Five Chapters

I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost...I am helpless
It isn't my fault,
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit.
My eyes are open,
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V
I walk down another street.

- Portia Nelson

NEW PERSPECTIVES HOLD THE KEYS to our growth and freedom. Choosing to harness our brain's neuroplasticity and rewire out conditioned responses and perspectives toward flexibility and resilience means we get to walk down another street. We don't have to, but we can choose to. Now we have the neural capacity to perceive options where we saw none before, discern which options might be most productive, and choose wisely among them what course of action to take.

Evening Review

Evening review is like going over your thoughts, emotions, words, and actions and retaping points that were not acceptable to your soul.

A musician records his music and goes over it and corrects the tape. He casts away all that is not proper in the music and thus cleans the tape of all defects. This is what evening review does. It cleans your recording and does not let anything unacceptable stay there to contaminate the rest.

What is evening review? 

Every night seclude yourself for fifteen to thirty minutes and review your life during the day, starting from the moment you awakened. You progress minute by minute, checking your thoughts, words, emotions, and actions in a progressive way until you reach the moment of your review. Then you retape or record, eliminating all that is not acceptable by the light of your soul and replacing it with thoughts, emotions, actions, or words that are acceptable in the light of your soul. Thus you clean the chain of events from your recording.

For example, you acted in an angry, illogical, and rude manner at 10:00 am. Change the recoding. In your evening review, act in a very pleasant manner, with logic and reasoning. Be graceful. Now you have a new recording, and you will not take with you the old tape when you go to sleep. Instead you will have with you the newly edited tape. This will not only invigorate your nadis but will also destroy the seeds of future complications.

Suppose you were acting in vanity and ego and deceived someone. Now, at the evening review, you react and act without vanity, without ego, without deception, but are noble and honest in that event. During these times you prepare a bright future for yourself and cat out causes that will damage your nadis.

Sometimes you will see situations that make you hate yourself. This is not necessary. Approach the day’s events with indifference and correct them. In the evening review if you are totally satisfied with yourself you are blind or afraid. See deep into yourself. See motives, see intentions, and bring them out and change them.

Accepting yourself as you are leads you to future moral and spiritual bankruptcy.

With this method you become your own guide, and your soul light increases in your consciousness and makes you ever alert.

Knowledge, degrees, and positions destroy your future if you do not guide yourself with the light of your reason and logic and by the light of your soul.

- Torkom Saraydarian (Esoteric Science of Healing, p.197)

Consciousness

Each chakra is related to one of the levels of consciousness. As flowers bloom when the spring comes, so the chakras bloom when the light of the consciousness expands.

We see that in every age people tried to introduce methods to unfold the chakras

1. by artificial means

2. by meditating upon them

3. through the process of meditation, purification, and expansion of consciousness

4. through initiations

The first two methods are considered very dangerous by certain Teachers. The third method is the safest method. The fourth method is exercised only by the Great Master, to meet certain planetary crises and prepare a certain number of people to handle the danger accumulating upon the planet.

The third, safest method is recommended in Ashrams and in true esoteric schools.

The artificial methods are hatha yoga, breathing exercises, certain exercises of will, and concentration upon the chakras. In far eastern countries, these are exercised with only failing results; but in western countries, because of our chaotic and polluted environment, such methods have very destructive effects.

Those who want to develop their chakras safely must lay a good foundation. When one carefully lives according to such a foundation, the rest will be easy. This foundation is build by

1. purity of life – physical, moral, and mental

2. sacrificial service – service to spread Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom

3. fearlessness – which is a state of consciousness not identified with material values

4. striving toward perfection – with one’s deeds, words, expressions, creativity, thought, and communication.

- Torkom Saraydarian (Education as Transformation vol.1, p.98)

One of the types of consciousness described in the Teaching is called extinguished consciousness. We are told that this kind of consciousness is an actual vampire. How does this happen?

When someone lives a life of crime, hatred, separatism, malice, and slander and destroys the bridge between human beings, his Inner Dweller withdraws its beam of light from the mental plane. It is this beam of light from the Inner Dweller or Transpersonal Self that meets the beam of light of the human soul on the mental plane, and through contact with it creates the field of consciousness.

When the Transpersonal Self withdraws its beam of light before the light of the human soul is strong enough, darkness descends on the field of the mental body, and the eyes of the human soul can no longer see in this darkness. Thus, the consciousness of the person is extinguished.

Such a person lives a life against all virtues. He cannot uphold any principle or standard because he lacks a foundation. Because of his state of inner darkness, his glamors, illusions, and self-deceptions attack him and control his life.

Sometimes such people succeed in destroying entire nations or civilizations. They are like decaying corpses in society that spread darkness, greed, and crime. Such an extinguished consciousness is often reborn with severe mental illness or totally deformed.

In the Subtle Worlds, these people are known as “fuming wood.” They appear as human beings who have no eyes; only dark holes exist where their eyes should be.

Consciousness is the root of the eyes. As consciousness unfolds and expands, the eyes become more beautiful. In the Subtle Worlds, they shine like torches.

As consciousness continues to expand more and fuse with the heart, the eyes not only become beams of light, but they also develop the power to create and destroy glamors and illusions in the Subtle Worlds. The eyes of a person who has an expanded and transmuted consciousness radiate healing, guidance, and strengthening energy. Consciousness provides the fire for such a transformation.

Between those who have a pure, clean consciousness and those who have a dark consciousness, there are those who have a grey consciousness. These are the people who use the fruits of labor of both parties for their own separative interests. They are the lukewarm people whose karma is more awful than the karma of dark ones.

Those with grey consciousness are the most dangerous people in the world. They pretend that they serve the clean ones and in the meantime serve the dark ones. They penetrate both parties and become a factor of infection, a factor of contamination. It is these people who are mostly responsible for the degeneration of morals, the degeneration of life on all levels of society.

The dark ones and grey ones steal the messages coming from higher centers, if the opportunity is given to them, and distort them in such a way that sometimes even the followers of the right path are deceived. Some of these grey ones work in religious institutions and under various groups and movements. Their motive is to mislead.

- Torkom Saraydarian (Consciousness)

Psychism

Great Teachers give the following advice regarding psychism:

1. Do not force yourself to be a psychic but let your powers flourish naturally.

2. Never manipulate your centers and never concentrate upon them.

3. Find a wise Teacher when you feel that you are ready for instruction.

4. Never use your powers to satisfy the curious or selfish interests of others. Study the Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita, The New Testament, the works of H. P. Blavatsky, Alice A. Bailey, Helena Roerich, and other such literature.

5. Learn how to meditate.

6. Observe your moral life, and do not be trapped in sex, vanity, greed, hatred, and fear. Such elements destroy the communication line between you and your Solar Angel.

7. Try to live in the light of your Solar Angel.

8. Do not talk about your own spiritual striving and discoveries with average people.

9. Any psychic experience must be reported to your Teacher and no one else.

10. Any psychic order revealed from the subjective realms must not be obeyed until your Teacher’s advice is sought.

- Torkom Saraydarian (Breakthrough to Higher Psychism, pp.92-92)

There are two kinds of psychism. One is lower psychism. The other is higher psychism. Lower psychism is related to the astral and lower mental planes. It is related to self-interest, matter, position, possessions, greed, aggressiveness, separatism, sex, negative emotions, domination, and control.

Higher psychism is related to the higher mind, intuition, and atmic awareness. Its source is the Spiritual Triad. It is related to the Hierarchical Plan, to the Divine Purpose, to the Common Good of humanity, to the law of evolution, and to karma. It is related to Cosmic Centers, such as Sirius, Pleiades, and the Great Bear.

The purpose of higher psychism is to lead humanity toward perfection. its devices or equipments are mental, intuitional and atmic senses. Its intention is to establish the Will of God on earth. The higher psychic is selfless and lives a life of sacrificial service. His ego and vanity are totally nonexistent.

Higher psychism is never related to so-called spirits, astral entities, corpses, or astral guides. The higher psychic is related to higher etheric centers, such as the Hierarchy, Shamballa, and other centers in space that are treasuries of Cosmic Wisdom. His whole existence is based upon sacrificial service for all living forms.

The consciousness or awareness of a higher psychic functions in the abstract mind, in the Intuitional, Atmic, even in higher Planes. This is why his communication is relatively pure.

A lower psychic functions in the etheric, astral, and lower mental planes, and his communications are conditioned by the pollution found in these three planes. Most of the time all contacts of lower psychics are distorted or fabricated. Because of such a work carried on by the lower psychic, the dark forces show great interest in him. Eventually they possess him and use him against the law of evolution. This is the greatest danger awaiting a medium, a channel, and a lower psychic.

- Torkom Saraydarian (Consciousness vol.1, p.26)