December / January 1997
Dear Networkers,
The spiritual Path is a Path of un- foldment, unfoldment of the Inner Self. It is a Path of self-mastery, beingness, and reality. It is a Path upon which the human soul strives to live a life that clearly reflects Its Divine Purpose. The Path is a Path of Self-actualization. “The path of the spirit, like nothing else, develops the consciousness and purifies one’s life.”1
A person who is treading the Path can be recognized by his steady effort to serve Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom, and to live in such a way that he is able to bring health, happiness, prosperity, and revelation to all people everywhere.
As the individual approaches the spiritual Path he should assess what he is bringing with him to the Path. If he brings his impurities—his vanities, hatreds, jealousies, anger, and prejudices; his ego, greed, and selfish materialism— he will become a problem in his environment. If on the other hand, the person entering the Path brings the purity of his nature, a desire to serve others, and the unfoldment of his heart nature, he will not only grow and bloom on the Path, he will manifest the beautiful accumulations of his innermost garden. Such a person is called a disciple. He carries the torch of light, love, and power. He spreads health, happiness, prosperity, enlightenment, and guidance into his environment. He becomes the Path itself.
In all religious Teachings the people who start upon the spiritual Path are called warriors, warriors for the Common Good. The warrior for the Common Good is one who battles for Beauty, Goodness, Truth, Joy, and Freedom without self-interest and without egotism. The warrior upon the Path is distinguished by his progressive and constant striving, his ability to labor, and his desire to help. He is one who is without prejudice or fear, and who maintains vigilance in the midst of battle.
“One should remember that powerful energies have been entrusted to man; therefore, whoever does not kindle the spirit does not fulfill his destiny. Precisely, self-perfection itself is first of all attained in the consciousness of the manifestation of spirituality. There can be no approach to the Fiery World without the manifestation of spirituality.”2
The White Mountain Educational Group wishes for all of its friends and co-workers a wonderful and healthy holiday season. We wish for us all a New Year filled with beauty, health, love and understanding, expansion and prosperity, and the blessings and protection of the Great Ones upon our planet and its spiritual Leaders. We are grateful for the many demonstrations of love and encouragement around the world from our readers of Meditation Monthly International. Shanti,
Shanti,
The Family and the Path
by Carol May
The Path is the path to spiritual perfec tion. Treading this path requires de- veloping a sense of responsibility and a willingness to sacrifice for the welfare of others. Family life creates a remarkable pressure to develop these qualities. “Marriage is a life of responsibility which demands the highest and the best within you. It keeps you awake every minute in order not to lose any opportunity to give the best and the highest to your family.1
Family life forces a person to be down-to-earth, to be
real in developing virtues. 
The
stresses and strains of family life quickly break through any vanity or
illusion a parent may have about completely possessing such virtues as
patience or tolerance. Often children will test parents to the maximum
degree. This is a humbling process in which parents are able to see their
own imperfections in a clear light.
A family also brings out the best in people. The love and joy one feels with one’s children and spouse can be fantastic. It can also be the greatest motivator for self-transformation. When it is recognized how important setting a good example is in the lives of one’s children and one’s spouse, then one can strive even more rigorously to replace vices with virtues and to break through old, negative, behavioral patterns. Family life can inspire courage, creativity, beauty, compassion, and, above all, perseverence.
Most families are not ideal. Here are some of the ways to improve family relations:
1) A family needs to have a vision, and that vision needs to be broken down into a plan, goals, and activities. For example, the father may be an art curator, the mother may be a writer, but their purpose is to bring more beauty into the world. The children may be taught, for example, to respect the beauty of nature and look for the beauty in others.The plan, specific goals, and activities need to be checked each week to see how all are doing and to recharge the plan.
2) Have respect. Having respect requires gaining emotional control over your speech and actions. Family members must be respecful to each other, even when a family member has done something wrong. “When you are respectful, you evoke the soul of the person. If you are disrespectful, you create personality reactions, which are negative.... If you directly confront or criticize, you will create rejection, repulsion, and irritation.” Also, when a person does something wrong, they feel guilty and this puts them in a posthypnotic state. “If someone yells at him, or tells him negative things at that time, he absorbs them as hypnotic suggestions into his subconscious mind. These negative words then control his attitude about himself....”2
3) Beware of resentment. “Resentment is mostly caused by worshipping your own standards and not giving space to others.... Your own ideas, likes and dislikes become the standards you want everyone else to go by. When you find out that other people are not complying with your measures, you become resentful.... To end resentment in yourself, try to stop measuring others according to your own standards. Try to think that other people also have the right to be what they are.”3 Raising children well doesn’t mean imposing one’s ideas on them, but demonstrating those ideas through example and providing an environment that encourages virtuous living.
4) Open communication. Set aside a time 1 to 2 times weekly to communicate openly as a family about problems that are occuring. Don’t choose times when you are eating or doing other important things. “Communication must be very sincere without attacking, insulting, or criticizing. To keep a relationship together you must be able to talk very clearly and openly and create understanding.”4
5) Eliminate laziness. “The children who advance the most are those who parents keep them busy helping with gardening, carpentry, housework, and labor of all kinds.”5
6) Give joy. Freely give joy and affection to each family member. “...Your true value is found in how much joy you can bring to your home, in spite of any condition.”6 To succeed in living the above points is a tall order, but this is what the Path is about—striving and not giving up. A family provides us with obstacles. Daily life will challenge us, test us, bring us pain and suffering, as well as great joy. Let us remember that “Blessed be the obstacles, through them we grow!”7 In coming to know and love and serve the family, one comes to know one’s true self.
_____________________________
1. Torkom Saraydarian, Sex, Family , and the Woman in Society
(Aquarian Educational Group, 1987) p. 247.
2. Ibid., p. 300.
3. Ibid., pp. 299–300.
4. Ibid., p. 298.
5. Ibid., p. 305.
6. Ibid., p. 309.
7. Leaves of Morya’s Garden, Book two (Agni Yoga Society, Inc.,1952),
p. 239.
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Several months ago, on an evening feature news program, there was a segment about a suburban, middle class family. The son had been arrested by the police for 20 or 30 neighborhood robberies. The son admitted his guilt. How had this family become so dysfunctional that the son became a thief?
We learned from the reporter that the boy had separated himself from the rest of his family. He wouldn’t let his parents into his room. He had emotionally cut himself off from the family. But, most importantly, the parents had allowed the son to separate himself from a normal, healthy family life.It was not the son who failed, but the father. He was remiss in his responsibilies. He allowed his son to fail. He allowed the family to disintegrate. He failed because he was ignorant of the virtues. Helena Roerich once wrote that there was only one sin—ignorance. Ignorance of life’s truths can destroy an individual, and, if that individual is a father, it can lead to the destruction of a family.
A
father has a primary responsibility to develop his spiritual nature through
prayer, devotion, meditation, study, and sacrifice. Without any spiritual
understanding and guidance he will remain an ignorant fool and will be
unable to lead his family on the Path.
In the example above, the father was unaware of the existence of the elemental forces, which rule the personality. These forces are involutionary and can carry a child to extreme levels of fear, greed, inertia, selfishness, anger, hatred, and jealousy. We’ve seen teenagers starve themselves (anorexia and bulimia) due to hatred of their body and fear of gaining too much weight. Many teens have committed suicide when depression has possessed them. This was dramatically portrayed in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
These involutionary forces can be counteracted by the power of the Soul. Soul energy carries beauty, goodness, righteousness, joy, and freedom, and is evolutionary. The father must use the power and wisdom of the Soul to lead himself and his children in the right direction
. Teenagers appear to be violently attacked by the elemental “demons.” They suffer from isolationism and a multitude of fears and apprehensions. This period of life can have the most upsetting highs and lows. To make matters worse, when a parent tries to console a teen during troubled times, the teenager may reject the parent, feeling that he or she is not being understood. The father must stand steadfast in the Teachings when confronted by the emotional battles of his children. They will push and pull on family rules and values, but children cannot be allowed to win this battle. The rules and values must always be triumphant.
The virtues are the rock, or the foundation of life, which cannot be subverted by a child’s angst. Christ mentioned the difference between a man who builds his house on sand versus one who builds his house on rock. If the family is built upon a solid foundation, it cannot be shaken to the ground. A child’s emotional storms can tear a family apart if the family is not solidly built with the rocks of the Teaching. The family “fortress” must be constructed with the “stones” of love, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, consistency, vision, rhythm, solemnity and beauty.
Some fathers fail when they give their sons or daughters too much freedom. Other fathers fail when they give their children no freedom at all. Like Buddha’s “Middle Way,” a father must continually find the middle ground when raising his children. As they grow they need more freedom and more choices, but the father must practice co-measurement and discrimination when determining the level of freedom and the kinds of choices.
Children are faced with a veritable blizzard of ugliness in clothing, music, posters, movies, television, magazines, video games, and even friends. The father must be strong and not allow these destructive influences to overtake his children if he wants them and the family to be sane.
If a father remains firm in the virtues, he will be able to lead his children in the correct direction and help them make the right choices. He is karmically responsible for them until they are eighteen years old. If he wants to avoid piling greater karmic debt on his head, he must be constantly vigilant, overseeing their activities, and flooding every cell in their bodies with love and joy.
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Try
to encourage them in such thinking, while applying subtle understanding,
for otherwise one may either turn them away or else impose upon them one’s
own personal conception. Let children draw from their own treasurehouse;
it is ever ready to reveal the most vital details. Science can obtain valuable
data from children; too little use is made of them. And people abuse children
being unwilling to understand how much can be harmed by a rude touch. Fiery
World II, Verse 174Meditation, the path of Self-Discovery
by Ginette Parisi
Through the ages man has totally succeeded in becoming mortal, miserable, and small by identifying himself with the body. There is, however, a new surge, or tidal wave, growing in the souls of men. It is an urge for release. This urge occurs when one sees that one’s life is like a merry-go-round and that one is chasing after transient things. One yearns for something more permanent, for control over one’s life and one’s personality. Though one is in the world, surrounded with family obligations, with social duties, with all the activities of worldly life, one turns one’s face toward the spiritual light and begins to live a life of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. Thus, one enters into a path of steady unfoldment and steady progress. This is the Path toward perfection, the Path toward the Self.
“We
are all on the path of self-discovery. On this path each of us is trying
to find himself, to meet himself, and to become a radiating Self. To advance
on the path of conscious evolution the most important tool needed is meditation.
Meditation is a journey toward Oneself, toward the Inner Light, toward
the Source of love and power within. Without meditation it is impossible
to progress upon the path, because the path itself is a process of sublimation,
of transformation.”1
In meditation, one takes a certain amount of time each day to leave the objective world, and steadily raise the consciousness to the Higher, or abstract, Worlds. Through the utilization of the four viewpoints (form, quality, purpose, and cause, through which the nature of something is discovered), a mental arrow is sent flying through space seeking answers to questions. As the personality becomes increasingly pure, one has a greater and greater ability to understand and assimilate the received answers. This meditation process slowly builds a communication line between the lower mind and the higher mind. Where once the purpose was to live life only for one’s own benefit, now with this fiery line of communication, one uses his creativity for the benefit of all and for the liberation of humanity.
Meditation is a process where one tries to find the causes of one’s joys or misery, then tries to use the answers to increase the joy and eliminate those hindrances that create the suffering. From the memorable words of Plotinus: “Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful; he cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until he has shown a beautiful face upon the statue. So do you also; cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is shadowed, labour to make all glow with beauty, and do not cease chiselling your statue until there shall shine out on you the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the final goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.”2
Meditation on the virtues causes one to gradu-ally grow into the possession of those virtues, to instinctively do the right thing merely because it is the right thing, and because it is inconceivable that one could do anything else. When one acts according to that great Cosmic Plan, one becomes the Path, the “burning bush,” a fountain of energy, vision, and spiritual enthusiasm. The purpose of meditation is to transform one’s life, to draw energies from higher sources, and, in a pure state, to use the energies to make the world more beautiful and united as one.
________________________
1. Torkom Saraydarian, The Hidden Glory of the Inner Man (Aquarian
Educational Group, 2nd Revised Edition, 1985), p. 78
2. Plotinus on the Beautiful, translated by Stephen MacKenna.
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