In every college the work of these trained seven men will be aided by that of three women chosen for their capacity to teach, for their intuitive development and for the spiritual and devotional touch they will bring to the lives of the students. To these ten teachers will be entrusted the work of grounding the students in the important essentials, in superintending the acquirement of the rudiments of occult lore and science, and their development in the higher psychism. These ten must be profound students of meditation, and able to superintend and teach the pupils the rudiment of occult meditation, as taught, for instance, in this book. Occult facts will be imparted to these pupils by them and the basic laws that—in the advanced school—will be the subject of definite practice by the would-be initiate. Exercises in telepathy, causal communication, reminiscence of work undertaken during the hours of sleep, and the recovering of the memory of past lives, through certain mental processes, will be taught by them,—themselves proficient in these arts.
As you will see here, all these teachers will be devoted to the definite training and inner development of the threefold man.
Under these will work various other teachers, who will superintend other departments of the pupils' lives. Exoteric science will be taught and practised by proficient teachers, and the lower mind will be developed as much as possible, and kept in check by the other ten teachers who watch over the proportional development, and the aptitude for correct meditation of the student.
Along with all this will be the life of world-service, rigidly demanded of each and every pupil. This life of service will be carefully watched and recorded. One thing to be noted here is that in this there will be no compulsion. The pupil will know what is expected of him and what he [317] must do if he is to pass on to the more advanced schools, and the school's charts (recording the condition of his vehicles, and his progress and his capacity to serve) will all be available for his personal inspection, though to no one else. He will know clearly where he stands, what he must do and what remains to be done, and it rests then with him to aid the work by the closest co-operation. A certain amount of care will be taken in the admittance of pupils to the school, and this will obviate the necessity of later removal for inability or lack of interest, but this I will deal with later, when taking up the grades and classes.
You have, therefore, ten superintending teachers, composed of seven men and three women, including a Head who is an accepted disciple. Under them will work a set of instructors who will deal largely with the lower mind and in the emotional, physical and mental equipping of the pupil, and his passing into the advanced school in a condition to profit by the instructions there to be imparted. Here I would point out that I have planned out the ideal, and pictured for you the school as it is hoped it will eventually be. But as in all occult development, the beginning will be small and of little apparent importance. Tomorrow we will take up the rules governing the admission of students and the personnel of the more advanced school.
October 16th, 1920.
......Today we will take up:—
The personnel of the advanced school, and the rules of admission to both the preparatory and advanced. This latter part will be largely technical.
The first point I seek to make here is that these advanced schools will be numerically small, and this for a very long time to come, and the personnel will be correspondingly [318] small....At the head of the school will always be found an Initiate of the first or second degree, the aim of the school being to prepare pupils for the first initiation. This necessarily requires an Initiate head. This Initiate head will be definitely appointed by the Master Who has the school in charge, and he will be—within the confines of the school—sole judge and autocrat. The risks of occult training are too great to permit of trifling, and what the Head demands must be obeyed. But this obedience will not be compulsory but voluntary, for each pupil will realise the necessity and will render obedience from spiritual recognition. As aforesaid, these different occult schools will be practically ray schools, and will have for their personnel teachers on some one ray or its complementary ray, with pupils on the same ray or complementary ray. For instance, if the school is a second ray school—such as the one in Ireland is purposed to be—teachers and pupils on the second, fourth and sixth rays will be found in it. At least one fifth ray teacher will be found in every school of occultism. If a first ray school, the personnel and pupils will be first, third and seventh ray, with again a fifth ray teacher among the others.
Under the initiate Head will be two other teachers who will be accepted disciples, and every pupil under them must have passed through the preparatory school, and graduated from all the lower grades. Probably these three will comprise the entire teaching staff, for the pupils under them will he relatively few in number and the work of the teachers is supervisory more than didactic, for the occultist is always esoterically self-taught.
Much of the work done by these three will he on the inner planes, and they will work more in the seclusion of their own rooms than in class room with the students [319] themselves. The pupils are—it will be presumed—ready to work for themselves and to find the way to the portal of initiation alone. The work of the teachers will be advisory, and they will be available to answer questions and to superintend work initiated by the pupil himself, and not compelled by the teacher. Stimulating vibration, aligning the bodies, superintending the work on inner planes, and the pouring in of force with the shielding from danger by occult methods, will be the work, in part, of the Teachers, added to the supervision of definite and strenuous meditation. At intervals they will conduct the pupils to the Master, advise as to their passing into the different grades of discipleship, report at intervals on the quality of their life service and assist them in building their buddhic vehicle, which has to be in an embryonic condition when the First initiation is taken. The teachers likewise superintend the working out in practice of the theories anent the other evolution, the deva evolution, laid down in the preparatory schools; they watch over the manipulation of matter by the pupil and his demonstration of the laws of construction; they safeguard him as far as may be in his contact with sub-human and super-human evolutions, and teach him to wield the law and to transcend karma. They enable him, through their instructions, to recover the knowledge of past lives and to read the akashic records, but as you will see, the pupil is the one in this school who initiates and does the work, superintended and guarded by the teachers, and his progress and the length of his residence within the school depend upon his own effort and initiatory powers.
The rules of admission into the preparatory school will be somewhat as follows, but I only indicate probabilities and not ascertained and fixed facts:— [320]
1. The pupil must be free from obligatory karma and able to take the course without neglecting his other duties and family ties.
2. There will be no fees or money charged, and no money transaction. The pupil must be somewhat self-supporting and able to earn the means of livelihood whilst in the school. The schools in both their divisions will be supported through the voluntary contributions of people, and through a knowledge of the laws of supply and demand occultly interpreted.
3. The pupil must be able to measure up to the average educational standards of his day and generation and must show aptitude for some line of thought.
4. He must be seen clairvoyantly to have a certain amount of co-ordination and alignment and the causal body must be of a certain grade or quality before he is admitted. Teachers of occultism waste not time on those not ready. Only when the inner light shines forth, only when the causal body is of a certain capacity can the pupil profit by the curriculum. Therefore, with the Head of the school will the final verdict lie as to whether a pupil may enter or not. That word will be final, and will be passed after due inspection of the pupil by the Head of the school through clairvoyant and causal vision, and after reference to the man's own Master.
5. He must have demonstrated, by a previous period of service, his a
bility to work in group formation and to think in terms of others. [321]
6. His past incarnations must he somewhat looked up, and the indications given through their study will guide the Head in his final decision.
7. The pupil must he over twenty-one and under forty-two years of age.
8. His etheric body must be in good condition and be a good transmitter of prana, and there must be no physical disease or handicapping physical deformity.
These are the fundamental rules which it is at present possible to give. There will be others and the problem of selection may pass through some vicissitudes in solving.
The rules for admission into the advanced school are far more esoteric and fewer in number. The pupils will be chosen from out of the preparatory school, after having passed through the graded courses. But selection will depend not on the mental development and the assimilation of concrete knowledge, but upon the inner comprehension and the occult understanding of the student, upon the quality of the tone of his life as it sounds forth in the inner world, upon the brilliance of the indwelling light, and upon his power in service.
This suffices for today; tomorrow we will deal with the final division of this third point, the buildings of the school.
October 17th, 1920.
In dealing today with the subject of the buildings of the two types of occult schools, little can be said and only a general outline can be given. Climatic conditions and the desired size of the schools will greatly vary and the consequent plant will vary likewise......
The buildings for the preparatory school will differ not so much from those of an ordinary college in the exoteric [322] world. One rule only will be laid down—each student must of necessity have his own separated chamber. The type of building matters not, provided these conditions are fulfilled. Each room must be non-communicating, save with the central corridor, and must be in three divisions, necessarily small yet distinct. One division will be given up to the student's life and study; another to the bath and the third will be the place for meditation containing the pictures of the Great Ones duly curtained. This third division is kept for the sole purpose of meditation and will contain little save the mat on which the student sits, a couch on which he will repose his physical vehicle during certain stated exercises and a small stool in front of the Master's pictures, on which will be found the incensor and a vase for floral tributes.
The resident teachers will reside with the students, the women taking charge of the women students, and the men residing with the male students. The Head of the school will reside alone in a detached house which will contain—besides the rooms in which he will live his private life—a reception room of small proportions for his work with individuals, and a larger room for joint concourses, besides a shrine room for the meeting of the united body of pupils.
The buildings for the advanced schools, even though they concern us not intimately as yet, provide in their construction much of occult significance for those who have eyes to see. The main feature in the occult advanced school will be the central temple of circular shape providing for each of the pupils (and you must remember that numerically they will not be large), a private shrine entered from the rear by a closed door and having a curtain between it and the large central shrine where the group meetings will be held. [323]
This large central shrine will have a pavement whereon will be traced the triangle, and within the triangle the group will sit, the three spaces outside the triangle having tables whereon will be found various symbols and a few of the fundamental books on symbols and some large parchments whereon the cosmic symbols will be portrayed.
The colour of this shrine will be dependent on the ray which it represents. The curtains which separate will be in the ray colour also and each individual shrine curtain will carry the sign of the pupil's nativity—his sign, rising sign, and controlling planets. These curtains will be the [324] property of the pupil, as will the mat within the shrine which will carry the symbol of his ray, egoic and personality.
On the wall of the great circular passage will be found the signs of the zodiac, the four entrances standing for the four Maharajas.
A square wall will surround the whole, enclosing a garden which will be the care of the pupils themselves. There will be but one entrance through this wall on the north side. Outside will lie small building's to house not more than three pupils, and a house wherein will reside the three instructors. The Initiate Head will likewise have his private residence distinguished by a domed tower at one side. This domed tower serves two purposes:—It is the place for astronomical and astrological instruction and will have the latest appliances of science for the study of the planets and of microcosmic life, and will also serve as a secure shelter for those pupils who can consciously leave their physical bodies and function elsewhere on the physical plane.
This is all I can give as yet. Record, watch and await the hour when the ideal will materialize.
October 29th, 1920.
Our fourth point comes up for consideration today, and in its discussion I will give you somewhat concerning the preparatory occult school but little concerning the advanced. This fourth point is one anent the grades and classes.
4 - The Grades and Classes.
We have, in an earlier letter, touched upon the curriculum of the preparatory schools and have seen that that curriculum deals much with the development of lower [325] mind, with the laying of the foundations upon which to build the later work, and with the formulation, the study, and the memorising of the theories and occult laws upon which the true occultist will later base his practical work. We saw also that much that was taught was necessarily closely allied with the exoteric teaching of the world, and necessitated the school being in close touch with the centres of modern thought. Today I seek to point out certain things that will be seen in the scheme of the student's work and to show the method whereby he is gradually led on until he is fit to pass on into the more advanced college. We will as usual divide our subject into three heads:—
a. The times of study.
b. The types of work.
c. The transformation of potential faculty into active powers through practice.
a. The times of study.
All the work of the school will be based upon an occult knowledge of times and seasons, and two things will be carefully adhered to:—l. The school year will be divided into two halves, one half wherein the pupils are strenuously acquiring knowledge, that period being that in which the sun moves northward or the earlier half of the year, and a second half—separated from the earlier by an interval of six weeks—wherein he assimilates and puts into practice that which earlier was imparted. During the earlier months of the year he goes through a drastic system of reception, of learning, of hard study, of accumulation of facts and of concrete knowledge. He attends lectures, he wades through many books, he studies in the laboratory, and with the aid of the microscope and of the [326] telescope he widens the range of his vision, and builds into his mental body a vast store of scientific data.
During the six weeks' vacation he is recommended to rest entirely from all mental effort save that associated with the practice of the imparted occult meditation. He mentally follows the cycle and goes into pralaya temporarily. At the end of six weeks he returns to his work with the object in view of systematising the mass of information, of perfecting his comprehension of the facts earlier studied, of practicing that part of the occult lore permissible, with the object in view of becoming proficient and to discover his weak points. He writes during the “dark period” of the year the themes and essays, the books and pamphlets that will embody the product of the assimilated information. The best of these books will be published yearly by the college, for the use of the public. In this way he serves his time and generation and educates the race in the higher knowledge. 2. In exactly the same way his studies each month will be so arranged that the harder part (dealing with the higher mind) will be undertaken during the part of the month which is call
ed the bright half, whilst the work of the dark half will be more given over to the things concerning lower mind and to an effort to hold the gain of the earlier weeks. Each day will be likewise divided into set times, the earlier hours being those in which the more abstract and occult data will be given, the latter part of the day being given over to a more practical type of work.
The basis of all occult growth is meditation, or those periods of silent gestation in which the soul grows in the silence. Therefore, during the day there will be for every pupil in the school three periods of meditation—at sunrise, at midday, and at sunset. During the earlier part of the pupil's attendance at the school these periods will be for [327] thirty minutes each. Later he will give one hour to the practice of occult meditation three times a day and during his final year he will be expected to give five hours a day to meditation. When he can do this and get results he will be able to pass on into the advanced school. It is the great test and mark of readiness.
The hours of the school will begin with sunrise and end with sunset. After the sun sets, and for one hour after each of the other two periods of meditation, the pupil is permitted to relax, take his meals and recreate himself. All pupils will be required to retire to rest at night by ten o 'clock, after thirty minutes of careful revision of the day's work and the filling in of certain charts that go to the completion of his record.
Letters on Occult Meditation Page 29