Alvin Boyd Kuhn (EN) A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom

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the Hall of Learning; and the Hall of Wisdom. While he is in the realm of purely
human life and identified with the phenomenal world, he is said to be in the
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Hall of Ignorance. The termination of his residence there brings him to the
entrance to the Probationary Path. He then enters the Hall of Learning, wherein
he follows the path of discipleship and instruction. This is the Mystic Life. At
its end he passes by another initiation into the Occult Life and dwells within
the Hall of Wisdom. Here he attains realization, undergoes heightened expansion
of his consciousness, and identifies himself with the spiritual essence of his
being.
The central features of occult discipline from the standpoint of the novitiate
is the oft-mentioned "stilling of the senses and the mind." In the Bhagavad Gita
Arjuna, the disciple, remonstrates with Krishna, the Lord, that he can not
accept the Yoga teaching as to the steadfastness of the controlled mind. It is
hard to tame he says, as the prancing horse or the fitful wind. Krishna answers:
"Well sayest thou, O Prince, that the mind is restless and as difficult to
restrain as the winds. Yet by constant practice, discipline and care may it be
mastered. . . . The Soul, when it has recognized the master-touch of the real
Self, may attain unto true Yoga by care and patience, coupled with firm
resolution and determination."
A little later he adds:
"Close tightly those gates of the body which men call the avenues of the senses.
Concentrate thy mind upon thine inner self. Let thine 'I' dwell in full strength
within its abode, not seeking to move outward. . . . He who thinketh constantly
and fixedly on Me, O Prince, letting not his mind ever stray toward another
object, will be able to find Me without overmuch trouble,--yea, he will find Me,
will that devoted one."
There is a law of esotericism which governs the operation of all these psychic
forces in mind and body. It is likewise the guarantee of the Soul's ultimate
hegemony among the principles making up man's life. It is the occult law that
"energy follows thought." It was this law which brought the universe into
existence out of the Unmanifest; it is this law by which man has himself
fashioned the instruments for his objective expression on the outer planes in
the lower worlds. He, like the macrocosmic Logos before him, sent forth thought-
waves, which, vibrating and impacting upon cosmic matter, moulded it to forms
commensurate with the type of their activity. Thus he has built his own
universe, which, however, binds him while it gives him expression. Now the same
law must, in reverse motion, so to say, be utilized to release him from the
trammels of flesh and sense, of feeling and mind-wandering. With energy flowing
in the grooves marked by thought, he must cease to send thought outward to the
periphery of life, the material world. Essentially a psychic being, he must
concern himself not with things but with psychic states. He must withdraw his
attention from sense contacts, whether pleasurable or painful, and end his
subjection to the pairs of opposites, joy and sorrow, delight and anguish. He
must cease to set his affections on things of desire; he must restrain wayward
streams of thought. Refusing to direct further energies outward to these
spheres, he invokes the law to terminate his further creations of form that will
bind him to the world of the Not-Self.
The mind-stuff is susceptible to vibrations both from the lower bodies and from
the Soul above. Man's destiny is in his own hands; it is daily decreed by the
direction in which he turns his mind. As a man changes the nature and direction
of his desires he changes himself.
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Mind-control is acquired through two lines of endeavor: tireless effort and non-
attachment. The first requirement explains why the Yoga student must be
virtually a religious devotee. From no other source than religious devotion to
the Way of Attainment can the necessary persistence spring to carry the
candidate through to eventual success. The second prerequisite, non-attachment,
is often spoken of as "renunciation of the fruits of action." It signifies that
attitude toward things and toward the life of the personality which enables the
Soul or Ego to regard the events that touch these with a sense of equanimity or
nonchalance. It is the sublimation of Stoic ataraxia, and is called vairagya in
Sanskrit. Our term indifference does not convey the correct significance of the
concept. It connotes a combination of positive and negative attitudes
practically unknown to the West. Krishna explains to Arjuna the seeming paradox
in his injunction to service through action, which is coupled with a similar
abjuration to ignore the fruits of action. The devotee is enjoined to perform
right action for the sake of dharma, or duty, as the West has it, but at the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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