Chapter:
Message of the Devas to America
There are many destructive elements at work in the American Commonwealth, which cause nature to change her original plan and purpose. In recent years man has destroyed her forests, has diverted her rivers from their natural and original courses, and has abused her bounty by willfully destroying her products to produce shortage, and now the law of nature is beginning to take effect upon the country, and the consciousness of humanity in these localities is fast becoming impressed by the barren state of nature.
The soil, no longer husbanded according to nature’s plan, is not producing its accustomed yield, and this is causing havoc and suffering to humanity on account of man’s interference with nature’s system of development.
Since we, the devas of nature, are no longer respected, it is most difficult to find anyone who can serve our purpose. We wish you to warn the American people that filth and evil cast upon the surface of springs, lakes, and rivers has befouled humanity’s mind and that we, the guardians of nature, can retaliate and use weapons of destruction as well as of propagation. Nature is never idle. She seeks to supply man with those gifts which the real soul of humanity needs; but man has disregarded our affection for him and for all living things, and has interfered with the elements in order to make so-called improvement, and profit.
We will keep to our resolves and work for the good of mankind, but we will not see our work ruthlessly destroyed. Therefore, we wish you to write down the seven commandments of nature:
Do not heedlessly destroy that which we build up, unless it is for the good of mankind.
Do not cut down or destroy that which nature provides as a manifestation of her plans of organization.
Do not build habitations and buildings (factories, etc.) the emanations from which are destructive to our being, except in the waste tracts of lands where the soil is unfertile.
We seek to fertilize the soil with nature’s own nourishment, to make it healthy for the production of crops. In the season when this fertilization is proceeded with, do not destroy nature’s craftsmanship in her moulding. The soil should lie fallow for a year before the workman disturbs it, and he should plant only what is indigenous to the soil. Nature is endangered by cross-fertilization, the crossing of one plant with another, and foreign growths should not be planted in alien soil. The tiger and the bear should not be mated, nor should native plants be fertilized with foreign pollen. The soil is endangered by grafting foreign shoots upon a native tree, for these shoots need different soil nourishment from the parental stem, and this brings a destructive element into the soil. There is a movement backwards and forwards, like the tide of the sea, between the soil and the tree. The tree derives nourishment from the soil, but it returns atomic elements of its own back to the soil—hence the confusion.
Do not replace nature’s beauty by ugliness which breeds disorder, and is repugnant to us (the devas.) We can be destructive as well as constructive and we can introduce into the soil and its products elements which are destructive to body and mind. Fear is the chief element, and fear can be more deep-seated than people imagine, for it passes into the deeper channels of man’s being and reacts upon the functioning of his mind, bringing periods of great distress and anxiety. We can also bring about drought and famine through our power to withhold water from the land.
The lack of reverence for nature and her powers causes sorrow to us, the devas of nature. Man no longer places the handful of grain, or the fruit of his harvest upon his family altar, in thanksgiving to the giver of all good. Do not neglect this.
We consider the greatest crime is man’s heedless waste of nature’s products, and his inhumanity to nature. The idleness of the husbandman who neglects to reap the grain that he has sown is criminal, as is likewise the activity of any man who causes the products of the field to perish, causing scarcity, suffering, and want. Do not sanction waste.
The interesting thing about the deva creation is their power to portray to the student the condition of his higher self in nature’s consciousness. We may describe this power in their own words by saying, “He becomes the barometer of his soul, and of the conditions about him.”
Through this power the devas may project into your mind the vision of a beautiful brook, a placid lake, or a quiet sea. The water may be clear and moving gently, and perhaps you can see the stones and the trout at the bottom. When you have this kind of vision, the conditions about you are good; but when you see rapids and foam, the devas say that in your struggle for light the conditions are bad. When your barometer shows a placid, quiet, and beautiful stream, then it is a good time for aspiration towards light. It is not wise to meditate or aspire when you are in the midst of turbulence and discord, just as on the psychic plane it is not wise to bring one’s clairvoyance into play during a violent storm, when the lower intelligences of the wind are at work (for they are destructive), nor on a dark, foggy night, for earthbound spirits find it easy to materialize in a damp atmosphere, since it gives them a place of residence, and the power of propulsion and pressure.
A man suspended in air cannot jump, for he has no density or resistance from which to spring. This is also true of a discarnate entity. The Yogi must learn of the other worlds that are about him from experience, and he soon learns that he has other planes beside this physical world in which to make discoveries. In time there will come the period when he will gain his schoolroom experience in nature’s consciousness. The planned economy of nature will then put to shame the selfish arguments of the world’s pseudo-planned economists.
Since men began to destroy wheat in America, hurricane and drought have destroyed the farming communities, but before long men will begin to realize that nature is the lawgiver and that man, at his peril, runs counter to her will. We have only to look at China and Spain to realize what havoc nature can bring about, when her forests are destroyed and her bounty wasted.
According to the law of nature, those who have enriched themselves unlawfully, and have caused privation and suffering are placed, after death, in a world where the habitants recognize the sham in each other. Here, when man meets man, the true character of each is revealed and they find themselves in a hell of their own making. In these purgatorial states they must remain until they follow the gleam of the far distant star of Truth.
The world never realizes what becomes of the fortunes these destructive agents hope to secure for their posterity. Occasionally they are used for good, but more often like pirate gold they find their way back into the underworld of crime, ever impregnated with the curse of suffering.
Nature wars against everything which breaks down her natural productions for humanity. Civilizations have passed away in a single week, and the jungle and the desert sand now cover vast cities where nature was dethroned from her mercy seat.
There are three divisions in nature:
- Creative
- Destructive
- Protective
...and until man seeks union with his own Lord God of Truth within, he is but the cat’s paw of nature’s movements. Whilst man seeks happiness through his passions and desires, and through his five senses, he is living only in the objective world and spiritually he will be unsuccessful. When he turns within to find his own Kingdom of Heaven then his day of happiness will begin to dawn. This is the aim of all Yoga practice. When man withdraws within, he finds that the present world in which he lives is similar to a dream and an illusion and, by seeking union with the Lord God of Truth within, he enters nature’s consciousness and perceives the reality which lies around him.
Few have stopped to consider what a man who tends a machine all his days gets out of life. How much nearer does he attain to the Truth? He may live a clean and honorable life of toil, yet, in his old age he comes to ask, “What has it all amounted to?” Suddenly, there will come the desire to know Truth and he begins to wonder about the world within, which he has not had leisure previously to know and enjoy. He discovers that the wall which separates him from nature is the wall of “ignorance of his own Self,” and he awakens to the significance hidden in the lines,
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” —Hamlet.
