EXPANDING STATES OF SELF-AWARENESS
LESSON 11
In this course of lessons we are in the process of describing how the individual experiences the changing states in the evolutionary process. We are now ready to describe the opening of awareness, the entrance upon the psychic nature, the personality pattern. This stage or state does not apply to everyone, because there are many who have not reached this particular stage and there are many others who have passed beyond it, or are in various degrees of entering upon it, etc.
We can use the analogy of the green nut. If you take an English walnut at a certain stage and cut it in two, you cannot tell the hull from the shell or the shell from the meat of the nut. It all looks the same. That is the state of development of some individuals. They are so identified with the objective, the phenomenal appearance of their own body that they do not know that they have a psychic nature, let alone being conscious of its functions. They are "green nuts."
Then there comes another stage where the shell begins to shrink from the husk and the husk, peels off and even drops away. That is what takes place at another state of development. When one becomes conscious of his psychic self, his personality and the constituents thereof, he withdraws his consciousness from thingifying, objectifying, his consciousness of his body until the body consciousness drops away-completely out of consciousness. That doesn't mean to say that one leaves his physical body, but the physical body has a different feel to him and he looks at it and functions in it differently. A change of consciousness occurs. Then the meat within that shell, the configuration, begins to loosen from the shell. At this point individualization on the Mind Level is beginning to be accentuated. The individualizing process on that level has been going on for a very long time. It has been gradually going on in the 'upper story' of the 'three-story house' that we occupy ever since differentiation from the animal oversoul, group consciousness, occurred.
Let us return to the green nut analogy again, when that meat begins to loosen up from the shell one begins to be conscious of being, as separate and distinct from the psychic nature with all of characteristics of the psychic world-feelings, desirings, emotings, mentalizings, lovings, etc. that go on. I keep emphasizing these things so that you can turn your consciousness to the different levels upon which you actually live and function.
The key to functioning in this psychic side, the middle story of the three-story house, which we could also call the subtle world, is the understanding of the force centers within it. These are the foci of that Power-to-be-conscious gradually awakening to the consciousness of itself. Gradually awakening. The first thing that one has to learn in order to grasp the key to controlling the psyche at this stage of development is discrimination in regard to frequency. He must pay attention to the wave-frequency influences of persons, places, the type of books that he reads, and all sorts of vibratory influences. Just as one has learned hygiene and sanitation in his objective conscious state of development, he has to learn it in the psychic world. He has to learn to sharply differentiate between forces, wave-frequencies, influences, that are inharmonious or discordant and deleterious to him, that make him ill, and beneficial frequencies. that is, Before one develops that discrimination of what 'atmosphere' he allows himself to go into, etc.,he can get into discordant frequencies and can't get out,, and those influences can make him very sick.
One of the first things one does in bringing to the level of consciousness the way he has been functioning on the psychic side is learn to differentiate between qualities of influences, psychic vibrations. Then, after that discrimination is pretty well developed one can sense, feel how he is affected by influences of persons, places, things, etc. After one learns that discrimination, he begins to feel a change in the activities that are going on within him.
When the psychic nature begins to function, the first indication is in the genital region. The Christ which ultimately emerges out of this psychic awakening is born in the manger. This is a difficult point to present to a general crowd. I can take one or two in whom I have confidence and I know they are far along to be free from silly victorian and puritanical values, and I can talk to them without fear of reactions. But in a general group it is a little difficult for me to describe this awakening that begins in the genital center because there are two sides to it. One aspect is as pure, clean, and beautiful as anything you can think of that is pure and clean and beautiful. (Here I use the word pure as a chemist in a laboratory would use it-a certain element purified from all other elements. The other elements may be all right in their own place, but if a chemist were purifying a certain element everything else would be foreign matter.) I use the word pure in that sense, not in a moral sense-good and bad, etc.
There is this pure side to the force in the genital center, just as clean and pure as a pure chemical element. But for so long man has been making generative functioning dirty, nasty, and impure that now we can hardly talk about it, because somebody is going to get his dirty, nasty mind involved and react in a negative way. Man has used that force and has cultivated it for his own sensuous gratification, until he has introduced into the pure stream all sorts of lower vibrating qualities, gunas, entities. In some it has become an obsessional thing because of entities that have been cultivated and put upon it or identified with it in some way or other.
So there are two sides: pure function, and that which has been artificially and arbitrarily developed by the animalized qualities in the man's consciousness. Sharply differentiate sanitarily, hygienically, between that which is pure and clean, noble, and beautiful. You can actually reach an apotheosis of the force in the generative center, but it takes a clean, chemically pure mind to see the beauty and the purity of it. We should work for that beauty and purity, among other things, not as an end in itself, but as an awakening, a beginning of much finer and more beautiful purity as the force is directed from relative lower to relative higher centers.
The Greek astrological symbol for this awakening in the generative center is Jupiter in Sagittarius. Jupiter was the supreme God, so Jupiter represents the Power-to-be-conscious motivating all activities in our 'three-story house'. Before the development of the psychic nature Saturn was the supreme one. But when the force in the psychic nature began to awaken, Jupiter, the principal planet, the strongest and most powerful planet, Jupiter overthrew his father, Saturn and displaced him. He threw the father, the Power-to-be-conscious on the Mind Level, into eclipse and assumed the power of the person, of the individual. Sagittarius is the hunter, and when the power is predominant in the generative center, man is a hunter. He is on the hunt; he has a roving eye. The symbolism is admirable. Jupiter is the symbol for the awakened force in the generative level, the most powerful influence in the human consciousness at that level of development.
According to the teachings of the School of the Natural Order, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and modern psychologists make one colossal blunder. When they discover that the predominant motivating force in many is that generative biological urge, they lump the whole humanity into one category. That leads into all sorts of serious problems. Let me explain.
In 1918 when I lived in NYC reading and studying the psychoanalytic literature was the vogue. Reading psychoanalytical books, literature by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and others was very popular. Many began to get the concept that they were repressed. They didn't want to go on being repressed, so they thought they would jump overboard, if you get my drift, to get rid of their repressions. But their condition became worse, because repression and the substituted and compensatory outlets resulting from the damming up of forces can never be resolved by 'physical' congress, or any so-called 'physical' forms of expression. Never! Nine times out of ten the repression becomes worse through psychic revulsion to an unnatural form of relationship-and repression becomes worse.
I am going to restate that another way, and with a great deal of emphasis. If you don't like what I say, just say to yourself, that's Vitvan's opinion; I have a different one. I will respect yours as I hope you will respect mine. This is my opinion based upon nearly fifty years of experience and observation. There is no release from repression unless the psychic forces that are involved are released or brought up from a lower to a relatively higher level. There are two ways to effect a complete release with no repression, no suppression, no damming up and developing compensatory outlets and substituted forms of expression. Let me repeat for emphasis: In my opinion, there is no possibility of release unless the psychic forces that are involved are released, or unless those psychic forces that are involved are brought up to a higher center and find expression on a relatively higher level.
There is my considered judgment and opinion, based upon a lifetime of study, experimentation, investigation, and observation in innumerable cases. Please compare that statement with the objectified, the thingified, the 'physical', the sensuous attitude. Do not think you are going to get relief from repression through any form of 'physical' gymnastics. In my opinion it can't be done. Such efforts only make a bad matter worse.
Now let us go back to the force that awakens in the genital center, sometimes also labelled the prostatic center. If we were intelligent enough, we would teach adolescents what I have just said and all of the implications involved about repression and the release of repression. We would also help them understand that a physical relationship (we could dignify it by the label marriage) should not be contracted between any two, one of whom has no vibratory sensibilities, that is, who doesn't function in the psyche. If one is a grownup psychically asleep, unawakened, and the other is psychically awakened that relationship is disastrous. It will create turmoil and inharmony in a home, and if children result, there will be disastrous consequences for the children. One who is psychically awakened absolutely requires that subtle frequency vibration response before there can be any satisfactory response on any other level, if you get what I mean. With that response, everything else is possible. Learn how to get that response. Woo it, and leave him or her alone until you have it.
Where there is a relationship, marriage, contracted between one who is psychically dead and sound asleep and knows nothing but neural sensation and another who is psychically awakened and is highly responsive to that vibration, those wave-frequencies influences, inharmony will result. Soon you're going to read in the paper about a divorce-"incompatibility" or something. They may mentalize all sorts of other reasons and excuses for their inharmony. That is why this should be taught to adolescents, so that they can understand themselves, instead of what they have to do: mess around and blunder around and make all sorts of disastrous, tragic mistakes before they get onto themselves and have to find their way the hard way. It should be taught, clean and fine and open and above board, because it is the predominating influence in their respective lives at that level. Enough said, but I could go on and say a great deal more about this awakening of force in the generative center. Before we continue, please catch this difference. Heretofore, any function attributed to that generative level has been through the instrumentality of neural sensation. The difference between neural, sensuous functioning, and psychic functioning is the difference between using the five physical senses and functioning in response to and in accordance with the wave-frequency vibration influence that becomes reciprocal between two who are approaching the same level. One spells disaster; the other spells harmony, health, and well-being, loveliness and ultimate purity and beauty of a high order.
With that we leave Jupiter in Sagittarius. The force which is released there has a positive and a negative polarity. It is just like an electro-magnet. There are two currents, one magnetic, that means negatively charged, and one is positive, electric. When those currents are released the awakening of the psychic nature begins. A given person in whom the currents are released may be negative to one person and at the same time positive to another. Say that today or tomorrow, that person meets someone he never saw before. For the first time these two come together. Almost instantaneously, and way beneath the cortical consciousness, a relationship is established. One goes negative and the other goes positive. What determines who goes negative or positive? In a similar situation, the one who was positive might meet another person and reverse that polarity. Or if he went negative to the first person he might be positive to the second one.The basic state of development in the individualizing process on the Mind Level determines that polarity. Even minute differences will make the difference. The positive person is the more aggressive. It doesn't make any difference whether you are a man or woman, the positive one will be more aggressive. The one who is negative is on the receiving end. He is the hunted instead of the hunter. If we play upon it and study it this game of life becomes quite exciting at times.
But I want to go back to those two currents. In the Sanskrit one is called ida and the other is called pingala. We can think of them as positive and negative currents. In the caduceus of Hermes (the Roman Mercury), which modern doctors use as a symbol, there are two serpents. One twines the staff clockwise, the other counterclockwise up the staff. (I often wonder if they understand it.) The top of the staff is winged because when the force is brought up it becomes very winged, as we will see as we continue our description of it. The staff, which is the center column, represents the sacral-conarial axis. Just as every molecule has its positive and negative pole, every cell of your configurational self has a positive and negative pole; so also the pneumatic ovum, the autonomous field, when it is developed on the Mind Level has a positive and a negative pole. And between the two poles there is spun the spindle, as there is in mitotic process which was described on our chart in Lesson 3. As below, so above.
Now we have come to the "above" and I am referring back to why I brought all that out early, so that you could see the way mitosis works. It is working in you and me all of the time. Once we get onto the fundamental process it is infinitely repeated, from level to level, from the lowest to the highest and the highest to the lowest the principle doesn't change at all, just infinite repetition. It seems so simple once we get onto it, yet it seems so occult and deep initially.
However, let us return to the two currents. The forces that are released in the psychic nature are governed by the pattern of the field in the pneumatic ovum, in the autonomous field, in the real Be-ing. They follow the lines of force, and they spiral. One spirals up and the other spirals down until they come together, the descent of the holy spirit, the descent of the host, and the force of generation of the great world mother giving birth to the son, to the higher consciousness, from below. I put this in for this reason: I didn't want you to think that the awakening of these centers just pertains to you, something for you to play with, or something to indulge yourself with or about, or something that is just going on within you, isolated from other significances, a higher significance. I want you to get that higher significance that is involved in what is going on. Because indeed there is a higher significance. Man is becoming a god, taking his place among the gods. What would it be if you gained the whole world and you lost sight of that? You might even lose it if you get too careless with it.
There are two currents governed by the lines of force in the autonomous field on the Mind Level, which twine up the sacral-conarial axis. The seven seals (centers) along that axis are referred to in the Christian Bible as the seven seals of the apocalypse. When one reaches this state of development, the next seal that is awakened in the ascent of these ida pingala currents is the solar center. The force in generation was symbolized by the earth; force in generation at the solar center is symbolized by water. This is an admirable symbol, because water is restless and can be molded into any shape by the vessel in which it is contained, and one who has his solar center open has to be very circumspect because he will take on any conditions from anyone, get molded in any direction just like water. If there isn't a higher influence, then he is susceptible to being molded by evil influences or divine influences, either one. And as water is stormy, restless, and tempestuous at times, so is the force in the psychic nature, symbolized by Mars in Scorpio. What a symbol!
Here, as in the generative level described earlier in this lesson, there is a pure side to it. Courage, fortitude, even pugnacious aggressiveness in a righteous cause, is the pure side, but it is still Mars in Scorpio. Sometimes we use the colloquialism, "guts"- intestinal fortitude. That's what we're referring to as the pure side. Without that intestinal fortitude, we would have no protection from our armed forces, because the men and women in the services have to have a whole lot of pure unadulterated intestinal fortitude. It's getting so that even to take the training they have to have a lot of it.
Now there is a pure side to it. That's the force in the solar center, but there is the other side, the negative side, where one can use the pure side as a justification for the pursuit of objects of desire. Now get that. There are many that will even use, mentally justify the pure side to further the objects of desire. That is, some at that level will even seek teachings that lead to god consciousness in order to make God a bellhop and demonstrate what they want when they want it. I mean use the highest and the purest for the furtherance of pure objects of desire. And some develop a very subtle line to further the objects of desire. I won't push that one any further.
I want to show you the two sides-the pure side and the salacious side of the force in the solar center. In the average person, the solar center opens long before the cortex in objectification knows what is going on in his psyche. He may find that he gets solar plexus knockout blows. He might be buoyant, happy, and full of love and kindness one moment, then come into an atmosphere, a place, where there is quarreling, hate, and animosity, maybe projected against him, or maybe not. And he gets a solar knock-out blow, and he doesn't know what hit him if his cortex is busy in objective identification. Mentally he tries to say, What did I eat, or What bug did I pick up, or What did I acquire. He just got a solar plexus knockout blow because he was sensitive to those frequencies.
On inumerable occasions, in the course of my healing work a mother has brought in a little baby, maybe in arms, having paroxysms of colic. She says, "I've been to the doctor and he says we are going to lose our baby just from paroxysms of colic." (That's what they labeled it.) She says, "Can you help my baby?" I don't pay any attention to the baby, but I've had so much of this day in and day out through the years so that I can write the next chapter with just that one hint. So I would say, "Listen, your home is full of virulent wrangling and quarreling and inharmony; and here is one coming into incarnation, your little baby, with an open and unprotected solar center, wide open. And this little one here, defenseless, is being subjected to an onslaught of your selfish, greedy, blind quarreling and fussing, in the home." She didn't have to tell me the details, I could tell them. And sure enough, if I wanted the details, out it all came: animosity, virulent quarreling, and inharmony. First I would ask, "Is there any chance you could harmonize this atmosphere, stop the quarreling, if for no other reason than to preserve your baby? If that can't be done and there is no other way out, is there someplace you can go? Can you take your baby and go back to mother, go home on a visit or someplace? You must get that baby out of that home and out of those conditions." One way or another I would try to get the baby out, or harmonize the influences of the home. I wanted to convert the conditions of the home for the baby to unfold and blossom like a flower instead of being blighted by virulent quarreling and inharmony. Colic, is one label for the results of turmoil and inharmony. See how far reaching the knowledge and understanding of this thing is? I am only scratching the surface, but those of you who are quick on the uptake can put two and two together and see the whole picture. There is one effect, one result of bringing the force up and opening the solar center, Mars in Scorpio.
I don't particularly like to detail these things on the so-called lower levels, but I begin to blossom when I think of Venus in Libra. When the force is brought up to Anahata, the heart center, at first we "build castles in Spain," air castles. Air is the symbol of this level. When this center opens we feel very airy, like we're floating. The force from the heart center is that which motivates the cortical activity, mental, intellectual development. But if one loses his force in the heart center and drops down to the generative level, he may lose all ability to develop mentally or intellectually.
When I was in the eighth grade studying Greek mythology, we read that the Greeks believed that man thought with his heart. And the first time we heard that we snickered at how ignorant those heathens were. I had to get onto all of this through experience and conscious functioning before I evetually went back and discovered the Greeks were right! But when the force leaves the heart center all intellectual and mental interests vanish.
Let me give you an illustration of this. When a man or a woman is in love, he or she will work and study and persevere to improve on his/her job, to get promoted at work, or develop whatever he is developing. One will study and work when he is in love. But let something happen that shatters his faith in the one he loves and he won't care whether school keeps or not. Right away all study and interest in mental development and improvement vanishes. I could cite you case after case that substantiates and proves that the force in the heart center motivates intellectual and mental pursuits. And when one brings his force down and spends it or loses it on lower levels, the first thing that goes is mental and intellectual stability, acumen, and keenness. This illustrates the importance of bringing the force up to the heart center. In our next lesson we will continue our description of Venus in Libra, the opening of the heart center.
* * * * *
After Vitvan closed this particular class, he spoke briefly to just the students who were members of the school. This was what he felt he needed to tell them:
Most of our lesson courses deal with descriptions of what we call the road map, but for those of you who are practicing students I would like to describe an important methodology in taking the journey. No matter where you are or what you do, you might catch five minutes, somewhere, where you have to wait for someone or on something or you have five minutes you don't have anything to do with. Use it. Sit down. At once, focus on your center where the force is resident, that is, where the force is expressed most of the time. Never mind what center that might be. We don't care about that. Focus your mind. (You always have to get out of the static of mental activity.) Get quiet and focus on that center where you are resident and hold your focus on that center until you begin to feel-know your center. Then raise your thought to the next center-just the next one. Then begin to breathe consciously. Begin to take that full breath first, holding your attention steadily on that next center. Breathe the full breath, holding attention steady. If you've practiced the full breath enough, then take the back breath. Make this practice habitual-every five minutes you can catch, wherever you might be. It takes some doing, but by and by, maybe in six, eight, ten months, or maybe a couple of years, you can go into that routine with a just a thought. But you can't get into it quickly at first.
Then, when you get into some context of situation where there is tension, immediately you can bring your forces right up. No one would know it; they could look right at you and can't tell you are doing it. I can sit here and raise my forces, bing, like that, in a few seconds, and you can look at me and you don't know what I am doing. And the higher you can raise your forces the less you are subject to adverse conditions and the more power you have to handle yourself, whatever the conditions might be.
But you have to practice daily before you can do that quickly. That is taking the journey. Practice, practice, practice. Like anything worth doing. If I were to go to someone who plays the piano well, like Diantha, and say, "Diantha, I am intrigued with your piano playing. Would you teach me to do it?" Now watch the painful effort. First, little exercises. But let Diantha step up here, and she'll go into a piece, or improvise something very beautifully. How does she do it? Go back to the time when she had to do just those first beginning exercises. We have a journey to take in this school, if we're taking advantage of the opportunity that we have with this instruction. I'm talking about each of you. You, you, you, you, Begin that practice and make it your daily routine until it is just second nature to you.
Now I want to go a step further. I want to talk to you about me and what this daily routine leads into. By and by you forget all of the technique. You don't know whether you have any centers and you don't care. You don't pay any attention to where your forces are resident. Forget it all. In my life this is what has eventuated. But here comes a call, or letters, telegrams from individual persons, or there are local difficulties, conditions in our county, our state, and nationally. and even internationally, because at this stage one is enlisted. You feel the call, the pull; you are enlisted-because you can contribute something. Those calls have become so frequent that you live in that sort of world where the forces of Light, the Hierarchy, the Greater Ones under whom we work, are constantly battling titanic forces of darkness and destruction, particularly in this transition period between the old cycle and the new, where Satan shall be loosed for a season. By and by you are working in that world. That's a follow through of this daily routine that you go into, until you can cooperate with many other Greater Ones in a most crucial battle, the Battle of Armageddon, the battle which will determine who is going to rule this planet, the forces of darkness or the forces of Light.
Perhaps you have read or are aware of what took place in the third subrace of the fourth root race, when the forces of darkness took over ruling this planet. They have continued to rule till this day, but little groups here and there around the world are making preparations for the ultimate showdown. On the upswing of the new cycle, which we expect will come within the next 75 years, it won't make any difference whether you are in your body or out of your body you will be enlisted. When you lose your identification with your body it doesn't make any difference whether you are in it or out of it, it is precisely the same. You work in it just like you work when you are out of it. Just precisely the same; no change, no difference. And when the old configuration begins to drop to pieces and you can't hold onto it any more, like an old worn out suit of clothes, you shuck it all, shed it, and get another one. You, the real you, the I AM which is my true Self continues. That is why we keep singing our mantram.The more we sing it the more consciousness percolates in deep until we become identified with it. The I AM which is my true Self is the Power-the Power-to-be-conscious. So we are going to keep singing it until we get identified with the Power, not identified with this old meat house. We can get another meat house any time we want it, just like we can go down to the store and get another suit of clothes when we wear one out.
The ultimate battle is coming, and this time we are pretty sure that the forces of Light are going to take precedence over the forces of darkness, and the Battle of Armageddon will have been won. You are enlisted; you are only in boot camp now, but still you're signed up, and you can't get out of it. Nobody is holding you, but you can't get out of it. We belong. And once we belong, we belong. You might kick over the traces for awhile, but we'll all come back together, not as School of the Natural Order, we don't care anything about the labels. You'll come back to your group in the Light. Never mind the labels. The only reason we have those labels is because we have to deal with Caesar, and render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
-Vitvan, Tape series dated 1955 - 1956 -Marj Coffman, ed., 1998