Religious Philosophy

"Most black men couldn't balance a checkbook But buy a new car, talking 'bout, 'How my neck look?' Well, it all looks great Four hundred years later, we buyin' our own chains The light is before us brothers, so the devil workin' hard Real family stick together and see through the mirage The smokescreens, perceptions of false reality I've been woken from enlightened man's dream Checkin' Instagram comments to crowdsource my self-esteem Let me not say too much or do too much 'Cause if I'm up way too much, I'm out of touch I'm prayin' a out-of-body experience will happen So the people can see my light, now it's not just rappin' God, I have humbled myself before the court Drop my ego when confidence was my last resort."

"According to the literature of the psychic underground, the religious-mystical history of man constantly makes reference to this Second Body. Long before Christianity and the Bible appeared, cultures in Egypt, India, and China, to name a few, held the Second Body idea as standard operating procedure. Historians have found these references again and again, but evidently consigned them to the mythology of the times. If one reads the Bible from this point of view, the belief is confirmed many times in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Catholic Church are found consistent reports of saints and other religious figures having such experiences, some of them willfully. Even in Protestantism, devout followers have reported the out-of-body experience during some form of religious ecstasy. In the Orient, the concept of a Second Body has long held a natural and accepted position of reality."

"I never want to forget that I'm doing an impossible thing. How rare is it that you get to be part of something people love? It's really special. It's a very out-of-body experience to be a part of something so huge."

"Early in the experimentation, a side effect began to manifest itself. It was not an out-of-body activity as such, but took place in states of deep relaxation prior to any separation. It is evidently called in the trade "precognition." As I was lying down, my mind stilled and body relaxed, without my volition, the "vision" would occur."

"I have seen a light; not in a near-death experience — I was just passing out. And what I perceived was the tiniest beam of light — that to me was … the final form of life. It just occurred to me, holy cow, there it is. There is the light that everybody talks about. But it's a common theme among people who say they have had a near-death experience or an out-of-body experience. What they see is a light. Some people have seen Jesus in, in this light; other people just see a bright light."

"When writing, I often feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience in which I’m as ageless, sexless, classless, raceless as I can ever humanly get…I have to forget myself so I can be fully committed to understanding my character’s motivations in a way that isn’t facile or boxed in…"

"In 1958, Robert Monroe floated out of his body for the first time. It began “without any apparent cause,” he wrote. His doctor, finding no physical ailment, prescribed tranquilizers. A psychologist friend, meanwhile, told me him to try leaving his body again. After all, the friend said, “some of the fellows who practice yoga and those Eastern religions claim they can do it whenever they want to.” Monroe did try it again—and again and again. He recalls these experiences in his classic 1971 book Journeys out of the Body, which launched the phrase “out-of-body experiences” into the public conversation. Monroe died in 1995, but the fascination with out-of-body experiences endures."

"Often I wake up to myself, abandoning my body: foreign to everything else in my own intimacy, I see the most extraordinary beauty imaginable. I am convinced, especially then, that I have a superior destiny, my rapture is the highest level that life can reach, I am united with the divine being and, having arrived at this rapture, I fix myself in him above all beings intelligible. But after this rest in the divine Being, having descended from the Intellect back to reflected thought, I ask myself how I carried out this descent in practice and how the soul was able to enter the body, that soul which, although within a body, is the thing noblest he has shown himself to be."

"If one guides his soul persistently upward, its inner senses will at last begin to unfold; the light within the shrine will burn brighter and brighter, until at last the full continuous consciousness comes, and then he will dream no more. To lie down to sleep will no longer mean for him to sink into oblivion, but simply to step forth radiant, rejoicing, strong, into that fuller, nobler life where fatigue can never come — where the soul is always learning, even though all his time be spent in service; for the service is that of the great Masters of Wisdom, and the glorious task They set before him is to help ever to the fullest limit of his power in Their never-ceasing work for the aiding and the guidance of the evolution of humanity. Ch 7 Conclusion"

"Etheric. It is not alone through the brain to which we have hitherto been referring, however, that impressions may be received by the man. Almost exactly co-extensive with and interpenetrating its visible form is his etheric double (formerly called in theosophical literature the linga sharira), and that also has a brain which is really no less physical than the other, though composed of matter in a condition finer than the gaseous. Ch 2"

"A stanza in the Book of Dzyan tells us: 'Those who received but a spark remained destitute of knowledge: the spark burned low'; and Madame Blavatsky explains that 'those who receive but a spark constitute the average humanity which have to acquire their intellectuality during the present manvantaric evolution'. ( The Secret Doctrine, ii, 167, 1979 ed.). In the case of most of them that spark is still smouldering, and it will be many an age before its slow increase brings it to the stage of steady and brilliant flame. Ch 3: The Ego"

"It seems that in the Koran there is a wonderful narrative concerning a visit paid one morning by the prophet Mohammed to heaven, during which he saw many different regions there, had them all very fully explained to him, and also had numerous lengthy conferences with various angels; yet when he returned to his body, the bed from which he had risen was still warm, and he found that but a few seconds had passed — in fact, I believe the water had not yet all run out from a jug which he had accidentally overturned as he started on the expedition! Ch 4"

"The first experiment tried was with an average man of small education and rough exterior — a man of the Australian shepherd type — whose astral form, as seen floating above his body, was externally little more than a shapeless wreath of mist. It was found that the consciousness of the body on the bed was dull and heavy, both as regards the grosser and the etheric parts of the frame. The former responded to some extent to external stimuli — for example, the sprinkling of two or three drops of water on the face called up in the brain (though somewhat tardily) a picture of a heavy shower of rain; while the etheric part of the brain was as usual a passive channel for an endless stream of disconnected thoughts, it rarely responded to any of the vibrations they produced, and even when it did it seemed somewhat sluggish in its action. Chapter 6 - Experiments on the Dream-State"

"All earnest Theosophists should therefore make a special point of raising their thoughts to the loftiest level of which they are capable before allowing themselves to sink into slumber. For remember, through what seem at first but the portals of dream, entrance may perchance presently be gained into those grander realms where alone true vision is possible. Ch 7 Conclusion"

"The teacher... and credited with miraculous powers, undertook to prove... to the doubting monarch that the story was, at any rate, not impossible. He had... the sultan just to dip his head into the water and... and to his intense surprise found himself at once in a place entirely unknown to him — on a lonely shore, near the foot of a great mountain... time passed on; he began to get hungry... After wandering about for some time, he found some men at work felling trees in a wood, and applied to them for assistance. They... eventually took him with them to the town where they lived. Here he resided and worked for some years, gradually amassing money, and at length contrived to marry a rich wife... he spent many happy years... bringing up a family of no less than fourteen children... One day, walking by the sea-side, he... plunged into the sea for a bath; and as he raised his head and shook the water from his eyes, he was astounded to find himself standing among his old courtiers, with his teacher of long ago at his side, and a basin of water before him. It was long... before he could be brought to believe that all those years of incident and adventure had been nothing but one moment's dream, caused by the hypnotic suggestion of his teacher, and that really he had done nothing but dip his head quickly into the basin of water... Chapter 4"

"Surely these experiments show very clearly how the remembrance of our dreams becomes so chaotic and inconsequent as it frequently is. Incidentally they also explain why some people — in whom the ego is undeveloped and earthly desires of various kinds are strong — never dream at all, and why many others are only now and then, under a collocation of favourable circumstances, able to bring back a confused memory of nocturnal adventure; and we see, further, from them that if a man wishes to reap in his waking consciousness the benefit of what his ego [higher self/soul] may learn during sleep, it is absolutely necessary for him to acquire control over his thoughts, to subdue all lower passions, and to attune his mind to higher things. Chapter 7 Conclusion"

"The Confused Dream... by far the commonest of all, may be caused... in various ways. It may be simply a more or less perfect recollection of a series of the disconnected pictures and impossible transformations produced by the senseless automatic action of the lower physical brain; it may be a reproduction of the stream of casual thought which has been pouring through the etheric part of the brain; if sensual images of any kind enter into it, it is due to the ever-restless tide of earthly desire, probably stimulated by some unholy influence of the astral world; it may be due to an imperfect attempt at dramatization on the part of an undeveloped ego; or it may be (and most often is) due to an inextricable mingling of several or all of these influences. Ch 5"

"Physical. First, then, as to the physical part of the mechanism. We have in our bodies a great central axis of nervous matter, ending in the brain, and from this a network of nerve-threads radiates in every direction through the body. It is these nerve-threads, according to modern scientific theory, which by their vibrations convey all impressions from without to the brain, and the latter, upon receipts of these impressions, translates them into sensations or perceptions; so that if I put my hand upon some object and find it to be hot, it is really not my hand that feels, but my brain, which is acting upon information transmitted to it by the vibrations running along its telegraph wires, the nerve-threads. Chapter 2: The Mechanism"

"Astral. Still another mechanism that we have to take into account is the astral body, often called the desire-body. As its name implies, this vehicle is composed exclusively of astral matter, and is, in fact, the expression of the man on the astral plane, just as his physical body is the expression of him on the lower levels of the physical plane. Ch 2"

"The most convenient method in which we can arrange the various branches of our subject will perhaps be the following: first, to consider rather carefully the mechanism — physical, etheric and astral — by means of which impressions are conveyed to our consciousness; secondly, to see how the consciousness in its turn affects and uses this mechanism; thirdly, to note the condition both of the consciousness and its mechanism during sleep; and fourthly, to enquire how the various kinds of dreams which men experience are thereby produced. Chapter 1: Introductory"

"The Prophetic Dream... Often the prophecy is evidently intended as a warning, and instances are not wanting in which that warning has been taken, and so the dreamer has been saved from injury or death. In most cases the hint is neglected, or its true signification not understood until the fulfillment comes. In others an attempt is made to act upon the suggestion, but nevertheless circumstances over which the dreamer has no control bring him in spite of himself into the position foretold. Stories of such prophetic dreams are so common that the reader may easily find some in almost any of the books on such subjects. Chapter 5: Dreams"

"Another point very strongly brought out in our further investigations is the immense importance of the last thought in a man's mind as he sinks to sleep. This is a consideration which never occurs to the vast majority of people at all, yet it affects them physically, mentally, and morally. Ch 7 Conclusion"

"As I am writing in the main for students of theosophy, I shall feel myself at liberty to use, without detailed explanation, the ordinary theosophical terms, with which I may safely assume them to be familiar, since otherwise my little book would far exceed its allotted limits. Should it, however, fall into the hands of any to whom the occasional use of such terms constitutes a difficulty, I can only apologize to them, and refer them for these preliminary explanations to any elementary theosophical work, such as Mrs Besant's "The Ancient Wisdom", or "Man and his Bodies". Ch 1: Intro"

"All these different portions of the mechanism are in reality merely instruments of the ego [higher self/soul], though his control of them is as yet often very imperfect; for it must always be remembered that the ego is himself a developing entity, and that in the case of most of us he is scarcely more than a germ of what he is to be one day. Chapter 3: The Ego"

"Clairvoyant observation bears abundant testimony to the fact that when a man falls into a deep slumber the higher principles in their astral vehicle almost invariably withdraw from the body and hover in its immediate neighbourhood. Indeed, it is the process of this withdrawal which we commonly call 'going to sleep'. Chapter 4: The Condition of Sleep"

"I do not wish here to discuss the question, intensely interesting though it be, as to whether time can be said really to exist, or whether it is but a limitation of this lower consciousness, and all that we call time — past, present and future alike — is 'but one eternal Now'; I wish only to show that when the ego is freed from physical trammels, either during sleep, trance or death, he appears to employ some transcendental measure of time which has nothing in common with our ordinary physiological one. A hundred stories might be told to prove this fact... Ch 4"

"Vibration is the result of force or energy, concentrated in some mysterious way and caused to vibrate, shake or oscillate at different speeds. The composition of an atom, according to some scientists, is, first of all, a tiny vacuum, round which this force or energy revolves as a vortex, just as the circle of the sun’s aura or zodiac revolves round it. The zodiac contains the planets revolving within it, and the minute ‘zodiac’ of the atom contains also its planets, or electrons as they are called. (Chapter 2, What Modern Science Says)"

"Yogis, become unaffected by heat or cold, wounds and poisons. They are able to perform feats usually considered as miracles, and they appear to have access to regions of wisdom and felicity undreamt of by us. People of this type move about among us unsuspected. They do not advertise themselves; they are under a Law which forbids them to help unless help is asked, or to give out knowledge unless it is sought and will be properly understood. They are ready and waiting for the time when a growing number of people sense their secrets and beg their help. When the general public have sufficiently advanced they will insist on being governed by persons of such attainments, and then indeed will begin the coming Golden Age. (Ch. 1)"

"The difference between one object and another is ultimately a question of rate of vibration. It is the number and arrangement of the electrons within an atom, and the varied cohesions of atoms into molecules, which go to make up these vibratory differences. (Chapter 2, What Modern Science Says)"

"Systematic persecution of certain knowledge began, by edicts, inquisitions and massacres. Finally their end was so thoroughly attained that from the highest to the lowest the wisdom had apparently faded out."

"We are told that the secret lies in the use and understanding of a certain knowledge through which is given an insight into the inner laws and forces of life, and the manner in which to use them. This knowledge has always existed, but it remains hidden for ever from all but the earnest seeker."

"Fortunately, however, there are now, and always have been, those who would give their whole lives to the guarding and hiding of a treasure so precious. Such people were the alchemists, hermits, early freemasons and many more. So the knowledge was not really lost, but only concealed and safely guarded from desecration."

"The disturbance in the atmosphere caused by a vibration sends out a ripple or air-wave in all directions. As an illustrative simile of this we can throw a stone into a pool of water. At first we see the hole which the stone makes, corresponding to the vacuum in the centre of the atom. Then we see the disturbance in the water created by the hole, a circle of energy which sets up waves or ripples which spread out to an unlimited distance. Drop other stones in nearby, and their circle of waves will flow over and through the others, none, however, being destroyed although they affect one another slightly. The distance between one ripple and the next is called the ‘wavelength’. (Chapter 2, What Modern Science Says)"

"Calling ourselves civilized, we produce a race which cannot compare with many of the most savage tribes in health and physique. Look around at the members of an average crowd of today... Through unbiased eyes we shall see that we are mostly misshapen travesties of what a human being should be... imperfect bodies, unlovely vacant faces, ugly clothes and primitive conversation."

"Even without war man is being murdered daily in various ways by the terrible Robot which he has reared under the name of Civilization. This Robot is running amok; it has mastered its creator for the time being and produced a clever system of keeping him in slavery."

"In some countries the State supports a Church which tells us, ‘thou shalt not kill’, but is not averse to sending us out to war in order to slaughter our possibly blameless fellow-men. For this we are called heroes. (Chapter 1)"

"Cleanliness has also been studied outwardly, but seldom in its inward form – we do not understand how to keep our minds wholly free from rubbish and poisoning material. Religion likewise has come to be mostly an external observance, while as for entertainment it is poured in from outside, the mind being required to make no effort to obtain it. (Chapter 1)"

"We know the hospitals are full; so are the asylums – who dares to tell us how full? Consider also that we are at present in imminent danger of a world war which would let loose as much beastliness and cruelty as has ever existed in history."

"He is surrounded with mind-destroying noise, rush and anxiety, until even the doctors are beginning to say that modern life will soon exterminate itself!"

"There are many great men alive today whose achievements stand out in sharp contrast to the average. Is it that they are supermen, or that the rest of us are lagging far behind the point of development we should have reached? If we were to lay any of them upon the dissecting table we should certainly find nothing about them that differs in any degree from the average person. Where, then, is the key to the wonderful power and omnipotence that apparently may be every man’s birthright?"

"The hour has already struck which marks the beginning of humanity’s emergence from that blackness. Men have suffered so much and for so long, through ignorance, that at last the inevitable reaction has set in. We can feel this change beginning to play in subtle ways through all phases of life."

"Our first clue to this knowledge lies in the study of what is known as the Secret Wisdom. This teaching was always in the charge (in the early days) of those who were well equipped both to govern and teach. But in time they neglected their deep knowledge in favour of the easier way – power through money, superstition and material pomp. This resulted in laziness and effete degeneration. Their only hope of retaining hold on the people was to plunge them into ignorance also."

"We cannot gain such valuable knowledge without making worthy effort, but if we persevere there is no limit to the benefit we shall obtain. The earliest results achieved will be, firstly, a considerable improvement and control of health and looks, a growing capacity for happiness, an inability to worry or fear; a gaining of popularity, and freedom from boredom.(Ch. 1)"

"In time, when greater strides are made, there will be immunity from disease, conquering of fatigue, and prolonging of youth. There will be a growing capacity for helping others, a mastery of sorrow and pain, and the development of healing power. A growing inner force will be felt, both for creating ideas and the carrying of them out. (Ch. 1)"

"Meanwhile those who are anxious to forge ahead and prepare for the future will find in this book a broad survey of many sides of the subject, together with the first simple rules for the beginning of attainment. They are asked only to keep an open mind as they read, for only an open mind is big enough to contain the secrets of the universe. (Ch. 1)"

"Before we begin studying the ancient wisdom we will find it very helpful to prepare our minds by taking a survey of the ground covered by modern science today. It will be fascinating to see how identical facts can be known under different names and reached by different methods. Both the ancient sages and modern scientists are agreed that everything in life is formed of vibrations. (Chapter 2, What Modern Science Says)"

"Many of us are asked to believe in Church teaching and the Bible, both of them containing a mass of contradictions which no one attempts to explain. For example, Christ asked His disciples to carry on the work as He had done, saying: ‘He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.’ These words referred to healing, prophesying and clairaudience, which, with the ‘gift of tongues’ (power to be understood by all nationalities), the power to work miracles, to interpret dreams and symbols, and to have wisdom, were the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. Yet... the clergy, who should be cultivating these gifts, leave them mostly in the hands of those whom they consider ignorant... (Ch. 1)"

"Much that is really enlightening in knowledge is gradually being eliminated from man’s education, which is given to him in odd spoonfuls having no apparent relation to each other. Through no fault of his own he is under an economic system which causes him to spend all his days in the terror and anxiety of being without means of support."

"Our first concern will be to take a survey of the present position with unprejudiced eyes. The unprejudiced eye is a much more difficult thing to cultivate than we may imagine. In fact, to most of us it is an impossibility. For generations, indeed for centuries, we have been brought up in certain grooves of thought, certain traditions and habits, until our brains become wedged into a confined rut and are unable to look at things from a new angle. When, however, after finishing our survey of the present position, we see around us the result of thinking in these grooves, and realize to what a state of unhappiness, chaos and muddle this has brought us, we may, in sheer desperation, make the effort needed to jerk our brains out of their ruts and guard them against ever slipping back again. (Part One, Chapter 1, Things As They Are)"

"True socialism becomes possible when people recognize themselves as individual units of power, capability and thought; then there will inevitably follow a correspondingly important and congenial position in life for each one of them. There is an unfailing demand for either the competent worker or for those able to wield constructive influence, and all can fill one of these needs. There is no other way to individual happiness... The quest after Truth opens up an unimagined and wonderful new world to the seeker, so thrilling and so full of reward and interest that it is not within the power of human speech to portray it. Only the fringe of this absorbing search has been touched in these few pages, but even so this book contains the recipe for turning an ordinary human being into a superman, one who commands the means of success, happiness or personal fulfilment always within himself, and irrespective of all circumstances. (Intro)"