EXPANDING STATES OF SELF-AWARENESS

Lesson 13

ATTITUDES RESPECTING THE PSYCHIC NATURE

This lesson is a continuation of the description of number 3 on this layout of the attitude which a student of the wisdom teaching should cultivate toward the psychic nature. In our last lesson we left off with the question, "What becomes of the south half of the psyche as one develops?" Now we will describe the relationship between the orientation of consciousness in the north half relative to the south half.

Let's begin with a simple analogy. If we had a motor plugged into an electric current, and connected with that motor we had various apparatuses or gadgets, and we wanted to stop those gadgets from running what would we do? Of course, we would simply cut the current out of that motor. Then all of the gadgets would stop. It would sound like a foolish question to ask how to stop those gadgets from running. Now instead of one motor, let us say we had five of them: the generative center, the solar center, the heart center, the center in the throat and the center in the forehead. We each have five motors, and each one of those five is connected with a lot of gadgets, functional operations of dynamic, creative forces. So how do we stop those gadgets from running?

About 99 out of every 100 students will begin to fight the gadgets. And some of those gadgets might be buzz saws! One from the higher level who has passed beyond functioning in the psyche would look upon that just like an adult would look upon a child that didn't know that there was a current running the motor connected to the gadgets. So the adult would say to the child, "Turn off that switch." Cut the current off, that's all, and they will all stop. It's as simple as that. But due to objective identification and the tenacity of the ego, egotism, we want to get in there and do some fighting. Don't do it! These centers in the psychic nature are foci of a dynamic creative power that goes way back to the Power struggling to be conscious, a Power, struggling to be conscious. When we try to fight the gadgets (all the forces by which we might be motivated), what we are actually fighting is the Power, and that is a cosmic thing. a dynamic universal Power, and one is whipped before he starts because it can't be done. If anyone in his private world and his mentalized egotism could whip the gadgets, stop them with any personal effort, he would upset the whole cosmic process. All of this which we are teaching and in which we believe ardently and about which we know a little would be idiocy if personal efforts could stop the gadgets. And we know it cannot be done.

So what can one do? "With all of your getting, get understanding." Learn to know yourself, and then in knowing the structural representation you will learn that it functions by a dynamic force, as definitely as the current in the motor. So, divert the current out of the motor and leave fighting the gadgets alone. Divert the current out of the motor that is operating functional forces that you have outgrown. In other words, when the Power-to-be-conscious has gotten all of the consciousness that it wants out of certain experiences it is ready to move on.

How 'occult', how obscure, how mysterious this seems when you do not know the simple mechanism of yourself. Man has studied everything from the galaxies to the atoms, but has not studied that which studies. It is high time in our cultural civilization and development that we were waking up to turn our attention to the study of man. We have gone out, studying everything from the galaxies to the atom and everything between, and have neglected the most important study of all, the study of the self. What has it availed to have accumulated this great mass of information about everything from galaxies to the atoms when man does not know how to control and regulate and govern himself? The accumulation of knowledge without self control and self government has become a threat and a menace to our whole civilization, to the whole planetary evolution.

We must turn the attention to the study of man. Each one must study himself. Then man will begin to discover realms, worlds other than the world of objective images appearing substantive and the manifold of values given thereto. The next step from objectivity, thingifying, in the understanding of man is the understanding of the forces by which one is motivated. In other words, we must understand the psychic nature, because all of the forces by which a person is motivated reside in the psychic nature, the content of the personality pattern.

In turning the attention to the study of the forces by which we are motivated, we are under necessity to begin with the genital center. No use to hide our head in the sands like the proverbial ostrich and pretend we know nothing about it. Sigmund Freud is the authority for the statement that 98% of everyone's feelings, desirings, lovings, and thinkings is based upon that dynamic generative force that is called sex. So, of necessity we are forced to turn to the force in the generative center in the understanding of man, the understanding of self. We need to get over all of the illusions, all the allure, all of the glamorized embellishments that are put upon it in novels, movies, advertising, etc. Most of us have to exhaust experience until finally we discover there is something more to live for than the fulfillment of the objects of desire. Then we turn our attention to that something else. We raise our forces, or the forces are raised by the natural order evolutionary process of development. Sooner or later the forces are raised above the generative center.

Next we move into the solar center, and we need to fulfill all of those desires. And eventually, we bring the force up to the heart center and open the creative power on that level. When it is opened up and purified on that level we label it agape. In agape there is no holdover, repression, substituted form or compensatory action. There can be no repression and no holdover of substituted or compensatory actions due to repression when the force in anahata, (Sanskrit word for the heart center) is released and opened. Then there is a sweetness of men living with women and women with men, with no tinge, no trickle, no wave-frequency of sex. There is a wholesome group fraternization and brotherhood, and no one wants somebody else on any lower level. Do not think this is some idealization, some flown-away virtue. Do not think that this is some refined, higher level substituted form of expression. It is not. It is realistic and will stand up under every possible test. There is a sweetness and wonderfulness in agape, wherein all of the forces that might have been drawn into substituted and compensatory forms of expression due to repression, etc., are brought up from the lower centers.

What happens when that force in the substituted forms of expression is drawn out and up into the heart center. The gadgets stop operating. There is nothing to fight any more, nothing to sneak up on you when you are asleep or awake any more. You don't have a blind side any more. You are liberated, in that impersonal, universal, cosmic love that is a synonym for the word God. God is love. That is agape. That love is God. Those who are seeking God will find it when the force is brought up to that heart center and released. You are liberated and motivated by a tremendous urge to give, with no thought of getting anything out of it. Sweetness is about the only word I can think of in such a way of living. This is the real brotherhood of man. That is not a mentalized formula. It is not something that we verbalize about, it is something we do. It's the way we function. There will be no salvation for the world until enough function in that love of life, love of all mankind, love that goes down to the animal, the plant, and even below. That is the love that is so comprehensive. When there are enough of us who can function on that level, the conditions in the world will begin to change, and not before. That change has to come from within each of us.

For the sake of the rest of this lesson, let us play make believe that we are all in agape, sweet and lovely consciousness of love for all life, all humanity, and we have an unquenchable urge to be helpful, to help each other in every possible way. And we live that way. Let us make believe that we have reached it. I am not talking about the realms of Light and the Hierarchy in Light's Regions. I am not talking about the Mind of Christ. I'm talking about the personality and the next step in your development. Let us play make believe that we have reached that, gotten the force up to the heart center. Now we are living in what we call the north half, in heart center and above in the psyche, that is, in your personality. In our make believe we have reached that state by reason of the Power-to-be-conscious becoming conscious of itself on that level of love, on that level of the presence of God, because that is precisely what it is. It is the Presence that indwells, that now has awakened out of potentiality into actuality.

Those of us who have reached that level find that there is a sharp dichotomy that takes place in the psyche at this point. No one below that level can understand this dichotomy. this dualism, separation. Before we reach this level, there is no dichotomy. Prior to this there is no separation between the motivations of the south half and the motivations of the north half, between compulsion urges in desire and sex and our mentalized hope and aspiration and longing to be good, to be decent, to be on a higher level, to be pure, etc. We all want to live up to the values that have been developed through the generations of what we call common decency. We want to appear in the eyes of others as if we had all of those virtues, because there is a code, you know. We want to appear virtuous and noble, but we don't live that way. So we separate our outer appearance and decorum from our private life prior to our awakening on this level. We say, "My private life is my business, but the way I appear is the public's business." So there is a duality, and an internal conflict between the two. But that is not the dichotomy. Only when the forces are brought up to the heart center does one experience the real dichotomy, the real separation.

Each one, when he begins to learn the way his psyche functions, can detect whether he is innately desiring something or whether he is taking on desires from someone else. The more sensitive types can do that quickly. Some can contact a person he has never seen before and instantly can feel that person's influence. It might be a fine, wonderful, high vibrating influence, or it might not be so high and fine. But whatever it is, the more sensitive types can quickly detect the influence. One can do the same with places.

I was itinerant for many years, and I learned the overall influence that different cities can have. There is a decided characteristic, ensemble of qualities to every city, and you can tell at once to what degree you have to fortify yourself against taking on those influences. I am not world traveled enough to say if this is true for countries. But I dare say those who are sensitive and world traveled in their experiences can even go so far as to say they can discern the influence of a country.

My point is simply this: In the long, long, past we have cultivated or acquired conditions, forces, entities, thought forms, imps, devils, or angels. Every one of us has consciously or unconsciously cultivated or acquired these forces, substances, energies, frequencies. And at that point when the force is brought up to the heart center and the forces are flowing, radiating, in what we call the impersonal, universal agape, not all that has been cultivated in the past or acquired can be utilized in the building of the personality in the north half. In our imaginative make believe we have reached that point, and we find there is a sharp separation.

We have all taken on forces and influences which we have cultivated or acquired in the long, long past. If a person gets into an atmosphere, a context of waves-frequencies pertaining to the activity of the gadgets and motivated from the solar center or the genital center, he is likely to be contaminated with those influences, particularly if he goes negative. Pliant and negative types of individuals readily take on conditions of others, and that taking on conditions can be developed to the extent that he thinks they are his own. They may not be at all, although they may be-I have to make allowances here. But I want to highlight the difference between cultivating forms of function and activity, feelings and desires, and taking them on like contagious diseases.

There are some secret fraternities that call that personality of the north half when built "Man Up North." Maybe some of you have joined fraternal organizations in the past and have gone through an initiation wherein you raised your right hand and said, "I will look to the Man up North." I am trying to tell you what that "Man up North" symbolizes. All of the influences and frequencies and substances and forces that have been cultivated or acquired in the past which can be used in building the "Man up North" are gathered into the sheep fold, scripturally speaking. The other forces, goats, or black sheep, that cannot be gathered in because they don't belong up north settle into the south half.

I wish I could say to you that that the qualities that do not pertain to the north half just settle into the south half and you can just say, "Scat" and they are gone. But I have struggled so long, wrestled with so many in the tug of war that results after the dichotomy that I must tell you, that is not the case. I am still struggling and wrestling with many who have reached this point of sharp dichotomy between all of the influences and forces and substances cultivated and acquired in the past and the newly developed "Man up North." (After explaining the symbolism I just want to use it-save a lot of words.) And when I say it was a tug of war, I mean a tug of war.

The illustration shows what happens when this dichotomy occurs. A line is drawn across a mud puddle. A rope with a ribbon tied in the middle is stretched across that mud puddle, and on either side the combatants of a tug of war are lined up, tugging and pulling on this rope. After the dichotomy this is the line-up. On the south half are all of the entities one has acquired. On the north half is the person who is working through the heart center and above and the forces he can call on. South half: "What the hell, there are a lot of us entities down here." Old habits and associations, "Oh, come on, be a good sport. What are you trying to do, be a square? Come on, be a good fellow!" Influences, frequencies, vibrations, forces are aroused, stimulated. Pull, pull, pull. And in the north half, "Aum, aum, aum." Breathe, breathe, breathe, will, will, will. In the name of the Father, in the name of the Mother, in the name of Blessed Ones, in the name of the Son, come help me! Pull, pull, breathe, breathe, chant, chant, aum, aum. Oh, the Light Forces, come,

come! I don't want to be pulled back down there in that mudhole. Help me, help me, help me." Pull. Working like ... working. Other side: pull, pull, flop! I'm telling you this is something to deal with at this level.

Give in, and then-regret. Why did I yield? Why did I give way? What is the matter with me? I don't want to be stuck down here any more. I'm fed up with it. I want out of it. I want to preserve my energy and my vitality and my consciousness, and I want that sweetness and that beauty. I don't want to live down there. What is the matter with me? Aum, aum, aum, meditate, meditate, chant, chant, "Jesus, Christ, Light, Blessed Ones, come, come." Pull, pull. Then, he went to bed, went to sleep, got up feeling terrible "they took me down again. Work, work, pull, pull."

Eventually there comes a time he gets so fed up with this pull, drag, pull, drag, north half, south half, then he gets mad. Then he shouts to these entities, these lower influences, "You blankety blank so-and-soes! I'm not good; I'm not full of sweetness and light, I'm just mad! You get the ... out of here! GET OUT OF HERE!" And he puts all of the force he has into it. He's serious now. He wants out! Nothing happens. There is the trick. In his egotism and his personality and he just wants to get in there and do something.

Go back to the beginning of this lesson. Remember those motors. Those of you who are at this point, getting mad, and swearing at them. We do, and lustily. Stop! Here is the subtle trick, the key to the way out. Turn your attention and hold it on the force in the heart center and above. Use all of that energy you are exhausting in swearing at them or working otherwise from a personal level standpoint. Use all of that energy in holding your attention steady and quiet, mentally quiet, not wavering, not spasmodic. Do not do it for five minutes and then forget it for a week and then get back on the job again when the tug of war has you on the other side of the line. Hold steady attention, in the quietness of your private world and your mentalizations. Do not try to stop the activity of mentalizing by using the mental. It can't be done. But if one will focus attention upon the subtle influences of the heart center and hold his attention, the mentality will automatically stop, by holding attention on the motivating activities of that center. This is a little tricky. It's so subtle, but this is the highlight of this lesson. Due to your personality and egotism and objective identifications, you want to get in there and do something. But just back out. Surrender the idea that of yourself you can do anything-anything at all.

If we would analyze anything that you do, I don't care what it is, we will show you that you are motivated by other influences and you are not doing anything but thinking you are doing it. You are motivated by invisible influences all time, but thinking you are doing it. If you do not accept this last statement, give me enough time and mention one thing, little or big, and in just a few moments I will prove to you that you have nothing whatever to do with it. And I'll probably backtrack it and tell you where you got it, through whom it came. So if that is true in every little and big thing by which you are motivated now it is much more true when you deal with the current that operates those motors, these centers. You are motivated by some influence. If I can get this one little point over to you, this lesson is the most valuable lesson that you ever got in your incarnation. I have wrestled and struggled with myself and hundreds of others about this point for so long a time that I'm almost distressed about how to get it over. It is that important.

Stop thinking you can do anything, because you can't. You only think you can. Separate your thinking from what is motivationally actual. "Of myself I am nothing." Let me reverse this scripture and say it another way. Do you accept, just on the a believing level, that God is all in all? That the dynamic Power of the universe is all in all? Just on the acceptance level, on the belief level, do you believe that? I'm just asking you to live up to it. But that pesky egotism wants to get in there. Lay it down. Quit. Stop that egotistical self and acknowledge the that great universal cosmic Power that motivates the galaxies and every atom runs me, according to my state. Acknowledge that. Believe it. Practice it. And then be still and try to feel the presence of God, the presence of Love. Do not think-feel your way into it. Be still, mentally, and try to feel your way into it. That's the key. You'll become so interested and excited by what you feel and what will begin to be revealed and opened that you won't have time to think about it. That mentality and intellectuality and analysis of it just stops. Then you release more of the Power in love, in your heart, until you fortify the north half. You fortify all of your ambitions and hopes and longings and workings, until that effort sustains you. Then you can relax.

But do not think you can relax during the tug of war. You cannot. But if you catch the key of cultivating that presence, that love, of just feeling your way into the subtle forces of the heart region, you fortify the powers in the north half and they become so strong that you can relax. The effort that has been put forth to do it now sustains you. In the words of an old hymn, "My yoke is easy, my burden is light." That is why after a while you'll find perfect relaxation. You no longer have to put forth any effort at all. Then when any of the little imps in the south half wiggle a little bit, enough to attract your attention, you can just laugh at them. But you couldn't laugh when they were demons, dragons trying to pull you back. But when you are sustained by the force in the north half, you can laugh because they seem so weak and puny.

You might ask, "Why can't I get rid of them? I want to get rid of them so that not only are they out of my psyche, they are not even in my configuration. I want every cell of the configuration to be purified from them." At that point we must reconcile ourselves to living in the configurational self with them. They continue occupying the house until sufficient time has transpired to gradually wear them out. Then they atrophy and fall away-gradually.

For the last 35 years or more I have been living in that world. I am more at home in that world than I am in any other, and being in that world, seeing it, watching it, and struggling and working with others and myself I have come to this conclusion: If one will sustain the effort until that love and presence in the north half is developed it will sustain you. If one will maintain that effort, then allow 1/4th of the time to expurgate all of the remnants in the south half, that has been required in cultivating and acquiring them they will atrophy. That's my estimate. Notice I've hedged it by saying "if." If you sustain the presence, that power of love in your north half, in the opened heart center or above, if you sustain that and bring in that sweetness of it, then allow 1/4 of the years you will expurgate all of the entities in the south half. Patience is required at that point.

But do not allow your newly found world and citadel to be usurped. And do not become discouraged. Nothing in this world can defeat a person except himself, and that only if he gives up. So long as a person doesn't give up, he cannot be defeated. But if he surrenders and gives up, then he's going down. And if he once goes down, irrevocably, he has to substitute by gathering the other instrumentalities and forces of darkness around him. Because the man in the north half and the Power-to-be-conscious in the Mind Level withdraw from him. Then he will substitute a sort of substituted form of immortality by becoming one with the forces of darkness at war against the Light. That is it the most deadly thing that can happen to anyone anywhere, because when he passes out, his configuration will disintegrate and his psychic nature will disintegrate. Then-oblivion.

Do not think this is as rare as it seems, because we are under a false impression that has been inculcated by the sweetness and lighters. There has been a false impression inculcated by the flown-away virtuers that is not true to the natural order steps of development and understanding. "Everything is possible with God. Everything is possible with the Infinite Mind." Instead of learning the next step, next step, next step that we are trying to teach, their attitude is this: Everyone, sooner or later, will make the grade and will become emancipated and join the angels and archangels and will become one with God. Everyone eventually will do it. But that is not so.

I want to direct your attention to mother nature. Look how prodigal nature is in the production of seeds and verdure. Just take any one thing-say a thistle. Look at the quantities, the plethora of seeds that is produced. Out of the countless millions of seeds that are produced, how many will find soil and germinate, grow, and produce seeds? Look at the animal world. Read the history of the animal kingdom, how for several millions of years a specie is developed, then reaches a cul-de-sac and is gone. It is just wiped out, gone, because it has served its purpose as the Great Mother selected that which gave promise of developing the next step in the evolutionary process. I want to call your attention to how prodigal nature is in producing possibilities, and out of all the possibilities, how many become actual?

When it comes to the human level, nature has not changed her principles of operation. She will produce countless hundreds of thousands to get one. To get one! What becomes of the others? They will vegetate or animalize until they die and the configuration disintegrates-elements go to the elements. The same is true in the psychic world. The psyche disintegrates and the elements of which it is composed, atomic in structure, go to the elements. Period. The Power-to-be-conscious is a universal power. The Logos, the shining sun of all existences, withdraws, into its own world, to itself. "My spirit shall not always strive with man." Take that very, very seriously, not because it is in the scriptures of our Christian Bible, not because it is in the Bible, but because our experiences and our perceptive insight verify it. "My spirit shall not always strive with man." It withdraws, and he dies. Period. Dies. That's the end of his individualizing process.

So this work that we are striving to teach and do has a value infinitely beyond that loveliness, that beauty to live in. It has a value infinitely beyond the karmic aspect of how you are preparing your next life in what you do with this one. This teaching has a value infinitely beyond all our lives. It is not only the preservation of your own individualizing process. (If we were good Aristotelians, we would say the saving of your soul.) Do not lose your status in evolution. It is not only the preservation of your own individualizing process; it is the crowning achievement of the whole evolutionary process itself-oneness with God. "Ye are Gods," and to fulfill your God consciousness, to become conscious that you are God is the crowning achievement of all evolution. That is at stake. Do you know how great that stake is? It goes beyond whether you lose your status or don't or I lose my status or don't. It amounts to a planetary salvation. Because we are integrated in the evolutionary whole, we contribute to that whole as we contribute to our own preservation, the preservation of our individualizing process, the saving of the soul.

This is within the range of your possibilities: Cultivate living in the north half. Learn how to conquer this tug of war by the subtle approach to the Presence, and you are well on your way, you are nearly over the top. And you are getting ready for the real development, which we will describe in subsequent lessons.

-Vitvan, Tape series dated 1955 - 1956 Marj Coffman, ed. 1998

Lesson 14

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