The transcript of a talk given by William Meader May 2016 in Oxford
Esoteric Philosophy is known by other names – Perennial Philosophy, Ageless Wisdom. Its origins are lost in the mists of time, and it is possibly the oldest philosophy out there. It is a philosophy, not a theology. We can see it in some of the ancient writings of India, the Upanishads, for instance, and we see elements of it in Chaldean thinking, ancient Egyptian thinking and really in the root of all world religions in some connecting points. No religion has found the truth, but every religion has found a piece of it. The mythology is that it goes back to ancient Atlantis. It was clearly evident in Greek thought, and if you really look at people like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Socrates, these were great initiates in Esoteric Philosophy. If you were to speak with them and say, ‘Hey, Plato, are you an Esoteric Philosopher?’ He would say, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s because of the way they thought and perceived things, and the deeper principles they were trying to advocate. This philosophy does not just give birth to, initiate or seed various religions, but all other areas of life as well – politics, economics, the arts, science, etc. They are all categories of human consciousness , evolving through the vastness of time, and each is trying to evolve itself to a higher way, a higher expression, and is struggling to transform its lower nature in order to do that.
This is the same for a human being. It is viewed that we are a soul, working through an outer instrument called a personality, and that personality has distorting elements to it, and the spiritual path is about transforming the lower so that it becomes a rightful servant to the higher. The same idea is seen in this philosophy in a broader sense, in that we can see this working out in social institutions, in science, the arts, police, education, etc. The idea here is that the Esoteric Philosophy launches trains of thought and, over time, the ideas become ever more integrated into society. In religion, many of the ideas become integrated into theology, but as theology moves forward, there is a lot of evidence that it becomes increasingly dogmatic and rigid, and it begins to turn against the mystical root that gave it birth, which forces the philosophy underground – for centuries – and then it rises again when a set of circumstances say that it is right to sound its note again. History is filled with this sort of coming and going of this philosophy. Many tangential branches have emerged over the centuries in relationship to this, including Freemasonry, the core of which is very esoteric, although masonry has become very crystallised and rigid as well. Others are Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism, all branches that have come forth from Esoteric Philosophy.
We are told that this philosophy was reintroduced and a big way in the late 1800s in preparation for a great transition that humanity is believed to be going through, from an astrological perspective from a Piscean era to an Aquarian era. Crisis is always understood as a prelude to great transitional change. That holds true with you and I, with social institutions, and with humanity as a whole.
So it is a philosophy that is reintroducing itself, and we are given to understand that there are 3 phases to this reintroduction. Firstly was the work of Helena Blavatsky the Russian mystic, in her book, ‘The Secret Doctrine’, in the late 1800s. This gave rise to the Theosophical movement, the remnant of which today is the Theosophical Society. The second phase is believed to have been brought forward through the work of Alice A Bailey and her written works. The third phase is not yet here, and will be brought forward around the year 2025. It is the three combined that are said to give the large picture and inaugurate the new and dawning age for humanity. We only have two-thirds of it. We speculate as to what that third phase will look like, and we do the best with what we have so far.
In this philosophy there are several branches. There is a whole huge cosmology system, how to understand the universe, what is God.
• There is an astrological branch to it, quite different to how astrology is understood in the mainstream.
• There is esoteric psychology, which has a lot to do with the evolution of human consciousness. What is consciousness, what is soul, how does the soul want to transform the personality, and how might the personality make it difficult to do that, and what can be done about it. It’s a vast fascinating subject that even breaks down that there are 7 fundamental different types of souls in humanity, and that each type will want to bring an uplifting contribution to human betterment, but in entirely different ways, through different streams and often through different social institutions.
• There is also a whole branch on healing and how it is understood.
• Another branch is on creativity, sometimes called the art of magic, to do with how the soul within each odd us wants to creatively launch progressive ideations within our minds, how do we then take those ideas and develop them to bring them into being in the outer world with a sense of wisdom of how that works, and learn to use the personality as an instrument, and to recognise that as the destiny of the personality, to be the creative agent on behalf of the soul’s creative agenda.
• There is a fascinating understanding of the steps needed for the soul to inspire our thoughts and bring emotion into it, and how to understand right timing when you want to bring the best of you forward into the world.
It is said that the soul in each of us is governed by several laws, and that the third of these is the law of service, that every human soul wants to express through the personality, and wants to do that without the personality getting in the way, and that’s where the challenge is, and in so doing it wants to make an uplifting contribution to something beyond itself. It doesn’t matter if that person calls themselves a Christian, a Jewish, a Buddhist, a Hindu or an atheist, it’s a story of the divinity within you seeking to work through you to make a difference in the outer world.
Esoteric Psychology and the creative process are big parts of this philosophy and are where my work tends to centre. It’s also very related to the times we are living in. Esoteric Philosophy would say we are on the brink of a tremendous transformational opportunity, potentially even this century, and much of the world crisis that we see today is anticipated, because, from a certain perspective, the evolution of human consciousness has a lot to do with crisis periods which are a forerunner to a new state of consciousness, like chaos leading to a higher harmony, higher unity and higher organisation. This philosophy would also say that all humanity is, at a higher level, one entity.
Maybe I should define something here for you. If there is one principle among the many principles in the Esoteric Philosophy that it would be useful for you to know, it is the principle of hylozoism. It’s an amazingly important concept to get a grip on, because with it, other things in this philosophy will come together more easily. This philosophy believe that in the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate sense, there is only one thing, one living presence, one beingness. Some people call it God, others Brahma, others call it universal intelligence. In this philosophy, it is often called the One Life. That One Life manifests itself in and as Cosmos, the One becoming the Many. In a certain sense, among the Western theological views, there is the attitude that there is a God out there, then there is this Creation and a gulf that we want to reconcile, but the Esoteric Philosophy would say that it is not God and Creation, but God as Creation, which is a whole different framing, changing the fabric of how we see ourselves in relationship to this thing we call God or the Divine. When there is a gulf, there is a sense of being in a separate position, whereas, in this philosophy, it would say that in the truest, ultimate sense, you are the divinity you seek, because you are a ray from the One. Much of the trouble we have is due to the fact that our consciousness is only struggling to evolve to the point where we can begin to sense that that is true.
Joseph Campbell said that Western theologies are theologies of exile. Even the biblical story of the garden of Eden was a story of exile, with a sense of being cast away from God. Esoteric Philosophy would say that is an illusion, it’s not exile at all, you are that divinity, but it’s about coming to a state of consciousness to discover that.
HYLOZOISM – if it is true that there is only One Life and it is manifesting as Cosmos, then there really can be no true inorganic anything, because if there is only One Life manifesting as Cosmos, then how could anything escape the embrace of that One Life? How could it? Even the atoms in this chair are teeming with life, if we could but understand it. But we have a narrow definition of what life is. Science has a very narrow definition of what life is. A few of the factors are; it must be able to consume resources, it must expel waste, it must reproduce – these are how science defines life. From an esoteric point of view, that is incredibly arbitrary. From an Esoteric Philosophy perspective, it is all one thing manifesting at different levels of consciousness.
The second point of hylozoism is that every unit of life is nested within a higher unit of life, every unit of life is a cell within a vast higher beingness. To use a simple way of looking at it, if I take a cell in my hand, from an esoteric point of view, that cell is a unit of consciousness, and has a spark of consciousness within it, life itself, infinitesimal no question. If you’ve ever studied cellular biology, it’s not hard to imagine a cell as an entity, but nonetheless it is just a cell within the larger living system that is me and you. You and I are viewed as cells within a larger being as well, and that being is humanity. From an esoteric point of view, the whole human family, the sum total of all humanity, is one being, and it has a soul, and it has a personality, and it is believed that right now, at this time in human history, the soul of humanity is trying to have a greater infusing effect upon the personality of humanity, and many of the problems that we see globally around the world that are so devastating represent the crisis that arises through that process.
To go further, humanity as an entity in its own right is viewed as a unit of consciousness within a vaster entity, and that we call the Planetary Logos, the entity that ensouls the whole planet, and that you and I are like cells within it. That entity is like a God to us, and that entity is incarnating. All the kingdoms of nature, mineral, plant, animal, human, are simply layers of its consciousness evolving through form. The whole of humanity is said to represent the throat chakra of the Planetary Logos. The sum total of human consciousness is this vibration, which begs the question, what is the function of the throat chakra? To understand that is to have some sense of what it really means to be human from a spiritual perspective. The throat chakra is the great chakra of spiritual ideation. Through the activation and enlivening of this chakra, the higher part of you can find expression and creative effects in the world can be launched as a result of your interaction with this chakra. So it means that humanity, in the big picture, is the creative outlet for the Planetary Logos’ intention, a huge responsibility. But this too is just a unit within a larger entity called the Solar Logos, which is believed to be the entity that ensouls the entire solar system, and that planets are chakra within it. And it goes further! It is thought that our solar system is a chakra within a vaster entity still, the local group of seven stars of which ours is one, and that our star, the sun, is the heart chakra within that larger entity. So when people say God is love, they are on to something. Our particular ‘local’ God is an agency of cosmic love, and so all that must precipitate down through. One more step… let’s jump about 30 steps and go all the way up to a galaxy. The entire Milky Way galaxy, with 150 billion stars, is also thought to be an entity, containing 150 billion Solar Logi, forming a Galactic Logos. And we now know there are billions of galaxies!
In my work I sometimes come across people who are just beginning to meditate, and say something like, “You know, I just reached total cosmic consciousness!” In my mind I laugh and recommend that they just turn and run – not even the Solar Logos could make that claim! Sometimes when we evolve our consciousness, it is understood that when you first start to wake up, there are expansions of consciousness, but the lower self confuses moreness and allness. What you are experiencing is moreness, but it is thought to be allness. Eventually there is further refinement in consciousness through meditation and self development and you start to realise the incremental nature of this.
So that is hylozoism, and in a way, even God is considered a relative term.
If I go back to the seven types of souls that are so central to the understanding of Esoteric Philosophy, each of them has a great gift. We call it the seven rays. To imagine that, let’s say that God is white light. If that white light is projected through a prism it will divide into 7 colours of the visible spectrum. By analogy, the greater Life divides itself into 7 qualities, equal but different, the seven rays. What is most important from a human beings perspective is to know that your soul is on one of these rays. To know your soul ray is to know the very purpose of your being, and the nature of service that is likely to come forth as you evolve your consciousness to become more and more of that soul.
You can look at these soul rays as a lens of your higher consciousness. They are lenses through which Life looks out at the world, and it sees through that lens. Each lens organises perception differently, and is inclined to be attracted to certain ways of being in the world versus others, certain modes of service versus others. Some soul types will be attracted to education and the healing arts, others will be moved to serve humanity through the arts, others through science, others government, or leadership, or anything that inclines towards executive tendency. Other types of souls want to make their uplifting contribution to humanity through theology.
In fact, each of these ray types animate social systems as well. It’s not just human beings that are on a ray type and are inclined to live a certain spiritual way, but massive social institutions are underpinned by these patterns of consciousness. For instance, religion, or the Department of Religion as it is called, is said to be part of the sixth ray stream, the ray of Idealism and Devotion. It doesn’t matter which religion it is, if you look at world religions, all of them have at their core some strong note of devotion, it can be to a text, or a person, like Jesus or Buddha, and also a strong set of idealistic precepts that underpin it. That stream is incredibly important in support of the evolution of the greater Life, but not the only one. The second ray stream, for instance, people that are second ray souls are more likely to serve humanity through the Department of Education or the healing arts or through many of the helping professions.
The fifth ray is the ray of Concrete Knowledge and Science, and some of the most advanced people on the planet come from the fifth ray stream, and see through the lens of science, that patterning of consciousness and they understand through that lens how to clarify truth and how room help humanity through scientific enquiry, which is as spiritual as any other ray stream. The third ray type is Active Intelligence and Adaptability, and in today’s society it largely underpins the world of economics and business, and it’s mandate in the big picture is to facilitate the right distribution of resources to ensure the sustenance of all life on this planet, and there is no area of humanity more adept at resource generation and distribution. It is true there is a lot of hoarding going on, a huge amount of it, but that’s just the lower tendency of that great category of consciousness. Think of these institutions as being entities in their own right and they have a higher nature and a lower nature, including religion.
From what I understand about CANA, you are trying to reach beyond the locked in traditional religious perspective. We would say you are trying to break free from the limits of the personality expression of theology. The soul of theology is sacred and eternal, but the personality often becomes rigid.
I often say, ‘that which is your temple today will become your prison tomorrow’. The beliefs we hold, those we feel are near and dear, so long as they feed us and help us grow, whether it is in religion or science or whatever, so long as it enriches us and expands us and gives us new meaning, fantastic! But every set of thought forms reaches their breaking point; they have a limit to what they can give us. When we reach that limit in our development, then we start doing what I think CANA is trying to do, to break free because it starts to become a prison. We see it all through society today, we see it in politics, we see it in science and the arts, and the irony is that when a social system that is governed by one of her great ray streams, when it or the people within it reach the point where it now becomes a prison, then you become a prisoner, but in a kind of ironic way you become also the warden and the guard!
A lot of the work for us individually, and for the social institution collectively, is to begin to discern the difference between the higher nature of that institution and it’s lower nature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people in different countries look at the world situation today and see the economic crisis and they say to themselves, “The problems in the world today are those businessmen, business is the problem”. The problems related to the lower tendencies of that stream, but what about the soul of business, what about the soul of religion, what about the soul of education? Those are eternal, and absolutely essential within a living social evolution.
There is quite a bit of emphasis in this philosophy in starting to discern the duality of things out there. What is the form, and what is the essence that is struggling to find expression through that outer form, and to what extent does the former distort that essence or bring it through with greater purity or clarity? It’s just like you and I. My soul is trying to work through my personality, but I have distortions in my personality, I’m imperfect, and those distortions will have a tendency to have a distorting effect on the higher me trying to express through the lower me. I don’t think I’m alone with that, I might be wrong but I don’t think so!
One of the things to keep in mind in sensing the deeper thing beyond the form, is that it is a function of the third eye, which is so emphasised in Indian thinking. There’s a biblical verse about that as well, the importance of the single eye [ed. Gospel of Thomas]. The understanding is that the more the soul has transformed the personality, the wider that eye gets. So if we are on the path in a very conscious way, we shall all have squinting third eyes, which I always think is better than none at all! Enlightenment, a big subject, is when that third eye is fully open. It is said that the third eye is the eye that helps you sense the soul hidden in all things. When you look at a beautiful tree, for instance, these two eyes see the characteristics of the tree, but when your third eye is beginning to open and you are learning to look at things with ‘soft eyes’, then you start to sense something beyond the former called tree, you sense some livingness, some life force working it’s way through the trunk, the branches and the leaves. You’re sensing much more of the living soulfulness of that tree. Nature is a wonderful place to begin to make that happen for you, but we see it in other people too. If you look the right way, you sense beyond their personality, even beyond some of their personality quirks that you might find rather despicable. Or how about social systems? If you watch the BBC and see what is playing out in the Middle East, at one level you can look at that and the BBC presents you the form. The BBC may have its biases, because they are imperfect people as well, but when you look at that, can you sense what is beyond the form, can you sense what are the deeper qualities of consciousness that are struggling to express themselves through the circumstances in the Middle East, and are doing it with various degrees of distortion and pain? You start to see a duality there. It’s not just things, it’s social events, it’s another way of looking behind the scenes to see what is presenting itself.
We are all much more able to sense that when we look at the world if we are willing to suspend judgement for a while, because it is said that rapid judgement closes the third eye.
I hope that gives you an introductory feel for what this philosophy is about.
Notes on the rest of the day
The Christ
3 ways of thinking about the Christ in ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY
- The Cosmic Christ / Christ Principle – permeates the whole of the cosmos – a living unitive field underlying all things.
- Christ in you – in your causal body. The consciousness of the soul is contained within a structure called the causal body, the storehouse of wisdom and lofty love, naturally sensitive to the Christ vibration.
- The Christ office, referring to the master of angels and of men. An office held by the furthest brother on the path. The holder of the Christ office changes with the cycles of time. Current holder is Maitreya Christ, responsible for blending East and West together.
The Christ and the hierarchy of masters form the heart chakra for the planetary logos. There are 7 ashrams in the hierarchy, 7 streams aligned with the 7 rays. Each human soul is part of an ashram, a spiritual home.
Jesus is the hierophant of the 6th ray ashram, of love and wisdom. During his life, Jesus was overshadowed by the Christ for his ministry years. On the cross, Jesus took the 4th initiation and became the Master Jesus. He is now a 6th degree initiate. The Master Jesus oversees all religions.
Apollonius of Tyana was an incarnation of Jesus.
Reincarnation
All about the soul trying to express itself more perfectly through the personality, to slowly perfect its relationship with form.. It is not who you were in your past life that is important, it is how you were, i.e. what soul qualities were developed?
There are 2 main capacities to be developed:
- The individualised mind, the process to separate from the herd, the development of ego, self-identity. When the lower self is developed, we get an integrated personality, mental, physical and emotional coordination.
- We slowly develop the capacity to introspect, to become self-aware, to project into the future and analyse the past, etc. We become aware of awareness.
We have to build the ego before we can let go of it, and it becomes your servant rather than your master as you learn to listen to higher promptings.
Karma: this is vibrational dissonance in a living system that is out of harmony with the larger system into which it is trying to move. We should have less dissonance at each incarnation. Karma can be individual, familial, racial, national, religious, etc….
Numerology: numbers are viewed as living principles, almost alive in their own sense.
Sin – the past seen as measures of heightened ignorance.
Time: does not vanish at soul level, it exists from soul downwards, so the soul exists in time as well. Beyond the soul, at ashram level, there is the principle of duration, the ongoing nature of beingness.
Evil: two ways of viewing it:
• any state of consciousness arising from the perception of separateness
• Good that has outlived its usefulness.
Sin: the esoteric view would see the past as being stages of ignorance. Evolution is moving out of the hall of ignorance into the hall of knowledge then into the hall of wisdom.
Soul of Humanity
We are going through incremental steps of evolution.
Love is the recognition of the underlying unity of all things. Lofty love.
New Group of World Servers: – all those who have awakened to some aspect of their higher cause. We are they!