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  • Wisdom for practice
  • Wisdom is applied knowledge
  • Wisdom spreads itself

Wisdom for practice

Wisdom is for practice, not for continuous speaking. If we keep on speaking about the Masters, the Rays, and the Hierarchies, we are only missing our duties for the present.

Wisdom is applied knowledge

Knowledge, when applied becomes wisdom. We gain a lot of knowledge, but it has to be applied in daily life, then it transforms itself into wisdom. Through wisdom we will experience the existence.

Wisdom spreads itself

We need not be anxious to spread the wisdom without working it with ourselves. It is a wrong understanding if one thinks that he can spread wisdom. Wisdom knows how to spread itself. It only needs channels.

Lord Vishnu

The All-Pervading Principle

Vishnu People call the eternal One with different names. For want of terms the Absolute is called “the God beyond creation” who functions as God in creation. In the Indian mythology the all-permeating God in creation is called Vishnu. In the West he is called the Cosmic Christ or Adam Kadmon, Amadeus or also the Second Logos, the One who pervades and fills all the 7 planes. Whatever is the term it refers to the same, although the followers of different creeds think they are different and that their own concept of God is the right one. No matter which names and forms of worship are used, we should have no objections. It is important to understand the basic idea instead of getting confused by names.

The Vedic seers worshipped all forms, colours etc. as a manifestation of the one Lord. For them Vishnu is the light of awareness which fulfils all. It is like the electric current; we cannot see it, but when we operate the light switch, it is immediately apparent within the lamp. We realise its presence through the illumined lamp; the light is its manifestation. Thus in olden times people worshipped the presence of the Lord as the Light beyond the Sun, as the all-pervading principle.

The sages visualised the creation sprouting from the subtlest to the grossest in layers. They divided the three-fold existence into matter, force and consciousness and symbolically called the planes “Vishnu”, “Vasudeva” and “Narayana”. Here Vishnu is all that appears in shape, colour, number etc. All that exists as the centre, or as the indweller of a consciousness unit from atom to man, is Vasudeva, and the universal consciousness, which is the one background of the units of consciousness, is Narayana.

With this division Vishnu is the Lord who pervades the name, form and the other objects of the senses and mind with his presence.

Vasudeva is the Lord who lives in everyone and presides over our behaviour. He helps us release the baser emotions of the astral plane, such as lust and anger, that are ever stimulated as we experience the behaviour of others.

In Narayana the devotee finds the ultimate liberation of his individual consciousness. This third step places the purified consciousness of the soul in its proper abode, the oversoul, the Spirit in all. The Yogis merge in it, nothing else enters their mind. They remain in this pervading consciousness, which again, is called Vishnu. Therefore, the Indians say, “All is Vishnu”, and the Bhagavatam says we should visualise and worship him in all. After having found the Cosmic Christ in himself and experienced him as working through himself, Jesus said, “For in him we live, move, and have our being”.

The Cosmic Person within us

The whole process of manifestation is a grand ritual in which we participate and which we can also realise within ourselves. The contemplation upon the all-pervading Cosmic Person leads to the realisation that each one of us is a miniature form of Him; He reveals to us according to our growth of awareness. The Masters want to see each of us uplifted to experience the presence of the Cosmic Person within us as our original state of existence. He has come forth as our own selves. “God created man in His image and likeness”, says the Bible. He is the original, we are a duplicate. However, the duplicate behaves as if it were the original. We believe that God is like us. But the truth is, we are like God. HE existed first.

Since most ancient times there is a meditation on the Cosmic Person in man. For this we can meditate on the electric blue light because blue is the colour of the second ray, the colour of Vishnu. His incarnations, like Rama and Krishna, are also meditated in blue colour. The Vedic seers describe blue as the ray of the all-penetrating space from which the seven rays emerge. To the human eye the seven rays exist in the white light, but to the spiritual eye they emerge from the blue of Akasha. Therefore it is a figurative statement of great importance that the Avatars of Vishnu are blue in colour. In healing, blue can also be used for all purposes.

Another meditation is to visualise the Cosmic Person as a four-armed figure fixed in the cosmos as well as in us on a four-armed cross. His existence in our being is called the crucifixion of the Cosmic Person in flesh and blood. Through this sacrifice the formless and nameless God has concretised in us. The symbolic representation of the Cosmic Person on the four-armed cross refers to the fourfold nature of the universal wisdom.

We can also see the four-armed cross in the daily life as dawn, noon, dusk and midnight; and in the lunar cycle as new Moon and full Moon as well as the two eighth Moon phases; and in the solar year as the solstices and equinoxes. In the bigger cycles of time these are the four Yugas or ages. The fourfold structure of existence is worshipped in the Purusha Sukta of the Vedas. It was the dearest of the suktas of Master EK and it is sung regularly by students in the ashrams of the Masters, thereby establishing the Cosmic Person in themselves.

The Language of Symbols of the Puranas

When we try to read directly the Eastern Scriptures it is difficult for us to recognise the symbols contained in them. The Vishnu Purana, for example, explains the concept of the second ray of Love-Wisdom, but it seems to be just full of fairy tales and stories. The more we study the symbols which are dispersed in the books of Bailey and Blavatsky and learn to apply them, the more we become capable to understand the Scriptures.

Thus the Puranas describe a great coiled serpent on the surface of the Milky Ocean with Lord Vishnu in blue colour resting on it. In his heart there is Lakshmi, the divine Mother, sitting on a big lotus. On the tip of his finger he carries a rotating wheel. From out of the navel of the four-armed Lord, the four-faced creator is born. This is one of the oldest symbols that man received and used to transmit the spiritual wisdom:

On the background of the great Ocean of Eternity there is the emergence of the waves of creation eternally. The coiled serpent Ananta (endlessness) floats on it and unwinds its coils as the continuous chain action of change, or becoming. The serpent can also be regarded as the power of Kundalini.

Vishnu is always connected with Sri or Lakshmi, the Mother of creation; like the word with its meaning, like the creator and his creation. They are the eternal bride and bridegroom of creation, never separated from each other. When Vishnu comes down to the human plane as an Avatar, she assumes a human form, like Sita with Rama or Rukmini with Krishna.

The rotating wheel of Light at the tip of the index finger of Vishnu symbolises the Law which manifests in creation. It is also called Sudarshana, the good vision, since the circle is the figure of perfection among all the geometrical patterns. The circle has its beginning and ending not in itself but in the centre. Whenever there is the emergence of the centre in form of the “I AM” consciousness, there is automatically the formation of circumference as the horizon around the centre. Astrologically the circle with the point represents the sun; he is the Lord of the individuality and the spirit in the three levels of the awakening consciousness. The human awakening represents the highest point of illumination of the inner deity and is therefore represented by the noon position of the Sun which is called the tenth house by astrologers. The four points of the cross - Ascendant (AC) and Descendant (DC), Medium Coeli (MC) and Imum Coeli (IC) - can be regarded as the four arms of Vishnu. The centre of the circle from where the four points emerge is called the navel of the Lord. From the navel of the four-armed Lord the four-faced creator is born. The creator is represented by the square within the circle, formed by joining the four points of the cross. The four equal arcs of the circle are called the four main petals of the ever-expanding lotus, out of which the creator emerges with his four faces.

This figure forms the basis for the Puranic symbolism.

Vishnu, the preserver of creation, is said to take the form of different Avatars, or descents into the world to restore the balance in creation when it is menaced by demonic forces. “Whenever the Law is significantly disturbed and the existence of the world is threatened, I come down to re-establish the Law”, says Lord Krishna.

This is an expression of Love towards creation; Love is the unifying force, and this Love keeps the creation together. When Narada, the divine seer, once went to Vishnu, the latter said to him, “Don’t come each time to me to do me a pleasure. I am more in the hearts of the simple people. Serve them; take care of what they need, lift them up. This is the act of Love by which you meet me, and this in the heart of each being.”

Sources: K.P. Kumar: notes from seminars. E. Krishnamacharya: Puranas and their Contribution. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India.