A spiritual person is not a soft, jellylike person

Sometimes people think that the spiritual person is a soft, jellylike person who can fit into any condition without creating a noise. This is a false image of the spiritual person. On the contrary, the spiritual person is a fighter. He stands up and risks his life for the truth. He risks his life to protect the innocent. He fights against the spreading dangers of drugs, prostitution, and crime, as well as the misuse of the discoveries of science and technology. However, his fight is not to gain personal advantage or votes of popularity; it is a fight for the Common Good.

It is only a spiritual person who can stand against dark activities and help his fellowman enter the light. The spiritual person hates ugliness, crime, injustice, depression, and slavery. He does not hate them emotionally, but he sees in them the germs of decay and he fights like a physician to eliminate the germs, even trying to save those who have been contaminated by the germs.

A spiritual person opposes things such as drug dealers, prostitutes, hypocrites, those who exploit, those who work for organized crime..., but in the meantime he tries to gain their souls and to defeat the weaknesses of their personalities.

A spiritual person stands against darkness and tries to dispel it with his light. A spiritual person is always enlightened by the light of compassion, without losing his measures of righteousness.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation, vol.1

Conception, miscarriage, abortion

Q: Regarding miscarriage and abortion, at what point does life begin?

A: The moment conception takes place, the soul is there. When a man and woman have intercourse, their united aura creates a funnel at the head through which the baby's soul travels to the mother's womb and the seed begins to germinate.*

In esoteric books, abortion is condemned unless the mother's life is endangered because it violates a person who has worked very hard to leave the subtle planes to enter the womb. You are breaking the house that he is building for his survival.

Q: What about miscarriage?

A: Miscarriage can be karmic, or it can be a dark attack. For example, let us say that a masterpiece child is coming; the dark forces will attack and try to kill it. There are hundreds of cases in medical history where the mothers of very advanced human beings tried abortion but were unsuccessful. The dark forces attack the child through the mother because a soldier in the Army of Light is a danger to them, and they try to prevent his birth. There are powerful politics waging in astral and mental planes.

Remember that nothing happens by accident. One does not really know what is happening - whether miscarriage is karmic, self-created, or a dark attack.

The first three months in the womb the child is still in astral consciousness, developing the physical counterpart of the astral consciousness. During the third to fourth month, a time comes when the soul makes contact with the developing body. This is the moment of "quickening" in which a woman feels the movement of the child. Then in the remaining seven to nine months, the soul makes a connection with the mental and astral bodies, and then takes birth. He makes a connection with everything and then "lands" his instrument.

The process reverses in death.

Q: When an egg is fertilized by the sperm in vitro, when does the soul unite?

A: The moment they fuse. When the fertilized egg is transplanted into the woman, it grows there.

Q: The soul is present in the test tube?

A: You must know what kind of soul is present at this sort of procedure. If science continues, we will see many zombies walking the streets - without feeling. Why is marriage sacred? The marriage ceremony creates an etheric and auric atmosphere for coming children, with prayers, chanting, and blessings. When the prayers and the intention of the marriage partners are very high, a high-level frequency is created which attracts only high-level souls.

When a man and woman decide to have a child, they should spend several hours in meditation and prayer prior to intercourse, so that they attract a genius, a talent, a beautiful leader. This is why many religions forbid kidnapping a bride, or making a woman pregnant in a nightclub or motel. What happens in these instances is that the parents attract entities living on the etheric plane, who are mostly criminals or people trapped in vices. Sometimes they are victims of war who are full of tremendous anger, revenge, and hatred, the results of which fill our prisons.

Q: How do the dark forces know whether the incarnating soul is advanced or not?

A: The dark forces are more thorough than the FBI or the CIA. They have a "computing system" in the astral and mental planes. They can detect every movement. This is why in one of the schools in higher planes we are trained to keep our thoughts and emotions secret.

Any time a soul incarnates, their automatic registration shows them where. What is our protection? The White Lodge can disturb their instrumentation, if the incarnating one is really pure and under Its guidance. That is why we pray, "God protect us."

Q: Yet you say that nothing happens by accident, that it is karma.

A: Let us say that a very beautiful worker, a savior of men, is coming. The dark forces do not like this, especially if he is incarnating into a family and environment where all of his qualities will unfold and bloom. They will create everything possible to prevent his birth. If his karma is bad in certain aspects, they can harm him according to his karma. But if he is without karma and they attack, the White Lodge destroys them.

*See also Woman, Torch of the Future, and Sex, Family, and the Woman in Society for detailed discussion on marriage, sex, conception and family relations.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation

The guidance of the Solar Angel

The Solar Angel is like your teacher, if you really give yourself to the Solar Angel. Let us say that I am your Solar Angel and I see that you are doing certain things that will limit you. I say, "Don't do that; do this instead; follow this line of work." You say, "I want to be a dancer. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a painter. I want to be President of the United Nations." So I say, "Take only one thing." You may hate me for it, but it is good for you.

The Solar Angel looks at the situation and sees that as a dancer you would die in a car accident on the way to a dance. He says, "Honey, I would like for you to be a dancer, but I do not want it." He does not explain why, but you must be a doctor because He sees that in that line of work you will develop.

If you listen to the impressions coming from the Solar Angel, it prevents future dangers on the Path. In the meantime, you feel as if you are being limited. He saves your life, and you think He is limiting you. This is why it is very important to develop communication with the Transpersonal Self, the Solar Angel.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation

The goal of education

The goal of education is to eliminate all those hindrances which bring health problems, emotional problems, and stresses, mental problems, and social and global problems. Until now, our religious and academic education has not given us a safe world. It has not given us a future we can be proud of. It has not given us clear skies, clean water, or food uncontaminated by insecticides, poisons, and radiation. Education has not reduced or stopped the increase of crime all over the world. Education has not been able to uproot the causes of war, and so on.

If education is guilty of all these things, one wonders why, then, we spend billions of dollars all over the world just to employ teachers, build buildings, and try to teach a new generation of mankind. All men and women of higher vision are waiting to see a change in education. Change in education will not be accomplished by a change in machines or the increase of the number of computers, televisions, radios, tape recorders, video and sound equipment, etc. It will be a change in the goals of education.

The people of the world are paying so much money and spending so much time to see a better and safer world. Education can and must meet the problems of the world.

*******

What is the purpose of education? In a short and brief way we can say, "To lead every student to perfection to save the human race." This is the most practical and most magnetic formula for education.

Let us explain a few words in this formula:

1. Perfection means the best possible state and condition in which the student can physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually reveal his or her highest potentials.

2. To serve the human race. The goal of education has been built upon individual interests or upon national interest. This must change. Every student must know that all knowledge and talent must be used to lead humanity to perfection, toward the best health, happiness, success, cooperation, peace, freedom. The student must realize that the state of the whole humanity is the only foundation upon which can be based his future happiness and success.

There was a time when people were concerned only about their individual happiness. Then there came a time when people were concerned about their group success and happiness. Now every nation is concerned about its own success and happiness, but also this is the time in which people are realizing that such an understanding is outmoded and cannot contribute to the future.

Many millions of people are now seeing the reality that there is only one humanity, and every nation, every group, every individual is affected by the conditions in which humanity lives.

The new education will base all its curriculum upon this foundation: Humanity is one, and the sacred duty of every individual is to serve humanity in a way that leads human beings toward perfection. Such a vision will create miracles in the schools, and for the first time in millions of years education will serve its true purpose.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation vol.1.

Spiritual, moral and intellectual retardation

Most of the problems, pains, and sufferings in the world are caused by morally, spiritually, and intellectually retarded people. What are the sings of retardation?

Physical retardation is characterized by the incapacity of hands, feet, organs, and senses to accomplish efficient action; and brain damage manifests as lack of control over the physical mechanism.

Moral retardation appears as heartlessness, cruelty, lawlessness, hatred, anger, jealousy, revenge, greed, malice, slander, and harmful urges and drives.

Intellectual retardation appears as vanity, ego, self-deception, treason, separatism, selfishness, ignorance, fanaticism; inability to grasp the needs, demands and visions of the times, and crystallization of attitudes and viewpoints. An intellectually retarded person works like a tape recorder, he does not have his own thoughts. He cannot think.

Spiritual retardation manifests as lack of the power of synthesis. Those who are spiritually retarded cannot use abstract thinking; they cannot visualize; they cannot contact Higher Worlds; they cannot use their mental and higher senses. They live as materialists, negating any possibility of other values. They cannot grasp the existence of the One Self. They cannot strive toward unity. They cannot see any purpose behind the existing life.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation vol1, p.291

How to develop willpower

Those who like to live like slaves are called cattle or sheep because they do not have willpower. They do not have direction, but they follow the direction of their own glamors and illusions and the direction of the glamors and illusions of other people.

It is possible that man moves, desires, and thinks by the effect of external forces using his urges and drives, desires, glamors, illusion, prejudices, or superstitions. External forces appear in man as if they were his own free will.

People demonstrate strong urges and drives and powerful desires and force their body to take strenuous actions. People also demonstrate intense mental activities, forced by desires and urges and by other outside influences, giving the illusion that they are working with a strong willpower. The fact is that such people do not even have will energy in them, and they are victims of blind forces.

It is interesting to note that man for most of his life is like a machine, like a car which is driven by some other force. If you ask anybody on the street, "What are you doing?" he will say, "I am going here, there... I am talking about this or that... I am feeling this way, that way..." The reality is that the majority of people do not even exist. It is their bodies that are walking, directed by an emotion, thought, urge, or desire.

Stop any moment and ask yourself:

-Why am I doing this?

-For what reason?

-What is forcing me to do this?

-For whom am I working?

-Who is my boss?

-What is my purpose?

When you ask such questions, you will suddenly realize that you are really not the owner of your mechanism. Other thoughts, emotions, desires, and interests of outer agents are controlling your life, and in your innocence you are calling such a life your "own life."

Disciples are those individuals who cultivate willpower through a life of discipline. Once you commit yourself to a heavy discipline, you will see that willpower is really awakening within you and putting all your systems into order, into the right direction.

The Teacher makes you attack your self-pity, touchiness, hatreds, fears, jealousy, revenge, desires for revenge, greed, and sensitiveness because as long as you are infected with such maladies, the fire of the will cannot be awakened within you. It is only after freeing yourself from such pollution that you can feel the first rays of willpower within you.

The Teacher makes you face harder and harder conditions so that you cure yourself and bring out the spiritual essence hidden in you. Sometimes you do not even need to have a Teacher. A great beauty, a great idea, a great Teaching manifested by some powerful Individuality, such as Christ or Buddha, acts as a Teacher, as a direction. Once you dedicate yourself to such a direction, you will face a great challenge and you will submit yourself to a strict discipline.

******

There is only one willpower, one central powerhouse. The same electricity can run through all wires. To develop willpower means to tune your True Self to that powerhouse and make the flow of energy come and connect your True Self with the powerhouse. There is only One Will, the Will of the All-pervading Architect.

Surrendering your will to that realized Almighty Will is in fact an act of developing willpower. Until one resigns his physical, emotional, and mental "wills" for the One will, he will not find will within him and become one with the Almighty Will.

The path of renunciation is a process in which you leave your self-will, or free will, to gain the real will of your divine Self and fuse with the One Will. Every time you stop the process of your renunciation, you turn into a slave, no matter where you are found on the Path.

In its real sense, advancement is progressive renunciation of your separating self.

Those who run after their own tail in a life of luxury and a life dedicated solely to physical, emotional, and mental amusements and pleasures are called builders of their own prisons. They want to be prisoners for a long time. This is how one loses his willpower, his own divine heritage, and becomes body, urges, drives, desires, glamors, and illusions.

Will is developed in many different ways:

1. The first step is to engage yourself in responsible duty, task, or labor which is carried on as a service to others in the light of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth.

2. The next step is discriminative rejection of things that distract your divine direction.

3. The next step is accepting Beauty, living in Beauty, thinking in Beauty so that ugliness is rejected. Accepting Beauty, Goodness, and Truth makes you reject ugliness and ill will. As you increase in Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, you manifest greater willpower.

4. The next step is to put all your heart, soul, and strength into the things you are doing, speaking, or thinking for Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. We call this a state of beingness when it is present in all your expressions and labor. This develops a great power of will because it calls forth your inner essence. To have willpower means to bring yourself into existence. You exist to the degree that you have willpower. Willpower makes you exist.

You exist not because your body exists; you exist not because your emotions and thoughts exist; but you exist because your will-to-be exists.

Every one of us must do the things we are doing with all our heart, soul, and might. It is through such a concentrated tension that the True Self, the divine Presence in the form of man, manifests Itself.

Things done without concentration, attention, and observation; things done without lovingness, dedication, and devotion; things done without direction cause disintegration within ourselves. Disintegration is a process of losing willpower. Integration is accumulation of willpower. A man of integrity is a man of willpower. That is why virtues are manifestations of willpower.

Focus is willpower when things are held in integrity. Focus is manifestation of integrity, manifestation of the Self in action, in thought, in direction.

Concentration is not focus. Focus is clear projection of the attained image of the essence. Concentration is the ability to sustain the direction of the essence in any field of activity.

Concentration is exercised in difficulties and in crises. Difficulties and crises develop your concentration to keep the flow of essence in the right direction.

All great Teachers come to earth to present a model of life of crises and difficulties and challenge us to engage ourselves in such a life. Their intention is to develop willpower within us which transcends all urges and mechanical reactions of the lower planes.

The real Teaching tells us to live a life of difficulty, labor, and crisis because it is after graduation from such a life that the real joy and bliss will manifest for us. Joy and bliss do not exist without a cultivated willpower.

If you do not have trouble, create it. But understand this statement in the right way. To create difficulties and crises means to set higher visions in front of yourself and strive to achieve them. A man of willpower does not escape from difficulties and crises because for him the joy and bliss are senses in overcoming the crises, difficulties, and problems. Willpower is gained on the path of victory, not in the cave of inertia.

Willpower is measured by the degree of self-mastery, joy, and renunciation.

*****

People sometimes think that when a man has willpower he can dominate the wills of others and make them his slaves. This is an error. True willpower does not enjoy creating slaves and dominating their will. On the contrary, true will is an agent of liberation and freedom. It is only those who have willpower who never try to dominate other people's will.

It is possible that a man of willpower is a king or a president or the commander of an army. But if this man has real willpower, he will use all his power to create peace, freedom, and creative joy.

It is fear that creates totalitarianism. Fear is the absence of spiritual will. Fear is the source of many crimes. Fear does not tolerate freedom but tries to make other people live the way it wants. Those who are limited to their self-interest cannot develop willpower. Willpower cannot survive in separate interests. Willpower is inclusive and universal.

-Torkom Saraydarian

The Mysteries of Willpower

Illusions and fiction

Fiction, especially in the religious field, prevents the progress of light. People have great admiration for fictitious stories about angels, about God, about prophets and saints, about the human soul and the souls of the dead. Since these stories are not based on pure experience, pure reason and logic, or pure scientific fact, they are obstacles on the path of human progress.

Higher forces cannot reach a mind which is clouded by illusions or by distorted facts or truths.

Scientific thinking is an effort to see things as they are without the distortion of prejudices, superstitions, or illusions.

One of the most innocent fictitious characters is Santa Claus. This character occupies a large territory in the minds of children. Such a fiction is a distortion of truth, and it must not be allowed to occupy the minds of children if we want them in the future to see things as they are and live in the field of reality.

One wonders how much territory of the mind is already occupied by fictitious television programs as the child watches them with intense concentration and involvement. There is no method yet to burn out such illusions which, like a curse, sap the sanity of our youth.

There are two kinds of fiction. One is made up by our own imagination and inspired by our blind urges, drives, and desires. The other is a fiction in time, but it is a reality in Space. These things exist as fact in higher realms, in archetypal planes, and reflect on certain minds who present their reflections as fiction.

Thus, a great genius writes a fiction which years later manifests as reality. It is possible that the genius cannot reveal clearly all that he can see, but at least partially he can reveal whatever he senses. It is also possible that through a strong imagination a man can affect thousands of minds and build a fictitious thoughtform which eventually manifests on earth. The difference between these two is that the first one brings greater achievements for humanity, but the second one brings retardation and even degeneration.

One of the greatest aids for humanity is to clear away illusions and establish factuality, reality, and common sense.

Illusions exercise such control over us that we hardly can escape their power. An illusion is a distorted truth which is accepted as a fact.

Illusion is also created as we read fiction. In the religious and spiritual fields especially, there are thousands of fictitious stories which create a great thoughtform in the mental body of the race. The Forces of Light struggle and fight to the end to wipe out such illusions.

Significant victory has yet to be achieved to eliminate such fiction. It is true that some of their contents and indications are highly beautiful and moral. But fiction has no place in Space. It contradicts the laws of Nature and creates psychic turbulences which affect the health and sanity of the human being.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Leadership vol.1, p.240-242

How to help a dying person's journey toward Higher Worlds

There are some steps we can follow which will help ease a dying person's journey toward Higher Worlds and also ease their reincarnation.

It does not matter whether a person is conscious or unconscious when he is dying - because in reality he is always conscious. Sometimes he is out of his body and cannot control the mechanism of his brain to contact you. Sometimes certain nerve centers are paralyzed so he cannot talk or move. But his soul listens; he senses what is going on around him. Sometimes his senses are more sensitive than you can imagine; sometimes dying people can hear things that are being said two or three rooms beyond. So if you speak to a dying person, do not think that he is not listening and use care in what you say.

1. Inspire the dying person with fearlessness. Talk with him about how God is love and tell him not to be afraid. Explain that all he did wrong is nothing compared to all of the good he has done throughout the ages, that the balance of good will increase and that the love of God will embrace him. Cast out all fear.

The Teaching tells us that those who enter the Subtle Worlds with fear are paralyzed for as long as forty years. Like a bug which pretends it is dead when you hit it, a person who is hit with fear is stunned when he enters the Subtle Worlds.

I once asked a surgeon, who was also a psychiatrist, why one of his patients was having difficulty awakening after surgery. Every possible means was used to bring the patient to consciousness, but he was just gone. The doctor told me that the man had gone under the anesthetic in a state of fear. Those who are not afraid of the anesthesia awaken much better; those who are fearful have a more difficult awakening.

The same is true in the Subtle Worlds. Fear paralyzes a person's senses, his striving, and prevents him from seeing his vision for the future. A dying person often has a tendency or inclination to identify with the state of his body, emotions, mind, and failures. This leads him into a state of fear. Because of this, it is important to help the person overcome fear by strongly impressing him with fearlessness.

2. Never mention any failure or wrong-doing the dying person may have committed in the past; this will cause him to identify with his failures. Any human being who is identified with his failures is not successful; he is a failure and cannot go forward. For example, if he opens a new business, it will fail because the image of failure controls his mind.

Talk with him about how beautiful he is, how many friends he has, how many people love him. Make him feel that he did good things.

3. If he has transgressed in any way against you, tell him that you forgive him and ask him to forgive you. Make him lighter so that he does not attach to any thing he may have done incorrectly. This is because we carry each failure image with us.

The Great Sage advises us to leave as much of this trash behind as possible; you can supply a dying person with better luggage than failure images.

4. After the person dies, it is good to give a dinner party in his honor, inviting his friends and family. Everyone must speak very beautifully about him and not mention his negative qualities. The discussion should center around his good qualities and the good deeds he performed.

Often a person does not know he is dead for a period of one week to forty days after he has passed away. He thinks that he is still with you, and he is sometimes surprised that you do not answer his questions. Sometimes you answer his questions mentally, and he thinks that it is verbal communication. But if you speak evil of him or mention his short-comings, you make him identify with his failures, which makes him earthbound, and he will have the same emotional and mental disturbances that he had while he was in the body.

There is a tradition in many Moslem, Sufi, and Christian monasteries that for forty days after a person dies, a place is set for him at the table. I once asked a monk why this was observed, and he said that the person does not know he is dead yet, so he comes to eat. He does not actually eat, but he thinks that he is eating.

A person who has died is still in the same etheric and emotional bodies, which appear like the physical body. However he imagines he is dressed, he is immediately dressed. He listens to everything. He sits down to eat and supposes that he is eating. He sees that he is eating, but the food is still there. But if a chair is not left for him, he receives a great shock and wonders why he has been omitted. This causes him to grieve.

When a family member dies, it is a contemporary custom to take everything he owned and either give it away or throw it away. The person is so surprised to see this happening because he is still "alive". How would you feel if your father and mother took all your possessions and threw them in the rubbish? It is important to make the person feel that everything is the same until he awakens naturally. Give him the impression that everything is all right until he slowly feels that he is departed, that there are no hard feelings, pain or suffering, and that it is okay because there is no separation.

There are also invisible helpers which assist in his awakening. Sometimes his own Solar Angel awakens him; sometimes it is a friend who is still living.

If a person has continuity of consciousness, these problems are solved. Astral consciousness is different from physical consciousness; physical consciousness is related to physical life. There is also mental consciousness. If these three are awakened, there is continuity of consciousness on three levels. If only one level of consciousness is opened, no matter where you are you think you are on earth because only the earthly "radio" is in operation.

5. Every Saturday or Sunday night, light a candle and some nice incense and say, "We remember you; you were so beautiful." Say a few nice things to the person, and then say a prayer for him. This is a tradition which is very helpful to those who have passed away.

6. If someone passes away, it is helpful to pay any of his remaining debts. For example, if your father passes away without paying his debts, it is marvelous to pay them for him because you release him from any anxiety he may fell in the astral or mental plane as to why he did not pay them. Paying them is a great release for him; you really advance his evolution and help him prepare for a better incarnation.

If the person who is dying has done something harmful to you, it is important to find him before he dies and tell him that you forgive him, that he should not worry. This also cleans your account with him. As you clean your account, you prepare yourself for a more successful experience at the time of death and a better incarnation when you return.

If the person used malice and slander against you, tell him that you have no hard feelings and always bless him, especially at the time of his death.

There was a warrior king who had an enemy, and as they fought, the enemy was wounded and fell to the ground. The warrior king carried him to a lake where he washed his enemy's wounds and waited with him until he died. The enemy asked, "Why don't you just kill me?" to which the king replied, "I did not want to harm you; I wanted to kill your animosity. In truth, I love you. The next time you come, be a commander in my army. You are free to die in peace because I will prepare a place for you in my army." The story says that after the man died, he was born again as the warrior king's son. Because the king had mortally wounded him and created tremendous pain and suffering for him, the king owed his enemy everything he owned - even his entire kingdom.

When people die, they need energy. We not only need energy to maintain our physical bodies, but also our emotional and mental bodies. Energy is needed to feel, to sense, to express emotion, to move in space. There are three things that create energy: beauty, goodness, and joy. Events in our life that are beautiful and joyful are charged with the good that is buried in our subconscious.

For example, I do something very good for you, something beautiful and joyful for you, but I forget about it. I hardly notice that I have done this, but it is still buried in my subconscious mind and inactive in my being. When I am dying, you mention the incident, and by doing so, you release this buried source of energy that has been stored, and you equip me with more energy to use in the Subtle Worlds.

If someone is passing away, even if you had trouble with him, do not allow the trouble to continue into the next world. Just mentioning any act of beauty, goodness, or joy that he may have done will create a subconscious release of energy which will assist him in his journey.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation, p.266-271