UNVEILING THE SPIRITUAL PATH
Chapter 6
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“Once the higher self has awakened, the individual is increasingly driven to find its true home—the divine source of its life. This inner drive supplies the motivation for cleansing the personality and developing the needed disciplines on the Path of Return. As the commitment to pursuing the quest grows stronger, the spark of divinity grows brighter. The light intensifies until it becomes a beacon that guides the seeker onward.
A pivotal stage on the journey begins when the mind absorbs the clear light of the soul sufficiently to be able to dominate the astral body, the body of emotions. Prior to awakening, the human being is largely governed by powerful unconscious forces that constitute the personality: physical instincts, emotional habit patterns, and crystallized mental perceptions. Together they form the personality’s mask, which obscures the divine soul until the mask is dissolved and the central sun of the human being, largely hidden since the dawn of time, is fully revealed.
The evolution of consciousness that results in transformation and transfiguration endures for lifetimes. Until the stage of mastery, when the perfected human being no longer has need of a physical body, the advancing soul will increasingly utilize the persona as a vehicle for spreading light in the world. But first, the contents of the lower vehicles must be transformed into a worthy instrument.
The metamorphosis that takes place on the path to enlightenment has been called The Great Work. This work begins by removing the coarsest personality blockages to the soul’s light. Before the path begins in earnest, the instinctual drives of the physical body must be contained. A choice is made between satisfying the hunger of the flesh or the soul’s hunger for the light of truth. The energies expended to satisfy cravings for physical pleasures must be transmuted and redirected to the quest to discover and carry out the higher purpose of a person’s existence.
Once the physical instincts have been refined, the aspirant becomes aware of the need to do the same with regard to the emotional body. Powerful emotions that are allowed to engulf the personality inhibit both mental clarity and the light of the soul. Nevertheless, by the time the aspirant begins to consciously pursue the path, the soul is already providing its light. In overlapping cycles of time and experience, it sets in motion the spiritual alchemy that transforms the contents of the physical, emotional, and mental bodies.
Many who read this brief overview of stages of the path will be struggling through one or another of these phases of development. It is in the realm of emotions, in particular, that some of the greatest challenges of the path take place and where, as a result, there are frequent incidences of backsliding into inertia. By this point on the path, however, the soul has made its presence felt and will direct the life in such a way that the individual will inevitably resume the journey.
An essential key to transforming the emotional body is uncovering the roots of unconscious patterning. Every powerful negative feeling—anger, hatred, fear, dread, depression, or anxiety—has its origins in past karmic situations whose residues have endured into the present. Every soul who reaches this stage of the path will have encountered the reality of reincarnation, but possibly only on the plane of ideas. There comes a time when one is forced to wrestle with the origins of unconscious forces that arise repeatedly and become impediments to spiritual progress.
The more sincerely the seeker addresses such issues and asks for guidance, the more accessible is the flow of light from the soul, and from the Realm of Souls. Fleeting deep impressions of an intuitive nature are replaced by the realization that a greater source of light is available when the inner channel is freed from clatter and debris. As the flow of light increases, the mind becomes conscious of the presence of the true self as a guide upon the Higher Way.
When the eye of the soul first begins to see—from the higher, broader, more inclusive vantage point—it looks outward upon the world. It perceives what is wrong with materialistic systems and structures and what needs to change in the interest of creating a more just and equitable world. Only later does the realization dawn that internal change is needed as well, to fulfill the purpose for the soul’s incarnation and bring light into the world.
Through teachings from enlightened sources and the development of spiritual disciplines, one becomes increasingly clear-sighted about the need for internal change. The gaze of the aspirant then turns toward the inner life, giving rise to The Observer—a term for the soul’s capacity to see with detachment and dispassion. Once a foothold is gained on the path of ascent and the emotions are stabilized, the searchlight of the soul can be safely turned toward obstructions to its greater light.
Arriving at a state of openness to truth about the self represents a major milestone on the journey. The seeker who progresses this far is no longer a spiritual aspirant but a disciple, one who is committed to reaching the goal to the point where the most challenging disciplines are willingly undertaken. To turn the beacon of soul light on blockages to this light, resulting from engrained personality obstructions, is an act of courage that separates ‘the sheep from the goats’ on the precipitous path of ascent.
The openness to objective truth about the personality, accompanied by a commitment to eliminate negative patterns, is a signal to members of the spiritual Hierarchy, Guides of the human race, that the individual soul is prepared to receive an intensification of light. When self-purification is underway and a readiness for greater light is established, the consecrated disciple comes into resonance with Beings in the realm of Spirit who will help to guide their steps from this point onward.
Emotional patterns are extremely difficult to break. Their influences remain until the higher stages of the path, but through the exercise of will they increasingly come under the control of the mind. Life will continue to present opportunities for growth through trials and testing in one sphere of life or another, but such tests can now be discerned in the light of the soul, and their meaning is magnified by flashes of insight from spiritual teachers and guides. Every time deeper understanding is gained by observing the vicissitudes of life with detachment and dispassion—through the eye of the true Self—the grip of patterned emotional responses is weakened. Transformation occurs as situations habitually experienced as crises become the learning ground of the soul: opportunities for a greater inflow of spiritual light.”
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REFLECTIONS 