Advocate and the Dweller on the Threshold

WE will now speak of two great forces of intelligence that represent man’s higher and lower nature. They are called the Advocate and the Dweller on the Threshold, and now appear before the student as definite personalities.

If we are familiar with Greek literature we know about the Daemon of Socrates, and how he was often found in an attitude of listening-in to its guidance. We all possess a similar Daemon or Advocate, and he constantly stimulates us to purify our aspirations and breathing; the higher elementals give similar advice, and it is the Advocate who passes us, if worthy, into higher phases of development. This, as we have elsewhere said, is a great moment in the student’s life, and the Advocate appears as one clothed in shining raiment. He is terrible to behold, and often the light is so great that one cannot open one’s eyes.

The Dweller on the Threshold, our Dark Angel of Destruction, can also appear, and possesses radiance and beauty, but it is evil and its presence is more easily sensed.

As the student goes deeper he will be aware of these presences always overshadowing him, and they impress him with their advice. Slowly he will realise that there is a dual intelligence within him.

Before we go further an explanation of the above beings is necessary. We have built up through myriad lives two composite thought-forms of an opposite nature. The higher has collected atoms of our loftiest aspirations and actions; the lower has collected, and is the composite thought-form of our evil passions and desires.

These we have endowed with forces of a soullike nature and with a tremendous range of knowledge, yet ere we can feel the presence of our Innermost and not be impressed by these personal elements of the past we must disintegrate them and return their atoms to their rightful place in Nature; for it is the Innermost who is the true expression of the Reality within us, and possesses greater wisdom than our personal creation. The student will naturally ask why we should disintegrate the Advocate. Here is the reason. By unconscious magic we have drawn atoms from their rightful spheres, and have imprisoned them in the body of our thought-creations, and this, being contrary to the law of Nature, must be freed and returned to their own elements, just as we wish for freedom to enter our own worlds of being.

Yet this disintegration does not occur until we have reached a certain period in our development. The student can now realise how we are impressed by our own creations of Heaven and Hell.

The Advocate assists us to separate the true substance from the false; that is, the coarse debris of our bodies is passed down into the sheath of the Secret Enemy, and this foreign substance nullifies its force and power to unite itself again to our lower mental, astral, and physical body. We slowly begin to bring into our bodies by this process the consuming atoms of the flame that will imprison and take away the Secret Enemy’s powers.

The student should remember that all of this occurs within his own self-created universe.

Concentration as the world knows it is different in the inner worlds. When we project our minds into the substance of a thing—for thought is penetrative—we prevent its approach to our minds, and we are also exposed to a similar pressure.

True concentration is to know a thing by becoming it, and true thought is an activity far beyond the comprehension of our objective mind-body. When we unite ourselves to the intelligence within a thing it repeats itself as long as we concentrate upon it. In concentration we also try to get the response of the Solar atomic intelligence within a substance.

When we think of a friend and send our love to him with a concentrated vision, we unite our atmosphere to his, and it will respond as we press our thoughts upon the silken web of his mind-body. This pressure brings a response from his inner self, though his objective mind is unaware. His inner self will reply if we adopt the real method of concentration; for as it registers thought it brings to birth a composite mass of atoms of the same nature that it returns to us. This is like a crystal formation; the seed crystal collects and builds about it similar crystals. This means that what we send to others is returned in abundance, and this is for good or for evil.

This process, that is objective, also takes place interiorly, and we receive our information in this manner. This is far different from those who teach meditation and concentration without knowledge of these laws and methods, and this gives their pupils little of real worth. When the Yogi concentrates he seeks knowledge and receives it.

Another important thing: we shall constantly evoke our personality if we are without the knowledge of these correct practices, and wilt always be thinking of it.

We have seemingly wandered from the subject of Yoga practice, but we have done so in order to impress upon the student the importance of purity in thought and aspiration and cleanliness of body and life.

There are many schools of Yoga and seven paths; but there are many byways that unite man to hidden things in Nature, and three broad paths that will unite man to God. These the student must find for himself.