Thus, I learned through many years, and we as Teachers have learned as the ancients had discovered before us, that as soon as one properly concentrates and completely loses all objective consciousness for the moment, he becomes attuned with the Cosmic Mind. Now, it does not matter whether he starts the concentration with a certain visualized picture or an idea as long as he casts from his mind all thoughts of himself and his present surroundings. In other words, as soon as he turns the consciousness inward, he gradually, sometimes very quickly gets in attunement with the Cosmic Mind. Contact with the Cosmic Mind is much the same as telephoning a number and finding that we are listening in on a party line. We may have a certain number and person in our thoughts and fully expect to get in touch with this person at once. Instead we hear the telephone busy with a conversation. We may understand some of the conversation, or we may not, however, if we wait patiently the busy telephone wire will be cleared and we can finally put ourselves in touch with the person we wish to reach, and the person…persons who are making the calls will have completed the information. Their contact is like trying to carry on our projection while the Cosmic is revealing some other impressions.
If you will keep your mind and thinking simple, you will find that this work is not as complicated as it sounds and it's not as complicated by far as some people who write books for money try to make it. We must remember that the Cosmic Mind is like a great central telephone or radio station. It is in perfect touch with all the immediate events going on in the world. It contains also the facts of the present and the future. Think of the Cosmic Mind as having neither past nor future periods, but always the present. The moment we contact the Cosmic, facts will be found which seem like facts of the present but which may be of hundreds of years standing of which are to become true in the future. Frequently I compare the cosmic attunement with the radio attunement. Often, when I listen to my radio, I will turn the dial and at once I hear the number…a number of pieces of music and some talking. At first it sounds like a muddled affair, but if I listen carefully there will be one station that is more perfectly attuned to my set since that station comes in clearest, I follow its program more distinctly than the others. And at other times, the dials may be set so that only one station can be heard, and that one is very clear and distinct. Although it may not be the station I wanted, I may hear either some surprising and interesting facts, or sometimes in…those things in which I am interested in. Every time we get in touch with the Cosmic, we begin to receive impressions. We may be confused at first, because our attunement is not as we intended. The facts received may be strange to us and seem to be of no importance. On the other hand, often the facts that come through to us are intended for us and are very important. We are not always able to tell right away how important they are. Therefore, we should not cast them aside, but accept the message or the illumination…make a note of it in some notebook and keep it for the future. The ancient masters whom kept a record of facts secured through their cosmic contact found as years passed that they were storing up great truths. Often these facts were prophetic. They were facts regarding the future on earth, although written in the cosmic now. Other facts dealt with the past and still others with the present.
The moon can be darkened at certain periods of each month, and the fact that the explanation fits in with the period of the moon exactly to the hour and minute, it really is no proof that the explanation is correct. The additional facts that our parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents believed in and that eminent scientists believed in is also no proof that it's correct. The minute we hesitate to accept new knowledge because our present knowledge satisfactorily explains things to us, we are closing our mind to the greater truths, thereby fooling ourselves.
According to one story, this planet called Earth is the only planet in the universe and we are simply one ball floating in space, and all of the people that God made and everything else that God made is on this one Earth, and therefore, Jesus had to come only to this one planet to save the people's lives here. Yet the very ministers, clergymen, priests, professors, teachers and others who teach this Christianity…this idea, admit that there are other planets in the universe and that the earth is not the only planet that God made. If this is so, then God must have sent Jesus or some other Son to the other planets and to improve conditions there; or else God ignored the other planets and simply sent His Son to this one called Earth and gave all His attention to us. The peculiar part about it all is that the clergymen, the ministers of the churches and all learned persons apparently agree that this earth we live on is one of the smallest and least important of all the planets in this solar system, yet of all that God made, it alone is populated with living beings. This is so…If this is so, why is the rest of the universe ignored?
The Ancients in the Great White Lodge were not confronted with such problems as this. They had neither personal opinion, nor the opinions of other teachers and scientists filling their minds and shutting out the new ideas. They went into meditation and cosmic attunement with open and clean, clear minds in regard to all knowledge and the fact that came…facts that came to them through the cosmic mind were acceptable just as some new fact that you tell a little child are acceptable to him as being true. No matter how surprising the facts were, they had no reason to doubt them, and they did not cast these facts aside because they did not fit in with the former belief.
If you can go into meditation with an open mind as the Ancients did and with a consciousness that is almost as free from any knowledge as if you had never studied, read, or heard anything about life at all, then you are really ready for cosmic attunement and illumination. You should have no belief or feeling about who you are, why you are here, where you are, or what you are. You should have no belief as to where the Cosmic is: where God is; where heaven or hell is and make no beliefs from the things that you have been taught unless you have received this knowledge from the Cosmic. If your mind is open and free in this matter, it will then be ready as a clear sheet in a book to the impression with the facts that are true that you are going to put on that blank page.
An old German philosopher once said that "one cannot put into a thing if the things is already filled with many other things," and you cannot fill a page in a book with new knowledge if it is crowded with old knowledge and old false ideas. So much of our brain is occupied with false knowledge. Just think of it; you are not even sure who your are. The following story aptly illustrates this idea.
Not many years ago, a man in a court of law swore on the bible to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When they asked him who he was, he said he did not know. And when they asked him where he was born, has said he did not know. The judge and the jury and the others in the courtroom were surprised because he was know as John Smith to all of them, and had lived in their community with his parents for many years, and when they asked him for an explanation, he replied, "I have been told by my parents that I was born on the tenth of October in 1880, and told by my father…I've been told by my father that I am Henry Smith, and that I was christened John Smith. In fact I have been told by my father and my mother that I was their son. You have made me swear to tell the truth, and since I have no way of knowing that I really am my father's child and no way of knowing whether or not he really is Henry Smith and that I am christened John Smith, I must tell you truthfully that I do not know who I am or what my name really is. I can tell you only what I believe or what I have heard, but according to law, I am not supposed to give heresy evidence…hearsay evidence, but only the absolute truth as known to me."
This illustration shows that we all have much information that has come to us by hearsay and which we have accepted in good faith. If we do not know it is true, we must open our minds and hearts to new knowledge regardless of what our old beliefs have been. If you will continue to meditate and turn your thoughts inward instead of outward, you will begin to receive glimmerings of the new knowledge and the ultimate truth. Do not think that a simple little fact that comes to you is foolish or unconnected with your life. Just accept it and wait to see if the Cosmic does not add more to it or help to explain it in some way. Then after your meditation is over, record it in your notebook for future reference. Remember the man, Jacob Boehm, the little cobbler in Europe, uneducated, untrained in any philosophy, used to meditate as he cobbled. He wrote down the thoughts that came to him and soon the world was given one of the most beautiful philosophies of its time. The writings of Jacob Boehm are still famous for the wonderful revelations of knowledge from the Cosmic world. If he had been a learned brilliant man, it is probable that he would have cast aside most of the revelations he received as ridiculous, unimportant, false and not worth repeating.
In our work in Cosmic Consciousness, let us remember Dr. William M. Buck. The general argument was presented that an examination of the lives of eminent illuminated minds of various ancient and modern times showed that cosmic illumination seemed to come to these people at an average age of 35. This author showed that illumination generally came between the age of 30 and 38. The list of persons studied by him included such characters as Jesus, some of the Apostles, poets, philosophers, public characters who had a high degree of intellectual development. A number of the individuals included in his list were never given a real occult or metaphysical study, and such illumination that came to them was a result of individual meditation and contemplation of the higher things in life. It is possible to synthesize so well the nature…natural tendencies toward the psychic development of every human being that the length of time is shortened and the understanding is made keener and more complete, and the development will reach a higher degree.
According to the rhythmic operation of all laws throughout the universe, we may say that the beginning of anything, whether it is the beginning of a new life in a physical body or of a business venture, or the beginning of a social career, or a course of study, has a starting point and a course of procedure or progress that leads on to a conclusion. And the progress of that course is rhythmic and the division into certain definite periods constitutes the periodicy of that event. We find in the time of birth when an individual takes the first breath and the soul enters the body, it is the beginning of a course of progress in this life of a certain periodicy of manifestation of the soul and likewise of psychic… the psychic or spiritual body and the mentality. When the soul has entered into the physical body, it is like the dropping of a stone into a smooth body of water, and that soul like the stone begins to send forth waves of manifestation.
Every seven years in the life of men and women, certain definite changes of a physical, spiritual, or mental nature take place. The manifestations often getting a few years before the peak of the seventh year period is reached and continues a year or so after each peak. Many important spiritual changes take place in all children of a normal healthy nature at seven years of age, and the principle one is the change that takes place in the public…the pineal and pituitary glands. These changes manifest mostly in a quickening of the mind and a development of the earlier phases of spiritual comprehension. It is at this time that the child's mind becomes alert to the function of imagination and intuition, and it is at this time that the child very often develops the habit of deceit because of its quick ability to conceive of imaginary or false conditions.
The next important change that takes place approximately at 14 years when certain other glands in the body begin to develop and function and the condition of the puberty manifests itself in a physical way and carries with it the development of other spiritual functions, such as the development of the emotional nature and sex nature.
The third stage is at 21 years, when the mind begins to use the higher faculties of judgement. Between the 14th and 21st year of the various changes that have taken places begin to modify the harshness of the undeveloped child and the adulthood begins to make itself manifest. There are other changes at the age of 28 and 35th year, and at each 7-year period thereafter. If we add to these periods the Law of the triangle, the square, and the cross, we find an interesting combination of conditions that brings forth another point in the periodicy which is called rhythm and harmony. Everyone knows that in the vibrations of music or in those of sound, there are certain beat notes, or emphasis, undulations, and these occur in a periodicy of their own in stages of three, five, seven, and so forth. These are the harmony…harmonics or rhythm. This induces the Law of the Triangle represented by three, the square represented by four, the cross represented by five. The (unintelligible) represents…represented by seven, and the circle represented by nine. Therefore, you will note that in the waves of rhythm of anything in life, and the third, fifth, seventh, ninth periods are the most important from a spiritual point of view, where as the fourth, sixth, and eighth are very critical from a physical point of view. The condition of the financial, social and other periods will be discussed by us in some of our lessons later on as a special subject.
We find that it is about the thirty-fifth year that the psychic or spiritual cosmic illumination very often comes in accordance with the ages past. But in this age there is an earlier time in which the average has dropped, and we find many young people going through between the ages of twenty and twenty-six. It is fact that our educational environment, and especially our way of thinking and living, will determine to what extent the thirty-fifth year will be about a very important spiritual development or only a slight degree of it. The idea of teaching with those who have already passed this period… the idea of teaching is to involve…evolve gradually a comprehension of what that contact which has already come is made and to develop this to a greater degree where it may be useful. These persons gradually find through study and experimentation an awakening and return of those earlier experiences. And they realize that the cosmic cannot or has not at any time broken their contact. They are redeveloping their sensitivity…sensitiveness to the contact and are not receiving gradually increasing impressions and manifestations of cosmic attunement.
I want to go on to give you at this time an outline of some of the ideas and the little things which we might call "tricks" regarding the proper methods of making cosmic contact. Sure…it is surely done through meditation and contemplation, but many of us have gained this information from actual experience after spending months and years analyzing the veiled phrases contained in some of the ancient oriental manuscripts. We find these following things quite interesting. One particular phrase pertained to the method…pertaining to the method of making cosmic contact, the fundamental principle being explained was similar to that idea expressed by Jesus, which had been previously explained by "all of heaven is within." The mystics have always said that the cosmic consciousness or cosmic mind is a part of our inner selves. The idea being explained in the manuscripts was that in seeking to make contact with the cosmic consciousness, we should not be influenced by modern religious or theological ideas that heaven and the spiritual realm are things wholly outside ourselves. The author of many of these works was imploring the students of mystical principles to discard the theological principles which were becoming very popular during his lifetime. He deplored the idea that religion had made an artificial spiritual world called heaven and in all the religious writings had made it appear that this spiritual world was a separate kingdom or condition located in heaven…in the heavens or in the skies or space above us and that we neither…either had to die and be lifted up to it. Or if we wanted to think of it, we had to lift our thoughts up and always from ourselves to this place in heaven. He called attention to the fact that Jesus did not preach such things to the disciples, but intimated that the spiritual world is something that is a part of ourselves and not located in any part of the sky.
Writings had made it appear that this spiritual world was a separate kingdom or condition located in the heavens or in the skies or space above us and that we either had to pass through transition to be lifted up, or if we wanted to think of it, we had to lift our thoughts up and away from ourselves to this place in heaven. He called attention to the fact that Jesus preached no such thing, and that this was not located in any part of the sky. After the days of Jesus, the Church gradually invented a new idea of heaven which was influencing the thinking of men and women to such an extent that it was difficult for them to get the true idea of the spiritual kingdom within their own beings.
Jacob Boehm, the shoemaker who became such a great philosopher, had caught the correct idea expressed in these manuscripts. He beautifully presented the proper idea by saying that "in order to reach the cosmic world or spiritual world, we must turn our thoughts inward rather than outward. Aside from the Quakers, the mystics of all lands are really the only ones whom have today a correct understanding of what Jesus and the mystics before him meant when they said, "the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of the spiritual world was within. The word heaven in the statement made by Jesus has been misused by the translators of his writings whom did their work to help support the ecclesiastical viewpoint. The word heaven was used by these translators to mean the spiritual world and they could not help thinking that the spiritual world had something to do with the heavens, or the skies above us. Thus you can see how inconsistent their translation is since it reads that the heavens are within. What should have written was that the divine kingdom was within us and not in heaven. The phrase was trying to suggest that if we would think of ourselves not as two beings -- a spiritual and physical one--but as one being with an outer worldly expression and an inner spiritual expression, we would have the idea of something like a cloak that we wear over our invisible selves. This cloak might have many patches of many colors on the outside representing the gross material things of the lining. In order that we may become spiritually attuned for a time in a mediation or concentration, we should figuratively take off this cloak, turn it inside out and put it on so that we are robed in pure white instead of colored patches."
Now, in actual experience, many of us have found that the quickest and easiest way to make contact with the cosmic is to turn our thoughts inward as though we were trying to concentrate not upon some kingdom in the heavens, but a sacred place in the center of our souls within our bodies. Therefore we begin by relaxing and becoming quiet, passive, comfortable, and freeing our minds from all thoughts of the material world. Then by thinking that the whole cosmic universe or spiritual world centers itself within, we begin to turn out thoughts inward directly…directing our consciousness and our thinking toward the inner part of our body. The one brother said that we even…even went so far as to think of a great space in the center of his body large enough to contain all the planets, the sun, the Moon, and all the stars of the universe. He thought of these as moving around in their orbits just as though his body were a large shell of some kind: within the hollow part of it was a whole universe. Another brother said that he found it was easier to think of himself growing big enough to wrap himself around the whole universe and … of having the universe within him so that all he had to do was think inward and he would immediately… was immediately in contact with the whole of the Cosmic Mind and the cosmic Consciousness. Both of these methods will help wonderfully in making the right contact.
By turning the thinking mind or outer mind inward toward the heart as though it were the center of the universe, and as though the spiritual kingdom and God-consciousness were surrounding the heart in the center of the body, the best results were obtained. And in thinking this way while sitting in concentration, the first thing that happens is the loss of all consciousness of the outer body and the world around it. Minutes pass very rapidly when a person sits in such a concentration and all that we are conscious of is the fact that we are within ourselves, and in touch with a great cosmic power of some kind. During such concentration, the mind seems to contact all places of the universe and countless personalities. Such contacts with the consciousness within are very successful when one is trying to get information from the Cosmic and inspiration or an answer to the great question.
In many of my own experiences and those of others who have talked…talked the matter over with me answers to the questions have come. Answers to the question have come quickly and easily, and it always seems as though suddenly a voice in the center of one's body begins to speak or tell something in a strange way. One is sure that it must be correct because it comes from the center of himself and is always unconnected with anything of the outer material world. And I would recommend, therefore, that each of you try this experiment in connection with your concentration periods; try and get just into your own mind that the Cosmic Consciousness within you is just as complete as the Cosmic Consciousness throughout the whole space of the universe and that the consciousness in you is not separated in any way from the consciousness in every other human being.
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