Research question

Dear Gail:

The mystics of the West are almost babes in the woods when compared to the mystics of the East. The records of those from the West are fewer and less impressive! Of course we in the West think in the opposite, however if a thorough comparison is made there hasn’t been a great deal developed in the West that might be called truly its own. It certainly hasn’t any real divine scripture—since The Bible is an Oriental scripture—written by those who lived in the middle-east, therefore it can be considered Oriental. For example, The Beatitudes are certainly set in the Oriental metre for poetry.

In discussing the Western mystics it means I’ll be referring to those who followed the first century B.C., mostly: Jacob Boehme, St. Theresa, St. John of the Cross, St.

Ignatius, St. Francis, Johannes Eckhart, Socrates, William Blake, Plotinus, Pascal, Francis Bacon, Madame Guyon, Whitman, and a half-hundred more, however there isn’t one who can measure up to Ramakrishna, Shankharacharya, Lao Tzu, or most of the other mystical giants.

The reason that there are fewer western mystics in comparison to those of the East is simple. The West for the most part has a superficial civilization and culture—it has been the great adapter of what has come out of the East in culture, law, medicine, education, social customs and religion. It has copied most of the Eastern thought along these lines. The industrial revolution which took place in the West put most of the people into mass production of some nature, hence there is little time left for meditation or the pursuit of the finer points of life! This has left the West in

the materialistic pursuit of the production of things for body comfort! Hence the Marxist philosophy which was founded and developed in the West (a purely materialistic philosophy).

I’m concerned here with telling you of: The development of the individual from self-consciousness into cosmic consciousness. This is exactly what anyone who is interested in the spiritual goal is striving toward—rather this will be his goal, while in the body. If one thinks of the consciousness of the human race, one will see from a simple analysis of the accomplishment made from primitive people 500,000 years ago up to the present time. Therefore man develops out of the self-consciousness state into the conscious state individually. Remember the statement “All those who come unto me will be lifted up!” All that was said can be summed up actually to refer to the fact that all those who come within his range of teaching will be lifted into the cosmic consciousness attitude-wise. It amounts to this: It is that experience one goes through sometime during his lifetime, in which certain lower mental senses, such as the sense of sin, the fear of death, desire of wealth and physical things are dissolved by this experience of a greater viewpoint on life—

this might be said to include space, time and immortality. It is the opening of that particular faculty within man that might be called a half-dozen names: God, Christ, Buddha, Spirit, spiritual eye, etc.

The spiritual eye is the remnant of a very important sense organ in man—it is known to physiology as the pineal gland. Next is the pituitary gland in the top of the brain, called the thousand petalled lotus. The spiritual eye is important for it is the doorway through which the Jivatma steps for its trips into the other worlds! The thousand petalled lotus is important for through it one can receive the

light and sound! You can still move out of the latter in the Jivatma for the other world trips. This is the difference in the systems as known to me, and the orthodox systems, including the mystical systems, and religious teachings. As you know I believe in the ability to leave the body, in the Jivatma form, and receiving the light and sound outside—

thus an outward movement of spirit. The orthodox religious systems teach you to look inwardly. There is a reason for this, a very insidious one—subtle in nature; for to look inward is to trap the self! To tell you that you are burdened with the sin of Adam, is merely a trap! This is not purposely taught by the individual clergyman, but that is the purpose behind it.

The Western Church was given its philosophy or doctrine by St. Thomas Aquinas around the 12th century. St. Thomas was not a mystic nor did he believe in mysticism to my knowledge. He was however an intellectual giant! The doctrine he laid down for the church was as follows: (1) He rejected illumination as a source of knowledge. (2) He based knowledge upon the human senses and experiences. (3) He insisted that the abstract of Godly ideas were to be found outside man. (4) That all conclusions could be worked out by rational thinking. (5) Freedom could be gained by goodness and other virtues. (6) One must depend upon the sacraments to deal with Christ. (7) That the means to the end were justifiable—since man’s fate was sealed from birth—

therefore, he must be confined to hell or to God without use of the freedom of will. (8) The concepts of soul were to be found in the intellect. Thus he made a doctrine consisting of metaphysics, science and religious thought, taken mainly from Aristotle and some of the other early Greek thinkers.

You see the church gets its rituals, sacraments and rites from the Romans, its history from the Jews, and its doctrine from

the Greeks. Where then does it truly have anything of its own?

Compared with the mystics this might be considered wrong! Even the orthodox mystics, though obeying the church outwardly, wouldn’t conform. They believe in the intuitive faculty giving knowledge; that illumination brings knowledge; and that all Godly ideas lie within man because he is a microcosm of the universe. Rational thinking has no place in his system. That freedom is a result of his illumination, not virtues. He has the right to work out his own salvation through his own freedom of will. Concepts of soul are within the greater self. He has a freedom of choice to accept his own conception of the Absolute.

The problem of the Western mystics has been a lack of freedom to practice their own means of reaching a spiritual goal because the Church has always worked against them, and even punishing them if it deemed necessary; at least telling them what the limitations were. This wasn’t true in the East for a mystic has always been able to practice his own religious concepts. The mystics had one thing in common—they wrote in a language which was understood by all the mystical brotherhood. Christ is the word used by Paul for Cosmic Consciousness. So in a manner of speaking Christ wished us to have freedom. The freedom of the cosmic sense is supreme and it absolves man from his former self and makes future slavery impossible. He uses Adam as the self-consciousness. Using the word Cosmic Consciousness, meaning the state in which the individual enters into the supreme spirit, one might substitute the key words to see what the writer is saying. For a more complete study of this you can obtain, the book Cosmic Consciousness, by R.M. Bucke, M.D. It isn’t a complete book but it will give you an idea of what I’m saying here.

Later I’d like to mention wherein the mystics have missed the boat so to speak. They have and that is one thing one needs to be able to judge, and look beyond when considering mysticism, religion and education.

More later.

Sincerely, Paul

44. World of Self Consciousness The Five Perversions of the Mind

(1) Kama—Lust April 23, 1963 Dear Gail:

The world of self-consciousness is a world of restriction, of walls and barriers, while the world of Cosmic Consciousness is one of wide-open spaces and freedom. One must make a choice of what world he wishes to live within.

If you will notice, you’ll see that many people live in, the world of self-consciousness! You can tell them by their speech, the expressions on their faces, the way they walk, act, and even by their eyes.

The world of self-consciousness is bound by the Five Perversions of The Mind. This is a part of the psychology taught by all masters and holy teachers. Consequently, no outline of the psychology of the masters would be complete without mention of the five modes of destructive mental action, called the passions. These are, in reality, mental diseases superinduced by the misuse of normal faculties.

They may be said to be: Lust, Anger, Greed, Undue attachment to material things, and Vanity or Egotism. In VARDANKAR they are: Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, and Ahankar. I’ll take them up individually:

1. Lust. Lust is a normal function allowed to run into an abnormal demand where it becomes destructive and degrading. The broader meaning includes all abnormal desires, if the Indian word Kama is used. This might include drugs, alcoholic drinks, tobacco, or even tasty foods which are eaten simply for the sake of enjoying their taste. Any sort of appetite which seeks indulgence for the sake of enjoying a pleasant sensation. In some respects this is the strongest of

the five and where this is the case, then the most deadly. This is true of a vast majority of mankind, and holds them as in iron chains. Most of our advertising is geared to this passion in man, that is to sharpen his desires and increase his appetite. Look at any ad, note its contents, it blinds him in a seductive abandon, in an intrigue, one might say, and this lures him with a false promise. So, when you have wasted your vitality in its indulgence it tosses you on the rubbish heap; it coarsens its victims to the level of animals, clouds his perceptions and dulls his wits.

The chief function of Kama is to pull the person down to the common animal level and keep him there; thus, it obligates the person to fix his attention upon that which is common to both man and brute. It is a well-known principle of psychology, and can be verified by the experience of everyone, that whatever the mind dwells upon, that thing becomes a part of the individual. The more vividly the thought dwells on anything, the more that one becomes the thing he thinks about. We grow like that which we contemplate. In other words, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” This is the law of the mind, and can be used for good or ill. The masters use this law for the spiritual development of the disciple.

When one falls into the trap of self-indulgence, the worst of all perversions, he is flaunting an invitation to these five, especially Kama, to enter in and take up its abode. The result of Kama, in the extreme, is blank stupidity, like an ordinary animal. When sex controls the individual, instead of him controlling it, the degeneration of that individual is already an accomplished fact. A few of the major phases of this passion Kama are:

(1) The drug habit; (2) The tobacco habit; (3) Gluttony;

(4) Craving for alcoholic drinks; (5) The abnormal talk habit, especially telling dirty stories; (6) Sex books, obscene