Speaker 1: The first lesson the eye. In India, the candidates for
initiation into the science of Raja Yoga, when they apply
to the Yogi masters for instruction, are given a series
of lessons designed to enlighten them regarding the nature of
the real self and to instruct them in the secret knowledge,
whereby they may develop the consciousness and realization of the
real eye within them. They are shown how they may
cast aside the erness or imperfect knowledge regarding their real identity.
Until the candidate masters this instruction, or at least until
the truth becomes fixed in his consciousness, further instruction is
denied him, for it is held that until he has
awakened to a conscious realization of his actual identity, he
is not able to understand the source of his power,
and moreover, is not able to feel within him the
power of the will, which power underlies the entire teachings
of Raja Yoga. The Yogi masters are not satisfied if
the candidate forms merely a clear intellectual conception of this
actual identity, but they insist that he must feel the
truth of the same, must become aware of the real self,
must enter into a consciousness in which the realization becomes
a part of his everyday self, in which the realizing
consciousness becomes the prevailing idea in his mind around which
his entire thoughts and actions revolve. To some candidates, this
realization comes like a lightning flash the moment the attention
is directed toward it, while in other cases the candidates
find it necessary to follow a rigorous course of training
before they acquire the real life vization in consciousness. The
Yogi masters teach that there are two degrees of this
awakening consciousness of the real self. The first, which they
call the consciousness of the eye, is the full consciousness
of real existence that comes to the candidate and which
causes him to know what he is, a real entity,
having a life, not depending upon the body, life that
will go on in spite of the destruction of the body,
real life. In fact, the second degree, which they call
the consciousness of the i am, is the consciousness of
one's identity with the universal life and his relationship to
and in touchness with our life, expressed and unexpressed. These
two degrees of consciousness come in time to all who
seek the path to sum It comes suddenly to others,
it dance gradually to many it comes assisted by the
exercises and practical work of Raja yoga. The first lesson
of the Yogi masters to the candidates leading up to
the first degree above mentioned is as follows, that the
supreme intelligence of the universe, the absolute as manifested, the
being that we call man, the highest manifestation on this planet,
the absolute as manifested, and infinitude of forms of life
in the universe, including distant worlds, suns, planets, et cetera,
many of these forms being unknown to us on this
planet and being impossible of conception by the mind of
the ordinary man. But these lessons have nothing to do
with that power of the philosophy which deals with these
myriad forms of life. For our time will be taken
up with the unfoldment in the mind of man of
his true nature and power. Before man attempts to solve
the secrets of the universe without he should master the
universe within the kingdom of the self. When he has
accomplished this, then he may and should go forth to
gain the outer knowledge as a master demanding its secrets,
rather than as a slave begging for the crumbs from
the table of knowledge. The first knowledge for the candidate
is the knowledge of the self. Man, the highest manifestation
of the absolute, as far as this planet is concerned,
is a wonderfully organized being. Although the average man understands
but little of his real nature. He comprises within his physical, mental,
and spiritual make up both the highest and the lowest.
As we have shown in our previous lessons, the fourteen
Lessons and the advanced course in his book Bones, he
manifests almost in the form of mineral life. In fact,
in his bones, body, and blood, mineral substances actually exist.
The physical life of the body resembles the life of
the plant. Many of the physical desires and emotions are
akin to those of the lower animals, and in the
undeveloped man, these desires and emotions predominate and overpower the
higher nature, which latter is scarcely in evidence. Then man
has a set of mental characteristics that are his own,
and which are not possessed by the lower animals see
fourteen Lessons. And in addition to the mental faculties common
to all men, or rather that are in evidence in
a greater or lesser degree among all men, there are
still higher faculties latent within man, which when manifested and expressed,
render man more than ordinary man. The unfoldment of these
latent faculties is possible to all who have reached the
proper stage of development, and the desire and hunger of
the student for this instruction is caused by the pressure
of these unfolding latent faculties trying to be borne into consciousness.
Then there is the our wonderful thing, the will, which
is but faintly understood by those ignorant of the Yoga philosophy.
The power of the ego, its birthright from the absolute.
But while these mental and physical things belong to man,
they are not the man himself. Before the man is
able to master, control, and direct the things belonging to him,
his tools and instruments, he must awaken to a realization
of himself. He must be able to distinguish between the
eye and the not i and the is the first
task before the candidate. That which is the real self
of man is the divine spark sent forth from the
sacred flame. It is the child of the Divine Parent.
It is immoral, eternal, indestructible, invincible. It possesses within itself power, wisdom,
and reality. But like the infant that contains within itself
the some time man. The mind of man is unaware
of its latent and potential qualities, and does not know itself.
As it awakens and unfolds into the knowledge of its
real nature, it manifests its qualities and realizes what the
absolute has given it. When the real self begins to awaken,
it sets aside from itself those things which are but
appendagous to it, but which it, in its half working state,
had regarded as itself. Setting aside first there and then
that are, it finally discards all of the not I,
leaving the real self free and delivered from its bondage
to appendages. Then it returns to the discarded appendages and
makes use of them. In considering the question what is
the real self? Let us first stop to examine what
man what man usually means when he says I. The
lower animals do not possess this eye, since they are
conscious of the outer world, of their own desires and
animal cravings and feelings, but their consciousness has not reached
the self conscious stage. They are not able to think
of themselves as separate entities and to reflect upon their thoughts.
They are not possessed of a consciousness of the divine spark,
the ego, the real self. The divine spark is hidden
in the lower forms of life, even in the lower
forms of human life, by many sheets that shut out
its light. But nevertheless it is there always. It sleeps
within the mind of the savage. Then as he unfolds,
it begins to throw out its light in new the candidate.
It is fighting hard to have its beams piers through
the material coverings. When the real self begins to arouse
itself from its sleep, its dreams vanish from it, and
it begins to see the world as it is, and
to recognize itself in reality and not as the distorted
things of its dreams. The savage and barbarian are scarcely
conscious of the eye. They are but a little above
the animal in point of consciousness, and their eye is
almost entirely a matter of the consciousness of the wants
of the body, the satisfaction of the appetites, the gratification
of the passions, the securing of personal comfort, the expression
of lust, savage power, et cetera. In the savage, the
lower part of the instinctive mind is the seed of
the eye. See fourteen lessons for explanation of the several
mental plains of man. If the savage could analyze his thoughts,
he would say that the eye was the physical body,
the said body having suttained feelings, wants, and desires. The
eye of such a man is a physical eye, the
body representating its form and substance. Not only is this
true of the savage, but even among so called civilized
men of to day we find many in the stage.
They have developed powers of thinking and reasoning, but they
do not live in their minds, as do some of
their brothers. They used their thinking powers for the gratification
of their bodily desires and cravings, and really live on
the plane of the instinctive mind. Such a person may
speak of my mind or my soul, not from a
high position, where he looks upon these things from the
standpoint of a master who realizes his real self, but
from below, from the point of view of the man
who lives on the plane of the instinctive mind, and
who sees above himself. Of the higher attributes to such people.
The body is the eye. Their eye is bound up
with the senses, and that which comes to them through
the senses of course. As man advances in culture and civilization,
his senses become educated and are satisfied only with more
refined things, while the less cultivated man is perfectly satisfied
with the more material and gross sense gratification. Much that recall,
cultivation and culture is not but a cultivation of a
more refined form of sense gratification instead of a real
advance in consciousness and unfolment. It is true that the
advanced student and master is possessed of highly developed senses,
often far surpassing those of the ordinary man. But in
such cases the senses have been cultivated under the mastery
of the will, and are made servants of the eager.
Instead of things hindering the progress of the soul, they
are made servants instead of masters. As man advances in
the scale, he begins to have a somewhat higher conception
of the eye. He begins to use his mind and reason,
and he passes on to the mental plane. His mind
begins to manifest upon the plane of intellect. He finds
that there is something within him that is higher than
the body. He finds that his mind seems more real
to him than thus the physical part of him, And
in times of deep thought and study, he is able
almost to forget the existence of the body. In this
second stage, man soon becomes perplexed. He finds problems that
demand an answer, But as soon as he thinks he
has answered them, the problems present themselves in a new phase,
and he is called upon to explain his explanation. The mind,
even although not controlled and directed by the will, has
a wonderful range. But nevertheless man finds himself traveling around
and around in a circle and realizes that he is
confronted continually by the unknown. This disturbs him, and the
higher the stage of book learning he attains, the more
disturbed does he becomes. The man of Barlettle knowledge does
not see the existence of many problems that force themselves
before the attention of the man of knowledge and demand
an explanation for him. The tortures of the man who
has attained the mental growth that enables him to see
the new problems and the impossibility of their answer, cannot
be imagined by one who has not advanced to that stage.
The man in this stage of consciousness thinks of his
eye as a mental thing, having a lower companion the body.
He feels that he has advanced, but yet this eye
does not give him the answer to the riddles and
questions that perplex him, and he becomes most unhappy. Such
men often develop into pessimists and consider the whole life
as utterly evil and disappointing occurs rather than a blessing.
Pessimism belongs to this plain for neither the physical plain
man or the spiritual plain man have this curse of pessimism.
The former man has no such disquieting thoughts, for he
is almost entirely absorbed in gratifying his animal nature, while
the latter man recognizes his mind as an instrument of
himself rather than as himself, and knows it to be
imperfect in its present stage of growth. He knows that
he has in himself the key to all knowledge locked
up in the ego, and which the trained mind, cultivated,
developed and guided by the awakened will, may grasp as
it unfolds. Knowing this, the advanced man no longer despairs,
and recognizing his real nature and his possibilities as he
awakens into the consciousness of his powers and capabilities, he
laughs at the old, despondent, pessimistic ideas and discards them
like a worn out garment. Man on the mental plane
of consciousness is like a huge elephant who knows not
his own strength. He could break down back barriers and
assert himself over nearly any condition or environment, but in
his ignorance of his real condition and power, he may
be mastered by a putney driver or frightened by a
rustling of a piece of paper. When the candidate becomes
an initiade, when he passes from the purely mental plane
onto the spiritual plane, he realizes that the eye, the
real self, is something higher than either body or mind,
and that both of the latter may be used as
tools and instruments by the ego or eye. This knowledge
is not reached by purely intellectual reasoning, although such efforts
of the mind are often necessary to help in the unfoldment,
and the masters so use it. The real knowledge, however,
comes as a special form of consciousness. The candidate becomes
aware of the real eye, and this consciousness being attained,
he passes to the rank of the initiates. When the
initiate passes the second degree of consciousness and begins to
grow into a realization of his relationship to the whole.
When he begins to manifest the expansion of self. Then
he is on the road to mastership. In the present lesson,
we shall endeavor to point out to the candidate the
methods of developing or increasing the realization of this eye consciousness,
this first degree work. We give the following exercises or
development drills for the candidate to practice. He will find
that a careful and conscientious following of these directions will
tend to unfold in him a sufficient degree of the
eye consciousness to enable him to enter into higher stages
of development and power. All that is necessary is for
the candidate to feel within himself the dawn of the
awakening consciousness, or the awareness of the real self. The
highest stages of the eye consciousness come gradually, for once
on the path, there is no retrogression or going backward.
There may be pauses on the journey, but there is
no such thing as actually losing that which has once gained.
On the path. This eye consciousness, even in its highest stages,
is but a preliminary step toward what is called illumination,
and which signifies the awakening of the initiate to a
realization of his actual connection with the relation to the whole.
The full sight of the glory of the eye is
but a faint, reflected glow of illumination. The candidate, once
that he enters fully into the eye consciousness, becomes an initiate,
and the initiate who enters into the dawn of illumination
takes its first step upon the road to mastery. The
initiation is the awakening of the soul to a knowledge
of its real existence. The illumination is the revelation of
the real nature of the soul and of its relationship
with the whole. After the first dawn of the eye
consciousness has been attained, the candidate is more able to
grasp the means of developing the consciousness to a still
higher degree, is more able to use the powers latent
within him to control his own mental states, to manifest
a center of consciousness and influence that will radiate into
the outer world, which is always striving and hunting for
such centers around which it may revolve. Man must master
himself before he can hope to exert an influence beyond himself.
There is no royal road to unfoldment and power. Each
step must be taken in turn, and each candidate must
take the step himself and by his own effort, but
he may and will be aided by the helping hand
of the teachers who have traveled the path before him,
and who know just when the helping hand is needed
to lift the candidate over the rough places. We bid
the candidate to pay strict attention to the falling instruction,
as it is all important. Do not slight any part
of it, for we are giving you only what is
necessary and are stating it as briefly as possible. Pay
attention and follow the instruction closely. This lesson must be
mastered before you progress, and it must be practiced not
only now, but at many stages of the journey until
full initiation and elimination is yours. Part two Rules and
exercises designed to aid the candidate in his initiation. The
first instruction along the line of initiation is designed to
awaken the mind to a full realization and consciousness of
the individuality of the eye. The candidate is staught to
relax his body and to calm his mind, and to
meditate upon the eye until it is presented clearly and
sharply before the consciousness. We herewith give directions for producing
the desired physical and mental condition in which meditation and
concentration are more readily practiced. This state of meditation will
be referred to in subsequent exercises, so the candidate is
advised to acquaint himself thoroughly with it state of meditation.
If possible, retire to a quiet place or room where
you do not fear interruption, so that your mind may
feel secure and at rest. Of course, the ideal condition
cannot always be obtained, in which case you must do
the best you can. The idea is that you should
be able to abstract Yoself so far as is possible
from distracting impressions, and you should be alone with Joseph
in communion with your real self. It is well to
place yourself in an easy chair or on a couch,
so that you may relax the muscles and feed the
tension of your nerves. You should be able to let
go all over, allowing every muscle to become limp until
a feeling of perfect peace and RESTful calm permits every
particle of your being. Rest the body and calm the mind.
This condition is best in the earlier stages of the practice,
although after the candidate has acquired a degree of mastery,
he will be able to obtain the physical relaxation and
mental calm whenever and wherever he desires, but he must
guard against acquiring a dreamy way of going around wrapped
in meditation when he should be attending to the affairs
of life. Remember this, the state of meditation should be
entirely under the control of the will, and should be
entered into only deliberately and at the proper times. The
will must be master of this, as well as of
every other mental state. The initiates are not day dreamers,
but men and women having full control of themselves and
their moods. The eye consciousness, while developed by meditation and consciousness,
soon becomes a fixed item of consciousness and does not
have to be produced by meditation. In time of trial, doubt,
or trouble, the consciousness may be brightened by any effort
of the will, as we shall explain in subsequent lessons,
without going into the state of meditation. The realization of
the eye. The candidate must first acquaint himself with the
reality of the eye before he will be able to
live its real nature. This is the first step. Let
the candidate place himself in a state of meditation as
heretofore describe. Then, let him concentrate his entire attention upon
his individual self, shutting out all thought of the outside
world and other persons. Let him form in his mind
the idea of himself as a real thing, an actual being,
an individual entity, a son around which revolves the world.
He must see himself as a center around which the
whole world revolves. Let not a false modesty or sense
of depreciation interfere with this idea, For you are not
denying the right of others to also consider themselves centers.
You are, in fact a center of consciousness, made so
by the absolute, and you are awakening to the fact.
Until the eager recognizes itself as a center of thought
in flu and power, it did not be able to
manifest these qualities. And in proportion, as it recognizes its
position as a center, so will it be able to
manifest its qualities. It is not necessary that you should
compare yourself with others, or imagine yourself greater or higher
than them. In fact, such comparisons are to be regretted
and are unworthy of the advanced ego, being a mark
and indication of a lack of development, rather than the reverse.
In the meditation simply ignore all the consideration of the
respective qualities of others, and endeavor to realize the fact
that you are a great center of consciousness, a center
of power, a center of influence, a center of thought,
and that, like the planets circling around the sun, so
does your world revolve around you, who are its center.
It will not be necessary for you to argue out
this matter or to convince yourself of its truth by
intellectual reasoning. The knowledge does not come in that way.
It comes in the shape of a realization of the truth,
gradually dawning upon your consciousness through meditation and concentration. Carry
this thought of yourself as a center of consciousness, influence
power with you, For it is an awkle truth, and
in the proportion that you are able to realize it,
so will be your ability to manifest the qualities named.
No matter how humble may be your position, no matter
how hard may be your lot, no matter how deficient
in educational advantages you may be, still you would not
change your eye with the most fortunate, wisest, and highest
man our woman in the world. You may doubt this,
but think for a moment, and you will see that
we are right. When you say that you would like
to be this person, or that you really mean that
you would like to have their degree of intelligence, power, wealth, position,
or what not. What you want is something that is
theirs or something akin to it. But you would not,
for a moment wish to merge your identity with theirs,
or to exchange selves. Think of this for a moment.
To be the other person, you would have to let
yourself die, and instead of yourself, you would be the
other person. The real you would be wiped out of existence,
and you would not be you at all, but would
be he. If you can but grasp this idea, you
will see that not for a moment would you be
willing for such an exchange. Of course, such an exchange
is impossible. The eye of you cannot be wiped out.
It is eternal. It will go on and on and
on to higher and higher states. But it always will
be the same eye. Just as you, although a far
different sort of person from your childhood self, still you
recognize the same eye is there and always has been there.
And although you will attain knowledge, experience, power, and wisdom
in the coming years, the same eye will be there.
The eye is the divine spark and cannot be extinguished.
The majority of people in the present stage of the
race development have but a faint conception of the reality
of the eye. They accept the statement of its existence
and are conscious of themselves as an eating, sleeping, living creature,
something like a higher form of animal. But they have
not awakened to an awareness or realization of the eye,
which must come to all who become real centers of
influence and power. Some men have stumbled into this consciousness
or a degree of fid without understanding the matter. They
have felt the truth of it, and they have stepped
out from the ranks of the commonplace people of the
world and have become powers for good or bad. This
is unfortunate to some extent, as this awareness without the
knowledge that should accompany it, may bring pain to the
individual and others. The candidate must meditate upon the eye
and recognize it, feel it to be a center. This
is his first task. Impress upon your mind the world
I in this sense and understanding, and let it sing
deep down into your consciousness, so that it will become
a part of you. And when you say I, you
must accompany the world with the picture of your ego
as a center of consciousness and thought, and power and influence.
See yourselves thus surrounded by your world. Wherever you go,
there goes the center of the world. You are the
sent and all outside a few revolts around that center.
This is the first great lesson on the road to initiation.
Learn it. The Yogi masters teach the candidates that their
realization of the eye as a center may be hastened
by going into the silence or state of meditation and
repeating their first name over, slowly, deliberately, and solemnly a
number of times. This exercise tends to cause the mind
to center upon the eye, and many cases of darning
initiation have resulted from this practice. Many original thinkers have
stumbled upon this method without having been taughted. A noted
example is that of Lord Tennyson, who has written that
he attained a degree of initiation in this way. He
would repeat his own name over and over at the
same time, meditating upon his identity, and he reports that
he would become conscious and aware of his reality and immortality.
In short, would recognize himself as a real center of consciousness.
We think we have given you the key to the
first stage of meditation and concentration. Before passing on, let
us quote from one of the old Hindu masters. He says,
regarding this matter, when the soul sees itself as a
center surrounded by its circumference, when the sun knows that
it is the sun, and this surrounded by its whirling planets,
then is it ready for the wisdom and power of
the masters the knowledge of the independence of the eye
from the body. Many of the candidates find themselves prevented
from a full realization of the eye, even after they
have begun to grasp it, by the confusing of the
reality of the eye with the sense of the physical body.
This is a stumbling block that is easily overcome by
meditation and concentration, the independence of the eye often becoming
manifest to the candidate in a flash upon the proper
thought being used as subject of meditation. The exercise is
given as follows. Place yourself in the state of meditation
and think of yourself the real eye as being independent
of the body, but using the body as a cowering
and an instrument. Think of the body as you might
of a suit of clothes. Realize that you are able
to leave the body and still be the same eye.
Picture yourself as doing this and looking down upon your body.
Think of the body as a shell from which you
may emerge without affecting your identity. Think of yourself as
mastering and controlling the body that you occupy, and using
it to the best advantage, making it healthy, strong, and vigorous,
but still being merely a shell or curing for the
real you. Think of the body as composed of atoms
and cells which are constantly changing, but which are held
together by the force of your ego, and which can
improve at will realize that you are merely inhabiting the
body and using it for your convenience, just as you
might choose a house. In meditating. Further, ignore the body
entirely and place your thought upon the real eye that
you are beginning to feel to be you, and you
will find that your identity, your eye, is something entirely
apart from your body. You may now say my body
with a new meaning. But do not let this conception
and realization cause you to ignore the body. You must
regard the body as the temple of the spirit, and
care for it and make it a fit habitation for
the eye. Do not be frightened if during this meditation
you happen to experience the sensation of being out of
the body for a few minutes and of returning to
it when you are through with the exercise. The ego
is able in the case of the advanced initihade of
sore about the convince of the body, but it never
severs its connection at such times. It's merely as if
one were to look out of the window of room,
seeing what is going on outside, and drawing in his
head when he wishes. He does not leave the room,
although he may please his head outside in order to
observe what is doing in the street. We do not
advise the candidate to try to cultivate this sensation, but
if it comes naturally during meditation, do not fear realizing
the immortality and invincibility of the ego. While the majority
accept on faith the belief in the immortality of the soul,
yet but few are aware that it may be demonstrated
by the soul itself. The yogi masters teach the candidates
this lesson as follows. The candidate pleases himself in the
state of meditation, or at least in a thoughtful frame
of mind, and then endeavors to imagine himself as dead,
That is, he try to form a mental conception of
himself as dead. This at first thought appears a very
easy thing to imagine, but as a matter of fact,
it is impossible to do so, for the eager refuses
to entertain the proposition and finds it impossible to imagine it.
Try it for yourself. You will find that you may
be able to imagine your body as lying still and lifeless.
But the same thought finds that in so doing, your
standing and looking at the body, so you see that
you are not dead at all, even in imagination, although
the body may be. Or if you refuse to disentangle
yourself from your body in imagination, you may think of
your body as dead, But you, who refuse to leave it,
are still alive, and recognize the dead body as a
thing apart from your real self. No matter how you
may twist it, you cannot imagine yourself as dead. The
ego insists upon being alive in any of these thoughts,
and thus far that it has within itself the sense
and assurance of immortality. In case of sleep or stupor
resulting from a blow, or from narcotics or anesthetics, the
mind is apparently blank, but the eye is conscious of
a continuity of existence, and so one may imagine himself
as being in an unconscious state or asleep quite easily
and seized the possibility of such a state. But when
it comes to imagining the eye as dead, the mind
utterly refuses to do the work. This wonderful fact that
the soul carries within itself the evidence of its own immortality,
is a glorious thing, but one must have reached a
degree of unfoldment before he is able to grasp its
full significance. The candidate is advised to investigate the above statement
for himself by meditation and concentration. For in order that
the eye may know its true nature and possibilities, it
must realize that it cannot be destroyed or killed. It
must know what it is before it is able to
manifest its nature. So do not leave this power of
the teaching until you have mastered it, and it is
well occasionally to return to it in order that you
may impress upon the mind the fact of your immortal
and eternal nature. The mere glimmering of this conception of
truth will give you an increased sense of strength and power,
and you will find that yourself has expanded and grown,
and that you are more of a power and center
than you have heretofore realized. The falling exercises are useful
in bringing about a realization of the invincibility of the
ego its superiority to the elements. Place yourself in the
state of meditation, and imagine the eye as with drawn
from the body. See it passing through the tests of air, fire,
and water unharmed, the body being out of the way.
The soul is seen to be able of passing through
the air at will, of floating like a bird, of soaring,
of traveling in the either. It may be seen as
able to pass through fire without harm and without sensation,
for the elements effect only the physical body, not the
real eye. Likewise, it may be seen as passing through
water without discomfort or danger or hurt. This meditation will
give you a sense of superiority and strength, and will
show you something of the nature of the real eye.
It is true that you are confiant in the body,
and the body may be affected by the elements. But
the knowledge that the real eye is superior to the body,
superior to the elements that affect the body, and cannot
be endured any more than it can be killed. Is
wonderful intense to develop the full eye consciousness within you.
For you, the real eye, are not body. Your spirit,
the ego is immortal and invincible and cannot be killed
and harmed. When you enter into this realization and consciousness,
you will feel an influx of strength and power impossible
to describe, will fall from you like a honored clock,
and you will feel that you are born again. An
understanding of this thought will show you that the things
that you have been fearing cannot affect the real eye,
but must rest content with hurting the physical body, and
they may be warded off from the physical body by
a proper understanding and application of the will. In our
next lesson will be taught how to separate the eye
from the mechanism of the mind, How you may realize
your mastery of the mind, just as you know realize
your independence of the body. This knowledge must be imparted
to you by degrees, and you must place your feet
firmly upon one round of the ladder before you take
the next step. The watchword of this first lesson is I,
and the candidate must enter fully into its meaning before
he is able to progress He must realize his real
existence independent of the body. He must see himself as
invincible and impervious to harm, hurt, or death. He must
see himself as the great center of consciousness, a sun
around which his world revolves. Then will come to him
in new strength. He will feel a calm, dignity, and
power which will be apparent to those with whom he
comes in contact. He will be able to look the
world in the face without flinching and without fear, for
he will realize the nature and power of the eye.
He will realize that he is a center of power
of influence. He will realize that nothing can harm the eye,
and that no matter how the storms of life may
dash upon the personality, the real eye, the individuality is unharmed.
Like a rock that stands steadfast throughout the storm, so
does the eye stand through the tempests of the life
of personality. And he will know that as he grows
in realization, he will be able to control these storms
and bid them be still. In the words of one
of the Yogi masters, the eye is eternal. It passes
unharmed through the fire, the air, the water, sword and
spear cannot kill or wound it. It cannot die. The
trials of the physical life are but as dreams to it.
Resting secure in the knowledge of the eye, man may
smile the worst of the world has to offer, and
raising his hand, he may bid them disappear into the
mist from which they emerged. Blessed to see you, who
can say understandingly, ay, so, dear candidate, will leave you
to master the first lesson. Be not discouraged if your
progress be slow, be not cast down. If you slip
back a step after having gained it, you will gain too.
At the next step, success and realization will be yours.
Mastery is before you will attain. You will accomplish. Peace
be with you. Mantram's affirmations for the first lesson. I
am the center around me revolves my world. I am
the center of influence and power, AYE the center of
thought and consciousness. I am independent of the body. I
am immortal and cannot be destroyed. I am invincible and
cannot be injured.