EXPANDING STATES OF SELF-AWARENESS
Lesson 18
Before we begin to work our understanding into the subjects of dharma and karma, there are a few preliminary remarks I would like to make. First, so long as consciousness is objectively identified, the tendency is to make something or someone a goat. You know the meaning of making something or someone a goat, I hope. Relative to the objective identification state one must have something or someone outside of himself, that is, objective, to blame. It takes quite a bit of meditation, internalization of awareness, etc., to locate and understand all the forces by which one is motivated. Meanwhile, one in objective meditation must find someone to blame. When that state is cleared up, when one has gone beyond it, then there will be no more tendency to look outside of oneself for anything. And I mean anything!
The cortical mind, which we can also label lower manas, is developed out of the action and reaction to values given to images appearing substantive, that is, to the objective appearance. And you will find that there is very little thinking by the cortical mind that is not emotional thinking. We have to get to higher manas. Then we can use the mind as an instrument through which and with which to express perceptive insights from a higher level. But when one develops the higher faculties of spiritual perception and then utilizes the well-developed faculties of mentation with which to express and communicate and write, etc., that is higher manas. The cortex can then be used as an instrument with which to articulate and express other, relatively speaking, higher insights, the perceptions, awareness, realizations, etc. So intellect is not to be disparaged in any way. It is used as a tool. And a good craftsman keeps his tools sharp - the sharper the better. That is the value of higher manas.
I have described objectivity as images in the psychic consciousness appearing substantive. But when one does not know that what he sees as 'things' and 'objects' is nothing more nor less than the images formed as the result of frequency registration, he believes that this is an objective world. And it looks real to him. It is the value and the actions and reactions to the value given that develop what we call the mind, the cortical faculties.
That mind, by its very nature, constantly functions in externalities. Whatever goes wrong or right, the cortex must find some objective reason by which to explain it. Watch yourself and watch others. Many times every day, we find reasons, excuses, and justifications for things that happen. But with no exception, none of these reasons are actually responsible for what transpires - none of them, with no exceptions.
When it is extremely difficult to find a plausible reason for some eventuation, particularly any adversity, then, the cortical functions are hard put to manufacture a reason. When we understand the peculiar and intricate workings of the psychic nature, we will catch it creating an emotional situation whereby a reason can be manufactured to blame someone or something else. For instance, the dear wife is frustrated, and her creative forces are blocked, cut off, so emotionally she picks a quarrel with her husband, and at the height of the quarrel, there it is, "You are to blame for so-and-so." Many persons will create trouble, manufacture a quarrel, and create a fuss because of a subtle motivation to find a reason or justification for something else that couldn't be easily and logically justified. We all do it. We create some disturbance in order to find a justification. That is the way lower manas has to work by its very nature.
This was preliminary to another point I want to make. The dear old orthodox devil was the most convenient guy that was ever invented by lower manas. He covered a multitude of necessities of lower manas, cortical mind, because he was the most convenient, justifiable, plausible thing in the world to blame. But now that we are matriculating from orthodox theology, to our so-called higher state of development, we have pulled over into our higher state of evolution and developed a new devil -karma. "I've had a terrible time ever since I married you, you so-and-so. But I guess it's my karma." That is lower manas trying to find a goat. Since we no longer have the orthodox devil, we have substituted karma. How easily and quickly we do this, because who is going to dispute it- It has become common parlance among truth students everywhere to say, "Well, it's karma."
But before this lesson is over you will have to find a substitute for karma, just as you found a substitute for the orthodox devil. I am about to take it away from you as a convenient thing to blame everything on.
Please refer to the following diagram. Let the largest circle represent the Mother Substance, in which the Power-to-be-conscious becomes conscious. When we use the term Mother, Mother Substance, Nature, please think quickly of Light to energy, to living matter; living matter to energy, to Light. That is the substance we have in consciousness when we use the labels Mother, Mother Substance, or Nature. Nature -- - that which gives birth. We will use the largest circle to represent the Mother Substance when it was completely homogeneous, undifferentiated. That would be represented on this planet, or in our solar system or galaxy, as hydrogen, out of which all of the elements of the periodic table and all other configurational processes eventuated. The old nebula hypothesis is gone in astronomy. It is hydrogen, which keeps the sun going with its prodigious outpouring of light and energy. It is the continuous re-absorption of hydrogen, converting it into helium, and the energy that is left over in the fusion process. Hydrogen is converted into helium; that is the energy of the solar system, the energy of the sun on the planet.
Next we have seven differentiations of the Mother Substance, represented by the seven large inner circles. We can label these differentiations mineral, vegetable, animal, man, the heaven-born, and beyond, the orders in Light's Regions. These seven coming into manifestation represent the differentiating of the undifferentiated, an overall field in which the individual members function under the influence of the overall field. In each of these circles further differentiation occurs. Let us use just one of these circles and describe the process, which goes on in each of the seven. We could label each of these the seven angels before the throne as described in the Book of Revelations. In the wisdom teachings we refer to them as the seven rays of development.
Let us focus on one of these differentiated circles and label it the animal oversoul, the overall field in which all animals function, and under the influence of which all animals of all species will function. As it becomes further differentiated we have seven again.
There is nothing arbitrary about this number, seven. We do not just manufacture that number. There is an order to the cosmic process. We have a trinity: structure, function, order. As the order of the cosmic process proceeds, there is first one, then two, then three, then seven. Four, five, and six appear to be omitted. One, the Power-to-be-conscious, becomes two, the polarity of the Positive Power and the Mother Substance. Those two become the three, the third being the Logos, the differentiated Light, the differentiated Intelligence. And the various combinations of those three will make the other four. The process does that of itself, so to speak, so our division into groupings of seven is not arbitrary. It is recognition of what is perceived in the process.
Let us return to our description of our circles. One of the seven represents animal differentiation in Mother Substance. It becomes divided into seven species of the animal line of evolution. Four of these emerge into individualization. It goes far beyond the purpose of this discussion of dharma and karma to describe even the first four and the other three lines of evolution relative to the animal state. If we would take up the study of evolution, then we would go into it and delineate the species development out of the one background or oversoul of all animals. But that does not serve our purpose here. If we designate the animal species with the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, they would represent four that develop out of the oversoul that develop individualization. They are labeled the cat, dog, elephant, and horse. I am just using the ordinary terms instead of the Latin.
It is out of these four animal lines of evolution that individualization to the man state takes place. One of the differentiations of the overall Mother Substance is this animal oversoul differentiating through the species of the animal into what is called man. But please note: man is not an animal. No animal has developed an objective self-conscious state, the objective identification that we have been talking about. When we say that consciousness becomes conscious of objectivity, that is the referent for the word man, and the word man was taken originally from the word manas. Man means mind, manas, cortical awareness, cortical functions, intellectuality, mentation, etc. Manas, becomes predominate in the consciousness, and the predominant guna or characteristic of the mind at that state is objective identification. So objective self-consciousness on the part of the Power-to-be-conscious is 'behind' all of the activity which eventuates in Mother Substance. The Power-to-be-conscious is, relatively speaking, 'behind', 'in' the activity - it is a higher dimensional function. That is why in a lower three-dimensional language state we have to say 'in' or say 'behind' and single quote it, because it is neither 'in' nor 'behind'. It is a higher dimensional operation that is difficult to describe, and most of us can't understand it at all. We would have to have an nth dimensional functional state to see 'beyond', 'in', or 'behind' anything. That is why it is so difficult to step this down to a three dimensional description. It is an nth dimensional method of functioning.
It is out of the superior qualities, which are developed in the palingenetic cyclic process in these four animal species, the cat, dog, elephant, and horse, that objective self-consciousness eventuates. Then animalized man develops the form of a man. At that state he walks on his hind legs and uses his front legs for his arms and hands. That began way back into the early dawn of the metamorphosis, the transition from the animal state to the human state. At that state the consciousness is still largely animalized.
In this brief thumbnail description, I now have the basis for one statement relative to karma. The individual animal in a given species within the oversoul, the animal point of differentiation, the individual animal has no karma. He cannot create any karma. He cannot do it on the basis that he must develop a dharma before karma can be engendered. So let us take up a description of dharma. Dharma means the telekinesical motivating force of the Power-to-be-conscious as it functions in Mother Substance. (Remember our description of telekinesis in the early lessons of this course.) Let me simplify the terminology. We have gone through this over and over, but I think that it is in order to keep on reiterating it. There is a Power-to-be-conscious. The very fact that there is an act of being conscious establishes that there is a Power to be conscious.
Many objective identifiers, good aristotelian scientists, have claimed that the Power-to-be-conscious is only the result of the chemicalization of all the cells plus the overall organization of the cells from which the Power-to-be-conscious emerges. But that is easily refuted by bringing in an abstract quality, like love, terror, fright, etc. which we know can completely rechemicalize the cellular structure and its organization. So if there is an abstract quality that can chemicalize and rechemicalize the whole organization it shows that there is something beyond all of the factors and constituents that went into the building and organization of that cellular structure. And if there is something outside of that structural building and its organization that can rechemicalize it, then that which does so is beyond and outside of the level of the chemical operations in cellular structures. That is absolute and complete proof, because "Water cannot rise above its own level." So there would have to be something within the chemical range of cellular structures and functions to affect it; nothing outside could possibly affect it. The Power-to-be-conscious is other than the Mother Substance, irrespective of the form of organization which the Mother Substance takes.
To return to the subject of karma, let me restate it another way. Only the violation of dharma engenders karma. Up to the point of differentiation from the animal into the human state there is no dharma, no personal, individual dharma or karma. We can find correlation for that in the Christian Bible. It is stated this way: "All manner of sin against man shall be forgiven, but the sin against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven in this life or the life to come," (in this incarnation or the incarnation to come.) It is the violation of the Holy Spirit that engenders the reaction we call karma.
We have two or three more terms here for which we must describe a referent. What do we mean by Holy Spirit- And what do we mean by the sin against man- Generation after generation man has learned how to conduct organized society. And in order to conduct organized society and protect it from outside forces and inside disturbances man has evolved lots of arbitrary codes. For instance, you go to the bank and borrow some money. The whole of the credit system has required generations of experience in order to evolve the rules by which we borrow money at a bank. There are all kinds of rules and regulations for living in an organized society that man has devised for his own convenience. Or perhaps some ecclesiastical group or dictator or tyrant has issued edicts, rules, and regulations for their own convenience, as well as other rules for the protection of the people.
Those rules and regulations that man has evolved and developed are all arbitrary. They have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. If one violates the rules of man because he might have developed a conscientious state where he can't go to war or shoot some of his brothers as so-called enemies, he is labeled a conscientious objector. But that conscientious objector has only violated the rules of man, the rules and regulations for organized society, not the rule of the Holy Spirit. There are many other points where one cannot conscientiously subscribe to man's rules and regulations. He learns to keep that secret and not tell anybody about it and not display it by any overt act. But by having a difference with the codes and rules and regulations operated by man he does not sin against the Holy Spirit. Therefore he generates or engenders no karma.
Now what about the other point, the sin against the Holy Spirit that is not forgiven in this life or the life to come- The nearest thing to a qualification that I am going to come to on this point is this: My referent for the term Holy Spirit is the point, the state, in which the intrinsic Power-to-be-conscious is conscious of itself on its own level, Mind Level. Let me restate that. My referent for the term Holy Spirit is the point, the state, in which the Power-to-be-conscious is conscious in or on its own Mind Level, which is the level upon which it functions. When all of the forces are brought up through the crown center and the Individualized Field on the Mind Level has been developed and perfected, that individualized field represents the state in which the Power-to-be-conscious is conscious in a given person. That represents the dharma to which he must be true and faithful, and the violation of which engenders karma.
Dharma and the Holy Spirit are two labels for one point, one state. Sin means sense - sensory experience. After you have dharma, consciousness of the state in which the Power-to-be-conscious has become conscious, then you go against its direction because of sensory registrations and persuasions, you are creating karma, you are sinning against the Holy Spirit.
After one engenders karma, after the violation of the law of one's Being, the violation of the state in which his Power-to-be-conscious has reached consciousness of Itself, one cannot say, "Oh, I'm sorry." One at this state must make restitution. That is the law of cause and effect, what Emerson called the law of compensation. Did you know that Emerson learned to write that great essay on the law of compensation out of his study of the Bhagavad Gita and his understanding of the law of karma- Of course, back in the time period between 1830 - 1850 he couldn't come out and use the word karma. So he substituted the law of compensation, and developed that marvelous essay on the law of compensation. Karma is a compensating, balancing of the scale. We can quote Christian scripture again about the balancing of the scales, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" -provided the sowing is with or against the dharma, the state in which the Power-to-be-conscious has become conscious on its own level. The sin against the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Self, and the state in which it is conscious shall not be forgiven. No one else is concerned. Each one within himself, as man in his own secret self walks before his own God, must work it out himself.
We could bring in the word conscience as a deep unrationalized feeling of when you are right and when you are wrong with yourself. Go to bed at night; get ready to go to sleep. Review every incident of the day and see how you feel about what you said and what you did or what you didn't say when you should have said it, and what you didn't do when you should have done it. This is done all alone within yourself. No one is concerned and no one cares. Conscience will step in and judge you. Try to reason it away or justify it. You will find that conscience is still there. You can argue all over the place with it, but you are not arguing with someone else to make them think well of you. You are arguing with yourself. And if you can't drown it out and it is still there, it stems from the law of your Being, from the dharma. The deepest, deepest inner state in which the Power-to-be-conscious in you is conscious. Walk in the light of that. It has been said, "This, above all, to thine own self be true, and then it must follow as the night the day, that you cannot be false to any man." Be true to yourself; that is, obey your conscience, obey your dharma. Live up to what intrinsically the Power-to-be-conscious in you is conscious of. Then there is no sin against the Holy Spirit; no karma.
So when does the dharma appear- Returning to our chart, when the large circle was only one of seven in the undifferentiated Mother, the dharma was in the overall Mother. The dharma was to differentiate, to bring forth, to create in response to the activating power of the Power which was activating her. There was the dharma. As the differentiations took place down to where the individual animal is becoming so self-conscious that it is going to make a leap from the animal species to the human, there between the animal and the human state, where is the dharma- The dharma at this point is not to fall back into the animal, but to come on out of the animal group motivations to the human level. That is the only dharma at that state. But here the dharma does not pertain to the person, the individual animal, making that point. That dharma pertains to the oversoul to give birth to offspring thereof. Just as one plant will create a vast multiplicity of seeds, so the oversoul creates a great number of individualized persons which will become human, but the human has no dharma, therefore he cannot create karma. The only way that karma can be created is to violate the Holy Spirit, the state in which the Power-to-be-conscious is conscious. So an individual person has no dharma; consequently he cannot create any karma. All sins against man are forgiven; but the sin against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven in this incarnation or the incarnation to come. We have equated Holy Spirit and dharma, the law of Being.
This human, when he first emerges, becomes a human, still functions under an oversoul which pertains to the tribe. It doesn't pertain to him individually. He is only in the tribal state of development of the human. It is only when he can abstract to the third order, being able to recognize one of a class, the third order in the abstracting process, that he can think of himself as different from the tribe. In those tribes in which there is no ability to abstract to the third order, there are no words for me or mine. They are all like Charles Lindberg when he got back from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He kept saying "we." The reporter who was interviewing him asked, "Charles, who was with you- You say we all the time. 'We did this and we did that and we had a hard time staying awake, and we ate so-and-so for lunch, and we landed.' Where is the we-" "Well," Lindberg replied, "it was me and the plane." He was so identified with the plane that he couldn't separate himself and the plane. Tribal man in any tribe that cannot abstract to the third order has no word for me or mine. They say we, meaning the tribe. Therefore one at that state has no dharma. Where does that dharma belong- It belongs to the tribe, the oversoul of the tribe.
As the consciousness of man develops from the tribal state into the larger community, consciousness, the oversoul of the tribe, also expands and develops into what we call the race psyche. Sometimes the label race mind is used. Every person integrated into the overall race psyche into which he is born has no dharma; therefore he cannot create any karma. There is no dharma to violate; therefore one cannot create karma. He functions in response to the motivations of the race psyche, the oversoul, the race mind. But his lower manas will take lots of credit. At this state his egotism can be so big that he thinks he is going to rule the race mind, but if you analyze anything he says you can find where it originated in the race mind, and he is just automatically repeating it.
I am saying this: No matter what the mental processes may focus on as being original, a person at this state is motivated entirely by the influences of the race psyche, the oversoul. We must sharply differentiate between mental justifications, egotistical assertions, and motivations at this point.
Gradually the Power-to-be-conscious becomes more and more conscious on its own level, Mind Level. And as it becomes more and more conscious on its own level there comes 'down' a mandate, "Come ye therefore out from among them and be ye therefore separate." That doesn't mean to take your physical body and transport it into some point of isolation, an island in the Pacific or in the desert. It simply means that one can be in the midst of .a big crowd and become so differentiated within his own consciousness that he is not motivated by any force or influence in the race psyche. To come out and be separate means to be separate from all motivating influences of the race psyche. No oversoul, animal or man, influences one who has arrived at this state. He has become so individualized that he can be responsive to that still, small voice called conscience. It becomes a voice that one can actually hear if he trains his inner ear to it. That is factual. It becomes so powerful that he will listen to it and nothing else. And you obey it and you obey nothing else.
But he will become very secretive about it. He is both wise and harmless -no malice, jealousy, hate, or anger. In his wisdom he knows that those who violate the higher law are doing more to themselves than he would have the heart to do. He can see that so clearly that instead of hate or anger or feelings of revenge, he becomes extremely compassionate.
We are still talking about dharma. Dharma emerges with the coming out and being separate, when one is individually responsive and responsible to himself, after he is free, motivationally speaking, from all of the influences of the race psyche. Not until that point is reached can he violate his dharma, and by the violation of his dharma create karma. Below that high point of individualization, the Power-to-be-conscious is becoming so conscious of itself that it emancipates and frees itself from all influences of the race psyche. At that point, individual dharma comes into operation. Below that point the dharma belongs to the race in which he is integrated. The race can create the karma, but not the person.
Here are a few illustrations of racial karma. If we had time to go into it, we wouldn't have a lesson on karma; we would have a study in karma. Recall the Carthaginians. Cicero never closed an oration in the Forum of Rome without pronouncing that Carthage must be destroyed! This went on until Cicero built up such agitation in the race psyche that eventually the race, like a lot of sheep, began clamoring for the destruction of Carthage. So they went to war and Carthage, a higher civilization than Rome, was destroyed. Carthage ceased to exist. In due time, Rome also ceased to exist. But Rome came into existence again in what we call England, and Carthage came into existence again in what we call the United States of America. Put up a profile picture of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, or George Washington. Next to them put up pictures in profile of Hannibal of Carthage and the other Carthaginians. You cannot tell the difference! The leaders of Carthage that went down under Rome became the creators of this blessed United States of America
Now watch karma. I said that no person who is integrated in the race psyche can create karma. But the dharma and the violation thereof belong to the oversoul, the race. It was not long before the power of England (formerly Rome) was challenged. And England paid for what she, Rome, did to Carthage. This study in karma is fascinating, and I would like to entertain you with the reincarnation of the oversouls of the different nations down through history so that you would understand the inner history, because if you understand the inner history you can be extremely accurate in prognostication. The Roman Empire (England) has gone to pieces. Bit by bit it has fallen apart. Those points are of extreme interest to the inner scholar of cultures and civilizations. But all of that has nothing whatever to do with "my karma, it must be my karma," because the person who has not reached the state of individualization doesn't have any karma because he has no dharma. He is all tied up and integrated in the race. He prospers and suffers with the race in which he is integrated - unless and until he is sufficiently individualized on his own Mind Level.
This lesson is a good foundation for the study of the dharma and karma side of our experiences. You can continue it on your own as you proceed with your work in expanding your state of self-awareness.
"Sortem suam quisque amet. Let each love his destiny."
-Vitvan, Tape series dated 1955 - 1956 Marj Coffman, ed. 1999
(This is the last lesson in the series "Expanding States of Self-Awareness.")