Tag: Knowledge

Marcus Aurelius Quotes

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

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If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

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You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

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Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

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When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

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How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

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The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

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You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

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Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.

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What we do now echoes in eternity.

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Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.

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Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

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Man of Knowledge – Science?

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I’ll suggest that I am too whacko for mainstream scientists and not whacko enough and therefore science-phobic for what might be called new agers. As a consequence I inhabit a no man’s land regarded with suspicion from behind the machine guns of each set of trenches.

From my perspective I have met a few people who have harped on that they are men of knowledge yet they know very little about modern science. Seems to me they have a whopping great gap in that knowledge. Call me nit picking but this seems big to me.

I am a “nasty” spoilsport scientist on one hand and a unicorn jockey flaky tree hugger on the other. I have looked into the ”occult” and things like Buddhist philosophy further than most. Those who are experts in these areas do not know modern science to the extent I do. Yet they may imagine they know more thoroughly than I, because I am tainted by science and perhaps not “pure”.

Once people even paid me to teach “science”.

This morning I had an extensive and  highly technical dream concerning the excited electronic states of small single ringed substituted aromatic heterocycles. It looked at the charge distribution among various atoms and how that changed upon optical excitation and what that did for the pKa of various protons. I was discussing this with someone as a means for a targeted and localised change in pH in vivo. There was a time when I probably knew way more than was healthy about such things. One can extrapolate from single to double ringed heterocycles to an extent. If you know why this is interesting, you know..

Quite why I had this dream I do not know. We watched a film “The Exorcism”, Master Chef Australia and Celebrity MasterChef UK  last night. Neither of these would point at configuration interaction in electronic excited states. Nor would it explain Naropa or seraphim.

It is funny that “new agers” and luddites like Trump are suspicious of science and scientists and equally weird that science can glance down the nose at the uninitiated. I have had my vaccinations and can also do Vajrayana chanting. I can solve a two dimensional particle in a box Schrödinger equation {still} and know how to light incense sticks and smudge with smouldering sage, I can do shamanic drumming.

It is all about Garry Glitter really.  People want to know whose gang you are in…what your true colours are…

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Hopefully in a few weeks’ time I will feel a little less crippled.

Groups Souls – Dalai Lama – Cloying Awareness – Exquisite Sculpture – Dream 01-11-2025

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Here are last night’s dreaming snippets. Sometimes when I need a “cheer me up” the dreaming provides.

The dream opens at a sea-side town-village. It is like Tenby or Tobermory with pastel coloured brightly painted houses.

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I am with my group of souls or beings. The place could also be Denmark or Scandinavia. It is impeccably tidy and ordered. The light is light and bright without blinding. We are young in age, children and dressed in colourful togas. We often incarnate together en masse. We have known each other for aeons. This is the group to which I belong. We are beings made out of light each of their own colour witnessed by toga and not skin. There is a sense of primordial innocence to us. We are going in and out of each other’s houses enjoying the fluffy clouds which surround us.

I awake for a loo break a little after 4 AM.

As I drift off I have a strong mental image of H.H. Dalai Lama who fills the entire perceptual field. I sense he is deep in contemplation and sit there in that state with him silently for a length of time about 15 earth minutes. It seems much longer. We are happy and serene in contemplation together. A part of that visual remains as I type now.

I fade out and into sleep.

Sat at a pavement café in central London is a man of roughly my own age whom I had acquaintance of. He has bought me a glass of Coke with ice lemon and a straw. He is sat at a table there. He gestures for me to sit down with him. I cannot. I say that I have nothing personally to resolve with him, nothing to solve. I cannot be near his cloying preserving awareness. It is heavy and seeks to enfold and keep things the same. His awareness is like a cloying quagmire, it is old, ancient, dark and borderline evil. He gestures for me to sit again. I walk past. I have nothing to solve.

I walk off into a part of London I do not recognize. It is early morning, a little after dawn and the restaurateurs and bar owners are clearing up and setting up. It is warm maybe summer. The doors are open. I walk into one pub and put the Coke down on the bar counter. The owner is polishing the bar and tables and is happy to take the Coke. I admire the stained glass windows and period doors. I walk through into the next door pub which he also owns and out of the door back into the street.

I now come upon an Italian style restaurant which has a large ornate orangery-greenhouse attached. The manageress is there in her black and whites with a low apron on. She is organising tables in the orangery. The windows of the building are leaded in, like cathedral windows. The clear uncoloured glass is warped by the flow of age. The lead is painted crimson red. The overall effect is magnificent with interesting patterns of light refracted on the floor. I say to her that the light is truly wonderful. She concurs. She has a clipped English upper class accent. She say that it a pity that “he” the owner keeps rejigging the tables  because she likes the feel of Sicilian palace which it currently has. There are plentiful succulent plants. She is chuffed that I like “her” orangery so very much. It is her labour of love which she does not need to do. She suggests that I should visit the garden out back.

I follow her advice and enter a light walled garden with water features and wall alcoves with plants. In the centre is an exquisite sculpture / water feature. She says that it is OK for me and me alone to climb it. The stairway to the feature is made out of carved open books. The books are carved out of what looks like pewter, there is relief of binding and pages. They are joined together by a single metal rod/rail. Each book is by way of a step. In some the page writing is etched in relief. They are a testament to learning and library. The languages of the books are diverse. The staircase mounts a large globe of the Earth which has all the continents and oceans cut to scale. The globe is several times my size. I climb the “ladder”. Out of the North Pole a drinking fountain flows. Its flow is lightly pulsing and the water trickles downs wetting every side of the world. The water is collected in a fish pond in which the globe sits. The ladder passes over the pond. In the pond are ornamental koi carp. The manageress encourages me up and to taste the water. I do and the water is cool and refreshing nectar like in quality. Some of it runs down onto my white linen shirt. The morning light illuminates the garden and orangery.

The dream ends.

Power and the Intimate Privacy of Death

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It is warm and sunny outside, so perhaps it is safer to write on these things. Although physical plane death may be public there is a private intimate part not shared by the consciousness of the living and those not in the transition. Ostensibly death may be quick brought on by an IDF bullet or a heart attack. It could be a slow drawn out process mediated by an ailing brain or a bleed. One could have a physically easy or a physically painful death. I have had both. These days death under morphine is not uncommon. Many full of bravado are nevertheless fear-full of that tap on the shoulder. It re-presents the time when the croupier of life spins the roulette wheel after shouting,

 « Mesdames et messieurs, faites vos jeux ! »

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For logically we all know we are placing our bets on what may or may not happen when we die. The ball rolls and stops and we find out if we have won or lost.

History tells of many a shit-scared monarch buying papal indulgences on his death bed in an attempt to bribe God.

I’ll state here that I am not the kind of being who tries to use or take advantage of others. It is not my basic orientation. I am more likely to facilitate, to try help. We all have faults and mine is less nasty. I have to the detriment of others allowed myself to be used. I have robbed them in a sense of the battles which they may have faced. Because I have faced things for them. This in a way, although perhaps altruistic, is disempowering.

I have met a number of people losing their battle with power over the years. Caught up in the process they were and would be unable to see or accept that this is the case. Weirdly the power-flame attracts many a moth on the make, only for a singeing of wings. The lust for a share in apparent power is perhaps the most blinding thing which can happen to a being. They see only with blinkered eye the power, and not the consequence both on others and on them. Most people guess they can handle power. Most people are wrong, for it is power which handles them and changes them. Many in the throes of their battle with power present themselves as some beacon of light when they are anything but. Power deludes those hungry for it and their supporters. Power likes to justify.

I’ll make a little aside here. If there is significant influx of first ray “will-to-power” energy the number of people losing their battle with power will rise and a dark, dark, cloud will result. The first ray is very difficult to handle and cope with. Any crack, any latent cruelty, any lust for power over, will be activated.

The individual mentioned in my dream taught me a lot, for which I am thankful. Primarily he showed behaviours which I did not like and did not want to adopt for myself. It was an exemplar of what I did not want to become. At the same time I was interacting with others a tad obsessed with power and in some cases position.  I have never wanted to be lord and master with minions, slaves and serfs. Others like to lord it over; some like to be lorded over. I was not infected by his mood and intent.

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Power in its knowledge aspect is inconspicuous and not ostentatious. It is gathered and stored, rarely is it exercised. Depending on predilection one may gather like a squirrel. Personally I have always been interested in learning.

That time in the very first part of this century I was engaged in what hindsight suggests was my battle with power. Clearly the scale was rather local, but I was presented with many temptations, the trappings of power. Luckily, I was largely able to resist those temptations, those traps and did not become an “A” grade arse. Other people I knew may have been less resilient and perhaps fell to the traps, the whims of power.

The thing is that power and evil have a kind of symbiotic relationship. Power is the lure; the bait of evil who can tie an appropriate fly for whatever fish it seeks. Evil ever the strategist and craftsman can, when and if needed, be subtle.

In modern days the notion of evil has become quasi-taboo which is testament to the guile and skill of evil.

I do not pretend to know the mind of the dark adepts and those drawn to them. The more evolved of them, aware of much, must make a calculation pertaining to death. That calculation at one level must offset the difficulty of transition with the perceived reward of a life of power. Only they would be able to comment if they have struck a good deal, made a good bargain.

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I personally, this afternoon, in the middle of the day, am ready. In a sense I have already embraced my death.

There is a chance that you and I will meet gain at the hour of your death. You can decide for yourself if that is some morbid shit I made up, or not…

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“Don’t know where
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day”

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Academic Chemists – Derelict Site – Attack – Honour Dream 11-08-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had between 5 and 7:30 AM.

The entire dream is in England and not the north or the midlands but south to that from geography and accent. There is some kind of gathering of chemistry academics in the upstairs of a large pub or hotel. There is a vague feeling of conference but it is not quite that. It is more of a social gathering with a problem solving outlook. I am there but largely unacknowledged nor welcome. There is hubbub and people drinking. A man, John, comes in who knows me and says that he has just got promoted. He is a bit younger than me. I congratulate him genuinely. I say that it  is good news for him but that my job is very definitely at risk if not already lost. He concurs. I am spare. I am not entirely sure why I am even at this gathering. I do not belong.

The scene changes and I am walking with a woman roughly my age who works at the place of the gathering. She is a lynchpin for the departments there. She has grey-blonde hair. We are in South London and approaching a very rough neighbourhood. I am not sure where we are going. She says that she has a secret place, there. We come upon a boarded up set of flats that are fenced off and ready for demolition. The site access gateway if closed off with a large chipboard wooden gate together with health and safety signage about helmets and hazards. She unlocks the chain and opens the gate. I ask her if she is sure that she wants to go in. Yes.

I follow her in and we can see several blocks of low rise four storey flats. They are in a bad state of repair but not quite Gaza like. She leads me through the rubble to one building where we are joined by another woman. Together they make their way to the back of one of the ground floor flats, to the kitchen. She has set herself up a snug with teapot, table and bone-china. She boils the kettle to make tea and gets out a plate of cupcakes. She ushers me into her snug but I cannot fit fully. It is as if she and her friend have shrunk as has the flat. I can get my head into the room but nothing else.

Behind me I hear noises. I turn out of the flat and look across the rubble strewn ground between the buildings, the demolition site. I can see half a dozen young black men approaching. They are carrying weapons and acting threateningly. I can feel my wallet in my trouser pocket. They approach and I say to them that I will give them some money. I take out six £20 notes and offer these. The lead man does not want them. He says that they are going to “fuck me up”. I say that they are welcome to try.

He lunges at me and I grab his wrist in a Kotegaeshi aikido wrist lock and swirl him around. I cannot however get full control of his wrist. Others come up and start to beat my back with iron bars which I can feel through my heavy overcoat. I let him go and then shrug the attackers off. They start to give chase and I head to the chipboard gate site entrance. They are following me at pace. I am completely unconcerned because their blows cannot hurt me or injure severely. As they follow me though the gate I head onto a grass verge in front of another block of flats. There is a massive police operation going on with many police in protective vests, armed and with dogs. They see my pursuers and recognise them as people they want to arrest. Half the police break off the search and give chase to my attackers.

I go back into the derelict site and find a white tiled bathroom which is intact. In the flat above there is a large woman who is a giant. She is five times my size and wearing striped tights with massive Dr Martens boots. She is curled up under the ceiling and above my bathroom. She has platted pony tails and is wearing a denim pinafore dress with straps. She is my friend and we go way back.

I turn on the shower and note the complete surround of white tiles which bulge slightly under the weight of the giant upstairs. I take a long hot shower. I need to cleanse, to get clean.  As I finish a young man with blonde hair in white overalls appears. He is the electrician-plumber and is trying to fix the bathroom and the derelict site. I explain to him that it is near impossible because there is no room left in the gaps between ceiling and roof. I have tried but gotten nowhere. He says that he has been given the job of fixing things. I wish him luck. It will be a thankless task.

The scene changes and I am in some kind of meeting with around half a dozen male chemistry academics. They are the “generation” below me and rather full of themselves. They are talking management bullshit about targets and how they are going to fix the problem of which I am a part. Although I am there I am largely ignored. They are arrogant. I know beyond all doubt that they are heading towards a massive mistake, a fuck up. I try to warn them. They ignore me convinced that they know best. They think they have a vision and a solution. They are very badly mistaken and it will go very, very wrong.

They ask me what I have in my wallet. I take my wallet out and pull out first four and then another two £20 pound notes. That makes a total of twelve £20 notes. In the dream I know that money re-presents crystallized power or knowledge. I have in my wallet the jewels of awareness forbearance 12 and honour 20. My honour remains intact no matter what they do.

The dream ends.

The Unknown and The Unknowable

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Many do not know with humility where for them the known ends and the unknown begins.

Moreover, their assessment of what is known may be inaccurate in that they imagine they know more than they actually do. Anyone who has taught undergraduate science can testify that there are many students who imagine they know more than they do. They may be confident and exhibit braggadocio concerning their knowledge. They may even pass exams and imagine a mastery over a subject when in fact they have just passed an exam. A qualification is not synonymous with full knowledge. The measured knowledge is qualified to a yard stick. Knowledge begins post exam in its subsequent application. When you have to teach something in public, then you learn. Each time you teach it a new facet, previously un-noted, may be revealed. You could say that teaching is also a process of learning for the so-called teacher.

It stands to reason then, that the scale and scope of the unknown can not even be estimated. Therefore, it cannot be factored in, in a reliable way. There may be some things, concepts and states of awareness which are unknowable, particularly so while in meaty carnate human form.

You do not know what you don’t know and are, by definition, unaware of the gaping hole in your knowledge. Though you may self-diagnose prematurely as omniscient. There are many who imagine themselves smart and with wide, deep and profound knowledge of life, the universe and everything.

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To give a trite example what it feels like to be dead is unknown when alive, yet because we all die, it is not unknowable because we all get a chance to experience it. The level to which we are conscious in the death state may be variable. We don’t know for sure.

In the new age literature, I encounter many who talk about the buddhic and atmic planes or awarenesses. There is a certainty in language which is not necessarily backed up by personal experience. It is for them a theory, a hypothesis and not an experiential reality. In the blue books opus direct and continued experience of these states, in the model hypothesis, is as a result of initiation and evolution.

Humans like to model in their own image and may draw glowing enlightened figures, perhaps partially because states of awareness and consciousness of highly abstract natures are not easily diagrammatically rendered. In the Ancient Wisdom traditions, the atmic “plane” is sometime referred to as the nirvanic plane, implying it is the awareness of the post nirvanic being lacking a causal vehicle having blown it off. They may fail to imagine awe and the austere nature of universe, perhaps they imagine a soft radiant glow, with comforting pastel shades. Cosmogenesis is not nice and fluffy; it is cosmic and violent beyond comprehension. The scope is far beyond human experience. We can just do our best to observe, model and understand.

For a scientist the use of the two dimensional nomenclature of plane is very unhelpful and distracting. Plane implies matter and physicality {excluding imaginary numbers}. When I have been reading these things, I find that the legacy nomenclature from the Victorian mediums and early twentieth century occultists off putting and something which I need to put to one side to get to the gist. The use of etheric “plane” instead of emotional is old fashioned.

I have seen the word Toltec described as man of knowledge and uttered with a bit of awe. I have yet to meet a so-called Toltec who can solve Schrödinger’s equation for a particle in a three dimensional box. Tens of thousands of undergraduates do this every year. There is a whopping great gap in knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering, in my opinion. They may have knowledge but it is far from complete.

Similarly, many scientists may profess profound knowledge. They may pooh-pooh magic, chakras, ghosts and exorcism. They may even soap box. I’ll wager that I could spend the wee small hours in a haunted house with them and have significantly less fear. Even though ghosts do not exist, of course. If I started to do a rite of exorcism, they would probably shit their pants.

Both groups have the unknown and the extent of it is also unknown. I could play on words and say that the extent of the unknown is the unknowable for any give life because we can only map out so much unknown in ~ 85 standard earth years.

I’ll make a statement; it is common for human beings to imagine themselves more knowledgeable than they actually are. There is an arrogance which is out of proportion with their tens of kilograms of meat measured against a planetary and cosmic scale. Yet they have trouble not being adamant and assertive about things which they know little or nothing about.

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Do you know where the unknown for you starts?

Have you an inkling of just how vast that unknown is for you?

The Problem of Fifth Ray – Concrete Mind

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In his blue print for the future schools Kuhl mentions that ideally the educational personnel should be as capable as those at a modern university. Since his offerings the university sector has undergone a massive expansion. Modern science has exploded and expanded at a tremendous rate. It is no longer possible for any human mind to encompass all the knowledge.

I fit the educational criterion or at least I once did.

The use of fifth ray concrete mind to expand science / technology in a kaizen or step wise manner has proven remarkably successful, perhaps at the cost of more intuitional thinking, intuiting. The mantra of factory like metrics is embedded deep. One has to “promise” what one might find and its commercial impact before funding is given. There must be concrete measurable and success criteria. It is perhaps a tad OCD and anal.

Kuhl imagined that all would need to learn science as part of their education. I’ll generalise but your average fourth or sixth ray type is prejudiced against those “nasty” fifth ray types. They would not be keen on university level thermodynamics.

Those of a fifth ray orientation do not like fluffy bunny woolly crystal feeling astrologers. They want hard facts not metaphor and allegory

Both of these groups are set, a little like concrete, in their ways.

I am perhaps more bilingual than most.

In a sense “science” in its technological flavour has become the new God. Anything outside its creed and gospel is not welcome and prone to ridicule.

The Kurukshetra is this fifth ray and getting past mid-high concrete mind into intuitional or buddhic levels.

I’ll expand more in due course.

The Tendency to Scoff and Self-diagnosed Omniscience.

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I’ll speculate that many have a tendency to scoff and perhaps belittle as a default knee-jerk reaction. People may be unaware of the limits of their knowledge and self-diagnose more than a little prematurely a know-it-all omniscience. Because I once worked in academia, I have met many pompous people along the way who rated themselves. I observed a willingness to soap box on matters outside their subject area, with an assertiveness inconsistent with their actual depth of know how.

A couple of years back in conversation I asked an ex-student what his maths was like in order to try to explain something. I wanted to know what “language” to use. He was very circumspect because he had attended my matrix heavy chemical group theory course. He sensed that he could be digging himself a hole and stopped.

A lot of people have a braggadocio which when tested is found groundless.

I have an ongoing problem which is not massive.

Here in France a fair proportion of Brits make little or no effort with the French language. This makes them seem a little stupid and illogical. Around here anyway the housing is relatively cheap and thus the British people who live here are not financially loaded.  There is some small correlation between wealth and intelligence. My prejudice is that the French have a low bar when it comes to their assessment of Brits, they do not think us smart, the French can be arrogant.

I’ll speculate with a high confidence that most of the locals round here have no experience of dealing with a former academic from a world top ten science university and a high tech. entrepreneur to boot.

There is a catch twenty-two. If we are interacting, how do I make them aware of what they are dealing with? They have no personal experience. I can offer them a wiki write up of Imperial College in French. This makes them think me weird. They read it cursorily. Then when they try for example, sales pressure manipulation and I assert back they are surprised. I say I did try to warn you. But you did not listen or try to figure out where I was coming from.

In a conversation about a house sale, I said; “I have absolutely no wish to discuss this endlessly over and over.”

The first offer had been at 60% of the sale price for our house and they kept edging up ten grand at a time. The phrase fuck off came to mind.

The negotiator said, “This is France, that is what we do. Il faut discuter.”

The conversation did not go further.

How do you explain to people that they don’t know what they are getting in to and that there is a shed load of things which they know nothing about? If you try you are not believed people can be very adamant and unaware of their ignorance. Is it even worth trying?

A cursory look at social media suggests that adamant self-diagnosed omniscience is a widespread phenomenon. There has never been so many experts pedalling stuff from their soap boxes and otherwise gobbing off.

Are we not blessed to live in an age like this?

Initiation, Human and Solar

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INITIATION DEFINED

The question anent initiation is one that is coming more and more before the public. Before many centuries pass the old mysteries will be restored, and an inner body will exist in the Church – the Church of the period, of which the nucleus is already forming – wherein the first initiation will become esoteric, in this sense only, that the taking of the first initiation will, before so very long, be the most sacred ceremony of the Church, performed esoterically as one of the mysteries given at stated periods, attended by those concerned. It will also hold a similar place in the ritual of the Masons. At this ceremony those ready for the first initiation will be publicly admitted to the Lodge by one of its members, authorized to do so by the great Hierophant Himself.

Four Words Defined

When we speak of Initiation, of wisdom, of knowledge, or of the probationary Path, what do we mean? We use the words so glibly, without due consideration of the meaning involved. Take, for instance, the word first mentioned. Many are the definitions, and many are the explanations to be found as to its scope, the preparatory steps, the work to be done between initiations, and its result and effects. One thing before all else is apparent to the most superficial student, and that is, that the magnitude of the subject is such that in order to deal with it adequately one should be able to write from the viewpoint of an initiate; when this is not the case, anything that is said may be reasonable, logical, interesting, or suggestive, but not conclusive.

The word Initiation comes from two Latin words, in, into; and ire, to go; therefore, the making of a beginning, or the entrance into something. It posits, in its widest sense, in the case we are studying, an entrance into the spiritual life, or into a fresh stage in that life. It is the first step, and the succeeding steps, upon the Path of Holiness. Literally, therefore, a man who has taken the first initiation is one who has taken the first step into the spiritual kingdom, having passed out of the definitely human kingdom into the superhuman. Just as he passed out of the animal kingdom into the human at individualization, so he has entered upon the life of the spirit, and for the first time has the right to be called a “spiritual man” in the technical significance of the word. He is entering upon the fifth or final stage in our present fivefold evolution. Having groped his way through the Hall of Ignorance during many ages, and having gone to school in the Hall of Learning, he is now entering into the university, or the Hall of Wisdom. When he has passed through that school he will graduate with his degree as a Master of Compassion.

It might be of benefit to us also if we studied first the difference or the connection between Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. Though in ordinary parlance they are frequently interchanged, as used technically they are dissimilar.

Knowledge is the product of the Hall of Learning. It might be termed the sum total of human discovery and experience, that which can be recognized by the five senses, and be correlated, diagnosed, and defined by the use of the human intellect. It is that about which we feel mental certitude, or that which we can ascertain by the use of experiment. It is the compendium of the arts and sciences. It concerns all that deals with the building and developing of the form side of things. Therefore it concerns the material side of evolution, matter in the solar systems, in the planet, in the three worlds of human evolution, and in the bodies of men.

Wisdom is the product of the Hall of Wisdom. It has to do with the development of the life within the form, with the progress of the spirit through those ever-changing vehicles, and with the expansions of consciousness that succeed each other from life to life. It deals with the life side of evolution. Since it deals with the essence of things and not with the things themselves, it is the intuitive apprehension of truth apart from the reasoning faculty, and the innate perception that can distinguish between the false and the true, between the real and the unreal. It is more than that, for it is also the growing capacity of the Thinker to enter increasingly into the mind of the Logos, to realize the true inwardness of the great pageant of the universe, to vision the objective, and to harmonize more and more with the higher measure. For our present purpose (which is to study somewhat the Path of Holiness and its various stages) it may be described as the realization of the “Kingdom of God within,” and the apprehension of the “Kingdom of God without” in the solar system. Perhaps it might be expressed as the gradual blending of the paths of the mystic and the occultist, – the rearing of the temple of wisdom upon the foundation of knowledge.

Wisdom is the science of the spirit, just as knowledge is the science of matter. Knowledge is separate and objective, whilst wisdom is synthetic and subjective. Knowledge divides; wisdom unites. Knowledge differentiates whilst wisdom blends. What, then, is meant by the understanding?

The understanding may be defined as the faculty of the Thinker in Time to appropriate knowledge as the foundation for wisdom, that which enables him to adapt the things of form to the life of the spirit, and to take the flashes of inspiration that come to him from the Hall of Wisdom and link them to the facts of the Hall of Learning. Perhaps the whole idea might be expressed in this way:


Wisdom concerns the one Self, knowledge deals with the not-self, whilst the understanding is the point of view of the Ego, or Thinker, or his relation between them.

In the Hall of Ignorance the form controls, and the material side of things has the predominance. Man is there polarized in the personality or lower self. In the Hall of Learning the higher self, or Ego, strives to dominate that form until gradually a point of equilibrium is reached where the man is controlled entirely by neither. Later the Ego controls more and more, until in the Hall of Wisdom it dominates in the three lower worlds, and in increasing degree the inherent divinity assumes the mastery.

Aspects of Initiation

Initiation, or the process of undergoing an expansion of consciousness, is part of the normal process of evolutionary development, viewed on a large scale, and not from the standpoint of the individual. When viewed from the individual standpoint it has come to be narrowed down to the moment wherein the evolving unit definitely apprehends that (by dint of his own effort, aided by the advice and suggestions of the watching Teachers of the race) he has reached a point wherein a certain range of knowledge of a subjective nature, from the physical plane point of view, is his. It is in the nature of that experience wherein a pupil in a school realizes suddenly that he has mastered a lesson, and that the rationale of a subject, and the method of procedure, are his to use intelligently. These moments of intelligent apprehension follow the evolving Monad throughout his long pilgrimage. What has been misinterpreted somewhat at this stage of comprehension is the fact that at various periods the emphasis is laid on different grades of expansion, and always the Hierarchy endeavors to bring the race to the point where its units will have some idea of the next step to be taken.

Each initiation marks the passing of the pupil in the Hall of Wisdom into a higher class, marks the clearer shining forth of the inner fire and the transition from one point of polarization to another, entails the realization of an increasing unity with all that lives and the essential oneness of the self with all selves. It results in a horizon that continuously enlarges until it includes the sphere of creation; it is a growing capacity to see and hear on all the planes. It is an increased consciousness of God’s plans for the world, and an increased ability to enter into those plans and to further them. It is the effort in the abstract mind to pass an examination. It is the honor class in the Master’s school, and is within the attainment of those souls whose karma permits and whose efforts suffice to fulfil the aim.

Initiation leads to the mount whence vision can be had, a vision of the eternal Now, wherein past, present, and future exist as one; a vision of the pageant of the races with the golden thread of pedigree carried through the many types; a vision of the golden sphere that holds in unison all the many evolutions of our system, deva, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, and elemental, and through which the pulsating life can be clearly seen beating in regular rhythm;

  • a vision of the Logoic thought-form on the archetypal plane,
  • a vision that grows from initiation to initiation until it embraces all the solar system.

Initiation leads to the stream that, once entered, sweeps a man onward until it carries him to the feet of the Lord of the World, to the feet of his Father in Heaven, to the feet of the threefold Logos.

Initiation leads to the cave within whose circumscribing walls the pairs of opposites are known, and the secret of good and evil is revealed. It leads to the Cross and to that utter sacrifice which must transpire before perfect liberation is attained, and the initiate stands free of all earth’s fetters, held by naught in the three worlds. It leads through the Hall of Wisdom, and puts into a man’s hands the key to all information, systemic and cosmic, in graduated sequence. It reveals the hidden mystery that lies at the heart of the solar system. It leads from one state of consciousness to another. As each state is entered the horizon enlarges, the vista extends, and the comprehension includes more and more, until the expansion reaches a point where the self embraces all selves, including all that is “moving and unmoving,” as phrased by an ancient Scripture.

Initiation involves ceremony. It is this aspect that has been emphasized in the minds of men, perhaps a little to the exclusion of the true significance. Primarily it involves the capacity to see, hear, and comprehend, and to synthesize and correlate knowledge. It does not necessarily involve the development of the psychic faculties, but it does entail the inner comprehension that sees the value underlying the form, and recognizes the purpose of pervading circumstances. It is the capacity that senses the lesson to be learnt from any given occurrence and event, and that by means of these comprehensions and recognitions effects an hourly, weekly, yearly growth and expansion. This process of gradual expansion – the result of the definite effort and strenuous right thinking and living of the aspirant himself and not of some occult teacher performing an occult rite – leads to what one might term a crisis.

At this crisis, which necessitates the aid of a Master, a definite act of initiation is performed, which (acting on a particular center) produces a result on some one body. It keys the atoms to a certain pitch, and enables a new rate of rhythm to be attained.

This ceremony of initiation marks a point of attainment. It does not bring about attainment, as is so often the misconception. It simply marks the recognition by the watching Teachers of the race of a definite point in evolution reached by the pupil, and gives two things:

  1. An expansion of consciousness that admits the personality into the wisdom attained by the Ego, and in the higher initiations into the consciousness of the Monad.
  2. A brief period of enlightenment wherein the initiate sees that portion of the Path that lies ahead to be trodden, and wherein he shares consciously in the great plan of evolution.

After initiation, the work to be done consists largely in making that expansion of consciousness part of the equipment for the practical use of the personality, and in mastering that portion of the path that has yet to be traversed.

The Place and Effect of Initiation

The ceremony of initiation takes place on the three higher subplanes of the mental plane, and on the three higher planes, according to the initiation. The five-pointed star, at the initiations on the mental plane, flashes out above the head of the initiate. This concerns the first initiations which are undergone in the causal vehicle. It has been said that the first two initiations take place upon the astral plane, but this is incorrect, and the statement has given rise to a misunderstanding. They are felt profoundly in connection with the astral and physical bodies and the lower mental, and affect their control. The chief effect being felt in those bodies the initiate may interpret them as having taken place on the planes concerned, as the vividness of the effect and the stimulation of the first two initiations work out largely in the astral body. But it must ever be remembered that the major initiations are taken in the causal body or – dissociated from that body – on the buddhic plane or atmic plane. At the final two initiations which set a man free from the three worlds, and enable him to function in the body of vitality of the Logos and wield that force, the initiate becomes the five-pointed star and it descends upon him, merges in him, and he is seen at its very center. This descent is brought about by the action of the Initiator, wielding the Rod of Power, and puts a man in touch with the center in the Body of the Planetary Logos of which he is a part, and this consciously. The two initiations called the sixth and seventh take place on the buddhic and atmic planes; the five-pointed star “blazes forth from within Itself,” as the esoteric phrase has it, and becomes the seven-pointed star; it descends upon the man and he enters within the flame.

Again, the four initiations, prior to that of the adept, mark respectively the attainment of certain proportions of atomic matter in the bodies – for instance, at the first initiation one-fourth atomic matter, at the second one-half atomic matter, at the third three-quarters atomic matter, and so on to the completion. Since buddhi is the unifying principle (or the welder of all), at the fifth initiation the adept lets the lower vehicles go, and stands in his buddhic sheath. He creates thence his body of manifestation.

Each initiation gives more control on the rays, if one may so express it, although this does not adequately convey the idea. Words so often mislead. At the fifth initiation, when the adept stands Master in the three worlds, He controls more or less (according to His line of development) the five rays that are specially manifesting at the time He takes the initiation. At the sixth initiation, if He takes the higher degree, He gains power on another ray, and at the seventh initiation He wields power on all the rays. The sixth initiation marks the point of attainment of the Christ, and brings the synthetic ray of the system under His control. We need to remember that initiation gives the initiate power on the rays, and not power over the rays, for this marks a very definite difference. Every initiate has, of course, for his primary or spiritual ray one of the three major rays, and the ray of his Monad is the one on which he at length gains power. The love ray, or the synthetic ray of the system, is the final one achieved.

Those who pass away from the earth after the fifth initiation, or those who do not become Masters in physical incarnation, take their subsequent initiations elsewhere in the system. All are in the Logoic Consciousness. One great fact to be borne in mind is, that the initiations of the planet or of the solar system are but the preparatory initiations of admission into the greater Lodge on Sirius. We have the symbolism held for us fairly well in Masonry, and in combining the Masonic method with what we are told of the steps on the Path of Holiness we get an approximate picture. Let us enlarge somewhat:

The first four initiations of the solar system correspond to the four “initiations of the Threshold,” prior to the first cosmic initiation. The fifth initiation corresponds to the first cosmic initiation, that of “entered apprentice” in Masonry; and makes a Master an “entered apprentice” of the Lodge on Sirius. The sixth initiation is analogous to the second degree in Masonry, whilst the seventh initiation makes the Adept a Master Mason of the Brotherhood on Sirius.

A Master, therefore, is one who has taken the seventh planetary initiation, the fifth solar initiation, and the first Sirian or cosmic initiation.

Excerpted from:

“Initiation, Human and Solar – Chapter II – Initiation Defined” By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl