‘The sleep of the body is the soberness of the soul, the closing of the eyes is true vision’.
Hermes Trismegistus
Because of the many obstacles that hinder your progress on the path, and because of the extent to which it can help deepen and clarify your insight into how to remove them, we would like to introduce you to an ancient wisdom whose origin is lost in the mists of time. It is the Up-anishadic wisdom, which is closely related to the wisdom of Hermes, and dates back to a time even before the Hin-du peoples invaded the lands of the Indus.
The word `Upanishad’ means ‘the unveiling of hidden spiritual knowledge so that ignorance may be overcome’. This implies that those who wish to read and understand the Upanishads need a key that will open up what is hid-den. And what else could this key be than the soul, the possession of a new soul-quality? So the wisdom of the Upanishads is intended only for those who are standing on the path to soul-birth and who seek to neutralise the obstacles they meet on the way.
Here is a brief extract from one of the most powerful Upanishads:
`Having delighted himself in the waking-state of the soul, and having seen good and evil, he hastens back to the point of entry and beginning, to the dream-life.
An eagle circles aloft until he becomes weary; then he folds his wings and sinks down into his nest. Even so does the soul-being hasten back to the state in which, asleep, he feeds desires no longer and sees no more dreams.
The human being has veins called `hits; gossamer-fine as a hair divided a thousandfold. These are filled with white and blue and yellow and green and red. If it seems to him that someone is trying to kill him, or that he is likely to be overpowered, or that he is being pursued by an elephant, or that he is falling down a precipice, then he perceives things thus because he is imagining, in his ignorance, that he is himself some terror that he saw when he was awake.
Only when he imagines that he stands in unassailable divinity is he truly in his highest world. Then he is pursued neither by good nor by evil, for he has passed beyond all the sorrows of the heart. He has passed beyond seeing and although, in that state, he does not see, yet nevertheless he sees truly, for there is no cessation of the seeing of the seer, because of his imperishability.’
The pupil who has advanced in the gnostic mysteries to the point where the new soul-state has been reborn has become a dual being. On the one hand he is a soul-being, and on the other he still exists in the state of his natural birth. Such a pupil needs to know how to reap the benefits of that state of being, for his soul-state gives him the power to escape completely from the dangers connected with the turbulence of his nerve-ether. For the mercy granted to the soul-born one is that the sleep of his body can become the waking-state of his soul.
The soul-born person who devotes himself, in total sur-render, to the Living Body of the Gnosis, will certainly be able to spend the greater part of the night in the new astral field of the School, which is ‘his highest world’. In the serenity of that field the soul-born human being absorbs the knowledge and strength he will need to walk his path and accomplish his task when, a few hours later, he has to return to his delusive existence in the nature of death, wrapped and confined in his nature-born cloak.
The purpose of the soul’s nightly sojourn in the new as-tral field of the School, in the Golden Head of the Living Body, is to familiarise it with the great delusion and confu-sion it will experience during the coming hours of physical wakefulness. It is to enable the soul to study these things from an objective point of view, so that it will no longer be victimised by them.
So the conditions of life are completely reversed for the soul-born person: the soberness of the soul, the waking-state of the soul, becomes his waking life, while everyday life in the body becomes his dream-life. That is why it is said in the Upanishads:
`Having delighted himself in the waking-state of the soul, and having seen good and evil, he hastens back to the point of entry and beginning, to the dream-life, [the daily sojourn in the body]
And just like the eagle yearning for its nest, so the soul, too, longs for a speedy return to its true resting place. But this return of the soul to its true home depends on the extent to which it is able to function in the body of delusion.
On its return to the body of delusion, the soul is im-mediately confronted in the most intimate way with the nerve-ether, with the `archaeus’, the karmic currents in the nerve-fluid. For the soul descends into the nature-born body via one of the cranial nerves and, in the fully awakened state, it occupies a central position in the head and heart sanctuaries. So it would be difficult to imagine a closer contact between the soul and the archaeus.
Hence the words: The human being has veins called `hits; gossamer-fine as a hair divided a thousandfold. These are filled with white and blue and yellow and green and red’. For the nerve-ether shows all the colours of the spectrum, depending on the quality of the emotions, thoughts, desires and activities of the will. And generally one of the colours predominates, as an original karmic accent.
Into this sea of nerve-ether, into this pool of the past, the soul descends every morning on waking. Is it any wonder, then, that people in whom the soul is weak or ab-sent are completely at the mercy of their nerve-ether? What a mercy it is that every day the soul-born person is granted a new opportunity to escape all dangers.
Let us explain, then, how this opportunity is given to every dedicated, soul-born pupil. During the night, when the nature-born body is asleep, the souls of such pupils are permitted to spend a certain amount of time, which may be longer or shorter, in the highest aspect of the Living Body, the Golden Head.
To understand what happens there you will need to know what the soul really is. Usually, we say that the soul is the awakened rose of the heart. However, while these words are good enough to serve as an indication, they should not be regarded as a definition.
The rose, or the primordial atom, is the latent principle of the true, original human being that slumbers in the heart of every microcosm. So it is logical that the rose will be sevenfold; it will possess seven aspects and seven basic, fundamental needs. Hence the Living Body of a gnostic Brotherhood, of a gnostic mystery school, will also need to have seven aspects, corresponding to the seven material aspects of the soul-world. Because, if the rose is to bloom, it must be nourished in a sevenfold way.
Once the rose-bud within you has opened its petals in the warming radiance of the Living Body’s three ideation-energies, it will also need to be nourished with the four other foods: the pure thought substance, the pure astral substance, the original ethers and even the substance of the universal plane.
If it is possible to charge the soul in this sevenfold way, the further manifestation of the soul-vehicle will cause no problems. It will be merely a matter of time, and — as you should keep clearly in mind — a matter of neutralising the resistance of the archaeus.
So do realise what a tremendous mercy it is that you have been permitted to enter such a Living Body, and un-derstand why, time and time again, you are advised to dedicate yourself to that Living Body in total surrender. Even a child could see that this is essential.
Only if there is total harmony and unification between the rose of the soul and the Living Body will the soul’s magnetic seeking and the Golden Head’s magnetic attrac-tion create the conditions necessary for the soul to be able to spend some time each night in the inner sanctuary of the School. The gates of this sanctuary are wide open to all of you; anyone who fulfils the conditions may enter.
Now we can go into what happens during the soul’s nightly sojourn in the Golden Head.
When the soul enters the inner sanctuary of the School it remains connected to the nature-born system and the microcosm by means of a fluidic thread. Whilst respiring in its own soul-world, the soul receives through that thread a panoramic image of the life-state of the nature-born person with whom it is connected. It sees the problems, the various situations in which the person is involved, the quality of his archaeus, and so on.
This information is of great importance and interest to the soul, since it is the soul that will have to guide and help the nature-born personality along the path of trans-figuration, provided, of course, that the personality turns over the guidance of his life to it. Then the entire system will eventually be enabled to bring the way of the cross to a good end.
And now we are going to say something to which we want you to listen very carefully indeed. If the pupil has allowed the state of peace to fill his archaeus; if he has descended into the silence, then the time will come when the soul can exercise a strong guidance over him, despite the fact that during daytime it lies immersed in his nature-born personality.
The signature of mortal life is delusion, unreality, and it will keep on victimising the pupil as long as his soul has not yet been set free.
That is why the Upanishads talk about how it seems as if people try to kill him, or that he is being pursued by an elephant, or that he is falling down a precipice. He thinks he is awake, but in fact he is in a state of delusion, and that is why he imagines that he is undergoing all these terrors.
But if a person lets himself be guided and prompted by the soul, he will go his way from the cradle to the grave in the absolute conviction that `nothing can happen to me without the will of my heavenly Father’, or, to put it in the words of the Upanishads, `I stand in unassailable divinity’. Then, wherever he may find himself, and whatever his predicament, he will always be living, quite literally, in the world of the liberating life.
Then good and evil will follow him no more, because he has risen above all the sorrows of the heart. He has overcome death, for there is no cessation of the seeing of the seer, because of the imperishability of the all irradiating, all pervading, all conquering soul.