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Esoteric Psychology I - Section One - II. Certain Questions and their Answers
SECTION ONE - CHAPTER TWO

II. Certain Questions and their Answers

I indicated that in this treatise we would give our main attention to the central one of the three aspects, and would concentrate upon quality. What do I mean by this? I mean that we shall occupy ourselves with that which is emerging through the medium of form, with that which veils or hides itself behind the appearance, which is expressive of life or spirit and which is produced through the interplay of life with matter. This, when posited of man, the reflection of divinity, and when applied to the subject of his quality, involves three recognitions:

  1. That a human being is, as earlier said, an embodied Life, expressing quality and registering that quality in consciousness or as sensitive response to the interplay going forward, during the evolutionary process, between spirit and matter.
  2. That man, being a synthesis (and the only complete synthesis, except the Macrocosmic Deity), registers a self-recognition which is potent enough today to enable him to differentiate reactions to...
    1. The triplicity (as the Bhagavad Gita calls it) of the Knower, the field of knowledge, and knowledge.
    2. A growing realization that the field of knowledge is but an appearance or an illusion, that knowledge itself can be a hindrance unless transmuted into wisdom. [34]
    3. An evolutionary growth in responsiveness to one or other of these three, and which indicates a developing sensitivity.

    This is leading to a growth of interest in the Knower and to a belief that this Knower is the Soul, one with Deity, illimitable and eternal and - in time and space - the determining factor in human existence.

  3. That the endless diversity of forms hides a subjective synthesis. Man can therefore eventually see, expressing itself through all forms in all kingdoms, a universal septenate, and when this happens, he is then entering into the world of subjective unity, and can proceed on his way consciously towards the One. He cannot as yet enter into the consciousness of that basic essential Unity, but he can enter into that of his own ray-life, of the emanating source of his own temporarily specialized life.

This triplicity of ideas requires careful study. It might be expressed thus:
 
o The One Life. Unity.
o o o The Major three Rays  (Making seven). [3+4]
o o o o The Minor four Rays (Making seven). [3+4]
o The Unity of Appearance.
 
With the one Life we shall not concern ourselves. We accept it as a basic truth and we realize that we are on our way back from the unity of form-identified existence, through the varying unfoldments of a conscious response to divine interplay and activity, to a final identification with the one Life. Form awareness has to give place to the qualified radiation of the self-conscious spiritual identity which is that of a son of God, appearing through form. This will be finally superseded by two phases of expression wherein there is:
  1. A sense of divine synthesis, of which our bodily [35] "well-being" is the lowest form of material, yet symbolic, reflection. It is a sense of coordinated blissful satisfaction, based on realized Being.
  2. A withdrawal from even this life-awareness to a phase still more intensive and detached, which involves an awareness of the life of God Itself, free from form, but still, in a mysterious sense, aware of quality.

In the language of mysticism it might be expressed this way:

"I take a body. That body is alive. I know its life. I therefore know my mother.

"I use a body. That body is not me. I serve the group and in this serving live within the body, detached, a son of God. I know my Self.

"I infuse a body. I am its life and in that life shall I see life. That life is known as love. I am the love of God. I know the Father, and know His life is love.

"I am the body and its loving life. I am the Self, whose quality is love. I am the life of God Himself. The Mother-Father-Son am I.

"Behind these three there stands the unknown God. That God am I."

Let us be perfectly clear even at the expense of reiteration. In this treatise, though we may touch upon form and consider its nature, we shall lay emphasis upon self-consciousness as it expresses itself as responsiveness, as awareness of a peculiar kind which we call the "quality of consciousness," or its inherent characteristic. We have always the subsidiary triplicities, which are only adjectival terms employed to express the quality of the appearing life.

  • Form - Mutability, conscious response to radiation. Matter.
  • Self-Consciousness - Responsiveness. Awareness of identity. Soul.
  • Life - Immutability. Emanation. Cause. Source. Spirit. [36]

The synthesis of all these in manifestation we call God, the Isolated, the All-pervading, the Detached and the Withdrawn.

The above abstract truths are difficult of apprehension, but need here to be expressed, so that our platform is understood and we are not open to the criticism that we neglect reality, and regard diversity as the only truth.
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