In
time and space the spiritual search feels like a journey but in reality
there is no journey, one is
simply
releasing the inhibitions or blocks that keep one identified with the
personality or non-self and maintain the illusion that we
are only
a personality and not Spirit. These blocks occur on every level of our
nature and are gradually resolved through our efforts to grow. They are
the obstacles that bar the door at each initiation and include:
MAYA
Maya includes those obstacles that occur due to identification with
outer appearances. Physical impurities and the diseases that exist on
the planet also help to perpetuate it by keeping us locked into
identification with the gross physical level. When we eat
tamasic or heavy foods they embed toxicity in the cells, which obscure
the light that we are trying to build into our body through
meditation, service and other activities. The impurities cause
stress in the body and keep us in a darkened and distracted state. We
start to overcome Maya by detaching and gradually withdrawing from our
identification with the physical body and its appetites and this is
aided through effective breathing and purification of the physical
body. This process leads us through the First Initiation.
GLAMOUR
Glamour is the emotional state of delusion
that we experience when we allow our desires and emotions to blind our
clarity of perception. For example, when we fall in love, we fall into
the "glamour"
of believing our partner is the be all and end all of our
existence. And yet, as someone has said, it is sheer folly to see the
fullness of love in any one person. Glamour stimulates emotional
reactions like anger, jealousy and fear and keeps us trapped on the
emotional or astral level of consciousness. It maintains our focus on
our likes and dislikes, our attractions and aversions and is very much
dependent on the personality's attitudes to its experience. It makes us
swing between the opposites, attached to sentiment and other emotional
"stances". We look at the world through our glamours, whether
that vision be rose-coloured or a state of self-pity or drama.
We make serious progress against glamour up to and after the Second
Initiation by taking an attitude of dispassion towards our desires and
emotionally-driven agendas. DK recommends directing the light of the
mind toward the fog of our glamours and the clarity and insight that
ensues helps dissolve the glamourised state.
ILLUSION
Illusions are mental distortions that occur
when we come into contact with ideas that turn into rigid
thought-forms, due to our mis-interpretation of them. Quite often
the idea that the thought derives from can be a very worthy one, but
our ego takes it and attempts to aggrandise itself through the idea.
This leads to rigid idealism and fanatical beliefs that no longer
contain any light. For example, the ideal of socialism that its
adherents tried
to manifest in many countries had the worthy idea of sharing behind it,
but the human attempt to embody the idea as an ideal was poisoned by
personal ego and pride.
Illusion being a distortion of our lower mind requires intuitive
insight to be resolved. Intuition brings immediate discernment
between the Real and unreal and
develops after the Third Initiation that is personified by the inflow
of Light
experienced by the seeker.
The Dweller
refers to the crystallized
thought-form of oneself as a personality with permanence of existence.
It carries the combined force of one's etheric, emotional and mental
tendencies built up over many lifetimes, a potent mix indeed. The
idea of individuality is an illusionary thought-form, but one of
such power that it is only by the crucifixion of our pride and
separative tendencies that it is overcome. It is this idea that
the Buddhists challenge in
their view of No-self.
It is only
overcome at the Fourth Initiation when the individual life
sees and accepts that it is One with the Absolute and so can surrender
its separative attitude and take its place in the corporate body known
as the Communion of Souls or the Spiritual Hierarchy. This is when the
individual ego becomes one with its Father in Heaven. Now one's
individuality is seen as a thought-form that can be lightly
worn by the
Soul.
So to summarize, Maya is overcome
through detachment from our physical
identity and glamour is dissolved by using the clarity and commonsense
of the illumined mind. Illusion is overcome by the intuitive truth
which brings an immediate understanding of the very essence of
the situation or person in question and so dispels any illusory
notions. The Dweller is
overcome (so I am led to
believe), through surrender of
our individual pride and separative attitudes.