The Mandala: An Image of the Invisible (6 of 6)
The Mandala: An Image of the Invisible (6 of 6)
Part Six: World Civilization as a Mandala
33. The Tetractys as a Mandala of the Human Soul
In the previous section of this six-part series, of which this current article is the sixth and concluding part, we discussed how the World Soul, manifesting through creation, organizes itself according to the archetypal design pattern of the Tetractys.
To be more specific, life on Earth exists as the internal expression of a greater Solar Life. As Manly Hall explains, “the Earth itself is considered a microcosm or miniature of the total cosmic scheme.”
Symbolically, the greater Solar Life that contains the Earth sphere is represented by the three outer points of the Tetractys, within which an internal Septenary of Soul Powers is made manifest.
Earth is the sphere of material form within which these seven Soul Powers are brought into active, material manifestation. This septenary manifests as the seven ages of Earth, the seven continents, the seven “root races” (i.e. evolutionary forms) of the human species, and the seven kingdoms of Nature, of which the outer body of evolving humanity is the fourth kingdom and the Adept hierarchy of the Mystery Schools the fifth.
According to the famous esoteric teaching of the macrocosm and microcosm (“as above, so below”), mankind - meaning, the human soul in both its individual and collective aspects - is designed as a miniature or microcosm of the World Soul as a whole.
Being a microcosm of the whole, we may deduce that, just as the World is innately designed according to a septenary pattern, mankind is also internally organized in the form of a septenary.
In terms of human evolution, this septenary manifests primarily as the seven “root races” of man, which exist across the seven evolutionary ages of Earth. Each of these “root races” represents an evolutionary form of the human. Each form is adapted to the state of the world system existing during the world age it is occupying.
In the esoteric teachings, we are currently in the fifth age of the seven age cycle of the World Soul. This implies that humanity is currently expressing itself according to the design of the “fifth root race”.
In ancient Sanskrit, the name for this age is termed the “Arya” and the root-race associated with it the “Aryan”. (For more on the seven ages and seven root races, see my 2021 publication “Atlantis and the Origins of Civilization”. See also several episodes of related content on my podcast titled “The Wisdom Tradition”.)
Specifically, the Sanskrit word “Aryan” represents a primordial caste of ancient north Asian Brahmins (masters of esoteric knowledge) who were first initiated into the wisdom teachings by a line of “Bodhisattvas” or “Rishis”, who themselves are the seven outer extensions of a cumulative human entity or “Human Buddha” (Manushi Buddha; Manu), who himself is the seed image or microcosm of the World Soul as a whole.
By implication, “the universe was a vast person, and the human being was a tiny universe.” In both cases, the World Soul and the Human Soul, each is designed according to the archetype of the Tetractys.
This means that, just as the World Soul exists as the internal manifestation of a great Monad or Divine Self, so the collective human soul also exists as the internal meditation of a supreme, meditating Human Buddha.
This pattern is in turn repeated for each individual human soul or Sattva. It exists as a Monad overtop a hierarchy of inner parts. This Monad or “seed-Self” manifests its powers and potentials through the individualized vehicle of a physical human personality, which is born within the “womb” of this Sattva through an internal process of division, just like how, in cell creation, cell multiplication takes place within the body of the original cell or “monad” of the organism.
This supreme unity or monad of all is God. Man, made in the image of God, is patterned after the same design pattern or archetype that God is. This archetypal design pattern is what the Tetractys mandala is attempting to describe.
The World Soul and the Human Soul are both structured according to a common design archetype. The Pythagoreans called this archetype the “Monad” and depicted it through their mandala of the Tetractys.
Modern systems scientists are rediscovering this archetype in the form of the “system”, with the Universe being a grand supersystem that embeds an integrated hierarchy of lesser systems within itself, each designed as a miniature microcosm or monad of the whole.
Thus, “the design of diversity suspended from Unity is an invariable pattern throughout creation. Each item of diversity becomes in its own nature a Unity, from which is further suspended another host of diversity, and so on ad infinitum.”
“The parts can have but a fractional share of the attributes of the whole, but the whole partakes of the attributes of the parts in fullness and perfect harmony. Hence, the whole is the master of its parts, which must bow before its dictum and are powerless to force their fragmentary agencies upon the structure of wholeness itself.”
In system terms, this means that the world and man are both patterned after the system archetype.
The system archetype states that one supersystem embeds and contains a hierarchy of lesser systems within itself.
Each system within the supersystem is a miniature or microcosm of the whole: each functions as a lesser wholeness or monad within which an internal hierarchy of parts are embedded.
This is true of the galaxy; it is true of the solar system; it is true of our world system; and it is true of mankind on both an individual and collective level.
34. The Manu: the Monad of Collective Humanity
Mankind exists as an integral part of the greater supersystemic wholeness it is embedded within: the World Soul.
The human soul plays a special role within the World Soul: it is designed as a lesser microcosm or monad of it: meaning, it functions as a miniature supersystem in which one archetypal wholeness (i.e. one Self) manifests its being through an internal hierarchy of lesser subsidiary parts and extensions.
The monad or spiritual apex of the human soul is the Manu or “Manushi Buddha” (i.e. Human Buddha), with the seven Rays cast forth from this Divine Human Self being the seven Rishis or Bodhisattvas that emerge as his external mind powers and which together work to reveal and fulfill the Dharma or doctrine on His behalf.
This Human Buddha, termed simply the Manu in ancient Hindu philosophy, is the original cell within which all subsequent human division has taken place.
Manly Hall explains that “wholeness is an archetypal quality - an attribute of Deity. … This wholeness is made manifest by a division within itself whereby its nature becomes a mass of innumerable fragments, each partaking of the quality resident in the original wholeness.” In human life, this wholeness is the Human Buddha or Manu, and each of us is a cell located within the inner structure of its being.
At the culmination of all human enlightenment, it will be this great Human Buddha who will come to an ultimate realization of His own supreme consciousness, for His the one great Self-Consciousness behind all individual experiences of self-consciousness that have ever taken place here on Earth.
In the teaching of the Jewish Cabala, itself derived from the ancient Egyptian esoteric teachings, this Human Monad is termed “Adam Kadma”.
Manly Hall explains that “Adam Kadma is actually the Monad of mankind. Human Beings, therefore, derive their human qualities from their participation in the nature of this prototypic monad.”
“Thus, from the Adamic monad, are suspended the billions of individualized men and women who, when considered as a unity, constitute a single creature - the first and supreme man; the idea of mankind; the Adamic unity.”
The Monad is “that Unity, that Oversoul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all others. … This Oversoul - the anthropoid - is the common father of infinite progeny. It alone is man, for men are but fractional parts of themselves and are never complete until all together form one grand nature.”
This idea of a Human Monad or Human Buddha represents a “Platonic idea of humanity - the archetype or pattern of the genus homo.”
Each human exists as a downward reflection of this archetype; its singular image is reflected into the material universe as a multitude of ensouled human organisms.
Thus, “Mankind may be considered as a vast organism with one spirit or Self manifesting through an infinite number of intellectual and physical organisms.”
By implication, then, “no one has a consciousness higher than any other, for there is one consciousness in the Universe. He who is presumed to have a higher consciousness is simply one whose organisms are fine enough to manifest more completely the potentialities of this single consciousness.”
Originating as a focal point or seed of the World Soul, the Human Monad or Manu originally “entered into an experience of diversity within itself through meditation.” Situated above and beyond Creation itself, “it contemplates the fact without becoming the fact.”
“That which is the internal experience of the Manu becomes the external experience of the collective race, which has been conjured into existence by the Manu.” In this way, the moods and thoughts of the meditating power appear as the social environments, political circumstances, and cultural attainments of the species.
Gradually, as the meditation of this Manu moves “from unity through diversity, a new kind of integration is established. This Grand Man, through the experience of living, exhausts all diversity of experience. When He experiences everything, He really experienced one thing”: Himself.
35. The Sattva: the Monad of the Human Being
According to the Hermetic axiom “as above, so below”, the archetypal dynamics that are to be found within the macrocosm or collective Human Monad should in turn also be found to be true of the individual human organism or microcosm.
The pattern of correspondence that connects the two is based on the idea that behind the mass of all individual human lives is a single Human Self who is meditating the entire saga of human evolution into existence as an internal expression of His own consciousness.
Each person’s “Self” or “Sattva” principle is an internal expression of this Divine Man or “Human Buddha”. This Monad is the “supersystemic entity” within which each human life exists as a lesser, internally held subsystem.
Ultimately, all individual human systems or monads will inevitably be absorbed back into the one Monad - the Supersystem - meaning that the One Life will eventually consolidate all diversity back into itself such that only its own archetypal unity will remain.
By implication, the highest spiritual aspect of each person is a seed or cell (microcosm) contained within the superior being of this grand Overself: the macrocosmic Man.
This divine Human Self remains throughout the cycle of creation outside the realm of corporeal limitation and “broods over the incarnating parts, where, from its own state of detachment, it contemplates the attachments which involve its inferior selves.”
Likewise, each individual Sattva principle does the same: it remains throughout the cycle of creation in the “Western Paradise”, where it contemplates the attachments which involve the lower material personalities that it extends lifetime after lifetime from out of its own superior spiritual nature.
Hall teaches that “among the potentialities of the Self is the power of projecting a host of individualities into temporary existence. After existing their appointed span, these individualities are reabsorbed into the Self from whose essences they were originally differentiated.”
“Thus the Self gives birth to an infinite number of personalities, but it is the Self - not the personalities - that endures. This Self does not actually incarnate or reincarnate, but from itself individualizes incarnating organisms.”
These incarnating organisms become the basis of a grand process of self-realization and internal enlightenment. Every sequence of events that the Sattva sets into motion through its incarnating personalities is "a revelation of Universal processes. Thus, the Sattva must experience the inevitable reactions of any action he vitalizes.”
This Sattva principle, the parent of hundreds of incarnating personalities, “experiences the mystery of cause and effect through its daily associations in the mortal world”. These associations are experienced through its avatar: the human personality. Through the dramas of life that these avatars experience, the Sattva creates “patterns of merits and demerits for itself”.
In time, through experience, the Sattva comes to appreciate the Golden Rule: that “good deeds bring a good harvest, while evil ultimately nullifies itself.”
What is true of the microcosm is also true of the macrocosm: while the Sattva principle is the spiritual seed behind the incarnations of a string of hundreds of physical personalities, the Divine Self or “Vajrasattva” principle behind humanity - the Human Buddha - is the single spiritual source of all meditating Sattvas.
Each human Sattva principle is actually the expression on a miniature level of the archetypal creation process taking place through the world as a whole.
These are truths that are ultimately revealed in the deep mysteries of meditation, where in an ultimate state of self-realization, “the universe is presented as an intricate interplay of processes, all of which originate in the Cosmic Buddha, who causes transitory existence to emerge from his meditation.”
In this view, Life is a grand experience in which a unity (in the form of the Monad) tries to overcome conflict rooted in diversity. The work of evolution is toward the re-establishment of unity within and overtop diversity.
This process of re-unifying diversity involves harmonization. Harmonization is based on truth that parts are organized within a systemic hierarchy of unities within Unity: of individual monads nested within one Monad.
By learning to participate constructively in the growth of other monadic units around it, parts learn to work with other parts and gradually diversity is consolidated within unity. Individual parts become bound together, forming unities, which become parts of greater unities, until all converge once again in Total Unity.
36. The Septenary Design of the Human Soul:
Because the human soul and World Soul bear an analogical resemblance to each other, one being the microcosm, the other the macrocosm, we should expect to find a correspondence between the septenary design of each’s inner psychic nature.
The World Soul as a whole manifests through seven planes of Soul or Mind. These are divided into a pattern of Three and Four: a threefold spiritual nature manifests through a fourfold material form.
Likewise, on a smaller scale, the Human Soul exists across a spectrum of seven principles, with a threefold spiritual entity (the Sattva) manifesting through a lower material form comprised of four bodies, three metaphysical and one physical.
In terms of the individual human, the four lower bodies are divided into a pattern of one and three, with three metaphysical bodies reflected down into one physical body. These three metaphysical bodies are: the mental body, the emotional body, and the vital or astral body.
The Four Bodies exist within the Four Worlds, each existing as “a sphere of substance, separated from each other by the rates of vibration of their tiny particles.”
Each of these bodies is centered by its own seed atom or chakra, representing “vortices of force, twisting, spinning, and whirling, like a galaxy. Each vortex forms a nucleus around which the four bodies of man are built as he comes into physical incarnation.”
Each seed atom or chakra of the body serves “the function of preserving, in an unbroken chain and in proper sequence, all records of incidents through which the respective bodies have passed.”
"These four seed atoms are called Guardian Angels. The Cherubim; the four beasts of Ezekiel: the man, the bull, the lion, and the eagle. They are personified in Christianity as the writers of the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are the ‘Lords of the Records: the recorders of the life of Christ’.”
It is the the ultimate task of each person’s Sattva principle to gain complete control over each of these four bodies. Until then, the Sattva’s lower polarity in the body, the ego principle, retains relative control over these bodies and drives their use toward its own materialistic ends.
The relative balance between these four bodies in a person’s inner psychic nature leads to the expression, within one’s personality, of four psychic functions.
The four bodies, expressed as psychic functions, are: Thought, Feeling, Intuition and Sensation. These correspond to the four elements: Air, Fire, Water, and Earth.
Within each persons’ psyche, each element may become either dominant or recessive in expression depending on the degree of development of the seed-body underlying each.
Manly Hall notes that an overly dominant Earth element polarity in the psyche results in the individual who is “content to drift along seeking only the fulfillment of creature comforts. (These types are regarded as) sleeping through the days of their years.”
Overly water types become “a slave of the moon and under the tyranny of imagination. They dwell in a private universe of make-believe which they populate with the progeny of their own wishful thinking.”
Fire types, by contrast, are “driven by their own emotions - restless, intense, and afflicted with internal conflicts. Their principal purpose is the immediate fulfillment of desires and appetites.”
Finally, Air-dominant types are often “thoughtful and therefore capable of unfolding their mental resources, but are apt to fall into the illusion of intellectual materialism. Advanced members of this classification make good scholars, but those less enlightened become sophisticates, sceptics, or cynics.”
In the esoteric teachings, it is only by bringing into full expression and perfect mutual balance these four elements together does one gain the capacity to synthesize a fifth body, one composed of the element of Ether.
This etheric body is the home to the Sattva principle, which is the threefold spiritual principle that resides over the body, incarnating through it.
Unlocking this body requires following the path of Raja Yoga - the “Royal Path”. Manly Hall explains that this path is “open only to those who have faithfully practiced the way of salvation”. Here “the alchemy of transmutation is accomplished by secret rules the most advanced of which have never been revealed to the public. The final instruction is only possible for those who are fully qualified to take the final step.”
37. The Septenary and Human Society (pt. 1): Three Above
Within the human species, the macrocosm-microcosm archetype is reproduced internally, meaning that each individual human soul is pattered according to the same archetypal design as mankind collectively.
The higher spiritual Self for both the individual and collective (Sattva and Vajrasattva) resides in the solar sphere, where it projects its consciousness into material form within the lower terrestrial sphere of the Earth.
On the individual scale, this projected form becomes a human personality; on the collective scale, it becomes the institutional and organizational superstructure of human civilization.
Therefore, the three above, four below pattern governing the individual human soul is mirrored also within the collective organizational body of world civilization. Meaning that, within the inner psychological metastructure of global society, we find the same archetypal principles present as those found at the level of the individual soul.
In the case of human society, this septenary pattern is reflected in the relationship between the threefold spiritual hierarchy that together forms the Invisible Government behind the Esoteric Schools or Mystery Schools and the four lower caste levels that together represent the four base elements of social alchemy.
Investigating first the threefold spiritual seed residing at the heart of civilization - the Esoteric Schools - we find that its three core levels hold a correspondence to the three worlds of the Soul that we investigated in our previous article: Adi, Buddhi, and Manas.
In the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, the order of beings who reside at the uppermost level of this hierarchy are the Buddhas: the Seven Rays. These beings embody the principle of Adi.
Bodhisattvas, residing one level below, embody the principle of Buddhi. They exist in bodies of pure Ether and represent perfected souls from a previous cycle of existence who have returned to offer their auras as vehicles of transmission for the light of the Buddhas to shine into the lesser spheres of creation.
Arhats and Adepts, who are the terrestrial ambassadors of this great School, embody the third and lowest tier of this hierarchy, representing the principle of Manas. They are overshadowed by the Bodhisattvas and draw their light into the institutional body of the Esoteric School, where it is then further disseminated into its grades of initiates, disciples, and students.
In the Greek teachings, these three orders of beings are termed: a) the Gods; b) the “Demigods”; and c) the World Heroes.
The Demigods, like the Celestial Bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, are described as “the perpetual attendants of the Gods” who are “born out of the divine nature to fulfill the will of the Gods.” These great beings embody the esoteric doctrine to perfection and represent the final evolutionary state that man seeks to attain at the culmination of his evolutionary cycle.
The order of World Heroes are equivalent to the Adept or Arhat level of the Buddhist hierarchy. These represent human souls from the present cohort of Earth humanity who have evolved in advance of the rest. In this way, they embody a state of relative perfection in terms of the state of evolution they have developed their souls to.
These beings are not the completely evolved souls that the Bodhisattvas are, but rather represent more advanced and evolved souls than that achieved by the majority. They might be thought of as the Terrestrial equivalent of the Celestial Bodhisattvas. The Greeks distinguished these two orders by sometimes referring to the Demigods as “Essential Heroes” and the Adepts as “Terrestrial Heroes”.
Pythagoras, Plato, Gautama Buddha, Lao Tzu, Nagarjuna, Francis Bacon, Manly Hall: these are examples of Terrestrial Heroes. They are “not actually divine, but possess divine powers and virtues”.
Like Bodhisattvas, they are born into a mortal state that is below the spiritual level they have earned through their own evolutionary attainment in order that they may benefit less advanced human beings.”
Together they form the “Golden Chain of Homer” that binds the higher planes of spiritual existence with lower kingdoms of life residing within the material realm of Earth. These lower kingdoms are the human kingdom, the animal kingdom, the vegetal kingdom, and the mineral kingdom.
Anatomically, the human soul embodies these four kingdoms and elements within its physical structure:
In terms of the four elements, the Thought principle within Man is associated with “Air”. Anatomically, this corresponds with the brain.
The emotional body is related to man’s animal nature and with the element of Fire. This element is also related to the functioning of the muscular system and its capacity for motion. In the body, this principle of Fire is centered in the liver.
The vegetal kingdom is embodied in the tree-like organization of the vascular and nervous systems, the former representing the Tree of Life and the latter the Tree of Knowledge. Anatomically, this principle, associated with the astral body and the element Water, is enthroned within the solar plexus.
Finally, the mineral kingdom is embodied within man through his skeletal structure, which provides the material framework within which the higher kingdoms are supported and sustained. In esoteric philosophy, the seat of this Earth element resides not in the skeleton but actually in the heart.
The Adept is the individual who has developed, equilibrated, and synthesized these four elements to perfection within both his physical and psychological natures. Only by so doing is one able to detach the Rose from the Cross, where the Sattva principle is able to live permanently within its own etheric nature, from which it may, under the control of its own will, withdraw and extend the physical and psychological elements of a human personality.
The difference between the human kingdom below and the order of “Terrestrial Heroes” existing above is one of evolutionary attainment: in the former, the Sattva principle has become an awakened and fully realized instrument of the Vajrasattva, while in the latter (meaning, the collective body of mankind) it has not.
This does not mean it never will, but at this point the Sattvas of humans comprising the majority of the human cohort on Earth are not at a point where they are capable of accomplishing the great alchemical transmutation of their own souls.
Until then, nature and the hierarchy are collaborating to elevate and initiate the collective body of mankind so that the soul’s residing therein will gradually evolve to the point where they are able to become adepts and initiates of the Great School and attain the great awakening.
Commenting on man’s polarization between a superior spiritual core and inferior material body, Manly Hall points out that "there are two kinds of men: some are satisfied to remain in their present state, to be human in a world of beasts. Others have verged toward a divine estate, and have so lifted themselves to become a new creation, one easily distinguished from ordinary mortals. These are called Heroes, representing those among men who, by wisdom, have become worthy of the veneration of men.”
The lower body of mankind is comprised of those souls, still young in evolutionary attainment, who have “descended with intemperate passions and appetites and lacked the virtues of purity.” Mankind in this sphere represents the lower material aspect of the Human Monad which has not yet been illuminated. “It was to redeem souls of this nature that the terrestrial heroes were born.”
Hall continues: “The Heroic Soul is the one that has found the Law. Through internal communion, he has become a part of the hierarchy of the enlightened and is thus easily differentiated from ordinary mortals who live in an ordinary state, doing ordinary things.”
“The Heroes live ‘a life of Enlightenment’ because they are participators with the Law. They therefore exist as “a race apart”: they occupy their own kingdom above the average state of current man for they are “illumined participators in the Divine Mystery and are constantly aware of the Divine Plan, not by belief, but by certain knowledge.”
In the thinking of the Greeks and Buddhists alike, the Adepts or Heroes - the terrestrial ambassadors of the spiritual hierarchy - were venerated as an aspect of divinity and were paid homage to, “not so much as individuals, but to the Truth which shone through them.”
Hall reminds us that “of the great ones who have lived before us, we revere Plato, Pythagoras, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tzu, Zoroaster, and Mohammed, for these were the witnesses of the Law.”
He also explains that, like the Buddhists and others, “the Greeks considered it proper to build altars to the Heroes and pay homage to them as intercessors between the gods and men. … According to Pythagoras, … it was appropriate and proper that man should pay homage to the Heroes, and the Heroes should pay homage to the Demigods, and the Demigods should honor the Gods, and that all these orders of Being should pay homage to the Ineffable First Principle of All-Being”.
Collectively, this triadic hierarchy rules over the fourfold lower material body of human civilization. This they do from within their chosen institution - the Esoteric School - which is the institution divinely purposed to accomplish the great alchemical work of initiating the human soul into a state of collective enlightenment.
As Annie Besant explains, it is the work of this Hierarchy to take human souls and “balance, adapt, and correlate them, and thus always keep the world traveling along a straight line, always bringing about the same result: the accomplishment of the Will of the Supreme.”
Their work is ultimately impersonal, since it proceeds according to the exact dictates of Law. “They break up forms as well as build them; being always fixated on the one object of serving the evolution of life.” Always, they work for evolution. “Their thought is not fixed on the forms in which the life is contained, but on the life that is evolving within and through them, which can make for itself new forms.”
When human tragedies occur: “It is only the breaking of the forms that happens. The life uprises uninjured and sets free. For the body is the prison-house of the evolving life, and if the prison doors were never thrown open, we should be in jail all our lives and make no progress for the future.”
Thus, “we err when we look at death with eyes that are full of tears, with hearts that are breaking. Death is he who brings us to a higher birth, and who sets free the imprisoned soul. It is the liberation of the bird confined within the limits of a cage, enabling it to soar upwards into the heavens, singing as it goes, with joy at the freedom it has recovered.”
The gods work together as the custodian over the great cycle of human evolution that is taking place within the World Soul.
Through the evolution of man, the ultimate purposes of the World Soul are fulfilled. “Thus, the Gods work, using men as their agents. They bring about national results. Partly they do it by bringing to birth, at a particular time, men whose individual karma fits them to be the agents of the collective karma of a nation.”
Besant continues: “Not by chance is a man brought into the world, not by the compulsion of a dead law, or of a blind necessity. The Gods are working here with an intelligence that foresees and gives and they choose for the accomplishment of their ends the men whose karma fits them to be agents for the work in hand, and then guides them to take birth at the place where that karma can serve the collective karma of their people.”
Thus, the Devas, along with their ambassadors in the solar and terrestrial spheres, “bring people together and carry them apart, always for the working out of their individual karmas. Men are guided to places and positions at definite times, according to these circumstances which, by their karma, they must meet.”
38. The Septenary and Human Society (pt. 2): Four Below
As we’ve covered, in the human soul, a septenary pattern is demonstrated in the form of a threefold spiritual principle manifesting through a fourfold material principle. This pattern can be found on both the individual and collective levels.
The lower fourfold material form of the collective human soul is embodied in the form of four descending castes, with each caste bearing an analogical association with the four base elements of alchemy as well as the four seed-bodies of esoteric human anatomy.
The caste is system therefore archetypal: over time, it clothes itself in different forms within different cultures, but always it is present as an organizing factor in human affairs.
a) The Scholars (Air)
In human society, the highest caste is associated with the element Air and was anciently termed the “Brahminic caste”.
This caste personifies the “mental body” of the collective soul and is comprised of scholars and sages who preserve and perpetuate the wisdom teachings or “dharma” which the upper threefold spiritual hierarchy embodies and reveals to man.
In this way, the Brahmins are revealers of the Law. They are the outer extension of the hierarchy within the collective body of man.
Hall elaborates: “the highest caste was that of the Brahmins, originally the priests who officiated at the religious ceremonies and directed both private and public worship. They were the messengers and direct representatives of the gods and were the custodians and interpreters of the holy law.”
b) The Warriors (Fire)
The second caste, those below the Brahmins, is known as the Warrior caste, anciently called the “Kshatriyas.”
The function of this caste is to serve as “defenders and protectors of the Brahmins and of the faith.” They represent the emotional “shakti” of the Brahmin caste and are associated with the element Fire.
Hall explains that “most of the rulers, princes, and kings of India were Kshatriyas. Gautama Buddha was born in this caste.”
In modern times, as world society has developed and complexified over the course of the Piscean Age, this caste has developed “a peculiarly complicated history. … The rising power of secular government has sometimes elevated the members of the warrior caste to the highest office and standing. They even dominated the Brahmins, who were required to remain aloof from temporal projects and retained their sovereignty only as keepers of the royal conscience.”
When the Warrior caste overtakes the Brahmin caste, this is equivalent to the emotional body subjugating the mental and its innate reasoning faculties. Here, emotion drives thought toward the gratification of its own desires and impulses.
The intellect, by cultivating its innate power of Reason, is intended to guide the emotions into constructive and beneficial states of expression. On the scale of society, this is intended to be the function that the Brahmin caste provides for the Warrior caste.
The Brahmins are therefore intended to serve as the “Council of Elders” who commune with the gods to provide the voice of reason and wisdom to the community at large. This offering of wisdom is intended to guide man’s collective emotional reflexes, not become victim to them.
In modern life, this caste is to be found distributed among a wide body of individuals who occupy key positions within the distributed system of global governance currently being orchestrated out of the military-industrial complex of the United States.
Governance, the archetypal social duty of this Warrior caste, has evolved into a public/private hybrid: it includes politicians and state bureaucrats on one side, bankers and supranational financial institutions on another, corporate elites and NGOs on a third side, and national security and counterintelligence strategists and operatives on a fourth.
As I hinted at in the article that prefaces this book (“The Ukraine War, the Great Reset, and America’s Grand Strategy”), it is my belief that the Brahmanic caste is currently focused within a secret scientific research institution located at the heart of the American national security state. This inner core is encased and “protected” by an all-encompassing national security state, which extends between both “overt and covert” and “public and private” aspects. This expansive governance machine serves collectively as the modern iteration of the Warrior caste. This is a hypothesis that I will further develop over the course of this book's remaining chapters.
c) The Aristocracy (Water)
The third caste in the four-tiered social hierarchy belongs to the aristocracy and artisan class.
In ancient India, this group was called the “Vaisyas” caste and was comprised of the bourgeoisie of India, including rich merchants, skilled craftsmen, wealthy landlords, and others who embodied the foundation of the economic and social system.
Just as with the current economic and cultural elites we find in modern society, members of this group traditionally “held numerous privileges and may attain considerable social dignity.”
d) The Working Classes (Earth)
In ancient India, the lowest caste, corresponding to the element Earth, was termed the “Suryas” caste. Traditionally, those existing in this caste (which comprises the majority of society) were either laborers, the servants of the other castes, or restricted to other humble occupations.
Over the course of modern history, rights and privileges afforded to this group have undergone numerous modifications.
Today, this caste incorporates multiple socioeconomic classes and is not composed only of the lower working classes but also the middle class as well.
39. Caste Position and Re-Incarnation
Reflecting on the four tiers of this caste system, Manly Hall writes that “it was early taught that the castes originated as four births out of the body of Brahma, the great God. The Brahmins were born from the head of the deity; the Kshatriyas from his shoulders and arms; the Vaisyas from his abdomen, and the Sudras from his feet.”
As this teaching implies, the caste system is intimately related to re-incarnation and the long-term evolution of the Soul.
Hall emphasizes that, when it comes to understanding the role that reincarnation plays in determining that status of one’s caste position, “Buddha attacked the then prevailing attitude that caste was simply a matter of birth. A man was not a Brahmin merely because he was born a Brahmin, but only because he cultivated the highest virtues of the religious life.”
By implication, “Man’s salvation depends upon the practice of virtues, and not upon the exaltation of his class.” In this way ,caste is differentiated from class: caste concerns the relative position of the soul, while class concerns the relative position of the personality.
According to Manly Hall, “salvation was not limited to caste, but depends entirely upon personal integrity.“
According this view, “all human beings have equal rights insofar as the attainment of merit was concerned.” Meaning: there is potential equality of all men, but this equality is one of opportunity rather than of attainment.
Hall explains that “all human beings, regardless of racial background, are composed of identical qualities; that is, they have common endowments which may be defined as their humanity.”
These archetypal qualities are the soul’s seven internal powers. These are possessed in common by each human, though each power is not brought into an equal state of expression by each. Instead, they are brought into relative states of expression, with humans differing from one another based on the relative degree of development of the inner powers they have thus far attained.
Extrapolating out from the individual to the collective level, the caste system is an expression of the relative state of soul development present within the collective body of man.
Manly Hall explains that “Man is attuned to a certain plane of activity by his own nature. His level or caste is determined by his own interests, activities, concepts, beliefs, and abilities. In other words, he imposes his total psychology upon himself. Under such conditions, he has nothing with which to solve problems except the experience gained from these problems themselves. Therefore, in order to advance, the individual must constantly outgrow himself. … Every problem must be worked out on its own level.”
He continues: “The conspiracy of faculties and powers within ourselves determines the kind of activity which we prefer. This is not an arbitrary act of God, … it is simply the inevitable urge to be what we desire to be and to do the things which satisfy our own inclinations.”
For example, “by the very action of karma itself, some seem to be born to serve the gods; others to defend the faith; still others to barter and exchange; and lastly, there is the vast majority which must perform the toil of the world.”
By following the impulses inherent to each of us, we automatically stratify. We arrange ourselves in social patterns. But “because man is superior to all patterns, he must ultimately break through them and continue on his journey toward completeness.”
According to the overall thinking of esoteric philosophy “we are reborn as the sum of our own attained consciousness and we find ourselves where we are because of what we are. … All persons must be reborn on the level established by previous attainment.”
The situations we are born into are not curses but opportunities: “Man cannot approach the new except through the old. He must build upon existing foundations, and the degree of his industry measures his growth. The only problem we will never face again is the one we have solved.”
For example, “Human life is punctuated with occurrence patterns. If, for example, due to some shortsightedness or intemperance in ourselves, we have failed to solve a domestic pattern, it is only right and proper that this pattern should continue. It will challenge us in one form or another until it is met by clear insight and vigorous decision.”
Overall, the four castes are not “prisons”; rather, they are “rungs of a ladder which connects Earth and Heaven. Man ascends the ladder, resting for a time on each of the rungs.”
This ladder of ascent is the great chakra system of the Human Monad. God’s consciousness, through Man, first descends and then ultimately re-ascends this ladder.
Behind the whole process is the workings of One Life. Hall writes that, “as One Life vitalizes all groups and classes, it is this Life, which is substantially free and equal, that grows through forms - physical, social, or psychological.”
The internal mechanism by which the One Life ensures its own growth is through karma and self-experience.
As Manly Hall explains, “karma is the law which ensures that this Life will ultimately attain all things possible to it."
Karma means cause and effect or trial and error. This is the method we, as stubborn, egocentric humans, typically rely on to drive our own evolution. “The method is slow, but the end is inevitable.”
It is Man’s particular duty, as an aspect of the One Life, to confront and transmute his own karma by "learning his lessons well and embodying the laws governing universal growth.”
While experience is man’s most basic teacher, man also has the capacity to learn through other means. As Manly Hall teaches, “it is the privilege of man to anticipate Nature in some respects. Through the development of Philosophy, he has devised a method for releasing his own potentials.”
In this light, we understand that Philosophy is the method archetypally designed to facilitate our ascent up this ladder. It is intended to “anticipate Nature” and drive the human soul to achieve the ends Nature ultimately intends for it ahead of schedule.
Through philosophy, the world as a whole is seen as a great schoolhouse of initiation, where man learns, grows, and ensures his own evolutionary development. Here, Earth is perceived as “a vast school where man is continuously invited to transform latent powers into active potencies.”
The caste system fits into this overall evolutionary dynamic; its four levels represents stages we all will sometime pass through in our journeys to enlightenment.
40. Fudo Myo-o and the Symbolism of the Shadow
In Buddhist mandalas, one often finds, amidst the serene countenances of its hierarchy meditating Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats, the image of a ferocious-looking deity named “Fudo Myo-o”.
Like all aspects of the mandala, Fudo is an extension of the consciousness of Mahavairocana. “Although of ferocious visage and carrying the sword and noose cord and his body surrounded by flames, Fudo is a benevolent representation of Universal Law.”
“Buddhism has no malevolent deity. Punishment is not a spiritual reality. Karma is never represented as an adversary but (is rather) ‘part of that power that still works for good while ever scheming ill.’”
“Buddhist philosophy does not admit the existence of a principle of evil or of any power or being seeking to frustrate man’s search for truth. The only hindrance is the weakness of human nature, which man must overcome by self-discipline.”
Fudo-Myo symbolizes divine protection of esoteric knowledge. He represents a divine power within nature which protects the deepest spiritual secrets from misuse or even discovery by all but those with the purest intentions and greatest sincerity.
As the saga of Atlantis demonstrates, the misuse of sacred knowledge inevitably leads to man to his own undoing. Therefore, “those who would serve their God safely and within the company of immortals, must first master their own sins.”
Simply put, “the price of entrance into the Temple is the conquest of our own lower natures.” Fudo Myo-o confronts us as this lower nature; to go into the Light, we must first pass this demon.
Fudo Myo-o represents our undisciplined lower natures and the unredeemed karma that is being expressed therein.
Describing the philosophy of karma, Manly Hall teaches that, “when the human being, for any reason or under any circumstance performs an action contrary to virtue, a reaction results. This is not actually a punishment, but a lesson; a revelation of the Infinite Plan in which all things exist and grow and ultimately attain to perfect enlightenment.”
Accumulated karma creates a “shadow body” in our psychic nature. This “shadow body” is an ever-present obstacle within the soul; it represents the “spirit of negation” operating within ourselves.
In philosophy, this shadow body is often termed “the Dweller on the Threshold.” It is like an “invisible demon that dwells forever within the psyche.” The existence of this demon is self-created: the despotism it symbolizes is actually a mirror of ourselves and our own shortcomings.
Fudo personifies an essential lesson that Man must learn: “that he cannot under any condition escape from the consequences of his own conduct.”
“The Dweller is built of the energy we have wasted and misused”. It exists as the “sum total of perversion, misused force, and perverted talents” that we have accumulated within ourselves. Psychologically, these perversions become embodied in the form of “shadow complexes”.
Being energized by negative emotions and thoughts - such as those involved with hate and fear; jealousy and greed; passion and lust; thoughtlessness and crime - the Shadow embodies our negative karma.
The Dweller is the storehouse of this karma and therefore personifies the repressed shadow elements of our own psychic nature.
Overcoming Fudo Myo-o requires self-discipline. More specifically, the discipline to live by the Law so as not to create new negative karma, thereby feeding Fudo his nutriment.
Manly Hall explains that “Your words, your deeds, and thoughts are within your power, but once they have been precipitated into action you can no longer control them. They are then subject to immutable and unchangeable Law,” which is what Fudo symbolizes: the Law in its aspect of karmic justice.
The ultimate lesson of this symbol is simple: “people may do what they will do, and what they desire to do; but having done it they must pay. There is no escape from the reactions of actions.”
In Jungian terms, Fudo Myo-o personifies the soul’s confrontation with the shadow, this being a necessary and inevitable part of the soul’s internal evolutionary development process.
The Dweller, as a projection of our own shadow, seeks to awaken us to our own shortcomings - where we have fallen short of the Law. Therefore, “it is love and not hate that leads Dainichi to appear as the revengeful power Fudo Myo-o.”
“The purpose of evolution is to unfold the internal potential with which every person is endowed.” Confronting and overcoming the negative karma the Dweller represents is an important aspect of this evolutionary process.
The shadow complexes that this Adversary personifies are the psychic embodiments of the karma or consequences of our own unwise actions. These shadow elements appear to us in various guises - each a personification of Fudo Myo-o.
These symbols of our own shortcoming “confront us like accusing judges and bar our way to the light which we will someday recognize and seek to serve.” Their appearance may be unpleasant, but the ultimate role they play in the development of our psychic life is constructive and informative.
Symbolically, we encounter these shadow elements over the course of our lives through the various symbolic experiences that confront us in both our internal and external lives. Sometimes these symbols comes in the form of encounters with highly impactful persons or events.
Other times they reveal themselves through routine habits or addictions we can’t get beyond. Hall elaborates, noting that Fudo Myo-o “ever tempts through the medium of habit. Consequently, every time we master an unworthy trait of character, we pass this Dweller.”
In terms of a direct mystical confrontation, most do not meet this karma body until the time of death. However, in the initiation rites of the Mysteries, the disciple is prepared to meet and overcome this shadow entity before death.
Manly Hall informs us that “the first great step in ancient initiations was to pass this terrifying monster dwelling at the borderline of the physical and spiritual worlds.”
The challenge of overcoming him is that of facing, taking on, and transmuting our own negative karma. This is easy in concept, but difficult in practice. As Manly Hall explains, “it is not easy to remove negative and destructive thoughts from the mind merely by the will to do so.”
Here’s where the disciplines of philosophy apply: by emphasizing the cultivation of moral and ethical virtues through the Heart Doctrine and through the study of mandalas and other forms of esoteric teachings, the soul begins to release negative attachments and instead build new patterns around the beauty of the doctrine it is now perceiving.
The idea is simple, through a re-direction of the will, the soul can begin to build constructive rather than destructive patterns within itself.
Manly Hall explains that there is “no injustice except that which results from man’s ignorance of the Divine Plan.” Philosophy is meant to correct this ignorance. Using self-knowledge and self-discipline as its guides, philosophy is about cultivating right action through dedication to right thinking and right living.
The method of philosophy is to overcome negative karma first by ceasing to cause it and second by replacing it with positive karma, which one cultivates through faith, service, and knowledge of the Doctrine.
Simply put, philosophy teaches that “we should cultivate everything that is good and the evil will fade away for lack of nutrition.”
41. Using Philosophy to Transcend the Shadow
According to the archetypal “microcosm/macrocosm” dynamic that exists between the individual and collective realms of the human soul, we should expect to find Fudo Myo-o as a relevant psychic factor in the evolutionary unfoldment of not only the individual soul but also the collective soul of humanity as a whole.
Manly Hall teaches that “man’s own psychic field is a differentiation from the Earth’s field, just as surely as his physical body is derived from Earth’s body.” Each individual psyche is a part of this larger, collective psychic atmosphere; the dynamics of one impact the latter and vice versa.
Every thought, attitude, and feeling of the person registers as a vibratory motion within this field. Depending on the polarity of the individual, the relationship they have on the overall psychic field can be either constructive or destructive.
Out of these dynamics, we find a correspondence in the building of a psychic shadow between the individual and collective levels of the human psyche.
An unstable individual contributes to the creation of “a psychic toxin in the magnetic field of the planet itself.” These imbalances react back upon humanity, corrupting the psychic processes of others. “The moment the individual lowers the standard of his emotions and thoughts, he is going to come under the influence of this highly contaminated magnetic field.”
“The average person looking at the world around him is confused by illusionary circumstances or has his cupidity stimulated by spectacles of wealth and luxury. These taken into the mental and emotional structure tend to corrupt the nature. When these false values have become parts of character, they emerge again as desires and appetites. The person believing these illusionary pressures to be an expression of his true self may dedicate his life to the gratification of sensory perceptions.”
Through this process, like attracts like: “as man permits his own collective attitudes to become more and more corrupted, the materials necessary for the building of mental and emotional structures will be less adequate, less pure, and therefore will result in mediocre structures.” In this way, a process of entropic negation feeds off itself.
As we look out into global society today, we find innumerable blights: poverty, ignorance, superstition, addiction, tribalism, violence, materialism, egotism, greed, lust, selfishness, perversion.
Each of these lives as a shadow complex within the collective psychic field of the species. When we, as humans, allow ourselves to become “negative” to these influences, these shadow complexes latch onto us and we in turn feed them.
In truth, these shadows “simply represent patterns of disintegration in Space. They are entropic patterns that have been built up through the disintegrative process of ignorance. Whenever any human becomes even for a moment attendant to them,” these shadows take possession of him and “he becomes these patterns.”
Once again, philosophy exists as the solution to the dilemma: it is not only the necessary salve to ensure the progression of the development of the individual soul; it is also the divinely appointed institution dedicated toward guiding the collective past its own cumulative “shadow complex”.
This collective shadow is embodied in unconscious individuals and the organizations they manage, and the institutions they govern. These unconscious individuals are possessed by shadow complexes in their own unconscious - ones that in turn are harvested by the greater collective shadow that leers over all.
It is these shadow players who act in ways that make this world a hell for themselves and others. This shadow player can be a sexual abuser or an environmentally and socially destructive corporation: each embody its qualities on varying levels of the human hierarchy.
On the collective, institutional scale, the collective shadow can manifest as: the imperial and colonialist behavior between nations; extractive and pollutive economic activity by corporations and governments; and illicit financial and economic activity such as that involved with the drug and sex trades and other black markets.
Historically, speaking, this living manifestation of the “collective shadow” generally follows the contours of empire. Given that America has been the global hegemon for nearly a century, this shadow is currently projecting its presence globally from within the “deep state” within American empire.
Perhaps the perfect representative of the symbol of the Shadow within human geopolitics is the idea of the “deep state”, which references the existence of a permanent covert or “shadow” aspect of the all-encompassing American military-industrial complex / national security state.
This shadow entity extends its reach and influence into nearly all domains of human life: physical, social, economical, political, cultural, and psychological, influencing each according the spirit of Fudo Myo-o, the personification of entropic negation.
In truth, the national security state and its branches in finance capitalism and the “corporatocracy” is not the only place where the Shadow reveals its ugly presence; each level of the human soul’s fourfold caste system is plagued by it, each in its own way.
The four social units or castes are each associated with a particular element; likewise, each of the four psychic functions of the individual (thought, feeling, intuition, and sensation) are also associated with the four elements.
Each caste is archetypically dedicated to the service of one of the four elements of the World Soul. Although numerous persons comprise the caste, the caste as a whole expresses certain archetypal characteristics unto itself. By implication, the caste as a whole can fall into certain neurotic tendencies. In other words, each develops shadow tendencies specific to its role in the larger social supersystem.
d) The Working Classes (Earth)
The Sudras caste, embodying the Earth element through the aspect of “labor”, can fall into the tendency to "go along to get along”, meaning to relax its morals and ethics in order to minimize conflict and “just get by”.
Collectively, this caste can fall into a malaise, "drifting along, seeking only the fulfillment of creature comforts, sleeping through the days of their years.”
The prescribed solution for this caste is to cultivate the simple virtues of the philosophic life so as to instill the practice of morals, ethics, and idealism in daily living. This involves cultivating the simple Christian values of doing good works, performing charity, and being of service, even if these are practiced on the simple and immediate scale of one's “daily responsibilities as these relate to himself, his family, and society.”
c) The Aristocracy (Water)
The Vaisyas caste, representing the aristocratic and artisan classes, can collectively fall into an introverted neuroticism and egocentrism in which they become “a slave of the moon and under the tyranny of imagination.”
Considering the psychology of modern celebrity, it is clear that those in this caste can fall into a tendency to “dwell in a private universe of make-believe which he populates with the progeny of his own wishful thinking.”
Manly Hall diagnoses the core of this caste’s problem, while also hinting at the solution: “Modern humanism takes the attitude that the Universe is an infinite area in which everyone can do as he pleases. The possibility that there are fixed and inevitable rules governing all related things, and even the creative principle itself … forces us to seek security through adjustment with values which somewhere already exist. If there is an all-knowing consciousness in space, and this alone is absolute, then man must attain peace of soul by the acceptance of this principle and its edicts.”
The philosophical solution for this caste is to ground the imagination faculties in the body and in the real world of lived experience and natural law.
By focusing the mind on the real operations and laws of nature, society, and health rather than on narcissism and imaginings of its own creation, individuals and groups ruled by this element learn to “discipline and control the flow of psychic energy in themselves” and thereby reclaim mental leadership over the body.
Overall, the wealth and influence of this caste should be used to bring man closer to nature by cultivating and promoting health in the human body and environment.
b) The Warriors (Fire)
It is on this level, that of the Warrior or Kshatriyas caste, that the problems of geopolitics and global governance emerge. Here we find not only the overt state but also the covert or “deep state”, which becomes a powerful destabilizing force in the world. Through it, the collective shadow is given an organizational form and wrecks havoc over the affairs of man.
The philosophical solution to this situation is to purify and discipline the emotional drives that impel actors in this group to behave in unethical and socially destructive ways. Through philosophy, members of this caste come to appreciate the meaning of the biblical adage “let not my will but Thine be done”.
When constructive attitudes and beliefs are cultivated “other incompatible thoughts lose their dominating influence. … Destructive mental attitudes become dominant because we do not properly emphasize positive and constructive beliefs. … We should cultivate everything that is good, and evil will fade away for lack of nutrition. Light does not battle with darkness, for where light is, there cannot be darkness. Where courage and faith light the way of man, fear and doubt can have no existence.”
The underlying problem of this caste is that it is not aligned according to a common ideal or vision. As such, there is no shared, collective purpose. Instead, knowledge is compartmentalized to the utmost degree within its structure. The “confusion of tongues” runs rampant and an environment of competition, mistrust, and tribalism abounds.
In this light, each part, not knowing its place within the larger whole, is left to more or less fend for itself and its own interests. This results in the plague of competitive psychology that characterizes our economic, political, and military institutions.
Philosophy is the solution to this problem. Through it, those of this elemental type learn to practice the virtues of compassion, mercy, and service. Simply put, by practicing the simple virtues of the Heart Doctrine, the shadow elements that plague this caste can be quieted and put to rest.
a) The Scholars (Air)
Finally, the Brahmin caste, representing Thought or Manas and its characteristic element Air. This caste has a tendency to fall into “the illusion of intellectual materialism.” This description fits the current intellectual class, which ranges from public intellectuals to the deepest level of thinkers, scientists, and strategists working within the innermost recesses of the Deep State.
At the outer or exoteric level, our scholars and thinkers have fallen into the quasi-religion of scientific materialism, which is more a belief system than a set of scientifically justifiable conclusions.
In my opinion, scientific materialism and its leading advocates exists as “strawmen” propped up to hide the fact that an inner, esoteric body of scientists exist behind the “deep state" who have been working to develop an entirely different, ether-based paradigm of physics and technology for over a hundred years (perhaps even since before the time of Tesla).
But even scientists existing at this level, about whom we can merely speculate, may also fall into the tendency of “intellectual materialism”. If the basis of their knowledge is to design weapons, energy systems, or other form of technologies whose purpose is to control or manipulate physical matter, then this is knowledge that has become secularized and should therefore considered profane.
Anciently, knowledge was treated as a privilege; only those who had earned that privilege through initiation were deemed worth of possessing it. When knowledge became democratized, it also became secularized, disenchanted, and dispirited.
When knowledge of the causative world, such as that indicated by research into ether-based physics (which the recent UFO revelations essentially prove is happening), is secularized, a dangerous situation can arise.
The philosophical solution is therefore to re-ensoul knowledge by granting it once again the status of sacredness. Knowledge of Cause must come as part of a quest to attain enlightenment, not material domination over this terrestrial sphere.
Science must become re-integrated with religion, in other words. Through philosophy, this synthesis can take place and the Brahmin can be liberated from attachments to false motivations and beliefs.
Manly Hall elaborates: “to the degree that the individual can become a dedicated servant of those principles which he comes to understand through contemplation and meditation, he is relieved from the burden of self-will and the illusions which arise in his own mind.”
In sum, by application of the law of analogy, we find that the path of meditation and self-purification pursed by the individual philosopher symbolically also points the way to the path of liberation for the entire species.
While the goal of individual meditation is to synthesize the four lower elements into the etheric body of the threefold spiritual principle, the goal of the collective is to do the same: to bring enlightenment to the lower bodies or castes so that all may eventually be synthesized together into the threefold spiritual hierarchy that over-souls Earth humanity.
This spiritual hierarchy forms a “tremendous commonwealth of purpose.” Those who join its ranks become “citizens of the Eternal”. The primary purpose of initiation is to "gain full citizenship in this world, a citizenship which has to be earned. Those who wish to become citizens of the universe have to prove their worth: to prove that they are stronger than the weaknesses which bind them here.”
42. Philosophy’s Place in the Mandala of World Civilization
Philosophy is not just about overcoming the forces of entropy and negation within ourselves; it is also about actively building constructive thought patterns, emotional tendencies, interpersonal relationships, and physical habits, routines, and disciplines.
Philosophy works as an entire life discipline, one that is premised upon the cultivation of an idealistic worldview that emphasizes a universal perspective on the meaning and purpose of life.
Philosophy emphasizes “the imperative need for a proper understanding of man’s relationship to universal consciousness.” Here, one’s own growth and development becomes celebrated as "the unfoldment of the divine through the human”.
Through the practice of philosophical disciplines of self-realization, this process of self-awakening of the spirit within the form is quickened.
To the philosopher, life becomes ensouled, and egotism is replaced with spiritual humility. “In a receptive mood, one of hopeful expectancy, the individual learns to recognize the symbolism everywhere and always present, but usually obscured by his own opinion-ism.”
“Receptivity to these eternally existing patterns - these archetypes which reveal the divine will and the universal mind - permits solution to assert itself through us, and thus accomplish its perfect works.”
In this way, philosophy “teaches that the resources of the Divine Nature are available to man through prayer and meditation, and that inner light can change, rescue, and perfect the objective character of the personality.”
As we’ve covered throughout the various articles of this chapter, the contemplation of mandalas forms an important aspect of these esoteric disciples.
In this article we’ve discovered that mandalas do not just exist as occult works of art: the human body is also mandala, one of the human soul; nature itself is also grand mandala, one of the World Soul; an human civilization, finally, is also a grand mandala, one of the inner life of the Human Monad or Manu.
Hall elaborates on this correspondence between Monads: “According to esoteric thinking, the world, with all its governments, is a mandala. It is a huge diagram in which all institutions are recognized as extensions of Deity. … This vast society of worlds within worlds of which we are a part is, in turn, also pictured as a human body with all its parts and members.”
Contemplation of these truths emphasizes the ultimate truth that unity is the reality and diversity the illusion.
In practice, this unity manifests as a great “Universal Commonwealth” of spiritual powers and beings. As a mandala, this spiritual Commonwealth embodies the archetype: “the supreme seal stamped upon the face of creation.”
Civilization here on earth is intended to be patterned according to this same archetype. If we follow its disciplines, philosophy will bring us here as a collective.
Through philosophy, principles, ideals, and values must come to rule human life “so that we can produce this vast cosmotheistic commonwealth here on earth.” Through this New Atlantis, “the Lesser and the Greater can unite in one magnificent unfoldment of eternal principles.”
If we can work through philosophy, we can find our proper governments, codes of law, management philosophies, and design methodologies, “for all of these things are under Law.”
Each corporation must be managed as a mandala. “Unless it is properly, creatively, and constructively used, it violates the law and fails. It collapses because it has departed from the integrities essential to its survival.”
Philosophy must come to govern the way we engage with the world on every scale of life. Because if it’s not, we become vulnerable to the influence of the Shadow.
Hall elaborates: “wherever any basic pattern is abused, trouble comes in. Wherever we take laws and misapply them, we are confronted with the consequences of our own mistakes.” Philosophy will save us from this cycle - one that we are suffering from tremendously as a species and have not yet managed to extricate ourselves from.
The way of philosophy is to move without harm. When mastered, this becomes a type of effortless action, as one surfs alongside the energies of life instead of thrashing against them.
In its highest state of expression, through philosophy one’s life motions become a graceful pattern that itself resembles a mandala. Here, “all useful labor becomes a spiritual experience and religious ritual.”
This is a good guide not only for personal conduct but also as a philosophy of management: our organizations should be governed as sacred spaces.
With this re-orientation of perspective that philosophy provides, one no longer lives merely on the surface of daily activities. Instead, one cultivates “a quality of penetration in the direction of those deeper values which abide in a sphere of principles or ideals.”
This attribute of “penetration” involves developing the capacity for what Manly Hall calls “clarisentience”: “This means that the mind enlarges its awareness, gaining a fuller comprehension without any type of obvious phenomena. The individual gradually grows better and handles the situations in which he finds himself more effectively.”
Through philosophy, life is discovered to be no longer “a struggle against unreality” but instead becomes about “the gentle cultivation of the lotus of the soul.” This lotus grows “through the continuing and continuous realization of our proper places in the Divine Plan. This discipline underlies all other activity.”
Ultimately, the philosophic life is based upon the effort to establish calmness and peace within the soul and to release it “from any perversions or intemperances by which it could be held in slavery to the physical ambitions.”
As a part of this process of release, one must confront their own Shadow. As Hall explains, “if the person resolves to preserve his own internal integrity, he is confronted with many temptations and difficulties. These are personified as the evil beings who try to block his way in the early degrees of the initiation rites. These tempt the initiate to depart from truth and return to his old habits.”
But if the disciple will stay with the journey and see it to the end, “the redeemed human soul returns to the company of the gods and enjoys everlasting bliss.”
Man is intended to win his battle with the Shadow; to overcome the obstacles it presents. For behind this shadow is “the ever-bestowing Soul of the Universe who quietly and patiently waits to be accepted.”
In the end, humanity’s quest for growth “is not a search, but an inevitable fulfillment which comes through gentle acceptance of the all-pervading reality.”
Propelled forward by this simple philosophic idealism, one grounded in the unshakeable belief that one’s own evolution is ensured by God, the philosopher approaches the Cosmic Mystery “with a quiet, serene joy.”
This is a state of mind we can all aspire to, each on our own level. We can all choose the path of philosophy. And when we do - when we resurrect and revivify the ancient institution of philosophy with our lifeblood - the entire trajectory of world civilization will change forever.