CHAPTER VI

THE WILL.

1. THE WILL WINNING ITS FREEDOM.

WE return now to the consideration of that power in man with which we started - the Will. The student will remember that it was stated that it was the Will of the Self, of the individualised Self - indi­vidualised though as yet unconscious of its individualisation - which drew him into manifestation. Not by compulsion, not by external necessity, not by anything opposed to him from outside, but by the great Will of which his own Will is part - ­his Will individualised as a centre but not yet cut off by circumference of matter - ­pulsing in him as the life-blood of the mother pulses in the yet unborn child, he reaches forth towards manifestation, dimly longing for the rich thrill of life enveiled in [409] matter, for the exercise of powers yearning for activity, for the experience of worlds tumultuously full of movement. That which consciously the LOGOS wills - the LOGOS willing to become incarnate in a universe - all the centres of individualised life within Him also will, though as it were blindly and groping towards a fuller life. It is the Will to live, to know, and that forth-going Will sets to manifestation.

We have seen that this Will, the Power of the Self, becomes what we call Desire on the denser planes of matter, and that, blinded by matter and unable to see its way, its direction is determined by the attractions and repulsions playing upon it from external objects. Hence we cannot say of the Self at this period that he is Self-directed; he is directed by attractions and repulsions that touch him at his periphery. We have further seen that as Desire came into touch with Intelligence, and these two aspects of the Self played upon each other, emotions evolved, showing traces of their parentage, of their Desire-­mother and of their Intelligence-father. And we, have studied the methods by [410] which emotion may be controlled, put to its true uses, and thus rendered serviceable instead of dangerous in human evolution.

We have now to consider how this Will, the hidden Power which has ever moved to activity though not yet controlling activity, slowly wins to freedom, that is to Self-determination. In a moment we shall consider what is meant by this word “freedom”.

Essentially and fundamentally free, in its origin as the Power of the Self, Will has become bound and limited in its attempts to master the matter into which the Self has entered. We need not shrink from saying that matter masters the Self, not the Self matter, and this it does by virtue of the Self regarding matter as himself, identifying himself with it; as he wills through it, thinks through it, acts through it, it becomes to him verily himself, and deluded he cries: “I am this!” and while it limits him and binds him, he, feeling it to be himself, cries: “I am free.” Yet is this mastering of the Self by matter but a temporary thing, for the matter is ever changing, coming and going, impermanent, [411] and is ever being shaped and unconsciously drawn round and rejected by the unfolding forces of the Self, permanent amid the impermanent.

Let us come to the stage in human evolution in which memory has grown stronger than the instinctive outgoing to the pleasant and withdrawing from the painful; in which Intelligence rules Desire, and reason has triumphed over impulse. The result of the age-long evolution is to be reaped, and part of that result is freedom.

While the Will is expressing itself as Desire, determined in its direction by out­side attractions, it is obviously not free, but very distinctly bound. Just as any living creature might be dragged by a force greater than its own force in a direction unchosen by it, so is the Will dragged away by the attraction of objects, pulled along the path which promises pleasure, which is agreeable to pursue; it is not active as a Self-determined force, but on the contrary the Self is being dragged away by an external and compelling attraction. [412]

No more vivid picture of the Self, under these conditions, can be given than that before quoted from an ancient Hindu Scripture, in which the Self is limned as the rider in a chariot, and the senses, attracted by pleasure-giving objects, are the ungovernable horses that carry away the chariot of the body and the helpless rider within it. Although the Will be the very Power of the Self, so long as the Self is being carried away by these unruly horses, he is emphatically bound and not free. It is idle to speak of a free Will in a man who is the slave of the objects around him. He is ever in bondage, he can exercise no choice; for though we may think of such a one as choosing to follow the path along which attractions draw him, there is, in truth, no choice nor thought of choice. So long as attractions and repulsions determine the path, all talk of freedom is empty and foolish. Even though a man feels himself as choosing the desirable object, the feeling of freedom is illusory, for he is dragged by the attractive­ness of the object and the longing for pleasure in himself. He is as much, or as [413] little, free as the iron is free to move to the magnet. The movement is determined by the strength of the magnet and the nature of the iron answering to its attraction.

To understand what we mean by freedom of the Will, we must clear away a preliminary difficulty which faces us in the word “choice”. When we appear to be free to choose, does that so-called freedom of choice mean freedom of Will? Or is it not true to say that freedom of choice only means that no external force compels us to elect one or another of alternatives? But the important question that lies behind this is: “What makes us choose?” Whether we are free to act when we have chosen is a very different thing from whether we are “free” to choose, or whether the choice is determined by something that lies behind.

How often we hear it said as a proof of the freedom of the Will: “I am free to choose whether I will leave the room or not; I am free to choose whether I will drop this weight or not”. But such argument is beside the question. No one denies the power of a person, physically unconstrained, to leave a room or to stay [414] in it, to drop a weight or to uphold it. The interesting question is: “Why do I choose?” When we analyse the choice, we see that it is determined by motive, and the determinist argues: “Your muscles can uphold or drop the weight, but if there is a valuable and fragile article underneath, you will not choose to drop it. That which determines your choice not to drop it is the presence of that fragile object. Your choice is determined by motives, and the strongest motive directs it”. The question is not: “Am I free to act”" but: “Am I free to will?” And we see clearly that the Will is determined by the strongest motive, and that, so far as that goes, the determinist is right.

In truth, this fact that the Will is deter­mined by the strongest motive is the basis of all organised Society, of all law, of all penalty, of all responsibility, of all education. The man whose will is not thus determined is irresponsible, insane. He is a creature who cannot be appealed to, cannot be reasoned with, cannot be relied on, a person without reason, logic, or memory, without the attributes we [415] regard as human. I n law, a man is regarded as irresponsible when no motive sways him, when no ordinary reasons affect him; he is insane, and is not amenable to legal penalties. A Will which is an energy pointing in any direction, pushing to action without motive, without reason, without sense, might perhaps be called “free”, but this is not what is meant by “freedom of the Will”. That Will is determined by the strongest motive must be taken for granted in any sane discussion of the freedom of the Will.

What then is meant by the freedom of the Will? It can be but a conditioned, a relative, freedom at most, for the sepa­rated Self is a part of a whole, and the whole must be greater than, must compel, all its parts. And this is true alike of the Self and of the bodies in which he is ensheathed. None questions that the bodies are in a realm of law, and move within law, can move but by law, and the freedom with which they move is but in relation to each other, and by virtue of the interplay of the countless forces which balance each other variously and endlessly, [416] and in this variety and endlessness offer innumerable possibilities and thus a freedom of movement within a rigidity of bondage. And the Self also is in a realm of law, nay is himself the very law, as being part of that nature which is the Being of all beings. No separated Self may escape from the Self which is all, and, however freely he may move with regard to other separated Selves, he may not, cannot, move outside the life which informs him, which is his nature and his law, in which he lives and moves. The parts constrain not the parts, the separated Selves constrain not the separated Selves; but the whole constrains and controls the parts, the Self constrains and controls the Selves. Yet even here, since the Selves are the Self, freedom starts up from amid apparent bondage, and “none else compels”.

This freedom of a part as regards other parts while in bondage to the whole may be seen clearly in physical nature. We are parts of a world whirling through space and revolving also on its own axis, turning eastwards ever … Of this we know naught, [417] since its motion carries us with it, and all moves together and at once, and in one direction. Eastwards we turn with our world, and naught we can do will change our direction. Yet with regard to each other and to the places about us, we can move freely and change our relative positions. I may go to the west of a person or a place, though we are both whirling eastwards ceaselessly. And of the motion of a part with regard to a part I shall be conscious, small and slow as it is, while of the vast swift whirling that carries all parts eastwards and on­wards ever, I shall be utterly unconscious, and shall say in my ignorance: “Behold, I have moved westwards”. And the high Gods might laugh contemptuously at the ignorance of the fragment that speaks of the direction of its motion, were it not that They, being wise, know of the movements within the motion, and of the truth which is false and yet true.

And yet again may we see how the great Will works onwards undeviatingly along the path of evolution, and compels all to travel along that path, and still leaves [418] to each to choose his method of going, and the fashion of his unconscious working. For the carrying out of that Will needs every fashion of working and every method of going, and takes up and utilises all. A man shapes himself to a noble character, and nourishes lofty aspirations, and seeks ever to do loyal and faithful service to his fellows; then shall he be brought to birth where great opportunities cry aloud for workers, and the Will shall be wrought out by him in a nation that needs such helping, and he shall fill a hero’s part. The part is written by the great Author: the ability to fill it is of the man’s own making. Or a man yields to every temptation and becomes apt to evil, and he uses ill such power as he has, and disregards mercy, justice and truth in petty ways and in daily life; then shall he be brought to birth where oppression is needed, and cruelty, and ill ways, and the Will shall be wrought out by him also in a nation that is working out the results of an evil past, and he shall be of the weaklings that tyrannise cruelly and meanly and shame the nation that bears them. Again is the part written [419] by the great Author, and the ability to fill it is of the man’s own making. So work the little Wills within the great Will.

Seeing, then, that the Will is determined by motive, conditioned by the limits of the matter that enveils the separated Self, and by the Self whereof the Self exercising the Will is part - what mean we by the freedom of the Will? We mean, surely, that freedom is to be determined from within, bondage is to be determined from without; the Will is free, when the Self, willing to act, draws his motive for that volition from sources that lie within him­self, and has not the motive acting upon him from sources outside.

And truly this is freedom, for the greater Self in which he moves is one with him: “I am That”; and the vaster Self in which moves that greater Self is one with that vaster, and says also: “I am That”; and so on and on, in huger and huger sweeps, if world-systems and universe-systems be thought of; yet may the lowliest “I” that knows himself turn inwards and not outwards, and know himself as one with the Inner Self, the [420] Pratyagatma, the One, and therefore truly free. Looking outwards he is ever bound, though the limits of his bondage recede endlessly, unlimitedly; looking inwards he is ever free, for he is BRAHMAN, the ETERNAL.

When a man is Self-determined, then, we may say that the man is free, in every sense in which the word freedom is valuable, and his Self-determination is not bondage, in any harassing sense of that word. That which in my innermost Self I will to do, that to which none other forces me, that bears the mark which distinguishes between the free and the bound. How far in us, in this sense of the word freedom, can we say that our Will is free? For the most part, but few of us can claim this freedom in any more than a small portion. Apart from the previously-mentioned bondage to attrac­tions and repulsions, we are bound within the channels made by our past thinkings, by our habits - most of all by our habits of thought -by the qualities and the absence of qualities brought over from past lives, by the strengths and the [421] weak­nesses that were born with us, by our education and our surroundings, by the imperious compulsions of our stage in evolution, our physical heredity, and our national and racial traditions. Hence only a narrow path is left to us in which our Will can run; it strikes itself ever against the past, which appears as walls in the present.

To all intents and purposes the Will of us is not free. It is only in process of becoming free, and it will only be free when the Self has utterly mastered his vehicles and uses them for his own pur­poses, when every vehicle is only a vehicle, completely responsive to his every impulse, and not a struggling animal, ill-broken, with desires of its own.[86] When the Self has transcended ignorance, van­quishing the habits that are the marks of past ignorance, then is the Self free, and then will be realised the meaning of the [422] paradox, “in whose service is perfect freedom”. For then will it be realised that separation is not, that the separated Will is not, that, by virtue of our inherent Divinity, our Will is part of the Divine Will, and that it is which has given us throughout our long evolution the strength to carry on that evolution, and that the realisation of the unity of Will is the realisation of freedom.

Along these lines of thought it is that some have found the ending of the age­-long controversy between the “freedom” of the Will and determinism, and, while recognising the truth battled for by determinism, have also preserved and justified the inherent feeling: “I am free, I am not bound”. That idea of spon­taneous energy, of forth-going power from the inner recesses of our being, is based on the very essence of consciousness, on the “I” which is the Self, that Self which, because divine, is free.

2. WHY SO MUCH STRUGGLE?

As we survey the long course of evolution, the slow process of the development [423] of the Will, the question inevitably rises in the mind: “Why should there be all this struggle and difficulty? Why should there be so many mistakes and so many falls? Why this long bondage before freedom can be attained?” Before replying to this, a general position must be laid down. In answering any question, the limits of that question must be borne in mind, and the answer must not be judged to be inadequate, because it does not answer another question that is all the time present in the background. An answer to a question may be adequate, without being a final answer to all questions; and its adequacy is not rightly gauged if it be thrown aside as not answering a further question which may be propounded. Half the dissatisfaction of many students arises from a restless impatience that will not deal in any kind of order with the questions that come thronging to the mind, but demands that they should all be answered at once, and that the answer to one question should cover all the others. The adequacy of means must be judged in relation to the end which those means are [424] designed to bring about. In all cases the answer must be judged by its relevancy to the question asked, and not by its not replying to some other allied question lying at the back of the mind. Thus, the rele­vancy of any means found to exist in a universe must be decided by an end found to be aimed at in that universe, and they must not be judged as though offered as an answer to the further question: “Why should there be any universe at all?” That question may indeed be asked and answered, but the proof of the adequacy of a means in a universe to an end, seen to be aimed at in that universe, will not be that answer. And it is no evidence that the answer to the original question is inadequate, if the questioner replies: “Yes, but why should there be a universe?” In replying to the question: “Why should there be all these mistakes and falls in treading the path of evolution?” we must take the universe as existing, as a fact to start with, and must study it in order to discover the end, or, at least, one of the ends, towards which it is tending. Why it should tend thither-ward is, as said, [425] a further question, and one of profoundest interest; but it is by the discovered end that we must judge the means employed to reach it.

Even a cursory study of the part of the universe in which we find ourselves shows us that one at least of its ends - if not its end - is to produce living beings of high intelligence and strong will, capable of taking an active part in carrying on and guiding the activities of nature and of co-operating in the general scheme of evolution. Further study, carried on by the unfolding of the inner qualities and endorsed by ancient writings, shows us that this world is not alone, but forms one of a series, that it has been aided in the evolution of its humanity by men of elder growth, and is to yield men of its own growing for the aiding of younger worlds in ages yet unborn. Moreover, it shows also a vast hierarchy of superhuman beings, directing and guiding evolution, and as the centre of the universe the threefold LOGOS, Ruler and Lord of His system; and it tells that the fruitage of a system is not only a great hierarchy of mighty [426] Intelligences, with ranks of ever-lessening splendour stretching below them, but also this supreme perfection of a LOGOS, as the crown of all. And it unveils vista after vista of increasing splendour, universes where each system is but as a world, and so on and on, in ever-widening range of illimitable glorious fulness of life unending. And then the question rises: “By what means shall be evolved these mighty Ones, who climb from the dust to the stars, and from those stars that are the dust of vaster systems to the stars that are to them as our mire to our sun?”

Thus studied, imagination fails to find a path by which these self-poised, self-determined Beings can reach that perfect equilibrium and steadfast inerrancy of wisdom that fits them to be the “nature” of a system, save just that path of struggle and of experience along which we strive today. For could there be an extra-kosmic God, with nature other than that of the Self we see unfolding around us in harmonious certainty of linked sequence, with nature irregular and fitful, changing and arbitrary, incalculable, then it might [427] be that out of that chaos might be flung up a being called “perfect”, but truly most imperfect, since most limited, who, having no experience behind him, and therefore without reason and without judgment, might, as a machine, act “rightly” in, i.e., in accordance with, any given scheme of things, and grind out, as does a machine, the sequence of movements arranged for it. But such a being would only fit his scheme, and outside it would be useless, incompetent. Nor would there here be life, which is the changing self-adaptation to changing conditions, without the loss, the disintegration of its centre. By the troublous path along which we are climbing, we are being prepared for all emergencies in the universes in the future with which we may have to do, and that is a result well worth the trials to which we are exposed.

Nor must we forget that we are here because we have willed to unfold our powers through the experiences of life on the lower planes; that our lot is self-­chosen, not imposed; that we are in the world as the result of our own “Will to [428] Live”; that if that Will changed -though truly it is not so changeful - we should cease to live here and return to the Peace, without gathering the harvest for which we came. “None else compels.”

3. THE POWER OF THE WILL.

This power - which has ever been recognised in Occultism as the spiritual energy in man, one in kind with that which sends forth, supports and calls in the worlds - is now being groped after in the outer world, and is being almost unconsciously used by many as a means of bringing about results otherwise un­attainable. The schools of Christian Science, Mental Science, Mind-Cure, etc., are all dependent for their results on the out-flowing power of the Will. Diseases yield to that flow of energy, and not only nervous disorders, as some imagine. Nervous disorders yield the most readily, because the nervous system has been shaped for the expression of spiritual powers on the physical plane. The results are the most rapid where the sympathetic [429] system is first worked upon, for that is the more directly related to the aspect of Will, in the form of Desire, as the cerebro-spinal is more directly related to the aspects of Cognition and of pure Will. The dispersion of tumours, cancers, etc., and the destruction of their causes, the curing of lesions and bone-fractures, imply for the most part considerable knowledge on the part of the healer. I say “for the most part”, because it is possible that the Will may be guided from the higher plane even where physical plane knowledge is lacking, in the case of an operator at an advanced stage of evolution. The method of cure, where knowledge is present, would be as follows: the operator would form a mental picture of the affected organ in a state of perfect health, creating that part in mental stuff by the imagination: he would then build into it astral matter, thus densifying the image, and would then use the force of magnetism to densify it further by etheric matter, building the denser materials of gases, liquids and solids into this mould, utilising the materials available in the body and supplying from outside any deficiencies. [430] In all this the Will is the guiding energy, and such manipulation of matter is merely a question of knowledge, whether on this or on the higher planes. There is not the danger in cures wrought by this method, that accompanies those wrought by an easier, and therefore commoner, system, by the working on the sympathetic system alluded to above.

People are advised, in some of the methods now popularised, to concentrate their thoughts on the solar plexus, and to “live under its control”. The sympathetic system governs the vital processes - the functioning of the heart, lungs, digestive apparatus - and the solar plexus forms its most important centre. Now the carrying on of these vital processes has, as before explained[87], passed under the control of the sympathetic system in the course of evolution, as the cerebro-spinal system has become more and more dominant. And the reviving of the control of this system by the Will, by a process of concentration of thought, is a retrograde and not a forward step, even though it often brings [431] about a certain degree of clairvoyance. This method, as already said, is much followed in India in the system called Hatha Yoga, and the student learns to control the action of the heart, lungs, and digestive apparatus; he can thus inhibit the beating of the heart, can stop the lungs, can reverse peristaltic action, and so on. And when it is done, the question arises: What have you gained by your success? You have brought again under the control of the Will a system which, in course of evolution, had been rendered automatic, to the great convenience of the owner of these lower functions, and have thus taken a step backward in evolution. To do this means failure in the long run, even though there may be, for the moment, a palpable result to show.

Moreover, the concentration of thought on a centre of the sympathetic system, and, most of all, on the solar plexus, means a serious physical danger, unless the learner be under the physical observation of his teacher, or be able to receive and bring through to the physical brain the instructions that may be given to him on a higher [432] plane. Concentration on the solar plexus is apt to bring on disease of a peculiarly intractable kind. It issues in a profound melancholy, almost impossible to remove, in fits of terrible depression, and sometimes in a form of paralysis. Not along these lines should travel the serious student, intent on the knowledge of the Self. When that knowledge is obtained, the body becomes the instrument on which the Self can play, and all that is needed meanwhile is to purify and refine it, so that it may come into harmony with the higher bodies, and be prepared to vibrate rhythmically with them. The brain will thus be ren­dered more responsive, and by industrious thinking and the action of meditation - not on the brain, but on lofty ideas - it will be gradually improved. The brain becomes a better organ as it is exercised, and this is on the road of evolution. But to work directly on the sympathetic plexuses is on the road of retrogression. Many a one comes, asking for deliverance from the results of these practices, and one can only sadly answer: “To undo the mischief will take dears”. Results may be gained quickly [433] by going backwards, but it is better to face the upward climbing, and then utilise the physical instrument from above, not from below.

There is another matter to be considered in healing diseases by Will - the danger of driving the disease into a higher vehicle, in driving it out of the physical body. Disease is often the final working out of evil that existed previously on the higher planes, and it is then far better to let it thus work out than to forcibly check it, and throw it back into the subtler vehicle. It is the last working out of an evil desire or an evil thought, and in such a case the use of physical means of cure is safer than the use of mental means, for the former cannot cast it back into the higher planes, whereas the latter may do so. Curative mesmerism does not run this danger, belonging as it does to the physical plane; that may be used by any one whose life, thoughts and desires are pure. But the moment Will forces are poured down into the physical, there is a danger of reaction, and of the driving of the disease back into the subtler vehicles from which it came forth. [434]

If mental curing is done by the purifica­tion of thought and desire, and the natural quiet working of the purified thoughts and desires on the physical body, no harm can result; to restore physical harmony by making harmonious the mental and astral vehicles is a true method of mental healing, but it is not as rapid as the Will-cure and is far harder. Purity of mind means health of body; and it is this idea - that where the mind is pure the body should be healthy - that has led many to adopt these mental methods of healing.

A person whose mind is perfectly pure and balanced will not generate fresh bodily disease, though he may have some un­exhausted karma to work off, or he may take on himself some of the disharmonies caused by others. Purity and health truly go together. When, as is and has been the case, some saint is found to be suffer­ing physically, then such a one is either working out the effect of bad thinking in the past, or is bearing in himself some­thing of the world’s disharmony, turning on to himself the forces of disharmony, harmonising them within his own vehicles [435] and sending them forth again as currents of peace and goodwill. Many have been puzzled by seeing that the greatest and the purest suffer, both mentally and physically. They suffer for others, not for themselves, and they are truly White Magicians, transmuting by spiritual alchemy, in the crucible of their own suffering bodies, the base metals of human passions into the pure gold of love and peace.

Apart from the question of the ways of working on the body by the Will, another question arises in the thoughtful mind: Is it well to use the Will in this fashion for our own helping? Is there not certain degradation in using the highest power of the Divine within us in the service of our body, to bring about merely a good con­dition of physical health? Is it well that the Divine should thus turn stones into bread, and so fall under the very temptation resisted by the Christ? The story may be taken historically or mythically, it matters not; it contains a profound spiritual truth, and an instance of obedience to an occult law. Still remains true the answer of the [436] tempted: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. This ethic seems to be on a higher plane than that which yokes the Divine to the service of the physical body. One of the dangers of the present is the worship of the body, the putting of the body on too high a pinnacle­ - a reaction from exaggerated asceticism. By using the Will to serve the body, we make the Will its slave, and the practice of continually removing little aches and pains by willing them to go saps the higher quality of endurance. A person thus acting is apt to be irritable under small physical discomforts which the Will cannot remove, and the higher power of the Will, which can control the body and support it in its work, even though it be suffering, is undermined. Hesitancy to use the power of the Will for relief of one’s body need not arise from any doubt as to the sound­ness of the thought, the reality of the law, on which such action is based; but from a fear that men may fall under the tempta­tion of using that which should lift them to realms spiritual as the minister of the [437] physical, and may thus become slaves of the body, and be helpless when the body fails them in the hour of need.

It is an occult law, binding on every Initiate, that he may not use an occult power for his own helping; if he do, he loses the power to help others, and it is not worth while to forfeit the great for the small. That already referred-to story of the temptation of the Christ has a further-­reaching significance than most under­stand. Had He used His occult power to turn stones into bread for the relief of His hunger, instead of waiting in patient strength for the food brought by the Shining Ones, He would not later have been able to endure the mystic sacrifice of the Cross. The taunt then flung at Him contained an occult truth: “He saved others; Himself He cannot save”. He could not use, to spare Himself one pang, the powers that had opened the eyes of the blind and made the leper clean. Those who would save themselves must give up the divine mission of being Saviours of the world. They must choose between the one and the other as they evolve. If in their [438] evolution they choose the lower, and use the great powers they have won for the service of themselves and of the body, then must they give up the higher mission of using them for the redemption of the race. There is such an immense activity of mind at the present time that the need is all the greater for the employment of its powers to the highest ends.

4. WHITE AND BLACK MAGIC.

Magic is the use of the Will to guide the powers of external nature, and is truly, as its name implies, the great science. The human Will, being the power of the Divine in man, can subjugate and control the inferior energies, and thus bring about the results desired. The difference between White and Black Magic lies in the motive which determines the Will; when that Will is set to benefit others, to help and bless all who come within its scope, then is the man a White Magician, and the results which he brings about by the exercise of his trained Will are beneficial, and aid the course of human evolution. [439] He is ever expanding by such exercise, becoming less and less separate from his kind, and is a centre of far-reaching help. But when the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution. He is ever contracting by such exercise, becoming more and more separate from his kind, shutting himself within a shell which isolates him, and which grows ever thicker and denser with the exercise of his trained powers. The Will of the Magician is ever strong, but the Will of the White Magician is strong with the strength of life, flexible at need, rigid at need, ever assimilating to the great Will, the Law of the universe. The Will of the Black Magician has the strength of iron, pointing ever to the personal end, and it strikes against the great Will, and sooner or later must shiver itself into pieces against it. It is the peril of Black Magic against which the student of occultism is guarded by the law which forbids him to use his occult powers for [440] himself; for though no man is a Black Magician who does not deliberately erect his personal Will against the great Law, it is well to recognise the essence of Black Magic, and to check the very beginnings of evil. Just as it was said above that the saint harmonising the forces of disharmony within himself is truly the White Magician, so is he the Black Magician who uses for his own gain all the forces he has acquired by knowledge, turns them to the service of his own separateness, and increases the disharmony of the world by his selfish graspings, while seeking to preserve harmony in his own vehicles.

5. ENTERING INTO PEACE.

When the Self has grown so indifferent to the vehicles in which he dwells that their vibrations can no longer affect him; when he can use them for any purpose; when his vision has become perfectly clear; when the vehicles offer no opposi­tion, since the elemental life has left them, and only the life flowing from himself animates them; then the Peace enfolds [441] him and the object of the long struggle is attained. Such a one, Self-centred, no longer confuses himself with his vehicles. They are instruments to work with, tools to manipulate at his will. He has then realised the peace of the Master, the one who is utterly master of his vehicles, and therefore master of life and death. Capable of receiving into them the tumult of the world and of reducing it to harmony; capable of feeling through them the suffer­ings of others, but not sufferings of his own; he stands apart from, beyond, all storms. Yet is he able ever to bend down into the storm to lift another above it, without losing his own foothold on the rock of the Divine, consciously recognised as himself. Such are truly Masters, and Their peace may now and then be felt, for a time at least, by those who are striving to tread the same path, but who have not yet reached that same rock of the Self­-conscious Divine.

That union of the separate Will with the one Will for the helping of the world is the goal which seems to be more worthy of reaching after than aught the world can [442] offer. Not to be separate from men, but one with them; not to win peace and bliss alone, but to say with the Chinese Blessed One: “Never will I enter into final peace alone, but always and everywhere will I suffer and strive until all enter with me” - ­that is the crown of humanity. In pro­portion as we can realise that the suffering and the striving are the more efficacious as we suffer only in the sufferings of others and feel not suffering for ourselves, we shall rise into the Divine, shall tread the “razor path” that the Great Ones have trodden, and shall find that the Will, which has guided us along that path, and which has realised itself in the treading of that path, is strong enough still to suffer and to strive, until the suffering and the strife for all are over, and all together enter into Peace. [443]

PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.

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[3] “Power, Wisdom, and Love” is another favourite way of expressing this triplicity; but this leaves out Activity, and duplicates Love, unless Love be taken as its equivalent, since Love is essentially active. Wisdom and Love seem to me to be the same aspect of consciousness; that which manifests above as Wisdom, the realisation of Unity, manifests in the world of forms as Love, the attractive force which brings about Unity in a world of separated beings.

[10] Ibid. 19.

[30] In the roaring loom of Time I ply,

[31] This assignment is tentative only. As matter is the feminine side, Sarasvati, belonging to Brahma, seems to indicate the jnanendriyas, and Durga the karmendriyas.

[51] The term “lives” signifies Units of Conscious­ness, but does not denote the kind of consciousness thus separated, nor necessarily imply the presence of a Jivatma. It means a cognisable “drop” from the ocean of consciousness, an atom or collection of atoms ensouled by consciousness, and acting as a unit. An atom is a “life”, the consciousness being that of the Third Logos. A microbe is a “life”, the consciousness­ being that of the Second Logos, appropriated and modified, as before said, by the Planetary Logos, and the Spirit of the Earth.

[52] The tanmatra and tattva of the plane, with its six sub-tanmatras and sub-tattvas.

[58] Nerve processes, or prolongations, or outgrowths, consisting of the matter of the cell enclosed in a medullary sheath.

[63] See Chapter IX., 1, 2, for the difference between consciousness and Self-consciousness; and Chapter VI., 3, for the exposition of the physical conscious­ness, which must not be confused with waking-con­sciousness.

[75] Bindopanishat. I.

[82] The Ego turns his attention inward during sleep, until he is able to use his astral body independently; hence his control over it is weak.

[85] ­S. John. I. ii. 15.

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