Man’s self-esteem often brings him into conflict with his own real nature, and this gradually results in a malformation of his mind. This malformation is caused by the spoken word which in his haste to acquire that which he selfishly desires, he recklessly utters contrary to his real character of being. Desiring to have his own way, man begins by saying things which are untruthful and injurious to others, and upbraids anyone who stands in his way. He may do this by seeming praise which is subtly belittling, or by an open diatribe. But the “watcher” within, elemental lord of his mind, sits in judgment upon his speech, hence the spoken word has ever been a cause of man’s suffering. Envy, malice, and hatred manifested through the spoken word dominate the character of the mind, and the watcher passes judgment upon a culprit for thoughtless speaking. The dynamic forces which he has energized from the underworld beneath his feet by vocalization turn and prey upon his mind, disorganizing it, until his own thoughts become an obsession tracking him night and day. It is to escape this torment that men seek pleasure.
The wise man will say little, and think before he speaks, striving to ennoble everyone who hears him. He realizes that the mental forms a man builds during life, he takes away with him at his death. The good type of thought which the pressure lines of vibration show at death lead him into the presence of Truth, and such men arrive at their true height of attainment, and are never earth-bound. On the contrary, the man who is untruthful and envious, and who disowns any allegiance towards the common good of the community, finds his own level in those spheres of which he has made himself a representative while on earth.
It is very interesting to talk to an earth-bound spirit, and sometimes it is difficult to make him realize that he has passed over. He comes to you as he did while in the earth life and demands that you should do certain things for him. One earth-bound spirit who had been a “boss” in business, wanted me to go and see the executors of his will because he said they had not carried out his orders as he desired. When I said, “Do you not realize that you are dead?” he answered, “Yes, I know that, but I want you to do this.” I said to him “My friend, I cannot see that you have left much love behind you.” And he replied, “I see my family who seem to hate me.” I asked him if he could see a far distant star with its minute light, and he said, “Yes, when I close my eyes I see it.” I answered, “My friend, that is your salvation. Whatever good you have left behind you will help to bring you to that star; try to go there.”
Emotional people, especially at one phase of their lives, will feel a glow in their hearts after attending a religious revival, and will think that they have found God. This emotion may last all their lives, and cause a transformation in the entire character, but with most it lasts only a short time. Still the light is brought into the human heart. Many unemotional people live most of their time in the mind world, and if they aspire for truth, the light of the spirit will enter their mind world also.
Illumination of the mind brings about a complete change in one’s self-created universe, for as the Yogis say, the light of intelligence has entered it. When this happens, man commences to receive instruction in the laws of conscious nature, and a desire dawns within him to attain nature’s will, and to renounce the physical will, which he has built up, thus he becomes conscious of Truth. This knowledge and power and the use of nature’s will he possessed in the Golden Age, but in his journey down through the Age of Silver into the Age of Copper, he began to build up a personal will, and it is this which now dominates him in this Iron and Steel Age. Thus he has lost all memory of natural law, and the use of nature’s will.
After illumination the student experiences the complete change of mind which accompanies it. Nature takes him under her jurisdiction, and he returns to his long lost mother. It is the return of the “voice crying out in the wilderness” for union between the physical and mental man.1
It is the beginning of a composite unity, when man and his elemental twin are locked in the embrace of love, the “man of nature” with the conscious man as we see him become one. This is symbolized in the Baptism of Jesus by John, who represents his elemental soul, the worker of miracles, with a knowledge of natural law, and with the power to bestow that consciousness. Man’s creative world, which he has built up about him with mind and physical activity is detrimental to nature, for it is opposite to anything that we can perceive in nature’s operations.
Man asserts himself as he desires, he does not seek to ascertain what nature would have him do. He is deaf to the appeals of the “natural man” within, and to the approach of nature’s intelligence from without. If man will only seek union with his own true nature of being, the Lord God of Truth within will align him with nature’s understanding.
Humanity does not know the part that nature plays in human affairs for we seldom realize that our physical, mental, and spiritual bodies are made up of nature’s component elements. Science has explained to man that he is of a mineral, fluidic, and airy nature, and has told him that when he inhales, he brings the oxygen atoms of nature within his system. Seen with the eye of the Yogi, man is a semi-transparent and gaseous being, and the ultra violet rays reveal how translucent his body really is.
When man realizes that he is composed of the elements of earth, air, fire, and water, he will have some knowledge of his composite body. Science recognizes that man is like an iceberg in the sea, which shows only one-ninth of its real size above the surface, the rest being unseen and submerged.
Nature’s will takes charge of our bodies while we are asleep, and causes the broken tissues of our bodies to be built up.2 This makes it interesting to speculate on how long the most learned doctor or scientist would live today if the upkeep of his body depended entirely on himself. The student of Yoga seeks to unify his objective self with his own Lord God of Truth within, and when he seeks this union (the merging of his “natural man” with his lower counterpart) nature instructs him in the building up of a physical body, which is developed and brought into harmony with nature’s vibrations.
The development of the “third eye” (which is a purely scientific process) gives man an extended range of vision. By its development, he slowly begins to perceive a new world of being about him, for it gives him power to discern the activities going on in several divisions in the world of man and nature. In Yoga practice, as the student goes inwardly, he discovers that the organs of perception (hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, and tasting) each has a higher counterpart, and he seeks through these to attune himself with and register the vibrations of the different divisions of nature.
The mother usually gives her child its spiritual knowledge and training, but it is Mother Nature who restores to him his lost heritage. Man must seek Truth, to enable Mother Nature to harmonize herself with him, and reveal the “forbidden knowledge,” for nature is the custodian of the wisdom knowledge by which she has guided the great seers and prophets of the past, and her books are ever open to all who seek union with her.
