At the time of birth, the condition of a child’s mind is exactly like a very sensitive photo plate. When a child is conceived, this is the first exposure. The day the child is born is a second exposure. These two exposures are registered upon the sensitive mind of the child, as if on film. The world, as it is at that moment, is imprinted upon the child. This determines the child’s sympathies and antipathies for his entire life.
The first part of astrology is the outermost layer, which is nonessential. There everything is circumstantial, uncertain, unpredictable. The more we talk about external happenings, the more there is coincidence. The second part is the middle layer, the semi-essential layer. There is possibility of transformation if the right choice is made. The third part is the core, the essence. It cannot be changed. When it is known, the only way is to cooperate with it.
The real thing is the third. It is the quintessence of everything. It belongs to the innermost and is absolutely predetermined. The more one moves toward one’s center, the nearer one comes to the essential, the predetermined part. With inner phenomena things begin to appear scientific, as if based on a definite law. They become more and more decisive.
Between these two conditions - the peripheral and the essential – in the middle layer there is ample room to effect changes by exercising one’s freedom of choice. Here, someone with awareness will make the correct choice, and the right way is to start moving towards your center. A person who is in the darkness of ignorance, though, will drift into his destiny, putting up with whatever comes his way.
Astrology is not to be confused with astronomy, the science that studies the size, movement, and composition of celestial bodies. Astrology, a pseudo science, claims that stars and other heavenly bodies influence human personality and activity and that the position of celestial bodies at a given time can foretell future events in the lives of people.
Transcendental Meditation is another danger to be avoided. Along with New Age teaching, TM finds deity only within nature and humans. The subtlety of TM, however, is its promotion in the western world as a recreational and relaxation activity that promotes better physical and mental health. The origin and religious background of the teaching is conveniently hidden from unsuspecting participants.
Involvement in the many forms of mysticism grows out of a single motivation—a desire to move beyond the revelation of God's Word to sources of "enlightenment" that are contrary to the Bible's revealed truth. Inordinate curiosity begins the downward path. However, God's Word is totally adequate to provide both direction and inspiration for life. What supernatural guidance we cannot derive from the Bible and its Spirit-initiated revelation is out of bounds. It is blasphemy against God to turn away from His Word to seek forbidden knowledge and understanding through divination, magic, palm reading, astrology, tarot cards, crystal balls, Ouija boards, psychic knowledge, or any other practice that seeks to unravel divinely hidden mysteries.
Willpower
Autosuggestion is a psychological technique of human willpower. For the method to work, the patient must refrain from making any independent judgement, meaning that he must not let his will impose its own views on positive ideas. Everything must thus be done to ensure that the positive "auto-suggestive" idea is consciously accepted by the patient, otherwise one may end up getting the opposite effect of what is desired.
Suggestions for Their Use
These twelve meditations, one for each month, are designed for group use at the time of each full moon. The full moon marks the point in each month when energies not normally or usually contacted are available. At the time of the full moon it is as if a door opened wide, which at other times stands closed.
This door connects:
The Community of Illumined Minds------->Community of Man
World of Causes------------------------>World of Effects
Blueprint of the Future---------------->Creative Effort
New Light------------------------------>Unsolved World Problems
In the symbology of astrology, the sun represents the soul. From one point of view (ours) each sign of the zodiac represents one station upon the path of expanding consciousness. The sun's annual passage through one after another of the twelve signs provides the condition in consciousness, for those receptive and responsive to prevailing energies, for an annual rehearsal of twelve major steps in soul unfoldment. Each of these steps is associated with one of the zodiacal signs.
The sun's annual journey through the twelve signs is a philosophical concept, not an astronomical fact. The zodiac is an ideograph. The validity of its use as a guide in the life of the soul derives from the integrity and intuitive perception of the one who interprets it.
A group that is able to interpret the zodiac with real insight, and furthermore, is able to adjust its meditation work and subjective life to the direction of the sun's motion through the signs, can as a group verify the spiritual worth of observing the full moon rhythm.
The three factors which make the full moon work spiritually effective are:
1. The Group which can invoke, receive and channel more energy than would be wise or safe for an individual working alone.
2. The Direction of the sun's passage around the zodiac, indicating the nature of the energy influencing consciousness during a given month.
3. The Rhythm of the relation of the sun's motion to the motion of the moon. It is, by workaday standards, a peculiar rhythm requiring careful planning and organization of personal affairs in order even to be aware of each full moon occasion. This rhythm, by reason of its peculiarity, is protective. Persons unable to plan and organize their personal affairs would not benefit from exposure to powerful spiritual influences available at the time of the full moon.
Rhythm, by its very nature, depends upon regularity and fidelity to pattern over a long period of time. The full moon rhythm, therefore, requires faithful, regular observance over a sufficient duration to affect consciousness.
The effect of full moon observance in a particular sign is cumulative. That is, a continuity of inner experience can be traced:
b) from Aries in one year to Aries the next year to Aries in the following year; and from Taurus to Taurus, etc.
For full cumulative value, therefore, we recommend that these meditations be used substantially as here presented. How closely the meditation leader will adhere to each sentence and each word therein will depend somewhat upon his ability to work with ideas, and upon his experience in group meditation. For instance, one experienced in the use of mantrams, would not be tempted to tamper with the wording of a mantram. One experienced in the conscious creative use of sound knows that repetition of sound builds faculty into the consciousness; exact repetition builds accurately and smoothly.
The page heading at the beginning of each meditation, and the section headings, PREPARING THE CHALICE, LIFTING THE CHALICE, FILLING THE CHALICE, are intended to guide the thinking of the meditation leader; but they are not intended to be read aloud or announced. The meditation leader should, ideally, express through speech the inner working of the group mind during the in-gathering and up-pointing of the invocative forces assembled for meditation; then, following the silent period, he should guide and ease the return of the group's attention to physical plane consciousness.
In leading a group (or public) sounding of the Great Invocation, the leader should pause after saying the first word in each stanza, thus:
"From . . . the point of light within the mind of God"…
In this way he can guide the length of pause between stanzas; all participants will know when to begin each stanza and all can join in the entire sounding.
The OM is sounded as a single syllable, to rhyme with "home." The vowel should receive the greater value. It should resemble the temple chant rather than the humming of bees. If each person present listens, imaginatively, for the sound of the world's servers as the OM is sounded, the tone is most likely to represent the note of the group soul.
Some groups encourage absent, or distant, members to participate on the plane of mind (wherever they may be physically) during the full moon group meditation. Whether the individual participant is physically present at a group meeting, and whether he observes a one day, or three day or a five day full moon period, he should be cautioned to use the full moon meditation instead of (not in addition to) his regular daily meditation. We do not recommend entering into meditation more than once a day.
Excess is unwise. Excessive meditation is sheer folly. The meditator who is mature enough to have achieved regularity in all his meditation work and who thereby lives a well regulated life, will not be inclined to excess. The inexperienced student, or the emotionally unsteady person, needs to be cautious; his very instability leaves him less able to handle any overstimulation induced by his over-eagerness. As the full moon work grows, experienced participants need to be more helpfully aware of the value (to newcomers) of a calm, steady group climate in which to become gradually accustomed to the high tides in the cyclic ebb and flow of spiritual energy.
The most suitable meditating posture within a group meeting is sitting with the spine comfortably erect, feet flat on the floor and slightly apart, with hands on knees, palms down. If you do not find a chair the right size for you, or if the chair you are using does not permit ideal posture, try at least to sit comfortably enough to forget the physical body. If the chair does not permit reasonable comfort, do not let a minor detail interfere with work of major importance.
The most suitable posture for meditating alone (at home) during the full moon period, is sitting with spine comfortably erect, feet and hands crossed.
Here are two words of advice to individuals undertaking the full moon work in the solemn realization of its importance to the evolution of the planet:
Safeguard the work by keeping your share rhythmically steady. That is, if you do it, do it regularly every month, since it is the rhythm of the full moon observance that makes the work effective.
Safeguard the worker (yourself) by making sure your whole attitude toward the work is that of a group member bringing his best to the group endeavor. Regard the group, in turn, as offering its best effort to each full moon occasion. We are assured that the Hierarchy, also a group, brings its very best to these communions.
TWELVE ASPECTS OF DEITY
SIGN
|
KIND OF ENERGY
|
FUNCTION
|
Inaugurating
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Birth of ideas on plane of mind
| |
Illuminating
|
Lifts desire into the light
| |
Relating
|
Liaison; supplies "third factor"
| |
Manifesting
|
Door into dense form
| |
Sensitizing
|
Immortalizes Selfhood
| |
Nurturing
|
Sacrificial service
| |
Interlude between
|
Necessitates choice
| |
Testing
|
Purifies by fire
| |
Self directing
|
Reaches goal
| |
Culminating
|
Initiation
| |
Synthesizing
|
Scientific service
| |
Absorbing
|
Redeems by renunciation
|
INTERPLAY OF OPPOSITES
IMPULSING ENERGY
(Indicated by Sun's Position at Full Moon) |
EFFECT UPON FORCE FIELD(Indicated by Moon's position)
|
Resurrected Life (1 Aries)
|
Precipitates Decision (7 Libra)
|
Raising of Desire (2 Taurus)
|
Adds Fuel to Testing Fires (8 Scorpio)
|
Weaving Etheric Web of Co-service Relations (3 Gemini)
|
Marshals Companions for Long Journey (9 Sagittarius)
|
Invocation of Light by the Masses (4 Cancer)
|
Obliges Initiate's Response (10 Capricorn)
|
Integrated Individuals (5 Leo)
|
Integrate the World (11 Aquarius)
|
Nurturing Form and Consciousness of Indwelling God (6 Virgo)
|
Guarantees Eventual Messiahship (12 Pisces)
|
Pause to Weigh, Choose, Decide (7 Libra)
|
Benefits the Next Beginning (1 Aries)
|
Purificatory Tests (8 Scorpio)
|
Release Light via Speech (2 Taurus)
|
Exerting Toward Goal After Goal (9 Sagittarius)
|
Stimulates Companions' Evolution (3 Gemini)
|
Mountaintop Experience of the Few (10 Capricorn)
|
Leavens Mass Consciousness (4 Cancer)
|
Sense of Universality (11 Aquarius)
|
Expands Selfhood Into Grouphood (5 Leo)
|
Total Renunciation (12 Pisces)
|
Fulfills Service Intent (6 Virgo)
|
