Theos-Talk Archives (August 1994 Message tl00008)

This is by Eldon Tucker. (Some thoughts after reading
Psychomastery I by Richard Ihle.)

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         The Natural Process of Spiritual Development

     I agree with the idea that our spiritual progress leads us
gradually along the road leading to becoming Masters. But this is
only part of the picture. The road to enlightenment has been
described as a gradual one, and as a series of sudden realizations.
The gradual and sudden schools are both true, and describe
different aspects of the same process.
     Consider water. If heated, its temperature gradually rises,
taking it eventually to the point of a radical change of state, as
it boils and becomes steam. A caterpillar goes into a cocoon, and
emerges as a butterfly. A chick cracks its egg shell, and emerges
into the world, a creature quite different from the egg left
behind. We grow old, slowly, day by day, the changes barely
perceptible, but one day we die--quite a state change!
     In all these cases, we found a gradual process, once engaged
and followed, leading to a dramatic, sudden change. After a period
of approach, of ripening, of getting ready for a new phase of life,
the change happens. The springtime bud, ripened in the warm
sunshine, has opened and becomes a beautiful flower!
     This leads us to the idea of the Mahatma. After a period of
spiritual ripening, over many lifetimes, the neophyte has reached
the point of flowering, and undergoes Initiation, a considerable
state change. He has become an entirely different creature,
something more than the man that he was before. There is a new,
different being.
     Every event in life happens in accord with Natural Law.
Nothing is by change, by make-believe, by pretense. We can no more
become a Mahatma by pretending to follow the Path, than we can
become rich by pretending at money making, or by imagining winning
the California Lottery. To do something, you have to *do it.* That
is, do those things that really make it happen. Engage the process
and you grow, change, and achieve results. Do whatever you like,
pretend to yourself whatever you like, but you'll get nowhere.
     Knowledge is power, and without it we're at a considerable
handicap. Much gratitude is due to HPB and her Teachers for their
work to make the Teachings available to us, outside the circle of
Chelaship. Otherwise we're on our own in a materialistic western
society, in the midst of the Kali Yuga, the great dark age.
     The basic truth is that for every event in life, there is a
natural process that can be engaged to bring it about. For anything
that can be done, there is a process. Do it and it will happen.
     There are things we read about that cannot be done on earth at
this time, because the physical plane conditions that we are
subject to, here on Globe D, will not support those activities. But
they can be done on the other Globes, or in future Rounds when the
matter of our earth is more highly evolved and responsive to the
effects of our consciousness.
     Try some spiritual practices that can be found in the
theosophical Teachings. If you are doing something real, changes,
real changes will happen in your life. If you are doing something
unreal, something wrong, something not in accord with the laws and
activities of Nature, then the results will not happen.
     And what brings results, real results? It is by changes in our
consciousness, by broadening our outlook, by uplifting our vision,
that we become more than we were. We become self-forgetful, we find
ourselves engaged in grand thoughts of high philosophy and grand
works in the world, rather than in the details of our personal
lives, and in the self-identification with the personalities that
we are burdened with.
     The changes in our consciousness are inner, not obvious from
the outside. Externally, we may get worse as new turbulence in our
outer lives arises, as all sorts of karmic troubles boil up to the
surface. But our minds and hearts are elsewhere, in a grander space
within, and the outer events do not really trouble us. We're busy
doing something very real, wondrous, beautiful, and fascinating in
its own way. And we are on the road, along the gradual path toward
that special day when we become something more, something truly
grand.
     It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the
first step. The landscape does change as we start walking, and we
do find ourselves going places. There are people passing out maps.
No one denies us the right to travel, and we do not need to travel
blindly. We hear that what awaits is incredible beyond words, and
it's there for the taking!