Unknown

"“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him,” for the love of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, and the glory of God pass all understanding, even as does His peace."

"In the course of this great progress every man will some day reach full consciousness on the highest of our planes, the Divine plane, and be conscious simultaneously at all levels... so that having in Himself the power of the highest, He shall yet be able to comprehend and function on the very lowest, and help where help is needed."

"When in the far future the time shall come for the advent of another Buddha, and the present Bodhisattva takes that final incarnation in which the great step will be achieved, He will preach the Divine Law to the world in whatever form may seem to Him most suited to the requirements of the era, and then will follow Him in His high office the Master Kuthumi, who has transferred Himself to the Second Ray to take the responsibility of becoming the Bodhisattva of the sixth root race."

"We should always bear in mind that our thought, our speech and our action are not merely qualities, but powers-- powers given to us to use, for the use of which we are directly responsible. All are meant to be used for service, and to use them otherwise is to fail in our duty."

"The sermon begins with a proclamation that the Middle Path is the safest, and indeed the only true Path. To plunge on the one hand into the sensual excesses and pleasures of the ordinary worldly life is mean and degrading, and leads a man nowhither. On the other hand, extravagant asceticism is also evil and useless. There may be a few to whom the high ascetic and solitary life appeals, and they may be capable of leading it rightly, though even then it must not be carried to excess; but for all ordinary people the Middle Way of a good life lived in the world is in every way best and safest. The first step towards the leading of such a life is to understand its conditions; and the Lord Buddha lays these down for us in what he has called the Four Noble Truths.These are:"

"The Way which leads to the Escape from Sorrow. This is given to us in what is called the Noble Eightfold Path-- another of the Lord Buddha' s wonderful tabulations or categories. It is a very beautiful statement, because it can be taken at all levels. The man in the world, even the uneducated man, can take it in its lowest aspects and find a way to peace and comfort through it. And yet the highest philosopher may also take it and interpret it at his level and learn very much from it."

"1. The First Truth is an assertion that all manifested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to live it. In commenting upon this, the Bodhisattva said that there are two senses in which manifested life is sorrowful. One of these is to some extent inevitable, but the other is an entire mistake and is very easily to be avoided...Even though we may be only a tiny fragment—indeed, a fragment of a fragment—we are nevertheless a part of a magnificent reality. There is nothing to be proud of in being only a fragment, but there is a certainty that because we are therefore part of the higher, we can eventually rise into the higher and become one therewith. That is the end and aim of our evolution. And even when we attain that, remember that it is not for the sake of our delight in the advancement, but that we may be able to help in the scheme. All these sacrifices and limitations may rightly be described as involving suffering; but they are undertaken gladly as soon as the ego [soul/God within] fully understands. An ego has not the perfection of the Monad, and so he does not fully understand at first; he has to learn like everybody else. .."

"The Lord of the World. The Highest Initiations. The Goal for All."

"The Bodhisattva also occupied occasionally the body of Tsong-ka-pa, the great Tibetan religious reformer, and throughout the centuries He has sent forth a stream of His pupils, including Nagarjuna, Aryasanga, Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, and many others, who founded new sects or threw new light upon the mysteries of religion, and among these was one of His pupils who was sent to found the Muhammadan faith."

"The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian."

"He is thus the Head of all the faiths at present existing, and of many others which have died out in the course of time, though He is of course responsible for them only in their original form, and not for the corruption which man has naturally and inevitably introduced into all of them as the ages have rolled by."

"What is now called Christianity was undoubtedly a magnificent conception as He originally taught it, sadly as it has fallen away from that high level in the hands of ignorant exponents since. It must not be assumed, of course, that the teaching of brotherly and neighbourly love was new in the world."

"What is the greatest blessing?"

"Far above us as is all the splendour of these great heights at present, it is worth our while to lift our thought towards them and try to realize them a little. They show the goal before every one of us, and the clearer our sight of it the swifter and steadier will be our progress towards it, though we may not all hope to fulfil the ancient ideal in this, and fly as an arrow to the mark."

"Guatama Buddha, translated thus by Professor Rhys Davids with slight modifications introduced from other sources, when they seemed decided improvements (by CWL). Quoted in The Masters and the Path (1925) by C.W. Leadbeater , (1925) p. 291"

"The Wesak Festival. The occasion selected for this wonderful outpouring is the full moon day of the Indian month of Vaisakh (called in Ceylon Wesak, and usually corresponding to the English May), the anniversary of all the momentous occurrences of His last earthly life, His birth, His attainment of Buddhahood, and His departure from the physical body. In connection with this visit of His... an exoteric ceremony is performed on the physical plane... Whether He shows himself to pilgrims I am not certain; they all prostrate themselves at the moment when He appears, but that may be only in imitation of the prostration of the Adepts and their pupils, who do see the Lord Gautama. It seems probable that some at least of the pilgrims have seen Him for themselves, for the existence of the ceremony is widely known among the Buddhists of central Asia, and it is spoken of as the appearance of the Shadow or Reflection of the Buddha, the description given of it in such traditional accounts being as a rule fairly accurate. So far as we can see there appears to be no reason why any person whatever who happens to be in the neighborhood at the time may not be present at the ceremony; no apparent effort is made to restrict the number of spectators; though it is true that one hears stories of parties of pilgrims who have wandered for years without being able to find the spot. P. 285"

"He will attain the great Initiation of the Buddha, and thus gain perfect enlightenment; at that time these pupils of His, without physically knowing or remembering Him, will all be strongly attracted towards Him, and under His influence great numbers of them will enter the Path, and many will advance to the higher stages, having already in previous incarnations made considerable progress."

"It has often been asked whether there are any Adepts living in feminine bodies. The existence of the World-Mother is an answer to that question. Because of her wonderful quality of intense purity and because of her development in other ways, she was chosen to be the mother of the body of the disciple Jesus long ago in Palestine; and because of the wonderful patience and nobility of soul with which she bore all the terrible suffering which came to her as the consequence of that position, she attained in that same life the level of Adeptship... That is the truth which lies behind the Roman Catholic doctrine of her Assumption; not that she was carried up into heaven among the Angels in her physical body, but that when she left that body she took her place among the Angels, and being presently appointed to the office of World-Mother she became very truly a queen among them, as the Church so poetically says. A great Deva needs no physical body; but while she holds her present office she will always appear to us in feminine form, as will those Adepts who have chosen to help her in her work."

"It would indeed be well that women in all countries should band themselves together in an endeavour to spread abroad among their sisters accurate information on this most important subject; every women should fully realize the magnificent opportunities which the feminine incarnation gives her; every woman should be taught the absolute necessity for proper conditions before, during and after her pregnancy. Not only the most perfect cleanliness and the most careful attention should surround the baby body, but also it should be encompassed by perfect astral and mental conditions, by love and trust, by happiness and holiness. In this way the work of the World-Mother would be immensely facilitated and the future of the race would be assured."

"Students should understand that a great department of Motherhood exists, and has an important place in the Inner Government of the world. Just as the Manu is the head of a great department which looks after the physical development of races and sub-races, just as the Bodhisattva is the head of another which attends to religion and education, so is the great Official who is called the Jagat-Amba or World-Mother the head of a department of Motherhood. Just as the Lord Vaivasvata is at present filling the office of the Manu, and the Lord Maitreya that of the World-Teacher, so is the great Angel who was once the mother of the body of Jesus filling the post of World-Mother."

"Because this is so-- because of the great work done and the terrible suffering which it entails-- there is this special department of the government of the world, and the duty of its officials is to look after every woman in the time of her suffering, and give her such help and strength as her karma allows. As we have said, the World-Mother has at her command vast hosts of angelic beings, and at the birth of every child one of these is always present as her representative. To every celebration of the Holy Eucharist comes an Angel of the Presence, who is in effect a thought-form of the Christ Himself-- the form through which He endorses and ratifies the Priest' s act of consecration; and so it is absolutely true that, though the Christ is one and indivisible, He is nevertheless simultaneously present upon many thousands of altars. In something the same way... the World-Mother herself is present in and through her representative at the bedside of every suffering mother. Many women have seen her under such conditions, and many who have not been privileged to see have yet felt the help and the strength which she outpours."

"It is the work of this department to look especially after the mothers of the world. From the occult standpoint the greatest glory of woman is not to become a leader in society, nor is it to take a high university degree and live in a flat in scornful isolation, but to provide vehicles for the egos that are to come into incarnation. And that is regarded not as something to hide and to put away, something of which one should be half-ashamed; it is the greatest glory of the feminine incarnation, the grand opportunity which women have and men have not. Men have other opportunities, but that really wonderful privilege of motherhood is not theirs. It is the women who do this great work for the helping of the world, for the continuance of the race; and they do it at a cost of suffering of which we who are men can have no idea."

"We must not think of this knowledge about the World-Mother as exclusively the possession of Christianity; she is clearly recognized in India as the Jagat-Amba, and in China as Kwan-Yin, the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge. She is essentially the representative, the very type and essence of love, devotion and purity; the heavenly wisdom indeed, but most of all Consolatrix Afflictorum, the Consoler, Comforter, Helper of all who are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity."

"The Divine Trinity. The Triangle of Agents. The World-Mother Limits of the Rays. Change of Ray. Perfect Unity."

"The essential thing to understand is that there is a certain sevenfold division of everything that exists in the manifested world, whether of life or matter. All life which exists in our chain of worlds passes through and belongs to one or other of Seven Rays, each having seven subdivisions. In the universe there are forty-nine such Rays, making, in sets of seven, the Seven Great Cosmic Rays, flowing from or through the Seven Great Logoi. In our chain of worlds, however, and perhaps in our solar system, only one of these Great Cosmic Rays is operating, and its subdivisions are our seven Rays. It must not of course be supposed that our solar system is the only manifestation of that particular Logos, since each of the Seven Great Logoi may have millions of systems dependent on it."

"There is a sevenfold division running through all things, as I must explain more fully presently, and this appears also in the Great White Brotherhood. In the Hierarchy the seven Rays are clearly distinguished. The First or ruling Ray is governed by the Lord of the World; at the head of the Second Ray stands the Lord Buddha, and under These come respectively the Manu and the Bodhisattva of the root race which is predominant in the world at any given time. Parallel in rank with These is the Mahachohan, who supervises all the other five Rays, each of which nevertheless has also its own Head. In my next chapter I will explain what I can about the loftier ranks of the Hierarchy, attempting in this to render some account of the work of the Heads of Rays Three to Seven, and of the Masters Morya and Kuthumi, who stand at Their level on the First and Second Rays."

"The Chohans. The Master Djwal Kul' s Table. The Sevenfold Division. The Seven Spirits. The Seven Types of Beings. Magic and Healing Powers. The Chohans of the Rays. The Qualities to be Developed. Cyclic Changes. The Reign of Devotion. The Advent of Ceremonial."

"As the Logos is a Trinity, so the Occult Government of the world is in three great departments, ruled by three mighty Officials, who are not merely reflections of the Three Aspects of the Logos, but are in a very real way actual manifestations of Them. They are the Lord of the World, the Lord Buddha and the Mahachohan, who have reached grades of Initiation which give them waking consciousness on the planes of nature beyond the field of evolution of humanity, where dwells the manifested Logos."

"Mr. Cooper-Oakley and I and a Hindu brother were sitting talking on the roof at Adyar in the very early days... and there came to us suddenly the Master Djwal Kul, who was at that time the chief pupil of the Master Kuthumi. He gave us a great deal of teaching in those days, and was always very kind and patient, and while He sat and talked to us that day this question of the Rays came up. Mr. Cooper-Oakley in his characteristic way said: “Oh, please, Master, will you tell us all about the Rays?” There was a twinkle in our Teacher's eye as He said: “Well, I cannot tell you all about them until you have reached a very high Initiation. Will you have what I can tell you, which will be partial and inevitably misleading, or will you wait until you can be told the whole thing?” Not unnaturally we thought that half a loaf was better than no bread, so we said we would take what we could get. We noted down the very interesting information that He gave, but much of it was incomprehensible to us, as He had foretold. He said: “I cannot tell you any more than that, for I am bound by certain pledges; but if your intuition can make out more I will tell you whether you are right.” Even that little fragmentary information was of very great value to us."

"It is true that doubt (or rather uncertainty) on some questions is a bar to spiritual progress, but the antidote to that doubt is not blind faith (which is itself considered a fetter, as will presently be seen), but the certainty of conviction founded on individual experiment or mathematical reasoning. While a child doubts the accuracy of the multiplication table, he can hardly acquire proficiency in the higher mathematics; but his doubts can be satisfactorily cleared up only by his attaining a comprehension, founded on reasoning or experiment, that the statements contained in the table are true. He believes that twice two are four, not merely because he has been told so, but because it has become to him a self-evident fact. And this is exactly the method, and the only method, of resolving doubt known to Occultism. p. 194"

"In the Christian system we have the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost; and it is interesting in this connection to note that in some of the old books the Holy Ghost is definitely mentioned as being feminine. Apart from this, the instinctive need of man to recognize the Divine Motherhood has in Christianity found expression in the cult of the Blessed Virgin, who, though not a Person of the Holy Trinity, is nevertheless the Universal Mother, the Queen of the Angels, the Star of the Sea."

"Realization of Unity. All that lives is really one, and it is the duty of those who enter the Brotherhood to know that as a fact. We are taught that the Self is one, and we try to understand what that means; but it is quite a different thing when we see it for ourselves, as the candidate does when he enters the buddhic plane."

"A good illustration of this appears among the stories of the life of the Lord Buddha. A man came to him one day, as people in trouble were wont to do, and told him that he had great difficulty with his meditation, which he could scarcely succeed in doing at all. Then the Buddha told him that there was a very simple reason for it—that in a previous life he had foolishly been in the habit of annoying certain holy men and disturbing their meditations. Yet that man may have been more advanced as an ego than some of his companions whose meditations were well done."

"It is not easy to explain in physical words the differences which exist between egos, since all of them are in many ways much greater than anything to which we are accustomed down here. Analogies are notoriously misleading if pressed too far or taken too literally; but I may perhaps convey some faint reflection of the impression produced upon me by intercourse with them, if I say that an advanced ego reminds me of a dignified, stately and most courteous ambassador, full of wisdom and kindliness... radiates spiritual influences of prodigious power."

"We are hardly in a position to judge, since our knowledge of the problem is so imperfect, and we can see nothing of the higher business to which he [the ego/divine self] is devoting himself. From this it will be seen how impossible it is to judge with any precision the position in evolution of anyone whom we see only on the physical plane. In one case karmic causes may have produced a very fair personality, having an ego of only moderate advancement behind it; while in another case those causes may have given rise to an inferior or defective personality, belonging to a comparatively advanced ego."

"Children differ so widely that it is not surprising to find that the relation between the egos and the personalities involved differs widely also. Some child-personalities are quick and responsive, some are a dull or wayward... p. 188"

"It is as if in physical life we were each living at the bottom of a well, from which we may look up at the sunlight in the world above; and just as the light shines down into the depth of many wells, and yet ever remains the one light, so does the Light of the One illumine the darkness of our hearts. The Initiate has climbed out of the well of the personality, and sees that the light which he thought to be himself is in very truth the Infinite Light of all... p. 190"

"Just as it is evolution for the personality to learn to express the ego more fully, so is it evolution for the ego to learn to express the Monad more fully. An undeveloped personality forgets all about this connection with the ego and feels himself quite independent. It can hardly be possible for an ego at his much higher level to be unaware of his link with the Monad; certainly some egos are far more awake to the necessities of their evolution than others—which is only another way of saying that there are older and younger egos, and that the older are striving more earnestly than the younger to unfold their latent possibilities. p. 184"

"At its lowest level of materiality that Life ensouls the mineral kingdom, and as it evolves it gradually becomes definite enough to ensoul the vegetable kingdom, and still later the animal. When it has risen to the highest level of the animal kingdom a very remarkable change takes place, and an entirely new factor is introduced... the new force... seizes upon what has heretofore been the soul of the animal, and actually makes it into a body for itself... so exceedingly fine as to be utterly inappreciable to our physical senses. Thus is born the ego [divine self] in his causal body, and he at once draws into himself the result of all the experience that has been gained by that animal soul in all the aeons of its previous development, so that nothing of the qualities which have been acquired in the course of its evolution is lost. p. 181-2"

"As I have explained at length in Man Visible and Invisible, the causal body of a savage is almost colourless. As in the process of his evolution he develops good qualities which can find corresponding vibrations in the matter of the causal body, the colours expressive of these qualities begin to show themselves; and presently the causal body, instead of being empty, is full of active pulsating life."

"Some senior members of the Brotherhood may desire to use him at any moment, wherever he happens to be, and sometimes without his knowing it in the brain consciousness, but he cannot be used if, at the moment when he is needed, he is found brooding over his own affairs and turned inwards, not outwards to the world. The supreme need for him is the building of character, so that, when his Master looks at him he will find him thinking of the world’s welfare, and not whether that world is giving him happiness or misery. p. 179"

"The consciousness of the Great White Brotherhood is an indescribably wonderful thing. It is like a great calm shining ocean, so strangely one that the least thrill of consciousness flashes from end to end of it instantaneously, and yet to each member it seems to be absolutely his own individual consciousness, though with a weight and a power and a wisdom behind it that no single human consciousness could ever have. This magnificent sea of “cosmic consciousness” of the Brotherhood is something so great, so wonderful, that there is nothing else in the world like it: even those who belong to it by virtue of having passed the First Great Initiation can catch only glimpses of it, can remember only a little of it here and there. It can be felt fully only on the nirvanic plane, on which the Brotherhood primarily exists, though it has its manifestation on the lower planes, even down to the physical world. p. 159"

"We have now entered upon a period in the world’s history in which progress at all levels of evolution can be very rapid, because the near Coming of the World-Teacher has set up so strong a tide of thought and feeling about spiritual things, all in the direction of progress, that anyone who now makes an effort along that line finds himself swimming with the current and advancing swiftly. p. 175"

"The Initiate Brother to All... It is his duty to stream forth love and benediction, so that every place in which he happens to be is happier because of his presence. He must therefore steadily turn outwards."

"The Buddha. The Supplementary Acts. The Wesak Festival. The Valley. The Ceremony. The Greatest Blessing. The Predecessors of the Buddha. The Bodhisattva Maitreya. The Asala Festival. The Four Noble Truths. The Noble Eightfold Path."

"As in the process of his evolution he develops good qualities which can find corresponding vibrations in the matter of the causal body, the colours expressive of these qualities begin to show themselves; and presently the causal body, instead of being empty, is full of active pulsating life. So much more of the ego can now manifest through it that it has to increase enormously in size; it extends further and further from its physical centre until the man is able to enfold hundreds and even thousands of persons within himself, and so to exercise a vast influence for good... and gives us... some idea of what God means man to be."

"Henceforth it does not matter to him what judgment the world gives on his actions, but only what judgment the Brotherhood gives. Whether he is popular or unpopular with the world matters not at all, if through all his conduct he has been loyal to the ideals placed before him."

"People who have been trained in European habits of thought are, unhappily, so familiar with the idea that a blind, unreasoning adhesion to certain dogmas may be claimed from a disciple of any religion, school or sect, that on hearing that in Occultism doubt is considered to be an obstacle to progress, they are likely to suppose that this Path also requires from its followers the same unquestioning faith as do many modern superstitions. No idea could be more entirely false. p. 194"

"The One Initiator. Most people when they think of Initiation have in mind a step to be gained for themselves. They think of the Initiate as a man who has developed himself very highly, and has become a great and glorious figure, as compared with the man of the outer world. That is true; but the whole question will be better understood if we try to look down on it from a higher point of view. The importance of Initiation does not lie in the exaltation of an individual, but in the fact that he has now become definitely one with a great Order, the Communion of Saints, as it is very beautifully put in the Christian Church, though few ever pay attention to the real meaning of those words. p. 156"

"The stupendous reality that lies behind Initiation into the Brotherhood will be better understood after we have considered the organization of the Occult Hierarchy and the work of the Masters, to be dealt with in later chapters."