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Devotees of the Flame of Truth:
In examining the processes of spiritual education once again, following the trends of beloved Kuthumi's marvelous release of last week, I am reminded that in constructing universities of the Spirit the curriculum is all important. But equally important is the attitude of the students, including that quality of receptivity to higher truth and its disciplines which I choose to call 'fallowness of consciousness'.
As we examine aspirants for the higher spiritual teachings, we also observe the causes of past failures in those who have not made the grade, and we take note of the fact that in many cases the consciousness itself was not properly prepared to receive the gifts and graces from on high before the student approached the master's retreat. The driving power of human ambition can easily be turned into spiritual ambition and spiritual pride. Men hear of the ascended masters, they hear of the ascension, they hear for the first time of the great divine potential that is within themselves. Their minds are seized with the possibility of attainment, and the imagination becomes overly stimulated without the sense of universal perspective and divine grace which are the natural gifts of God to all.
In referring to the cultivation of a proper attitude of consciousness, I am particularly concerned that individuals shall perceive that they are dealing with the natural order of life when they begin to unfold their latent spiritual identities. The very natural spiritual qualities of life which should constitute the correct attitude of the aspirant are not commonly a part of the human environment, of human literature, or of human experience. Material life for many a year, for many a century, for millennia in fact has been centered mainly around the survival of the human personality, the survival of the flesh, of the family, of the community, and of the world whereas spiritual reality has always seemed too distant and undefined to be of any relevance to mortal men.
The great onrush of the tide of human consciousness, its involvement with the pressing problems of the world, has so dominated the minds of men that very little time has been afforded the average man and woman to consider spiritual values. This is why the Master Jesus made the now timeworn statement "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."1 This statement has been abused by teachers as well as by pupils; for many have decided that the consciousness of the little child was, in effect, purely a manifestation of the child mind.
Not so. The consciousness of the little child is more than mind. It is attitude - an attitude of humility, of wonder, of hope, of trust, of determination, and of respect for those who have attained to a fuller measure of devotion and service. Quite naturally the kingdom of heaven is not childlike in its measured attainment, for the kingdom of heaven is full of wonder and abundantly magnificent concepts. These are all enjoyed by the child-seeker. But the term child-seeker references attitude and not the illumined, matured Christ mind to which the child can and does attain.
Many times, after having gone to great lengths to inspire certain truths upon the student body, we are faced with the fact that much of our recorded instruction has been misunderstood and misappropriated. Beloved Morya once commented that men literally could not see over their own noses. I do not think that his statement (which I am certain has been made by others) was made in condemnation of humanity but in an attempt, through a bit of dry humor, to provoke individuals to become more perceptive concerning themselves and to develop a willingness to look as honestly upon their own consciousness as they would upon the consciousness of another. The ability to perceive attitudes and motivations, whether in oneself or in another, can be most illuminating providing care is exercised to avoid condemnation of self or others. Rather, discrimination should always be used as a lever to evoke higher perception and attainment.
When we begin to prepare the consciousness of a student to receive the wisdom of the Most High, we find that a study of contrasts is in order. Now we must admit, if we are to be honest, that all who are evolving on earth have in one embodiment or another partaken of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.2 The descent of human consciousness into the knowledge of good and evil is, without question, the complicating factor that has for ages hindered men and women from the attainment of right knowledge. Whenever the knowledge of good and evil is approached from the level of the human consciousness (which remains untethered to the divine except it be illumined by the Christ), division, duality, and double-mindedness3 follow. The first and greatest error that can be made subsequent to the departure from wholeness (designated by some as 'the Fall') is to attempt to gaze upon all things as though they were good without actually having either retained or regained the Edenic consciousness of good as the platform of perception from which one may gaze.
You have then, in effect, a state of consciousness that is basically evil, that seeks to gaze upon the universe and to perceive only good, and this is not possible; for evil cannot focus upon good even as double-mindedness can never magnetize singleness of vision and purpose. This is a most subtle point and one that argues mightily for a renewal of consciousness, for a change of mind, for the development of the smallest portion of the mind of Deity as a seed-spark - a germinal factor in the evolving process of illumined perception.
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."4 The eyes of perception must be lifted up to the hills, and the Lord - as law, as love, as truth - must be perceived as emanating from the highest source. The garden of the heart must be prepared to receive the immaculate conception. This can best be done by calling upon the higher law of God to release mighty light rays from the sun of universal wisdom. Faith must be engendered from within the heart that these light rays are tangible and real - atomic flames of universal substance which can actually be passed through the very field of consciousness which the student would use to plant the fertile and germinal ideas of the Spirit.
The purification of the field of consciousness is accomplished through the process of transmutation. As the knowledge of good and evil is removed by the violet flame, there occurs a resurrection of the faculties of the Christ mind whereby the ability to reach up to the Holy Christ Self and to perceive the myriad manifestations of good is amplified while the awareness of evil, as the cleaving asunder of the Real from the unreal by the sword of truth, is retained as the power of divine discrimination. This washing of the water by the Word5 is the action of the all-seeing eye of God as it is focused through the consciousness of the Christ who is the only safe mediator between good and evil.
It is just as important to be able to recognize a thorn as an abortion of the consciousness of the rose as it is to be able to recognize the beauty of the rose. If we were to give an individual the responsibility for bringing forth all of the roses upon the planet and the pattern of the thornless rose were to be lowered into his consciousness but he were to retain the memory of the thorn, it would be possible for him to abort his responsibility and to bring forth a roseless thorn.
We are trying to show you that in the realm of mortal affairs there is much that must be undone as well as much which must be done. Consciousness and its field must be prepared so that an understanding of the Real and the unreal will enable the individual to draw upon the Real while persistently replacing the unreal by the Real. Unless the ability to do this is conveyed to individuals, they will continue to feel that they are the acting power. And it is precisely out of this false sense, this inability to perceive who I AM, that attitudes of failure are generated whereas true success is and always will be one of the great regenerative factors found in the consciousness of God.
I shall continue next week to examine the field of consciousness.