Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - Problems of Guidance, Dreams, and Depression

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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - Some Problems of Psychology

The major cause of a distressing dream life is, in every case, a frustration or an inability of the soul to impose its wishes and designs upon its instrument, the man. These frustrations fall into three categories:

Sex frustration. This type of frustration leads in many cases, especially in the average person, to an over-emphasis of the fact of sex, to an uncontrolled sex thought-life, to sexual jealousies (oft unrecognized) and to physical underdevelopment.
Frustrated ambition. This dams back the resources of the life, produces constant inner fret, leads to envy, hatred, bitterness, intense dislike of the successful, and causes abnormalities of many kinds.
Frustrated love. This would perhaps be included under sex frustration by the average psychologist, but it is not so viewed by the esotericist. There can be full sexual satisfaction or else complete freedom from its grip and yet the outgoing magnetic love nature of the subject may meet only with frustration and lack of response.

Where these three types of frustration exist, you will frequently have a vivid, unwholesome dream life, physical liabilities of many kinds and a steadily deepening unhappiness.

You will note that all these frustrations are, as might be expected, simply expressions of frustrated desire, and it is in this particular field (tied up as it is with the Atlantean [497] consciousness) that the work of the modern psychologist primarily and necessarily lies. In an effort to bring the patient to an understanding of his difficulty and in line with that which constitutes the way of least resistance, the psychologist endeavors to relieve the situation by teaching him to evoke and bring to the surface of his consciousness forgotten episodes and his dream life. Two important facts are sometimes forgotten and hence constitute a fruitful source of the frequent failure to bring relief.

First, the patient as he descends into the depths of his dream life, will bring to the surface not only those things which are undesirable in his unrecognized "wish-life" but also those which were present in previous lives. He is penetrating into a very ancient astral past. Not only is this the case, but also - through the open door of his own astral life - he can tap or tune in on the astral life of the race. He then succeeds in producing the emergence of racial evil which may have absolutely no personal relation to him at all. This is definitely a dangerous thing to do, for it may prove stronger than the man's present capacity to handle.

Secondly, in his desire to be freed from the things in himself which are producing trouble, in his desire to please the psychologist (which is encouraged by certain of them under the method of "transference") and in his desire to produce what he believes the psychologist wants him to produce, he will frequently draw upon his personal imagination, upon the collective imagination or, telepathically, tune in on the imagination of the one who is seeking to treat and help him. He, therefore, produces something which is basically untrue and misleading.

These two points warrant careful attention and the patient must be safeguarded from himself, from the environing racial thought life, and also from the psychologist whose aid he is seeking. A difficult thing to do, is it not? [498]

I would like, at this point, to make what I feel to be a needed and suggestive interpolation. There are three main ways in which the person who seeks psychological aid can be helped and this is true of all types and cases. There is, first of all, the method with which we have been dealing. This method delves into the patient's past; it seeks to unearth the basic determining conditions which lie hidden in the happenings of childhood or infancy. These discovered events, it is held, gave a wrong direction or twist to the desire nature or to the thought life; they initiated predisposing germ-complexes, and therefore constitute the source of all the trouble. This method (even if the psychologist does not realize it) can carry over into past lives, and thus open doors which it might be well to leave shut until they can be more safely opened.

The second method which is sometimes combined with the previous one is to fill the present moment with constructive creative occupation and so drive out the undesirable elements in the life through the dynamic expulsive power of new and paramount, engrossing interests. I would like to point out that this method could be more safely applied if the subjective dream life and the hidden difficulties were left untreated - temporarily at least. This method is (for the average ordinary person who is pure Atlantean in consciousness but is just beginning to develop mental activity) usually a sound and safe way to work, provided the psychologist can gain the understanding cooperation of the person concerned.

The third method, which has the sanction of the Hierarchy and which is the one its members employ in Their work, is to bring in consciously the power of the soul. This power then pours through the personality life, vehicles and consciousness, and thus cleanses and purifies all aspects of the [499] lower nature. It will be apparent to you, however, that this method is of use only to those who have reached the point in their unfoldment (and there are many such today) where the mind can be reached and trained, and where the soul can consequently impress the brain, via the mind.

If these three methods are studied, you can arrive at an understanding as to the three systems which psychologists could elaborate and develop in order to handle the three types of modern consciousness - the Lemurian, which is the lowest found upon our planet at this time; the Atlantean, which is the commonest found today, and the Aryan, which is developing and unfolding with great rapidity. At present, psychologists are using the lowest type of aid for all groups and states of consciousness. This does not seem wise, does it?

The question now arises as to the source of dreams. Again, as in those cases we considered in connection with the sources of guidance, I shall simply enumerate such origins and leave the student of psychology to make adequate application of the information, when faced with a dream problem. These sources are about ten in number and could be enumerated as follows:

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