Daily Theosophy

The mental picture still had to be corrected by experience via the inner (astral) senses – and these were far from being fully developed in Shano – because that brings great risks – but the beginning was there.

(146)

(more about the monastery)

Shano’s reading of philosophy books was intimately connected with his daily life. Whatever he had read, he would experience and apply almost immediately. That happened especially at night, during his dreams – but nowadays he never lost awareness, and there was a natural transition between his waking and dreaming consciousness, and while awake he remembered the tiniest details of his dreams, and when he was dreaming he saw the connection with what he had done and studied when awake. He didn’t really have to go asleep anymore. He just sat down in a stable posture at night, and went consciously into his second stage of consciousness. Talking with his fellow students was hardly necessary – they understood each others thoughts anyway and in detail when that was useful; only when they wanted to discuss some matters written in the books of paper they had to talk with their mouth and listen with their ears. Throughout the years he learned more and more. The happiness of the world no longer existed for him, because all feelings there in that monastery were far greater than any feeling one can have in human society, or even when alone in nature. He learned to leave his body at will, and project himself wherever he wanted, and look around and have a communication with others who could do that also, even when they were on the other side of the world. He could now see not only a few nature spirits, but every square inch of nature was teeming with life, if he opened his ‘eye’ for it. He also saw that the monastery was regularly visited by monks and teachers who could not be seen with the normal eye, but were fully visible and audible for the trained inhabitants of the monastery. He also learned to see the thoughts of others as actual entities, beings, almost all of them of the purest nature, here on this mountain of peace in and around the monastery. All this seems more beautiful than heaven, perhaps, for you, the reader of this ebook. But don’t think it was easy. It was very, very hard work: work of immaculate concentration, never ending effort.

The lessons continued. This time again about the relation between cause and effect. It actually meant that you are all powerful. If you understand that relation you can always create a cause with your mind, and it will have an effect. Cause and effect work in the material world also: for example if you mix hydrogen and oxygen, and add some energy, they will meet each other at the threshold were the energy is high enough to overcome their mutual resistance, and they will unite, embrace, and become water together. And this law is true for everything in physics, chemistry and all sciences taught at schools and universities. But few people know that the cause and effect is always linked to consciousness, and therefore linked to beings who have consciousness. It works wherever some energy is directed to a particular thing. A thought is an entity and also has an energy, and does its natural work. And after doing its work it will return to the consciousness of the person who thought that thought – because everything in nature runs in cycles, like living and dying, the earth turning around the sun, and many other things, actually all things without exception. So a cruel thought will come back as a cruel experience in the consciousness of the person who thought that thought and gave it energy – but it will be only weak when the thinker of the thought immediately tries to weaken the energy of it when he notices himself thinking it, or immediately sends out an opposite good thought. So cruelty in mind and action will lead to cruelty for the person who thinks and/or does that action. Thought-cruelty is even worse than doing cruelty without thought, because thoughts are sneaky things, difficult to trace where they go, and can do their energetic work at unexpected and very inconvenient moments.

But we are not concerned with cruelty and hatred or selfishness of character weaknesses here. The monks were only taught the practice belonging to the theoretical knowledge of cause-and-effect when the teacher could be absolutely sure that their mind and heart were absolutely pure and could not be bribed or deluded by even the most subtle seduction or illusion. But once they had reached that purity and sure reliability, and had been given the technique of how to do it, they could accomplish virtually anything by just thinking it, energizing it and willing it. It is just as easy as planting a seed of a big tree, and naturally the seed will germinate, grow and become another big tree. Now this way in which Nature works is called karma (which is Sanskrit for ‘work’). It means that everyone works his own future, and works out the result. Average people think and do all kinds of things, impulsively, often selfishly, without giving a second thought to the consequences of what they do. That is why there is so much unnecessary suffering in the world. We just create causes all the time, from morning to evening, merely by thinking, and then often saying or doing what we think, or let others do it (what of course does not change the law that everything returns to the original thinker – so the general of an army is very responsible for the killing his soldiers do – even more than the soldiers themselves – if he has made the plan and given orders to the army). Of course, when someone, even a general, who serves a higher aim than his personal interest and does his work to prevent even worse circumstances for the world, all the time has thoughts which would be helpful and where possible pleasant for the universe, or the earth, or humans, or other living beings, this would make it all much better for himself. If a person is never irritated, or angry, or frustrated, or depressed, or disappointed in relation to his duty, he builds good karma for himself. Such karma could last for seven lifetimes, some say, but the deeper background of it may last very much longer, I think. But to be trained in a ‘school’ like Shano’s, one has to be unable to have such harmful thoughts at all, under whatever circumstances, even when for a joke. If people in general would do this training all Holly- and Bollywood movie makers and their colleagues everywhere would lose their jobs, or at least they would have to go for a better one. But in the monastery were no movies – what seems boring … but not if you can see what is going on in human minds and feelings whenever you want. So in this way Shano understood that everyone is responsible for their own ‘good luck’ or ‘bad luck’ because the cause was always with the one who created it, even though others may be the acting devils and enemies. An enemy can never successfully attack a person who is invulnerable because he is pure. Even if such a person is killed, his soul doesn’t suffer lasting damage. But no human being, no group of people, or no nation is very pure in these days – regrettably – because in that case monasteries like Shano’s would not have to be in such remote places.

The lessons took only a few hours a day. There were many other things to do, like cleaning the building inside and outside, cutting vegetables, cooking, working in the garden, restoration activities, and so on. Shano, you can imagine, was young and lean and strong, and had been living under harsh and uncomfortable circumstances, and knew the language of the outer world. So he was very useful in things like redoing the roof, and anything which had to do with wood. He was also a fine carver by nature – he learned it quickly – so if any fine wood work had to be done he was the boy for it. Some monks had noticed in the silence of the monastery, that there always seemed to be music around Shano’s head, like the music of the heavenly string instruments of the gandharvas (heavenly musicians). A few who had the ears to hear the silence often sat down and listened to it. Then of course, Shano knew worldly languages, including English, and could read and write – something not all the monks could – and understood the modern world’s technology, of which they had nothing in the monastery. When he had arrived Shano still had his mobile phone with microscope with him, and the last aroused so much attention among the monks, especially the younger ones, that they almost forgot to attend their lessons. So the Head of the monastery had smilingly stopped it after some time, and buried the phone in a secret place, and put a spell on it, so that even he himself couldn’t remember where it was. For some it made a connection with the outer worldly life in their thoughts, and as an effect to a cause, in a future life, had to be reborn and have experience in a world where such attractions were available – if only for a short time, until when they stopped liking them.

Lessons went on and on, day after day. Though a few monks might attend the same teacher, the lessons were mainly private, so that the teacher could teach exactly what his pupil needed most at that moment, where his secret heart yearned for. This was often exactly the opposite of what their brain-minds yearned for, and inside the field of the student’s brains heavy fights went on, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but the teachers input was (almost) always winning at the end – even though the inner fighting of thoughts might go on for months like a warring army. It happened extremely rarely that someone was (temporarily) sent back home because of failure – and Shano never was witness to such a situation.

The lesson now was that everything in the universe was ordered in hierarchies. You need all your intelligence to understand it.