Good evening, this is the third lecture on Cosmic Consciousness. This is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and our Master Jesus would have us travel in His name, in His way, laid down through creation through the ages. The Way to the Light through His great sacrifice for man, woman and child. Of all races, of all nations, of all beings. Beyond the senses is the mind; beyond the mind is the highest created being; higher than that being is the great Self; higher than the great … the highest; the undeveloped; God. Beyond the undeveloped is the person, the part, the reality, the all-pervading and entirely imperceptible. Every creature that knows Him is liberated and obtains immortality. His form is not to be seen. No one beholds Him with the eyes of man; He is imaged by the heart, by wisdom, by mind. Those who know this are the immortals.
When the five instruments of knowledge - the five senses - stand still together with the mind, and when the intellect does not move, this is called the highest state of spiritual reality - the cosmic attunement. This is when we unite with the understanding and wisdom of the Being, through our Lord and Master, our Father-Creator of all. This is the Grand Amen that is sung so often. This is the Real Amen.
Cosmic matter and spiritual materials, psychic, spiritual, call it what you may; there is no motions in the sense that we understand it on this earth plane and there is not such thing as distance or even time. Hence, we cannot measure such a thing as motion or going forward or going backward or projecting. Really in all projecting, we simply attune ourselves with the place that we wish to attune our consciousness with that place and we neither go to it, nor does it stand still, nor do we come to it, nor does it come to us. In the case of the present experiments that man has made, one loses his consciousness in the clouds or in the reality of the Spirit, not the objective consciousness, for that must be lost before we begin to experience it. But we now lose our spiritual consciousness or subjective consciousness in that Spirit. This is really a state that the Hindus call by a strange name, and the Buddhists call it Nirvana.
In the sacred writings of the Buddhists, we find this explanation of the sublime state of Nirvana. "Nirvana is not self-animation, but the extinction of mortal selfishness. It is not dissolution of Self into nothing, but the attainment by Self of Truth. It is not permanent resignation, but temporary bliss and peace that can only be experienced by the total acceptance of what is." This is an excellent description of the state that comes to us from the real Self when we've had that marriage with the Self, and that the veil is removed and we start to function from the inner court of our being; when we are absorbed into that great cloud of Spirit, and the Spirit absorbs into us, you are being advised at this moment that you are near…you are near to that place where Moses was.
The Holy Bible, first chapter of the book of Acts, and read it…open it and read it, and note how this very cloud surrounds the Master Jesus. "And a voice came from the cloud and He ascended into heaven in the cloud." Read all the story of the transfiguration in the light of our recent experiments. Those things which we have experienced in contemplation; those things which we have experienced in revelation, in prayer, and you will find the story quite mystical, but quite illuminating and not shrouded. The real significance of the cloud referred to here, various sacred works is lost to the casual cause of most people who try to follow mystical things and are readings of this work. To such a person, it appears as some mysterious allegory or superstition of the people during the ancient times.
Your training in this Order, however, affords you a distinct advantage. You now know that a cloud of energy denoted can be received. You have experienced it perhaps at some time. It does not denote a physical one in the ordinary sense of the term, but a nucleus of cosmic energy; a focal point of that divine mind which pervades everything. And with this profound understanding, it is advisable that you reread a few of the references to these appearances in the Bible. For your convenience, I'll quote some of them in a few lines, also to read other sacred things in arcane literature which you have knowledge of in reference to this cloud of the Spirit. And I quote you now from Exodus 24:16:
"And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud."
Then we go to Exodus 16:10:
"…and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud."
And we have Exodus 19:9:
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee ever more."
Then we have I Kings 8:11:
"So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord."
Of course, the Ancients believed in spending much of their lives in this blissful state. Hence, it became an important degree...to an important degree, in many of their old religions. It was "heaven" to many of them to attain a degree of physical blankness where the mind as well as the body was at rest and the inner Self stayed for hours or days in a state of what the Easterns call Nirvana. It was considered to be an ideal and spiritual state of being. We know different now, that at the same time we soon find the real benefit to be derived from entering into cosmic attunement for a few minutes at a time so that we can ourselves carry on here on the earth our obligations here, and can be of greater service and also to help to build the soul personality of the Self around the Self, that the same growth, joy power, and knowledge, and opportunity to evolve and serve as we give our physical minds and selves.
A certain objective, perhaps, the preparation must be made before we take a problem in the consciousness into the cloud. When you have reached the point where you are capable without endangering your own understanding or your own development in receiving the light or realization, your teacher will then give to you the understanding and the way in which to perform these things as experiments and interesting work along the path for your own use.
Now, we shall prepare for the blending of our outer selves with the Cosmic. Only when we feel… when we are conscious that we are, in fact, a part of the cosmic consciousness can we be sure of being in tune with that consciousness. Of course, this brings us at once to the subject of individuality. What else can we do besides trying to make ourselves feel that we are attuned with the cosmic and that we are all separate individuals without any real connection other than those we assume? First of all we must do those things which will break down our ever-increasing false feeling that we have distinctive individualities. This of course is contrary to some other philosophies, which would teach us not only to maintain but to increase and continually proclaim our individuality. In some of the teachings of today, and in magazines published in other schools proclaiming to have the teachings, a broad philosophy of brotherhood, we read over and over again that one should say, "I AM, or "I AM THAT I AM" or "I AM God Individualized." Thousands and thousands who dare seek cosmic attunement are walking about proclaiming inwardly and outwardly, "I AM." But this very attitude…by this very attitude; by such thinking we are continually holding ourselves apart and widening the breech between ourselves and the Cosmic. If instead of saying what they say, these persons would always say, "I am NOT 'I'. That which seems to be Self is a part of the Cosmic Self; That which seems to be Self-Consciousness is within me." Then these persons would really find the attunement they seek. Can any segment of a thing be greater than the Cosmic Consciousness? What then shall we do to eliminate this constant consideration of the first person, I? This is what we must consider now. Fortunately there is a simple method, or rather one that will become simple after a while; one which will help us materially to think continually of our cosmic relationship and avoid the thought of "I" to some extent, while on the other hand it will make us the thing of which the "I" is a difficult manner to have all the time.
The method is this: hereafter, in all our conversations, we shall try to avoid the use of the word, "I". This will be difficult at first, but soon it will become easy, and then we will note the change that comes through such elimination of the individuality of self in all our thoughts. In shopping or asking for things, we are accustomed to saying, "I would like this or that." We can easily say this by saying, "this is preferred. This is more suitable. Or This will do. Serve me this or that, please, or give me this or that." If it is necessary to say "me" at all, we must attempt to avoid the use of the word "me" also if possible, through this… though this is not an importance at first as doing away with the continual use of the word, "I". Thus we shall find a self-reminder hundreds of times each week that we must drop our individuality and become a part of the cosmic whole.
We have been working around the circle to avoid the isolation that will afford us greater consciousness. There are many steps in cosmic consciousness. If we will look back at our early training, we will find that one of the first subjects which we learned in the Tree of Life was that of symbolism. And we have remembered the circle, and the use of it as part of God. The dot in the center, at which point we found in our meditations its greatness. As we develop these inner faculties of intuition and learn to listen to it and do away with the "I" of the individuality and be guided by it, we sense gradually how it obtains its information, how we obtain our hunches. Through these experiences, we have learned that the source of this psychic knowledge, so to speak, is Universal Mind--the Mind of God.
This leads us to the next important study, namely, that which constitutes the Universal Mind. Before going into that subject, which is a very deep one and an interesting one, I want to stop for a moment long enough to outline a simple way in which you can bring right now to strengthen and increase the functioning of that force and voice or knowledge before it is too late and before we become too inactive within ourselves. Fortunately for us we have very excellent advice and device regarding…which is given to us by the great masters of the past. Each one of them after long experience and investigation discovered the same facts: that there are only two ways…that there was only one way of quickening and awakening and strengthening the action of the inner voice; by tuning…turning outward thoughts inward. We sit relaxed for a few moments and think of ourselves as being replicas or duplicates of the universe; think of ourselves as having within our consciousness a small reproduction of the entire solar system, and if we go on with this picture, thinking of the solar plexus and the centers of our being as being a part of the universal consciousness, we will soon be indwelling with our thoughts, or in other words, soon we will be dwelling inwardly instead of outwardly. We will begin to lose all consciousness of the room around us in which we are sitting, and we will begin to feel as though we had turned inside out or had crawled within ourselves into a great and secret silent chamber where we know nothing of the outer world at all.
If along with this picture we keep in mind that in this inner dwelling, or the inner…inside of this inner chamber and sanctum of ours is a part of God's consciousness and a part of the great Mind of God, a part of God's creative force. We will find that within us is a dwelling place of great power, great wisdom and great instruction. There is also peace and contentment within and a harmonious feeling of safety, security, rest and invigoration. A half-hour spent in relaxed meditation on the Self within is always extremely beneficial, not only to our physical bodies, but especially to our spiritual and psychic selves. We can understand easily that there is a great knowledge residing…risen within the inner consciousness because all we have to do when sitting in such contemplation is to think of the marvelous knowledge and wisdom that is guiding the inner works of our being. Think of the marvelous rhythm, action of the heart, intestines, lungs and organs. Think of the wondrous intelligence that keeps these inner parts of our being working day and night, consistently and harmoniously and constructively. We do not have to stop to think about the digestion of our food after we have eaten. We do not have to stop to exert some energy to have the food churned in the stomach… to "chime" as they call it. We do not have to stop to figure whether the food is churned sufficiently and then open the Polaris to let the portions of churned food empty into the intestines. We do not have to exert any voluntary muscle power or any direct intelligence to cause that food in the intestines to move through the vessels a few inches at a time and then remain stationary for a few minutes while strength and nourishment are absorbed from the food. We do not direct the pinching or the closing of the intestines every few minutes in order to push the food forward inch by inch, foot by foot, through the many feet of the intestinal tubes of the abdomen. So that at each resting point, more nourishment and more energy may be extracted from the food. We do not have to see that each certain part of the intestine extracts fat from the food, others extract lymph, and others draw off liquids, sending them to the kidneys, the bladder and other parts…and the other parts that are effected by acid which helps reduce the food to a form the body can use. NO.
And then we stop and think. Who designed this? All! This is the great wisdom of our Father in heaven. Likewise do the bodies in this solar system move about the Sun. Likewise are they designed so that the Sun rises and the Sun sets continually on all mankind, whether he be on earth or on Mars, on Venus or Jupiter, the Sun rises, the Sun sets, for the convenience, for the propagation of life, that we may become free and that God's gift and the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ is a reality.
To sum up, Jesus on the cross is both the symbol and the reality of the immense labor of the centuries which has little by little raised up the created Spirit and brought it back to the depths of divine reality. Jesus, in Hebrew, is synonymous with Joshua, meaning salvation. J - E - S was the title used by the ancients for the Sun, and Jas, J - A - S, was a mystical name used among the Greeks for the Sun-God. J - O - D is most important letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and its symbolism and its constituent parts of every one of the alphabet, 22 letters, it represent the power of the ego, the "I" that must eventually become the "I AM."
Love is of God. Anything else must remain outside of Him as we are now. The wisdom teaching will unfold the love that is in us to replace every shadow of this Order, illusion and distortion. Anyone truly seeking to receive the light need not go without. He need only apply himself earnestly to the diligent reading of the life and teachings of Jesus, which are included in his Sermon on the Mount. These teachings will lead him to the awakening of the Spirit within, which is the Christ, and henceforth, he will proceed directly into greater and greater attunement with God as Jesus did. Then will he have received the wisdom that passeth all understanding. With the guidance of the teachers and the priests, then will we receive that which we seek. There is no mystery which will not be unfolded to him who preserves (persevere) in the faithful humble, one-minded search completely emptied of all vanity, pride, and guile. The indwelling Spirit will make all things clear if there be no barrier of self to veil the light of truth.
And then we quote you from Luke 12:1-2:
"Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known."
And I say, "Look within, Oh, Man, and find therein the…the God Incarnate. All that is of the Father is of thine inheritance. Claim then that which is thine, Oh, Man. Look within."
This is the part of the mystical philosophy and occult schools, but all paths lead to the center of the great door from which extends but one path, the path of self-realization. One may liken the many paths to the radiant spokes of a wheel, and think of the hub as the great door. By many ways, by devious routes we may reach this door to the Way. They many have oriental philosophy, or occidental philosophy; the ways may have many names such as Theosophy, Sufi, Buddhist, Cabalistic, and so on, or they may be under the direction of various ancient cults such as the Pharisees, the Roscrucians and Samaritans, Zoroastrians, Janists, (unintelligible) and half a dozen others. All of these schools with their individual paths lead to the one goal, the entrance to the Path, the Way. But we must all accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord of Earth. But even these other schools that appear to be limiting their help to those who adhere strictly to the one philosophy, do not mean to teach or practice intolerance; they mean to impress devotion and singleness of purpose upon the minds of their followers. And we can benefit with this idea, for we need to follow the Master's teaching of keeping "thine eye single, and thy body will be full of light."
So we are approaching the Door, the entrance to the Path by means of the way of the Holy Order of MANS. And the purpose of these preliminary meditations and sessions of devotions is to familiarize you with the nature and the condition of the journey you will make in this Holy Order toward the initiation on Calvary as Jesus did. It may surprise you to know that the path, the true path is not a path of crucifixion, necessarily, although you will experience this in many ways. That seems to be a general mistaken idea. Those who like ourselves who are about to enter the journey believe that when the path is reached, they will find it a path of continuous crucifixion. Let us point out to you that the journey is for the spiritual part of man, the soul man. Find light along the path, not just crucifixion. Crucifixion is of the mortal part of man, the material part, the part that is not taken with us on the journey along the path. While we thus journey, our whole being vibrates to the exhilaration of the soul personality's onward march to the light, the life and the love. Hence there is no sensing of mortal things.
We can understand this by examining again, and from a slightly different viewpoint, the one great symbolical story of a true crucifixion, the journey on the path. It is the story of the life and crucifixion and then the resurrection and the ascension of the Master Jesus. We note first of all that the story we tell states that the crucifixion ends at the ninth hour -- the ninth initiation. This has a mystical, should we say, meaning? Grace, in fact, is more than common environment or overall current by which the multitude is bound together into the coherence of one solid whole or one single impulse. For the believer, it represents quite literally the common soul that brings them under the infinitely benign domination of a conscious mind. The communion of saints is held together in the hallowed unity of a physically organized whole. This whole, more absolute than the individual over which it has dominion, in as much as the elements penetrate into the substance into God as a function of Him and not as isolated particles…particles. This whole is the body of Christ. The Body of Christ. Minds that are afraid of a bold concept or are governed by individualistic prejudices and always try to interpret the relationship between beings in mortal or logical terms are apt to conceive the body of Christ by analogy with the human association. To them, it becomes much more akin to a social aggregation than to a natural organism. Such minds dangerously weaken the thoughts of the scriptures, and make it unintelligible or platitudes, to thinking men who are eager to trace out physical connections and relations that are specifically cosmic. They unjustifiably blemi…diminish Christ and the profound reality of the mystery of his flesh, for it is a real, a living, pulsing creating being. The exclusive task of the world is the physical incorporation of the faithful in the Christ, who is of God. This cardinal task is being carried out with the rigor, harmony of a natural evolution. And those whom have dedicated their life, such as those in our Order, whom look with one mind, one point of view, to Jesus, our Lord, our Master, of this Order.
At the source of its development, an operation called for transcendence in the Order to graft the person of God onto the human cosmos under the condition that are…conditions that are mysterious but physically governed. This would give eminence to, in our universe, the principle around which the predestined body of the chosen is to achieve its segregation or would we want it segregated, but in the process, regeneration? This was the incarnation. From this and the fundamental contact between God and the human race, which means, in virtue, of the penetration of the divine into our nature, a new life was born. This was covered, this was conquered, this was achieved by Jesus on Calvary. And upon an unlooked for magnification and the obedience, the extension of our natural capabilities and gifts - grace. Grace is not simply the analogous form found in a number of different parts of life, uniform and at the same time multiple, shared by living creatures, but not recognized. It is the unique sap that starts from the same trunk and rises up into the branches of the Tree of Life. It is the Blood that courses through the veins under the impulse of one and the same heart. The nervous current that is transmitted through the limbs at the dictates of one and the same head. And that radiant head, that mighty heart, that fruitful stalk must inevitably be Christ, the Lord of Earth, come of the Christos through grace, kinsmen, much more even than brothers. We become identified with one and the same higher reality, which is Jesus Christ.
There can't…There can be no doubt but that this is the most heartening concept since man is always the master of his intentions. Nothing can rob the least of his actions of the supreme and vital value of its merit. In all circumstance, and through all activity, we can dictate ourselves to ourselves and dedicate ourselves to the Work of the Universal Salvation through our Lord of Earth.
I feel that in…the more I devote myself someway to the interest of Earth in its highest form and the more I belong to God, the more everything of Earth belongs to me. That I should feel this so strongly can only mean that in spite of any misinterpretation of words, of principles, there can be reconciliation between cosmic love of the world and heavenly love of God. In my own actions, and in that of the Christians through the harmonious collaboration of nature and grace, the cult of progress, the passion for the glory of God, are in actual fact, the reconciliation and the reconciled. It is the glue that brings them together. It is the web, the fiber of this solar creation between God and man. There must then be a formula for expressing this rationally. Somewhere there must be a standpoint from which Christ and the earth can be so situated in relationship to one another that it is impossible for me to possess the one without embracing the other; to be in communion with one without being absorbed into the other; to be absolutely Christian without being desperately human and dogmatic. No. Christology is creative…creatlology of our Father in Heaven.
Such a standpoint may be found…dominion of the great unexplored mystery, or is there one? Wherein the life of Christ mingles with the lifeblood of evolution for it is the pattern, the heavenly pattern which our Father in heaven gives us to work with. In the Cosmic Christ, by grace, Jesus Christ is united to all sanctified souls…individuals…whom have given up themselves and this brings sanctification. And since the bonds that link souls to him in one single hallowed mass and in him…and meet in him, and hold in him…and hold him together by him…and hold together by him, it is he who reigns, and it is he whom lives. The whole body is his in its entirety. And I cry out, "O my Soul, where can I live with you? How can I live with you?" and the answer is the same: "In the cosmic body of Christ."
Souls however are not a group of isolated nomads as the cosmic view specifically shows us. They make up one single pool with the universe. Each cell…consolidated by life and matter, each Self is a cell in the body of our Lord and Father in heaven. Christ, therefore, cannot confine his body to some peripheral drawn within things. Though, through he, through he came primarily, and in fact, exclusively, for souls, he could bring them together and give them life only by assuming and animating with them. All the rest of the world also. Through his incarnation he entered not only into mankind, but also into the capacity of an…as an element associated with it, but with the dignity and function of directive principle, a center upon which every form of love and every affinity comes. Mysterious in fact though this mystical body already seems to be, it is not…does not accordingly exhaust the immense and bountiful integrity of the Word made flesh. For lest ye be as a little child, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Christ as the cosmic body that extends throughout the whole universe; such is the final proposition to be born in mind for all its apparent modernity. This gospel of Cosmic Christ in which the salvation of our times may very well lie is indeed the Word handed down from our Father through His Great Ones in heaven, to our forefathers. It is the new treasure stored with foresight side by side with the ancient riches of the great teachings of the past Masters of ages long ago. If we read the Scriptures with openness and breadth of mind, if we reject the timid interpretations of the narrow common sense that is ready to take the words of consecration literally because faith obliges us to do so. But in all other things do we meet again the ancient of all sayings, "As above; so below." So from the very cells of our flesh to the body of our Lord the Cosmic Christ follows the same structure, the same internal function, the same reality. The great mathematical universe of our Father created in Light. His light shown upon us by his first-born Son, the Christos, and thus it is that we raise our arms and hands and say, "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Good night and God bless you.
End of Chapter 3
Links
return to main page
Cosmic Consciousness #2
Personal Info and Mother Mary page
Chapter 4 of Cosmic Consciousness
American Temple Home Page
