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1922_10_11 Distinctive Qualities of the Will


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Беседата на български

 

Note 6

 

Distinctive Qualities of the Will

 

 

Year 2, Lecture 2 of the Youth Occult Class (Special Class)

given by the Master Beinsa Douno

on October 11, 1922, Sofia

 

 

 

 

Without fear!

Without darkness!

 

Secret prayer

 

For next time, please write on the following topic: "Distinctive features of Life".

 

What are the distinctive qualities of the will? The first quality of the will is firmness. Firmness is the supporting pillar of the will. So the will has to be as firm and unwavering as a crag. The second quality of the will is bravery and fearlessness. The third quality of the will is the ability to apply things in practice, to bring them to realization, but without procrastination.

 

Often a negative thought would come to a person's mind. Can't the manifestation of will stop the person in his act? When we talk about will, we have its positive manifestations in mind. The negative displays of will are accidents. If a train stops in the middle of the track, this is an accident. Its stops are pre-determined - from one station to another. Every stop which is different from the specified ones isn't part of the timetable of the train. Therefore firmness, bravery, fearlessness, and ability to apply things in practice are necessary qualities for the will to manifest itself in the physical world. In addition to the physical world, the will manifests in the mental world as well. The distinctive qualities of the will in the mental world are understanding, realizing, grasping, and sensing. What you have understood, you will realize; what you have realized, you will grasp, what you have grasped, you will sense. Can you go from the stage of grasping to that of understanding? No, you will walk in a consecutive fashion.

 

One of the distinctive qualities of the will in the Divine world is its nobility - the will must be noble and be motivated a noble impulse, a noble stimulus. When you know the distinctive qualities of the will in three different worlds, you will be able to influence your body, your heart, and your brain. For example, understanding, realizing, grasping and sensing are methods through which you can influence the front part of your brain. The closer a certain brain centre is to the physical world, the bigger the influence it is subjected to from the physical qualities of the will - firmness, bravery, fearlessness without procrastination. The development of the upper part of the brain, i.e. the development of moral feelings can be achieved through noble stimulus, which is brought about by compassion, truthfulness, love of God and love of the fellow men. The human body serves as a tool for exercising the will. In order to come into contact, into direct communication or proper exchange with the powers of Nature, by all means you need to know how to control your body. The organs in the body have to be under the control of the will. People make volitional and non-volitional movements, their bodies have volitional and non-volitional functions which shows that many things don't depend on their will. For example palpitation, thoughts, feelings are outside of the control of human will.

 

The science of the occult offers a number of methods for controlling human thoughts and feelings. As much as people may deny the fact that thoughts and feelings are out of the control of the will, this can be proved easily: it is enough for somebody to pierce you with a needle and you would jump immediately and change your mental state, even reach a point of explosion. Exploding, getting angry are processes which are out of the will's control. They are processes of fermentation. Each fermentation process is due to a special kind of bacteria which causes souring. Many similar bacteria exist in the physical, as well as in other words. In order to free yourselves from the influence of these bacteria, you need to exercise your will and thus affect the brain, especially the power of imagination. The brain must be under the will's control. Imagination represents the opening in the dark room, the camera obscura, which needs to have light-sensitive photography glass in it. It is up to the photographer whether he will open or close this camera obscura. When he is about to take a photograph, he opens the camera. When imagination is not under the will's control, the lense of this camera is continuously open. As a result timely and untimely, conscious and unconscious imprints are made in the brain. If you understand the laws of Nature, you will know when to open and close this camera. There are situations when you don't need any external impressions at all.

 

For example, two people are arguing, you stop, open your camera, and take impressions. These impressions are passed on to the brain and two or three hours later they are still being played out in your mind. Some time needs to pass before these impressions wear off and the brain returns to its normal state. Take another scenario: you are passing by a restaurant at 12pm - it is time for lunch. You want to go in and have a meal. You feel your pockets and it turns out that you don't have any money. You start walking down the streets dissatisfied and indisposed as you keep bringing to mind the image of all these people eating. You pass by a second restaurant, then a third one and you see everybody eating. Your mood keeps deteriorating and you wonder why you have to fast today. Through this fast mindful beings have put you through a test to examine your will. On that specific day you shouldn't walk by restaurants. Of course that is exactly when you have the desire to walk around all the restaurants hoping that you will meet some friend who will invite you for lunch. On that day you should stay home and philosophize about it, "So many years I have been eating and drinking. What have I gained from this? Can't I not eat and fast for at least one day?" That is how an occult disciple should think. Fasting for a day doesn't mean torturing oneself with hunger. Staying hungry for a day is incidental, it is something temporary in life which should be perceived in a positive way.

 

As you can see, Nature's methods are completely different from man's. Things in Nature aren't as systematic as people would have them be. At first sight, everything in Nature seems disorderly. When you climb onto mountain tops, you see valleys, forests and fields where everything is in a big state of disorder - here you see big trees and right next to them - some small ones; there you see big and small flowers all mixed up; somewhere else you see big and small stones next to each other or they are scattered around. You watch and you wonder at this disorder. When a  human arranges a garden, in the first rows he puts the smaller flowers, then the bigger ones and arranges everything in this consecutive order. If he arranges stones, he will first place the smaller ones, then the bigger ones, etc. However, someone who understands the laws will be able to see through the external disorder and understand the sensibility, the intelligence of Nature. When moving in Nature it is important to think and to study Nature's methods and laws. Learn about the development of one tree and you will see what harmony exists in its different parts. You see that one tree has bent a little. This is not accidental. The bending of the tree shows that it has met some kind of obstacle on its way. In order to overcome this obstacle the tree has bent a little. It means that some intelligence has supervised the development of this tree. Therefore, when we see warping or some kind of disorder in Nature this hints at the unfavourable conditions which exist on Earth. If these conditions have been overcome, this shows that great intelligence exists in Nature.

 

Similarly, human thoughts and feelings are scattered and disharmonious. Why? Because the conditions you live in aren't optimal. What do you need to do? You need to rebuild your brain and your heart. How will you rebuild them? By putting new content in them - new thoughts and feelings. Rebuilding your brain doesn't mean ruling over it. People often say that they need to take rule over Nature. No, nobody can ever rule over Nature. Nature represents the body of God. God will never let anybody rule over His body and do with it as he pleases. By wanting to impose their rule on Nature, contemporary people get into big misfortunes and evil. Thus Nature gives them a good lesson and shows them that they can't rule over it. They need to obey her and listen to her. Do you think that the father will let his son put a strap on his mouth and play with him as if he were a toy-horse? Ruling over Nature means ruling over our thoughts, feelings, and desires.

 

Another distortion that can be observed in contemporary people is their belief that they need to influence and control each other. This is easy but it isn't allowed. The Dark Brotherhood has a number of methods for that. If you tie the legs and arms of a sleeping person, you have already taken over him. After he wakes up you will tell him: "Now you have to obey my orders." What do you gain by doing that? You can take control over the person's body but never over his mind and his heart. After he frees himself from the rope, he will do the same with you. While someone is sleeping you can tie him up, and once he is tied up, you can exert an influence on him, but after he wakes up the influence will remain only over his body, not his mind, heart, soul or Spirit – these can never be tied up or obey someone else's orders.

 

Thus exercising the will of The White Brotherhood requires every thought to be pure, frank, proper and noble. A strong will expresses itself in conciliatory deeds, not in rough physical action as contemporary people see it. Imagine that one day you are given one hundred opportunities to do evil and one opportunity to do good. Your willpower will show in these hundred cases if you use it in a conciliatory way. However, if you commit a hundred evil deeds, the one good deed won't be able to compensate for all the crimes you have committed. Therefore, everybody needs to exercise self-control and use his will to understand his relation to Nature and to his fellow men.

 

In order to study the manifestations of the will you need to watch the plants. If you go into a pine wood, for example, you will see that pines grow near to each other and take on the shape of a cone. By growing close to each other they save space. Pines transfer this quality to elms, as well as to other trees that grow around them. For example, elms that grow near pines take on a conical shape, but if they are far from them, they grow both upwards sideways. Pines, however, always keep their conical shape. This shows that pines have spiritual discipline, they aren't materialist. Therefore, when it expands sideways, the will has materialistic aspirations; when it keeps its conical shape and its constant desire to grow upwards, its aspirations are spiritual.

 

I will now give you a method for the development of the will. This is the so called conciliatory method. It is only for people who have a strong will. The method is as follows. Imagine that you are a student, you have 25 000 leva in savings for your allowance but somebody accidentally gets into the room and steals your money. This sets off a number of trials: your landlady throws you out of her house, the restaurant owner doesn’t allow you to eat in his place, your friends leave you and you remain on the street alone, without accommodation, wandering through the streets without any help. When you imagine this, watch yourself to see what feelings awaken in you. If you get scared and say to yourself that you hope such a trial never comes to you, you will have failed. Irrespective of how much you pray to be spared such a trial, there is a possibility of it happening to you, and there is a possibility of it not happening to you. Both are possible. Do you think that when you enter a musical school you won't be given difficult exercises? If the student says to his teacher that he only wants easy exercises, the teacher will say, "Go and find another teacher!" Those who want to learn must be ready to do all exercises - both the easy and the difficult ones. If you go to a painter, you will experience the same. If you say that you want easy exercises only, the teacher will say, "Go and find another teacher!" Therefore, once you enter the occult School, you should expect difficult tasks. If you are under the illusion that you will be given easy tasks only, the teacher will say, "Go and find another teacher! This school isn't for you!" Therefore, just as exercises are necessary in science, music and art, methods are necessary in occult science too. If you don't apply in practice the methods that are given to you, you will not reach the intended aim and will not gain the necessary knowledge.

 

There are people in the world with a strong, firm will. When the time comes for an operation, such a person gives his arm for an incision to be made without any anaesthetic. He remains calm, not a single muscle quivers on his face and when the operation ends, he says, "Have you finished already?" How did he develop that will? He did it with the help of exercises, by applying different methods in practice. I would like you to have that kind of will as well. When the knife reaches the bone, to be able to put your hand upon the wound and in twenty minutes for it to be healed. A person with a strong will can do that. Why? Because he can concentrate the prana in the air and aim it at his wound. In order to achieve that kind of willpower, you need to be merciless about your mistakes - not to criticize yourself but to state things the way a seismograph registers earthquakes or the way the light-sensitive slab in photography imprints images. Don't be blind to your mistakes, but correct them! How will you correct your mistakes? Visit any musical school and you will see how the teacher corrects his student. They play together and if the student makes a mistake somewhere, the teacher says, "You don't play correctly, start again". And they both start again. After the disciple corrects his mistake, the teacher says, "Now let's move on, take the next position!" When making a mistake, should the student put the bow down, start crying and say, "Teacher, forgive me, I made a mistake"? There is no reason to cry or to interrupt the process of playing. He needs to move on.

 

And so when you make a mistake, don't put the violin and the bow to the side but go on making one attempt after the other until in the end the tones of your violin blend with the tones of your teacher's violin. After that continue forward.What is the violin for a human? The violin represents the human body. What do music students do? When things don't go well, they sell their violin. Keep the following rule sacred: even in the hardest conditions in life do not sell your violin! A violinist who sells his violin because of difficult circumstances in Life is doomed to great suffering. - "He had debts, which he had to pay for." - If he has debts he should play. In this way he will pay for his debts more easily than if he sells his violin. From an occult point of view, it is not allowed for a disciple to sell his violin. If he sells his violin, he will find himself out of the school. Every disciple must have his own violin; the school doesn't loan violins. Therefore, no matter what your body is like, or what kind of deformities it has, you are able fix it. How? You can fix it through exercises. Just as the sound of a violin gets better and better with playing, in the same way a human body can be improved and developed through exercises and effort. For example, this year I may give you the task of working on your nose - of elongating it or to widening it by 1-2 millimetres. It is easier to widen the nose than to elongate it. In order to make your will steady and positive, you need to change the thumb and the lower part of your chin. The lower part of the chin needs to jut out a little and have a small hollow. This shapes the chin, gives it a nicer form. The thumb has to widen and elongate. If you are unable to achieve that, what kind of will do you have?

 

You say that people influence each other. I am asking, when you were students what influence did you render at university? You have convictions but you are afraid of people getting to know you, and try to pass unnoticed. You want to be like the rich tradesman who tries to pass unnoticed by the robbers, so that they don't rob him. That is the way a cowardly man acts. Whoever has a positive creed, a positive conviction, should be ready to defend his creed not with words but with actions. A man with conviction is like a current that passes through wires - wherever it passes it produces light and warmth. The minds of most secular people function mainly around the ears, near the temples, and as a result of this their thought can't move to the upper part of the brain. The experienced gardener sends the water there in order to moisturize these parts and induce higher thoughts in them. That is the way Nature works. How does it educate the materialist villager? As long as the harvest is rich, he goes around the taverns, drinks, says cheers to friends, doesn't think about anything. In order to make him think, Nature starts educating him. How? It sends drought. The villager sows but the harvest is small and the drought is big. The villager sits and thinks, "What is this about? How have I sinned before God?'' He thinks and raises his eyes upward. If no rain comes in the next two to three years, all that was planted will dry up. The villager becomes more reflective and more humble. Therefore when Nature wants to educate someone, she takes away from him the objects that divert his attention and prevent him from thinking.

 

Another method which Nature uses with materialists is placing wedges. This method doesn’t need too much talking. You pass by any materialist and say to him quietly, "Do you think that matter is something real?" or "Do you think that our present life is permanent?'' You say these words and walk away, they are like wedges in a person's thought process. Then the person starts thinking. Nature aims to compel man to think, not to convince him. After his thought starts operating, he will search for you, he will want to speak with you upon the matter. But in this case too don't talk to him for too long, let him talk. When he expresses his thoughts, ask him: "Do you think that your views are right?" This will offend him and he will go on speaking and trying to prove that his views are right. When he talks you should listen to him carefully. It's enough to awaken his interest once and he will start looking for other opportunities to speak with you. He doesn't succumb, he even fights back consciously, but his thought starts working. Once his thought starts working, the energy of the new thought penetrates him and starts watering the upper centres of the brain. This method is called the method of plugging up. Through this method you will plug up the person in one place, so that he will search for an exit from somewhere else. You should make small experiments of this kind and see what results you will have.

 

Reflection

 

Without fear in boundless Love!

Edited by Viktoriya
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