"The Process of AlignmentWhy the Brain?

" by Wendy Glaubitz and Ren Fugre Alignmentthe true essence of effectiveness in meditation depends on the depth to which our consciousness is open to this phenomenon. As students or seasoned practitioners of meditation, we soon come to realize that the alignment of our personality vehicles to the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul is the key element in accessing the higher frequency levels of the Spiritual Triad and in creating a channel for the downward movement of these higher energies into embodiment. Through the processes given to us in the Bailey books and other similar sources, we have been given keys to active creative meditation involving the building of the antakaranathe dual bridge between the lower mind, higher mind (Soul Light) and the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul, often called the Higher Self. As the 20th century progressed, the process of alignment in meditation became more specific as to the precise mechanism involved. And we see hints throughout the Bailey books of the creation of a certain light in the 3rd ventricle of the brain as playing an essential role in the alignment between the personality and the Higher Self. For those of us who have experienced meditation as a more mystical practice, we might be surprised with the importance of the brain in the alignment procedure. So we might therefore ask the question, "Why the brain?" If one loves treasure hunts then this is the perfect question to ask. D.K. never says directly why the brain is called into play in the process of alignment. Yet there are many clues and referrals to the significance of this connection found throughout the "blue books", if one has the patience to look, the zeal for more clarity, and the knowledge that the finding will indeed reveal a great treasure! One very important clue resides in the words "the cave in the head." Yet, if one searches the AAB books, the word "cave" comes up very seldom. The word "brain" is more prevalent with over 1000 entries found throughout the books. Another phrase to follow for interested searchers uses D.K.'s words "Light in the head". Many students of Treatise on Cosmic Fire, Treatise on White Magic , Letters on Occult Meditation , Esoteric Psychology II , and Rays and Initiations have been intrigued by the words "cave", "brain", and "Light in the head", enough to embark on this intensive search. A more recent writer on the subject of the esoteric significance of the brain was Lucille Cedercrans with her series of Wisdom texts whose sources are the Masters Morya, D.K., and Rakoczy. These books began to come into production within a few years of the transmission of the last Alice Bailey books around 1952. One of the more well known of these writings is The Nature of the Soul. (Refer to the website "www.wisdom impressions, com" for more information). In these writings, the concept of the "cave in the head" was finally addressed very directly and very clearly, and one can see the relation between this "cave" and D.K.'s reference to the "Light in the Head." This cave is actually the third ventricle of the brain, at the posterior aspect of which is found the pineal gland and at the anterior aspect, the hypothalamus and pituitary glands. Below are three quotes found on page 348 to 352 of the above mentioned book: 1. "The brain is in actuality a focus in substance of the incarnating consciousness. We say "the man in the brain". What we mean is "the focus of the Soul in substance, the man in his "house." The brain is a condensation of mental, astral, and etheric matter, created by a focus of these three frequencies of matter through the cave in the center of the head. The pineal and pituitary glands are the positive and negative polarities, which set up an interplay of force resulting in the birth of consciousness within, or its reflection upon this condensed matter that we call the brain." 2. "The cave in the center of the head is occultly defined as that place where land, air, and water meet, because this is the center in which etheric, mental, and astral substance is focused (in that

order) for condensation into form. The brain might be called the master-form, the instrument through which the focused substance is condensed into intelligible appearance in the lower mental, astral, and etheric-physical worlds." 3. "As the probationer practices the daily meditation, he lifts the frequency of this brain, changing the cellular construction of it in such a way as to alter the forms already impressed upon it. This is possible because his meditations act upon the etheric, mental, and astral substance being focused into and through the cave. He can alter his own brain because he is working from that center which is its cause. The substance of the vehicles is conditioned through the brain itself from the center (the cave), which brings it (the substance) into first focus. Thus is the cave the heart of a man's being. It is the very center of his three vehicles and is constructed of etheric light substance in all three frequencies of the lower worlds. In other words, it is here that the etheric, mental, and astral substance meet." At a point within the third ventricle close to the pineal gland, a small center of radiating light comes into existence as the head center of a person who is on the spiritual path begins to open. One can imagine this light as a small golden sun which is the reflection of the Soul within the "heart" of these three personality vehicles. Cedercrans writes the following statement on page 59 of Applied Wisdom about this relation between the head center and the cave: "Before the development of discipleship is reached, the head center (from the perspective of the incarnate consciousness) is not active. According to its rate and degree of activity, it reflects itself, or it comes down in a funnel shape, into the head, creating within the cave in the center of the head that place where the incarnate consciousness focuses himself and identifies as the spiritual man, or as the Conscious Soul. In other words, the cave is a center of synthesis, a part of the head center, and in truth a reflection of its activity (the activity of the head center) within the physical instrument." P. 59 This place in the cave at the bottom of the funnel becomes a lighted center as the head center itself opens naturally through the process of meditation. In the book Nature of the Soul (pages 168-171), a meditation practice is outlined for the reader incorporating the cave as the location of this lighted center. The meditator is asked to visualize a line of light going from the ajna ( in which the 5 centers on the body are integrated) to the cave in the center of the head and another line of light upward from the cave to the head center. A lighted triangle between these three points is visualized. The reader is then told, "As soon as a focus in the cave has been achieved, you are ready for deep meditation." In Applied Wisdom, this lighted center is referred to as a "small golden sun:" "Hold all of this knowledge within your mind as you work with the technique. The line of light is then invoked down through the head center and into the cave in the center of the head. Then visualize within the cave a small golden sun which is the reflection of the Spiritual Soul within the instrumentality. A line of light is then brought down into the golden sun and anchored within its center. The impact of this light upon the small golden sun within the cave increases its intensity, increases its radiation, causing the light from the small golden sun to radiate, via the etheric network, into and through the three bodies the mental body, the astral body, and the etheric so that the substance of the mental body is quickened, livened, clarified, brought into a lucid relationship within the Spiritual Soul by the radiation of light from the small golden sun. Remember that this has been caused by the impact of the higher alignment via the alignment upon that sun." p. 59

This relationship between the Light in the head and the head center is the essential connection needed not only for alignment to the higher frequencies of the Soul and Spiritual Triad, but for the manifestation of the impressions received during meditation and for the outward flow of energies through the personality vehicles from the Soul. We have here the mechanism for invocation and evocation, so often referred to in the Bailey books. Here is another quote from Applied Wisdom. The message in this passage is remarkable in its implications: "The head center constitutes that center in etheric substance of your instrumentality which is in the same vibratory realm as your home, so to speak, in the Ashram (on the Buddhic level). This is a secret little known an occult fact its revelation brings the realization that continuity between the Soul in the Ashram and the Conscious Soul Incarnate is but a matter of utilization of these two centers, their alignment, the gradual growth of a magnetic field between them and eventually their mergence into one another, until the Thousand-petal Lotus is manifest as the physical materialization or manifestation of the Spiritual Soul in the Ashram. "Realize then, as you utilize that line of light between the cave and the head center, the tremendous meaning involved here that the path between the cave and the head center is the path of evolution between and just prior to the Third Initiation and the completion of the Fourth Initiation, that contained within it, between head center and the cave is the vast body of Wisdom which will constitute your state of consciousness as you stand before the One Initiator to receive the touch of the Rod of Initiation to emerge a Master. This small bit of space between the cave and the head center which has to be brought into your conscious awareness and reflected outward, made manifest in your life and affairs through however many incarnations you take on the Path of Discipleship, that you have not to rush frantically or deliberately or any other way about the face of the earth seeking heaven or seeking truth or seeking the Wisdom that it is all contained right here in this small space, strange as it may seem, it is contained here, that you will, through your conscious utilization of this vast body of Wisdom, manifest it outwardly in many small and a few large acts of service, until naught remains between the two centers but a radiation of Light and your own expanded consciousness." p. 80 These above statements found in the Cedercrans books can be supported by the teachings of D.K. found throughout the Bailey books. We include the following example found in Treatise on White Magic: "A certain amount of at-one-ment between the soul and its mechanism is essential, and that inner triplicity, usually dormant in the majority, of soul-mind-brain must be in alignment and active. At present all the souls of the group of mystics do work in unison; a number have succeeded in bringing the soul and the mind also into a close and established relation, but as yet the lowest aspect of this aligned and linking triangle, the physical brain, remains totally unresponsive to the waves of force emanating from the higher aspects of the disciples engaged thus in laying the foundations of the new age civilisation. It is therefore largely a matter of perfecting the mechanism of the brain so that it can rightly register and correctly transmit the soul impressions and the group purposes and recognitions. This involves:

1. The awakening into conscious activity of the centre between the eyebrows, called by the oriental student, the ajna centre. 2. The subordinating then of the activity of this centre to that of the head centre, so that the two vibrate in unison. This produces the establishment of three things: a. Direct conscious alignment between soul-mind-brain. b. The appearance of a magnetic field which embraces both the head centres and so definitely affects the pineal gland and the pituitary body. c. The recognition of this field of dual activity in two ways: as of a light in the head, an interior radiant sun, or as a dynamic centre of energy through which the will or purpose aspect of the soul can make itself felt. 3. The development of a facility which will enable a man to: a. Use the mind in any direction he chooses, turning it externally towards the world of phenomena, or internally towards the world of spiritual being. b. Produce consciously and at will a corresponding responsiveness in the physical brain, so that it can register accurately any information coming from the physical world, and the emotional or astral world. c. Discriminate intelligently between all these spheres of sentient activity." pp. 422-423 When beginning a meditation, the particular step of alignment to the Light in the Cave usually follows the process in which the personality is integrated at the consciousness level of the Ajna Centre. The meditator's awareness then follows a line of light from the Ajna to the Light in the Cave where the Soul has extended itself via the Head center into reflections at the frequency levels of the personality vehicles. In the Cedercrans material, the term given for this aspect of Soul embodiment is "the Conscious Soul Incarnate." It is here in the Cave the 3rd ventricle of the brain that we experience the fusion of the Soul with the Personality. As the meditator stabilizes his focus in this Light, he is then able to move via the Head Center to the higher aspect of the Overshadowing Spiritual Self on the Buddhic Plane. At the end of the meditation, any impressions invoked move down this line of connection from Higher Spiritual levels to the Head Center and finally to the Light in the Cave (the brain). Through this mechanism, higher truths can be brought into the lower awaiting personality vehicles and into the waking consciousness of the meditator for further contemplation and application in daily life. Bibliography Bailey, Alice A., A Treatise on White Magic. New York: Lucis Publishing, 1954 Bailey, Alice A., Esoteric Healing. New York: Lucis Publishing, 1953 Cedercrans, Lucille, Applied Wisdom. Whittier, CA: Wisdom Impressions, 2007 Cedercrans, Lucille, Nature of the Soul. Whittier, CA: Wisdom Impressions, 1993 Website: www.wisdomimpressions.com