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esotericism

Basic esoterics

 

 

This can be a good start for those who want a short introduction to esoterics. Here is a simple presentation of the esoteric teachings, as they are shown in the classical esoteric literature. The main part of this presentation is based on man’s path of development.

 

 

 

 

Introduction, " the essence of esoterics!

 

Many people who hear about esoterics think it´s too theoretical, too difficult to get into. Several people who have started to read a book by, for example, Bailey, have quickly put it away, since it was considered too incomprehensible.

 

But maybe they started at the wrong end? Bailey's books really are difficult and hardly suitable for beginners. Besides, if we are going to read esoteric books, it should be done slowly, with great patience and consideration. The system described is extremely complex, and needs time to get a grip on. We shouldn´t give up after only trying for a few days.

 

One way of approaching esoterics could be to feel the essence, the fundamental thoughts of it. It teaches a relation to life and a relation to the environment. It doesn´t help how much theory we have read if we can´t use this philosophy of life in practical living.

 

Then what is esoterics? What´s the difference between esoterics and the New Age? If we study esoterics as well as New Age for a long time we understand there are no clear borders between them. Some parts of the New Age are more influenced by esoteric ideas than others. Then one way of approaching the subject could be to say what esoterics is not.

 

There are no promises of fast results here, no courses where we obtain certain "abilities" or become "enlightened" over a weekend. On the contrary, the searcher is advised to avoid such practices, which in some cases can be even dangerous (a fool rushes in where a wise man fears to tread.) Instead we are shown a complex system, with which we can throughout a long period of time, slowly learn more and more. Every step on the development ladder must be conquered, nothing can be excluded.

 

We don´t find any "gurus" here, even if we do find some individuals who have walked further on the road than the average searcher. Instead, we are strongly advised against the worship of personalities. The searcher is advised to find his own truth, which he can confirm with his own experience and intuition. In short, if it doesn´t feel right in your heart and your mind, study something else instead of the esoterics and find your way from where you are. We are all unique and at different stages of development. Therefore, each one of us must find our own way from our individual standpoint.

 

There is no worship of mediums as almost "all knowing" with their contacts from "the other side." Instead, we are advised to use caution with everything that comes from the astral plane (or emotional world), where the majority of mediums get their information. The signals a clairvoyant receives, especially from lower astral levels, can be very unreliable and sometimes completely wrong. Besides, not many mediums know what level they are accessing. The medium can also unconsciously read the wishes of a person, and provide whatever he/she wants to hear. Everybody’s gets happy.

 

The esoterics encourages the searcher to develop his intuition instead, the subtle feeling deep within all of us. We are also advised to use common sense, so we can avoid the worst stupidities. Then we must of course also emphasize that there are some very good mediums, who really do help people.

 

The esoterics is not in any contradiction to science; on the contrary. However, we understand that our known science has only scratched a little of the surface of a large, complex reality. Our reality is bound by natural laws. In the same way there are laws of life that we must learn to follow.

 

One of these laws is called the law of free will. Generally it means that our way of learning is without restrictions; we can do as we please, even break the laws of life. But if we do, another law of life activates: the law of karma, or cause and effect —in other words: the law of causality.

 

The life law we call karma is not a punishment we procure for bad behaviour. Instead, every action and every thought a person generates is an energy that causes a reaction. An action can create a positive or a negative energy, and just like every force in the world of physics has its counterforce, every action with its energy, be it in the physical world or higher material worlds, generates a law-bound reaction. Ultimately, everything must be balanced.

 

So it absolutely does not have to be a question of "an eye for an eye." If we hurt somebody, that somebody need not hurt us back. That would only produce bad karma for him/her instead, so what would be the point? A negative action creates a negative energy bond between the people involved, and that bond must later be resolved. In some way we have to make a penance, to dissolve the negative energy.

 

We also need to be careful not to judge other people who are in some kind of trouble and say they have a bad karma. This is to simplify. A person could get in trouble for a number of reasons; maybe she needs a trying experience to understand and later on be able to help others in a similar situation. Maybe it is a very strong soul that has chosen to pay a lot of karma (or dues) in this life, while we are saving ours until later. We simply don´t know. Don´t judge, but help if you can; and if help is requested.

 

Maybe we shouldn´t ‘chase’ esoteric or spiritual abilities of different kinds? We could always work on bettering our inner qualities instead. As the inner qualities improve, our bodies are purified and the energy flow increases. When we have reached a certain quality in our bodies the faculties and abilities come along naturally. But if we chase these abilities before we are ready for them, this can at best be a misguided and ignorant pursuit of that, which we are not ready for. We ought to allow nature to build these functions within us, when we have acquired the right to them.

 

Therefore, you are encouraged to gather experience and be helpful, but in a wise way. Try to do good and think good. By that alone, we have made our contribution to changing our world into a better place.

 

 

 

 

The history of esoterics

 

If we wish to look at the history of the esoteric teachings, there are not many documents but the esoteric to look into. The reason for this is simple: esoterics implies "concealed teachings" and has not been well known by the broader public. Many may ask why a teaching has to be concealed if it is so useful, but the reason is simple even here. In our history we have seen, over and over again, how knowledge has been abused by people who were not ready for it. As we all know, knowledge is power. For this reason "the wise ones" have chosen to make certain parts of esoterics secret and otherwise a little difficult to discover.

 

It all goes back to the time when we had a culture here on Earth, now known as Atlantis. The existence of this culture is often denied and ridiculed by our scientific authorities, disregarding the fact that there are a number of findings, which clearly indicate that civilizations—much older than those researched in conventional history—have existed. Throughout this Atlantean time, some elite priests (the lower priesthood), the so-called "black priesthood" started to misuse their knowledge and act for personal benefits. The rest of the people followed and we got a society filled with egoism and materialistic thinking (reminds somewhat of our own society, authors remark).

 

This caught the attention of the light beings who then, as now, watch over humanity and are responsible for us. They are sometimes called "the Brothers of Light," "the white Lodge" or in esoterics "The (planetary) hierarchy." These light beings decided that the esoteric teachings should be kept in closed schools, said to have been instituted some 45’000 years ago.

 

As time went by, Atlantis disappeared after a series of natural disasters and mankind was thrown back into barbarism for thousands of years. Even though we eventually started building new civilizations, we have lost much of our cultural heritage. We don’t recognize our own roots.

 

The esoteric teachings remained however. The knowledge was kept in closed schools and occasionally some of the “masters” incarnated to teach the humans. In this way we have seen names like Buddha, Jesus, not to mention Pythagoras, whose esoteric school isn´t well known today. Not so strange since it was a closed school. Today, Pythagoras is mostly found in our mathematics books, but his real achievement reached far deeper.

 

Unfortunately, the teachings of the esoteric masters soon decayed when “normal people” were attempting to interpret the teachings. Religions and personal cults followed and the ideas that didn´t fit were rewritten or removed. We might now understand why Pythagoras kept his school so secret.

 

As we approach our own current time, the planetary hierarchy decided that humankind had reached a sufficient enough level to once again make some of the esoteric teachings public. But only things that could not be misused were allowed to be released. The person responsible for this was Helena P. Blavatsky, who during the late 19th century published a large number of esoteric works. She also started the Theosophical movement.

 

After that time we could say that some of the teachings were no longer esoteric, (hidden), but exoteric, (open). In spite of this the teachings are still called esoterics, mainly because they are still found and read only by a few.

 

The content of Blavatsky’s books is vast, but it is difficult to read. With her causal consciousness, H.P.B. could see how our world worked and she had telepathic contact with the masters. Unfortunately, she had great difficulties writing in a systematic manner, yielding a body of work incomprehensible to individuals on lower levels.

 

Some so-called disciples — advanced humans connected to the Hierarchy — wrote large volumes of esoteric literature during the 20th century. The most well known such writer is undoubtedly Alice Bailey, whom many consider to be the pre-eminent esoterician. The Swedish esoterician Laurency (pseudonym) should also be mentioned. His books show considerable clarity and inspiration and could be  considered easier to read than both H.P.B. and A.B.

 

Finally we should also mention that the spiritual movement we see today in "new age" could be described as esoteric thoughts downscaled to emotional thinking. Unfortunately that also brings along some degenerate offshoots. Prophet-like preachers, who speak of ascension for the whole of mankind in our lifetime, along with spaceships, which will come down and bring us all to a new Earth and so on.

 

At such occasions, it feels good to sit down with a book by Bailey or Laurency, and remind ourselves that emotionally influenced religions and movements have come and gone throughout the millennia, while the esoteric teachings have stayed the same.

 

A new age?

 

In the new age there is a lot of talk about ascension. The esoteric teachings also emphasize that we live in a time of change. It´s a fact that the disturbing and changing era we live in today was described by esotericians during the beginning of the 20th century. But here we see a different time frame than what we sometimes can find in the new age teachings. Humankind is going through a period of transformation that will continue for hundreds of years. Old systems must be torn down so that new and superior systems can replace them. This is what we see happening right now, which is also what has happened several times before in our history.

 

So when we see all the misery, destruction, greed, idiotizing TV-programs and so on, which seem to fill up our society today, we need to recognize that it is part of a planned process where an old system is being torn down to be replaced by a new and improved one. We just have to be careful not to fall into the "treadmill" ourselves.

 

Edited by Peter Astarci

 

 

 

The develoment of man

 

We don´t come from nowhere. We existed in other forms long before we transitioned into the human kingdom. Unfortunately, we don´t have time to learn very much during a single life (life is short). So we have to live over and over again in a long series of incarnations in order to incorporate all knowledge and all consciousness development we need in this existence. Only then can we proceed to the next.

 

At every new life we start again from zero, without remembering our earlier experiencies. But our old knowledge from previous lives lies dormant within us as a deep feeling, a latent experience, guiding us forward. Some time at maybe 20 - 30 years of age we have once again reached our old level of knowledge from previous incarnations, and are able to continue our learning process.

 

We are not all at the same level of development. Some of us have completed more incarnations and thus travelled further on the path, while others are younger and less experienced souls. For this reason humankind is divided into several developmental stages; marking how far we have reached. This in turn affects what we seek and prefer to pursue in this life.

 

For a long number of lives we must simply learn to be civilized enough to function together in a society. It´s not until after this period that "higher" values such as art and culture can be meaningful for us. It´s also at this stage—the so-called cultural stage—that we really can start feeling there is another reality behind the ordinary physical. We might start getting different types of inner experiences such as “clairvoyance” etc. We also start to fully understand that we all belong together; that everything forms a unity.

 

At this stage we develop the higher emotional part of us (also called the higher astral). "Lower" feelings like envy, hate, egoism and so on are gradually replaced by "higher" ones like devotion, altruism, humility and so on. We could even become "mystics," totally absorbed by our astral/emotional experiences.

 

We must pass this stage before we can start developing the higher mental thinking. Of course we have had a mental thinking even earlier, been able to accomplish excellent study results and so on, but the mental has been controlled by the emotional to a large extent. Sometimes we "let the emotions obfuscate our judgment."

 

A higher mental thinking gives us the increased ability to separate thoughts and feelings. We can also survey a larger system of a complex unity without getting lost in the details. Gradually we develop our perspective- and systems thinking on our way towards causal thinking. Later we will try to explain what this means.

 

As we are developing our inner qualities, our different bodies (physical-, emotional- and mental) also develop. Basically you can say that "heavier" (lower) matter is being replaced by "lighter" (higher) matter. As we receive this lighter matter in our bodies, the energy flow through them increases, providing us increased awareness.

 

It is also important to recognize that the path of man’s development is only one of many developmental paths in our cosmos. Just as every human individual is a part of the unity we call humanity, humanity is in its turn part of a greater unity where life on different levels changes and develops. The whole cosmos is full of life and everything follows a carefully designed plan.

 

Seen from an individual point of view, with all the common problems we have to deal with, it can be difficult to see that everything actually is part of a plan. We can change our future with the decisions we make, but seen from a higher perspective, development moves on. The Hierarchy supervises the process and makes sure humankind gets the impulses needed so that our development follows its course.

 

Many people ask why there must be so much suffering on Earth, if there is a plan for everything. "Why doesn´t God take away our suffering?" people sometimes ask.

 

But then we have to consider that suffering is something we humans have created ourselves, with our free will—one of the laws of life on our path of development. A large part of our learning process comes from suffering and setbacks. It would be presumptuous of us to expect a God to intervene and change our basic conditions for learning, or take away our karma. Only we ourselves can change that. However, there is a Hierarchy of higher beings following and supporting us and making sure the law is followed as viewed from a higher perspective. The conception of God is something far beyond our ability to understand.

 

One of the major steps that needs to be taken on our developmental path is learning to see through the emotional (astral) illusions. So many people get connected to an astral level, receive a couple of "messages" and from this they create their own speculation of how the different worlds function. In this way we have seen one conception of the world replace the other.

 

Not until we realize the illusoriness of this can we start approaching the higher mental levels and seriously also start moving towards causal consciousness. One way of avoiding the astral labyrinth is by studying esoterics. The clear mental model presented is a good help for avoiding the worst traps. Here we also learn how treacherous the astral world really is.

 

There are people who strongly argue that "the emotion" or “emotionality” is the only important factor. This is more mystical; the mental thinking is dry and "unmystical."

 

Of course we should support the good emotions within and aim to ennoble our emotionality (not kill it off), but we need to strive towards higher mental clarity at the same time. The mental is higher than the astral (emotional) and that´s where we are heading toward. If we have, just once, seen the vast difference between a mental medium and an astral one, there is no discussion anymore as to the superiority of the mental forms in the mental world. But unfortunately, there are very few mental mediums and these generally also live reserved lives, so few people have ever met one.

 

Edited by Peter Astarci

The consciousness of man

 

We can categorize mans conscionusness in several different ways. One way is speaking about objective, subjective and latent consciousness. But we can also separate physical, emotional, mental and causal consciousness. Besides that we can mention waking consciousness, subconsciousness and superconsciousness. All these types of consciousness are connected, so we can´t separate one type from the other, but we must understand them all.

 

 

Waking consciousness, subconsciousness and superconsciousness.

 

The waking consciousness is fairly easy to define. This is simply our usual thoughts, emotions and whatever we feel with our physical senses when we are awake.

 

The subconscious can be seen as a "paperbasket" where we through everything we have experienced. Then when we sleep things can turn up from our subconscious in our dreams. The most recent events can be at the top of the paperbasket, so we might get them easiest. This is the reason why many people mostly dream about what has happened during the day, often quite disordered. The subconscious is well known by modern psycology.

 

On the other hand, the superconscious is less known by our psycologists. But one who mentioned it was the psycologist C.G.Jung. Unlike the subconscious the superconscious behaves "intelligent" and provides sensible messages, often as symbols. Here we can get information about ourselves, pure precognitive dreams etc. Many times the information comes in the form of archetypes, common symbols for most people in one civilization. A study of C.G.Jungs descriptions of archetypes can be a good help here, and increase the understanding of ones own dreams.

 

 

Objective, subjective and latent consciousness.

 

Just before an important event takes place in our lifes, we might get a feeling within ourselves. We don´t quite know what it is, but something doesn´t feel normal. Afterwords we can say, "I felt something was going to happen! I got a precognicion."

 

What we felt can be described as subjective consciousness. We recieve streams of energy from a higher level, and notice it without being able to bring it into our waking consciousness. In the same way we might feel the atmosphere in a room with people. If a person with negative emotions enters the room, many people can feel it as a discomforting feeling within themselves.

 

This also showes the importance of trying to keep some control on our thoughts and feelings. We unconciously affects our surroundings.

 

The objective consciousness is totally different. We can be called fully objective conscious in the physical world, that is to say, we can, in a waken state understand what´s happening there. Some people, so called mediums, can also be objective conscious on emotional (astral) level. This means they can, fully awake, "read" other people, and also get in contact with discarnated persons on this level, people no longer living in the physical world, but astral.

 

As a human reaches higher and higher levels, his ability to reach objective consciousness on higher planes also increases. This also goes for the subjective consciousness, which always reaches a higher level than the objective. Eventually we can get objective mental consciousness, striving on towards objective causal consciousness, and so on.

 

The latent consciousness can be seen as knowlegde or abilities learned from a previous life, not remembered today. They stay latent within however, and this could explain why some people can learn things easialy. The knowlegde was present latent from a previous life and could quickly be remembered.

 

 

Physical, emotional and mental consciousness.

 

The physical consciousness could simply be described as everything we see, hear and feel with our physical body with its senses. It makes us aware of the world we live in.

 

The emotional consciousness is the consciousness of the emotions. Everything we can call "emotional experiencies" is emotional consciousness. The ability to control our emotions, being able to reduce "lower emotions" as envy etc. and replace them with "higher" as for example devotion indicates emotional consciousness control. All emotions and expressions we have, creates a print (a so called elemental) in the emotional world, which other people can register subjectively or objectively, depending on their own ability.

 

When we solve a crossword, or work on a mathematical problem our mental thinking is activated. The most basic mental thinking is the power of deduction. If we do this the result will be that. Later on the ability to solve more complex mental problems develops, like doing studies or deeper understanding.

 

On the highest mental levels, which man doesn´t reach until he has mastered the highest emotional, his perspective and system thinking develops to such a degree that he is seldom fully understood by the large mass, or even by searchers and mystics on the highest emotional levels.

 

In the same way as in the emotional world, mental activity creates a print in the mental world. This means that we actually have a responsibility not only for the things we do, but also for what we feel and think. Everything we bring about affects our surroundings.

 

 

Causal consciousness

 

A person can only understand levels of consciousness that he has experienced for himself. A level that´s above the own experience is basically impossible to understand. The causal consciousness is extremely rare on humanitys present average level, and therefore very difficult to describe or understand.

 

One person who is told to have had causal consciousness was Helena P. Balvatsky, founder of the Theosophical movement in the late 19th century. Among other things, she had the ability to report any text from any book in the world, without ever having read it. Her objective consciousness in the causal world gave her acces to all known knowlegde on Earth, and all she had to do was to reproduce it. Probably one has to experience something simular before fully understanding it, but it is a fact that H.P.B. demonstrated this ability over and over again for any scientists who wanted to test her.

 

But she became of the then "ruling elite" subdued and accused of being a successor and lurkist who just tricked people with false prophecies, etc.

The laws of life

 

Everything in life is bound by law. Just as nature is bound by the natural laws, life has its laws of life. We discover that this really is a fact, when we start getting spiritual experiencies and contact with higher worlds, if not before. The messenges and the help that is given may not follow the laws of society, but they are still bound by law and serves for the best development of the good.

 

Here is a presentation of some of the most common laws of life, as they are presented in the esoteric litterature.

 

The first three are for the mind development

 

The law of freedom

 

According to the law of freedom everybody have the right to think, feel, say and do whatever they want, as long as it does not violate everybody elses right to the same freedom. The individual, the self has total freedom, but with inevitable responsebility for the consequences of his actions.

 

 

The law of unity

 

All life is one unity. That means we all belong to the same consciousness, the cosmic total consciousness. Today man lives separative, which means we tend to exclude those who don´t fit into our conception. This will result in consequences even if man does not understand it.

 

 

The law of development

 

Even called the law of attraction. Development is higher worlds attraction to lower, that makes the evolution proceed, everything and everybody develops, regardless of how long it takes.

 

Man learns the other laws of live during development

 

 

The law of self realization

 

This law means that man must achieve all nessecary qualities and abilities in the human world by himself, to make it possible to continue develpment on higher levels.

 

The self realization presupposes that man has knowlegde about reality, will, confidence and trust. The biggest obstacle for development is mans emotional illusions and mental fictions.

 

 

The law of reaping

 

The law of karma; It means that man must reap everything he sows by thoughts, words and deeds towards others, good and bad. Good sowing makes good reaping and vice verca. There is both individual and collective reaping.

 

Normally we reap in different proportions, the more primitive we are the less reaping we get, and the further we are in our development the bigger capacity we have to endure suffering.

 

 

The law of destiny

 

This law belongs to the law of karma, and decides when and how harvest should be made. The destiny is not predetermined since man has the freedom to decide over his life. But he must himself bear the consequenses of it. So man cannot escape his destiny that he to a great part creates himself.

 

 

The law of activation

 

The law of activation says that man is plighted to be active in his mind development. This self initiated mind activity means we must ourselves reflect over life, aim our attention towards more noble qualities, develop our abilities, work for the unity - everybodys good.

Summarization

 

What´s esoterics all about? It provides a system, that explains how the world and life works. A mental model of reality that without any contradictions explains spiritual experiencies as well as our known physical reality. A "map" that helps us navigating through life without hitting the worst "reefs". At the same time we must not forget that this is what it is, a map, a model. If we haven´t started walking the path ourselves, if we don´t have the experience, then we can´t fully grasp the theories described in the books.

 

But what is the ultimate purpose with esoterics? Maybe you could say it´s all about mans mind development. Seen from a materialistic point of view, we need to work on refining the matter in our bodies, to be able to collect higher energies and expand our minds. But seen from the minds point of view we should strive to improve our inner qualities, so we can collect this finer matter in our bodies.

 

If you just look at it from a human point of view it´s all about being nicer towards each other. Do good and think good, help others if you can, and if help is wanted. Without this simple realization all theories fall flat on the ground. If we can´t show love to our fellow humans it doesn´t help how many books we have read. We show that we understand the esoterics when we live by it in everyday life.