Becoming the Path I
Teachings of the Sea Gods
The Adept and the Path
By
Valerie Bonwick
And
Jonathon Bigras
Becoming the Path
Void or lack in the life of the would-be Initiate,
Eventually becomes filled
With what you have earned.
We will take for granted that you have arrived at a stage of complete honesty with yourself. You now recognize the futility of any Quester searching for the Way while burdened by a company of fake selves for fellow travelers. You may have experienced moments of enlightenment in which did make contact with your real self and you are concerned with establishing a continuity of Higher Self consciousness.
When you strip away layers of artificial conditioning, some of you may awaken from your sleepwalking existence and decide to analyze any character weaknesses you would like to correct, determine at the same time which of your positive qualities you wish to strengthen.
To accomplish this, you may find it necessary to avoid certain acquaintances, become more selective regarding your day-to-day environment and perhaps rectify unsatisfactory, ongoing situations in your life style if or when, they interfere in your efforts to project the reflection of your inner being into the outer expression of real-life. It is true that an Adept or a Master has passed beyond the point where there are influenced by such details, but this chapter is primarily concerned with the preparations which will lead you to adeptship.
Asserting Yourself
You may create some animosity among your acquaintances by asserting your spiritual individuality, but if that individuality which you choose to express is sincere and honest, those who criticize your motives at this point or chastising you for shifting your focus of interests, will fade out of your life in the natural course of events. They will, in time, be replaced by more sensitive companions with whom you will share a more genuine rapport.
It sometimes happens, that at the same time you dislodge retrogressive influences and unwanted habits from your life-pattern, that your example, grounded in reality, serves to influence others into beginning their own search. Do not forget however, their pursuit of reality must also of necessity remain their own, personal and private. Each of you must chart your own course.
You may become increasingly sensitive and more aware of various influences and subtle pressure, not only from your peers, but from the familiar influence of commercial advertising which you previously took for granted, you may also register efforts to influence your thinking all along specific channels not recognized before. This awareness will force you to re-evaluate your opinions, examine your viewpoints and analyze your attitudes—are they really your own? You will experience a deeper need to form independent judgments for yourself, even at the expense of being wrong once in a while, as long as the mistakes are genuinely your own. Withstanding and overcoming exterior and influences is essential if you are to take your first steps in becoming your own master.
Real Self—Higher Self
We will assume that you are now in contact with your real self, and although it is not yet as perfect as you would like it to be, you accept and welcome it as warmly as a long-lost friend and ally. Your real self will-serve as a bridge to your Higher Self, from which level you can receive flashes of illumination that will help you chart your true course through life. Therefore, accept your real self as it is, recognize your imperfections, but from now on, resolve to attain perfection and the realization of your Higher Self as your ultimate goal.
You are now on a voyage of discovery and perceive the world from a different viewpoint than ever before. You recognize that for the moment, although you may have to retain some of the mechanics of your false selves, you have become realistic regarding the presentation of your previous charades and have already dropped the techniques which you once used to present a false front to others and perhaps to delude yourself.
Duty-Responsibility
If you, like many Questers, have been over-accommodating to others in your previous behavior pattern, continue to do your duty, but try to recognize each situation or action for what it is, relating it to its true value in the field of service and respond to its demands in full waking consciousness. You are now going to take responsibility firmly and knowingly for each of your actions. In spite of all efforts by previous acquaintances to return you to your pliable state of spiritual naiveté, which may have suited their own purpose well enough, do not be dissuaded from following your own path to attain your personal goal.
Continue to progress by service to others, but do not substitute slavery for service, because if you do, you unwittingly delay the spiritual progress of the enslaver. Remember, slavery sometimes persists under various disguises and the most charming of descriptions.
Some of you may find in the process of reforming your lifestyle or reorganizing your life-pattern, that when you discard your less scrupulous selves to tread the Path, your effort sometimes seems to backfire, but this is in appearance only. When you switch to an honest and sincere restructuring of your spiritual life, there may be a few colleagues and acquaintances from your previous life style who doubt your integrity if they are still trapped in the web of illusion, this may be the settlement of old karmic debt, but it is their loss, not yours. It is a comfort in such times to remember the truism that “void or lack in the life of the would-be Initiate, eventually becomes filled with which you have earned“
Question of Truth
Many areas of service that impinge upon the Quester’s consciousness during the treading of the Path, provide tests of their own which are fought out on the battleground of truth, yet that test may not be the struggle itself, but the choice as to which of two opposing forces is expressing the reality of truth.
How does one define “truth?“ That is a question the wise men have debated since time began and a subject that has been part of every cosmic students testing ground since long before this world was born.
We wish to emphasize that the way you approach the question of truth in your own life, in practical terms, your attitude to it as an ideal, as a habit under stress, are all marks of character that are important in an aspirant, but which becomes increasingly significant in your present, ongoing and future spiritual progress. It is by adhering to the Spiritual Laws that you are eventually enabled to register the Grace of the Deity.
We are told that to be ignorant is not a sin,
But it is a sin to falsify or manipulate the Truth
When we know that Truth for what it really is.
The above applies to all laws, not only to the Physical Laws with which everyone is familiar. There are also Natural Laws which, when they are broken, cause reverberations on many other levels. Consider for instance, the Law of Cause and Effect, which our people call the Trilogy of Karmic Doctrine. These laws will surely remain in place as long as planet Earth continues her path through the heavens.
By breaking the Laws of the Occult for instance, you diminish the protection of your conscience, the guidelines within which to evolve, you yourself established before reincarnating. Therefore, you can imagine the radius of influence involved when the Universal or the Cosmic Laws are broken.
Sometimes laws are broken unknowingly and if you are wise, you will monitor those that you recognize as falling within your personal responsibility, such as the manipulation Truth when it concerns your own wishes, involves your ambitions or impinges upon your desires, because either to bend truth to your own purpose or to acquiesce to Untruth when it suits you, are insidious weaknesses which are very difficult to uproot once they have made inroads into your expression of consciousness.
Definition?
Therefore, what is Truth? If you would understand more about Truth as a quality, study it as expressed from sometimes opposing viewpoints, between men and women or parents and children. Contemplate Truth as expressed in the world of commerce, observe Truth as reported by the media of the day and above all, study Truth as both fantasy and reality, as experienced or expressed by opposing factions in a battle during a war.
When you consider the ambiguities and innuendoes that masquerade as Truth, you will no doubt come to the conclusion that Truth, as expressed on the physical plane is relative and appears to vary according to different levels of progress, but does that necessarily imply that there are many degrees of Truth?
When debate arises in regards to a decision, the question of right and wrong is naturally one of the first problems to come to mind. Complexity is added to the problem as we recognize that, yes, Truth when expressed on one level of understanding may be perceived quite differently upon another level and again, even the pairs of opposites may vary in emphasis from one plane of evolution to the next.
Therefore, we must simplify and expedite the process of illumination by peeling away the layers of deception, self-deception and involved perplexity which serve to distinguish reality is a multi-faceted puzzle.
It is easy enough to understand that Truth is positive and Untruth is negative, but how does one define a Half Truth? In your personal research, you will discover the Truth as expressed on the physical plane is subject to personal belief and virtually enslaved by proponents of various philosophies. Yet, if you apply integrity as a tool in your conscious as a sounding board, you will indeed come closer to Truth and to the Source Itself, for it remains a truism that in seeking truth, you will find God.
The Great Truth
In spite of average Man’s recent tolerance towards fresh metaphysical concepts, several of which have succeeded in acceptance through publication of well chosen works, including some science-fiction that the Masters released for study, the great truth itself would be far too overwhelming a concept to be absorbed by the intellect, registered by the subconscious or empathized with by the spirit without shattering the encompassing vehicle, Man’s physical form, prematurely. The capacity for registering, realizing and retaining the Truth of the Cosmos is a delicately instrumented function which is automatically adjusted to individual vibration and is not to be hurried. To be trusted with the totality of Truth, you must prove yourself to be not only worthy, but of great fortitude.
Remember:
Those who do not perceive truth
Are loudest in their condemnation of the Just.
Tradition of Experience
Down through the millennia, it has been proven to us that hidden within the fruits of the philosophy we practice as we tread the Path, lies a kernel of Truth that for every situation, every test or solution to any problem, there is one basic formula that is correct, precise and self-expanding in its freedom from ambiguity. From that same source we are taught that although a decision may be determined by the clarity of man’s thinking, it is the purity of motive which governs the quality of that decision.
Freedom of Decision
Do you ever make a decision in perfect freedom concerning anything? To do so requires that you shrug off mistakes of the past and stand unafraid for the future, wholly integrated in full consciousness of the present, confident that you control your own destiny and cognizant of the fact that there’s a state of Divine Wisdom, within which you will at last find that for which you seek.
For some Questers whose integrity is above question, it has been their philosophy to give everything and everyone the benefit of the doubt when another person’s integrity is in question. This practice serves a good purpose as long as it is not used in default of the necessity to make uncomfortable decisions. It is pandering to compromise with Truth that separates mankind from the happiness that stems from confidence rooted in wisdom.
It is of no avail to rely upon putting yourself in another person’s shoes as a guide to avoid treating them unfairly. You cannot realistically expect your exercise to attain any accuracy unless your viewpoints, personalities and philosophies are identical.
Therefore, absorb yourself in Truth, radiate your will-to-good and let your common-sense go hand in hand with compassion. There is only truth! There is no half-truth or quarter-truth or almost-truth, so how, if you tread the Path, can you make an indecisive decision, such as a decision depending upon something else, an unwise decision or a wrong decision?
Certainly it is only possible to understand the question of Truth at the level on which you stand, but that is exactly the level upon which are expected to work—according to your present understanding and within the limitations of your immediate ability.
As you progress, the enlightenment that is Truth, radiates and shines with increasing intensity. Your tasks may become increasingly arduous, but the answers you seek will be discovered with greater ease. Problems will dissolve within the clarity of their solution and guide you to attainment as a liberated Master of Wisdom. You will be able to use the tools of the Masters craft delicately and precisely and solve all difficulties that life on Earth may present to you within your field of expression. Dynamic harmony will reign within your sphere of influence where negative passivity once held truth in thrall.
Truth as Expressed by the Deva Evolution
It is interesting to review of what the Master T. K. , who treads the Path of the Bodhisattva, has to say concerning Truth and its expression by the parallel evolution of the Devas.
“It is obvious from the following hints that Man’s understanding of the Devas role in the life of the planet is oversimplified at best and when their presence is acknowledged by mankind, it is also underestimated.
Please remember that the concept of “Truth“ on the physical plane, which is rarely objective, varies in depth and increases in complexity on the higher planes, where it is at the same time reduced to simplicity.
The reason is that on the higher planes, all facts regarding cause and effect are made available to those who influence that change called metamorphosis. Metamorphosis that is accomplished by the manipulation of situations or events into the least harmful combinations, without influencing free will or interfering with karmic debt, as we will explore in the chapters on Triunal magic.
As you progress, the rather nebulous qualities as expressed by humankind, of discrimination and perception, right and wrong, good and evil, are supplanted by a more precise, competent reactions such as correct or incorrect, accurate or inaccurate, until a level of almost mathematically perfect response to karmic activity is attained, uncomplicated by the higher vibrations of those same qualities which are essential to the perfect expression of the manifestation by the members of the Deva Evolution.“
It would seem from the above statement that the Devas are indeed composed of finer substance than we and if so, mankind can only benefit from interaction with their species and perhaps learn to manipulate the forces of energy with a less heavy hand.
Recognition of Truth
Even the most aware Quester sometimes arrives at an important crossroad in his or her life which requires a decision between questionable alternatives that engender their own state of confusion. It is possible for you to surmount this difficulty by some advance preparation.
Use your right of decision every waking moment, practice it consciously so that your quality of judgment increases in depth and perception. When you are faced with a choice of “either--or“ and neither alternative is satisfactory, call upon the power of decision from a higher plane—call upon the Source of all Wisdom for help, but be sure that you do so in a responsible manner with reverence for the source of the power you invoke.
When you tread the Path and your need is of a genuine concern, your quandary may be studied by an ashramic group who will examine your conundrum according to the law of probabilities, skills of farsight and consideration of karmic patterns, then impress you with the answer as to which choice will be less problematical in its results. Remember all responses to requests for help is bestowed by the Grace of the Deity and at all times, your lifeline to the Source is truth, which is of supreme importance to your spiritual life of invocation and evocation.
Science of Breath
It is the philosophy of the Elders to include not only those areas of training which they consider in their wisdom, to be safe and sound as well as swift and sure in results for our friends. Therefore, they have decided to wait until they devise a foolproof method of the employing the printed word to relay our training concerning the science of the breath.
Our breathing practices are as yet, too complex to include in this simplified system of training, but their omission does not in any way detract from the training of an Adept.
We refer to energy patterns which we create for specific purposes by varying rhythms of breathing and are practiced in combination with the projection of thought waves. Because the quality and precision of those thought waves decides the balance of your progress in this area of training, it is better to wait until you have acquired reliable control of your thoughts-patterns before discussing the pertinent exercises.
These must remain undisclosed until later, we will present them within a framework of deeper training. Such precautions are justified by our principal concern which is for the disciple’s safety and the sanctity of training which must remain protected from incorrect use and wrongful purpose.
We do not wish to dissuade you from deep breathing that is essential for your good health, but in this respect, we ask you to use your own judgment and to choose those times and places, when and where it is possible to breath in the freshest air. Although at sometime in the near future it is hoped that the technique of recycling air will improve, obviously, it is not the first choice at the moment, neither are the fumes from heavy traffic. To seek to breathe fresh air and drink the cleanest water available are, commonsense choices for all Questers, as is the avoidance of smoking alcohol and drugs.
Pages 199-210
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