An ordinary man is one who is waiting to grow into the extraordinary.
What is ordinary? Ordinary has its various stages of expression; from the most ordinary to one who is ready to burst forth into a flowering of the most extraordinary. An ordinary person is one who has not yet awakened to nor gained an appreciation for his spiritual potential. He has not yet awakened to his immortal nature. An extraordinary person is one who holds the key to life and whose life is a source of a creative expression, of virtue, and of Beauty.
Place an ordinary person next to one who is extraordinary and all he will see is the ordinary. He may even feel repulsed by the purity, the beauty, and the simplicity of the flowering one. The ordinary will speak of a “masterpiece” with words of ridicule and condemnation. Being unawakened to his own spiritual potential, the most ordinary of men will see the common as extraordinary and be led by them, such as street gang leaders. A most dramatic example can be found in the words of Albert Einstein, “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Extraordinary people live the laws of life as life. The laws of life are: virtues, spiritual principles, higher values, living ethics and, most especially, Beauty. Beauty is a lotus in which an extraordinary person’s soul is rooted, and through which, in creative and sacrificial service, he “oxygenates” the planet. An extraordinary person in an ordinary atmosphere will be silent, humble, solemn and genuine. At the same time, he will be filled with joy while radiating love and fiery life to others, taking nothing for himself. He gives all that he is and shares all that has been given to him with others. Standing next to another, the extraordinary will ignite the ordinary with the beauty of his heart. The ordinary will boast the radiance as his own. The flowering one will smile in content, for he knows the ordinary man has momentarily awakened to his spiritual potential, ignited by the light of the Heart of the Sun. The ordinary is now in a garden where he can blossom into the extraordinary.
An ordinary person is one who has not yet been ignited with the Creative Fires of the Spiritual Sun. He is seemingly content to live in the sea of the masses, while at the same time yearning to be different, to be recognized, to be a “somebody.” Yet, once his soul has been ignited by the love, the beauty, the creative radiance of something or someone greater than himself, his spiritual dissatisfaction will build to a deafening crescendo, as he struggles to refine his coarse inner and outer nature, as he struggles to become extraordinary. Contact with someone or something more illumined than himself will find the soul fighting his way out of the ordinary life, from the unreal life to the Real, to bring to light the depths of his true Self.
It is the ordinary person who the extraordinary one seeks to find—the one who is fighting his way from the sea of the masses and yearns to labor for the Beauty of Life, to discover the Mysteries of Life, and who in his divine dissatisfaction yearns to live his life as an illumined Soul.
I’ve noticed that many who are on the spiritual path have forgotten that they too, one day, had the “candle in their heart” ignited by the extraordinary—a Teacher—but turning their back upon that light, became lost in the shadow of their ego and vanity, and returned to their ridicule and condemnation.
An enlightened one is a person who will embrace
the ordinary as himself. He will see in the ordinary his past—and his future.
Through his illumined heart he will see the great in the small and the
small in the great.
How beautiful everything is!
Joleen Dianne Du Bois
President
“Friend, how can we discuss the Supermundane if energy is not yet realized as the foundation of Existence? Many will not understand at all what is meant by this, while others may think that they understand the significance of fundamental energy, but cannot think about it with clarity. It is necessary to train one’s thought upon the idea of energy until the feeling of it becomes as real as the feeling about any solid object. We speak about feeling, because knowledge alone cannot provide an understanding of energy. Even if man accepts the truth that fundamentally there is only one energy, this alone will not be enough for progress. One must learn to picture to oneself the innumerable qualities of this energy.
“Man’s
customary narrowness of thought limits his perception of the properties of this
energy, and thus limits his understanding. Lofty thinking helps one avoid harmful
limitation, but it is not easy to establish an appropriate level of beautiful
and lofty thought amidst life’s misfortunes. Very few are prepared to understand
that it is life’s difficulties themselves that can assist lofty thinking. Only
goalfitness will help one’s thinking about the properties of the fundamental
energy, even when these properties may appear to be contradictory. A blind man
may be unable to perceive an event visible to others, but everyone who wants
to think about the Supermundane must learn to understand the many properties
of the fundamental energy.
“Those who think of the Supermundane as the very Highest are correct. ‘As below, so above.’ Let this ancient saying serve as a guide to cognition of the supermundane forces.” Supermundane I, pp. 5–6.
“The time has come when the planet is drawing near to such a circle of summation, and only the most saturated tension of the potential will result in victory. The circle of summation awakens all energies, for in the final battle all the forces of Light and darkness will take part, from the very Highest down to the dregs. Sensitive spirits know why there is being manifested so much of the Higher, side by side with the guilty and the inert. In the conflict, before the circle of summation, there will be the contentions of all spatial, earthly and supermundane Forces. On the path to the Fiery World the co-workers must remember the Ordinance of the Cosmos.
“The world is living through those stages by which have been signalized all the decisive moments in the history of mankind. Stages of destruction precede construction. Creativeness, having been tensed, calls all energies to life. That epoch into which humanity has entered will inevitably manifest all the potentials of forces, for this epoch is a decisive one, and a turning point in history is approaching. Surely, the condition of the planet has not come about by accident, and each tension bears witness to that current which is engulfing all spheres. If the conflict is inexorable, so will the victory be decisive. For all forces and spheres participate in this Cosmic Battle. On the path to the Fiery World one must take up the Sword of Light for the building the New Epoch." Letters of Helena Roerich, Vol. I, p. 34.
“A clairvoyant is one who has raised the spinal serpent [Kundalini] into the brain and by his growth earned the right of perceiving the invisible worlds with the aid of the third eye, or pineal gland. This organ of consciousness, which millions of years ago connected man with the invisible worlds, closed during the Lemurian period when the objective senses began to develop. The occultist, however, by the process of development hinted at before, may reopen this eye and by means of it explore the invisible worlds. Clairvoyants are not born; they are made. Mediums are not made; they are born. The clairvoyant can become such only after years, sometimes lives, of self-preparation; on the other hand, the medium ... may secure results in a few days. [But it should be added that the medium can work only in a limited capacity, in the lower spheres of the supermundane world.]
“...Automatic writing is gained by permitting the etheric arm of an outside intelligence to control temporarily the physical arm of the medium. This is not possible until the medium removes his own etheric double from the arm, for two things cannot occupy the same space [at their particular level] at the same time. The process of periodically separating the life forces from the physical arm is very dangerous, often resulting in paralysis. Mediumship is unnatural to man, while clairvoyance is the natural result of growth and the unfolding of the spiritual nature. There are a hundred mediums to one clairvoyant, for the clairvoyant can become such only through self-mastery and the exertion of tremendous power; while the weaker, more sickly, and the more nervous an individual is, the better medium he makes. The clairvoyant is unfolding his mind by filling it with useful knowledge, while the first instruction given the would-be medium is, ‘Make your mind a blank.’ Mediumship arrests correct evolution, and should be considered as retrogression.” Letters of Helena Roerich, Vol II, p. 50.
“1936 was a year that was mentioned in predictions in all the ancient Scriptures, and the calculations of the events which coincide with that year were found in the Pyramid of Cheops. But who can understand and accept that event, which will be laid in the foundation of the New World? No doubt, much will come to pass during this year; not only in the higher supermundane spheres but also on Earth many omens will be manifested. I shall quote to you a page from the Teaching.
‘A remarkable year draws near. But many do not grasp the significance of current events. Even those who have heard are wishing that events would be carried out according to their own imagination. Usually each one wishes according to his nature, but observes current events without prejudice. Fix your attention honestly, knowing that a great date is ensuing. Doves will bring you not only an olive branch but also a leaf of oak and laurel. Likewise Our sacrificial offerings are not a chance occurrence but are as steps of the future. Indeed, unalterable are the dates of great knowledge. Learn to love creative conflict. Know how to put your ear to the earth and to illumine your hearts in great expectancy. Let the ignorant desire evil, yet the dates weave the fabric of the world. Learn to discern. Learn to fly toward the ordained. Many are the garments and the veils, but the meaning is one. The preordained year draws near.
‘...Certain perspicacious people speak about the approaching end of the world. In describing it they talk as they were taught to think in elementary schools. They are little to be blamed in this, since their heads have been filled since childhood with the most monstrous ideas. And yet, they do sense some sort of end of something. Though dimly seen, still their spirit has a presentiment of some kind of change. They are called false prophets, but such a judgment is not fair, for in their own way they sense the end of an obsolete world. Only, they are unable to distinguish the eternal signs. Indeed, near is the hour when superfluous scales begin to fall, and the World of Light begins to come into being in joy. The most important processes can be carried out visibly-invisibly.’” Letters of Helena Roerich, Vol II, pp. 73–74.
“The great incarnations of the seven Kumuras,
or the Sons of Reason—Sons of 
Light—were
to be found in ancient times among the initiates of all countries and peoples,
and later among the greatest minds of more recent epochs. Throughout the entire
evolution of our planet, we owe to these greatest Spirits the progress of our
consciousness. They incarnated in all races and nations on the threshold of
a new shifting of consciousness and at each new turn in history. Verily, the
greatest Images of antiquity are connected with these Sons of Light. The fall
of Lucifer began from the time of Atlantis. Later he could be recognized in
Ravana, the adversary of Rama, the hero of the epic poem, the Mahabharata. The
Great Spirits tirelessly undertook the most difficult tasks of life, but few
of their contemporaries understood even partially the grandeur and self-renunciation
of these true Men-Gods. Hardly anyone can comprehend the entire significance
of Their creativeness on the earthly plane and in the supermundane worlds. Many
beautiful mysteries exist in the Cosmos, and when the spirit contacts them,
the heart is filled with exaltation and with infinite gratitude to these spirits,
the creators of our consciousness. During endless thousands of years, in self-sacrificing
service for the good of humanity, They renounced the highest joys of the Fiery
World and with bloody sweat stood on guard, accepting the wreaths of thorns
and draining the cups of poison tendered by the hands of humanity, whose benefactors
They were. When the veil is removed from the mystery, many hearts will tremble
because of the crimes committed against these Saviors.
“You are right, the study of the Teaching
of Life requires a most careful attitude. One should approach the unprepared
consciousness very carefully. Indeed, nothing develops as slowly as consciousness.
‘It is important to understand to what extent people’s consciousness has
become petrified. Therefore, do not give it food which it cannot assimilate.
Side by side with the difficult give also the easy; otherwise people will
not listen. The letters of the Teacher are inevitably diverse, because
directed to different consciousnesses. This is not contradiction, but simply
the best way. Thus, accustom yourselves to deal carefully with consciousnesses,
as with fire.’” Letters of Helena Roerich, Vol II, pp. 75–76.
Spiritual Dissatisfaction
& Conflict
a Sunday Talk by Joleen Du Bois
“…It is not easy to regard dissatisfaction as benevolence, but one can train oneself to this endless achievement.
If we imagine our highest attainment, it will nevertheless be ugly in comparison with perfection. Our labors primarily have dissatisfaction at base, as the source of searching. But for the newcomer the most difficult question to answer will be, ‘Brother, canst thou contain the eternal dissatisfaction?’”
dissatisfaction,
a place of spiritual conflict? When, on one hand, you had a strong urge to go
forward, to make certain progressive changes; yet, on the other hand, in making
those changes you knew you would be engaged in struggles, challenges and difficulties?
Dissatisfaction can be a resultant effect of coming in contact with a Greater Light. The contact will produce a deep desire to change your present life conditions. The disciple who is a bearer of light and recognized as a leader in his field needs to strive to make higher contacts of communication with the Solar Angel, the Ashram, the beloved Master or even greater Points of Light. Penetrating into higher spheres can inflame a disciple’s consciousness with vision. In making a contact with a higher energy, he can be impressed with a life-changing dream or charged with new and creative fiery ideas, renewing his consciousness and moving him into new activity. In such a case, dissatisfaction is defined as a prelude to renewal of consciousness, and is a positive condition. Without a renewal of consciousness, a person’s thinking can become outworn and stuck in the past.
Spiritual dissatisfaction can ignite a desire to renew one’s consciousness. How? In the practice of continuous and rhythmic meditation, spiritual striving, service, study and purification, the disciple will find the urge to do or to be something greater; he will make a contact with his unrealized potential. In reading, studying and applying the Teaching, one can expand his consciousness and become inspired to climb higher. When one goes through the experience of spiritual dissatisfaction, realizing a need to renew his consciousness, the next step will be demonstrated in expanded creative activity and recognized in a broadening of his field of service to others. He or she will be ready to take on greater and more arduous responsibilities. Thus, dissatisfaction in the world of discipleship is viewed as a positive influence rather than as a cause for depression and fear of downfall. It is a normal event for a light bearer to experience spiritual dissatisfaction and conflict in his life.
When you come in contact with a greater light and experience dissatisfaction with yourself and your life, you will either respond or react. If you respond with a renewal of consciousness, the dissatisfaction will result in greater achievement and progress. If you “react” to the conflict, it will not be considered a real experience but rather a missed opportunity.
If the disciple “responds,” he will realize this stage of dissatisfaction will serve him or his group as a training ground for change and transformation. If he is vigilant and responsive in the experience, he will become charged with an electrical energy from within the Core of his being, which will be demonstrated with an increasing enthusiasm for his field of leadership, greater sacrificial service and nobility. There will be a release of the energy of willpower from his higher nature, giving the person or his group the inspiration and power to take transformative action. Whereas the leader’s actions may, to some, defy common sense or appear to be in contradiction to the social structure of life, nonetheless, he has been spiritually charged and divinely directed by his visionary insights, and, as if in response to a higher calling, he will take action. Whereas many of his friends or family may look at him as if he has lost all sense of practicality and challenge his stability, his faith and direction will not waver. His experience has brought him contentment, for he now has new insight, foresight and greater responsibilities to undertake. His life is expanding and his purpose progressing. His consciousness has been renewed.
If, on the other hand, a disciple “reacts” to conflict, and in his dissatisfaction he increases his fears, vanity, materialism, attachments, glamors and illusions, he will drown in the conflict and stay the same. He will find he was not ready, that he made a premature contact, and he will fall into an unconscious dissatisfaction. He will still have the urge to make changes in his life, but his unreadiness and karma will cause such conflict that he will escape and fall into an inertia, which will cause him to continue to live his life—but without progress.
In either circumstance, whether he follows his Guidance or runs away, the disciple or discipleship group will be facing conflict.
The principle of conflict is dissatisfaction; dissatisfaction is a quality of the Higher Worlds—the Supermundane—and is the impetus for change and progress. Thus, in such realization we can observe that in order to advance, to bring about progressive and vertical change into our individual or group life, we can now express an understanding wisdom and gratitude for change and expansion, for the principle of conflict and spiritual dissatisfaction. Without conflict and dissatisfaction it would not be possible to advance to higher worlds.
Many spiritual groups and disciples of various degrees become very discouraged when they find themselves facing conflict—conflict within their relationships, their church, family or group. We can all probably remember a conflict in our own lives when we became discouraged and dissatisfied.
I recall students who, when they found themselves in conflict with their spiritual mentor, would frequently become discouraged, depressed, and/or dissatisfied. Through years of observation and experience, I have learned that frequently such conflict was the result of contact with a new energy, a higher frequency, a new idea or thought, which would activate an emotional or mental battle within the person or group’s nature due to resistance, resistance to the introduction of something new. Such resistance is usually from a lack of readiness and intuitive receptivity, and also from the person or group’s crystallization; fears; attachments to old ideas, ways, and outdated thinking; expectations, glamors and illusions.
For example, if a Teacher challenges a student, in some subtle or direct manner, to bring about a change, that person may strike back in some ugly manner—even strike back with revenge or attack. Why? Because “reactive buttons” have been pushed. Wherever the level of consciousness of the individual or group is identified physically, emotionally or mentally, that is the mechanism that will be used to fight back. The mechanism of ego, vanity, fanaticism, self-importance, selfish interests, anger, jealousy, and hatred are all problem-producing elements found in the personality of the individual or the group, elements that will line up for the attack. The vices, which have accumulated over many incarnations, are now being challenged. The student has made a contact with one who brings opportunity for progressive change, for transformation. As a result of such contact, a conflict is occurring between the level of the student’s consciousness and his Higher Self, triggered by a Teacher who is acting on behalf of the struggling, advancing soul.
When we make a contact with a dream, a vision, or higher energy, or with someone who carries energies from the Fiery Worlds in his aura, our life will be disturbed, and we will either respond or react.
Spiritual dissatisfaction causes conflict.
Conflict and spiritual dissatisfaction, when analyzed, brings opportunity
for accomplishment, advancement and expansion.
As students who have chosen to follow a spiritual
path, who want to advance as a soul, we can welcome conflict; we can enjoy
dissatisfaction by using dissatisfaction as a way to enter into new levels
of consciousness. The same is true for a discipleship group.
As a disciple or discipleship group, we must remember
that as we are experiencing conflict and dissatisfaction, conflict will
create clear thinking. Conflict will clear out many glamors and illusions,
and outworn ways of thinking and acting.
Challenges, conflict, and dissatisfaction can open the heart of the disciple and a discipleship group, leading them into higher dimensions.
Think what happens when a Teacher, a greater
Light, comes into our life and stirs up some trouble. Do we react or respond?
Do we find ourselves with resistance? Do we find “ingenious ways” to fight
against the new energy, the new idea, the shocks1?
Do we fight against the opportunity for a renewal of consciousness? Have
you ever found yourself or others cursing, hating or taking revenge upon
the “revealer?” We are such strange creatures. Where is our gratitude for
those who love us with such a depth that they are willing to take our dark
side into their hearts? They bring us light and love in order to shape
us into roses, and we want to remain thorns. We are so strange.
Many hundreds of light bearers have died upon the
crosses of hatred, jealousy and misunderstanding.
As an example, look at the life of the well-known mathematician and astronomer Galileo. Galileo defended Copernicus’ belief that the Earth orbits the Sun. Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, published a few days after his death, gave new currency to the ancient Pythagorean hypothesis that the Sun was at the center of the universe and that the planets (including the Earth) revolved around the Sun.
Galileo,
who was born in 1589, invented the microscope and built a telescope through
which he made celestial observations and discoveries, which included his discovery
of the satellites of Jupiter. He studied Saturn, Venus and observed
the sunspots.
It was in 1616 that he was admonished
by a Cardinal and told he could not defend the Copernican astronomy because
it went against the church. This is the sentence delivered upon Galileo
by the church:
“We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you,
Galileo, by reason of these things which have been detailed in the trial
and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself according
to this Holy Office vehemently suspect of heresy, namely of having held
and believed a doctrine that is false and contrary to the divine and Holy
Scripture: namely that Sun is the centre of the world and does not move
from east to west, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion
after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently,
you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated
by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents.
We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere
heart and unfeigned faith, in our presence you abjure, curse and detest
the said errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary
to the Catholic and Apostolic Church in the manner and form we will prescribe
to you. Furthermore, so that this grievous and pernicious error and transgression
of yours may not go altogether unpunished, and so that you will be more
cautious in future, and an example for others to abstain from delinquencies
of this sort, we order that the book Dialogue of Galileo Galilei be prohibited
by public edict. We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office
at our pleasure. As a salutary penance we impose on you to recite the seven
penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. And we reserve
to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking off, the whole
or part of the said penalties and penances. This we say, pronounce, sentence,
declare, order and reserve by this or any other better manner or form that
we reasonably can or shall think of. So we the undersigned Cardinals pronounce:
F. Cardinal of Ascoli
B. Cardinal Gessi
G. Cardinal Bentivoglio
F. Cardinal Verospi
Fr. D. Cardinal of Cremona
M. Cardinal Ginetti
Fr. Ant. s Cardinal of. S.
Onofrio.”
Galileo was sent to exile in Siena.
Another example of a light bearer was President
Lincoln, who was born February 12,
1809, and died April 15 , 1865 (at age 56). He was an incredibly gifted and
intuitive man, whose legacy continues to teach the principle of conflict even
in today’s contemporary society. I want to share a comment about President Lincoln
as viewed by a literary critic who heard Lincoln’s “Cooper Union” address in
New York City.
The critic claimed, “When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall—oh, how tall! And so angular and awkward that I had, for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man. But pretty soon he began to get into his subject; he straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures; his face lighted as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man.” This critic responded to the bearer of light.
Progress is the result of conflict. Progress resembles the fire through which change occurs. Conflict offers us the opportunity to surpass our limitations, to awaken and take the side of the progressive forces of light.
The sage D. K. said, “The time is not yet, but a great awakening is in process; men, however, will only see correctly when the principle of Conflict is properly evaluated as a spiritual necessity and is used by humanity as an instrument to bring about emergence from the wrong controls and principles.”2
Too frequently we find students of wisdom becoming crystallized in their thinking, in their mental nature. They reject any new explanation or resist progress and change. When a student limits himself to one approach, he ends his progress.
Each year, students and groups on the spiritual path must strive to climb to higher levels of the mountain within themselves. As this occurs, each will eventually live in a creative, high-level atmosphere, unable to live in a poisoned emotional or mental atmosphere. We must have purer air to breathe, and this pure air for our spiritual lungs can be found on the higher levels of culture and wisdom. All of these things can be achieved through conflict.
In an esoteric understanding, conflict is the process of changing forces into energies—changing the lower into the higher. It is the process of pushing away the walls of ignorance behind which we hide.
A disciple is a light bearer, one who grows through conflict. It is not only the individual disciples but also the discipleship groups who will create conflict and tension within their life, if these conditions are not already present.
There is a verse in Hierarchy, from the Agni Yoga Society, that says, “It is necessary to become accustomed to battle as to daily labor. One may understand a battle not only as a test, in the excelling of one’s strength, but also as a source of the accumulation of energy. Hierarchy does not mean the steadfastness of serenity, but steadfastness in the midst of Battle.” (para. 283)
_____________________________
1. Read Cosmic Shocks by Torkom Saraydarian, which may be ordered
through the WMEA bookstore.
2. A.A.B., The Rays and The Initiations, (New York: Lucis Trust, 1960),
p. 606.
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