compromise. That means we will never recede or compromise the orientation to that level. Now it is free, like the air and the sunshine. Just come out of the tomb, just come out of the dark cellar, just lift yourself up beyond the animal influences and bask in its radiance and its joy. And each one can elect to do it or not do it. We are happy when one elects to do it, but we are not saddened when one does not elect to do it. We just say, well, he hasnt learned enough yet. Maybe he must go back to the lower grades in school and learn the hard way. In due time, times, cycles, you know. They will all come, and how gladly they will come and how willingly they will come, and how joyously they will come.

This is our preparation. This is our meditation. This is the way we open our work. And I trust we will never open it in any other way. (Mantram and AUMs)

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 1 The practice of treading the path, the practice of the way, is psychologically designed to take the system of thought that we call the instruction as given in the School of the Natural Order out of the mental and verbalistic level and make it workable in the daily life of the students. I do not mean to infer that your teacher has been limited to mental and verbalistic levels just because he utilizes these as means of communication. I am not at all deceived by keen mental acumen or confusing that with development, expansion of consciousness, realization. What I do mean by that is that students even of years standing in our School are not practicing the way. They are enjoying mentalizing and verbalizing. I do not see enough of the teachings applied in daily commerce and association one with another. This places your teacher in a curious spot: either to ignore it and continue to teach from a higher level and incur the reaction upon himself of what he is doing; or to reorient the entire method of presentation and place it upon the basis of practice. Much effort will be required to accomplish bringing the salient points of the system of thought into demonstrable, practical, functional and operational experience. But I promise you that if you will do it your reward will be very great. I only look for two percent to practice, but even that two percent is a large percentage. For the past forty years now Ive watched students, and I find that it averages out to about two percent that will consistently practice all the way through, every day, every day, every day, with no remission, no momentary spurts of enthusiasm that were going to do it all, but in three weeks they are all back in the old habits of evaluation and action and reaction. Then they get another spurt, and they are all going to do this and that. But do they keep it up? In a few days all are back. I do not mean this kind of practice. I mean the type where you sit down and make a business, every day, working at the specific points until they are incorporated into your consciousness to such an extent that youre unconscious that theyre functioning. Its like learning to play the piano or any instrument: practice and practice until finally in the rendition you are entirely unconscious of the technique. So it is with this practice. There are lots of techniques, and as we go through our first lesson in the practice of the way many of you are going to think, Yes, yes, of course, I know all that. Im not after that mental, verbalistic knowing it. Do you do it? Thats what Im after now. Im going to shake a finger and admonish you like a mother, or mother-father rolled into one. Now get busy. I want to see this in practice. Im trying to take out insurance against the future because I know that if youll practice it youre not going to knife each other to death with the little psychological understandings you gain. Im after the preservation and continuance of the work as a whole and I dont want it destroyed after all these years of effort and work to build it up. I dont want it undermined and destroyed by some half-baked neurotics that havent gotten the ABCs of understanding of the fundamentals of practice, of living that life. I am going to shake my finger at you because there is too much of value, theres too much at stake to allow a few insecure, undeveloped morons to undermine it. Thats plain talk, isnt it? Well, I think I can go ahead now and tell you whats behind this conversion of the whole system of thought into practice of the way. I think wed better label these precepts. The first precept: Grant freedom to each and claim freedom for yourself. I said this may sound very simple on the mental and verbalistic level, but you will discover its very difficult to carry into effect, and you must practice it to tread the path, to find the way. Do not claim freedom of thought, feeling, and action for yourself until you have given it completely to every other person with whom you are in association or affiliation. It is subversive to the true concept or meaning which the word freedom represents to claim freedom for yourself prior to your rendering or giving it to all and to each with whom you are in association.

You will find that it requires a great deal of renunciation to practice giving freedom before you claim it for yourself in your actions, feelings, and thoughts. This carries us right into the ancient practice of letting go, of surrendering. It is that letting go and surrendering which is a force, a faculty, an aptitude which one has to cultivate until he can let everyone go. But this has a fundamental basis way back in the inner depths of the evolutionary process. That fundamental basis is not difficult to describe and to observe because all you have to do is to observe the plants, the flowers, the trees, and then the animals, and you will see that without exception each develops from its own inherent and intrinsic forces. All growth, all expansion, all development is from the within outward. Of course the chemist and the physicist can step in and ask, What about the sunshine and the rain and the climatic conditions and the temperature? They all can be there, just as they are, but it requires something to respond to them. Something is required to appropriate them; it requires something to draw from them. And it is that something that I have reference to when I say that all growth, expansion, and development is from the within outward. The essential life-germ (on the plant and animal level) and the Power-to-be-conscious (on the human level) responds to external stimuli and appropriates those necessary qualities it requires for its own internal organization, growth, and development. Consequently, the cosmic or evolutionary process requires that we give freedom to each and every one with whom we are in association. However, theres a negative aspect to this. If one cannot reach the point of renunciation, of giving freedom to each and every one with whom he is in association, then inevitably youre going to lose that which you are trying to hold. (I mean there is no exception to it that I have discoveredIll qualify it to that extent.) Try to hold onto another person for your own purposes even though you have camouflaged your own purposes or are unconscious of them. You might hold the body through coercion or fear or financial reasons or this or that; but the heart, the love, the mind, the consciousness, the harmony, is all gone, and you have nothing but a shell. You have only the objective appearances left. The real thing that you want is gone because it had to obey that essential, that intrinsic, that fundamental factor of the evolutionary process. Lock a man or woman up and take the key, and you think, Now, Ive got her or him where I want him. When you unlock the door he or she is there is appearance only. You have a shadow. The substance is gone. Here is what those who havent reached the point of understanding renunciation fail to perceive. If you want a thing, give it complete freedom and you cant chase it away with a shotgun. You possess that which you renounce. This is a difficult thing to see for those who have not practiced and reached the understanding of the functional operation of the forces in what we call renunciation. Open all the doors and windows and take down all the bars and say, There it is. Walk out any time you want to, and I mean it. Come and go, because all I am giving to you is what I am going to claim for myself. But I must give it first. That which belongs to you cannot be taken away from you. There are forces and powers stronger than steel cables that bind to you that which belongs to you. Im going to ask you a question: Who wants any person or any thing that doesnt belong to him? Who wants it? But if you practice giving freedom in utter and complete renunciation you will discover one of the greatest secrets on the way, on the path. Your own has an opportunity to come to youwith all of its beauty and all of its blessings. And where one arbitrarily holds on for fear of some kind (fear of losing something?) that one cuts himself off from what really belongs to him and would come to him. The one who cannot practice that freedom, that renunciation, does not understand that. Hes got to practice it and go beyond a little ways before he discovers that. You have arbitrarily, mentally, and through human will and perverseness prevented your real helpersvisible and invisiblefrom coming to you. One who practices giving freedom completely with no qualifications will draw from around this planet that person or event or condition which is needful; or he will be drawn to it. That is the way the invisible forces work. They do work, for this is an energy world in which we exist, not a world of controllable things and objects. There is another reason, and a very important one, why those who are striving to tread the path, to find the way, must give complete and unqualified freedom and that comes at the hour of passing out of the physical body. So often I have seen a selfish person with a strong attachment to another come to the end of their objective cycle and pass on and pull the other one outjust pull them right out with no

consideration of the evolutionary state of that otherso blinded are they by their own selfish needs or fears. I have witnessed this in a number of cases. In one or two or three weeks the other cannot function and the pull on them is so great that they are just pulled right out. I have also witnessed terrible violations of the laws of growth and development by those who hold on to one who has died without any consideration of their evolutionary status or growth of the deceased. By holding on they have kept that other one earthbound, in the elemental, animalized world, when by their own intrinsic, inherent right they could go on to the higher levelseven to the Light Spheres. In order to complete the palingenetic cycle one must objectively die to the psychic nature and become liberated and free to go into the Light Spheres in order to refresh consciousness of what is needful to bring back and to carry out in configurational representation. Poetically or metaphorically we call this the journey through the stars. This and the many other ways one refreshes himself from the higher levels before returning to finish the course of the individualizing process are interfered with by someone holding on and keeping the other earthbound if they have not learned how to give freedom. And that piles up monumental karma. Do not think you can coerce or hold another, whatever the reason or justification, without paying the penalty for so doing. The penalty is slavery on the animal-magnetic level, on the desire-emotional level, on the verbal-mental level. Put another one in bondage and you yourself go into bondage as inevitably as the earth turns on its axis. As you go into bondage you develop increasing misery, agony, and suffering. And what for? Because of your egotistical pride and human will and vainglory, you think you are going to conquer or rule or whatever. It sounds very simple to give freedom, doesnt it? Yet its very difficult to practice. Practice giving freedom. Nothing that belongs to you will leave. All that belongs to you will flow to you. You wont lose anything. Its infinite gain, not loss. And theres joy and happiness in giving freedom. You have to do it every day until it has been thoroughly learned and practiced. Every night upon going to bed review the day to see whether in feeling, in thought, and in your consciousness you have given freedom to everyone with whom you are in affiliation and association. If you havent, censure yourself; be more severe with yourself than you would allow anyone else to be with you. Stand before that higher Self, that real, essential nature, as if you were giving an account: Have I given freedom? When you are sure (and you never can fool yourself, the Self) and when you have that joy and happiness that you have in giving freedom, then claim it for yourself also. This sometimes requires as much as the giving up, because you have to have courage to claim your freedom even if the heavens fall, if everything else should pass. We have a very heavy word in our vocabularythe word is regardless. Regardless of thunder and lightening, tornadoes and fire and destruction; regardless of all, claim your freedom. Now remember, only after you have given freedom; never start to claim freedom first. After you have given freedom, claim your freedom. You are not going to hurt anyone; why, you wouldnt even injure an insectyou would step over it before youd step on it. You are not going to damage anything. But you must have freedom to grow and develop, to expand according to the essential, intrinsic requirements of your own self and evolutionary state. So much for precept number one. Practice it; the results are wonderful. When you begin to claim freedom for yourself you will be ensnared through a variety of ways because those who wish to hold you in bondage to their own selfish selves will appeal to your sympathy if they cannot dominate you, if they cannot reach you through fear. They will crawl into your heart through your sympathy. Then youve got to appear like an iceberg and be accused of being just a coldhearted so-and-so. Sympathy is a weapon to enslave you when all other weapons fail. And you will fall for sympathy when you have gained the strength to resist all other attempts at enslavement. Watch the door of sympathy, because the sob-sister will now put on her act thoroughly and completely in order to enslave the few, that two percent who tread the way, who find that difficult path. The other ninety-eight percent can only enjoy mentalizing and verbalizing about it. Grant them that freedom. In our School of the Natural Order we grant freedom to such an extent that it looks like agreement. What do you think of that? Well, I think thats wonderfulfrom your level, or you may not say out loud, from your level. It looks like agreement and in a way it is. Its not absolute agreement, its relative agreement. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him... (Matthew 5:25) while you have converse

with him, while he is yet in your way, while he is accessible. Agree with him quickly on the grounds that from his state of development hes doing his best; from his state of development thats his understanding; from his state of development thats his lights, and thus you can agree readily. So this granting freedom very often looks like agreement with him, but it does not mean that you endorse that. You agree relatively, and everyone is at peace. Youve given freedom. Give freedom because each must grow according to his own essential and intrinsic state of development, requirements, forces, needs, etc. Practice giving freedom. Then, claim your freedom to pursue the path. Thats all you want. Youre seeking the way, the door, the path. Then you are free to tread the path. Now we turn to precept number two, which closely follows precept number one: Respect the integrity of each. This is a peculiar practice, because we carry it down to the respect of our children, and thats a wonderful thing for them. We carry it on down to the respect for our pets, our animals. We carry that on down even to a sort of deference and respect to the plants and vegetables in the garden, silly as that might seem. Respect precedes love. If you lose the respect of man, woman or child youve lost their love. Many think it is the other way aroundthat you can love where there is no respect. Never! You will substitute duty and you will substitute obligation but you cannot love where respect is gone. Therefore, in order to love or be loved practice respect for the integrity of each. If a real treader of the path could be a Secretary of State, his representatives would carry this respect for the integrity of each to all peoples, to lesser developed tribes and individuals around the world. They would enter those countries with nothing in their hearts except discovering the state of development, the qualities incorporated in the consciousness of the people of those countries; and then exercise profound respect for what is discovered. If that precept number two were carried into operation, wars would disappear from this planet. No matter how lowly the individual, even down to the Digger Indian or African pygmy, he will resent any lack of respect. He doesnt want any handouts, whether it is in the millions or billions. He wants respect, and he will respond to respect. And what about you? You must have respect, too, or youre going to feel resentful. And no one can give you something to substitute for that respect. Be condescending, Oh you heathen, you poor primitive animal, or you lesser oneand me, why Ive come to help you!) while giving them handouts into the billions of dollars and you lose them. Why? Because you have not elicited love. Love is elicited and brought out upon the basis of respect. Preserve the respect of those whom you wish to love you. You will have their love if you will give them respect. You dont have to worry about the love part of it; it just automatically flows into you when they detect that you genuinely respect them in all little things and all big things. Respect the integrity of the individual, of the person. This has a fundamental basis in the evolutionary process, for the integrity of the evolutionary point must be preserved in order to expand consciousness beyond that point. That is fundamental. We carry it out in daily practice by respecting the person, their privacy, and possessions, as well as their quirks and idiosyncrasies because we too have faults and failings that they have to put up with. What we call objective existence, organized society, or life is a process of giving and taking, and understanding that all is based here upon the respect for the integrity of each. Let us take the negative aspect of this precept number two. You are just displaying your egotism when you want another person to be like you. What a world this would be if we could make everyone in our imagejust like us! The play of vastly diverse states upon each other makes a dramatic, wonderful world in which to live. How drab it would be if they were all just like you would like them to be. How terribly sterile it would all become! But the main point now is this: you are going to require great understanding of your own self as you tread the path, and you cannot have nor receive that unless you begin to practice respect for the integrity of everyone. We should carry that down to our children. Even from infancy we should respect the fact that here is an individual (or a developing individual who has come into incarnation) who has his own needs and requirements that must not be interfered with without risking serious psychosomatic results later on in life. We can trace a vast multiplicity of psychosomatic maladjustments to the fact that

the infant growing up on a home did not have the respect for its wants, its requirements, its state of development, etc. Parents think they know better and so try to mold the infant in the way they think he should go, whereas that individual comes into incarnation with his own previously developed needs, karma, requirements, and commissions to fulfill on the objective level. All these may be interfered with by undue coercion. Of course do not carry this to the extent that you step over and allow license, rather keep within the bounds in which it is giventhe bounds of respect for the integrity of each individual. One is then in a position to understand what is required, not only of the developing infant or child, but of each other. Blinded by the lack of respect for the integrity of each, we have no consciousness of the requirements of the child or the animal or plant. Each has its own peculiar requirement; dont arbitrarily force something on it, as we are learning while we destroy the fertility of the soil without thinking of the plants and organic gardening. Pour on the artificial fertilizers to stimulate immediate growth and production but probably ruin the whole works, soil and all in the long run. Because you have arbitrarily imposed something, you havent understood the needs of the plant or animal or child. Recall Dr. Carver, a man born in slavery and a Negro. One time a group of lettered men called on him and one of them asked, Dr. Carver, how did you learn to develop so many products out of the lowly peanut? Dr. Carver smiled and said, I listen to the plants and they tell me their needs. Your consciousness can enter the consciousness of the plant and be attentive, respecting its integrity, until it tells you what it needs. Everything and everyone will tell you what they need if you dont loose patience and react emotionally and then superimpose something that you think is right upon them. Be attentive; respect that integrity; learn its needs and pretty soon you will learn how it functions, how to function with it. Let us train each other upon the basis of the respect for that inherent, intrinsic integrity. Others have their own needs, their own requirements that are not yours. Those who really tread the path, who know the way to the higher development, practice this all the time. The technique of it is part of their nature. How are you going to like these lessons on practicing? I have to assume the position that we who really tread the path and who give it the highest value, more value than all other things combined, will value this practicing. The greatest boon that can happen in all of your incarnations is to find the path; to tread it and stay on it is the next greatest boon for the individual in all of his ongoing development, because then hes under the guidance and the protection of all of natures forces, even the guardian angels. They wait and wait for you to find the way before they can serve, before they can administer unto you. And so this is fraught with a far deeper and far more reaching significance than I can possibly verbalize. I can tell you what is required to tread the path, but I have the respect for your integrity to such an extent that I wont require you to do it, not even though I think it is best for you. Youre free. As I go through these many hundreds of people all I can say is, those who tread the path, this is the way they are. This is the way to understand them. This is the way they function, and they never depart from it nor can they depart from it. There, that leaves us all free, doesnt it? And Vitvan is not expecting anything of you, not a thing. You have your freedom. Now the next precept: The value one gives reacts upon him according to the quality of the value given. You might say, Oh yes, of course, of course, go on. Wait a minute, because thats too easy verbalistically and mentally. After I have taught this precept for thirty or forty years, those to whom I have taught it still stand here palpitating over some reaction to something thats happened. And MamaPapa all rolled into one shakes a finger and says, Listen, what value did you give? Whom are you blaming? You must have given some value to it or you wouldnt be so shaken up. Thats after years and years of saying mentally, verbalistically, Its the values that one gives that react upon him according to the quality of the values. Or we could recast it and say, The quality that you put into the value that you give reacts upon you and disturbs you or expands you or glorifies you. Nothing that anyone else does or does not do, nothing that anyone says or does not say affects you the least tiny bit. It doesnt affect you at all. Its the value you give to what so and so did or did not do. Its the value that you give to what so and so said or didnt say (sometimes silence is more eloquent than what was said). It will destroy you or it will make you great. This is the one point in the teaching that places the free moral agency in ones own hands to fill that gap between the unfinished pyramid and the capstonethe understanding of the

quality of the value given alone reacts upon you. Here is where the free moral agency, the free will, is complete. Its in ones own hands. Watch it now in your practice. Before you know it youre going to react to something today. Stop right there and backtrack. Was it what that person said or did, or was it the value you gave to it? Youll see every time, with no exception, that it was the value you gave that affected you. Now when I say affected you do not think that its always adverse. It may be creative and beneficial, but it will affect you according to the quality you put into the value. When you put a high, ennobling, good quality into it you will get that quality back. And if you put a negative, destructive quality into the value youll get that quality back, because every force generated and sent out describes a circuit. Chickens come home to roost. Energy sent out describes a circuit that comes back to you and brings with it the quality with which you loaded it. You loaded the information onto the wave and frequency, and they will bring it right back. Watch the quality of the value that you put into a thing. You dont have to pay any attention about preservation of peace of mind if you will watch the quality of the value you give every moment, every moment, every moment. This quality of the value that you give reacts upon you to destroy you or create you. It will finish the gap between the unfinished pyramid and the capstone, or it will send you down in devolution and even out of the evolutionary process itself. Either way, it hinges right here on the quality of the value given to daily experience. Again we go back to an intrinsic fundamental of the evolutionary process which has been expressed in that marvelous Song of the Sannyasin. Thine only are the hands that hold the rope that drags thee on. (That drags thee on means the creation of karma.) Let go thy hold; cease lament; say Om, tat sat Om, and freedom gain. How unutterably simple! That whole fundamental basis in the evolutionary process is focused and summed up in the qualities of the values that you give daily. I have to tell you a story. It is about how one who treads the path practices this unconsciously all the time. Guatama, the Buddha, allowed his own objective-level son to join his group of disciples. But the teacher as guru, not as father, warned the son, You must be treated like all other disciples, with no favoritism and no differences shown to you. The son mentally and verbalistically agreed, Why certainly. But the son did take advantage of the fact that he was the son of the great teacher. The teacher was patient, but by and by it came to the point that disciplinary measures had to be inaugurated, so he called his son before him and told him to go into the mountains to a certain cabin and to stay in that cabin in isolation with only food provided. For one year you are banished and must remain in isolation. If you ever wish to rejoin this company of disciples, you will obey that. If you disobey it you will never be allowed into this group again. To folks in the United States of America or the occidental culture, this doesnt mean anything, but it does to those who understand what the path and the true obedience to the higher understanding of the teaching is. So the son left and went into isolation for the year. At the end of the year the teacher (and father) made the journey with a group of his disciples to visit his son, and it so happened that there was a neighbor not far distant that was over at the cabin of the son visiting with him when the teacher arrived. This man lit into a tirade of vituperative language and vilification of that teacher and father. A man that would be so cruel, etc., that would banish his own son up here in the mountains alone, etc. And the great teacher was very quiet until he ran out of words and stopped talking. Then he turned to his son and addressed him and finished the mission; told his son to rejoin the group, and stepped back down the trail on the mountain. On the way down one of the disciples turned to him and asked, Master, why did you allow that man to use such vicious language to you and make all those false accusations? You didnt answer those accusations; you didnt even try to explain yourself to him or justify yourself. Why did you do all that? We are filled with curiosity. Why, he answered, If a man offers you a present and you do not receive the present, whose present is it? There is a unique incident in history that saved the Athenian state from destruction by the Persian navy. I cant go over the long history of it, but you can run it down and read it if you wish. The incident was this: it was an argument of the council of war on board what we now would call the flagship of the Athenian fleet regarding the best way to counteract this invasion of the Persians. The head of the

Athenian army wanted to institute one single measure to repulse the enemy. The admiral of the fleet tried to point out that it would be fatal and disastrous, and in the heated argument the general of the Athenian army struck the face of the admiral of the fleet. The admiral of the fleet said, Smack my face, smack it again, but listen to me. Im trying to save Athens and the Athenian state, and he got his point over and saved Athens. Realize what will power that took. These were trained fighting men. One allowed the other to smack his face without reacting (see? the quality of the value given) because of that higher purpose. He knew that if he reacted everything would go to pot and the state itself, the whole people, would be lost. Think how great it is to rise to such heights to not give value at a crucial moment to gain the real rational point. History was changed by one mans having the ability to understand the quality of value given. The time may come, and may come faster than we wish or realize, when great issues will be at stake and dependent upon a few who understand the value, the quality of the value given. In that state of nonreaction they can see and think clearly. Befogged by the reaction of your own emotions you have lost the ability to see and think straight. Those who tread the path must see clearly; those who tread the path must not be distracted by a lot of self-created emotions. And all that fog of self-created emotion rests upon the quality of the value given. In closing all I can say is this: one can rule himself out of treading the path by failing to practice the quality of the value given.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY Lesson 2

When we began to make the application of the practice of the salient precepts in the instruction as given in the School of the Natural Order, I had in mind describing these salient precepts from the orientation of a treader of the pathone who has proceeded to some measurable degree on the path of Be-coming. It was brought to my attention in casual conversation that the practice of these precepts would lead one to finding the path and orienting himself to it. However, one practicing these precepts would have to do so on pure faith because he lacks the a priori referent in creative forces and the fundamental functional processes of the evolutionary process, whereas one treading the path has discovered these functional forces and practices these precepts as a result of conforming to the functional forces which he has discovered. If one could muster up a sufficient degree of faith, trusting those who testify that this is the way one functions who treads the path, and faithfully, religiously follows through with it, he certainly would find the path. But this is incidental to the original idea in presenting these practices. Let me give you the relative position of one who has reached quite a degree of selfdevelopment and is a treader of the path. He consciously or unconsciously places every individual with whom he comes in contact in one of three broad and generalized categories. Now, please do not get mentally twisted. Watch the words, "one who has reached quite a degree of self-development" (a treader of the path). He evaluates humanity, for instance, and classifies people into three broad degrees. I daresay no one else would do that. You would have to have that position, that status in development in the evolutionary process to understand how and why he evaluates humanity and classifies it into three divisions. The first division he would describe are those who are not seeking the path at all, those who know nothing about the path of development and are not sufficiently interested to even know the meaning which the term symbolizes. Their consciousness is totally oriented in the objective manifold of values. They give value to things and objects, including their own physiological organism as a thing and an object. Of course, they are the great many. They are not interested in seeking; they are in the pursuit of pleasure and profit. Out of that great many there are the very few here and there who are disgusted with functioning in the objective manifold of values, the pursuit of things and objects, the values given to things and objects, the mundane, the temporal. We look for disgust in a person more than we look for anything else, because when one is sufficiently disgusted he is going to seek something else. Another way of describing him is by saying there is one who is restless and who is not satisfied with the answers, with the objectives, with the meanings given to what is called life, relative to the objective manifold of values. He is seeking something else, something more satisfying in the answers to all the questions that arise. He finds the way out of that urge for a more satisfying answer beyond the accumulation of things and objects and the great value given to them. He makes the discovery that there is a way. There is a methodology, there is a system. There is a tradition to it, there is an ancient background. He makes the wonderful discovery that there are those who constitute a brotherhood. They may not meet together in the objective sense, but they have a fourth dimensional way of synchronization and communication in the frequency world. He makes a discovery that there really are quite a number who have

elected to come out from among them and be separate and seek more satisfying answers to the problem of existence, of life. That individual will be guided to a contact, and from one contact to another until he finds a teacher. No man can develop without a teacher. (That was certainly a dogmatic statement.) You could develop without a teacher. You can learn chemistry without a teacher or the textbooks if you live long enough. But you do not study chemistry or other subjects without teachers. You take advantage of all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom and discoveries and empirically developed sciences. You take advantage of the long, long aeonian past and find someone who understands and can impart his understanding to you. So it is with treaders of the path. They are led and guided. To those in the first category, wholly oriented to the objective manifold of values, it is mysterious to say that one is led, that one is guided. The one who functions in the objective manifold of values can only understand that which he can see and hear and taste and bite and touch. There is a semantic blockage. His consciousness can't function beyond that. But one who has broken through this objective manifold of values has some little glimmer (if not direct perception and understanding) that this world in which we live is an energy system, that there is no line of demarcation between those incarnated and those discarnate. The only line of demarcation is what you set up in your own consciousness. You can communicate with those who are not incarnated as easily and definitely as you can and do communicate with a loved one who is not present with you. Anyone who has been in love knows how easy that is. Time and space both evaporate. One may be a hundred or a thousand miles away and it feels just like he or she is right here, en rapport, in harmony, in synchronization, in frequency. When that rapport in the frequencies is raised to the level of consciousness all lines of demarcation disappear. You can form a rapport just the samewhether one is incarnated or discarnate or has never been incarnateif you will destroy the semantic blockage that nothing exists outside of what you can function in with your physical senses and faculties. So, if you have a glimpse of that, and any treader of the path has considerable understanding of that, the statement "one is guided" is not a mysterious statement. It's just common sense, logical proposition. You cannot be guided to something that will help you until you are ready. You may have a book, a very precious and valuable book in your home, and have packed and repacked it and kicked it around for years and years until one day you are led, you are guided, you have an urge to look at it. You open it and read a paragraph here and there, and you say, "My gracious, this is a precious thing." there it was in your library in your own home, kicked around for years until you were ready. It is the same with highly developed ones, for you might be living in a house with one and not know it. If he is highly enough developed he masquerades as if he had no development at all, as if he were nothing. You might be living with a highly developed one and never discover it until you are ready. One of our students said to me the other day, "Do you know, since you have been talking so much about Plato and about the meaning of the symbols of the Great Seal of the United States, I just woke up and discovered what a wonderful man my father was." She was born and grew up and left home and had children of her own before she was ready to discover the state of development of her own father.

Similarly, you cannot discover anything until you are ready. Make yourself ready. Be worthy in every way, shape, and form and you need have no concern; you will be guided, you will be led, you will have an urge, or whatever, to the contact, to the book, to the teaching, to the person; until that great discovery is made that there is a people, there is a brotherhood, there is a worldwide fraternity that has no lines of demarcation whether you are incarnated or discarnated, whether you're taking the journey through the stars or ready to return to another earth life. There is no line of demarcation. It is a wonderful fraternitythe treaders of the pathof those who are consciously working at becoming conscious of Be-ing. I repeat: "Consciously working at becoming conscious of Be-ing." Sometimes I watch beginners who are really finding the way when they are knocking at the door so hard that it is beginning to open (otherwise it stands open but one can't see it because he's too involved in objective things, personal considerations, emotional evaluations, reactionary conditions, etc.) and I say, "Oh, I envy you. I wish I could go back and do it again. I never had so much fun. I never enjoyed myself so much and so completely as when I first found the path." Eventually you get so conditioned to living in the frequency world, for instance, that you lose track of the fact that everyone isn't that way also. You take the path for granted and you are quite shocked or surprised when others misunderstand you, or do not see certain things, or react to certain things. But when you first find it, it's fresh to you; it's inspiring to you; you're thrilled by it! Maintaining that freshness of new discovery is wonderful. Just like childrenthey do not know how carefree and happy they are until they are grown and can look backso it is with those older ones on the path. They partially wish they could be renewed as a finder of the path. And yet this is just surface talking, because there is a perennial freshness in it. There is constantly renewed interest because of greater and greater vistas developing as you tread the path and as you reach the heights. Those greater ones whom we can contact tell us that the greater ones whom they can contact tell them that it is illimitablethey don't know anyone yet who has seen the end of it. Cosmic vistas opening and opening and opening! What a vision! What wonderful worlds, spheres lie before us to discover, explore, and make our own. Talking about those who are consciously working at becoming conscious of Be-ing leads us to that third category of humanity. Those who have become (not in the process of Be-coming) conscious of Be-ing have arrived as perfected individualizations; they are Be-ings. They're selfluminous lights, self-rolling wheels dependent upon nothing below their level, integrated in everything of reality, of permanence, of truth. They have reached the father's house, "In my Father's house are many mansions:..." John 14:2 Now watch that statement, because it does not apply to the treaders of the path in process of becoming conscious of Be-ing, because they haven't reached the father's house yet. After the father's house is reached, after the chasm (the abyss) has been crossed, there are many hierarchical orders of Be-ings. So, one who has arrived at Be-ing has passed through becoming conscious of Be-ing, and to him there are many mansions in my father's housemany orders of Be-ings in the real world. `To be, or not to be,' is no longer a question. It's mandatory to Be. Complete your individualization, finish the telestic work, finish individualizing yourself, and become a Be-ing, a true individual. Perhaps I have covered up my point with too much verbalism, for I generally do. There are the three categories (to one who treads the path): those oriented to the objective manifold of values, caring nothing about a path, not interested, not seeking; those who have found the path and are treading it, consciously working out their realization of Be-ing; and those who, no longer treaders of the path, have reached the goal of Be-ing and have taken their place, their

position, in the hierarchy of Be-ings in the many categories, divisions, and groupings in the real world. Only those of the highest category are the immortals. Those treaders of the path are not immortals, but they have the potentiality of becoming immortal. Let me briefly set up the referent for the word `immortal' as we use it: to maintain a continuity of consciousness between your earth lives is to be immortal. To maintain a continuity of consciousness, whether you have a physiological organism or not, whether you are in or out of the so-called body. Do not think that you are not potentially immortal, because you are; but if you lapse into sleep and the essential Self reincarnates, you as a personality are gone for good. You will have to build a new personality, a new psychic nature because your personality is the ensemble, the total content of the psychic self. We rebuild that personality every circuit, every time around in the palingenetic process. In that process everyone is potentially immortal, but not actually immortal, because they cannot maintain a continuity of consciousness without breaks. Many of those of the first category mentioned never reach the potentiality of immortality. Millions will never reach the state of development where they have the opportunity, the potentiality of immortality as a Being. Nature is extremely lavish, developing millions and millions of seeds that will never mature and are lost. This is true on all levels. Nature is so overly lavish in providing possibilities of some surviving, of some seeds finding fertile soil and developing. So it is on the human level. Dont react to thatI know it hurts the old concept that you are all immortal. Just examine a state of consciousness that's wholly involved in things and objects, as we said awhile ago. It's the most transitory, evanescent, chimerical of all levels, with no possibility of immortality because of its very nature of change. I developed these three categories of individuals in order to adequately present the position which I occupy in describing these precepts of our teachings. They are described from the orientation of a treader of the path, it is not applicable to that first categorythese who care nothing about the path and are not even interested in practicing it. But those who are interested in finding and treading the path have a great interest in these precepts of our School. We have reached the fourth precept: Practice describing the meaning signified or symbolized by each word used. In order to explain the importance of this to the treader on the path we need to consider that when the True Self, the differentiated field, differentiates from the animal group, the aptitude for speech is simultaneously born. That aptitude does not have to be learned. Of course animals have a form of language, of communication, but it lies in the elemental world, the instinctive level, not in the conscious level and so does not represent a definite state of objective consciousness. Whereas the aptitude for speech definitely does represent self-awareness, even though it is objective self-awareness. The animal knows, but does not know that it knows. Man knows, and knows that he knows. That knowing that he knows is labeled apperception. The animal has perception, but no apperception. Apperception is relative to man and is born with the differentiation from the animal oversoul. The aptitude to speech represents that differentiation, that objective self-conscious state. The rest, the development of speech, is only emulation, imitation, and the registry of impressions on the psychic consciousness from the environment, members of the tribe, etc. That is the unconscious registry. Remember the rule, the psychic nature can only function by reflection. Everything in the process of becoming and below (the Nether Worldthe objective manifold of values) functions by reflection. That is why it is given the lunar sign: it can only function by reflected light. The aptitude to speech that is born with individualization is developed by registry of the

psychic impressions, psychic frequencies, of the environment. Speech therefore could be developed by imitation and emulation. The spoken word, when analyzed from the motivational level, becomes the realization of the idea conceived. This is easily illustrated. Ask a person to describe something to you, an idea that he is trying to express and very often you will encounter this expression: "Oh, I know it, but I just can't formulate it in words. Of course we are charitable one with another, and this is an occasion to be very charitable, but in your own thought put in that they do not know it. The moment one knows a thing he can express it in words. If one cannot express it in words he does not know it. That illustrates what I am trying to saythe spoken word is the realization of the idea. Turn on your radio and you will hear a lot of noise. Now, the one who is not on the path can indulge in that with impunity. He can make lots of noises talking and using words because none of them are realizations of essential ideas. They're only reflections of cliches, of slogans, of propaganda lines. Don't forget that everything and everyone has some form of propaganda line. One can reflect a propaganda line (imitate and emulate) and use lots and lots of words; but none of them are creative because none of them are realizations of the essential idea. However, a treader of the path develops ideas either through frequency registration, rapport registration, or contact with higher levels. He registers ideas. The enunciation of the idea is the realization of the idea registered. Speaking the word in order to describe it constitutes a realization of the idea registered. As he goes higher one must make preparation for assuming the responsibility for his spoken words. Think steadily and deeplyfor the treader of the path has to go through a preparation for an acceptance of responsibility, a responsibility that the non-treader doesn't have. He can blah-blah about tra-tra and there is nothing, no responsibility and no effect. But the one who is on the path throws a resonance, a frequency into the words uttered; the quality resident in his consciousness that we call meaning or significance is attached to the waves. It is the quality which becomes intrinsic or which characterizes the wave and frequency of his uttered words. Now there are two things that a treader of the path has to watch. Firstly, the spoken word is the realization of the idea; for if he cannot describe it, if he cannot utter the word that adequately represents the idea he doesn't have the idea clearly. The moment it's clear he can describe it through words. Speech is the realization of the idea. The second factor is that when the idea is clear and you can describe it, when you can utter the words that represent it, you put the quality into the waves and frequencies. The sound carries the intrinsic quality of the meaning embodied in the idea. Consciousness of responsibility is the third factor that enters in. At this point some back out and say, "I don't want to tread the path any further. That's enough," for they don't want that responsibility. But if the fire has been kindled, if the creative force is awakened they can't back out. They must go on with their development even though they are loathe to assume the responsibility. As one develops, finds the way (consciously working at becoming a Be-ing), he encounters strange experiences that those who are not on the path never encounter. Let me enumerate a couple as illustrative of the responsibility of the words uttered. Take a trip on a boat or train where there is freedom of movement among the passengers, although I've also encountered it on airplane rides. Pretty soon a person will come along and say, "May I sit down here in the seat by you? I'm peculiarly attracted to you. I don't know why."

And they begin to tell you intimate stories of their lives, and in their narrative catch themselves and say, with embarrassment, "Oh believe me, please believe me, I never have done this to a total stranger I've never seen nor met before, and here I am pouring this out to you, a total stranger. Why am I doing it?" You obviously see the embarrassment, and you come to their rescue and try to put them at their ease. They're pouring out something to you because you will answer, and what you answer in that intimate situation, in that psychological context has a far reaching affect. They will act upon what you are going to say. Watch one step further. When they act upon what you say in answer to their difficulties or dilemmas or quandries (and they will act upon it) the karmic consequences of the action are yours, not theirs. Supposing as a treader of the path you are a consultant, for many come to you, until finally you get onto it and say, "Well, this is part of the job of treading the path, I guess, to enter into consultation with others. Some may be students trying to find the path, some may not, but they gravitate to me." Let me tell you that for twenty years I was so busy from daylight 'till dark and into the night that I had to take all the telephones out of my house because one here and one there would call me up at night, not knowing there were any others, thinking they were the only one who called, until the phone was ringing all night long. I had to have some respite so I had all the phones taken out. For twenty years I practiced as consultant with others about their problems. I don't anymore; I've graduated. That is, I've served my apprenticeship on that phase of the path, and I don't do it any more because I am engaged now in another line of work. You never give specific advice in the consultation. But out of it all there is a tacitly communicated solution to the problem, and they act upon ityour advice, if you are foolish enough to give advice. The karmic consequences belong to the advisor, not to the one who acted upon the advice. There are many reasons for this that I could go into. The treader of the path has reached the point where he must assume responsibility for his spoken words. Watch this preparation for the responsibility which every treader of the path must accept. He must accept responsibility for everything he does and says. When he practices describing the meaning of the words he uses he develops two or three things simultaneously. First, he develops the ability to function in the world of motivations. Let's handle this very carefully. In every given incident there are three factors involved: the effect, the motivation, and the energy level, (quality of the energy generating the motive). After this class you will have a casual conversation with someone and that casual conversation is an incident. The words uttered in the conversation are the effect, but behind the words is a motive. What motivates the words? What motivates one in the way and form he uses the words? And what is the energy that determines the motive? Learn to think on those three levels simultaneously. Don't give value to what is said. Pay little attention to what is said, but search for the motivewhy it was said, and why it was said in the way it was said. Search for the motive. Don't listen to the words, because if you listen to the words that is just what the speaker wants you to do, to register the words and give value to them. Train yourself not to listen to the words; search for the motive. Behind the motive is the energy; that is, the energy is the center activating the motive. You may not get to the point where you can register the level from which the energy is operating, but it is not difficult to focus your attention upon the motives and quickly read and understand them. Now, I'm talking about a treader of the path; don't you others try this. He has to do this because he has to function in motive and words sometimes camouflage motives. Not that the speaker is dishonest, rather he's unconsciously putting forth the best representation for

the preservation of his ego, face-saving, etc. That's the defense mechanism we unconsciously or consciously develop relative to the world. A treader of the path must understand all of these factors and must apply them to himself. He must learn to describe the meanings of the words he uses. That focuses his attention upon the motive (meaning). Once the treader of the path gets that he will understand the scriptural admonition, "But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." [Matthew 5:37] This doesn't apply to those who are not on the path because their conversation can be yea when it ought to be nay, or vice versa, and it doesn't mean anything. Nobody is concerned or hurt, and there's no responsibility. But the treader of the path has to make every word yea and nay relative to meaning, relative to motive. If he does not learn how to describe meanings for the words he utters he is going to get careless and use words that will have far reaching consequences that he didn't mean at all. But there's no excuse. He can't turn around and say to the high judge (the real self), "Judge, I didn't mean it." "Well, why did you get careless and say it? They acted upon it and the responsibility is yours. Pay the debt. By payment you will learn to be careful and realize that your words properly represent meaning, motive." Once you break into this responsibility for the words that you utter you become silent. It makes you an awfully good listener. You are loath to burst into speech until your motives (your meanings) have been carefully canvassed and considered. Do you begin to see why the path becomes as narrow as a razor's edge? You are bound by responsibility. This sounds rather formidable, but when you have complete orientation to the intrinsic self, the noetic self on the Mind level, that responsibility is all there, but it is not a burden. You become free because there is such complete synchronization, orientation to this level and because it is absolute, not relative, thus free from errorthere is no possibility of mistakes on Mind level. "For my yoke is easy, my burden is light." [Matthew 11:30] One is oriented to the Christos powerthe power with which the noetic self functions on Mind level. But until you have that complete orientation there is a burden, a deep sense of responsibility for the words you utter. Second, the treader of the path, by describing meanings of words he uses, effects a complete orientation in himselffrom objective values to the intrinsic, essential nature, and the values and creative urges which emerge out of it. He develops also that high sense of responsibility, for man is his brother's keepereven his youngest brother's keeper. And he accepts the responsibility, developing it for learning how to describe the meaning each word represents since the meaning does not lie in the word. The word is the symbol, or a carrier of the wave and frequency; it is the symbol representing the meaning. As we grow and expand in our understanding of the spoken word it becomes the reason, the Logos. It becomes the only begotten of the combination of the positive and the negative in oneself. It becomes that to which one gives birththe father-mother in yourself, the Adman-Cadman. The real self gives birth to that which he realizesthe spoken word. I am giving you a very high level significance of the word, raising it way up. You must come way up to the Logos. Relative to the individual, the spoken word is as the Logos is to the cosmic process. It is the reason, the causative factor for eventuations or manifestation. Let me back out now and say this over again, not dwelling with it because I confess this to be a high level, but you use the end product of learning the meaning which the word symbolizes. Now as we orient consciousness to the motive, to the meaning of the words that we use, we grow and grow into the realization of meaning; that is, of idea, because idea and the

meaning are identical. So if you have a meaning, you have an idea. To speak the word, to describe it, is to realize it; to realize it is to put it into effect as the nucleus of a configurational process. Configuration will take place immediately. Let me back up a bit in order to show you how effective the words are, and how the expression of the words become the nucleus around which configuration eventuates. Thomas Edison, in working with the filament for the electric light bulb tried everything he could think of and finally got onto making a filament of scorched cotton thread. It offered sufficient resistance to the current to glow and lasted quite a while. In further attempts at improving it he sealed a wire in the lamp near the filament and noticed a flow of electricity in it, that is; the electrons would flow from the negatively charged filament to the positively charged wire. He noted the effect in his notebook and forgot about it. Yet out of these few words the English engineer John Fleming followed it up and invented the diode tube, or valvethe forerunner of radio and modern electronics. History is replete with such illustrations of how we cooperate with each other. One advances an idea and in the expression describes something he doesn't quite understand, and another one reads the meaning and significance into it and carries it on into higher and further development. I want to show you the end product of learning the meaning of each word you use and the importance of it, besides all of that that has been said about responsibility, etc.. Those who have finished the path and become a Be-ing have developed such responsibility, such consciousness of meaning which words symbolized, that the words uttered have become so fraught with the quality of the meaning that they became the nucleus of a configurationa configurational manifestation. The meaning that Fleming picked up became the radio industry of todaythe configuration developed around the idea, the meaning, the significance. See how important it is to learn the meaning, the motive, the significance which the word represents so that your words become representative of that power of realization and understanding. Meditate upon these things; study upon these things; work them out in yourself; and if you are not a treader of the path you will quickly learn to find the path by such practice.

GROUP MANTRA AND AUM CHANT

The better the mantra and AUM are done, the more effective becomes the force and frequency of them. So, when we enter upon them, focus within yourself and reach their perfection to your own satisfaction, and the group aggregate will take care of itself. Each one of us must work on that point within himself. You only know it by the effect or result but thats what is so important. Through the years I have seen much so-called miraculous transformation, healing, quickening of latent potentialities, etc., in those who could not sit in a group chanting the mantra and the AUM more than a few times without the latent potentialities within them becoming quickened. They quicken and kindle something, and of course what we call self development rests entirely upon the awakening and quickening of the latent powers and forces, and bringing them into activity wherein they develop faculty, aptitude, and also functional ability on higher levels. There is nothing that quickens the latent potentialities so immediately as being in the proper frequency field. We might label it environment if we will extend the word environment the energy-world level. This environmental surround is what elicits and quickens ones latent potential, abilities, or forces. We might call it the intrinsic result. Then there is an extrinsic resultthat harmonization of your psychic nature, which eliminates discord. The representations of discord in the psychic nature are what we call disease and sickness. If you want to cure any disease or sickness, work on the harmonization of the content of the psychic nature. Bring that into perfect adjustment and alignment, and the representations of the physiological organism will take care of themselves. This is a fundamental to which we allow no exception, for one exception will disprove the whole rule. Complete harmonization of the content of the psychic nature will become representative in objective representation, and the physiological organization is nothing else except the representation of the total content of the psychic nature. So harmonize, and live in harmony. Sacrifice everything, because it will do no good to accumulate things and objects(possessions) if you cannot enjoy them. At all costs maintain harmony in the content of your real personality, your psychic nature. When one maintains harmony in his psychic nature he will never have any illness. Live in that harmony for that is the way the kingdom of heaven is brought to the objective state in which we largely exist. Im emphasizing the importance of this mantra and AUM chant and Im striving to bring it to as near perfection as possible. I realize the far-reaching effects in harmonization of the elements, components of the psychic self. If you do not get anything else from participating in this mantra and AUM chanting but lending yourself to the results of itthe healing effects, the quickening effects, the harmonizing effects of ityoure well paid for the effort. Im looking forward to the times when students will meet together and chant mantras and AUM for an hour or two and dismiss. Were so conditioned on the mental level that we must have verbalistic descriptions of everything, for if we dont get a lecture or class or talk we dont think weve gotten anything. However, the other would be far more effective and beneficial. Im looking forward to sitting together and chanting the mantra and AUM for an hour or so. Do you know why we cannot do it now? It would abruptly precipitate the purificatory process. We want you to go through it homeopathically and in easy stages, so we wont enter into the intensification of

the kindling of the fire, the awakening of the potentialitiesthe dormant, latent forces. We have to do that very gradually and circumspectly until were further along with our respective self development. Join us. The I Am, which is my true Self, is the power with which I am conscious of my world. (chanted three times.) AUM, AUM, AUM AUM, AUM, AUM AUM, AUM, AUM Note: This is the preface to Lesson 3 of the series Practice of the Way.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY Lesson 3

Please keep before your mind that this series of lessons is descriptive of those who have found the path, found the way, and so we might say that the practice of these precepts is descriptive of those who are on the path. As we said last lesson, we are not going to rule out the practice of these precepts on faith, on belief, as the methodology of finding the path. So we have that dual play in presenting these precepts, a description of those who have found the path, and a methodology for those who are endeavoring to find the path. We come now to our fifth precept. Meditatively study analogical representations of the world of reality. This study of analogical representations represents the most absorbing, and I might say, exciting, subject to those who are on the path as it enables them to contact the frequency world, the world of reality. We have a few preparations to make in order to properly understand how to practice evaluating analogical representations of the Real World. So let us prepare the seed bed before we plant the seed. First let us consider the word analogy, because in this context we use the word in a very restricted sense. Analogy in our context does not mean to use an example for illustration. Analogy does symbolize a meaning which could be described as similarity in objective appearances between two apparently unrelated things or objects for a basis of comparison. We narrow it down to symbolize and represent epitomizations in resemblance respecting the ratios and proportions of two configurational representations. Let us simplify that description. We use the word analogy to symbolize the resemblance between component parts of two configurational representations. For example, we can say the atom is analogous to the solar system because we are relating the component parts of the atom in their ration and proportionratio of parts to sizes (the proportions)to the ratios and proportions of the component parts of the solar system. It is the resemblance of the relationships of the components of one configurational representation to another configurational representation. This is the restrictive sense in which we are using the word analogy. If there is not that resemblance of the relationships of the component parts, do not use the word analogy. Use the word example, resemblance. The analogy must be restricted to that resemblance of relationships between the components. Pardon me for using your time for the description of the meaning, the referent, for the word analogy. In our School of the Natural Order we are conditioning ourselves in rigorous thinking, not sloppy thinking, but preciseness, because such training and thinking is part and parcel of the practice of the way. When one reaches attainment and realization of Be-ing

becomes conscious of Be-ingthen every thought, every feeling, every word uttered has farreaching effects. One must have a high consciousness of responsibility for the character of his thoughts and private feelings, and particularly for the words he utters. ... Let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay ... Matthew 5:37 It must be rigorously yea, yea, and nay, naydefinite and precise. If one who is on the path does not develop that consciousness of responsibility he cannot tread the path, for he defeats himself. He can no longer use clichs and propaganda slogans, throwing words around and bursting into speech about every occasion with half-informed facts and information. He has to be extremely particular, yea and nay, definite, precise, rigorous and extremely dependable. And on the high levels and way beyond, when he utters the word it is configurated instantaneously. Dont mistake me. The one on the path cannot do that. But way beyond, on very high levels, to utter itit is. Look at the gradual growth, development, and training up to the point where he speaks the word and the word is manifest. When the word is uttered after serious and long considered organization of a fact or life facts, that word has such power. Its very resonant qualities become as the Logos; the Word configurates and lives among us. I have jumped on ahead to show you why we need the early practice of that carefulness, of that conscientious consideration and responsibility, for we have to enter that training sooner or later, and particularly when we enter and tread the path. Then it narrows down to what we call the razors edge, for the slightest deviation will turn you off the delicate balance. This sounds formidable, but not when you realize that we progress gradually, step by step, day by day, month by month, year by year, and incarnation by incarnation in your training and self discipline of carefulness, considerateness, and weighing your thoughts before uttering them. Thus we in our School of the Natural Order are not indulging in a lot of loose clichs and propaganda for emotional effects. We want training, and those who are not ready for the training will fade out. Perhaps many will come in emotionally, and many of those who come in on an emotional wave will fade out. Those who remain will be the genuine ones who really seriously want the training. To tread the path is the training, and here in our School we are not compromising that high level for any expedient or temporary purpose. We know in the long run that quality will triumph over quantity. And I often go so far as to say privately among our home folks here that Ill maintain these high-level principals even if I stand alone. So much for the use of the word analogy. Do you see the carefulness even in the use of the word? It is a symbol representing the resemblance in the relationship of the parts of one to another, and in this case the manner in which the representations of the world of reality are related to the world of reality. At the risk of burdening you, let us again set up what we mean by the world of reality and then what it is that constitutes the analogical representations. Let us get that all clear. First let us understand what were going to study, and if its an analogical representation to something else that we do not understand or know, we should at least have some conceptual understanding of that of which the analogies are representations. This method of the preparation goes back to the admonition that is so often given, Keep your levels straight, because we treaders of the path must learn more and more to sharply differentiate between the levels upon which we respectively function and which are incorporated into nearly every conversation, even the several levels incorporated into one sentence. For proper understanding we should be able to differentiate between those levelsthe Real World in the epitomization, and analogical representation that we call the individual. Each can say for himself, The I am is the Power with which I function or I create my world. Let us use the term the Real Self. Set it aside, for it is just one level, but it is the most important level of each of us. Then there is the

personality, and we use the term psychic self. Then comes the third phase of the trinity, the configurational representation, the configurational self. Respecting a given person, or a given individual, these three levels constitute the fundamental reality. From these three we abstract the private world, the mentalized thingifying on the concept level about the three fundamental levels. Generalizing it, we call it the nether world, the maya. We have described this many times; Im just refreshing your memory now. For the fourth level, the private world, we will use the term objective self, meaning our objective self-consciousness and the manifold of values evolved from it. This goes clear back to tribal times when the cortex began to develop and cortically one thingified feelings, desires, perceived experiences, etc. Then followed the long, long evolution of cortical development, that is, developing concepts, which we call mentality, intellectualism, etc. Intellectuality is the end product of this objective self development. Do not confuse or identify intellectuality with intelligence, because you will be rocked back on your heels if you do when you meet highly intelligent individuals with no intellectual development whatever. Scientists studying anthropology have been dumbfounded by the high degree of intelligence theyve found among tribal peoples who have never been to school a day in their lives. Ive often asked religionists about what school, what university the apostles and disciples or the Masters attended and what degrees they received. Now when I say Master I mean Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao-Tze, and many of the illuminati, but you can mean Jesus the Christ from a historical viewpoint and I wont quarrel with you. They had disciples way back before there were any schools, colleges, or universities. And yet they developed systems of thought and religions to which the whole world responds and has become oriented. Remember that, please, when you think of or hear somebody mention Dr. So-and-so, a Ph.D., and a LL.D., and a B.A., and a B.S., and think of those intelligent ones, the founders of the great teachings and the great religions who never had a degree or even any school to go to and get one. So, do not identify intellectuality with intelligence. Keep those two widely separated. Sometimes youre fortunate when you escape academic training. I know those who half their life have regretted not having the opportunity for academic training and then later on in life shook hands with themselves for escaping it. I recently read of a Hindu girl that can give the cube root, or fourth and fifth and sixth roots of figures larger than we could write across a thirty-foot long blackboard, and do it instantly. She carefully avoids studying anything intellectual that would interfere with her genius, her talent. That is intelligence with no intellectual development whatever. This is a little side play on the respective private worlds, the objective self. This objective self, as well as the objective manifold of values that we mentalize about, is abstracted from the three levels upon which the person functions. Here is an observation which is extremely important, and that is an understatement when I limit it to an observation for its really a report from perceived knowledge. Only a small fraction of the power from that level of the Real Self is required for all of the functions on the psychic level, in the psychic self, or in the configurational self. Only a fraction of its force or power is required for functions relative to the I Am level, the Real Self level. Most of the power, force, is utilized in developing the individual Self on that Real Self level, and the functional operations on that level. We could say, generally speaking, that each person is much greater than he has any idea or than he can imagine. Not until the orientation of consciousness has changed from the functions of the psychic self, from giving value to objective appearances and reacting to the value given (third precept) can the Real Self

be known. Much of the force and energy of a given person is used up in giving value to objective phenomena and reacting to values given. The point Im trying to make is that when the consciousness is so concerned with values given and reaction to these values, when the consciousness in objectivity, in the private world, or at best when it is so absorbed in feelings, lovings, emotional perturbations; then in that state of absorption of consciousness the Real Self is unknown. It is difficult through the mayaismic fog of such absorptions to catch an intimation of this Real Self, but on its own level it is exceedingly great and powerful. It is difficult to evaluate this amount or degree of energy required in the functions of the psychic self, in the configurational self (etheric energy and etheric forces) or in the mentalized manifold of values in the private world, because it so rapidly changes in a given individual at different times and in different individuals at the same time. So we generalize by saying only a fraction of the energy required for all functional operations in the psychic level, in the energy world (the configurational level), or in the mental objective manifold of values world. The vast preponderance of force or energy is already in full functional operation in the Real World, unknown to those who havent penetrated to their Real Self, unconscious to those who know nothing of their Real Self until that change occurs in orientation of their consciousness away from that absorption in values given, that reaction to values in the emotional desire, feeling, loving, etc. So endlessly absorbed is his consciousness from one emotional perturbation into another that he cant get an inkling of his own higher Self functioning on that higher level which we designate Mind level. But (and here this but is so important) after that transition the aristotelians (as we label those who are limited to the objective manifold of values) call death, the physical senses (your objective seeing, objective hearing, objective smelling, objective tasting, objective touching) and physical faculties through which you sense are gone one becomes aware on that level. Of necessity (and we use this word necessity because they are gone and you cant use them) the reorientation of consciousness takes place. So, a reorientation of consciousness occurs to the only thing that is real, enduring, and permanentthe Real Self functioning in the Real World. That rhythmic alternationbirth to death, death to birthon the life line (the palingenetic cycle) is a helix. But the helix, even though it spirals, is not straight. Its a sine wave also. It waves as it spirals as it ascends. It describes a wave, a frequency, a rhythm. Its a dance that has both measure and cadencethe dance of life. That rhythm, as it spirals while ascending, carries the individual in that alternation process from birth to death, from death to birth. Now, let me phrase this in the other way, that we call necessity. You know I often put the word necessity on the blackboard on some other context which includes this necessity also, because theres a period that were free from necessity. But when we are under necessity or, as has been said, under the law of sin and deathwe must change the orientation of consciousness from the rhythm outwardly unfolding, the other part of the rhythm inwardly infolding. And the great mystery and difficult thing to understand is that in order to go out you must first go in. It sounds like one of those peculiar contradictions. How in the world can anyone go in, in order to go out? It reminds me of a little girl we had living with us when we had a place in the country. We had a party line telephone out of the city and our ring was two short and two long. This little girl asked her mother, who was our student there, How can it be too short and too long at the same time? We all had a good laugh out of that. How in the world could it be too short and too long? Its something like going in in order to go out. Before we go on with this description of the analogy as representation (note how carefully Im preparing this most important seedbed), I want to remind you that when you want to reach

another person, never allow your thought, your cortex, to think of him or her. Go into your heart and feel in your heart center for them. When you locate them in your heart center youve gone out to them. Theres the secret of absent treatment; theres the secret of healing; theres the secret of the fourth dimension. I have occasion to reach someone every day and sometimes four, five, six times a day I get letters and even telegrams for help, and they get help right now for the reason of years and years and incarnations of training to go in in order to go out. Now it is instantaneous. I sometimes tell them I dont think and that I dont have anything to think with (and they dont believe it) and dont want it. When I get a call and I dont want to let anybody down (for Im too conscientious) I begin to feel, feel, feel until I pick up the frequency, the rapport. When I intensify it in the heart center I go out, right out to them. But when I sit down and cortically think of them as out there somewhere, everything remains within me. Every part and parcel of the universe is within you. If you want to get in touch with anyone or any point in the universe, go within and you will go out to it. Cant you aristotelians get that? Fall desperately in love a few times. Love is the greatest teacher of that, for let your loved one be absent physically and the more absent they are the stronger you feel. Then you will understand a statement in the Bible, a wonderful statement in a wonderful book: ... if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. John 16:7 Lets take hold of that Comforter, that feel of the frequency, the rapport. Intensify that and it will teach you all things and connect you with everyone if need be, if youre required, if it is your duty, or commission, or dharma. Then you can be connected with any part of the universe or anything which you want to know. Please allow your teacher to use the personal in an impersonal way because you will find he is extremely impersonal if you ever put him to a test. Thousands of times Ive wanted a clear perception of a point in the understanding of the whole structure, our relationship to the cosmic process, or a point in the cosmic process itself, but I didnt know it. Perhaps I was writing and I would pause (go in to go outand connected right there) and then go right on with my writing. Thousands upon thousands of times this happened until I began to think of myself as a bridge between this objective wordy world and the inner law of reality. I cross the bridge between two worlds. You can get all of this without going to a university and getting that B.S., or M.S., or Ph.D., or somethingby training yourself to go within in order to go without. This is extremely important in the study of the analogies of the Real World. When we speak of the Mind level, the Light Mother, the Arche, the Logos, and all of the hierarchy of Be-ings with graded ranks, and the many mansions in my Fathers house (because this is the Fathers house, because its the positive Power that motivates the Light substance); and when we study that and orient our consciousness to it, we have no background or referent for it when we begin. Theres nothing on the intellectual level that we can give about it. So how in the world are we going to learn it? Well, the great cosmic process has provided a most marvelous way in which we can study it accurately if we will remember the referent that was set up for the word analogy. It is analogous to studying a genuine thing by its reflection in a mirror. If you have a good reflection, and you have nothing else but the reflection, you can get a pretty good picture, idea, understanding of the Reality which is reflected. Thus the great provision of nature, of the cosmic process, is that it has given us a perfect picture (a perfect analogy) of the Real World. No man has seen God at any time, for he has been declared (pictured) all the time before us. When the disciples asked the Master to see God, he said, And I have been so long with ye and ye ask to see Him? We must learn to read the reflection, the pictures of the reality. Through the study of the analogy, we learn the reality. This is the most marvelous preparation for the understanding of reality.

At the point on our Main Chart which we designate the Second Crossing let us picture a lake of water, perfectly placid, with a mountain rising out of the lake behind it. We have the below, the reflection, but that reflection does not include the nether worldthat is abstracted from the reflection and the reality. The private world, the objective manifold of values, the objective selfthe mayais not a reflection. It is only an abstraction and so exists only on the mental level. Everything from the crystalloidal representation, or you can say everything from the atom in its configurational representation, to the sidereal universe, the galaxy, is all limited to a given individual. Everything is reflection from the cellular structure of the colloidal foundation (meaning the molecular and colloidal structure of your physiological organism) to your feeling and desiring emotional self, to your thinking self and on through to the Garden of Aaru, the Garden of the Gods, the Garden of Edenthe Real World perceived in its perfect reflection. All of that should be put into the reflection of the mountain rising out of and above the lake into the Real World with its hierarchies of organizations and Be-ings in the Light. Everything in the reflection is an analogy of everything that is reflected. We can use this whole reflection as the analogy of the whole Light Spheres. We can come down to any specific point or part, no matter how insignificant it might be, on these two levels; the energy world level (which I have here designated the configurational representation) and the personal level (which I have here designated the psychic self). Any little given incident respecting these two levels epitomizes the second and third aspect of the trinity. Then we can use any minute point as a reflection of a similar point or the resemblance, an epitomizational resemblance, of the same point in the Real World. So we can use analogy in the whole or in part. Use the analogy to study the reality.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY Lesson 4

These lessons represent the application phase of the teachings of the School of the Natural Order. Weve been some time developing this system of thoughtre-articulating the gnosis and correlating it with modern scientific findings. Please remember that theres no originality, not only in our presentation of the wisdom teachings, but theres no originality, period! One by one we discover or rediscover, not invent, the structure, the functional processes, the marvelous, rigorous order of that which we label the cosmic process in which each of us is intrinsically integrated. Therefore the way to discover and understand the whole process is to discover yourself. Reject any suggestion of thinking out, extraneous to yourself, on the grounds that there is no such thing as out there. That attitude of looking out is relative to a threedimensional state of consciousness, but the cosmic process does not function in three coordinates. That three-dimensional state of consciousness exists within the individual and collectively in the race psyche and has no existence in reality, in life facts. So the approach to the rediscovery, the understanding of the cosmic process, is to understand ones self. As stated and developed in the last lesson, we go in in order to go out. I cant overemphasize the fact that the universe actually exists within you, and if you wish to contact any point in the universe, you can contact it within yourself. You can prove this yourself with a specific individual if you wish. For instance, in my process of development, I selected someone here or there and steadily focused my attention upon that person until I began to feel the presence, the consciousness, the force, the frequency of the state which he represented. Then I began to fraternize with him, visit with him, talk and listen to him. Through the years of cultivating and practicing this, it seems like I can simply sit down and visit. Ive had many visits with Plato, because he occupies a high priority in my system of evaluation. We discussed philosophical problems, thrashing out their pros and cons. This is a very valuable hint on how to practice. If you have a semantic blockage because of so-called time and space, then dont begin with one like Plato. Begin by contacting one with whom you are en rapport. Certainly you have someone somewhere with whom you are en rapportwhere your forces are synchronized with his, where you feel his presence in yourself and he feels you. Then visit with him in frequency. Keep expanding your ability until the time and space factors dont interfere and then you can visit with anyone anywhere, on any level. Its only practice in thinking this way and developing it until it becomes actual to you. Then you have worlds of company. Cultivate them, practice fraternizing, and youre never alone, never lonely. You get a little jealous of intrusions that take you away from it. (I mean those interferences which do not serve any particular constructive purpose.) You must go through the motions to obey the outward amenities, but learn to cut them short because of the wealth and the richness of the real world within you. Theres nothing original. We rediscover that which is always in the now, always here and now, and when we re-articulate that which we have rediscovered, we always do it with respect to the developing understanding of the times, of the period, of the age, and in anticipation of that which the majority are on the eve of coming into. We anticipate it for them. Such is the teaching as given in the School of the Natural Order. It is not vouchsafed to anyone. Its not revealed truth, revealed religion or revealed knowledge. Anyone anywhere can do it. Its open, its free; whosoever will, hard enough, persistently enough, can come into it. When I read or hear where someone says, this has been revealed to me and no one else; God has given it to me, I begin to back up and try to find a way to go about my business quietly and

unobtrusively. I do not even want to dispute them. Catch that attitude. Some of us will to learn persistently, steadily, everlastingly; we stay polarized, oriented, and it begins to pay off. We begin to function in it, and thats all there is to it. Is there anything deep or mysterious about that? Not a thing! But the vast majority must outgrow interests in other things, those evanescent chimeras, temporal interests, will-o-the-wisps. How do they do it? I never tell them, Dont do it. I say, Go ahead. Youre not ardent enough, but watch and study and observe. Does it bring peace? Does your pursuit of objectively appearing things and phenomena bring peace? Does it bring contentment? Does it bring the joy song? Does it bring that wealth of understanding and fraternization with the illuminati? It brings heartache, it brings misery, it brings suffering. So pursue it until you suffer enough, til your heart aches enough. That is our attitude. Then when the heart aches enough, when you are disillusioned enough, turn to something that will never let you down, something that you can take with you, that is yours forever and ever. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through not steal. Matthew 6:20 A creative joy song goes with it; a creative joy song sings itself in your heart. Its priceless. How do we start to get that way? Stop looking out. Put away all tendencies to look out, and start with just the idea: there is a Power with which I am conscious. There is a Power with which I think. There is a Power with which I feel and desire and pursue objects and things. There is a Power with which I act. You can deny everything else in the world, in the universe, but you cannot deny the Power with which you deny. How simple! Then we learn the way that Power functions in our respective selves. In the vital sense, that Power functions in the configuration and the configurational processes. What holds the molecules, the atoms, the electrons and protons together in this configuration that you call your body? What holds them together? There is a vital force that holds them together. We label it the vital dynamism, which is the Power-to-be-conscious functioning on the configurational level. Thats just the ground floor of the triune man. With what Power do we feel, desire, love, react and think? Now, weve stepped up one level to the psychological processesthe Power-to-be-conscious functioning in the psychic nature. We simply give another label to it when it motivates all actions and functions on the psychic nature level, we call it the psycho-dynamism, but its the same Power-to-be-conscious. Now, the top storythe Mind level. Never identify the label Mind with intellect, mentations or ratiocinations. Keep the mental sharply differentiated from the Mind. Mind does not think; the thinking processes belong to the mental, the psychic nature. Mind does not think; Mind knows. By nature Mind is awareaware to the limit of the state in which the Power-tobe-conscious is conscious. Please catch the implication of that last remark. The Mind knows, but not everything, for thats Christian Science where they reify the phrase Infinite Mind and its Infinite Idea. The Mind is unlimited only if the state of consciousness is also unlimited. The Mind, on this Mind level above the ratiocination, mentation and mental activities, is aware to the limits of its field which are determined by the state in which it is conscious of Be-ing. So after one has arrived at the consciousness of that Noetic Self, that top story of the triune man, there is (relative to that first state of Be-ing) an apparently unlimited field. But it is not unlimited because there are babes on that level also. Let us use analogy in its proper sense (as below, so above).

On the configurational level, babies are born of mother. That baby is a man (actually a man-child) and belongs to that generic group that we label man. But it must grow up into the consciousness of its manhood. Now, apply the analogy to Mind level. Were born (the birth of the Christos) on the Mind level; were conscious. We are a Be-ing because consciousness has identified itself with the Power-to-be-conscious on that level and the Christ child is born. It must grow into the fullness of its consciousness as a Be-ing. So, you see, Mind is not the Infinite Mind, for all knowledge and all power is only relative to its state of Be-ing. But the glorious point is birth on that level; thats the great objective; thats what were working for, relative to our present state. Theres a vast difference in that and in reifying the term Infinite Mind, because you will commit many blunders trying to demonstrate, trying to function under the emotional appeal of an idea which is beyond your functional ability. And you will get your come-uppance! And instead of recognizing the error youve committed, you transfer it and say, There is nothing in it; theres no God. God deceived me, or Thats a false teaching and it doesnt work. Or you may practice hypocrisy and surreptitiously, like Nicodemus, go to the doctors and get patched up or cured because of the errors you have committed, sneaking in the back door at night and telling the doctor, Im a Christian Scientist (or whatever) but please dont tell anyone that I had to come see you. Avoid all those inconsistencies and what they do to you psychologically to believe one thing, to pose in one way and then practice contradictions upon yourself until you feel a sense of guilt and hypocrisy that undermines the trueness and rightness of a frank, open admission of your ability according to your state of awareness. Recognize your limitations and say, Relative to my present state, I cannot function outside of it, and I am not going to attempt it. I make no excuses and have no sense of shame, but I hope with steadiness of purpose and holding my proper orientation Ill expand my state until it may become illimitable. Indeed, it may become infinite. Thus, grow up in the world of reality above, just as belowusing the analogy of the infant that is born a man and yet must grow into the consciousness of his manhood. Relative to functioning where we are now conscious of ourselves, we must introduce another thoughtthe objective self-conscious state. The configurational self, the psychological processes, and the Mind level, all motivated by the Power-to-be-conscious, whether called vital dynamism, psycho-dynamism or the Christos, represent reality. From that reality we have abstracted an unrealitythe private world, the objective self-conscious state. This objective selfconscious state, this private world, this objective manifold of values (three ways of saying the same thing) gives value to this world as a thing, an object, a creation. We abstract the objective self-conscious state from the three levels of reality pertaining to the triune self, the triune man. Here comes the difficulty of my presenting and your understanding the truth that will make you free. One cannot interpret or understand the functional processes of the triune man in, and relative to, the objective manifold of values. Im sorry that this is so, in one way, for it interferes with understanding the presentation of the gnosis, the wisdom, the knowledge. I would like to eliminate that difficulty which makes such semantic blockages to clear perception, but in the deeper sense of it, Im not sorry at all that that is so on the grounds that we would then reduce the absolute to a relativity. And anything that is relative has a point in time for beginning which presupposes a point in time for ending which, permanently speaking, makes it non-existent. However, I am developing a methodology for circumventing the difficulty in understanding the presentation of the structure-function-order of the triune man or the cosmic process. (Both terms say the same thing because the triune man is a complete epitomization of

the whole cosmic process and if we understand the microcosmic epitomization of the whole process, macrocosm, we understand the whole cosmic process in its structure-function-order.) My method of circumventing this difficulty is to clearly explain how the private world was abstracted from the real triune man, and how we arrived at this objective manifold of values. I work upon the obvious fact that clear understanding gives one power while ignorance gives power to that which is not understood. We are controlled completely by that which we do not understand. Commensurate with our state of consciousness, we control that which we understand. So, With all your getting, get understanding. Thats why I back away from the terms occultism, mysticism and metaphysics. They leave me cold because Im pursuing understanding and I equate the word understanding with the words light, knowledge, and power. How did this objective manifold of values, this private world, this objective-self state develop? It developed by reason of a structural defect in the neural system. When I say structural defect in the neural system, I must quickly add that, from a higher and more comprehensive understanding of the whole evolutionary process, it is not a true defect any more than a newborn kittens eyes are defective because they dont open immediately to light that would injure their structural organization. The little kitten has to gradually become conditioned to the light. Think of this as another example in the practice of using analogy. Let us digress a moment before returning to the structural defect. Every degree of mother substance beyond that event in our on-going which we call the Second Crossing is characterized by brilliant light. Recall that the second crossing is our entrance into the world of Light and Being. Beginning with a world of diffused yet exceedingly bright light, we ascend, expand out consciousness of Be-ing, grow up on that level to the fullness of our Christ consciousness. As we rise in stature and in state, the Light becomes brighter and brighter. The realm we label Diamond Light is incredibly sharp. (In the Vedic system of teachings it was labeled Indra.) There are no words adequate to describe the sharpness of this level of the world of reality. Some of us have seen it, and even a strong man will scream right out from his first perception of the sharpness of that Light. It takes a long time to condition the consciousness to it. I have known many who have seen the world of Diffused Light on the configurational level of the triune man where energy is brilliant and sharp like electricity. When we see the spark that we call electricity jumping a gap, whether its in a spark plug, a welding arc or a lightning generator, we see a lower, grosser form of etheric energy of the configurational level. Remember, when you think of that configurational level think in terms of electrical energy. Weve all seen the brilliant arc created by men working with electrical welding equipment. And you know they will warn you, Dont look at this arc because it might injure your eyes. They have to wear heavy dark glass eye shields. I want to get this idea over to you. The bright spark of the electric welding arc that we call electricity is a grosser form of the configurational energy world. It is the type of light that we label the Diffused Light. One who develops consciousness on the Mind level conditions himself to functioning in that Light relatively easily compared to functioning in the Diamond Light. The Diamond Light is of such incredible sharpness that as long as we function in the objective state, the objective manifold of values, we have to leave it out. Its too intense for the neural system, so we stay away from it until weve learned to function independently of the neural system, that means independently of the physiological organism, then can we safely open consciousness on the level of the Diamond Light.

However difficult it is to understand the brilliancy of this world of the Diamond Light, there is nothing whatever we can say about the level of Supernal Light, because there the brilliancy is intense darkness. Intense brilliancy and intense darkness become the same thing. We will take up that intense darkness phase of it in some subsequent lesson, but the point now is this (returning to our analogy): A kitten cannot open its eyes quickly; it has to become conditioned to the light of the sun. Gradually it becomes conditioned to daylight and slowly its eyes open. The natural order of the evolutionary process has arranged a similar provision in our physiological organism which we are calling a defect in the structure of the neural system. Think of that provision of nature in terms of the genetrix, the whole generative process of becoming. What is the defect in the neural system which is the basic and causative factor for the development of the private world, the objective self-conscious state, and the objective manifold of values? The defect is that the neural system cannot register the rapidity of the frequency of the spark that we label electron, proton, and neutronthe spark. Perhaps you have seen pictures of an atom with units of energy, called electrons, whirling in various orbits around the central nucleus. That is only a diagrammatic representation of a cross section of a fieldto satisfy the objective consciousness. Electrons do not whirl around the center, the nucleus, at all. The field that we label atom is not a thing, its an energy field having a positive and negative pole. This field describes a double spiral or helix, one positive and one negative. The electrons that appear are energy that emerges for a minute fraction of a second. I cant say split second because the number of appearances and disappearances is measured in millions per second, or megacycles, and is called frequency. Picture a field that we label atom and on the spiraling lines of that field visualize electronspoints of light blinking on and off with great rapidity, blink, blink, blink. Picture a cross section of that field with the electrons like satellites circling the center. When we understand the solar system were going to understand the atomic energy field by analogyas below, so above. When we understand the field called the solar system, were going to see that these configurations called planets are blinking points of light in the dynamic field. Considering the solar system in this manner brings up many implications about how the perverse and destructive forces of man can wreck the energy structure of a field. There are two types of earthquakes and two types of volcanic action. One is the adjustment of pressures or tensions in a mass which causes the pressure waves to pass through the rocks and bobble anything on the surface, or cause fissures to appear which release the terrific pressure of molten material. The second type is caused by a rupture of the energy structure which holds the configurational process in relative stability. Do you track with me? If the destructive forces become virulent enough, the energy structure itself can be ruptured and cosmic or planetary catastrophes can occur. Relate that second cause of seismographic disruptions (by analogy) to an individual who lends himself to destructive forces. Study how his configurational representations can show that rupture and begin to break up or represent destruction. All you have to do now is carry that to a planetary scale and you will find the danger of lending yourself to destructive forces. And that can be carried through to cosmic proportions when we understand the meaning behind the term, rebellion in Heaven. It seems incredible to our emotional sense that there could be such destruction. Lets go back to those blinking points of lights, those lights that blink on, blink off, which we call electrons, protons, and neutrons. Our neural structure has been so designed that we cannot immediately register the intense brilliancy of those lights so we make a peripheral picture out of them. Its like a shield that forms between the perceiver and the light to protect him from the intense brightness. The image that develops and forms in the psychic nature that appears substantive, appears solid, is that eclipse, a shield, to prevent us seeing the light directly.

Let me use an illustration of this (not an analogy). Im going to tell you something Im a little bit self-conscious and chagrined about telling and I certainly dont want you to do it. When I was a young man in my teens, I discovered a book that advocated looking into the noonday sun for specific purposes. I wanted to practice this so Id go out and lie down in the Kansas pasture at noonday and look directly into the sun, eyelids wide open. I found that by doing so, a shield developed in the structure and mechanism of my eye to prevent that brilliant light from wrecking me, which it probably would have if that shield hadnt formed. In a similar way the natural order process has provided that we register the peripheral outline of those blinking points of light as a shield until we can get our eyes open and see the light directly. The early Greeks called one who reached that point of development epopt, meaning one who is getting his eyes open. Until we reach that state, getting our eyes open, we will see the configurational world around us with the protective image, the protective shield. Paul called that protective shield a glass darkly. 1 Cor. 13:12 Now, we see through a glass darkly but then, when we reach the epopt state and get our eyes open, we will see directly, we will know as we are already known by those who do see. We will know the actual structurefunction-order, state, development, , etc. Thats something to think of. There isnt a venerable old gentleman with a long white beard and flowing hair up there in the stratosphere looking down our shirt collar. Theres no step-ladder God, no peep-hole God, no transom-peeper God looking down into our private lives, our private worlds. But there are those who have their eyes open, who are past the epoptic state. They may have occasion to look at you. But dont get worried about their looking into your private life because they dont. Theyre not concerned with it unless they have to look at you to see whether youre trustworthy enough to be utilized. Otherwise they pay no attention to you. Theres sort of a code among them. They dont look at you any more than we honest folks here below would pick each others pockets. They do not see your private world; they respect your privacy. Yet many people get a little fearful. When I was with my teacher, three ladies came into the class one night. One of them whispered to the other two, That man can see clear through you; that man can see everything. They saw my teachers sharp eyes; his eyes were extremely brilliant. And one of the other ladies got up and said, Im going to get out of here this is no place for a respectable lady with just a Mother Hubbard on. So the three ladies got up and left. However, those who can see, who know you and see you as you are, dont pay any attention to you. You must evolve sufficiently close to their state before theyll pay any attention to you. They have too much to do and theyre too concerned with enormously large affairs to mess around with anyones personal state of development. Its almost non-existent to them. So nature has provided a defense mechanism against the brilliancy of even the configurational level, and, relative to the functional processes of the neural system, we call it a defect that we cannot register the individual units of light in a given configuration. We get the peripheral overall effect and out of that formulate an image in the psychic nature, in the psychic consciousness. You can even say in the mind if you dont mean Mind, but rather if you mean the intellect, the mental processes on the psychic level. Then the picture or image appears out there identified with the configuration. That identification of the image with the configuration, with that from which the original frequency was received, is the origin and cause of the development of the objective manifold of values. Then instead of a configuration of units of energy its a thing, an object, a creation. We grow up and develop giving values to things and objects as creations until we develop a whole manifold of values in the objective world. We call something material to distinguish it from something else that we believe to be spiritual, but theres no materiality except the value that we give to the image appearing substantive.

One of the great purposes of this teaching at the very beginning is to coordinate your thinking with the way you function. You think within that objective manifold of values, but you dont function that way. You function in the energy processes, the vital dynamism that sustains the configurational process. You function in the psychological desiring, feeling, thinking, emoting, reacting levels. Yet youre motivated by the Power-to-be-conscious. You aspire to open and widen your consciousness in Mindpure perception, pure knowledge, pure understanding, clear understanding, clairvoyance, true knowledgewithout thinking, for youve left the thinking world. Your state of being is motivated by that great Power-to-beconscious called the Christos on that level we label the Mind. Is it clear why we cannot understand those three levels of the triune man in, from, and with the objective manifold of values? Please take this question and work out the answer yourself. When you answer it, youll understand what lifting the veil means. One must lift the veil, the veil of Isis, the veil of maya, one must dispense with the glass darkly to see the realitynot way off somewhere but here-now in the way you function. Why cannot we see, why cannot we understand the triune man in his structure, function, and order from or within the objective manifold of values? Please think about this and try to answer by next lesson. Ive given it here. Turn around and tell me why we cannot do it. Then weve got somethinga basis, a platform, a good foundationto take the next step; understanding the triune man without the objective manifold of values. Remember, this is school; this is not preaching, although I do forget myself and preach some of the time. This is drill work, school work, and if you answer this question and get only this one point, you have something extremely valuable to help you in a variety of ways to understand the structure-function-order of reality. Please seek the answer.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY Lesson 5

We are continuing a description of the Practice of the Way. We could also phrase it a description of the practice of treading the path to self realization. We have been a number of years developing the teachings as given in the School of the Natural Order. I consider that it is done and now we are going back over that teaching and bringing it into application to daily problems, to anything with which we wish to deal or cope with. In other words we are now on the pragmatic level. We begin this lesson with the Socratic adage, "Know Thyself." When the work of Aristotle was revived, brought to light again, approximately in the middle of the thirteenth century and I would date it with Roger Bacon, about 1246, Aristotle was worshiped beyond imagination. Even still in our recent times (and in the lives of some of us who can remember) when sun spots were discovered a professor of one of our great universities stood up before his class and said, "I have read Aristotle four times and studied him diligently. Aristotle never mentioned a sun spot; therefore, there are no sun spots." See how great was the effect of Aristotle upon our occidental culture? He was the Bible of occidental thought. He believed that this world was static and surrounded by nine spheres. The ninth sphere was the abode of Theos (God) and ever since they've been looking up there in the skies. Aristotle pointed up there in the skies. Aristotle pointed up there to the ninth sphere, the ninth ring, to a God in the skies. So terrific, so impressive, so great has been the suggestion given by Aristotle that this world is a creation, a static, objective thing, that man has been searching for a creator extraneous from the world, something that is the author of it, some intelligence, etc.. We must counteract that influence, that aristotelian influence, and it's a strenuous effort. In Spokane, Washington a number of years ago, I had an orthodox minister that took a course of lessons in one of my classes and after the class was all over he said, "When I pray, in spite of everything I can do, I think `out' and `up' there. I think He's up there." So powerful is this suggestion registered upon the race psyche, almost in spite of everything you can do you're going to look out, extraneous to yourself or to the objective appearances of this dynamic universe. So we must begin to "Know thyself," to practice self realization. To practice treading the path we must begin to abjure every tendency to look `outside.' (Whenever a word is put in single quotes, it simply means that this is a symbol which has no referent; that you cannot find anything which it symbolizes.) There is no such thing as an `outside' except relative to your state or any given state. You might have an objective state, then, relative to that objective state, you might think outside. But absolutely speaking, that is, non-relative to any state of consciousness, there's no such thing as `outside' and there is no such thing as `inside.' They are dual words like hot and cold, far and near, high and low, etc.. A block of ice is cold to anyone except a scientist. To anyone that affirms or dogmatizes that a block of ice is cold, a scientist would say, "A block of ice is a roaring furnace relative to liquid air because a block of ice is as hot to liquid air as molten tin is to ice." Outside of that relativity there is no `outside,' so one has to resist the tendency to look 'outside.' `Outside' has meaning within the frame of reference of the apparent distance between two or more objects. I should say the apparent distance between two or more apparent objects, because the object is an image in the consciousness abstracted from the dynamic

process. So the apparent distance between two or more images in the consciousness is `outside.' That is the frame that gives meaning to the word `outside.' AS we're going to see pretty soon when we talk about the levels upon which we function, this objective state is merely a mental concept abstracted from apparent distance between two or more apparent objects. Imagination is a wonderful thing if you employ it properly. In imagination cast yourself out beyond a point of reference where you cannot see or experience sun, moon, stars, planets. There try to conceive of `space,' and you will find it's non-existent because you don't have points of reference. The relative or apparent distance between two or more objects (points of reference) creates in the consciousness a concept which we label `space.' In reality, there's no `outside;' that's why we put it in single quotes. 'Space' is a concept abstracted from images appearing substantive in the psychic nature. We have to resist the tendency to look `outside' because there is no `outside,' there is no `space' other that the concept abstracted from apparent distance between two or more objects. Pardon me for reiterating, but this is teaching and not preaching. I give a point and reiterate it, and reiterate it, drill and drill, until you can't help but register. That is why we call this a school, not a church. When we have overcome all tendency to look `outside' in the process of treading the path and knowing ourselves we have the self to consider, which seems to be a mystery until we begin to understand its structure. It is highly complex, not simple, and we reduce its vast multiplicity of complexities to four divisions which we call levels upon which a given person functions. Now, a given person, meaning each one of us, is conscious upon four levels sometimes simultaneously. I stand before you, I speak. The enunciation of the sound, the forming and giving forth of sound waves which you register we label the objective level, but look at what goes on behind. In the organization and marshaling of adequate force, meaning the mental level and then beyond that, there is a great deal of devotional regard to what is said. There is sort of a sustaining force which enables me to say this. But that isn't all, for there's the perceptive insight or understanding, and there is the Power-to-be-conscious which sustains the whole. Simultaneously a given person functions on more than one level. One of the most important points in treading the path is to prevent confusion in meanings, in directions, in what to do and what not to do, and it pivots upon keeping those levels upon which you function sharply differentiated. unending confusion and a definite semantic blockage to proper understanding results when two or more levels become identified with one level. Let mu illustrate what I have in mind about the identification of all levels upon one level. When you look upon a given person perhaps you mentally evaluate them according to the objective appearance, the objective level. Whether you label that objective level `physical' body or the `humanized animal.' or whatever other label you give in trying to evaluate that person upon that one level, or whether you identify all levels upon which that person functions with that level, unending confusion will result because you will unendingly try to seek the cause for his emotional motivation by something that he experiences, or something he ate, or something he contracted like viruses and what have you. One seeks objectively for a reason by which he is motivated, yet he may be motivated by an entirely different set or frame or category of forces, energies, that has nothing whatever to do with anything in his objective world. Here is where the psychoanalysts and psychiatrists get so far off the beam that they themselves are in despair of ever understanding the content of what they call the unconscious. See the confusion in understanding due to and stemming from identification of all levels with one level? We, in our training at the School of the Natural Order, endeavor to remember the four levels upon which a given person functions.

These four levels are: the mental; frequency registration; the psychic nature; and the Noetic Mind. Let us briefly, and it must be a thumbnail sketch, describe each of these four levels. Let us take the mental first. Now, we in this School endeavor to reserve the word Mind to represent that level of consciousness, that state of consciousness, clear, Ardath (which means clear and free from feeling, emotional thinking). I read a little article in a magazine called Frontier in which they came out with a new coined word. The word is `thobbery' - a combination of think, opine and believe. Much `thobbery' goes by the word thinking. In that word three levels are synthesized into one. But we in our School endeavor to keep the states, levels, which the word `mental' symbolizes separate and distinct from Mind, although in common usage one will say, "my mind this," or "my mind that," or "it affects my mind," etc., when they mean their mental processes. Relative to the teaching as given in this School, mental functions pertain to the highest level of the psychic nature. There is one thought that I must give you at this moment which gives me a great deal of patience, and my other word for patience is understanding. If you have understanding it means patience. When you get impatient, it means you don't understand all of the elements and factors in a given context of situation. You get impatient with this or that, or with a child, or another person; you get impatient with them simply because you do not understand all of the factors which are motivating them. The greater the understanding the more patience. To teach the higher level work requires a great deal of patience. Here is the factor that gives me that patience: The completion of the individualizing process (the end of which we call the evolutionary process) is characterized among other things, by the use of the mental processes to adequately create mental constructs true and perfect to the structure, function, order of the cosmic process. I'll say that again. The end of what we call the evolutionary process will be characterized by the use of the mental functions to formulate mental constructs perfect and true to the natural order of the cosmic process. That's another way of saying a map formulated true to territory. When your mental constructs have a true road map of a journey you are going to take you will have very little trouble whatever in traversing that territory. Now that formulation of mental constructs is not just to describe the cosmic process or any phase of it. It is also the regulator for conduct and deportment. Forming a mental construct true to territory (and I quickly must say that the referent for the word truth is structure, function, order of the cosmic process), true to the natural order process, gives one a clear course to follow, an outline for his conduct, for his deportment, for his regulation relative to necessity. For instance, so long as we're incarnated in a state which we label this living matter configuration there's a great deal of necessity imposed upon us to feed it, clothe it, give it a roof over its head, etc.. Even though those are reduced to bare necessities of living, the mental can create and afford the clearest, finest functional way of doing it. Now, if we were mystics instead of scientists (if you will allow me to say it) we would say our thoughts are regulated by guidance. We're guided by the invisible world or divine intelligence. But not being mystics, we say that our mental processes are determined by the state of development on a relatively higher level that the mental by the state in which the Power-to-beconscious, which is my true Self, is conscious. That is by which we are guided. Permit me to reiterate one point about the ultimate objective of the evolutionary process being characterized, among other things, by the mental processes formulating mental constructs true to the natural order or cosmic process. Here is the point which gives me a great deal of patience. When I review the stage or state of the evolutionary process to its present generalized

level on a planetary concept, in trying to strike an average of the state of evolution of the humanity on this planet and reviewing the state or stage it has reached in the whole process, we find that it is between one quarter and one half way through the total process. yet it has required between two and one half and three millions years to achieve little better than one fourth the way through the process. Let me say this in clear aristotelian language. Since man appeared on this planet, about two and a half million years ago, he differentiated from the animal level of evolution on the planet to a little better than one quarter of the fulfillment of the whole evolutionary process. you can prove this for yourself if you will study that long enough, and it takes a lot of geology, anthropology, sociology, and particularly embryology now that they are tracing the chromosomes and the formation and the configuration of the genes within the chromosomes back, back, back. Now they've empirically established that there was a common stock that branched out all over the planet, and they can very accurately evaluate the time factor relative to our sidereal concept of time. The time was arrived at mostly by dating the radioactive forces in carbon residue of former and ancient civilizations. the physiologists have arrived at a very similar figure to the archaeologists' through the tracing of the chromosomes back to the common stock. That's quite an absorbing study; it's one that has fascinated me for years. And out of all that, they've concluded that man arrived on this planet about two million five hundred thousand years ago. Now, relative to the completion of the individualizing process, we're one quarter through the way; that is, we're just taking off our diapers and getting into the adolescent stage. We're tooting our horns, beating our drums, creating a lot of noise. It will do you a lot of good if you'll study that long enough to get it in your consciousness because you will then be very patient and understanding with yourself and with others. Don't expect too much. The main point of all this is that each one of us should keep abreast with the point in the evolutionary process that is possible to us, that is within the evolutionary range of our possibility. Don't fall back, don't allow the atavistic forces to pull you down and back. Keep up with yourself (that is quite a little job too) until it becomes habitual to maintain your evolutionary status without falling back. At the present evolutionary status the mental aptitudes and faculties, in so far as they are developed relative to the evolutionary status, are not used to formulate mental constructs of the natural order process but are employed in manufacturing reasons, explanations, justifications, alibis, for motivating forces in the unconscious. Sometimes I think of those cortical functions, mental processes as a clever little urchin. On a downtown street, east side New York City, the peddler comes along with his cart loaded with bananas, apples, and pears. A little urchin darts around the corner, get an apple and is gone. I often think of the mental processes in that way, for they are that fast. They will manufacture an excuse or an alibi and give it a reason, the most plausible one of course, before you can detect it, and will do it so fast that you fall for it. But what is behind that reason? The motivating forces in the psychic nature, which the Aristotelians call the unconscious, are active and clamoring all the time for their form of expression. The forces in the unconscious, or the content of the psychic nature is another way of saying it, even quarrel and fight among themselves. We call it the individualism of the instincts. As the instincts are individualizing they quarrel and fight among themselves. Have you ever felt torn to pieces? Have you ever felt at sixes and sevens? Have you ever felt you didn't know what to do or think or which way to go? Have you gone to bed at night and started thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and wake up in the morning after no sleep but just worn out? This is the individualism of the instincts. These are the forces in the psychic nature which, without exception, you have reflected, generally from rapports, or the race psyche, or

somebody's suggestion, or a suggestion that you have read or picked up by reflection, emulation, and imitation. These are the forces operating in the psychic nature (the unconscious) which the mental processes are justifying, attempting to explain. This far in our thumbnail description of the mental level of the four levels upon which we function we can make an observation. I know that the explanation is not adequate because during the three years in which this teaching has been delivered here in this classroom we have described so exhaustively the mental level of the psychic nature and its functions that now we're sort of gathering up all the past teachings and condensing them into a way to evaluate in the practice of treading the path. This observation is applicable in practice, and can be considered another precept. Bring forth, dig up and disregard whatever reasons, justifications, excuses, or alibis the cortex functions or mentalizes with. Try this if you are sufficiently acquainted with another person such as a wife, husband, child, or someone you can take liberties with (because you wouldn't take liberties with a stranger while going through the amenities of being polite) when they are bringing out their mental reasons, justifications. Just be patient. Don't answer a one of their reasons because they're endless. If you could logically destroy all of them that are brought out, they will keep on manufacturing, and manufacturing, and manufacturing ad infinitum. There is no limit. Then thousands of other ones will be dug up until you will be busy just answering each one and you won't do anything else. So don't start to answer any of them. Just wait until the loved one, the familiar one, is through and then quietly say, "What's the real lowdown? That was your excuse, your alibi, your reason, now what's the real lowdown? (meaning of course, by what they are motivated) Where did you pick up that motivating influence? With whom have you been en rapport? Where were you last night? What have you brought home? What contact have you made? What have you been reading? Where did you get the suggestion? How did that force become lodged in your psychic nature, your unconscious? What's the real lowdown?" To tread the path you must categorically disregard these mental reasons, justifications, excuses, alibis. Save yourself a lot of value giving and reacting. Save yourself a lot of energy trying to make it plain, trying to justify, trying to explain it away in another. Save yourself endless trouble by just asking, "Now what's the real lowdown?" Do that until the individual has reached the point of development when he can employ the mental processes to formulate clear pictures, clear descriptions, clear constructs of the structure, function, order of the cosmic process itself. then listen very attentively because the mental functions, operations, then have great value. Now I can conclude this discussion about the mental level with a Scriptural quotation: "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit (I want to say megacycle) unto his stature?" Matthew 6:27 None! Development is done another way, without mentalizing. Now another observation. Constantly check upon yourself in knowing the Self through treading the path that you do not mistake your mental constructs for the journey, for growth, development, expansion, realization. The clearest and finest mental construct remains a mental construct, remains a roadmap, remains a blueprint. You haven't taken the journey or built the building, you have at best only a roadmap. Now, I keep reiterating that to the students of the School because in the course of my various experiences, in the course of my ministry in Truth, I have come across cults, groups, schools, that have worked out a mental jargon. they can just rattle it off mentally and they think they have attainment. I look upon them as how they have gotten sidetracked in mistaking their mental jargon, their mentalized constructs, for understanding,

development, and realization. I want to double check, cross check, and then go back again to make sure that we in this School do not mistake mentalizations, mental constructs, and the jargon, the verbalism, that goes with them for understanding. There's no understanding in them. Now while that is said (see? it's a thumbnail sketch because we can't add all the factors fast enough) don't isolate and quote out of context. While that is said we must add quickly that the mental constructs, that is, the mental reasons, mental functions, mental justifications, can serve development as the compass of a ship can indicate the course the ship should pursue or proceed on to reach the objective, to reach port, but the compass cannot drive the ship. The compass is not the poser plant. Way down in the bowels of the ship is the power plant that drives the ship. Now one can use the (what you call) mind, the mental processes, as a compass. If you're getting out clear enough to formulate or make a mental construct of the evolutionary course, the evolutionary process, use these mental reasons by all means to formulate the course - period. That's all they can do. They can't take you on the course. There's a power plant, the Power-to-be-conscious in the intrinsic Self, in the intrinsic nature, that is the power plant and drive that carries one on the evolutionary course. As we're going to see pretty soon from the Mind level, it's the drive, the power, that we label the Christos. The power that we label the Christos, relative to functioning in the psychic nature on the mental level, is the power plant which will drive the ship. But that power plant will drive it willynilly all over the ocean if you don't have a compass or some other apparatus that will give you your bearings. Utilize your mental processes to take your bearings - period. Now I say period because that's its extreme limit in which it can function. The creative force, the drive force, the power plant, will carry you on the course of the evolutionary process, not by thought, not by election, but by grace. I love to introduce the Scriptures so we can understand them because it's all there if you know how to read them. Now, instead of that Christos power or the Power-to-beconscious, the creative urge, use the word grace and we'll understand "who by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature." Thought can't accomplish anything except manufacture reasons and justifications until perception has cleared and you can formulate a mental concept similar to a map that is true to territory. Now have we it on its proper level? Now another question: After placing the mental on its proper level can we keep it there on that level? Now watch it. It wants to run the works, it wants to be boss and you've got to check it and check it and discipline it to keep it in its place. Keep it on its own level where it belongs. Don't let it get out of that level. Thought is a marvelous servant but it's a terrible master because it can drive you ragged. It's a terrible master if you let it get the upper hand but it's a marvelous instrument, servant, if you develop it and keep it in its place, on its level. It is extremely essential to keep the mental on its level, to "Know Thyself" without being led astray. Now, one more observation. Allegorically speaking, the mental, the development of the cortex, the mental functions, are the serpent that entered the Garden of Eden and caused the dwellers in the Garden to be cast out. Cast your mind back in imagination before any cortex was developed. We were ruled by instincts, creative forces in the psychic nature, by `invisible forces' (for there's operation of forces in the psychic nature which have extensive sagacity way beyond cortical understanding, cortical development). Were we led by that more extensive sagacity of the instincts? We're still largely led by them now if we will let them. That is, if you don't reason yourself out of it or allow somebody else's mentalizations to reason you out of it you can be led by the instincts. You're led to the right thing at the right time, or the right thing is brought to you at

the right time. There's a sort of magnetic force (it can become electric) where the potential energy is converted into kinetic; that is, the magnetism is converted into electric force. But it's a magnetic force by which the instincts operate, the consciousness in the psychic nature before the cortex is developed. There's a magnetic force by which and in which it functions. That magnetic field in which it functions is much more extensive and comprehensive in its awareness, in its sagacity, that the cortex even after it's developed. If you will allow it to work it will lead you unerringly to the right thing at the right time. A number of years ago there were experimental psychologists that labeled it the power of the unconscious mend. I'm calling it a magnetic field by which the forces operate in the psychic nature or the content of the unconscious. They labeled it the sub-conscious mind and sort of developed an apotheosis of the sub-conscious mind. I never heard any of them set up a referent, a description of their symbol, label. I never heard any of them set it up but they always refer to the sub-conscious mind. It simply means the way a relatively purified psychic nature functioned before the cortex developed. There wasn't any fear, worry, or apprehension. There was a great deal of faith, peace, and confidence. One just lived without analyzing. Let us call that predevelopment era the Garden of Eden, since it's a lover phase of the Garden of Aarru which we come into again on a higher level of the psychic nature (and which we will describe later on). But now let us call that instinctual way of functioning the Garden. Now out of that thalamic functioning the cortex developed, and began to demand reasons for one's actions. That developed a great conflict between man and woman because a woman continued to function according to the instinctual level while the man had to go out and forage for food and of necessity develop his cortex. He had to objectify and thingify his experiences on the objective level. Thingifying experiences developed what we call the cortex. Then he would ask the little woman who had to stay back in the cave for biological and psychological reasons, "Well, why" Give me a reason, just give me a reason, thingify it for me." She would reply, "Because, just because that's the way it is." But he continues and pursues his rationalizing. Now, without exception, some day he comes home whipped. He says, "Little woman, how did you know it wouldn't work out that way?" Well, she said, "I didn't know< I just knew," or, "Because." I'm dramatizing this a little bit, and I want to call it metaphorically the Garden. The serpent that entered the Garden is the mental reasons and justifications for everything and anything. Watch until the mental can be kept on its level, in its place, and formulate the constructs for what is perceived by a higher factor, which we will come to in due course.

t functions is much more extensive and comprehensive in its awareness, in its sagacity, that the cortex even after it's deve___ __

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PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 6 We are continuing a description of the practice of the way. We could also phrase that a description of the practice of treading the path to self-realization. We have been a number of years developing the teachings as given in the School of the Natural Order. I consider that it is done and now we are going back over that teaching and bringing it into application to daily problems, to anything with which we wish to deal or cope with. In other words we are now on the pragmatic level. We begin this lesson with the Socratic adage, Know thyself. When the work of Aristotle was revived, brought to light again during the Renaissance, approximately in the middle of the thirteenth century and I would date it with Roger Bacon, about 1246, Aristotle was worshipped beyond imagination. Even in recent times (and in the lives of some of us who can remember) when sunspots were discovered a professor of one of our great universities stood up before his class and said, I have read Aristotle four times and studied him diligently. Aristotle never mentioned a sunspot; therefore, there are no sunspots. See how great was the effect of Aristotle upon our occidental culture? He was the Bible of occidental thought. He believed that this world was static and surrounded by nine spheres. The ninth sphere was the abode of Theos (God) and ever since people have been looking up there in the skies. Aristotle pointed up there in the skies, to the ninth sphere, the ninth ring, to a God in the skies. So impressive, so great, has been the suggestion given by Aristotle that this world is a creation, a static, objective 'thing', that man has been searching for a creator extraneous to the world, something that is the author of it, some intelligence, etc. We must counteract that influence, that aristotelian influence, and it is a strenuous effort. In Spokane, Washington, a number of years ago, I had an orthodox minister that took a course of lessons in one of my classes and after the class was all over he said, When I pray, in spite of everything I can do, I think out and up there. I think Hes up there. So powerful is this suggestion registered upon the race psyche, that almost in spite of everything you can do youre going to look out, extraneous to yourself or to the objective appearance of this dynamic universe. So we must begin to Know thyself, to practice self-realization. To practice treading the path we must begin to abjure every tendency to look outside. (Whenever a word is put in single quotes, it simply means that this is a symbol which has no referent; you cannot find anything which it symbolizes.) There is no such thing as an outside except relative to your state or any given state. You might have an objective state, then, relative to that objective state, you might think outside. But absolutely speaking, that is, non-relative to any state of consciousness, theres no such thing as outside and there is no such thing as inside. They are dual words like hot and cold, far and near, high and low, etc. A block of ice is cold to anyone except a scientist. To anyone that affirms or dogmatizes that a block of ice is cold, a scientist would say, A block of ice is a roaring furnace relative to liquid air because a block of ice is as hot to liquid air as molten tin is to ice. Outside of that relativity there is no outside, so one has to resist the tendency to look outside. Outside has meaning within the frame of reference of the apparent distance between two or more objects. I should say the apparent distance between two or more apparent objects, because the object is an image in the consciousness abstracted from the dynamic process. So the apparent distance between two or more images in the consciousness is outside. That is the frame that gives meaning to the word outside. As we are going to see pretty soon when we talk about the levels upon which we function, this objective state is merely a mental concept abstracted from apparent distance between two or more objects. Imagination is a wonderful thing if you employ it properly. In imagination cast yourself out beyond a point of reference where you cannot see or experience sun, moon, stars, planets. There try to conceive of space, and you will find it is non-existent because you dont have points of reference. The relative or apparent distance between two or more objects (points of reference) creates in the consciousness a concept which we label space. In reality, theres no outside; thats why we put it in

single quotes. Space is a concept abstracted from images appearing substantive in the psychic nature. We have to resist the tendency to look outside because there is no outside, there is no space other that the concept abstracted from apparent distance between two or more objects. Pardon me for reiterating, but this is teaching and not preaching. I give a point and reiterate it, and reiterate it, drill and drill, until you cant help but register it. That is why we call this a school, not a church. When we have overcome all tendency to look outside in the process of treading the path and knowing ourselves we have the self to consider, which seems to be a mystery until we begin to understand its structure. It is highly complex, not simple, and we reduce its vast multiplicity of complexities to four divisions which we call levels upon which a given person functions. A given person, meaning each one of us, is conscious upon four levels sometimes simultaneously. I stand before you, I speak. The enunciation of the sound, the forming and giving forth of sound waves which you register we label the objective level, but look at what goes on behind. In the organization and marshaling of adequate force, meaning the mental level, and then beyond that, there is a great deal of devotional concern for what is said. There is sort of a sustaining force that enables me to say this. But that isnt all, for there is the perceptive insight or understanding, and there is the Power-to-be-conscious which sustains the whole. Simultaneously a given person functions on more than one level. One of the most important points in treading the path is to prevent confusion in meanings, in directions, in what to do and what not to do, and it pivots upon keeping those levels upon which you function sharply differentiated. Unending confusion and a definite semantic blockage to proper understanding results when two or more levels become identified with one level. Let me illustrate what I have in mind about the identification of all levels with one level. When you look upon a given person perhaps you mentally evaluate them according to the objective appearance, the objective level. Whether you label that objective level physical body or the humanized animal. or whatever other label you give. Unending confusion will result when you try to evaluate that person upon that one level, or when you identify all levels upon which that person functions with that level. This also occurs when you try to seek the cause for his emotional motivation by something that he experiences, or something he ate, or something he contracted like viruses and what have you. One seeks objectively for a reason by which he is motivated, yet he may be motivated by an entirely different set or frame or category of forces, energies, that has nothing whatever to do with anything in his objective world. Here is where the psychoanalysts and psychiatrists get so far off the beam that they themselves are in despair of ever understanding the content of what they call the unconscious. See the confusion in understanding due to and stemming from identification of all levels with one level? We, in our training at the School of the Natural Order, endeavor to remember the four levels upon which a given person functions. These four levels are the mental, frequency registration, the psychic nature and the Noetic Mind. Let us in a thumbnail sketch describe each of these four levels. Take the mental first. We in this School endeavor to reserve the word Mind to represent that state of consciousness, which is clear, Ardath (which means clear and free from feeling, emotional thinking). We endeavor to keep the state, level, which the word mental symbolizes separate and distinct from Mind, although in common usage one will say, my mind this, or my mind that, or it affects my mind, etc., when they mean their mental processes. Relative to the teaching as given in this School, mental functions pertain to the highest level of the psychic nature. There is one thought that I must give you at this moment that gives me a great deal of patience, and my other word for patience is understanding. If you have understanding it means patience. When you get impatient, it means you dont understand all of the elements and factors in a given context of situation. You get impatient with this or that, or with a child, or another person; you get impatient with them simply because you do not understand all of the factors which are motivating them. The greater the understanding the more patience. To teach the higher level work requires a great deal of patience. Here is the factor that gives me that patience: the completion of the individualizing process (the end that of which we call the evolutionary process) is characterized, among other things, by the use of the mental processes to adequately create mental constructs true and perfect to the structure-function-order of the

cosmic process. Ill say that again. The end of what we call the evolutionary process will be characterized by the use of the mental functions to formulate mental constructs perfect and true to the natural order of the cosmic process. Thats another way of saying we will formulate a map true to territory. When your mental construct, the road map of a journey you are going to take, is true to territory you will have very little trouble whatever in traversing that territory. That formulation of mental constructs is not just to describe the cosmic process or any phase of it. It is also the regulator for conduct and deportment. Forming a mental construct true to territory (and I quickly must say that the referent for the word truth is the structure-function-order of the cosmic process), true to the natural order process, gives one a clear course to follow, an outline for his conduct, for his deportment, for his regulation relative to necessity. For instance, so long as we are incarnated in a state which we label this living matter configuration theres a great deal of necessity imposed upon us to feed it, clothe it, give it a roof over its head, etc. Even though those are reduced to bare necessities of living, the mental can create and afford the clearest, finest functional way of doing it. If we were mystics instead of scientists (if you will allow me to say it) we would say our thoughts are regulated by guidance. We are guided by the invisible world or divine intelligence. But not being mystics, we say that our mental processes are determined by the state of development on a relatively higher level that the mental by the state in which the Power-to-be-conscious, which is my true Self, is conscious. That is that by which we are guided. Permit me to reiterate one point. The ultimate objective of the evolutionary process will be characterized, among other things, by the mental processes formulating mental constructs true to the natural order, or the cosmic process. Here is the point that gives me a great deal of patience. When I review the stage or state of the evolutionary process to its present generalized level in a global concept, (trying to strike an average of the state of evolution of the humanity on this planet) and reviewing the state or stage it has reached in the whole process, we find that it is between one quarter and halfway through the total process. Yet it has required between two and a half and three million years to achieve a little better than a fourth of the way through the process. Let me say this in clear aristotelian language. Since man appeared on this planet, about two and a half million years ago, he differentiated from the animal level of evolution, he has achieved a little better than one quarter of the fulfillment of the whole evolutionary process. You can prove this for yourself if you will study that long enough. It takes a lot of geology, anthropology, sociology, and particularly embryology. They are tracing the chromosomes and the formation and the configuration of the genes within the chromosomes back, back, back. They have empirically established that there was a common stock that branched out all over the planet, and they can very accurately evaluate the time factor relative to our sidereal concept of time. The time was arrived at mostly by dating the radioactive dating of the carbon residue of former and ancient civilizations. The physiologists have arrived at a very similar figure to the archaeologists through the tracing of the chromosomes back to the common stock. Thats quite an absorbing study; its one that has fascinated me for years. Out of all that, they have concluded that man arrived on this planet about two million five hundred thousand years ago. Relative to the completion of the individualizing process, we are a quarter of the way through, That is, we are just taking off our diapers and getting into the adolescent stage. Were tooting our horns, beating our drums, creating a lot of noise. It will do you lotd of good if you will study that long enough to get it in your consciousness, because you will then be very patient and understanding with yourself and with others. Dont expect too much. The main point of all this is that each one of us should keep abreast with the point in the evolutionary process that is possible to us, that is within the evolutionary range of our possibility. Dont fall back, dont allow the atavistic forces to pull you down and back. Keep up with yourself until it becomes habitual to maintain your evolutionary status without falling back. That is quite a little job too! At our present evolutionary state the mental aptitudes and faculties, insofar as they are developed relative to the evolutionary status, are not used to formulate mental constructs of the natural order process. The mental aptitudes and faculties are employed in manufacturing reasons, explanations, justifications, alibis, for motivating forces in the unconscious.

Generally speaking, one is motivated by forces which are unconscious to him, but the cortical functions get busy with lightning-like rapidity manufacturing excuses, alibis, etc. Sometimes I think of those cortical functions, mental processes, as a clever little urchin. On a downtown street on the east side of New York City, the peddler comes along with his cart loaded with bananas, apples, and pears. A little urchin darts around the corner, gets an apple and is gone. I often think of the mental processes in that way, for they are that fast. They will manufacture an excuse or an alibi and give a reason, the most plausible one of course, before you can detect it, and will do it so fast that you fall for it. Thats why I did it. But what is behind that reason? The motivating forces in the psychic nature, which the aristotelians call the unconscious, are active and clamoring all the time for their form of expression. The forces in the unconscious, or the content of the psychic nature is another way of saying it, even quarrel and fight among themselves. We call it the individualism of the instincts. As the instincts are individualizing they quarrel and fight among themselves. Have you ever felt torn to pieces? Have you ever felt at sixes and sevens? Have you ever felt you didnt know what to do or think or which way to go? Have you gone to bed at night and started thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and wake up in the morning after no sleep but just worn out? This is the individualism of the instincts. These are the forces in the psychic nature which, without exception, you have reflected, generally from rapports, or the race psyche, or somebodys suggestion, or a suggestion that you have read or picked up by reflection, emulation, and imitation. These are the forces operating in the psychic nature (the unconscious) which the mental processes are justifying and attempting to explain. Thus far in our thumbnail description of the mental level of the four levels upon which we function we can make an observation. I know that the explanation is not adequate because during the three years in which this teaching has been delivered here in this classroom we have described the mental level of the psychic nature and its functions so exhaustively,, that now were sort of gathering up all the past teachings and condensing them into a way to evaluate them in the practice of treading the path. This observation is applicable in practice, and can be considered another precept. Bring forth, dig up and disregard whatever reasons, justifications, excuses, or alibis the cortex functions or mentalizes with. Try this if you are sufficiently acquainted with another person such as a wife, husband, child, or someone you can take liberties with (because you wouldnt take liberties with a stranger while going through the amenities of being polite) when they are bringing out their mental reasons, justifications. Just be patient. Dont answer a one of their reasons because they are endless. If you could logically destroy all of the reasons that are brought out, they will keep on manufacturing, and manufacturing, and manufacturing ad infinitum. There is no limit. Ten thousands other ones will be dug up until you will be busy just answering each one and you wont do anything else. So dont start to answer any of them. Just wait until the loved one, the familiar one, is through and then quietly say, Whats the real lowdown? That was your excuse, your alibi, your reason, now what is the real lowdown? (Meaning of course, by what are you motivated) Where did you pick up that motivating influence? With whom have you been en rapport? Where were you last night? What have you brought home? What contact have you made? What have you been reading? Where did you get the suggestion? How did that force become lodged in your psychic nature, your unconscious? To tread the path you must categorically disregard these mental reasons, justifications, excuses, alibis. Save yourself a lot of value giving and reacting. Save yourself a lot of energy trying to make it plain, trying to justify, trying to explain it away in another. Save yourself endless trouble by just asking, Now whats the real lowdown? Do that until the individual has reached the point of development when he can employ the mental processes to formulate clear pictures, clear descriptions, clear constructs of the structure-function-order of the cosmic process itself. Then listen very attentively because the mental functions, operations, then have great value. I can conclude this discussion about the mental level with a Scriptural quotation: Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Matthew 6:27 None! Development is done another way, not by mentalizing. Another observation: constantly check upon yourself in knowing the Self through treading the path that you do not mistake your mental constructs for the journey, for growth, development, expansion,

realization. The clearest and finest mental construct remains a mental construct, remains a roadmap, remains a blueprint. You havent taken the journey or built the building, you have at best only a roadmap. Now, I keep reiterating that to the students of the School because in the course of my various experiences, in the course of my ministry in truth, I have come across cults, groups, schools, that have worked out a mental jargon. They can just rattle it off mentally and they think they have attainment. I look upon them as how they have gotten sidetracked in mistaking their mental jargon, their mentalized constructs, for understanding, development and realization. I want to double check, cross check, and then go back again to make sure that we in this School do not mistake mentalizations, mental constructs, and the jargon, the verbalism that goes with it, that goes with them for understanding. Theres no understanding in them. While that is said (see? its a thumbnail sketch because we cant add all the factors fast enough) dont isolate it and quote it out of context. While that is said we must add quickly that the mental constructs, that is, the mental reasons, mental functions, mental justifications, can serve development as the compass of a ship can indicate the course the ship should pursue or proceed on to reach the objective, to reach port. But the compass cannot drive the ship; the compass is not the power plant. Way down in the bowels of the ship is the power plant that drives the ship. One can use the (what you call) mind, the mental processes, as a compass. If youre getting out clear enough to formulate or make a mental construct of the evolutionary course, the evolutionary process, use these mental reasons by all means to formulate the courseperiod. Thats all they can do. They cant take you on the course. There is a power plant, the Power-to-be-conscious in the intrinsic Self, in the intrinsic nature, that is the power plant. That is the drive that carries one on the evolutionary course. It is the drive, the power from the Mind level, that we label the Christos. The power that we label the Christos, relative to functioning in the psychic nature on the mental level, is the power plant which will drive the ship. But that power plant will drive it willy-nilly all over the ocean if you dont have a compass or some other apparatus that will give you your bearings. Utilize your mental processes to take your bearingsperiod. I say period because thats the extreme limit in which it can function. The creative force, the drive force, the power plant, will carry you on your course of the evolutionary process, not by thought, not by election, but by grace. I love to introduce the Scriptures so we can understand them because its all there if you know how to read them. Now, instead of that Christos power or the Power-to-be-conscious, the creative urge, use the word grace and we will understand Who by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Thought cannot accomplish anything except manufacture reasons and justifications, until perception has cleared and you can formulate a mental concept similar to a map that is true to territory. Now we have placed it on its proper level. After placing the mental on its proper level can we keep it there on that level? Now watch it, because it wants to run the works, it wants to be boss. You must check it and discipline it to keep it in its place. Keep it on its own level where it belongs. Do not let it get out of that level. Thought is a marvelous servant but it is a terrible master because it can drive you ragged. It is a terrible master if you let it get the upper hand but it is a marvelous instrument, servant, if you develop it and keep it in its place, on its level. It is extremely essential to keep the mental on its level, to Know thyself without being led astray. Let me make one more observation. Allegorically speaking, the mental, the development of the cortex, the mental functions, are the serpent that entered the Garden of Eden and caused the dwellers in the Garden to be cast out. I am speaking in allegorical language. Cast your mind back in imagination before any cortex was developed. We were ruled by instincts, creative forces in the psychic nature, invisible forces. (There are forces operating in the psychic nature which have extensive sagacity way beyond cortical development. We were led by that more extensive sagacity of the instincts. We are still largely led by them now if we will let them. That is, if you dont reason yourself out of it or allow somebody elses mentalizations to reason you out of it you can be led by the instincts. You are led to the right thing at the right time, or the right thing is brought to you at the right time. There is a sort of magnetic forceit can become electricwhere the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. That is, the magnetism is converted into electric force. But it is a magnetic force by which the instincts operate, the consciousness in the psychic nature before the cortex is developed. There is a magnetic force by

which and in which it functions that is much more extensive and comprehensive in its awareness, in its sagacity, that the cortex even after it is developed. If you will allow it to work it will lead you unerringly to the right thing at the right time. A number of years ago there were experimental psychologists that labeled it the power of the unconscious mind. I am calling it a magnetic field by which the forces operate in the psychic nature or the content of the unconscious. They labeled it the sub-conscious mind and sort of developed an apotheosis of the sub-conscious mind. I never heard any of them set up a referent, a description of their symbol, label. I never heard any of them set it up but they always refer to the sub-conscious mind. It simply means the way a relatively purified psychic nature functioned before the cortex developed. There wasnt any fear, worry, or apprehension. There was a great deal of faith, peace, and confidence. One just lived without analyzing. Let us call that pre-development era the Garden of Eden, since its a lower phase of the Garden of Aarru which we come into again on a higher level of the psychic nature (and which we will describe later on). But now let us call that instinctual way of functioning the Garden. Out of that thalamic functioning the cortex developed and began to demand reasons for ones actions. That developed a great conflict between man and woman because a woman continued to function according to the instinctual level while the man had to go out and forage for food and of necessity develop his cortex. He had to objectify and thingify his experiences on the objective level. Thingifying experiences developed what we call the cortex. Then he would ask the little woman who had to stay back in the cave for biological and psychological reasons, Well, why? Give me a reason, just give me a reason, thingify it for me. She would reply, Because, just because thats the way it is. But he continues and pursues his rationalizing. Without exception, some day he comes home whipped. He says, Little woman, how did you know it wouldnt work out that way? Well, she said, I didnt know. I just knew, or, Because. Im dramatizing this a little bit, and I want to call it metaphorically the Garden. The serpent that entered the Garden is the mental reasons and justifications for everything and anything. Later the mental can be kept on its level, in its place, and used to formulate the constructs for what is perceived by a higher factor, which we will come to in due course.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 7 Owing to the fact that this is a school, we reiterate a great deal. This reiteration is not for your conceptual understanding, because in our work we are not content with conceptual understanding. We strive to make the life facts, the fundamental principles of the teachings, consciously functional. Therefore, let us review points discussed in the last lesson. We had reached the point of sharply differentiating between the four levels upon which a person functions: the mental, frequency registration, psychic nature and Noetic Mind level. We should have single quoted the word levels because it means the states in which a given person is conscious; states of consciousness would be the correct nonaristotelian language, and it is a concession to the objective mental construct situation to use the word levels. Mentally keep the word levels in single quotes. For those of you who are not conversant with our system of using words, single quotes mean that there is no referent for the word; that is, there is nothing in reality, in truth, in life facts, which the word symbolizes. We must mentally translate the word levels into a state in which a given person is conscious, at a given date, because his consciousness will change. The state that he is in one day will not be the state he is in at a different day or date, so we always have to add the date to sharply designate the stage in process of expanding consciousness at which a given state would be representative. So much for the word levels. We have reached the point in sharply differentiating the levels upon which a given person functions, and we have previously covered the description of the mental level. With this lesson we move on to the description of the next levelfrequency registration. But before we take up this next level let us briefly review the salient points contained in the description of the mental level. Let us place the mental level. We divide the psychic nature into three sub-levels: feeling, desiring and mentalizing. All feelings reside in the psyche. You cannot feel a thing with your neural sense faculties alone because they are merely instruments through which energy in the form of waves and frequencies reaches consciousness in the psychic nature. Cut off the neural registration and leave everything else intact and you will feel nothing. We are familiar with a variety of ways that is done. Local or total anesthesia temporarily puts in abeyance some functions of the neural faculties. Doctors can then operate on you and you feel nothing. Those who have practiced withdrawing their consciousness from one sense faculty and focusing on another, or on something else, can do the same thing with themselvesthe non-registry of frequencies through a given instrument, a given sense faculty. That takes a high degree of concentration, like the yogis who can walk on fire and not burn. Sometimes during the years in which I was associated with the members of the Society for Psychical Research they were investigating supersensuous (not supernatural) phenomena and we witnessed demonstrations similar to walking on fire. Do you remember the old-fashioned coal oil lamps with the round wick? One of these lamps was lit and the flame turned up so that the glass chimney over the flame became ashen white looking. That glass was red hot but it didnt show red on glass. The psychic under investigation lifted the lamp chimney off, held it in her hand and walked around with it in her hand. One of the witnesses sitting on the aisle said, Huh! That isnt hot or you couldnt hold it. She replied, Would you like to hold it? Yes, he said. She rolled it off on his hand. It took all the skin right off with it as it dropped to the floor. It just peeled his hand as he dropped the hot glass. Her hand was examined, scraped, and put under chemical analysis before and after, because psychical research investigators are extremely particular to see there is no fraud. Nothing was on her hand before or after. That is comparable to walking on fire. How is that done? You can do it. Anyone right here can do it provided that you will set aside every hour of the day for concentration except when you have to eat and sleep and maybe catnap a little for a period of between twenty-one and thirty years. You will then be able to hold one idea separate from all other ideas steadily for 3-1/2 minutes. According to how much force you put into the concentration, you can hold one idea isolated and independent of any other for 3-1/2 minutes if you will practice it for a

period of between twenty-one and thirty years. Now of course there are very few that will pay that price. But it is indicative of what will be developed gradually in the evolutionary process for the whole race, not in twenty-one to thirty years, but in about 700,000 years. In about 700,000 years, just going on the way we are, striving of course to improve ourselves all the time, we will all reach that point where the Will will be like the prime minister of a kingdom who puts every function under his control. There is no use to try that, but it is interesting to study it. In a variety of ways that you can mentally remember, the neural faculties can be put into abeyance and you cannot feel with the body. The body is insensible, but everything is intact. Just the connection with the psychic nature has been temporarily arrested. Feelings begin with sensations. That is, out of sensations feelings are developed, and out of feelings desires are developed, because long ago in the infancy of the animalized humanity, and even down to the animal level, we all learned to respond to that which gives pleasurable feelings and to avoid that which was not pleasurable. We incorporate into the evolutionary process that which we call the pleasure-pain motive. We say that desires are born out of that which gives pleasure and that the desire force resides in the psychic nature. Then the mentations proceed, for we have learned to mentalize about feelings and desires. Then we learn to mentalize about everything else. Below the psychic nature, in the early formative period of the psychic nature, are the instincts; and as we shall see as we proceed, above the psychic nature lies the Noetic Mind level. Now we come to the different levels upon which a given person functionsthe mentations, ratiocinations, mentalizations, cortical functions, etc., which are largely abstracted from (or drawn from) the intrinsic development of the psychic nature and constitute a private world. When you live in the values that you give to this and that, when you live in information about this and that, you are living in the mental department abstracted from the basic functional department of the structure of a given person or yourself. If you listen carefully you will notice that I said mentations, mentalizations, cortical functions, etc., are largely abstracted. That was an allowance which enables us to place the mental functions within the province of the psychic nature itself and not in the private world. You may call this hairsplitting, but I have discovered through the years of my study and concentration upon this one subjectself developmentthat these subtleties in thinking, these so-called hairsplittings, are most important in the ultimate understanding of the whole evolutionary process as the individual is integrated therein. In other words, relative to a given person, these subtleties have far-reaching consequences and effects. As I have said earlier, there is an ultimate purpose for the development of the intellectual understanding, intellectual functions, rationalizations, cortical functions. There is an evolutionary purpose, a cosmic purpose, for the development of it.I want to establish that purpose so that I can utilize the ultimate purpose in order to show that part of the mental, cortical, development and function which pertains to the psychic nature and does not pertain to the private world. So hold onto the essential thesis. Hold that essential structural background against which we are describing specific detail. The ultimate purpose of the mental development is so that it can be utilized as a most valuable instrument for the Power-to-be-conscious which is conscious to function in what is now called the objective world. That will be called the configurational world when the mental processes are completely developed. We will no longer call any given this a creation. No this or that will no longer be called a thing or an object. We will call it a configurational representation of the state in which a given person is conscious at a given date. That is the way we will talk then, because we will understand the world as a dynamic processnot a thing, not an object, not creation. We might step down to the configurational level and say that it is a creating process, but when we stand on a higher level we will say it is a representation of a dynamic changing state in which I am conscious. The I Am, which is my true Self, is the Power with which I am conscious of my world. What other power are you conscious of whenever you are conscious? Dont gaze or look, but see; become acquainted with the Power with which you are conscious. And of course the next step is to watch the quality of your consciousness; that is, the quality of that of which you are conscious.

Polarize your consciousness to that which you want to feel, to experience, to be, to become. Just keep polarizing your consciousness to that which you want. Nothing in this world can stop it. You will get it. Nothing can stop it except failing to keep focused, failing to keep polarized, because the creating power of the whole universe is behind the Power with which you are conscious. But you elect the quality. Go back to the lessons I gave on filling the gap between the lower unfinished pyramid and the capstone. It is by electing the quality that we fill the gap until the capstone, the Self, the All-Seeing Eye, rests on the whole finished pyramid. Indeed, that is the reverse side of the seal of our great country. Against that finished development of the higher levels there is the Garden of Aaru, the Garden of Eden in which we will learn to live some day when we retrieve ourselves from being cast out. Keep in mind that the ultimate purpose for the synthesis of the neural functions is to become a wonderful instrument for the Power with which one is conscious in order that he can adequately, understandingly, and rationally function in the objective world or in the configurational level of the whole in which he is integrated. I wish I had the opportunity now to show the far-reaching consequences of what I have just said. I will touch on it and let your intuition fill in the points which I do not have the opportunity to supply without going too far afield from this thesis. Now you supply it. In that teleos, those ultimately perfected phases of the evolutionary process, the power and the glory of the Light Spheres must be brought to earth; the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to earth. Reverse that statement also, for you cannot run away from the world to try to get into a higher state or a higher level. Work, work to transform yourself here-now because there is nothing else but the here-now. When we consider the past, it is in the here-now that we consider it. When we contemplate the future, it is here-now that we contemplate the future. We can only live here-now until its all here-now to our consciousness. When its all here-now to our consciousness there is a tremendous metamorphosis; a transfigurational process has taken place. The lower waves and frequencies have been heightened to higher waves and frequencies. Now, bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth is the ultimate objective, and that represents a process of transfiguration of the state in which you are now conscious. To bring the Kingdom of Heaven to the earth is the transformation of the earth into Light. Nothing is so valuable in accomplishing that as a clear, highly developed, and keen functioning on the mental level, but in the meantime, during the process of transfiguration from the gross to the fine, from mattergy to lightergy, the mental operates as a stabilizing factor in the becoming process, in becoming conscious of Be-ing. Watch a mystic or an emotionally based person. (An emotionally based person functions just like a mystic. The mystic is just more so.) Either can soar, and soar, and soar until he cant soar any more, way up there, and then something happens, and his light goes out and he falls like a stick on a Fourth of July rocket. Bang! He hits the earth. And then he is bruised, melancholy, sad, sorrowful, and wants to eat wooly worms or commit suicide or get away from it all. Now the emotionally based or mystical person is up, way up; then down, way down; and he continually alternates. But as you develop the mental functions and processes you hold your gains; your fluctuations become less and less. That up and down curve begins to level off, and by and by it becomes a straight line. That is how you hold your even keel. What makes that even keel? The mental, the rational processes; and as you raise your forces you keep your grip. Oh, you might slip, but you know why you slip. You give a treatment to someone who is in need and you know why they received the treatment. To another you give a treatment with no effect, no results. The mystic does not know why there are no results. With mental development, you know why. When you try to put over something that is creative, constructive, and it works, you know why it workedprovided your mental is developed. An emotionally based person never knows why about anything and if he is a failure in a given point, a given circumstance, a given creative effort, or a healing, hes a failure. With mental development you can analyze right down to the minute factors involved. The mental functions, relative to the whole evolutionary process, operate like a compass of a ship. They indicate the course but cannot take you on the course like the power plant way down in the ship, the Power-to-be-conscious. But the mentalization can indicate the course and you can stay on it. It is also a stabilizer in the same way the governor of the engine prevents it from running away. It maintains an even rhythm. It also holds your gains so you dont fluctuate up and down. Those factors, relative to the development of the mental processes in the psychic nature, constitute its genuineness and evolutionary

purpose in addition to the great instrument it will be in the hands of the Power-to-be-conscious at the completion of the evolutionary process in consciousness of Be-ing. Now, put all of what I have just said in a pigeonhole while I establish another pigeonhole because the mental also, while doing all that in relation to the evolutionary process, is like a spoiled brat. It gets out of bounds. It does not fulfill the evolutionary process or the ultimate purpose. So now let us consider another pigeonhole and stick some factors into it and call it the out-ofbounds pigeonhole. You know, when we learn the whole structure of our respective selves thoroughly inside and out so that we are never at a loss about anything that affects us of which we are conscious, or comes into our life, we are not at a loss to pinpoint anything. Now that means to understand the structure of our respective selves. And when we understand the structure of our respective selves, we then will feel like putting up signs and boundary lines. A certain territory is now out of bounds to privates. Only officers can enter over there; that is, the higher developed ones, or the officers, can go over that line, can even descend into the depths of hell. For the strong ones, the master, the officer, it is not out of bounds. They can go over there and not be affected. They can wash clean in dirty water and not affect themselves, but if the private gets over there and tries to wash in dirty water he comes out all globbed up with mud. He is too identified, he has too much affinity left, etc. By the way, that has been a moot point with some as to how much they can descend without setting an example so that others think they can descendand ouch! Why, he says, So and so did it and so can I. Try it! Go down in hell and you might have a hell of a time getting out. See? But the higher one is not out of bounds. Let us draw that line of demarcation where the mental process gets out of bounds and becomes, symbolically speaking, the serpent that entered the garden and caused the androgyny, Yod-Hove, meaning Adam-Eve, to be cast out of the garden. TheReal Self on the Mind level is androgynousfifty percent positive and fifty percent negativeAdam-Kadmon is another label. When the mental begins to develop, it accentuates the egoism. Watch the words carefully. Not egotism, for egotism is a label symbolizing ignorance. The more ignorant any person is, the more egotistical because that egotism is a camouflage for intrinsic vacuity. Egotism is a defense mechanism to cover up a lack. They never fool anybody but themselves. But egotism is the quality of consciousness of becoming self-centered, a little self, a personal self, or the self that means the person, persona, the mask that we put on in the drama of life. As the mental processes develop, particularly in the early stages, the mental processes accentuate ego centralization, egocentrism, egotism, not ego ism. I am just dealing with words for a moment, but I dont like to use words unless you understand them. That over-accentuation of the personality, that over-accentuation of the ego, is part of the evolutionary process. One must over-accentuate it in order to develop it. Many try to surrender, renounce, before they have anything to surrender. One must develop that personal sense, that egoic sense, that I am I sense which has to be developed before it can be surrendered. We witness many trying to surrender it before they have developed it, but they havent anything to surrender yet. However, in that evolutionary process in the early stages of developing thinking, mentation, mentalization, the I-am-Iness (egotism) is over-accentuated and the ego begins to set itself up independent of the cosmic process, independent of the evolutionary process, independent of the race psyche in which that psychic nature is integrated. No man lives to himself alone. That means to say that every psychic nature is integrated in the race psyche and is made up of what it draws from relationships and contacts within the race psyche. So, functionally speaking, no personality, no psychic nature (personality is a word symbolizing the whole content of the psychic nature), lives separate and apart from the race psyche in which it is a differentiated center of consciousness within an oversoul. Try to remove yourself from all loved ones, all friends, all relationships with others, each one now representing a point of reference in the common oversoul or race psyche, and you will find it utterly impossible. You can take your carcass and enclose it in a hole and pull the hole in after you, but there are still all your feelings, vibrations, and radiations in contact with a variety of points of reference in the race psyche. Points of reference means a person, another person, a father, mother, uncle, aunt, teacher, lover, would-be lover, has-been lover, etc. This whole plethora of

contacts, relationships, integrate you in the race psyche and you could not possibly cut yourself off in any way, shape, or form. It is all operative in the here-now. It is all operative within you, and you can cast out and build in and cast out and build in, but you cannot cut yourself off, for no man lives to himself alone. As that sense of I am I, that sense of personality, that sense of personal importance, that egoism, grows and develops within that integration in the race psyche, the mental processes accompany, fortify, and intensify it. Every time you begin to think only for yourself exclusively you are out of bounds relative to the evolutionary process. In all of that thinking: Im going to start and develop a business. What for? Well, for profit, for me, nothing else but me. All right, go ahead. Do it. And by and by you will find yourself working for everybody else. You thought you were working for yourself to maintain that overhead, to meet that payroll every Saturday night. Then you find out you are working for everybody else but yourself. It was just your private world that thought you were doing it for yourself, but you didnt do it at all. Fall in love, get married, have children. Somebody says, What do you want to do all that for? For me, my husband, my wife, my watch chain, my watch fob, my cow, my horse, my wife. Thats the thing. You are getting out of bounds. Watch your children grow up and before they are adult youll find you didnt work for yourself at all. You got lost in the shuffle, and you worked for the house, for the family holding it together. You worked for the children, bringing them up, and where did that ego go? I am trying to show you the difference between what you think and life facts. You function in life facts but the way you think is vastly different. The way you think is your private world, the way you function is the real world. All right, there are your two pigeonholes briefly stated. There are the two functions of the mental processes. You have to learn to keep those separate, you must learn to sharply differentiate between the two. You have to learn to recognize that the mentalizing processes are like a tempter. They are trying to lead you away from integration with the whole, from the way you function, and from the way that you must function in spite of all your efforts not to function that way. So come on into the stream of consciousness. Come on into the creative force, and dont hold out and try to buck it, because you are bucking the way you function. You are not bucking the creative stream. You are not fighting the cosmic process, you are fighting the way you function which creates a terrific conflict within yourself which is called schizophrenia, neurosis, psychosis, etc. The conflict is set up by fighting some belief, some school, some church, some religion, or something others believe in and they dont want to have anything to do with it. And yet all of those may be representing a part of the function of the evolutionary process itself in which everyone is integrated, because even the one who fights it is still integrated in the process. So during the developmental phases of the mental processes of the psychic nature, they can be a temptation and lead you out of bounds. They can be an assistant and keep you in bounds and stabilize the points you are making in your grade in the evolutionary process. Then when they are developed we keep them on their own level as an instrument relative to that level because the mentalizations, the mental processes of the psychic nature never can know truth and reality. They can only reflect truth and reality, and formulate mental constructs of what they reflect. Anyone can formulate mental constructs in a private world that does not belong in any life facts, truth, or reality. I trust that I havent taken too much time on this review of the province of mental functions. Now we must move on. The next level which we must sharply differentiate from any other is labeled frequency registration. Frequency registration is the label that represents the first level removed from the private world, from the objective manifold of values. Frequency registration is the first level we break into when we discover the real world in which we are integrated. It represents a function of the lowest level of the real world. It is the first level that we break into out of the objective manifold of values, the private world. Let us say a person comes into a teaching such as this School of the Natural Order, one who has been raised under a culture that never directed any attention to self development, but always directed attention to something else outside, extraneous, like a belief in an outside creative power, an outside God, or something similar. When a person out of that background, whether he has accepted it or not, contacts a teaching like this in our School, he mentally rationalizes and says, Well, that sounds all right.

Then he begins to edge in and gets serious about it. He is not visiting and hes not flirting, hes going to practice it. Sometimes that takes a long time. We have students who have been in association with us for ten or twelve years and more, yet never practice it at all. They just treat it intellectually as something other that themselves. But thats all right. Some day they will begin to practice. We are not indicating the length of time before they will begin to practice but we know that sooner or later, as the cycles roll on, they will begin to practice. What is there to practice? Oh, lots of things! Turning to that all-creative power intrinsic within myself is wonderful practice. Meditate upon the Power-to-be-conscious. I may doubt everything in this world but I cannot doubt the power with which I doubt. Just meditate on that. Thats a practice and its very illuminating as you work yourself into it. You can doubt everything in this world. You can doubt there is a God, a creative power, everything or anything, but you cannot doubt the power with which you doubt. That is indubitable, axiomatic, self-evident. Then meditate on it. The Power with which I am conscious. The beginner just coming in had possible never thought about such a thing as a power with which I am conscious, and so he begins to think and meditate. That is practice, real practice. Then he discovers that nothing affects him, that its not what anybody says or does that affects him, it is the value he gives to it that affects him, and so he meditates on that and is quite illuminated when he makes that discovery: Oh! nothing in this world can touch me or affect me except the value I give to it! And if I dont give it any value, I can go and sing my song of freedom. That is a wonderful thing to meditate on, to practice. Then, out of these meditations and practices, something begins to stir, something that is in the force centers through which the Power-to-be-conscious functions. He begins to become highly interested to know what that is, whats going on, and so he meditates upon it, and breaks through into conscious frequency registration. He breaks through. Now he makes a marvelous discovery. Those frequencies have beat upon him all the time like they beat upon everyone and everything all the time, but he never knew it. He was so crystallized, and so cabined and confined, so ego-centralized in his own private world that he never knew this marvelous energy world with its waves and frequencies like ocean waves ceaselessly pounding the beach, while the little grains of sand on the beach, all indrawn within their respective selves, never know this. There are waves and waves and waves ceaselessly flowing upon us, in us, and through us all the time. Before that first awakening to frequency registration we are like a radio placed in this room with the so-called atmosphere, or etheric structure of this room, filled with wave after wave, band after band, level after level, of waves and frequencies; but the radio is not turned on and so never knows it. The radio is like the individual that first came to our Schoolunconscious of the vastness of the bands of waves and frequencies, ceaselessly, ceaselessly, ceaselessly and dynamically rolling, rolling, rolling. I can go further. The waves beat upon the sands of the shore of the ocean before it was an ocean, and long after the ocean shall cease to be, these waves will ceaselessly roll. Now lets get back to the radio. We turn it on and it registers the radio frequencies. Reach in where you have seven buttons. Turn a button on. It floods you until you have to learn how to handle yourself in relation to it, how to keep one from crowding out the others, etc. Consciously register the frequency which is now unconsciously motivating you. Every feeling that you have, every desire, every thought that you think is due to the frequency you have registered. But the egocentralized person cant accept that. Oh, he says, I know; it came to meit just came out of the blue and I became conscious of it. I originated it. I got it copyrighted. I originated the idea. There is no such thing in the life facts as origination. No such thing in life facts! It is like a vast country. No one in Europe before Eric the Red or Christopher Columbus ventured forth and found a new continent. This is just like the discovery of a new world, of a new continent; and now you must enter that world and explore it and learn it. Learn how to find your way around in it, learn to organize it, learn to sharply differentiate regarding the quality of the waves and frequencies. Learn to orient yourself to those waves and frequencies that motivate the feelings and desires and thoughts that you love and want. Learn to exclude from your aura all of those waves and frequencies that you do not want to feel, to desire, to think.

Just look at what has to be done when you break through into conscious frequency registration and discover that this whole world from atom to galaxy, including every person and every thing, is a representation of an ensemble of waves and frequencies. This world is a dynamic world of energy, light, in the form of waves and frequencies. That is the way you function. Now you have to make the discovery of the way you function. Take a simple example like a printed page entitled A Treatise on Faith. Do you know I have just demonstrated before you the fundamental principles of the electronic world, radar, and radio? Now let me briefly elaborate. I projected my consciousness and picked up waves and frequencies. I could not say, A Treatise on Faith, if it were not for the registration of light waves and frequencies with my eyes. It was due to the registration of light, waves, and frequencies that I became conscious of the symbols. Now I project the meaning to you and it bounces back like radar to me. A person who cannot get the meaning says, Its all Greek to me. He didnt project anything so he didnt get anything back. In this instance we could call the registry of waves-frequencies seeingmeaning what I projected I got backall the principles of radio, radar, electronics. The way you function is right there in the reading of a page. So we become conscious of the way we function, and that becoming conscious is what we call breaking through the objective manifold of values, the private world, to this world as it is in Truth, in Reality.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 8 In these lessons on the Practice of the Way we have reached the point where we are describing the psychic nature and the way it functions. Relative to the general or average state of development of the students in our School of the Natural Order, or with respect to our race psyche, this description of the content of the psychic nature and the way it functions is more important than any other point in the instruction as given in this School. Now handle that statement very carefully. This description is not more important relative to the whole comprehensive, synthetical grasp of the cosmic process; it is only important relative to our point of development. There is only one other point relative to the average and general state in the evolutionary process which we respectively represent and that will be taken up in our next work, the Noetic Mind. When we get through with this description of the psychic nature and the way it functions you will have the best foundation for the understanding of the psychoanalytical procedure and psychiatric practice possible for me to give. I need to qualify that statement a little bit. According to my understanding of the whole general setup of the psychological studies, modern psychology, and specifically psychoanalytical and psychiatric practice, this description will give you a better foundation, in my opinion, that the professional psychoanalysts and psychiatrists have attained. They work from the basis of the objective manifold of values and all of the activities and functions of the psychic nature which they call the content of the unconscious. They try to evaluate within the frame of reference of their objective or aristotelian manifold of values. That imposes upon them an insurmountable difficulty which causes the practitioners to have conflicts with one another within their fraternity. They are breaking up into as many branches of psychoanalytical and psychiatric practice as there are individuals in the practice, because they come across so many functional conditions in their patients which cannot be solved because of their adherence to the objective manifold of values. That also holds true in their general analyses of a race culture. I am going to give you a better basis for understanding the psychological processes than the average professional psychoanalyst or psychiatrist has ever been able to achieve. If you believe that statement is a little off-side or egotistical or braggadocio, please reserve your judgment until I am through with the description of the function of what we call the psychic nature. In entering upon the description of the content of the psychic nature and the way it operates and functions, there are a few generalized observations which are in order. The functional operation of the congeries of qualities which we might call entities, components of what we call the psychic nature, is that which we label personality, or a given person. This is the description of the referent for the label personality. The total functional operation of all the component parts of the psychic nature emerges in a pattern. That pattern, the synthesis of all the component parts of the psychic nature, is what is called personality. In the practice of the way, the treaders of the path accept that. I, as I am conscious of myself, the I as I am conscious of ego, the I-am-I sense, represents the personyourself. Now another generalization. You must place that person in relation to the total structure of his point in becoming in the individualizing process. The individualizing process operates on the Autonomous Field level. (Remember, mentally single quote the word level since its a state of consciousness.)The individualizing process operates on the Mind level that we sometimes speak of as the Autonomous Field. The degree to which differentiation has proceeded as an Autonomous Field represents what we call ones basic point of development. Your basic point of development determines the content of your psychic nature. One cannot build into his psychic nature any quality, entity, substance, which is not comparable to the state in which he is basically conscious of himself, his basic state of development. On extensional grounds we can say the same thing another way. A given person cannot resist building into his psychic nature qualities compatible to the state in which he is basically conscious of himself. That is so extensional that if you grasp the implications of it you will see that in the practice of

this teaching we never have verboten anywhere. We have no sign up anywhere saying, "Thou shalt not ..." because we know that if that is not compatible to your basic state of development, it is going to make a hypocrite out of you because you will try to conform and then go around behind the barn and do what you want to do. See what I mean? That is how extensional it is. We say to everyone, "Be true to your basic state." Only as a given person fully expresses the qualities in which he is now, at a given date, conscious of himself, can he expand his consciousness beyond that state. Would you like to have that in scriptural terms? "... I would thou wert either cold or hot ... because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." [Rev. 3:15-16] That means be yourself just where you are, with no apology, and you will then more quickly expand your consciousness in the evolutionary process in self development, in self unfoldment. But we will see as we proceed that we have to analyze between the overlay of artificially developed qualities and those basic state qualities in which one is conscious. To do this we must ask to what degree a person, at a particular date, is conscious of what is called the Real Self. The Real Self of any person is the degree of differentiation on the Mind level, the degree to which he has developed a field autonomous to the race psyche. The Real Self is not something that is already highly developed like a god up in the skies, It is in the process of becoming conscious of Itself. In this process the Real Self does not operate in that becoming conscious below the Mind level. Now lets step back down from the Light Mother to the World Mother, the world of the genetrix, in which generative force or power, the psychic nature, functions; in other words, in which consciousness, the Power-to-be-conscious, functions. The psychic nature functions in the world of generation, neither above nor below. When you can impersonalize the world of generation, it is a universal power motivated, operated, by reason of polarity. Wherever there is polarity, positive and negative, sperm and ovum, there is generation. This is where we have the constant play of the opposites sustained by the power of equilibrium which unifies and develops order in generation. If it were not for that power of equilibrium there would be chaos in generation, because the opposites would destroy each other. Man would destroy his woman and woman would destroy her man if it were not for that third factor, the power of equilibrium that unifies them. The battle would be terrible without that unifying power. The neutron in the atom is a unifying power, because the electrons and protons would be all over the place, unordered, without the power of equilibrium that unifies them. It is in everything, and on every level. The power of equilibrium, the power of balance, is a cosmic force. I am generalizing before working into specific descriptions of details because I want you to place the psychic nature relative to the whole structure-function-order before we begin to describe it in minute detail because if we do not we are liable to loose the relative position it occupies. There is only one thing that is immortal, that has continuity between death and birth, that operates in a here-now continuum (here meaning space, now meaning time), a space-time continuum. It is the individualizing process that operates in the here-now, space-time continuum, and relative to the objective manifold of values it operates between birth and death (or what we call birth and death), and we say it is immortal. But that is a relative term and has no other validity. The only thing that is immortal is the individualizing process, which operates in the continuum. And that continuum can be reduced to the aritotelian level and we can say it is immortal. The psychic nature is not immortal because for every cycle in the helix, the spiraling process of the differentiating or individualizing process, every time around you must create a new psychic nature. Lets bring that down on the level of what we call reincarnation. It is a misnomer to say that you, as you are now conscious of yourself (below the Mind level) as a person, reincarnates. You never do and you never will. If you are conscious of yourself on the Mind level, you do reincarnate. But lacking the consciousness on the Mind level, there is no person (personality) that reincarnates. You withdraw; that is, the individualizing process, the Autonomous Field, withdraws and the physiological organism begins to mortify, break up, disintegrate. The elements, the substances, the configurations down to the molecular level are released from being configurated in a higher force or pattern, a higher gravitational field holding together those configurations called colloids, crystalloids, molecules, cellular structures, cytoplasm, protoplasm, etc. It is only the higher gravitational field that holds them in a configuration. As

soon as the higher field withdraws, they are released to go on their own level. Thats just the first law of thermodynamicsconservation of energy. They just go on to their respective energy levels. When the cyclic process of the Autonomous Field level again puts forth, outbreathing, a new psychic nature is developed, so each so-called birth the configurational process is accompanied by the development of a new psychic nature. The transition when the Autonomous Field withdraws or inbreathes and a disintegration of the configuration takes place is called the first death in our Christian Scriptures. Later on there is the withdrawal of the Autonomous Field from the psychic nature and the factors, the qualities, the entities, that we are going to describe pretty soon in detail break up and go their respective ways. That is what is called the second death. You may have read that there are those over whom the second death has no powerthose who are conscious of their immortality because they have eliminated the psychic nature. Relative to the average state of development there are also two births, and there are three births beyond that average. But ordinarily speaking there are two births: being born into the physiological organism and also being born into a new psychic nature. Your real birth is to be born on the Mind level, the birth of the Christos, the eternal birth. Below the psychic nature is the crystalloidal tectonics level, the electronic field on the atomic level, where the psychic nature has no effect whatever. Between those two levels, the electronic field and the Mind level, is the province of the world genetrix in which the psychic nature functions. So much for generalizations. Now let us get down to specific detail of the description of the content of the psychic nature. In olden times, before students of the gnosis had any scientific language or understanding, they used symbolical language to divide the psychic nature into four levels according to the qualities, the gunas. One of the reasons why we say in our School of the Natural Order that we do not subscribe to occultism, mysticism, or metaphysics is because we now have the ability to utilize the descriptions and mental constructs of the scientific world. By reason of this we can dispense with all of the old symbology and allegorical forms of representation, but we are still in process of doing that. Among our younger generation will develop those who will devote themselves to the study of field physics until the language of field physics percolates, infiltrates, into the race psyche and becomes its common language. Then there will be no reference whatever to the symbolical forms of representation. We will simply write out the mathematical formula for the structure of a given field. But who can do that now? Very few, because we are just beginning to break into the understanding of the structure of field physics. It is a fascinating thing that absorbs me so much that I would like to surrender everything to it. However, I would isolate myself, and those who do isolate themselves can only talk to each other. Until our present transition period has culminated in a general consciousness of field physics we must still resort to the old symbology. Instead of trying to describe the four levels in which the psychic nature operates in terms of bandpasses with field physics, I am going to use the simpler symbology which symbolizes levels of waves and frequencies from higher to lower. Higher frequency means shorter waves, faster frequencies, or more waves (cycles) per unit of time. Lower, grosser frequency means longer waves, fewer waves per unit of time. So here is the old symbology: fire, air, water, earth. Can you translate that into field physics? I cant. But I want to cast my mind ahead to the time when they will literally translate that into terms of its frequencies and band-passes, and autonomous fields. We are on the cusp of that right now. If you have any influence over children growing up, tell them to study everything they can because that is the new age. We are going to function and think in that world. Get them ready for it so that they will be familiar with it. Weve have to hurry and catch up with it, for it is already upon us. That new cycle called the atomic age, einsteinian cycle, or what-have-you, has arrived; it is already here. Those four levels were symbolized in olden times by what are called spirits. Now I hope you will translate these spirits into autonomous fields, into field physics. But formerly they had no other language except symbolical spirits. References to salamanders meant the spirits of the fire. (As I go along, make the modern translation.) Thats a very high band-pass because that is higher than the wave-frequencies of visible light, its the substance of what we call Light, or Aditi, the Light Mother. The sylphs were the symbols for the spirits of air. This was a sort of totem language. Do you remember when we gave the

evolution of thingifying and developing animal signs and symbols for characteristics, for gunas? Go back and tie this totemism in with those lessons. Then we have the spirits of water, the undines. The spirits of the earth were called the gnomes and the pixies. All the fairy lands are symbolically included in the sylphs, the undines, and the gnomes. I dont know whether to put the salamanders in that same bandpass level as the fairy land or not. This is the language of olden times to try to describe the entities, that is, the resonant qualities. The wave-frequency carries its own resonant quality (and that is not exactly verbal language), like carrying information that is loaded upon waves in all sorts of electronic gadgets like radar and radio. There is a resonant guna, a resonant quality characterizing the wave-frequency. Those gunas carried on the four levels begin to introduce you to the content of the psychic nature whether we say fire, air, water, earth; or salamanders, sylphs, undines, gnomes, etc. Out of these qualities, or if we may say, entities, we build into the psychic nature with which we affinitize that with which we are synchronized, that which we cultivate. So now let us abandon our more recondite efforts to correlate the ancient symbols with field physics, and I want to confess that I am not adequate to do a good job of it anyway. Lets get down to the effort of trying to correlate that pattern, the total ensemble, of the psychic nature, the person, the personality. Let us begin at the lowest level upon which a given psyche has functioned or can function which is called the elemental level. I can give you a synonym for this term elemental forces: the formative forces of nature. And now for the word nature: that which gives birth, the World Mother, the world genetrix, generative, formative, elemental forces out of which the molecular structures are developed into cytoplasm, protoplasm, etc. I have been absorbed for years in that study of how the formative processes emerge as living matter out of finer substance called etheric matter. This process proceeds from etheric matter into living matter in its molecular, colloidal, and cellular organizations. This process is going on continually as cells are being renewed in your physiological organism. The fetus develops in the womb in a highly developed and specialized process: conversion of etheric substance into teloplasm, protoplasm, cytoplasm, then the organization into the molecular, colloidal, cellular structures that we call living matter. The gunas, the qualities of the resonant frequency of that level, are called the elemental forces or natures formative forces. These elemental forces are cultivated, assimilated, and there are many ways whereby they can be cultivated and stimulated. Do you know the difference between a primitive elemental creative urge and the false and artificially stimulated creative urge we call the perversion of the elemental forces? One can develop a psychic nature with elemental primitive generative force that has a wholesomeness, a sweetness, a beauty that can be raised to an apotheosis, a peak of generative power on that level in its elemental primitive simplicity. But if that urge is artificially stimulated by imagination, by seeking pleasure in stimulating it, by giving yourself to it, by and by you can fill the psychic nature with the perverted phase of pure, clear elemental force. If those who read the aura, and I know many who have done it for years, can see in the aura pure, clear scarlet they know the elemental forces of the psychic nature have not been artificially stimulated. That person is always so clear and clean, yet so passionate and elemental in his generative expressions. Another one who has artificially stimulated this guna by imagination, dwelling and talking about it, has developed a false hothouse steamy, sticky, and humid, a sort of a gooey state or condition. His aura is all the way from mahogany red to a lurid dark black appearance. Those who can see auras know at once that here is one who has given himself over to the lower entities and has developed those elemental forces as components of his own psychic nature. If these elemental formative forces fulfill their province in the psychic nature they emerge as instincts. That is, on their own level they have a slight differentiating process of their own within generative substance, World Mother substance as incorporated in a given psychic nature. There is a differentiation process which takes place comparable to or a reflection of a differentiating process occurring on the Mind level. There is an old Hermetic adage, "As below so above, as above so below." In the Real World, the real Light World, there is an individualizing, differentiating process going on which we call development of the individual. We call it the self development process. So, on the level of the psychic world, psychic nature, there is a reflection of it. Out of these formative forces of nature, out of the elemental essence, there takes place an individualization, a differentiation, from the common

homogeneous substance. The substance becomes more heterogeneous. As that elemental force and that elemental essence differentiates from the common homogeneous mass or field, we label it instinct. There are many instincts. They always start on an elementalistic level like the instincts for food, security, shelter, mating, union, gregariousness (the crowd, the herd, feeling more secure the more are around you), fear (instinctive fear of the unknown, the instinct of the dangers in the tribal primitive stage), etc. Many fear instincts developed as preservation of what we call the survival values, for sometimes it was only fear that preserved the developing person or tribe. Many fears were valuable in not being overcome at all, as preserving survival value. Please notice this: we can only touch upon each of these levels because it lends itself to years and years of penetrating research and study. Your general reading and background and education stands you in stead because you bring all that to bear, correlating it all with the development of the psychic nature. Keep in mind all the time that your physiological organism, the configuration in living matter, is always a perfect representation of the total ensemble, the total content of the psychic nature. This is fundamental in all therapeutics. We laid that foundation upon which the therapeutic science of the future will be based upon the facts that the outer physiological organism is a representation of the content of the psychic nature. So, if you want to change the outer, work on the content of the psychic nature, for you wont need anything else. I said earlier that the configuration was a representation of the total content of the psychic nature, and I described the beauty parlor of the future as working on the psychic nature, beautifying the psychic nature with a higher quality. You dont need any other beauty parlor. I told the girls I was going to set up a beauty parlor and all we would do is teach harmony and peace and light, sweetness and happiness; do nothing else until you just shine. You wouldnt dare put any warpaint on then. Well, the whole basis of the future therapeutic science is going to be focused right there. Clear out the content of the psychic nature on all its levels and the configurational representation will take care of itself because it can only represent the component factors, parts, forces, entities, in the psychic nature. But now we will get back to the subject at hand. As these elemental forces begin to differentiate they emerge as instincts in the psychic substance, the psychic nature. Then there are many of them that branch out, and out, and out, from the elemental and primitive instincts for food, shelter, mating, and the fear instinct, the survival values, etc. They branch out and become more and more diversified until their diversification becomes the world of feelings. Let us pause at this point before we go on and describe the world of feelings. In the practice of the way the consciousness of a given individual undergoes several transferences in identity. At first the consciousness of a given person is identified with the objective appearance, phenomena, images appearing substantive. That is the first identity. We call it the objective self-conscious state. In due time the consciousness undergoes a transference to frequency registration. Then consciousness transfers to the motivating world, to the level of the motivational forces in the psychic nature. Now lets backtrack. I want to illustrate this because you will miss the point of the whole lesson of the description of the content of the psychic nature, the structure of it and the way it functions, if you dont get this point. It is the practice of the way to learn to be conscious of that which motivates you. Let me go back and re-describe it. Instead of living in the feeling-thinking part of the functions of your psychic nature, you begin to live in that which motivates your feeling and thinking. In the practice of the way start simply because it is not difficult. When you feel depressed, elated, sad, happy, and all the degrees in between, ask yourself, What caused me to feel this way; what motivated this feeling? What rapport, what frequency, what atmosphere did I contact, did I get into? When you think a thought dont go ahead and live in the thinking. Stop and ask, Where did I get that thought? What motivated that thought? Keep asking yourself the questions, What motivates the way I feel? What motivates the way I think? until you can transfer your consciousness from identification with the content of the psychic nature to the motivational forces. You will learn about yourself and the ways you function on that level. How many know anything about what motivates them? They have feelings, they have emotions, they have thoughts; but how many

stop and analyze and penetrate into what motivates those feelings, what motivates those emotions, what motivates those thoughts? In the practice of the way, the purpose of describing the content of the psychic nature is to get you to become conscious of that which motivates you, that which makes you do what you do, that which makes you say what you say, that which makes you act the way you act, that which makes you think and justify everything that you do. Otherwise you live in your justifications, your mentalizations, having no consciousness whatever of that which motivates you because you are motivated all the time by these factors (the content of your personality). It is that content that makes you a person. Next lesson we will begin again with the analysis of how feelings emerge, how they differentiate out of instincts. Do not become discouraged. As we go on up to the higher qualities, it becomes most wonderful. You will say, "My gracious, is there anything more wonderful?" Yes, there are many things more wonderful than a few of the higher qualities of the psychic nature.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 9 I find that I cannot continue the description of the motivating forces in the psychic nature without linking those motivating forces with the creative energy that formulates them, so I shall combine a description of the creative energies and the foci through which they operate with my further description of the motivations in the psychic nature. I am afflicted with the necessity to understand structure. I care very little about the multiplicity of detail, because if I can once grasp the structure I can supply all the possible details which will eventuate or become determinative. I consider it important to get the picture of the structure of that with which we have to reckon, that which motivates each and every one of us. That which you know, you can control; that which you do not know controls you. That is not a clich, it is fundamental fact. All that is hidden, all that is unknown operates as an unconscious and invisible force upon you, in you, and through you. That is why a great one, alleged to be Solomon, said, With all your getting, get understanding. In reviewing this structure there are some very important and essential factors embodied within the description. The first is this: all energy, all creative force or power (as we sing in our mantra: the Power with which I am conscious) resides in what we label Aditi, the Light Mother. Use this rule: the higher the frequency, the greater the power of that energy or force. So when we speak of the Light Mother, it is described as that substance above the Second Crossing in the realms of Be-ing. That energy, as Light Mother or as Light, is like inertial or potential energy. That energy is converted into kinetic or dynamic energy in, by, through the process of differentiation of that Light. The degree of differentiation channels, focuses or converts inertial, potential energy into dynamic, kinetic energy. Allow me to say this in very simple terms. A given person has no access to the great power of the universe except through some channel, some differentiation. If we use that stupendous, incomprehensible energy as a referent for the word God, although its only the negative, that is, the Mother phase or aspect of the Father-Mother-God unity, then God cannot make himself known to man except through man. Any other attempt to beseech, pray, intercede, or petition the undifferentiated inertial power of the universe is just reification of the word and the emotional involvement within that reification. It has no place at all in clear understanding and perception of the structure of this universe and how it works. Then, the understanding of that much of the structure-function places great emphasis upon your own awakening. Your own awakening then becomes paramount; your own self-development takes precedence over everything else. Take a hypothetical person and try to understand him. It is obvious that he must have force, power, or energy with which to function, with which to be conscious. That is indubitable, axiomatic; no proof is needed for it, for one cant breathe, cant think, cant lift a feather unless a priori there is a power with which he does it. So with all of his functions, in all of his departments, he must function with a power. We say, the Power with which he is conscious. That Power can be described as his essential self, his essential nature, and commensurate with the degree of his self-differentiation he has power. That is, the greater the degree the greater the power. All power flows through the Self, using the word Self as a label for the differentiating process in the Light. Every differentiating process describes a helix, a spiral; but every spiral has two aspects because of the essential dichotomy: the Power that activates and the Light Mother. The essential dichotomy is carried through all differentiating phases. The moment that the differentiation in the negative substance of the universe, in the Light, takes place, there appears the opposite poleanother spiral, another helix. Whenever you set up a positive field, a negative field appears. In studying The Evolution of Physics, by Einstein and Enfeld, one finds that those great (Id say master) minds confessed they did not know from whence that negative field came. They knew how to set up a positive field, then there appeared a surrounding negative field. They said, We dont know where it came from. There it is. In the structure of the whole process, this is important because the negative field becomes what we call the World

Mother, the genetrix. Its like an inverse reflection. But before we get too technical, the point is this: the energy in this hypothetical person that we wish to understand, the energy with which he functions on all his levels of operation, flows from his essential nature, his essential Self (described as a differentiating process in the Light Mother), and motivates all that he does, all that he is, all that he ever will be. Now let us look at this persons degree of understanding, his extent of Self-consciousness. Here is where we find complications, because the qualities in which he is conscious, with which his mental processes are concerned, with which mentally he is identified, are vastly different from the way in which the forces function in him. Any given person functions in a different way than he thinks that he functions. His thinking is involved in his rationalizations, in his reasons, in his alibis, in his justifications, in his excuses. His thinking is all involved in that and forms an eclipsethe veil of mayaa curtain which is difficult for him to penetrate. Step behind that veil, so to speak, and there are the functional operations going on, even motivating his thinking. They are not motivating the mental constructs per se, but rather motivating the power to create mental constructs, motivating the power with which he desires, but not the form and content of his desires. That power behind the veil motivates his feelings, not what he feelswhich could be legionbut whatever he feels. The power motivates his feelings. In describing the content of the psychic nature, we described those functions, but behind those functions is that which is determinative of all those forces, entities, qualities, etc., of which the psychic nature is composed. It is that determinative power which must be linked with the description of the content of the psychic nature, and both the creative power which determines the motivating forces in the psychic nature and the entities (qualities) of the psychic nature must be separated from the nether world, the private world. Watch the way our hypothetical person thinks, because he will dig up his mental reasons to justify why he thinks this way, why he desires that way, why he feels this way or that other way. But he does not stop the squirrel caging, the ratiocinations, that thinking long enough to be quiet in the stillness of mental activity to reach deeper and become conscious of the power that motivates his thinking. It is that reaching deeper to apprehend the power which motivates feeling, desiring, thinking, etc., that constitutes the next step in the evolutionary process relative to the race psyche in which we, respectively, are integrated. The next stage is to become conscious of motivating forces. By what are we motivated? Students in the School of the Natural Order should constantly practice stopping, looking, listening. What made me feel that way? What made me desire that way? All you have to do is to start thinking about it. This is not so recondite that it is beyond anyone. Its very simple. In the midst of mentalizing, in the midst of emotional splurges, indulgences, desirings, feelings, pause a moment and ask yourself, What made me think that? What made me feel that? Try to get behind that curtain, that veil of maya, and apprehend that which motivates you. If you will just start thinking about it, it wont be long before you will get on to it because it is due to the registration of waves-frequencies from some particular source, not out of the blue. That inertial, potential energy has to have a channel, so it is through some channel, through some other person or some Be-ing that the wave and frequency reached you. Yet the uninformed goes on and on and on being motivated by forces he knows nothing of. That which indicates awakening and development in practicing the way, treading the path, is the inquiry, the search, the questioning leading into understanding of that which motivates feeling, desiring, emoting, and thinking. But that is not all. That is just the external, exoteric part of it. There is also an esoteric phase to it. The esoteric phase occurs when you are motivated by forces derived not from frequencies registered, but those channeled through your own differentiating process. In the old aristotelian language we could say that forces and energies reach you from the outside, but there are also subjective forces which motivate you, and they dont reach you from any outside source. So we have to take both of them into considerationthe frequencies that we register from the outside and the frequencies that originate from the inside, from inside your skin. These two sources from which energy is received, by which a given person is motivated will merge into one as the force centers are awakened. This point is going to be a little difficult to get across. It has so often been said that the psychic nature is formed at each rebirth, each earth life, and disintegrates after the close of each earth life, the second death. Dissociation from the physiological

organism is the first death. Dissociation from the psychic organism is the second death. And there are those over whom the second death has no power because their consciousness (of themselves) has reached the level of the differentiated Self, the differentiating Self in the Light Mother. The psychic nature begins to be formed very shortly after the incarnating Self contacts the physiological organism prepared for it by the mother. Here I would like to use that word Mother in a dual sensethe World Mother and the objective motherbecause the objective mother is only a personification of the World Mother. She embodies and comprehends all of the generative forces of the World Mother. Every woman is a personification of the World Mother, intrinsically and essentially, because that is the force by which the positive creates. In each earth life the psychic nature is formed again, and the particular qualities built in are determined by the way the Power, the force from the differentiated field that operates upon it. The psychic nature is built upon a web, which we call the lines of force of the field, and it exemplifies the qualities of that differentiated field. Now a large realm of inquiry opens as to what determines the qualities of that field, etc. But I am pursuing another point now. That determinative force operates in the psychic nature by reason of the fact that the psychic nature itself is built upon the lines of force, built upon the Arch, the pattern of the field. I am very fond of the Christian Bible, and I am just beginning to understand it. I trust those of you who dont like it will pardon my reference to it, because this is all beautifully symbolized there as the deluge. The deluge symbolizes the breaking up of the psychic naturethe second death. All of the inhabitants of the psychic nature march two by two (positive and negative) into the ark (Arch) to ride out the deluge (the second death) until dry land (the configuration) again appears so they can land. So do not go up on a mountain like Mt. Ararat in northeast Turkey and look for Noahs Ark, although there is an expedition now (1952) on their way there, financed by the Southern Baptists. This is aristotelianism running riot, clear out of bounds. It is ludicrous, of course, because the ark, the Arch, is part of the structure of every individual. The degree of differentiation in the Light has a pattern, the lines of force between its positive and negative poles. That is why it is called an androgyne, a union of both polarities. That pattern of the lines of force is the Arch, and when the psychic nature disintegrates at the close of one palingenetic turn, at the second death, the qualities march two by two (because theyre positive and negative) into the ark and then the deluge comes. Everything is drowned, washed away, finished. But the seed is preserved in the Arch, the pattern, and at the next round the configuration or dry land appears out of chaos according to the preserved germ or seed qualities of which the lines of force, the pattern, is composed, and which again determines the structure of the psyche. That is the esoteric, subjective, side of this essential operation. But in the process of the developing psychic nature exemplifying the qualities in the Arch, it either begins to take on the influences of its environment or it begins to influence its environment. Here is where our educators get badly confused, yet the rule is very simple: If the state of development (the degree of differentiation in Light substance) of the incoming reincarnating individual is higher than those of father, mother, uncle, aunt, grandfather, grandmother, those who are in the housethe sources of environmental influencethat incoming one will not take on any influence from the environment, but rather will influence the environment. I have seen many cases where a new-born baby in a home has transformed the state of consciousness of the occupants of that home. And this upsets that educational applecart of trying to impose upon the child the way he should go, for that child might bend everything himself because he is stronger. The higher the frequency the more power. See that rule again? Because of his higher differentiation in Light substance he becomes an instrument, a channel; his potential energy becomes dynamic, kinetic energy exerts a powerful influence upon the entire environment. That child could grow up in the gutter, on the other side of the tracks, in squalor and in poverty, yet emerge a shining light and not be affected by the environment, never touched by it. Yea, though I make my bed in the depths of hell, Thou art there. Psalms 139:8 It is the one who can make his bed in the depths of hell who is in Lights Regions. No environment can touch him. So we see that the highly developed one is always positive relative to the lower developed. But if the incarnating one is on a little lower or equal level, degree, than those with whom he is environed, he takes on their influences and builds those qualities into his consciousness.

Distinguish between the so called outer and inner motivating forces. It is those motivating forces that determine the feelings, the desires, the emotions, the thinking. The key to the esoteric aspects of the intrinsic, inherent force by which ones feelings, desirings, emotions, and thinking processes are motivated is this: that which determines the level upon which one functions, whether or not the instincts, feelings, desires, emotions, or thinkings function, is the degree of force released from the five force centers in the structure of the psychic nature. Objectively speaking, there are five: the genital center, solar center, heart center, throat center, and the center in the middle of the foreheadthe pituitary center. Those five pertain to the psychic nature. The centers at the base of the spine and the crown of the head pertain to the differentiated field in Lights substance and do not pertain to the psychic nature at all. I am trying to describe the relation of the awakening of these five centers in the psychic nature to the motivating force in the esoteric phase of motivation in the psychic nature. I think that we should imagine three individuals, that is, three that have incrnated. The psychic nature is not an individual. It is a person. The combined qualities in the psychic nature are what we call the personality pattern. That must be sharply separated from the private world, the mental opinions and values about it. We should imagine three individuals incarnated: number one has none of the centers in the psychic nature awakened; number two has some of the centers in the psychic nature awakened; number three has gone beyond the awakening and organization of the energies of the five centers of the psychic nature and has awakened the two centers in the differentiated field. The line between those last two centers, the base of the spine and the crown of the head, is called the sacro-conarial axis. You will remember that in mitosis, the cellular division process, a spindle develops between the chromosomes as they split within the cell. The two separating chromosomes form a positive and a negative pole with the spindle between them. Notice the word spindle because it is a double spiral, or two intertwined helixes. Similarly, between the sacral and conarial centers, the positive and negative pole of the field, there is a spindle in every individual, in each individualized field, in every individualizing process. Those are the lines of force upon which the psychic nature is built. Our awakened individual, number three, has his sacral and conarial centers open and developed; consequently he can consciously control the function of the forces on the spindle in his field pattern. He can take on or cast out any quality in his psychic nature. He can build a psychic nature and retain it, or destroy it and rebuild another one if environmental conditions require. One whohas that sacro-conarial axis developed, the sacral and conarial centers awakened, open and functioning, and is conscious of them, could go to Australia and live in that Australian race psyche with its qualities and contexts and build a psychic nature to conform. He could then leave Australia and go to Timbuktu and live there a little while, and he would build a compatible psychic nature to live there without any remnants of his former psychic nature. He can put on or take off his Josephs coat of many colors whenever necessary. You remember your Bible, I hope, so you know my reference to the patched coat, the coat of many colors. I am just describing the psychic coat of many colors that you can put on or take off. As soon as he builds a psychic nature to conform to a given environmental condition, pattern of a given race psyche or tribal group consciousness, he is accepted; they like him and he is one of them. They will make him a member of the tribe. Then he can step out of it and go to France or some place else and live in that environment and build a psychic nature to conform there. But one who has not reached that third degree of development is trapped in the pattern of his ark, his Arch. He can build just one personality and must take it with him everywhere. All you have to do is stand on a street corner in Paris or Timbuktu and you can say, There is an American, and you can see him coming forty miles away. Or, He is a New Englander, or He is a Frenchman, because he is in his pattern and cant change it. He must work through his own pattern. Remember what Paul said, I am all things unto all men. He wasnt any one thing, he was all things. Paul had the variegated coat. It is quite an achievement to reach the point where you can wear the variegated coat and build a psychic nature to conform, while in Rome do as the Romans do, until you dont appear any different. You can do that anywhere, everywhere. My, what freedom, what wonderful freedom and universality!

Let us return to our first individual, the one born with none of the centers of his psychic nature awakened. How does the force from the differentiated field operate in him? It operates diffused throughout his psychic nature, but mostly on the periphery. There is a way in which you can be conscious of this functioning like a diffused force in yourself or in others. That does not mean to say that if you become conscious of it the centers in your psychic nature are not awakened, for you function both ways. A higher developed one never leaves off functioning on the lower levels, he merely synthesizes, because development is not laminated like a layer cake. You hold all you gain and just add, and add, and add to itexpansion of consciousness. Climbing a ladder is a somewhat erroneous picture, but metaphorically or allegorically you climb a ladder, but not to any destination, so do not apply it literally. However, when a new influence comes into your field, your aura, you become conscious of it. After it penetrates beyond the periphery of the psychic nature you again become unconscious of it. Now reverse it. If there are qualities hidden in the psychic nature, in the depths of the unconscious (relative to the objective manifold of values) that cannot stand the higher frequencies that are coming in, they have to get out. And as they reach the periphery of your psyche you become extremely conscious of them until they are completely out and you are again unconscious of them. To summarize, you are unconscious of qualities in the psychic nature that are completely within your consciousness, and you are unconscious of qualities, substance, entities, forces, gunas, completely out of your psychic nature. An unawakened individual, in that state where the power from the differentiated field functions in the psychic nature with no centers awakened, is limited to sensation. That is, he is limited to functioning through the instrumentality of his physical senses. Thinking on that level is sensation, as is feeling, desiring, emoting, etc. This first individual is limited to the world of sensations. He cannot function other than by the neural processes of objective activity and sensory reception. Stimuli are received through the nervous system and into the cortex where nerves are stimulated, and this indirect process is called thinking. Sometimes it is very keen and fine thinking, relative to objectivity, relative to the functions of sensing. But outside of the functions of sense, or that which is comparable to the functions of sense, that individual cannot function. He must have the sensations in order to function; that is, to be conscious. Take the second individual, in whom the force from the differentiated field begins to open the five centers. He no longer functions by sensation. He functions by harmonic frequency registration. He must have the frequency registration on the psychic level, not through the instrumentality of the nervous system, not through sensation. Some can function by pure sensation, others cannot function by sensation at all. The approach must be through the frequency of the psychic side until his consciousness transfers over to that mode or method of functioning in frequencies other that those registered through his neural system or sense faculties. As the first five centers of the psychic nature begin to open and function, he passes beyond the instincts and his feelings are now motivated by registry of force through the solar center. (I have just told you in a veiled fashion how one functions in the genital center when I said that some can function only by sensation, yet others must have the finer approach and frequencies in order to function. I veiled that, but that is saying enough to those of you who are conscious of how those forces operate, and so I go to the solar center which no longer governs the elemental forces or instincts, but controls the feelings and desirings.) As the force ascends through the channels and reaches the heart center there comes the great power of love. This is no mean level of development relative to the state of our present race psyche in the overall evolutionary process. When I use the word love I want you to think of one referent onlythe tremendous urge to give. One motivated by this force never stops to think about what he is going to get out of it or what it will do for him. He just has the urge to give. The symbol of the force that has reached the heart center is Venus in Libra. Venus is the goddess of love; the power, the beauty, the glory of love. Libra, the scales, has a very different sagacity. It can weigh any thing, any person. Love knows. If love elects you, you are very fortunate, because that is the beginning of your glorification, your happiness, your joy, your life, your health. Your everything begins when the force of love is released in you, but it cannot be released until that force has reached and opened anahata, the heart center. Then you are compelled, motivated, by the urge to give. As we ascend the higher levels of the psychic nature, the psychic light and the Garden of Aarru, are developed. I should also emphasize that the force from the

heart center motivates mentation only when the mental processes are utilized as an instrument in the hands of the dominating, motivating, creative force of love. Often this force can be channeled into the mental level of the psychic nature as a substituted outlet instead of utilizing it to formulate the constructs and descriptions, to marshal thoughts and ideas in the service of the creative Power. It can also formulate the details of the ways and means for carrying out that which is perceived and understood in the power and force of love in the heart center. For those of you who understand the Tree of Life, this is the Tiphereth, the power which opens the way to the Christos. There is no other way of reaching it except through the power of love. The higher centers of the psychic nature develop the power to function in the most dynamic force in the psychic world, which is really beyond description. At our present level of development it remains on the unspeakable level. To try to describe the beauty of the purified psychic nature when it reflects nothing but the Light from the world of Be-ings is most difficult. The frequency, the effect of the frequencies registered in the purified psychic nature when it reflects only the higher levels of Be-ings, the Light Mother and all its differentiations, is the true Garden of Eden, which the Egyptians named the Garden of Aarru. The beauty of it fulfills all of the allegorical descriptions of the orthodox Christian heaven with its pearly gates, streets of gold, harps, crowns, and robes. It is just plain asinine to objectify it (like looking for Noahs Ark on Mt. Ararat) because all we need to do is learn the way Orientals talk in flowery metaphor and simile and allegoryall symbolical representations to describe something that is indescribable, something that is marvelous and beautiful. They had to do it that way or not do it at all, and by giving those allegorical descriptions they trusted that the lesser developed would at least get something out of what they were trying to describe. The beauty of that higher level, the purified, renovated, cleansed temple or psychic nature fulfills all of the picturization and description of the orthodox heaven. That which constitutes its beauty and its glory and its light and its power is that it is so clarified, like a placid lake that can reflect a beautiful mountain, that it can reflect the higher worlds of Be-ings, the differentiations in the Light Mother. That is a point to strive for, to work towards, because of its beauty, joy, and perpetual happiness. Each of us can do it. We each can work it out in ourselves if we elect to do so.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 10 Our subject for this lesson is the Noetic Mind. I believe it would be in order for us to place that which we label the Noetic Mind in relation to the cosmic process and relative to our present state of consciousness. Let me begin by frankly acknowledging that we know very little about it, like Thomas Edison responding to a reporter who remarked, Mr. Edison, your knowledge must be very great. He laughed and laughed over that, and said, We do not know 100th of one percent about anything. I loved his answer. I also like Sir Isaac Newtons statement as he lay reading on his deathbed. He said, I feel like a child playing on the shore of a vast cosmic ocean. Ive thrown a pebble in the surf and the cosmic ocean rolls before us unknown, unexplored. We must assume a lesser position than Edison and Newton, because as we develop consciousness on the Noetic Mind level we just begin to see what there is to know, and what we know relative to what we begin to see that there is to know causes us to shrink up and look for that crack to crawl into like a cockroach when the light is turned on! I am of the opinion that working ones consciousness into field physics is the anteroom, the vestibule of that cosmic ocean, the cosmic process. We must take hold and not let those remarks discourage us. We are so painfully and embarrassingly young. But when we get out of the adolescent phase of development, we then might begin to learn what there is to know. Speaking of the average level or rate of racial development and evolution in this evolutionary process, it takes only about 750 thousand years to get through this adolescent period,. I said, only about 750 thousand years, because that is just a second relative to the immensity of the timeless here-now. If we seriously recognize our limitations and youth, or our infantilism rather than our youth, then in relation to the immensity of what there is to know we can draw a great deal from it. That will help us without trying to understand it, because the understanding depends upon the development of nth dimensional aptitudes and faculties of perception. Until we develop those nth dimensional aptitudes and faculties we can learn many lessons that will help us where we are now. In that respect, I intend to focus our attention now in what we can do relative to our present state of development; what we can do in relation to the whole cosmic process, and the positional relationships of what we call the Noetic Mind with the cosmic process, or cosmos, on the one side and our objective self-conscious state on the other. Before we begin, we must set up a referent for our terms to know what we are talking about. The nearest referent for Noetic Mind I can work out is sort of a description of a state of consciousness which accrues from identification with the source or root of our respective natures. Noetic Mind means a state of consciousness which is present and is determinative when we identify with the intrinsic Self, that source of all power and activity with which we function, that root of all becoming and Be-ing, which is generally called the Higher Self. I am getting into a state of semantic reaction about glibly using the words Higher Self and Greater Self. Pause whenever you are tempted to use that terminology and ask yourself the question, What do I mean? Describe the meaning, and you will find you are really up against something even to attempt a description. Having set up the referent for the term, Noetic Mind, let us try to place it. Very briefly, because we are not going to try to describe it and we are not even going to try to understand it. That is the province of the most advanced philosophers, and I would say the scientific philosophers, who have penetrated through and beyond field physics. They can begin the understanding of it. For the rest of us, we are in a relatively lower state of development. We can learn a great deal from these mental constructs, that will be like the indicator on a dial showing which way we are going. Let us think of the whole cosmic process, or the One without a second, and out of which a vast multiplicity of individualizations, differentiations, develops. We have no objections to use of terms of deityAllah, Brama, Tao, Theos, Mazda, God, Etc., etc. used with reference to this One, unless such use is a pure reification of the terms with no attempt

made to set up a description of the meaning for those terms. Do you notice in the course of our instruction how little we use the terms of deities? We do that because we feel our inadequacy for setting up the referent. We do not want to use terms that will become clichs glibly reiterated, reiterated, and reiterated until an emotional response is built up to the words used while no attempt is made to understand the meaning which the words symbolize. Also, we feel our inadequacies of setting up that meaning, setting up that description of the meaning which the words represent. That is the only reason that we stay clear, so as to speak, of glib use of the terms of deity. If you can think of a vast all-inclusive substance having such dynamic power or force that it is incomprehensible, and label that substance Light, Mother, or some term for deity, then I think it is permissible to use such a term, but your thought must channel into the heart of all appearances, not extraneous thereto. Resist the tendency to allow your mind to be extraneous to that which evidences the deity. Think to the heart or core of the atom of the molecule, the cell, the organism, yourself as personality. Think into the heart or core of the planet, the solar system, or our galaxy. That is the direction thought should take to comprehend the ultimate, intrinsic nature of that incomprehensible Power, Light, or Substance. As I said, there is no way whereby we can grasp that incomprehensible power. We have not as yet evolved or developed the faculty to comprehend it. However, we have two analogies that will give us an intimation of it. Consider the force and power that is released in the fission of the atom, the atomic bomb and its incredible power. And yet the tremendous force and fire released is only a minute fraction of the energy left over from the recombination of the electrons, protons, and neutrons. It is only a minute fraction of the total power and fire, yet when we think of that minute fraction of force that is released and its incredible strength and power we have an analogy that will give us an intimation of this substance Mind substance. We have another analogy that will help to give us an intimation of the incredible strength of it. Consider the power of gravitation, which could be another way of saying the power of an electromagnetic field. If steel cables eleven inches in diameter could be anchored on one hemisphere of the earths surface and extend to the moon, the gravitational power of the moon and the earth upon the cables would simultaneously break every one of those steel strands. Some statistician has figured that out, but what I read in the Scientific American I dont try to verify and refigure for I know the carefulness of those who put out the Scientific American and I accept their figures. We cannot grasp what it takes to break one of those cables, the incredible power necessary. And relative to the solar electromagnetic field, there is no weight to the earth and to the moon. They are lighter than a cork that floats on water. Another incredible thing, they have no weight at all relative, now remember, relative to the electromagnetic field of the solar system but relative to each other it is incomprehensible power and might. Think of this fraction of power that is released in the fission of the atom breaking down the atomic nucleus, think of this power that we call gravitation, and as you think of it read the Good Book, who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand ... [Isaiah 40:12] The galaxies, we could even say, are in the hollow of His hands. Thats a marvelous figure of speech, a marvelous metaphor, dumbfounding in its application. This substance is only the negative, magnetic, phase of the cosmic process. The activity of that substance is what we call the field, the lines of force of the field. Gravitation and the power of the atomic fission results from the activity of the field or, more accurately speaking, the activity of the substance. It is that activity with which we are concerned, but without that substance being motivated, stirred into activity, the whole sidereal universe with its galaxies would fall into an inert state. Power resides as potential, an inertial state, those inertial worlds ... without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. [Genesis 1:2] When the inertial state of that negative substance contacts a positive powerBinah making contact with Chokmahat once the stupendous and incomprehensible activity that we call Power and Light ensues. That unity of positive and negative is endlessly repeated in, and as, the essential, intrinsic nature of all that is. Then come the differentiations of the substance that are galvanized into activity. It is one of the most profound and deep studies of the scientific philosophers to delve into the understanding of that

differentiating process relative to the Mind substance, relative to the Mother principle of cosmos. For the sake of our study today let us accept the fact that Mind substance is characterized by a differentiating process. It differentiates itself. Perhaps the time will come when we can study the intricacies of that differentiating process, but we have the evidence before us, whether we study the structure of the cell in mitosis or study ourselves in our personality patterns, the content of our psychic natures, etc. We will find that there is a differentiating, individualizing process at the root, at the heart, at the core of every thing which we can consider. Those of us who have studied Egyptian, Greek, and oriental philosophies long enough understand the contention between what has just been said and absolute monism. Absolute monism takes the stand that there is no differentiation in the cosmic substance, none at all, that differentiation only represents our way of looking upon the cosmic process and is not related to the cosmic process; therefore, the differentiating process constitutes the maya. However, there are those who recognize the indubitable evidence of the differentiating process. I am here talking about it; therefore, I am not it in my consciousness, in my essential nature. If I were, I couldnt talk about it. There would be nothing to talk about because there would be no sense of separation from its absolute unity, its absolute oneness, and so on. There are many ways to demonstrate that there is a differentiating process in this cosmic substance. Those who accept that fact are called qualified monists, not absolute monists. The School of the Natural Order falls under that designation of qualified monism. To us the differentiating process is not a maya, but is an actuality that can be described in terms of an expanding and contracting universe. It can be described in many other ways relative to a given differentiation in the cosmic substance. So let us rest this recondite line of reasoning with a simple acceptance. The cosmic process differentiates into a multiplicity of electromagnetic fields, a vast multiplicity of replicas of itself in which, microcosmically speaking, there is an epitomization of the whole macrocosmic process. As one understands himself in his roots, in his essential nature, he understands the whole. I love to quote Tennyson when he plucked the little flower from the crannied wall and held it in his hand and said: Little flowerbut if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I would know what God and man is. In every differentiated point the epitomization of the whole cosmic process is represented. (That rests upon the qualified monistic view, not upon the maya.) I am tempted to go into this a little further but just now I am merely laying down one little phase of our lesson in placing this Noetic Mind relative to the cosmic process. Next I want to place the Noetic Mind relative to our objective self-conscious state, for while we can look down on it from the cosmic level, we must look way up to it from the objective self-conscious state. From our psychological or objective state of evaluation we call it the individualizing process, not a differentiating process in the cosmic substance. We say, That is my true individual Self becoming a Being, becoming conscious of Itself. So, in our terminology, the individualizing process applied to the differentiation in the cosmic substance is relative to our objective self-conscious state, our psychological processes, not at relative to the cosmic process. But to us, where we are now in our state of development, this assumes enormous importance because without that individualizing process that is taking place in our essential nature, all hope of any order in the universe is gone. Without that individualizing process we would give ourselves up to the utter futility of believing that everything represents just a fortuitous falling together of elements of the periodic table and elemental forces in some remote cosmic ooze, just a lucky concourse having no rhyme nor reason, intelligence, rationality, structure, nor order. The fact that there is an individualizing process transpiring in the essential nature of each and every one of us gives us all there is to live for, gives us all there is to hold on to without succumbing to absolute despair. That hope that springs eternal (I never liked to mumble a clich and yet I find myself falling into the trap every once in a while) no matter how many times we are cast down, no matter how many times we give up in utter disgust of ourselves, we take hold and climb out again to look up and strive again. What motivates us to pick ourselves up from false moves and our ignorance and our stupidity and our animalized conditions? What causes us to pick ourselves up and try again? There is a still small

voice, a wee little trickle from the deep, deep inner recesses of our nature that gives us some sort of a message, and in our ignorance and our opaqueness we seize upon it and take hold again and put forth effort again, and again, and again. The individualizing process is doing it. That is the sustaining power each and every one of us has. Without that sustaining power of this individualizing process we are nothing, just plain nothing, shadows on the wall, shadows on the canvas. There is another wonderful lesson we can gain from these mental constructs. I have occasion to apply this little lesson many times each day. It is simply this: we must treat what is called the palingenetic law, or reincarnation, simply as a deciduous plant that sheds its leaves, trunk, and branches and dies down to its roots. The next cycle (meaning the next spring) it puts forth again. It puts forth its shoots, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruitage, and then once again dies down to nothing. Only if you dig deep will you find its roots or bulb still alive, its life germ still alive and ready to put forth the next season. Relative to our objective self-conscious state, relative to our psychological processes, relative to our psychic nature (our feelings, desires, emotions, thoughts), think of that Noetic Mind, the state of consciousness on the level of the individualizing process. Now think, think and meditate. This is a most profitable meditation. Meditate upon That which endures throughout the multiplicity of cycles of putting forth and dying down, and putting forth and dying down, and putting forth and dying down, etc. It continues relatively invariantly. I wish I could say it continues invariantly, and I would if I were an absolute monist, but I have to introduce the word relatively. It continues only relatively invariantly, because after a given person has reached a complete identification of his consciousness with the individualizing process as Be-ing, not as becoming conscious of Be-ing, he then finds hes just born into an illimitable world of Be-ings with an infinite expansion of consciousness of Be-ing, not of becoming. He has arrived, he doesnt become anymore, but there is grade upon grade, and level upon level of incomprehensible Be-ings, the Hierarchy of the Real World. So, his individualizing process is only relatively invariant because after he arrives he finds out he is not static as an individual. He expands consciousness even beyond that into the infinite realm of Be-ings. That is why I introduced the words relatively invariant. Now let us repeat this and see what we mean. When the individualizing process is considered in relation to all our mentalizations, our private worlds, our psychic natures (our feelings, desirings, emotionalizings, lovings, thinkings), the individualizing processthe essential core, the root, the heart of each of usis relatively invariant. It is only permanent relative to our psychic natures. In plain simple aristotelian language, the essential nature is that which endures between death and birth again. Everything else has died down and gone, disappeared between death and birth again. Let me repeat that a different way: between the indrawing into the root and the putting forth again there is neither death nor birth. That death and birth concept is only a result of our private world manufacturing. There is no death or birth when viewed from Mind level. Here I am, the I am with which I am conscious of my world. There is no death or birth to it unless we want to go back to the individualizing or differentiating process where we might speak of it as having a birth; and when it has established its consciousness beyond any conception of itself as an individual we might say it died, but we would have to stretch the meaning which the words death and birth represent totally out of proportion to their normal context. We only can use the terms death and birth relative to the objective manifold of values, relative to the private world, relative to our mentalizing, relative to identifying with the image in our psychic nature appearing substantive, relative to the appearances and shadows to which we give values. That is the only state in which the terms death and birth have any meaning whatever. If you meditate and think upon that essential nature, that heart and root and core of our Be-ing and our becoming, and then further think of the putting forth and the dying down process in which there is no death, no birth, then you know what we mean by the palingenetic process in which there is no such thing as reincarnation. It is a rhythm, a carrying of the wave above and below a given line. But remember, we give the line its rhythm which characterizes its act of being aware of itself.

Here is something else that has helped me endlessly. I use it every day. A given person cannot orient his consciousness to Mind level until individualization, or on the other side, differentiation, has proceeded to the point where its influence becomes persuasive. I will go a little further that that statement. It would be a contradiction that is going against the individualizing process, or the evolutionary stream, should any person attempt to become conscious of the Mind level before individualization or differentiation has taken place to a sufficient degree to exert enough influence upon his consciousness that he becomes conscious of it. I must amplify that to clarify it for you. I meet many persons whom I feel like sending away from any interest in a study such as we put forth in our School because, evolutionarily speaking, they are not ready. I feel like sending them out. If you have that sweetness and light attitude, that blessed milk of human kindness, that love of humanity, my attitude looks cruel and terrible. For example, here comes someone ostensibly with the best of intentions: I want to study with you, I want to learn, I want to advance, I have been looking and looking and searching for my teacher. But I want to say, Get out of here! Get out! Upon which level are you going to relate that action of telling them to get out, when you plainly see that it is going to be another putting forth and drawing in, and putting forth and drawing in before hes ready to orient consciousness to the differentiating process on the Mind level? Now, what do we actually do? I am honestly mortified and chagrined and ashamed to tell you this, but we compromise between the two for we have too much softness, too much of the milk of human kindness. I will tell you a little story about myself in this regard. I lived in Chicago a number of years ago and took a class in General Semantics under Count Alfred Korzybski. When you go there you have to make out a questionnaire and are allowed one interview with the master, Count Alfred, during all the time you study there. He was a powerful man and made a powerful impression. When I first sat in his class, I never thought about any reincarnation, but the word Plato kept running through my consciousness until I could hardly get it out. Then I came up for my interview. You can imagine my anticipation of that interview. Count Alfred got up from behind his desk and took me over to the wall of the room, grabbed me by the back of the neck, banged my head against the wall. The first thing he did was to butt my head against the wall and say, Youre too damn soft! Youre not clear enough to be out of sentimentality. That is why I compromise when I see a student in a state of development who is not ready. Im too damned soft. But here is where my sentimentality helps me in this understanding of the individualizing process of dying down to the roots and then putting forth again. I never blame anyone for anything because what he is putting forth is relative to his state of development. That state of development depends upon the degree of development of the lines of force of his field because this individuals essential nature, being an epitomization of the whole cosmic electromagnetic field, has its lines of force determining the pattern of its field. The pattern of the surrounding field is called its state of consciousness. The state in which it is conscious of itself becomes determinative relative to the lines of force, the pattern of its field. So you can equate the degree of development of the pattern of the field with that state in which the essential nature is conscious of itself. The state of consciousness and the lines of force become synonymous. No personality (in the objective sense) or qualities can be built into the psychic nature which are not supported by the lines of force of the field, or the lack of them. This lack of lines of force of the field is very important. We often say, aristotelianly speaking, that when one passes out of his body he is in his psychic nature. Then the psychic nature begins to break up because it must be supported by a constant flow of energies in values given to the objective appearance. When your objectifying apparatus is gone, meaning your neural system and sense faculties, you can no longer function with and in them. You cannot supply the consciousness in the psychic nature with a constant stream of energyenergy due to values given and reactions to those values. This value given to objective appearance supports the psychic nature. When no more value is given to objective appearance, the psychic nature begins to disintegrate. It is not supplied with the guna, quality, energy in the value. So, after one passes out of his body and no longer has a brain, neural system, or sense faculties, he can no longer give value and receive reports, stimuli, from the objective world. Consequently his psychic nature begins to disintegrate and break up and pass awaythe second death. If there is any orientation of

consciousness to the individualizing process, after the dissolution, the breaking up of the psychic nature, the second death, then the individual has a degree of consciousness commensurate with the development of the pattern of his field. When the pattern of that field, his state, is fully developed, he may not have a psychic nature even though he is still functioning in his sense faculties. He can destroy his psychic nature completely, not have it at all, or build and rebuild it. As I said in the previous lesson, he can fit himself into any race psyche by drawing substance from that race psyche to build a psychic nature compatible to the environmental conditions which he occupies. In this lesson I am after one point which is quite vital, a point which we can apply and practice every day. That continuity of consciousness between the second death and his reembodiment, his reputting forth vehicles in which to function, his re-putting forth his shoot, trunk and branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. The depends upon the degree of development of the state in which he is conscious of himself as a differentiating point in the cosmic process. It depends on the degree of his essential awareness, or awareness of his essential nature. It depends upon the degree of consciousness that he has of his birthless-deathless self. I am saying this many ways so that you can get the point. But that degree of awareness and continuity of consciousness between his second death and rebirth depends upon the development of his field. I have said before and I will say again that there is no quality built into the psychic nature (the content of consciousness on the psychic level) that can be utilized in developing the pattern of the field except that which is impersonal, altruistic, in the essential universalized meaning of the term, not as an idealized Utopian way of thinking. When your consciousness becomes universalized, impersonalized, you want nothing for yourself. You are functioning in the creative flow of force that has no recognition of what you are going to get or not get, of what you are going to gain or not gain. It is a creative force that you function in, just functioning impersonally, altruistically, universally. It takes those qualities of impersonalism, universalism, and altruism to build quality into the consciousness of the Noetic Mind, to build the pattern of the field, the state. No quality of a selfish, personal nature can be utilized. What becomes of those personal qualities after the second death? They disappear forever, but there is a seed that remains in the pattern of the field of the essential self that puts forth again. That seed constitutes the lack of the development of certain lines in the field which again puts forth. Let us call that lack of development relative to the field a weakness in the personality pattern, because that is what it will amount to in the next building of the psychic nature, the next putting forth. If there is any weakness in the full, well-rounded, symmetrical development of the field on the Noetic Mind level, it shows up in the next psyche as a weakness in the personality. For example, he is strong and fine as an intellectual, a mathematician, a musician; as this or that hes wonderful, but when it comes to so and so hes weak and falls flat on his face. What is that weakness in his personality pattern? It is a lack of development of lines of force of his field on the Noetic Mind level. Therefore, his weakness is what he has to delve into through experience to fortify and buildthe reaction to this weakness. Every time we fall, and we all fall at times, we learn more than if we had remained virtuous, so long as we have the necessity to fall. Let me say that, taken out of the race-conscious and moral realm, one learns more from his failures than he ever does from his successes. When you fail in something and are mortified and chagrined to the point of self-extinction, you are learning more, and learning it faster. We profit by our failures, we profit by our weaknesses to strengthen the lines of force of the field, to strengthen consciousness of our essential worth of enduring quality rather than transitory, ephemeral quality. We strengthen enduring, everlasting qualities out of our failures and weaknesses until they are all caught up in the well-rounded symmetrical development of our state on the Mind level. So, in each putting forth, the weaknesses of the personality pattern on the psychic level that show up are representative of the lack of development of the lines of force of the essential field. Sometimes we observe this so many times in ourselves and others that we are inclined to say that each one reincarnates

on his weakest note. The spectrum of his differentiating or individualized field has a scale of seven notes, seven broad rays to each division of that spectrum. Sometimes we say that one incarnates on his weakest ray, but he doesnt. He just puts forth and his weakest ray shows up, sticking out like a sore thumb because it is lacking in the pattern of his essential field. It is lacking and he has to build it. How does he build it? By falling down flat on his face, falling down harder the next time, getting into the mud, having a really difficult time getting cleaned up, and then turning around and falling down again in the mud and having a worse time, until he says by exerting willpower, By the great horn spoon, Im not going to do this any more. Im fed up! He then begins to build that quality into his field. He begins building up his weakest point until all is rounded, until all the lines of force representing the spectrum of his field are balanced and symmetrical. He is then a Be-ing, he is born into a new worldthe birth of the Christos within him. That is the orientation that we hold in this School. Beyond that, in the qualified monistic structure of cosmos, we will wait to see what it is all about until we get there as a conscious Be-ing on the Noetic Mind level. Meanwhile, we have our hands full keeping up to our highest potential possibilities, building out of our weaknesses our strengths, building the well-rounded field of our essential nature.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 11 In our last lesson we approached a description of that state of conscious self-awareness which we label Noetic Mind from the basis of the cosmic process working from the heights down to the Noetic Mind level. In this lesson we are going to describe the Noetic Mind from the basis of the private world. "We are going to take the lowest point labeled the private world and work up. Let us set up our referent for the term private world. We have also labeled what we call the private world the nether world, so equate these two labels with the whole synthetical buildup in the consciousness based upon the objective self-conscious state, that is, based upon identification with things, bodies, objects, etc. That is somewhat redundant, because if one has in his consciousness the idea that what we call the body is a thing or object, then of course things and objects would be just like synonyms. Each and every one of us is so familiar with his so-called physical body that, we can, for the sake of this lesson, substitute the word body for identification-of-consciousness-with-which-is-called body and that will explain what we mean by the objective self-conscious state. That objective self-conscious state, or identification of the body as thing or object, forms the basis for quite an extensive and complex manifold of values. If we can visualize the whole ensemble of the values given to this, that and the other thing in one frame of reference, then we have the basis and referent for the term private world. It is a private world for two or three specialized reasons. One, there are no two private worlds alike; there are as many private worlds as there are individuals who can think; each and every one of us carries around with us our own private world. Also, the private world has no existence outside of the mental processes of a given individual. That is, a given private world has no existence whatever, outside of, other than, the mental processes of that same individual. This last statement is extremely important because in the practice of the way, which this course of lessons is about, or based upon, one of the most grievous errors we respectively commit is to work on the unconscious assumption that our private worlds are understood by others. We call that idealizing, endowing others with understanding of our respective private worlds, because we attribute to others that they understand things like we see it. However, they are so involved and identified and concerned with their own private world that they havent any room in their private world to understand our private world. They are too busy with their own private world, yet we think they are not. We think that they understand our private world, but they dont. They cant even hear what we are talking about because they are so concerned in their own private world, and the chance to talk about it, that they cant hear what we are saying about our private world. We are laboring all the time under the unconscious assumption that they are understanding our private world as we are describing it and that trips us all up because we wake up sooner or later and find out others didnt understand our private world at all. Not knowing that we are respectively laboring under such an unconscious assumption, we blame them! He deceived me! I trusted him! I believed so and so! I counted on you! etc. Yet nothing is wrong except our own unconscious assumption that we are trying to put over as a common private world. I have tried to illustrate functioning under this unconscious assumption with the crude analogy that one who labors under such an unconscious assumption is like a tailor who has a fixation of manufacturing just one suit of clothes. He wont vary it or change it for anyone or anything. He puts that suit of clothes on every one who comes in, tall man, short, fat man, out-of-shape man, and when the suit of clothes wont fit, he blames the customer. He doesnt stop to analyze or ferret out his own private world and the content thereof to see how he is manufacturing his arbitrary setups, arbitrary to everyone elses setup and arbitrary to the real world. This nether world, or what we call a given private world, exists only in the mental processes of the one who has that private world and has no other existence anywhere, is built into the consciousness of that individual by a process of unconscious abstracting (abstract means to draw from) from appearances, phenomena, etc. He draws inferences, assumptions, conclusions, etc., and synthesizes those on the

mental level only, in his mental processes, into that manifold of values or frame of reference in which he thinks he functions. However, the phenomenal appearances from which he abstracts his inferences, assumptions, values, etc., have no other foundation except the images in his own psychic nature. If you do not like the label psychic nature just say the images formulated in his own consciousness in the objective self-conscious state. The private world, upon the basis of what has just been said, is characterized by a dual selfdeception. The first deception is the phenomenal appearance of images formulated in the consciousness, in the objective state and are only relative to his state and not relative to reality. The second deception is the unconscious inference and assumption that he functions according to his mental concepts but he is really in a dual state of self deception, or self psychologization. There is actually a third deception in which he lives and functions. That third factor is the weakness of sense perception. I said weakness of sense perception, the deficiency in sense perception. That weakness and deficiency can be described as deception, non-dependability. The sense faculties cannot be depended upon because they are deceptive. The word deceptive is not an adequate word to use because the connotation there is on moral grounds that something has deceived you. It is more in the nature of inadequacy of sense perception than it is deception of sense perception. The way we see through the eyes, the way we hear through the ears, the way we smell through the nose, the way we register impressions, stimuli through touch, etc.,the sense faculties, are not adequate for, and to function with true perception. Consequently, in due course of evolution and expanding awareness one has to pass beyond any dependability upon sense perceptions. They are extremely limited. There is a better way that only dawns upon the consciousness after one has passed beyond functioning exclusively by sense perception. He finds that functioning in and with sense perception has a limited purpose and validity. He can narrow it down to a narrow band and within that narrow band he finds there is a validity to it. The validity is based upon, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. That means to say, when incarnated among the mortals, one can function as mortals function and that is justified, because not to do so would isolate him from all commerce with the mortals. One must utilize the sense instrumentalities even though they are limited, and know no other, in order to fraternize and function with mortals. Functioning on that level, in and with the sense faculties, is called conscious abstracting because one is not under any illusion about the inferences and assumptions abstracted. He will abstract just like the rest of them. I am not asking you to do it. Remember I said when one who passes beyond being limited to functioning in the sense faculties he can utilize them just like any one else would, but he does it consciously. He is not under any unconscious inferences, assumptions, abstractions. He consciously abstracts and functions. Why does he do that? Maybe he has another purpose to fraternize with those who are limited to sense functioning. Maybe he wants to open their eyes and help them out of the veil of maya or for some other reason. One who has passed beyond functioning by sense faculties exclusively has a great deal of the sense of fitness of things. Such a one has a great deal of sense of fitness of things to simulate functioning in the sense faculties just as if he didnt know anything else in order to accomplish his other purposes. Some of those who pass beyond the limitation of functioning in sense faculties assume a commission to remain or return to those who are limited to their sense faculties. We are not going into the merits of that. The only thing that we can say is, where would we mortals be if those blessed immortals did not return and help us? Why, we would begin to slide back faster than we are going. We would be in an elementalistic primitive barbarism if it were not for the help derived from those who elect to return. They are like Prometheus who was bound to the rock with the vultures eating his liver because he brought the fire of the gods to the mortals. That is the inevitable result of doing it because he is going to be bound by their limitations and put out of business for venturing to bring the higher light, fire, down to the mortals. When he brings it down to the private worlds, down to the nether world, they want to put him out of business because they want to preserve their private worlds. They will fight to the last inch of the last ditch to preserve their private worlds. Anyone who attempts to take them out of their private world is considered enemy number one to that nether world. But you see, that crucifixion and the vultures eating at his vitals is only relative to his own psychic nature and not at all relative to his real being. His real

being is never touched no matter how many times the vehicles in which he functions are destroyed. That makes him quite indifferent to what they do to him on his lower levels. There is much in our teaching regarding the details of how and why the sense faculties are limited, the inability to register the high frequencies or accelerated motion, and the compensation for that inability by formulating pictures and images of peripheral outlines of the configurations in the configurational world. All of that is minutely described elsewhere in the work as the basis for our statement in this lesson that the sense faculties are wholly deceptive to one functioning in his private world, the nether world. The lowest function of that world is what we call action. We can only act with the configurational self (the physical body). One cannot feel with it one little speck. If he could, anesthetics would have no effect. It is the instrument through which stimuli are conveyed through nerves and neurons to the psycho-dynamism which translates those impulses through the nervous system into sensations, feelings, desires, emotions, and thinkings. Then in that private world the pursuit of the objects of desire governs. We turn next to the function of the psychic nature, which is quite different from the way we think we function. There is a sort of duality that goes on. We are motivated by forces hidden to consciousness in objective identification. We are motivated by hidden forces, compulsion urges, and in response to those we pursue the objects of desire. While we function that way, the mentalized private world is still going on giving objective reasons, justifications, and alibis, for why we pursue the objects of sense. So there is a dual function. In the mental private world with its reasons, alibis, ratiocinations, and mental justifications, one is completely unconscious of the motivating forces in the psychic nature, the real drive for the objects of sense. What a wonderful game of hide and seek we play! Motivating forces in the psychic nature are the drive for the objects of sense but on the mental level they are hidden. When we begin to study psychology, psychiatry, psychiatric practice, etc., the game of hide and seek begins. The artifice and cleverness of the motivating force is to hide and to create censorship even to the psychologist and the psychoanalyst. His game on the other side is to find him, the little rascal, ferret him out, and say, There you are, bang, I got you! Lots of fun! When we begin to study psychoanalytical psychology, then we enter the game of hide and seek to run down the hidden and unconscious motivations, motivating forces. A all the time the mentality (the private world), is throwing out reasons to make it go this way and that off the track. They are like some birds that when flushed while they have eggs or little ones, will flop and pretend to be wounded to lead you away from their nest or their little ones. They will keep just a little way ahead of you. You think you are going to catch them every minute until they get you far enough away from their nest and swish, they are gone. That is the mental censors game. I am trying to put that over to you by dramatizing it a little bit. We function so differently from the way we think we function. We must treat that thinking the way we would the dissimulation of the wounded bird that constantly leads us off so we will not detect the real motivating forces that drive us. This looks like deception again but it isnt. It is an artifice of Nature, your nature. We use the word nature in two aspects. One we spell with the small n meaning, for instance, the artistic nature of the birds, flowers, bees, etc. Then we spell Nature with a capital N which sometimes is not so pretty or beautiful to our aesthetic sense but it is real dynamic force, power and drivethe genetrix. It is the generative force that brings out into manifestation everything from the atom to the mentality and to the highest psychic nature. Everything is integrated in that Nature, Mother Nature, the World Mother. But Nature is not deceptive because you must be led off mentally in your private world. You must constantly be led away from discovering the motivating forces for the objects of desire until in the pursuit of them you have reached the limit and the end of it and voluntarily surrender it. This is renunciation in its true sense. Be very careful now. Those who practice renunciation prematurely before they have exhausted experience in the pursuit of objects of sense, create a greater blockage to true development than those who pursue the objects of sense lustily, vigorously, avowedly, unashamedly. ... I would thou wert hot or cold...because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. [Rev.

3:15-16]. What I am saying at this point in this lesson relative to my setting up a referent for my private world is this: asceticism, in whole or in part, is not the way to true development, is not natural order. It is a flown-away virtue until you have by experience exhausted the objects of sense and say, Hurrah for the maya, what an illusion! What fantastic images and shadows I have been pursuing. But why pursue them further? What an idiot I have been! All the powers that be, please forgive me for being such a blankety, blank idiot. I thought that I could find water and shade and dates and pretty damsels and what have you in the mirage. You must go right into the heart of that mirage, and find out that it is a mirage. That is why Nature is not really deceptive by leading you on mentally. Your private world leads you on in the pursuit of objects of sense so that you may learn it, because you will only come out of it after you learn it. If one practices asceticism, renunciation, and all that goes with it prematurely before he is really exhausted experience in the pursuit of objects of sense, he reincarnates right over again and has to go to the other extreme from asceticism. For instance, there were those Aryans who practiced asceticism, flights from reality, running away from the world out of spiritual pride, or out of self deception that they could get away because they wanted the reality. They didnt want the maya, the illusion. They practiced extensively and fanatically and lifted their consciousness out of their psychic nature, pulled all of their forces out and desire withered and atrophied and died away apparently. But they had to come back. They reincarnated in the United States of America, or some other free enterprise system, where they became captains of industry, leaders of predatory wealth. There is a difference between wealth and predatory wealth. Do not think your teacher is against wealth. He is for it as long as it is utilized as a commodity to build with, work with, create with. It is necessary if one is going to work and create in the objective manifold of values. It becomes the symbol of energy and power on other levels. Remember, do not run away. Wait until you are so filled with disgust that you cannot pursue the objects of sense any further. When you are filled with disgust, then turn and look for the motivating force in the objects of sense. In this lesson we are approaching a description of the Noetic Mind not only from the basis of the private world but in terms of our own progress, our evolution. The evolutionary process is properly described as expanding awareness. This terminology is extremely important, for if you catch the implication of expanding awareness as the referent for the evolutionary process you will quickly see that there is no leaving something behind and going to something above like a layer cake where you are going to leave this lower world and get to the higher world, etc. That is an aspect of that premature asceticism. Expanding awareness is a process of synthesis. You do not leave anything; you just expand your consciousness and comprehend a wider, higher, deeper, broader, more comprehensive view of the cosmic process and yourself in relation to it. That expanding awareness must constantly be kept in mind because then you will have no reactionary values about anything. You have a synthesis and that which is true will ever and always be true. And that which is true is described as the Real World. We call the point where we cross over from the mentalized, private world into the Real World the First Crossing. This so-called private world is where we think we function, which is not true to the way we function, unless one has expanded his consciousness to the comprehension of the Real World. In that comprehension of the Real World he can formulate his mental constructs of it true to the structurefunction-order of the Real World. That is, he can make his mental map true to the territory, the structurefunction-order of the evolutionary process, of the expanding consciousness, or the cosmic process. When one has expanded consciousness to the point where he can perceive (because he doesnt conceive, he perceives), he operates upon that faculty of feeling-knowing, feeling-awareness, feeling-intuition. It is sort of a feeling-intuitive awareness in the absence of thinking, in the utter stillness of the mental processes. When consciousness has expanded in the feeling-awareness of the Real World, that is, the cosmic process, until he can perceive the structure-function-order of it, then he can make his private world, his mentalized constructs, true to it. He can make his map true to territory. Before that expanded state of consciousness there is no way, whereby a given individual in his private world can make his private world map true to territory because his map will be true to only his values given under those unconscious inferences and assumptions that we treated at the beginning of this lesson.

The true perceivers of olden times did not have the advantage of modern scientific developments of the Einsteinian age, the world of electronic forces, and they did not have the ability to consciously abstract. In this modern electronic age we are beginning to mentally, at least, function in differentiated fields, electromagnetic fields, field physics, waves and frequencies, band-passes, resonant qualities, information loaded upon the waves and frequencies for communication purposes, etc. Think of the great teachers of old who had true perception but never had these points of reference that we have today. Those great perceivers of old had to use stories and parables and similes and metaphors, and what not, and symbolize it in so many ways and use a sort of metaphorical language. We bring in that metaphorical language to this day in order to correlate what we have said with what they have taught in olden times. I dare say that times will come when we will no longer resort to that correlation of the expressions and the teachings and the parables and the allegories of the past, but were not far enough out of that past as yet to abandon it. Every once in a while we will have to drag it in. The perceivers who could make their mental constructs true to structure-function-order of reality (reality meaning the cosmic process) used to say it this way: Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. [Luke 11:2] It is just as simple as that. Bring down to your nether world That which is already eternally established, invariant, unalterable, unchangeable, the same yesterday, today and forever. I bring this up because I am absorbed now in a recent copy of Scientific American and their description of automatic controls and the feedback in automatic controls. They have discovered nothing that is not a replica of the structure-function-order of reality and there is no possibility that they will ever discover anything except a copy, or reflection of structure-function-order of the True Self of every individual and his integration into the whole process. To give you an illustration, I found the finest and the most valuable referent for the word karma I ever got in my life. I became so excited over it I could hardly sleep all last night. Nothing excites me like ideas. I got this idea that karma is a feedback. This is parenthetical to my lesson and I will get back on the beam, but I was so excited about this that I wanted to share it with you. Every individual that puts forth again in the palingenetic process, (which ignorant mortals call reincarnation), the true individual on the Mind level as he stands on the threshold of putting forth again (reincarnation), he always sounds his scale, his notes, and one is flat, or flatter that the rest. It doesnt ring out round and fully complete. He is going to incarnate on that ray, his flat ray, his weakest point. Let us say we have a dial with a hand on the dial and that hand points to the objective for which he is putting forth again, reincarnating again. Everyone comes in with it with no exception. We all stand on the threshold of putting forth and sound our scales, we sound the seven rays, and the one note is flat. That is our weak point; we havent rounded it out and completed it. We will incarnate in an environment, even to the geneology, and in the country, that will afford the best opportunity to experience expression and development and expansion on the weakest point. I want to call that weakest point the object to achieve in a given incarnation. Now let us put another hand on this dial, the mean of achievement. We come in with a definite objective to accomplish, and at the end of the incarnation, we call it death, we will check out and review it, make a synthesis, and we will see how we came out. There is lots of oscillation of this second hand that we call accomplishment. Sometimes we come up to our best, and sometimes exceed our best, and sometimes we fall down below our best. And sometimes we fall way down below our best, down with the dogs. We do oscillate, but at the end of a life there is an even mean, our highest, our best, our lowest, and our worst are sort of averaged up. That even mean averaged up, let us label that which was accomplished. But let us say that its total accomplishment did not reach the objective set for that incarnation. There is a differential, a shortage, and that differential is a feedback into the governor. If you are conversant with Sanskrit, the governors name is Surya, the organizer. This differential is a feedback and that feedback has to emerge and be compensated for, so maybe another incarnation on the same ray will be needed. It is the feedback of that differential which is called karma. And do you know we can now make a mathematical construct of those differentials? To quote the article, the mathematicians can play tunes if they have sufficient number of differentials. Before long we can make a mathematical construct of a given karma in a given instance. The feedback now is a differential between the goal set and accomplishment. This is all parenthetical to the line of thought of

this lesson. What is so thrilling about it is that in this modern age when we have these points of reference, the modern scientific development, we do not have to resort to the old forms of expression. It will not be long before we will abandon them entirely because we will all be familiar with the modern scientific terminology and be integrated in it. Now I return to where I left off: Thy Will be done in the nether world as it is already done in Heaven. Equate the word harmony with the word Heaven. The harmonic world of frequency is our referent in this School for the word Heaven, because when you are in perfect harmonic synchronization with structure-function-order of the real world you are in Heaven and you do not have to die to get there. You are at peace, and happy and radiant. You are in such ecstasy that you have to curb it or others will begin to think you are peculiar if you dont curb your happiness. That is just bringing harmony into the private world. When you bring in that harmony, you have fulfilled Thy Will done on earth as it is in Heaven, and that is the great thing to work for. That is the pearl beyond all price. Sooner or later we will break through the First Crossing, break through the private world, and begin to operate, manipulate, deal with energy in its configurated forms. This signalizes the First Crossing, the breaking over into the lower phases of the Real World. We will then gradually build up to this Noetic Mind through the process of expanding consciousness.

PRACTICE OF THE WAY

Lesson 12 We are in pursuit, so to speak, of a description of the Noetic Mindthe Causal Field. We have given this description from the cosmic process to the differentiating phases, and down through the content of consciousness in the psychic nature to the private world. So important is this subject, and so necessary is it for sincere students to consciously work within this structure of the process of self development, that we reversed the usual method of approach and began with the private world. We are working back to the differentiated field which constitutes the true Individual when the individualizing process will have been completed. Remember, there is no individual Being until the individualizing process has been completed. In this reverse approach from the objective self-conscious state, or the private world, to the Noetic Mind, which is the label we have given to the form of functioning in the true Individual Self, we have reached the First Crossing. We left off last lesson with the breakthrough at the First Crossing from the mentalized private world into the harmonic rhythm of energy in its configurated forms, and how to deal with that energy substance directly. The breakthrough constitutes a breaking up of the canalizations, semantic blockages, and barriers on the mental level. It is the breaking up of old crystallizations. (That term breakthrough is a little unfortunate, for it seems as if we as we are now conscious of ourselves in objective identity are going to break through some barrier, but such is not the case. I say this on the grounds that That into which we are to emerge is not something we are going to gain which we have not heretofore had in actuality, or in our functioning. We are already functioning wholly and completely and fully, figuratively speaking, across the line that we have labeled the first crossing.) This breakup serves to bring the mental way of thinking into perfect synchronization with the way we function. It is the breaking up of those semantic blockages, mental habits, barriers, etc., created by objective evaluations. Before the breakthrough we are like Lots wife in the Biblical story. She looked back to traditional authorities, if I may paraphrase it, to the old objective way of thinking and evaluating, until our mental processes have become crystallized, hardseta pillar of salt. The breakthrough constitutes the breaking up of that crystallization resulting from looking back to traditional authority, to the way our fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, and on and on, thought. There is no use for me to say to you that there is a new age upon us, a new cycle in which there is nothing even resembling the old way of thinking in objectivity. It will not be long before well-read people, scholars, students, even down to highschool age, are beginning to understand modern physics. The race psyche will pass beyond that objective crystallization. Those who still think in the old objective way will probably be called old fashioned, because the opening and expanding awareness of the structure of this universe is passing beyond that and will leave all the old institutions based upon the old objective foundations dying on the vine. The life stream is passing beyond it.

2 For those who have difficulty in following the way of describing this, I can describe it in the most elementary language. The pivot of the whole breakup or breakthrough can be described as the concept that we are a physical body carrying around walking around with a soul or a psychic nature within us. Do you understand the concept of a body having a soul? Your whole thought will have to swing on that pivot throughout this lesson just as my thought in describing it to you will have to swing on that. Let us get that very clearly in our minds or we are going to lose the import and meaning of this whole lesson. The breakup, the breakthrough, the crossingover, the first crossing, is only mental. We are actually only learning to think the way we function, not to get some new way of functioning. This is relative to the mental processes only, and I have to address myself to your mentality, your reasoning process, your logical processes, your intellect. What is on that mental level? A concept, an idea. All we are dealing with now is the pivotal point, and I shall describe that central idea of this treatment of the first crossing as, This body is physical, and it has a soul or psyche in it. This is what must be broken up in order to make the first crossing. In truth, in actuality, there is no such thing anywhere on the planet as a physical body, a static thing or object, and particularly a physical body with a soul. Most students of this work have heard me describe the analysis of a given thing, like this thing that we call body, many times, so I will not re-describe it in minute particulars. But as soon as we endeavor to analyze any little bit of what we call an object or thing we find that it breaks down into its chemical constituents and its molecular structure. The molecules break down into their atomic components, and the atomic components break down into those positive and negative units of energy. So, where is the thing, the object, in this? Before we even start into that investigation or analysis, the object has long since disappeared and is forgotten. It cant be found anywhere except in our mental concept, as an idea. In actuality, in truth, it doesnt exist anywhere else. After we get through that exhaustive analysis and trace it all back to a configuration of units of energy, in spite of everything, we may still hold that idea in the cortex. So we turn upon that concept in the cortex and destroy it, break it up. That is what constitutes the first crossing. We are all very familiar by this time, with the understanding that our sensuous receptivities cannot register the rapidity of the intermittent or discontinuous stimuli of the energy world. We know that we receive them as continuous. The neural senses and responses (seeing, hearing, touching, etc.) involve a reflex arc. One must receive the impulse and translate it to the brain. The consciousness in contact with the brain has to translate it and understand it and then send forth its message so the appropriate action or reception will take place. Those afferent responses and the efferent reactions are not fast enough to catch the intervals between the stream of energy that we call stimuli, so we register them as continuous. Out of the continuous impression we formulate our pictures and images. That formulation of pictures and images appearing substantive constitutes the basis of how we got that concept or idea of thing, object, body (physical or otherwise).

3 In the practice of the way, which is the subject of this series of lessons, there is a very wonderful practice. It can even be converted into a form of meditation. Just start by saying, As I am now conscious of myself, I am not a physical body containing in some way or other a soul, a psyche. I am not a physical body having a soul. Meditate on that and all the reasons, the whys and wherefores that I just briefly touched upon, or that you have studied in the literature of the School of the Natural Order. Familiarize yourself with those reasons and ideas that will justify you in that meditation. Support your meditationI am not a physical body with a soul, or psyche, until through that association with a new concept the old can no longer remain tenable. Then you cannot harbor it and a new concept will emerge. When that new concept becomes established you have made the first crossingyou have broken through! What is that new concept that emerges? As you are now conscious of yourself, if you are not a physical body with a soul a or psychic nature in it, then what is this that I call my personality? Form a new concept. Since it is never fair to take an old concept away from anyone without supplying a better one right on its heels I am going to describe that new concepta concept that is true to factuality. There is a long stream of consequences that result from functioning one way and thinking another way. Mentalizing in a way that is false to facts inevitably results in a multiplicity of conflicts, neural and psychological breakdowns, and confusions. Do not underrate this, because the consequences of that conflicting thinking and functioning are enormous. It is resulting in national schizophrenia. But just as soon as one begins to think the way he functions, all neuroses, all psychosomatic difficulties, clear right up, because the basis of all these conflicts is gone. Thus, the subject of this class is more far-reaching than just a point in the understanding of the self-development process. It reaches into every corner and ramification of our religious and educational systems, our philosophies, economic systems, etc. What is the new concept that comes in to take the place of the old and false concepts? Remember that the old and false concept is that I am a physical body with a soul, or psyche, etc., in it. The new concept is that the state of which I am now conscious of Be-ing can be described as bundles of elemental forces synthesized with bundles of instincts in feelings, desirings, emotings, and thinkings. Some of those bundles of forces in the ensemble of what we call the personality have different qualities, gunas, which run way back into the plant and even down to the mineral formative forces of nature which we call the elemental forces. We have them on the grounds that what we call progress, advancement, and expansion of consciousness is not abandoning that which you have accumulated and incorporated in the past, but a constant adding to, adding to, and adding to. It is an accumulation that has an ever higher quality, for there is a changed aspect given to that which has heretofore been acquired. There are several points at this moment which may be vague for I have not described them to you. You may be way ahead of me, but I am going to retreat just a moment before I go on with the description of this new concept. I keep repeating the phrase: the way we, respectively, are now conscious. To explain the antecedent of that

4 we, take a given person the way he is now conscious of himself. The consciousness of himself, his Self, refers to the individualizing process on Mind level, because that is the Power with which he is conscious. That is the Power with which anyone is conscious; but the state in which he, the specific individual, is conscious refers to the way he is now constitutedwhich we label a personality. So we are dealing with a content of his state. The state is the content of consciousness we call the psychic nature, but the Power which is conscious in or of that state is not the psychic nature at all. It is the Individual on the Mind level as a differentiating field in the cosmic process. The analysis of the state in which a given person is conscious is the content of his personality or the psychic nature. So now we can use two terms: the term personality or the term psyche (or if you wish, use the term soul). Now we can refer back. I am not a physical body with a soul or psychepersonality. That is the I, the real I that is now conscious of myself as I, the real I, am now conscious of myself. The entire content of this state we call soul, psyche. I am a psyche. I am a soul. Or, as a synonym, I am a personality. Students in the School of the Natural Order, condition your thinking to use those three words as synonyms: soul, psyche, personality. For that word psyche you can also say psychic nature if it is appropriate in the context of a given situation. What is that new concept of soul, psyche, personality that takes the place of the old concept? How can it be described? We describe it as bundles of forces having specific quality or guna, and we label that quality, together with the elemental forces, the instincts, the feelings, the desires, the emotions, the thinkings. Now these are not single forces, but highly complex forces and vast congeries of single forces in each bundle. What holds these bundles of forces having different qualities, properties, characteristics, and gunas together? An organizer, a ruler, an overseer; and we label that organizer and binder of all of them psycho-dynamism. The psycho-dynamism holds them together. I am not going now into the description of the term psycho-dynamism, for that has been done in many past lessons. We have in our booklets and pamphlets the description of the psycho-dynamism which holds these bundles together, and what this term represents and symbolizes. But now I am after something elsethe origin of these bundles of forces and their individual components. Remember, Im talking about dynamic forces, dynamic powers each having definite characteristics, gunas. If you want to have a referent for characteristic, guna, or quality, think of shades of colors. I often think of them in terms of color, because we have long ago learned to identify them by their colors. I do not know whether all of you have seen these colors in the surround of the bundles of the configuration of people. By color and shade we identify the quality, and many of us have functioned that way for years until we have raised our consciousness above the Second Crossing where we no longer have to function by registry of color to identify the gunas, the content of these bundles. We do it then by the quality of the frequency itself without the objectification of the quality in what is called the aura or the surrounding field. But for those who stumble over words it is nice to have this other way of identifying meaning. So if the words guna, characteristic, or property are a little confusing to your understanding, just substitute the word color and

5 then say (paraphrased), By their colors ye shall know them. By their colors you shall know their state of consciousness we call the soul, the psyche, the personality. Isnt that all simple and elementary? Now a really important point has been raised. From whence come these forces with their particular qualities, their colors? How do we get them assembled into a formulation that we call a soul, psyche, personality? This is a very interesting study. I promise you that if you enter upon this study of these forces with their respective qualities, you will be absorbed for a number of years because you will either have to trace it back or go back yourself. I could trace it back to the basic origin or start with the basic origin and bring it forward. Lets start with the basic origin. The state of consciousness of the whole race on the planet at the dawn of the appearance of the race on the planet was one homogeneous whole. It was more animalized than humanized, although we are still not very far along with the humanizing process. We are still about ninety percent animal and about ten percent human. But first I want to go back now to what we call race. It does not mean nationalism, it doesnt mean a Frenchman, or a German, or a Hindu, or an American. It means man, generic man, as one race. There are many ethnological divisions of the race, but there is only one race. Never use that word race in any other way. (Pardon that dogmatic way of talking to you.) I should have said gently that one who is schooled in careful use of his words never uses the word race except as the whole humanity on the planet, a generic term for man. So way back somewhere, approximately two million, five hundred thousand years ago, the race appeared on the planet. There is an over-field, an over-soul to every differentiation. We must never think of an atom, or a molecule of a given personality or flower or planet without thinking in terms of the triplicity: the field, the lines of force making a pattern of the field, and the configurational representations of the field and the pattern. Pattern means the architect. You can use the term Grand Architect, the Arch, of anything of which you wish to think or speak, but never think of it in single terms. Always see it as a triplicity. The lines of force of the field make the Arch and the configurational representation thereof from which, on the mental level, we abstract the thing and the object. Think of the race in terms of a triplicity. There is an overall field with lines of force and configurational representations. The configurational representations of the field are the dawn of the first emergence of the race on the planet. The configurational representations are personsdifferentiated, animalized persons. Today the same holds true even as we are developing a new field in this new age, or expanding consciousness into this new field at this new age which we could call the spirit of the Christos. We are individual units in its representation. In scriptural terminology, Christ is the church. We are the body of the church. So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members, one of another. [Romans 12:5] The Christos is the governing body, and we are the individual representations of the pattern, Arch, of that Power. Of course, that is what makes us a group. And so with the dawn, remember to think in triplicity. The overall differentiated field with its lines of force is the pattern of a vast multiplicity of

6 persons. They may have been more animal than human. That is a study on the psychological level. But in due time this backgroundthe oversoul which is the pattern, the Arch, the race oversoultogether with its differentiated fields became multiplicities of differentiations. These were called races, like the Caucasian race or the Negro race. This is division of the race, and again we could describe those different differentiations in terms of color; the yellow race, the white race, the black race, etc. Each one of these ethnological divisions of the original race has its own separate field and pattern, and a multiplicity of individuals forming its representation. As we came down what is called the stream of consciousness, the stream of time, many breakups and differentiations took place. Eventually a differentiation took place that we call the genealogical line or family. The individual is very often so attached to his genealogical division of the race that he cannot even reincarnate outside of it. He is drawn back into it over and over again, and so he has that genealogical line indelibly impressed on his psyche, his personality. I never will forget my mother telling me when I was a little boy and did some little foolish boys trick that was a little dishonorable, Think, think what you are. You are a deBit. See that impression of genealogical line? I disgraced my whole genealogical line and went off out into the garden and ate wooly worms or something. What have I done that I had disgraced my whole family line? In New England that is very strong but out west because it is what a man is now that we look at. We dont care who his grandfather was, or his great granddaddy. But when I was teaching in Boston I never referred to my posterity, because I discovered they gave great value to that genealogical line. Now, it just so happens that my fathers mother was a Lathrop, an old, old New England stock. So I just casually (facetiously on my part) mentioned in one of my lessons, Well, Ill bet that stems from the Lathrops because I am directly connected with them. A woman went out of that classroom stamping her feet down the corridor saying, I know now why I never liked that man. The Dudleys never did get along with the Lathrops. But that was two hundred years ago when the Dudleys didnt get along with the Lathrops. I bring this in facetiously and to lighten this discussion a bit to show you how the genealogical family is in the psyche as a guna. Then we break the genealogical line into the differentiations of an actual father, mother, grandfather, grandmother family. It is a differentiated field within the genealogical field, where, at long last, we have the person himself. From whence come these bundles? It is not simple but it is a fascinating study. I have been absorbed in that study for years. Our own unique and personal evaluations or experiences are related to our fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers etc., which in turn are related to the genealogical line then related back to its ethnological division, and then related again clear back to the basic race as a force. A given personality as a whole bundle of the accumulated forces of elemental substances instincts, feelings, desires, emotions, thinkings, etc., derives from the individuals experiences back to the basic race oversoul and its inherent instincts. All of this represents the forces by which a given person is motivated, the motivating forces of you, of me, of anyone, and all of this lies beneath the level of cortical (that means objective) awareness.

7 All of this is just to describe the new concept that takes the place of the old. When we become aware of our psyche, our soul, our personality, we have to do it in these terms of bundles of forces with their respective gunas assembled in a given formulation. It is an ensemble held by the psycho-dynamism, a force flowing from the differentiated field, the individual level, or from the Mind level in you and in me, or in anyone. Those who are interested in such studies can go back and trace the streams of consciousness, the streams of force, from their origin to the present personality, and how their present personality is gaining new experiences, adding to the content of its forces, the psychic nature. Every experience that one has adds something to the ensemble, the background. That is why we are builders; that is why we have free moral agency. We are masons, every one of us. We elect the material, the quality of force, that we build in moment by moment. What do you read? What do you listen to? What do you study? What do you meditate on? What type of music will you allow yourself to listen to? Moment by moment you select the quality that you build in. We have built in these qualities, the content of the state in which we are conscious that is our soul or psyche, for so long (some say 2,500,000 years) that these qualities have become incorporated or represented as chromatin in our genes. They compose the chromosomes that can be passed down as hereditary characteristics. That chromatin in the genes of chromosomes is built by the quality of that to which you lend yourself long enough down the stream of what we call consciousness or time. If you lend yourself to this or that quality individually or racially, it will not be many generations before it will become hereditary. You can transmit it, because everything in the configuration of self, of the living matter representation of the content of the psyche (Do not think physical body here), is only a representation of the qualities built into the psyche. The chromatin actually becomes formed by the qualities registered in the psyche. This is a, b, c in practicing the way, to be selective of the type of literature, companionship, even the places you go. So become highly selective. Select only that which will contribute a higher quality to you and severely rule out that which would lower the tone, the quality of your thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. That is all there is to it, but you must do it long enough and keep that quality in your consciousness, in your psyche until you will represent it too. Configurationally speaking, it becomes representative of your psyche. Why is this deep and occult and mystical and metaphysical? Just stand at the portal and watch what you let in and exclude what you do not want to manifest in the future. Cut that down and down until it amounts to merely a thought, and then do not even allow that kind of a thought. You would not want to manifest that kind of a quality in the future, so it seems so unutterably simple to practice the way, and so happy and enjoyable to practice it. Some may not be interested in this genealogical, ethnological, or racial oversoul and how it progressed, evolved, or developed down the stream of consciousness or stream of time. For those there are varied and simple ways of breaking up that old crystallization, and I am going to give you another form of meditation as a practice of the way. This meditation is called here-now. When we look into what we call the past and what we call the future, we find that there is no such thing as past and future. It is only a mental concept, and is part of the old crystallization or pillar of salt that has to be

8 broken up. Many of you have heard me try to describe this concept called past and this concept called future, and I am just going to very briefly touch upon it because I have a very important meditation to work out of what I am describing. Let us take a stick and imagine an imaginary point on the stick. To the left of the point on the stick let us label the past. To the right of the imaginary point on the stick let us label the future. Let us label the point itself the present. Only on the mental level in the private world does it appear that the future is flowing across a point called the present into the past. We have this imaginary point in what is called the stream of time only on the mental level, for nowhere else do we visualize the future flowing across the point that we call the present into the past. Ask anyone anywhere, Does the future exist? Why, he will answer, No! It will exist, but it doesnt exist now. Does the past exist? He will say, No. It did, but it doesnt now. Well, does the point on the stick exist? Yes, thats now. All right, at what fraction of a second, and get your fractions down to a millionth, or one tenmillionth of a second, at what one ten-millionth of a second are you going to say now? So that doesnt exist either. Now he is in confusion. No future, no past, and he cannot find the now. Here is the way the psyche of any person functions. This whole socalled past is wrapped up, bundled up in his consciousness as now. The whole past. The future is nothing except the projection of the past by thought. It cannot be projected anywhere else. Will you allow me to go over that again? In the final analysis, the past and the future are only ideas, concepts on the mental level for they exist no place else. We have to go within the mental functions to understand those concepts. Within the mental functions we objectify because of motion sensation which creates the concept of time. We only mentally project the concept of time, seeing it in motion because it is the motion that created the sensation that we identify and call time. Back of that concept there is the whole content of what we call the past, and the future is only the projection of the past on the mental level. There is no future other than the projection of the content of the psyche. So, in the thought processes there is a slight interval between thinking of that past or thinking of the future. I said to myself before I came to the class, I wonder if I am going to get this one over? I will struggle with it. I am going to try to get this one across on the grounds that I think it is quite thrilling and valuable to understand. Are you with me to the point that what is called the past and what is called the future is only something that is going on in the mental level? To prove that, just refer to the way you think. You think of the past, or you think of the future, but you do not live in the past. I went through that with the stick example. You live now. You cannot live in the past. You only can think of the past. You cannot think in the future; you only think now. Now you think of the past. Now you think of the future. So the past and future is only thinking because functionally and actually you cannot live in either the past or the future. But you can think of the past, you can think of the future, and it is now that you think of the past or the future. Is that not simple? So, this thing called past and this thing called future are only mental, so we must go to the mental again and hawkshaw it down into its lair and pin it to the earth. When we pin down the concept of past-future we find there is a very slight and brief interval between thinking of the past and thinking of the future. We must seize upon

9 that little interval and meditate upon itwhere our thought processes are arrested between the so-called past and the so-called future. In meditating upon that interval between thinking of the past and thinking of the future we expand the now, but you have to catch that interval. Please observe this as you study yourself on a mental level. You never think in any other way except of the past or of the future. You project the motivating force that makes you think to some future possibility or eventuation. Seize upon that interval between thinking of the past and of the future. That interval is now, and you can meditate upon it to a point that thinking of the past and thinking of the future is arrested. In the silence of the mind, silence of the mental processes, the Reality becomes revealed. This is one way to make the First crossing, to cross right over, and then you can think the way you function in the here-now instead of thinking of the so-called past and the so-called future where you dont function or exist. Finally, you could abandon all I have said to make the First Crossing and direct your attention upon the force as it is awakening in the force centers, and think of that force which motivates all of the qualities accumulated. Think of that force until you can familiarize yourself with the fact that there are forces in specific foci, localized centers. Meditate upon that force, think upon it, familiarize yourself with it until you can direct, control, and move it from level to level. The very thought of attention focused upon that force as it functions in the psychic nature and in the localized foci of the psychic nature effects the First Crossing until you begin to be conscious of the way you function, because you function by the operation of that force. One way or another we must break up the old concept that I am a physical body running around with a soul in it. This is a dynamic process, not a physical body. There is nothing static about it. It is dynamic, it is active, and it is constantly changing. It is a configuration of units of energy representing the content of my consciousness which I call my soul, my personality, my psyche.