Two specific exercises are given to the aspirant on the Western Wisdom Path
of Preparation: Retrospection and Concentration. Both lead to a development of
spiritual sight and insight; both are necessary to secure a thoroughly rounded
development.
The philosophy of the attainment of spiritual sight and insight is to compel
the desire body to perform the same work inside the dense body while we are
fully awake, positive, and conscious, as it does outside in sleep and in the
post-mortem state.
Max Heindel states that: "The evening exercise, retrospection, is of greater
efficiency than any other method in advancement." It "is of prime necessity to
the intellectual occultist, because it supplies a feeling for truth...and
develops power of devotion." He goes on to describe how best to perform this
exercise:
"After retiring for the night the body is relaxed. This very important, for
when any part of the body is tense, the blood does not circulate unimpeded;
part of it is temporarily imprisoned under pressure. As all spiritual
development depends upon the blood, the maximum effort to attain soul growth
cannot be made when any part of the body is in tension.
"When perfect relaxation has been accomplished, the aspirant to the higher
life begins to review the scenes of the day, but he does not start with
occurrences of the morning and finish with the events of the evening. He views
them in reverse order: first the scenes of the evening, then the events of the
afternoon, and lastly the occurrences of the morning. The reason for this is
that from the moment of birth when the child draws its first complete breath,
the air which is inspired into the lungs carries with it a picture of the
outside world, and as the blood courses through the left ventricle of the
heart, each scene of life is pictured upon a minute atom located there. Every
breath brings with it new pictures, and thus there is engraved upon that
little seed atom a record of every scene and act in our whole life from the
first breath to the last dying gasp. After death these pictures form the basis
of our purgatorial existence. Under the conditions of the spirit world we
suffer pangs of conscience so acute that they are unbelievable for every evil
deed we have done, and we are thus discouraged from continuing on the path of
wrongdoing. The intensity of the joy which we experience on account of our
good deeds acts as a goad to spur us on the path of virtue in future lives.
"But in the post-mortem existence this panorama of life is re-enacted in
reverse order for the purpose of showing first the effects and then the causes
which generated them that the Spirit may learn how the Law of Cause and Effect
operates in life. Therefore the aspirant who is under the scientific guidance
of the Elder Brothers of the Rosicrucians is taught to perform his or her
evening exercise also in reverse order and to judge him- or her- self each day
that he or she may escape the purgatorial suffering after death. But let it be
understood that no mere perfunctory review of the scenes of the day will
avail...It is the feeling of remorse, of deep and sincere sorrow for what we
have done, which eradicates the pictures from the seed atom and leaves it
stainless...
"He (the aspirant) endeavors to picture to himself each scene as faithfully
as possible, seeks to reproduce before his mind's eye all that took place in
each pictured scene, with the object of judging his actions, of ascertaining
if his words conveyed the meaning he intended or gave a false impression, or
if he overstated or understated in relating experiences to others. He reviews
his moral attitude in relation to each scene. At meals, did he eat to live, or
did he live to eat...? Let him judge himself and blame where blame is due,
praise where merited.
"The value of retrospection is enormous, far-reaching beyond imagination. In
the first place, we perform the work of restoration of harmony consciously and
in a shorter time than the desire body can do during sleep, leaving a larger
portion of the night available for outside work than otherwise possible. In
the second place, one lives his Purgatory and First Heaven each night, and
builds into the Spirit as right feeling the essence of the day's experience.
Thus he escapes Purgatory after death and also saves time spent in the First
Heaven; and last, but not least, having extracted, day by day, the essence of
experiences which make for soul growth, and having built them into the Spirit,
he is actually living in an attitude of mind, and developing along lines that
would ordinarily have been reserved for future lives."
Now to summarize the benefits of retrospection when practiced at the end of
the day as taught: (1) thorough relaxation of the body; (2) increase in power
of devotion and feeling for truth; (3) knowledge of how the Law of Cause and
Effect operates in life; (4) restoration of harmony in the bodies more quickly
than would otherwise be done; (5) a shortening of the time spent in Purgatory
and the First Heaven; (6) progress in attitude and development; (7) thought
control, which must result from a disciplined effort to retrace the events of
the day.
Sometimes people ask if retrospection is necessary when one repents
immediately for undesirable words or actions. However, it seems obvious that
it would be impossible to reap all the benefits by simply repenting during the
day for undesirable deeds, even if one had the time to do so. The fact that
one repents immediately for having hurt another, etc., is all in his favor, of
course, but how could any sincere aspirant help doing that? Were there no
sincere repentance, there would likely be no incentive to real repentance in
the evening.
It should also be realized that constant attention to the events of the day
can be detrimental rather than helpful. In fact, Max Heindel warned us not to
be over-anxious to accomplish, nor to be fearful and worrisome. "When we are
too anxious, constantly ruminating over faults and feverishly anxious to
eradicate them, when we are ever intent upon our ourselves to see if we are
growing then we are in point of fact exactly as the little boy who has planted
a seed and daily scratches the soil from the tiny rootlets to see if the seed
is growing into a plant. We know that by his ill-advised anxiety the boy
frustrates the very object he wishes to attain; and when we are constantly
putting ourselves in the limelight and hypercritically reviewing our
shortcomings, we are also defeating the end we seek to serve and deferring the
consummation of our hopes. The evening exercise gives us all necessary scope
for criticism. To keep chiding ourselves throughout the day has the same
effect as if someone else were 'picking' at us all the time.
The path of spiritual progress is the path of self-discipline: control of
our thoughts, words, feelings, and deeds. Against this the lower self
constantly rebels and offers all kinds of excuses to prevent its
accomplishment, but the wise aspirant does not heed them. He realizes that the
exercise of retrospection requires the use of will, the highest aspect of the
Spirit, to control thought and feeling for a definite, sequential period of
time. Hence, for this reason, along with all the others mentioned above, its
successful performance is a spiritual victory for the Spirit — a victory which
gives strength and power to the Higher Self.
"Concentration, the Morning Exercise, is performed in the morning at the
very earliest moment after the aspirant awakes. He must not arise to open
blinds or perform any other unnecessary act. If the body is comfortable he
should at once relax and commence to concentrate. This is very important, as
the Spirit has just returned from the Desire World at the moment of waking,
and at that time the conscious touch with that world is more easily regained
than at any other time of the day.
"If the body is uncomfortable the aspirant may rise to relieve it ere he
concentrates, but much of the efficacy of the concentration is lost by the
delay.
"During sleep the currents of the desire body flow, and its vortices move
and spin with enormous rapidity. But as soon as it enters the dense body its
currents and vortices are almost stopped by the dense matter and the nerve
currents of the vital body which carry messages to and from the brain. It is
the object of this exercise to still the dense body to the same degree of
inertia and insensibility as in sleep, although the Spirit within is perfectly
awake, alert, and conscious. Thus we make a condition where the sense centers
of the desire body can begin to revolve while inside the dense body.
"Concentration is a word that puzzles many and carries meaning to but few,
so we will endeavor to make its significance clear. The dictionary gives
several definitions, all applicable to our idea. One is to 'draw to a center,'
another from chemistry, 'to reduce to extreme purity and strength by removing
valueless constituents.' Applied to our problem, one of the above definitions
tells us that if we draw our thoughts to a center, a point, we increase their
strength on the principle that the power of the Sun's rays are increased when
focused to a point by means of a magnifying glass. By eliminating from our
mind for the time being all other subjects, our whole thought power is
available for use in attaining the object or solving the problem on which we
are concentrating.
"People may become so lost in a book that they are oblivious to all else,
and the aspirant to spiritual sight must acquire the faculty of be coming
equally absorbed in the idea he is concentrating upon, so that he may shut out
the world of sense from his consciousness and give his whole attention to the
spiritual world. When he learns to do that, he will see the spiritual side of
an object idea illuminated by spiritual light, and thus he will obtain a
knowledge of the inner nature of things undreamt of by a worldly man.
"When he has reached that point of abstraction the sense centers of the
desire body commence to revolve slowly within the dense body, and will thus
make a place for themselves. This in time will become more and more defined,
and it will require less and less effort to set them going.
"The subject of concentration may be any high and lofty ideal, but should
preferably be of such a nature that it takes the aspirant out of the ordinary
things of sense, beyond time and space; and there is no better formula than
the first five verses of St. John's Gospel. Taking them as subject, sentence
by sentence, morning after morning, will in time give the aspirant a wonderful
insight into the beginning of our universe and the method of creation — an
insight far beyond any book learning. After a time, when the aspirant has
learned unwaveringly to hold before him for about five minutes the idea upon
which he is concentrating, he may try suddenly to drop the idea and leave a
blank. Think nothing else, simply wait to see if anything enters the vacuum.
In time the sights and senses of the Desire World will fill the vacant space.
After the aspirant has become used to that, he may demand this, that, or the
other thing to come before him. It will come and then he may investigate it.
"An ancient legend says that digging for treasure must be done in the
stillness of night and in perfect silence; to speak one word until the
treasure is safely excavated will inevitably cause it to disappear. That is a
mystic parable which has reference to the search for spiritual illumination.
If we gossip or recount to others the experiences of our concentration hour we
lose them; they can not bear vocal transmission and will fade into
nothingness, until by meditation we have extracted from them a full knowledge
of the underlying cosmic laws. Then the experience itself will not be
recounted, for we shall see that it is but the husk which hid the kernel of
worth. The law is of universal value, as will be at once apparent, for it will
explain facts in life, teach us how to take advantage of certain conditions
and to avoid others. The law may be freely stated at the discoverer's
discretion for the benefit of humanity. The experience which revealed the law
will then appear in its true light, as of only passing interest and unworthy
of further notice. Therefore the aspirant should regard everything that
happens during concentration as sacred and should keep it strictly to
himself."
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