Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter I

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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter I - The Egoic Ray - Rules for Inducing Soul Control

One point might here be touched upon before we proceed with our study of the seven psychological tendencies of Deity.

We have spoken here of God in terms of Person, and we have used therefore the pronouns, He and His. Must it therefore be inferred that we are dealing with a stupendous Personality which we call God, and do we therefore belong to that school of thought which we call the anthropomorphic? The Buddhist teaching recognizes no God or Person. Is it, therefore, wrong from our point of view and approach, or is it right? Only an understanding of man as a divine expression in time and space can reveal this mystery.

Both schools of thought are right and in no way contradict each other. In their synthesis and in their blending the truth as it really is can begin - aye, dimly - to appear. There is a God Transcendent Who "having pervaded the whole universe with a fragment of Himself" can still say: "I remain." There is a God Immanent Whose life is the source of the [230] activity, intelligence, growth and attractiveness of every form in all the kingdoms in nature. There is likewise in every human being a transcendent soul which, when the life cycle on earth has come and gone and when the period of manifestation is over, becomes again the unmanifest and the formless, and which can also say: "I remain." In form and when in manifestation, the only way in which the human mind and brain can express its recognition of the conditioning divine life is to speak in terms of Person, of Individuality. Hence we speak of God as a Person, of His will, His nature and His form.

Behind the manifested universe, however, stands the formless One, That which is not an individual, being free from the limitations of individualized existence. Therefore the Buddhist is right when he emphasizes the non-individualized nature of Deity and refuses to personalize Divinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit of the Christian theology, embodying as they do the triplicities of all theologies, disappear also into the One when the period of manifestation is over. They remain as One, with quality and life untouched and undifferentiated, as they are when in manifestation.

An analogy to this appears when a man dies. Then his three aspects - mind or will, emotion or love, and physical appearance - vanish. There is then no person. Yet, if one accepts the fact of immortality, the conscious being remains; his quality and purpose and life are united with his undying soul. The outer form with its differentiations into a manifested trinity, has gone - never again to return in exactly the same form or expression in time and space.

The interplay of soul and mind produces the manifested universe, with all that is therein. When that interplay is persisting, either in God or in man, we use (for how else can we speak with clarity?) terms of human origin and therefore [231] limiting, such is our present stage of enlightenment - or should we say, unenlightenment? Thus the idea of individuality, of personality, and of form is built up. When the interplay ceases and manifestation ends, such terms are no longer suitable; they have no meaning. Yet the undying one, whether God or man, persists.

Thus in human thought, preserved for us by the great Teacher of the East, the Buddha, we have the concept of the transcendent Deity, divorced from the triplicities, the dualities and the multiplicity of manifestation. There is but life, formless, freed from the individuality, unknown. In the teaching of the West, preserved for us and formulated for us by the Christ, the concept of God immanent is preserved, - God in us and in all forms. In the synthesis of the Eastern and the Western teachings, and in the merging of these two great schools of thought, something of the superlative Whole can be sensed - sensed merely - not known.

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