Considering the average man of today, we find that a great proportion of his time is spent in the mind world, for during the process of evolution he has developed his mind far in excess of his other faculties. The occult student learns to gauge the different degrees and ways by which natives of different races advance their evolution into the consciousness of mind. He discovers that a group of Chinese intelligences are living in a mind world far in advance of his own. At an exhibition of Chinese art in London in 1936, the atmosphere which surrounded the finer types of their art produced a composite atmosphere which had a singular effect on sensitive minds, for they perceived an atmosphere foreign to their own, which took them into a world of imagination and beauty.
The average man of eighteen to twenty-one years of age goes through a phase when his bodily passions and desires wage war upon his mind world, and he is prone to seek so-called happiness and pleasure through physical, rather than mental enjoyment. The Chinese caste of intelligence learned that the gratification of their mental passions and desires was far superior, therefore the power of the physical body was held in check and governed, in order to make possible a still greater mental indulgence.
Since our minds have evolved more rapidly than our other planes of consciousness, we have not properly balanced our instinctive nature, and it is this development which is coming into manifestation through the aid of conscious nature. It is a return to, and an alliance with nature’s will, so that in time man will become a creature of intuition—nature’s man. Then he will apprehend nature’s laws and will obey them.
This return from the unknown to the known will bring about the Golden Age of man’s discovery, and an alliance with nature will bring to man his own truth, long hidden from observation within the treasure house of his own self-constituted being. Through Yoga practice man will enter the precincts of nature’s manifestation, where he will become conscious of beauty, real beauty, for the first time. Then the overlords of nature, the angels mentioned in our sacred books, will show themselves in their glory, and the consciousness that truth and beauty are one will manifest in his mind.
The instruction and the emotion of man’s thoughts, when analyzed, will be clothed in the beauty of what we call the spirit, and beauty, like a surging tide, will become so enthralling that it will nearly overwhelm him. He will have to be on his guard against sinking himself completely into this bliss and intelligence, for his sensitivity will be heightened and his longing to be “at one” with the consciousness, or spirit, which is within this surging wave of beauty will be increased.
This conception of beauty places before the student a new realization, and he will sense the ideals for which all things have been created. Then man will receive information from a kingly deva and learn that the light, which the devas reflect, comes from the Presence in which they stand, that their world is a wonderful world of beauty and very different from that which man knows as his world. In the devic consciousness the student views this world through devic perception, and illusion passes away, the mountains, hills, and buildings all disappear, and standing in the Presence, the student contemplates the ideal.
But there is one thing which will remain. The aroma surrounding the works of artists and craftsmen does not vanish. It is that indefinable aroma which we sense about a work of art which causes us to realize the aspiration of the craftsman towards beauty.
In this connection it is interesting to note that the gnomes speak of distinguishing different precious stones and minerals by their odor. They are like many animals that have developed the sense of smell far beyond that of sight. Man has developed his mind far beyond his intuition.
Some of the great musicians have been able to register in music the vibrations of fire, earth, water, and air, an example of which is Wagner’s “fire music.” Musicians can also register the “keynote” of a great city. It is interesting to notice the effect different types of music have upon the child mind. Take the “Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffman and ask several children what it means. They will very often say that it is not good, or they may say that it is like boats floating on water. Then give them a selection from the Gotterdammerung1 and try to gain their impressions. They will often prove most instructive and refreshing.
Nature has her keynote and man his sounding board, and through sound invocation we can attune ourselves to nature’s vibration or keynote. When we tune in to sound vibrations of a higher nature we evoke the finer forces of nature using the normal key, but when we lower this key we attract to ourselves the atoms and intelligence of nature’s lower counterpart.
By aspiration for Truth we attract the notice of the higher intelligence of nature, for in aspiration we do not force our personality into these divisions of nature. We leave our lower personality behind when we aspire for Truth, but when we meditate upon Truth the “I” is always present. In ceremonial magic the ignorant desire power, and they evoke the reflection of their own nature, be it good or evil. This lower personal I is the danger of occultism, “I want this, I wish that, I want Truth, I want power.” The real I—the “I am,” is no respecter of so-called personalities, but it respects the aspiration of the lower I for Truth, for union with God, and in the proportion in which the lower I is eliminated, man can bring peace into his atmosphere and surroundings.
I have seen the immediate transformation of a business dictator, whose personality was famous. Too busy to wait his proper turn, he rushed into the presence of a Yogi, who looked at him and smiled. He became speechless and confused, but the Yogi asked him to sit down and have tea with him. The hard business man got up, shaking his head, and went into the next room, taking his rightful place in the seat he had formerly occupied.
The reader may wish to know what type of instruction is given by these higher intelligences of nature. Usually it is the doctrine of emancipation, or the power of freeing oneself from illusion (ignorance). The devas who work over the forests, or the devas of what the average man calls nature, will often tune in with you by showing you a beautiful landscape, or a forest of trees. It is as if a panorama of nature were passing before you, and often when your instruction begins, you are halted in a beautiful glade away from humanity, where you are subject to the rhythmic beauty of their vibration—a process of being tuned in to their consciousness. Then your instruction begins.
Perhaps you are taken to a great tree which has fallen in some dark ravine, where little sunlight penetrates. Here you are instructed in the different conditions which manifest among the tree people. You will find that there are disagreeable conditions or intelligences which inhabit some trees. Some resent approach to their consciousness, and others radiate their benediction to you. Certain trees resent any interference in their beginning, growth and so-called death by destruction, or old age. Some have a quality of elemental nature, soothing and beneficent to our minds, whilst others are arrogant and destructive. People little realize the destructive powers that lie in nature in the form of trees, all of which possess etheric doubles and can pass out of their so-called physical bodies, as man does in sleep, and these etheric doubles can press upon the sensitivity of a seer.2
In humanity we find one class of people waging war upon another. So in nature, as seen with our human eyes, there is a constant struggle going on between the higher forces and the lower forms of ignorance. These conditions are mostly found where men have been intolerant and cruel to each other. It is by sounding the keynote of nature that man can protect himself from the onslaughts of the tree people of darkness. If humanity could only realize what has passed in time before the dying of a redwood tree! Before it falls and dies it has planted a ring of successors around it, and in its falling it brings an area of light into the center of the circle. The gypsy vagabonds of Egypt, and some even at the present day, understood how to dominate the tree people and use them as a curse upon their oppressors, and we are told that the Druids, in their healing, knew how to manipulate the varying properties and intelligence of trees, in order to serve their purpose of healing.
I have personally been shown the destruction of a Douglas fir by the devas who watch over the forest, and have seen its tall spire reaching heavenward. Then I saw it being cut down and stripped of its bark to be made into the mast of a ship, and witnessed its suffering and torture. I was afterwards shown how in the future it would snap in its upper third and bring disaster to the yacht, for it was to serve the pleasures of the idle rich. If it had been used for honest commerce, or to give benefit and pleasure to people, this disaster would have been averted, but instead of that the mast broke when the owner and his party were in a state of intoxication. The deva told me that they had caused vibrations to go zigzag up from the foot of the mast and to attack its weakest point. He added that if the possessor of that yacht had sent love into that mast, in the way that some sea captains love every stick in their vessels, it would have responded with love and strength. An engine driver, loving his engine, knows it intimately as a human being knows a friend. An engine driver once told me that in moments of distress he felt a response from his locomotive, and a sensitive barber said that one morning his razor had informed him that it was going to cut well that day.3 Here we get the atomic response to the human mind. The devas, in the case of the above-mentioned tree, increased the vibration of the mast, causing it to crystallize from too much vibration, and thus strength was denied it.
I speak of the tree people in order to show that there is a directing consciousness which keeps them true to their species, for the overlords of nature resist all malformations which endanger the soil that brought them forth, as they say, into energy. In the evil conditions of nature abnormal elements are to be found, which terrorize the human atmosphere and energize it with discord, just as when a sensitive, psychometrizing an object, attaches himself to the vibration of, say an instrument of torture. So nature also has her cesspools of horror and darkness. I know of a tree on a ducal estate, which has cast its spell over the family for generations. In the early days of Christianity many inmates of monasteries were strongly linked with nature and her lore and they often, by magical art, put curses on families who had oppressed them or destroyed their habitations.
Trees, and indeed all nature, can be either beneficent or antagonistic. There is a tradition that in Hyde Park, London, there is a tree beneath which tramps and other unfortunates never sleep, for if they do, they never wake up. There are many places in our public parks where elemental nature is antagonistic to man. Children are sensitive to this and they keep away from such places; dogs also often turn around and go the other way. I could relate many personal experiences of contacting places of horror in nature. There are certain places where people’s physical and mental bodies undergo a quick change. They become dense, as it were, and no longer reflect the finer essences of the spirit. We often find such places close to our most holy localities. “Out of the body,” I was once taken by my teacher to a very holy spot in Tibet, where the “Holy of Holies” was separated from the most evil of evil only by the thickness of a single brick. In this connection, we must repeat again the old saying of ancient science, “Where the light is brightest, the shadows are darkest.”
A Yogi perceives at once when his feet tread holy ground. The early Christian Fathers usually built their churches and places of refuge on the holiest spots where pagans had worshipped, for a group of people aspiring for Truth start a vibration which continues long after their places of worship have been demolished. There are places of holy vibrations on the earth today, where the mind is drawn nearer to God and his peace, and you also find these vibrations in holy images, be they of Christian or pagan origin.
In days of old people fasted and bathed, and provided themselves with clean garments to come unto the presence of their idols. How many people today would think of going through such a ceremony before entering a holy place! Nature is most sensitive to the attitude of thought by which she is approached. Purity of aspiration is recognized by all the denizens of nature.
In nature there is a trinity of three vibrations, which can be traced in all her movements:
