VIII. THE SUPREME SCIENCE OF CONTACT
[52] It would be useful if you attempted to master and to assimilate what I have to impart anent the three great sciences which form the three modes of expression of what we might term the SUPREME SCIENCE OF CONTACT. These three sciences are all equally interdependent and all related to the art of responsiveness. They are:
1. The Science of Impression . . . The will-to-be.
Relation to the Spiritual Triad.
Source of emanation . . . Shamballa.
Connected with the abstract mind.
2. The Science of Invocation and Evocation . . . Love or attraction.
Relation to the soul in all forms.
Source of emanation (at this time) . . . The Hierarchy.
Connected with the lower mind, as the agent of the soul.
3. The Science of Telepathy . . . Mind. Human intelligence.
Relation to the personality.
Source of emanation . . . Humanity itself.
Connected with the head centre.
You will see how all these pairs of opposites play their part, exemplifying the dualistic nature of our planetary Life: [53]
1. The abstract mind and the lower mind.
2. The soul and the lower mind.
3. The lower mind and the head centre.
Each of them acts as an invocative agent and produces evocation. All act as recipients and as transmitters, and all of them together establish the group inter-relation and the circulation of the energies which are the distinctive characteristic of the entire world of force.
One point you all need to grasp is that the progressing disciple does not move into new fields or areas of awareness, like a steady marching forward from one plane to another (as the visual symbols of the theosophical literature would indicate). What must be grasped is that all that IS is ever present. What we are concerned with is the constant awakening to that which eternally IS, and to what is ever present in the environment but of which the subject is unaware, owing to short-sightedness. The aim must be to overcome the undue concentration upon the foreground of daily life which characterises most people, the intense preoccupation with the interior states or moods of the lower self which characterises the spiritually minded people and the aspirants, and the imperviousness or lack of sensitivity which characterises the mass of men. The Kingdom of God is present on Earth today and forever has been, but only a few, relatively speaking, are aware of its signs and manifestations. The world of subtle phenomena (called formless, because unlike the physical phenomena with which we are so familiar) is ever with us and can be seen and contacted and proved as a field for experiment and experience and activity if the mechanism of perception is developed as it surely can be. The sounds and sights of the heavenly world (as the mystics call it) are as clearly perceived by [54] the higher initiate as are the sights and sounds of the physical plane as you contact it in your daily round of duties. The world of energies, with its streams of directed force and its centres of concentrated light is likewise present, and the eye of the see-er can see it, just as the eye of the mental clairvoyant can see the geometrical pattern which thoughts assume upon the mental plane, or as the lower psychic can contact the glamours, the illusions and delusions of the astral world. The subjective realm is vitally more real than is the objective, once it is entered and known. It is simply (how simple to some and how insuperably difficult to others, apparently!) a question of the acceptance, first of all, of its existence, the development of a mechanism of contact, the cultivation of the ability to use this mechanism at will, and then inspired interpretation.
Its Goal in the Evolutionary Life Process
It might be said that consciousness itself, which is the goal—on this planet—of all the evolutionary process, is simply the demonstrated result of the Science of Contact. It is likewise the goal in some form or other and at some stage or other of all planetary existences within the solar system itself. The unfoldment of this conscious response is, in reality, the growth of the sensitive awareness of the planetary Logos HIMSELF. The human mechanism and its ability to respond to its environment (as science well knows) has been developed in response to an inner urge, present in every human being and in all forms of life, and to the “pull” and magnetic effect of the surrounding environment. Step by step, the forms of life upon the physical plane, down through the ages, have unfolded one sense after another; one form of sensitive response after another becomes possible as the mechanism is produced, until the human being can receive impressions from the physical plane and rightly interpret them; can respond to the emotional contacts of the astral plane and succumb to them or [55] surmount them; and can become telepathic to the world of the mental plane, thus sharing—physically, emotionally and mentally—in the life and contacts of the three worlds which constitute his environment and in which he is submerged whilst in incarnation. What he gets out of this life of constant impression is largely dependent upon his power to invoke his environment and draw from it (in evocative response) what he needs in all the various departments of his being. This, in its turn, forces him—whether he likes it or not—to produce an effect upon other people; this can be far more potent for good or evil, and from the telepathic angle, than he likes to think or can conceive. You see, therefore, how these sciences of Impression, of Invocation and Evocation, and of Telepathy are naturally concerned with what is inherent in man and in his relation to his environment and circumstances.
The germ or embryonic capacity for all types of planetary contact is inherent in every man and will not be frustrated in the long run. In this knowledge of goals already achieved in the three worlds lies the guarantee of achievement in the more subjective worlds which are present within the aspirant’s surroundings but to which he remains as yet unawakened and unenlightened. I am seeking to make the matter as simple as I can, for much of the abstract formulations of the occult sciences and the academic psychologists are incident to the over-activity of men’s minds and emotional natures. If you can grasp certain broad and relatively simple facts and recognise that you possess the key or the clue in your already developed capacities, then you will go forward with simplicity, making no undue intellectual difficulties when dealing with these more subtle phases of your ever-existent environment. It is, in the last analysis, just a question as to what “impresses” you at any given moment, and then in what manner it conditions you. [56]
You will see, therefore, how much that I have already said links up with the teaching I have given upon the Points of Revelation. In the very condensed summation of the Science of Impression, I touched briefly upon the three great groups of Lives that are constantly under “impression” and which, in their turn, become “impressing agents.” There is little that can be added to this theme with profit at this time; what has already been given should be studied and related to the teaching on the Points of Revelation. (Discipleship in the New Age, Vol II, Section 3)
Revelation is a generic term covering all the responses to the activities of the eye of the mind, the eye of the soul, and the “insight” of the Universal Mind which contact with the Monad gives. Sight is the greatest of all the developments in this world period in which the Logos is seeking to bring the subhuman kingdoms to the point where human vision is theirs, to bring humanity to the point where spiritual vision is developed and hierarchical insight is the normal quality of the initiate sight, and to bring the Members of the Hierarchy to the point where universal perception is Theirs. Therefore, it might be said that:
1. Through the door of individualisation the subhuman kingdoms pass to human vision, leading to mental contact and intelligent impression.
2. Through the door of initiation humanity passes to spiritual vision, leading to soul contact and spiritual impression.
3. Through the door of identification the Hierarchy passes to universal vision, leading to monadic contact and extra-planetary impression.
Each time that there is a fresh vision of a compelling and conditioning
nature, it is the result of invocation by the [57] one seeking the new impression. When this invocative spirit is present, the results are inevitable and sure and the response evoked cannot be stopped. This is the basis of all the success of desire (material or otherwise), aspiration, prayer and meditation. Always we get—in time and space—what we invoke; and the knowledge of this fact, scientifically applied, will be one of the great liberating forces for humanity.
IX. EXPANDING AREAS OF CONSCIOUS INTERACTION
[58] The training given by the Masters in Their Ashrams to Their disciples has one main objective: to increase, develop and enable them to utilise in service their inherent and innate sensitivity. Let us, as we discuss these matters, avoid that much over-worked word “vibration” and use instead the more simple and more easily understood word “impact”. Response to impact is something we all register. Our five senses have opened to all people five great realms from which impact comes, and we are so familiar with them all that our response is now automatic and, though registered, is not consciously so, unless there is a planned reason and direction intended. We respond similarly and as automatically to emotional stimuli, and rapidly (very rapidly) the race is reaching out towards mental telepathy. Some few are beginning to work along the lines of spiritual telepathy. Few do more than register occasionally contacts emanating from a high source, and the result is usually also over-mixed with personality reactions.
Contact, with resultant impact from the soul, is also quite rapidly developing, hence the necessity for my laying the foundations of further knowledge which will clarify still higher contact, emanating from the Spiritual Triad and opening up areas of interaction hitherto known only to the Hierarchy. I refer here to the teaching which I have given out through a group of my disciples anent the Antahkarana. (Education in the New Age. A Treatise on the Seven rays, Volume V) All such developing contacts involve conditions covered by the two words: Contact and Impact. [59]
1. Contact can be defined (for our particular purposes) as recognition of an environment, an area of the hitherto unknown, of that which has somehow been evoked, of a something other which has made its presence felt. This something other than the Perceiver has usually been earlier sensed, has been propounded into a theoretical possibility, has later been invoked by the directed and conscious attention of the one who has sensed its presence, and finally contact is made.
2. Impact is something more than simply registering contact. It develops into conscious interaction; it conveys later information; it is revelatory in nature, and can be defined in its initial stages as the guarantee to the one who responds to it of a new area for exploration and for spiritual adventure, and as the indication of a wider field wherein consciousness may expand more and more and register increasingly the divine purpose waiting to be more fully known.
Therefore, from the more normal field of what we may call ordinary telepathic perception (just now coming to recognition by ordinary science), through a slowly learnt process of invocation and evocation, to a state of consciousness distinguished by a trained sensitivity, the disciple moves. He unfolds a spiritual recognition which is controlled, understood, and directed to useful hierarchical ends. In these words, you have a very simple definition of the process to which we give, technically, the name: The Science of Impression.
Another point to remember is that this science is the basic Science of Sensitivity; it is the art of all responsiveness to phenomena and is peculiarly applied to the reaction, the recognition, the responsiveness, and the registration of all [60] phenomena to be found throughout the cosmic physical plane. This is the plane whereon our entire threefold planetary Life finds expression and which we have subdivided (for the sake of clear thinking) into the seven planes (so called) of our solar system—from what we call our lowest physical plane up to our highest plane, the logoic. In the earlier stages of responsiveness to the two phases of contact and impact, the first task is to develop the needed apparatus of contact, the medium of learning, the mechanism of registration, and then learning to use it constructively and intelligently. This work proceeds from cycle to cycle, in the earliest stages, with no conscious intention on the part of the unit of life, thus developing; yet field after field of consciousness is slowly recorded, and area after area of the surrounding physical, mental and spiritual worlds come within the arena of perception, and are mastered and controlled, until eventually the unit of life (I know not what else to call it) becomes the human being, self-directed, an individual. Finally the man becomes the Master, controlling and directing within the periphery of His wide awareness, in consonance with the divine Mind and Plan.
But—and this is a point I seek to impress upon you—humanity, subjected to this constant process of expansion from the emergence of the fourth kingdom in nature, the human, has now reached the stage where it can begin to pass out of the control of what has been called the Law of Triple Response into a new phase of unfoldment where a recognised dualism dominates. This is a most important statement. Let me word it in this way and let me commend to you a very careful consideration of my words. I will express what I seek to impart in certain short sentences and in tabulation form: [61]
1. The advanced man in the three worlds is conscious of two inherent triplicities:
a. The lower man . . . . . . . . Physical body. Astral nature. Mind.
b. The three periodical vehicles . . . . . Monad. Soul. Personality.
2. Soul and personality have made contact. He is now technically soul-infused. Two periodical vehicles have been at-oned. Three lower vehicles and the soul are united.
3. The etheric body is at the point of assuming great power. It can now be consciously used as a transmitter of:
a. Energy and forces, consciously directed.
b. Impacts from the highest of the periodical vehicles, working through its instrument, the Spiritual Triad.
4. The etheric body is, therefore, the agent consciously directed, of the rapidly integrating spiritual unity. It can convey into the brain the needed energies and that occult information which together make a man a Master of the Wisdom and eventually a Christ—all-inclusive in HIS developed attractive and magnetic power.
Earlier I made the following statement which, as you study it, will summarise the above detailed analysis. I said, defining impression, that it “concerns the engendering of a magnetic aura on which the highest impressions can play.” (See Chart The Constitution of Man.) This might also serve as a definition of the art of invocation and evocation. As the man (for we will not consider this science apart from him, as it would include too vast a field) becomes sensitive to his environment, as the forces of evolution [62] play upon him and lead him on from stage to stage, from point to point, from plane to plane, and from height to height, he becomes enriched and increasingly magnetic. As this attractive or magnetic force increases, he himself becomes invocative; this outgoing demand, emanating from or through the aura which he has engendered brings to him a developing revelation. This revelation, in its turn, enriches the magnetic field of his aura so that he becomes a revealing centre to those whose field of experience and aura need the stimulus of his practised assurance.
Finally, it might be said that the entire human kingdom will eventually be a major magnetic centre upon our planet, invoking all the higher kingdoms upon the formless planes and evoking all the lower or subhuman kingdoms upon the planes of form. Some day, two-thirds of the human family will be sensitive to impacts coming from the Mind of God, as that Mind fulfils its intentions and carries out its purposes within our planetary ring-pass-not. In its turn, humanity will provide the area of mind within whose ring-pass-not the subhuman kingdoms will find the correspondence of the Universal Mind which they need for their unfoldment; man, as you well know, is the macrocosm for the microcosm of the lower kingdoms in nature. This is the goal of all human service.
What I have said up to this point anent the Science of Impression, if read also in connection with the teaching on the Points of Revelation,
(Discipleship in the New Age, Volume. II, Section 3) will convey much enlightenment. However, deep reflection is called for. The Science of Impression might be regarded, in the last analysis, as the fundamental science of consciousness itself, for the result of contact and impact leads to the awakening and the unfoldment of consciousness and of that growing awareness which distinguishes every form throughout the manifested [63] world.Every form has its own area of awareness, and evolution is the process whereby forms respond to contact, react to impact, and pass on to greater development, usefulness and effectiveness. The Law of Evolution and the Science of Impression cover the unfoldment of consciousness and bring about adaptability to the immanent soul. Modern science, through its work in the fields of psychology and medicine (to mention only two) and its experiments with forms which have established the modes of constructing and bringing into being the varying mechanisms of contact found in the different kingdoms of nature, has mastered much of the evolutionary development of the exoteric response apparatus. With all this we shall not attempt to deal; it is correct as far as it goes. We shall confine ourselves to a consideration of the contacts and impacts which confront the disciples and initiates of the world today, as they work in the Hierarchy and through an Ashram, and whose path of advance is as a shining light which shineth ever more until full enlightenment has been achieved.
Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle Page 6