Alice A. Bailey & 6 Points on the etheric

 Alice Bailey is often viewed as a prolific writer, mystic the founder of an international esoteric movement.  She wrote extensively about what she termed, 'the etheric body' as the mould of the physical body. Another way to put it is that on which the dense physical form is built.  Imagine what lies beneath what you may see. Consider these six key points:

1) Everything in the universe is energy.  This etheric level can be subtle and invisible, yet controls, governs and conditions all things in the manifested physical world.

2) This etheric body creates, changes and qualifies what you perceive. This etheric is subject to ceaseless change. This being true of the Macrocosm, human beings, the microcosm.  It can mysteriously prove true of all the subhuman kingdoms in nature. Of this, the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom are already widely perceived.

3) The etheric body is composed of interlocking and circulating lines of force.  They emanate from one or other, or from one or many, of the seven planes or areas of consciousness of our planetary life.  Some human beings evolve to view this as a grid.

4) This energy system has seven focal points within the etheric body. These centres are related to certain types of incoming energy. When the energy reaching the etheric body is not related to a particular centre, then that centre remains unawakened. When it is related and the centre is sensitive to impact, then that centre becomes vibrant, receptive and develops as a controlling factor in the life of the man on the physical plane.

5) The physical body is perceived based on how you discern your energies.  Your dense physical body, composed of atoms  (each with its own life, light and activity) is held together by and expresses energies which compose the etheric.

6) The etheric body has many centres of force, responsive to the inflowing energies of our planetary Life, but we shall consider only the seven major centres which respond to the inflowing energies of the seven rays. All lesser centres are conditioned by the seven major centres. Knowledge of the ego and of the personality rays is useful.

Value 'seen and unseen' progress

Human beings are complex creatures that make many different choices.  Somewhere, beneath the choices themselves, is the desire to get something out of them. In fact, whether or not you consciously realize it, multiple motives diverge and coalesce.

Let's say your soul is like the centre of your being where all your feelings intersect.   Although you have different layers of awareness that are not all aware of each other, at soul level, you have deep awareness of everything that is going on at the same time. This is your control centre that is accessed as you evolve to heighten your soul awareness.

It has been said that each person teaches the self to repress feelings in order to learn to decode them.  That's right! You hide feelings from yourself in order to teach yourself lessons, so many in fact, that you aren't consciously aware of all the progress you make.

What all this means is that you can choose to value subtle progress. Certain kinds of learning are more obvious than others.  You may tend to feel good when you recognize you have stretched or expanded yourself.  Realize that what you consciously notice differs from the big picture.  You are developing in more ways than you follow and readily sense or acknowledge.  You have more to learn and can value 'the seen and unseen.'

Review the indescribable

How many people have you met who have read fantasy books and concluded they would like to attend their own school of magic? Its not that far-fetched. What would you wish to learn? Would you look at the back of a fantasy novel for an application or website?

Life teaches you that if you would like to experience something unusual, you may need to put yourself in unusual places or create conditions which seem out of your sense of the ordinary.  You can do that where you are or travel great distances to find real magic. 

People will say they had a profound spiritual experience near the pyramids in Egypt or next to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Other people will share mind-boggling energy vibrations at Stonehenge or other locations where the earth grid concentation is heightened. Would you view such experiences magical because they aren't yours? What if you share mystical experience?

Different mystical arts exist. Light energy expands in directions can travel. Reconnect with invisible thread to the core of the soul. You travel to infinity and back in the blink of an eye and are consciously unaware of implications. Mystical is never out of reach.

In your current mindset, you are out-of-touch with and unaware of many dimensions of reality.  You may not know what's "there," even right in front of your eyes, but you can always learn to stretch yourself further. 'Out-of-reach' is a state of mind, a perception of where you belong or not, and what feels right.  You create your own version of magician, sorcerer or conjurer. You often find teachers yet may not recognize the implications.

How do you live & learn from the Law of Karma?

I recently met a woman named Maureen. I sensed the subject of her public presentation would make a thought-provoking guest post. The author has no website, but shares her views freely because she encourages each person to find a way back to the soul.

The third spiritual law of success is the Law of Karma (both action and the consequence of the action). It is cause and effect simultaneously because every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. There is nothing unfamiliar about the Law of Karma. Most everyone has heard the expression, “What you sow is what you will reap.” Obviously, if we want to create happiness in our lives, we must learn to sow the seeds of happiness. Therefore, Karma applies the action of conscious choice-making.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of existence, we are in the field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices. Some of these choices are made consciously, while others are made unconsciously. But the best way to understand and maximise the use of karmic law is to become consciously aware of all the choices we make in every moment.

Whether you like it or not, everything that is happening at this moment is the result of choices you have made in the past. Unfortunately, a lot of us make choices unconsciously, and yet we don’ think they are choices...and yet, they are.

If I were to insult you, you would most likely make the choice of being offended. If I were to pay you a compliment, you would most likely make the choice of being pleased or flattered. But think about it: it’s still a choice.

I could offend you and I could insult you, and you could make the choice of not being offended. I could pay you a compliment and you could make the choice of not letting that flatter you either.

In other words, most of us...even though we are infinite choice-makers...have become bundles of conditioned reflexes that are constantly being triggered by people and circumstances into predictable outcomes of behaviour. These conditioned reflexes are like Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlov is famous for demonstrating that if you give a dog something to eat every time you ring a bell, soon the dog starts to salivate when you just ring the bell, because it has associated one stimulus with the other.

Most of us, as the result of conditioning, have repetitious and predictable responses to the stimuli in our environment. Our reactions seem to be automatically triggered by people and circumstances, and we forget that these are still choices we are making at every moment of our existence. We are simply making choices unconsciously. If you step back for a moment and witness the choices you are making as you make these choices, then in just this act of witnessing, you take the whole process from the unconscious realm into the conscious realm. This procedure of conscious choice-making and witnessing is very empowering.

When you make any choice, you can ask yourself two things:

1) What are the consequences of the choice I am making?

2) Will this choice I’m making now bring happiness to me and those around me?

There is only one choice, out of the infinity of choices available to you in every second, that will create happiness for you as well as those around you. And when you make that one choice, it will result in a form of behaviour that is called, ‘spontaneous right action.’ This is the right action at the right moment. You feel it. It’s the right response to every situation as it happens. It’s the action that nourishes you and everyone else who is influenced by that action.

The universe has a mechanism to help you make spontaneously correct choices. This mechanism has to do with sensations in your body. Your body experiences comfort and discomfort. At the moment you consciously make a choice, pay attention to your body. If your body sends a message of comfort, that’s the right choice. If your body sends a message of discomfort, then its not the appropriate choice.

You must become consciously aware that your future is generated by the choices you are making every moment of your life. If you do this on a regular basis, then you are making full use of the Law of Karma.

Reinforce what you already know

Jenny Mannion of Heal Pain Naturally tagged me to list 10 things that made me happy today.   I invite you to visit her blog at

http://healpain.blogspot.com/2008/07/10-things-that-made-me-happy-today.html

As my sense of inner happiness is unconditional and unchanging, my approach to this meme is to highlight how I reinforce what I already know.  These aren't things I do intermittently in hopes of seeking happiness. What I do each day doesn't change this joy.

For me, joy is a constant, uplifting state.  If you choose to explore this perspective, you might consider these 10 strategies for rediscovering what joy you have always had:

1) Choose to hold specifically high vibrating thoughts to attract better experiences.

2) Devote time to your passion for creating.

3) Realize you can be happy for no identifiable reason.

4) Visualize something you can accept as a real possibility.

5) Allow 'doing' to spring from your essence rather than assume 'doing' will lead you to it.

6) Imagine peaceful resolutions to sources of conflict.

7) Expect complete heath, spiritual-connectedness, meaningful interactions.

8) Recognize you can't arrive at happiness via physical action when its a mental choice.

9) Sense you come from happiness and be aware of the causes and effects of thoughts.

10) Learn to just "be" in the now.