Golden Rosycross Discussion on the Higher Mind
Change and Letting Go
When I sit in Silence, I tune into a communion with something deep that offers guidance. What follows is that guidance in dialogue form:
All things of true value have been given you. You must now choose wisely what you take up and what to put down. Not all passions are beneficial. Not all time is spent well. In this way you must now choose. Do you continue to dwell on darkness, only to later cast it out, or do you finally leave it behind?
My Response: You are speaking of TV and media I ingest?
That and more. Do not think your actions go unnoticed. Everything you think and do and say is felt, as it adds, or destroys your personal reality. We understand the want, but you need to know the impact. You have remained stagnant for years. Now is your opportunity. Change your life… it has started with your diet, let it now include your mind
Changing my Life – Healing the Soul
Below is a recent video from the Golden Rosycross (more information can be found about their organization from this [LINK]) I do not represent the organization, but I did format some ideas pertaining to this lecture below. It is well worth listening to several times to pick out all the subtleties and references.
Part I
This relates to something I wrote recently about (“The Parts of the Path”), where I talked about our constant perception and choice to either focus downward, or upwards. Downward is the cares of the earth, and upwards is the freedom of the spirit.
Be the Change
The lecture opens with a quote from Gandhi, “if you want to change the world, start with yourself.” Which is similar to the concept in the Tao Te Ching – which speaks to the need of changing the self, in order to change the outer world. In Buddhism this concept is referred to as Emptiness. Everything (according to Buddhism) lacks self-existence… which means that we project what’s within us to a blank canvas (the world). So the world we experience is a project of what’s within ourselves.
How Do we Change?
The speaker in the video quotes HP Blavatsky, saying that in silence to the world we begin to hear the inward prompt or voice within. This is indeed the process of my own path and experience. My testimony is that this is how I shifted from following the dogma of groups, to unfolding the truth within. The actual practice is perhaps unique to the individual – and perhaps can not be easily shown. Tools can be learned to help in this endeavor. A person can become mindful, silent to the world, and most importantly learn to diminish the limited self (what the Golden Rosycross calls the “Personality self”) so that the Greater aspect (the Neshama, Higher Self, or the Divine Source) can begin to guide us along the way out of our entanglements with the world.
What is Changing?
The speaker in the video mentions 4 aspects of self:
- Physical
- Etheric
- Astral
- Mental
Five aspects of the natural soul animate the four aspects of self. Basically, if a person focuses too much on their own nature they get out of balance.
The way I think of it, my personal view here, is that a person can only look in one direction at a given time. We can look downward at the carnal (self, earthly things) or upwards to the spirit. Perhaps there are variations of degrees between these states, but at the extreme, if we cast our vision in one direction, it is not focused on the other extreme at all. Upwards is love, downwards is anxiety and fear.
The speaker refers to the inner sun that is radiating guidance for our growth and spiritual pursuit. This radiation is understood when we make silent our distractions.
A New Soul Being
Next the video discusses the replacement or transformation of the soul being currently, into a Greater expression of soul. He illustrates from the Voice of the Silence the idea of the individual going through the phases of ignorance, learning and wisdom.
To progress one must create an environment conducive to this. This might mean restricting one’s diet, inputs, media, music, whatever is distracting or blocking this connection.
We must remain open to the Greater truth.
Consider the Story of Mirdad
In the opening story to the Book of Mirdad, the central character begins a quest to the peak of a mountain. The character believes that the source of spiritual wonder is there… a monk that is from the days of Noah, and the Ark itself.
As he travels the slope along the mountain, the aspirant is met with someone that he offers his food with. The person takes all of the aspirant’s food… throwing it to his flock of goats. The aspirant is shocked. Left without food he moves on. He rests for the night, to awake to a woman taking his clothes. Naked, he moves to a shelter… only to find a couple who push him from his shelter. Each character along the way offers advice and in the end he is in the dark night, naked, without food, lamp, staff and shelter. Stumbling forward he falls into the abyss. His final thought, “dying to live, not living to die.” When we awakes he has made it to the summit, and is welcomed by the monk.
My opinion: The moral is that one must be willing to forgo everything in the quest for spiritual truth. That doesn’t mean you hand money to grifters or gurus, but rather you are willing to sacrifice the earthly fetters that hold our attention downward. To make the steps along the way in faith, until gnosis is realized.
Abandoning Seperateness
The speaker identifies the need to abandon separateness… much like Arjuna and Krishna’s story of the Great battle, we are in the battle of removing the obstructions to unity.
“By changing ourselves, we are changing the world,” the speaker tells us… identifying the unity that is birthed through the healed New Soul.
Part II
By changing ourselves we can change our world.
We need a new soul – a healed soul… this is required to reconnect with the World Soul. The state, as the speaker says, was called Eden. This state wasn’t a personality “I” concept, but a Oneness with the World. In other words, the healed soul is not one of “I”, or separateness, but rather Oneness and Unity.
The world Soul is the same as the concept of Anima Mundi.
As a soul we called to be a bridge between heaven and earth (or spirit and matter).
Structure of matter:
- Energy of atom
- Energy of subatomic particle
- Energy of the Milky Way Galaxy
It all has a similar construct.
Similarly we all share a similar construct with the Divine – the Divine within.
The Spirit Spark is the gateway to Divine fullness, or Oneness… and likewise the World Soul also seeks a return to Divine Oneness – the so-called “Eden.”
The metaphor of “eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil,” was the choice for beings (now humans) to become part of the world of duality/dialectics.
The speaker mentions that this isn’t a one time event from the prehistoric past, but happens every day. We make a choice to either choose Unity, or Duality.
We are seeking a transformation of the soul to a new soul in order to make this objective a reality.
The chaos within us is reflected in the world around us. So too the potential for our healing is within us… represents by the rose of the heart – the spirit spark. This is the potential to connect to the Source of All. Reconnecting to our new Soul – is made manifest by our longing for the transition.
We have three sanctuaries that are the basis for the new soul, enabling reconnection to the spirit spark:
- Head
- Heart
- Pelvic
Questions
How do we start?
Perhaps through silence… what is silence? Quieting the ego/personality, becoming less so that the Greater can become more.
Focus on transformation… giving up eating meat, drinking caffeine… breaking the tether with the personality self that requires attention of self-maintenance?
Further Reflection
“The microcosms in which we live have been damaged and the soul and the spirit-soul are not yet active, or barely active, in the personality-soul. For this reason the spiritual path is called a path of healing or sanctification. That is why Jesus ordered his apostles to not only proclaim the gospel but also to heal the sick. It is very important that the gift of healing does not relate primarily to healing physical ailments or diseases, but to heal the whole microcosm. As a result of this healing, the microcosm will reconnect with the heavenly spheres where it originates”
Mysteries and Symbols of the Soul, Becoming a Spirit-Inspired Person by André de Boer, pages 142-143
Orchestral Composition: An Abyss of Height
Forgetting the Whole Path
Lately I’ve been so focused on my diet, that I’ve neglected other parts of the path. I suppose I figured they would “fall into place,” but the didn’t. Yesterday is a great example of this failure on my part. My diet was foremost in my mind, but I neglected my morning meditation. After that several other mistakes happened that led to a horrible day.
Skipping my morning meditation should not be easily excused. I excused it yesterday as I was “busy.” I was helping my kids get ready for the Saturday morning, and having gotten up late myself I pushed off my morning meditation.
Next up, I went to my mother’s house to help her with a project. On the way over, instead of tuning into silence, I ignored that injunction and instead tuned into my own ego thoughts about my life and day.
By the time I got to my mother’s place, I wasn’t too thrilled. I was more filled with my own ego. So I cast my displeasure of her various mistakes and made it known I wasn’t happy being there. A thought in the back of my mind said, “you’ll miss these days when she’s gone, enjoy them while they last,” but I pushed it out so that I could fulfill my ego’s frustration.
After I left her place, I came back home, again filled with my ego thoughts. This led to various judgements against my wife and kids. I judged my wife for letting some of her college classes slip to the last moment. There must have been a better way to handle this… whatever it was, I didn’t utilize it. Instead I was a jerk, pointing out her mistakes with college.
By the afternoon, my ego had primed me to focus on myself so much that I really didn’t have much interest in anything else.
By evening I mistook my ego for righteousness and when my spouse made a mistake, I judged her for it. An hour later I found myself making the same mistake (getting angry).
The whole of the problem was that I put all the importance on my conscious diet, but lacked the other spiritual qualities to back it up – to give it a foundation to stand upon. So while I avoided meat, and ate healthy, I fell to the pitfalls of ego, which led to the disturbances of selfishness and anger.
Piano composition: Fission
Personal Gnosis or External Knowledge?
No matter who talks to you, or what you learn, personal awareness (knowledge that is experienced) is by far the greatest utility on the spiritual path. It is the revelation of the soul, made manifest in the Individual.
In the following lecture by the Golden Rosycross, this topic is discussed in a kind and beautiful way. Please take a listen.
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is a topic that is very personal. No one can make a decision for you, but there are some interesting points to consider about becoming a spiritual Vegetarian. Instead of choosing a vegetarian lifestyle for health, in this case one is choosing it for spiritual growth.
The Christian Hierophantic Spiritual School is concemed with demolition and rebuilding, decreasing and increasing. This means disintegration and dissolution by dying according to this nature on the one hand, and revivication, resurrection and re-awakening in the divine nature on the other hand.
Elementary Philosophy of the Modern Rosycross, pg. 145
What the author (Rijckenborgh) is saying in the quote above, is that there is an importance upon decreasing the unimportant, so that the important aspect can increase. What is materialistic needs to decrease, so that the spiritual can increase. This can be different for different people. Food can be thought of in this way because it can be used as a sacrifice to allow the aspirant to let go of materialism.
A pupil of the Hierophantic Spiritual School will be a vegetarian, because animal cells obstruct and even make impossible the task he has to fulfil: the methodical demolition and annihilation of the old nature and the revivification of the divine nature.
151
The author said further that his view related to “Foods and allied products keep the body in a certain condition. The essence of all food consists of light-forces of different vibration, known as vitamins. Foods without vitamins are absolutely valueless.” (Ibid pg. 147). From his point of view food has a spiritual quality, and that which comes from death brings one to death.
The author also explains that the diet must be dictated by the student themselves. (Ibid 154). Food is not the only issue for Rijckenborgh. He also talks about the spiritual element of animal fur and feathers. This may be a hard thing to accept for many. However, the view here is that animal skin, fur and feathers has an intrinsic spiritual aura to it that it infuses the wearer with animal influences – which would distract from the spiritual in favor of the material fears, worries and anxieties of the animal.
Hair preserves these magnetic qualities, even though the possessor is dead. Therefore, persons who wrap themselves in the skins of animals will necessarily be influenced by an animal radiation-field.
Ibid. 155
Rijckenborgh acknowledges that in some degree our livingness kills something else. Vegetarians consume plants (killing them) and as my old Buddhist lama used to say, “how many insects do you kill walking across the lawn?” At some point just living we harm. Rijckenborgh quoted Rudolph Steiner in regards to this, “When I breathe, the air dies.”
Regardless of what one thinks or feels the decision must rely on the gnosis and choices of the individual.
The Strange Events of Early Morning
Around 4AM I got up to use the restroom… as I opened the door to the hallway, a loud POP was heard in the kitchen. One of my pans was deforming to temperature changes. I found it odd that this happened as I walked into the hallway, but I shook it off.
I went back to bed and had some headphones on, listening to recorded thunderstorms to help me sleep. I opened my eyes, and at that exact moment I caught a shadow (from outside the bedroom window) cast against it. The shadow was moving swiftly towards the front of the house. Freaking out, I woke my wife and told her about it. After some consideration we decided it was a cat or raccoon moving across the wall near the window.
My wife got up to use the restroom and just then my phone rings. It’s not tagged as a SPAM/SCAM caller… so I send it to google’s answering service, which asks them to state their name and reason for the call, and it then sends me the text of what they said. The text comes back, “Let me out.”
That was a bit shocking, after sending another google response and getting another strange answer, I decide to take the call. I hear a recorded voice say, “just a minute,” followed by a recorded voice saying, “is this ….. restaurant?” It was as though a prank call, using recorded voices.
Putting it all together, however, it was a strange set of events.
Vegetarianism and personal failure
I had made a choice to attempt a vegetarian diet. I wanted to see if I could do it, and I thought it would strengthen my will and fortitude. I was able to pull it off for a month, and then on Thanksgiving night, my wife told me that the turkey I made for them was the best I ever made…. I succumbed and ate meat.
I could feel the change in me. Going from spiritual will to not eat meat, to eating meat, I slipped into materialism. Prior to that point I was overcoming all materialism. I was decreasing, so that the greater in me could increase. After consuming meat I became obsessed with Black Friday deals and other nonsense – even spending over $100 in pointlessness.
Last night I ate meat again. This time I was tempted by the last of the turkey. I know this seems like a silly thing to quibble about, but I am bothered by the fact that my will faltered again.