How does grieving affect the departed one?

Q: How does grieving affect the departed one?

A: Any time you are grieved, really sad and depressed, they try to appear around you, to be around you. They feel very bad because they know they are immortal and see how stupid you are. But, because they love you, they miss their "plane" to the Higher Worlds because they are tied and limited by your grief.

When my Uncle, who was a very joyful and beautiful surgeon, passed away, my Father smiled and said, "He is released." I said, "Why are you laughing? He died!" My Father said, "It is good; he is released." Twenty-five people, with drums, flutes, and different instruments, went to his grave and danced for hours because he loved dancing. They dressed a man exactly like him and celebrated. When I asked my Father what was going on, he said, "He will be so happy! If you sent a man to the palace of the king, would you get depressed? So we are seeing him off."

We are brainwashed to such a degree that it is hard for us to think in these terms.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation

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

Rosy promises in spiritual literature

I must warn you that I am against any kind of sentimentality and the rosy promises about the ease of attainments that abide in the late occult literature. Precisely they engender so many lukewarm, halfway aspirations which lead nowhere. Life has taught me how dangerous are all sorts of promises and encouragement of impossible hopes, how ruinous they can be, and how much betrayal they may cause. Therefore I do not like to conceal the reality if I see that the spirit is ready to accept it. I would rather keep silent than lull one with rosy promises.

-Helena Roerich

Letters Of Helena Roerich II, 22 July 1935

Periods of retreat

Those seeking to be Agni Yogis should take periodic retreats away from all outside influences. These influences include television, friends, family and routine work. A retreat should be a time of seclusion so that an inner tension may be achieved.

The purpose of a retreat is to intensify the spiritual focus upon the personality. The Soul intensifies Its focus upon the personality so that the personality becomes flooded with the Soul's purpose, plan and intention.

One of the techniques of the dark forces is to prevent you from being alone with yourself. Many people are influenced by such attacks. They hurry from one place to another, from one person to another, keeping company with others or killing time with certain amusements. Such people are afraid of being alone. They feel lonely and depressed if by chance they find themselves alone. Some people even try to ignore their self in order to escape the judgment of the Self.

Those who want to be Agni Yogis must cultivate the spirit of loneliness. They must feel happy, joyful, and more creative during the times when they are alone because in lonely moments one has a greater chance to meet his Self, to utilize his time creatively, to contemplate his future and to see himself as he is. One can also meet himself in a great danger or in a great ecstasy; but why wait for such moments when one can easily and naturally meet his Self by exercising daily a period of total retreat?

At the beginning, it is not easy to use such a time creatively and immediately have contact with one's true Self. But by striving, during retreat one eventually rejects the daydreaming tendency of the mind, the pleasure-seeking imagination of the emotions and the laziness of the body. Each retreat must be used as a time of healthy introspection, creativity and planning for new changes. Loneliness conceives future heroes and great talents.

A time of retreat is required to create a channel between the Higher Self and the personality. Eventually, this channel carries the flow of future visions and creative spiritual forces to the life of the personality.

In order to build this channel between your higher visions and your personality, a regular period of retreat is required. This may be a half-hour daily, a half or whole day weekly, one weekend a month, one week a year, or any other amount of time which is possible to be set aside for reflective meditation. In this manner you build the channel through which you will flood the physical, emotional and mental nature with spiritual intention and energy. A focus of incoming energies will fuse, master, beautify and transform the personality into a blossoming of creative endeavor for the Hierarchy.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Talks on Agni vol.1, p.65

The dark forces through the movie industry

The dark forces have many agents in the movie industry. They know that this industry is a great device to influence masses of people.

In most movies, you are strongly impressed with crime, destruction, murder, extreme violence, beating, and killing. You are impressed in various ways about loose sex. This is the moral side of it. They also make political suggestions, which subtly sink into the bones of the audience.

In many movies you see that even if a person is right in his opinion or judgment and stands against those who violate the rights of people, the police are called upon to solve the problem instead of justice. The police will be victorious in the end, even if justice is buried. Such movies influence you to be extremely careful not to think and act beyond the limits of establishments and interests, even if all your efforts are directed for the good of your nation and humanity. This is a powerful effort by the dark forces to kill every new idea that the young might have to change things and lead the national or global life toward a happier condition. After watching such movies one thinks, "Why should I attempt something new, if the end is destruction?"

Dark agents even whisper, "We tried through these movies to awaken resistance toward injustice and showed how cruel some authorities can be." Secretly, however, they mean, "Try to oppose authority, but remember all the shooting and killing that will result. That will be your destiny and the destiny of those who follow you."

Dark forces create deep sympathy through these movies toward those heroes who are working for the Common Good. The sympathy of the audience reaches such a degree that they begin to indentify with the "good guys," who are eventually killed and mercilessly destroyed. Thus, the audience is psychologically defeated. In no way will any member of the audience try to institute a new change because he is already killed psychologically.

When you watch movies try to observe this point and see how, with all subtleties of techniques, they are created in such a way to defeat in you all that is really human, warning you not to dare, and showing you that in the end your destruction is inevitable.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Battling Dark Forces, p.150

Advertisements and subliminal suggestions

Most advertisements provide a source of manipulation of the subconscious mind. They create associative pictures or words to restimulate corresponding elements in your subconscious mind. Once these elements become active, you generally do not listen to the resistance of your logical mind.

This is how certain advertisements create greed in you, and you buy or accumulate things which you do not necessarily need. The gifts of Nature are then wasted, and money is accumulated in irresponsible hands.

Some of the advertisements are shown immediately after certain violent moments in the movie and when you are in a relatively hypnotic state. It is during such moments that the advertisements sink into your subconsciousness as strong posthypnotic suggestions.

There are also advertisements subliminally directed to your subconscious mind. These subliminal messages are imparted so fast that your conscious mind cannot catch them, nor can it filter them out. They go directly into your subconscious mind.

Subliminal messages are imparted during a moment of extreme happiness or sorrow, or in a moment when your analytical mind is intensely preoccupied with a problem or an object. Subliminal messages are given in various ways. One is by the use of recordings of verbal messages at an accelerated pace behind music or film tape. Another is by making drawings on top of other drawings or using photographs that they eye cannot detect but the subconscious mind can.

This is a blackout technique which, if developed a little more, will be the most frightening tool to control people and to exploit them in a number of ways.

Man cannot really detect such subliminal suggestions unless his Chalice is in the process of unfolding. If this is the case, he feels uncomfortable during any subliminal message broadcast in any form. Such a feeling may warn him not to listen to that music or watch that movie or look at certain advertisements.

It is also possible to detect subliminal suggestions through their results, provided that you have developed clear observation, are ready to see changes in your character or behavior, and can take action to destroy the roots of the cause in your subconscious mind.

-Torkom Saraydarian

The subconscious mind and the Chalice, p.105

Communes

Some people think that group consciousness is achieved in communes or community living. This is an illusion. When a number of people unite with each other for their private interests, they form a commune.

Communes are separative, and they do not present group consciousness. Group consciousness does not allow a man or a group of people to disassociate themselves from humanity, from the world, from life.

Communes consider themselves better than other people. They separate themselves from the rest of humanity to save themselves, as if they were more precious than all other human beings who toil and labor and serve in their own fields with the sense of duty and responsibility.

The ultimate goal of the Teaching is the salvation of humanity. By escaping from humanity, no one fulfills this goal.

Communes eventually create in their members stagnation, egoism, and a hostile attitude toward the rest of humanity.

If people come together for higher education and spiritual practice, to perfect and make themselves ready for the service of humanity, such a group can stay healthy. It becomes like a healthy pool of energy which continuously receives new currents of light and releases light-bearers into the world to carry on the world salvation. Such a group works in a special field of human endeavor or, if it has the Teachers, it works in all seven fields of human endeavor to provide right leadership for each field. Such a group acts as a great university, open to all those who can demonstrate special qualifications.

Civilization can be divided into seven branches:

Politics

Education

Communication

Arts

Science

Religion

Finance-Economics

World salvation will not come through religion or politics only. It will come through all seven branches of human endeavor. Each of them is sacred and spiritual if their aim is to serve humanity and lead humanity into higher and greater achievements.

Communes cannot survive if they are not equipped to become places of discipline, learning, and preparation for service. There is no difference between a separative person and a separative commune. A separative commune eventually turns into a cult which worships itself or its own ideas and viewpoints and becomes "the only way to fly." When the members of a commune develop such an idea of being special, they fall into the trap of self-worship and separatism and look at other people as inferior. It has been notices that such people have a very difficult time fitting themselves into any community if they leave their commune. Their adjustment is painful and full of rebellion and remorse.

The common person has a sound heart and right judgment. He looks on such "separative," "special," "chosen," or "bestowed" people with suspicious eyes because such people always, at any opportunity, try to exploit or use others for their own separative interests.

The motto of the world server is: "I belong to humanity. I will live with the joys and sufferings of humanity and will bring my share to the great labor of the redemption of humanity."

-Torkom Saraydarian

Leadership vol.1, p.189

Lose yourself to find yourself

Christ said, "If anyone wants to find himself, he must lose himself." To lose oneself is to lose the attachments which tie you to your past and to the problems of the past. To lose yourself means to master all those urges and drives in your nature which work against your progress and perfection.

"To lose yourself" does not mean to surrender yourself to those who will exploit you for their own interests. On the contrary, a man "loses himself" to find his Self. He is a man who, because of being able to find his Self, is now able to see the traps of those who are anxious to exploit him.

"To find oneself" is a state of consciousness where a man is totally Self-actualized and Self-determined. No longer does his lower self rule him. No longer do the interests of those who are attached to their lower selves rule him. He has independence, and because of the purity of the note he sounds, he can be a part of the symphony.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Leadership vol.1, p.179

Summits create crises

Do not ever attempt to make people conform to your religion, church or ideology. Leave them alone; let them decide their own path. You teach them the Teaching of discrimination and enlightenment through service and meditation. Once they are enlightened they will find their own way that fits them.

Do not interfere with their karma. Show them summits of achievements, and let them strive. Summits create crises. Crises eventually bring a person to the right path, to the summit. Discipleship is the response to the summit.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Leadership vol1, p.174

Karma and the Solar Angel - Torkom Saraydarian

The karma of a person and the plan of the Solar Angel do not conflict because the Solar Angel bases Its plans on the karmic records of the person and the potentials that he demonstrates. But it so happens that due to various influences, a person may do unexpected things that create conflict with the plan of the Solar Angel, and he may fail to fulfill the plan.

The plan of the Solar Angel is to help you overcome past vices and wickedness and help you develop your potentials. It is always the plan of the Solar Angel to prepare you in such a way that you take part consciously in the Divine Plan. Let us remember that the Solar Angel is a member of the Hierarchy and cooperates with the Hierarchical Plan.

When disciples are accepted, they are mostly under the control of the Hierarchy, which acts as the collective Solar Angel for humanity.

The Hierarchy may prepare a disciple to perform sacrificial deeds and die. But such a disciple is always conscious, whether he is in or out of body. After he dies, he does not succumb to the lower hells, as do suicides, but proceeds to higher planes with greater enlightenment.

Sometimes a disciple sacrifices all his time and energy with self-forgetfulness to help others, but in so doing he does not slow down his own spiritual progress. When he dies, special Teachers take care of him, teach him, and help him assimilate in just a few years all that he would have learned and assimilated in the life span that he sacrificed for humanity. Total righteousness exists in the Higher Worlds, and you are paid back for a cup of water given to a thirsty soul.

Sometimes fanatics appear to be like heroes or disciples. The difference is that they are following the direction of obsessors or possessors or following the dictates of their glamors and illusions. Most fanatics do not have continuity of consciousness.

The Hierarchy presents the Plan to disciples and leaves them free to work with the Plan. The Hierarchy even leaves them free to choose how they will exercise their ingenuity.

Those entities which are totally dedicated to genocide, terrorism, and destruction are those people whose Solar Angels have left them. Such people can be very vicious and bestial. In human history there is evidence of people obsessed with such entities. These are people who butchered others and tried to destroy whole cultures or civilizations.

There are two kinds of people who do not have Solar Angels:

1. Those who in previous manvantaras achieved individualization by the power of the Divine Spark within them

2. Those who were endowed with Solar Angels on this globe but lost them

Some people who do not have Solar Angels came to this planet from space to continue their education. They demonstrate a strong mentality with great intellectual powers. They are materialists who use separatism and factions. They are scattered throughout all nations and work with selfishness and separatism. They create the crises necessary to awaken the thinking of average people. They do not belong to a single religion or nation, but are from all nationalities. They are recognized by their selfishness, cunning intellect, power of manipulation, materialism, and totalitarian attitudes. Sometimes they are born into families among those who have Solar Angels.

Those who lost their Solar Angels are primarily destructive people. If a chance were given to them, they would burn the world and enjoy its destruction. Fortunately, these people are rare. A contemporary example is Hitler and his seven evil coworkers. Hitler was not possessed by a disembodied human being but by a member of the Dark Lodge.

You read in mythology and legend about people who denounce their souls and make a pact with Satan. There is some truth in this. When a human being becomes totally inhuman and loses his Solar Angel, he becomes an agent of the dark forces and uses his intellect, knowledge, and resources to bring destruction to Earth.

Those people who evolved without Solar Angels and eventually individualized or developed "I" consciousness or ego consciousness, were inhabitants of other or previous solar systems. Their Spark very slowly unfolds Itself with the help of great Masters Who act as Solar Angels for a large mass of people. Through Their methods, the focus of consciousness of people was eventually drawn into the lower mental plane where "I" consciousness developed, and they realized that they were separate, thinking human beings.

To undergo further evolution, these people came to Earth to develop their love nature. If they fail to overcome their separatism and materialism by cultivating inclusiveness and spirituality, they will be counted as failures in the next manvantara. Who knows what destiny awaits them.

Sometimes people without Souls develop their love nature through the experience of incessant pain, suffering, isolation, revolution, war, and destruction - unless they take deliberate action to develop their heart nature and compassion.

Those who developed without Solar Angels and are now living on Earth are those who attach fanatically to teachers, ministers, or leaders sometimes with total blindness. The reason for this is that they use their teachers and leaders as "solar angels" of sorts. These people are usually fanatical devotees. Of course, one can highly respect his teacher, follow the wisdom imparted by him, and still have a Solar Angel. The differences between these two kinds of devotees are instructive:

-One is exclusive; the other is inclusive.

-One separates; the other synthesizes.

-One obeys blindly; the other obeys con- sciously and with his free will.

-One destroys for the sake of his beliefs; the other tries to understand the beliefs of others and to find beauty in them.

-One is materialistic and totalitarian; the other is idealistic, practical, and purely democratic.

-One collects and stores; the other dis- tributes and shares

I was once asked what happens when a man without a Solar Angel marries a woman who has a Solar Angel; do their children have Solar Angels or not? The answer is that any soul who has a Solar Angel is born with It. The soul who does not have a Solar Angel is born without one. If two people who do not have Solar Angels marry one another, they tend to attract children without Solar Angels. If by chance they have a child who has a Solar Angel, their life will not be easy with that child. The child will eventually leave them, after making numerous attempts to open their heart qualities and inclusiveness. It is also possible for two people who have Solar Angels to have a child who does not have one. These parents will have similar problems; the child will eventually leave them to join those who do not have Solar Angels.

People without Solar Angels have a very strong tendency and urge to be together for protection. They go into business together and share various interests. It is very strange how people without Solar Angels stick to each other better than those who have Solar Angels. Perhaps this is because the Solar Angel works to create synthesis and fusion, rather than grouping.

Fortunately, people without Solar Angels are not a single nation; they are in all nations, in all churches, in all organizations - pursuing the same goals: materialism, totalitarianism, and separatism.

It is important to remember that all those who strive can reach perfection. Those who do not have Solar Angels can achieve the Fourth Initiation and beyond, just as people who have Solar Angels can. It is also possible for a person who has a Solar Angel to fail to reach the Fourth Initiation, or Arhathood. The path toward perfection is open to all.

People without Solar Angels must unfold their heart and cultivate compassion, inclusiveness, and intuition. People with Solar Angels must cultivate reasoning, logic, practicality, and other mental qualities, and strive toward perfection.

Both types of people eventually meet on the Intuitional Plane as brothers. Both of them at this stage do not have Solar Angels, and both of them are in the Light Supernal.

People who do not have Solar Angels think that they are the Solar Angel for the personality, which is comprised of billions of lives divided into the mental, astral, etheric, and physical planes. These billions of lives must proceed on the path of their evolution through the light shed upon them by the human soul himself.

A person who does not have a Solar Angel has a hard time understanding the subjective dialogue which goes on between a human soul and his Solar Angel. Such people have a different psychology and do not experience the intervention of a Solar Angel.

The intervention of the Solar Angel is very subtle. It is not direct or imposed but, because of the very presence of the Solar Angel, with all Its glory, beauty, and wisdom, the person, no matter what he does, at some level measures himself by the standards of the Solar Angel and feels happy or guilty. He feels guilty if he does not meet the standards of the Solar Angel. He feels happy when he cooperates with the standards of his Solar Angel. There is always a dialogue or inner connection between the two poles.

In the case of those who do not have a Solar Angel, they do right or wrong without having an inner reaction or response. Those who do not have a Solar Angel have an orphan psychology. They feel as if there is no one to whom they belong. They do not experience an inner pressure to which they complain or rejoice. They create substitutes. Their wives or husbands carry a heavy load of their complaints and are forced to rejoice with them in the smallest success they have. And if they do not find any substitute, they sink into deep depression.

If they are of average consciousness, they always need someone to tell them what to do. They need constant encouragement to move forward. If they are advanced, they are totally indifferent to praise or rebuke. This is why they can donate ten million dollars without the joy of giving, or commit a serious crime and feel as if nothing has happened. You cannot scold these people. No matter how deeply you try to insult them, they do not feel the slightest impression on their skin. All of this does not mean that they are bad people, merely that they are different from those who have Solar Angels.

People without Solar Angels often act like little children; dependency is very high in them. This is why those who do not have Solar Angels often rule, manipulate, and exploit those who do. In 4 | a sense, an average person who does not have a Solar Angel is more immature than an average person who does. They have a cunning mind, and find ways to cheat those who have Solar Angels, manipulate them, and by so doing, help awaken them to progress.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma and Reincarnation

Instead of altering his vision man wants to change creation

Thoughts and feelings determine what you are. Change your thoughts. If you give up your worldly outlook and view the world from the spiritual point of view, the Vishvam (world) and the Vishnu (Divine) will become one. Therefore, change your viewpoint.

Instead of altering his dhrishti (vision) man wants to change Shrishti (creation). No one can change creation. It is one's vision that has to be changed.

-Sai Baba

Divine Discourse, 14th Jan 1995

A great future awaits humanity

According to the Teaching, a great future awaits humanity. The "Captain" of the "ship" is alert and able, and conditions will gradually improve. Though many are suffering and will continue to suffer, the future of humanity is bright.

Many agents of darkness and their servants try to convince humanity that the end of the world is near, that humanity will never learn cooperation, that peace will never come, that greater suffering, pain and starvation are on the way.

The agents of darkness never give us a bright picture, and by spreading such pessimistic, negative thoughtforms, they pressure humanity to think and act along the lines of destruction, death, suffering and pain.

Once the gears of the human mind are engaged in such negative, ugly, destructive thoughts, humanity will be forced to live in such a way that it will fall into danger in trying to actualize the prophecies of the agents of darkness.

At the present we need leaders who will bring us hope, optimism, and joy; tell us that the future will be bright; tell us that the human soul is alive and sound; tell us that humanity will pass the crises and will build greater future. In spreading such a vision we will condition the thinking of humanity and lead it into positive lines - "Whatever man thinks in his heart, so is he."

Give vision to people and people will actualize the vision.

-Torkom Saraydarian

(Olympus World Report, p.8)

Karma and the law of dates

Whenever we create karma, it is under the law of dates that decides when karma will manifest. Not every action meets immediately its reaction, or not every cause immediately meets with effects. The law of dates inherent in karma decides the time. Sometimes karma is met five lives later or is met in three months or instantaneously. To know the dates of manifestation of karma is beyond our ability as it is entered into the computer which processes the group, national, global, and Cosmic karma - together with our individual karma related to the rest.

There is the opinion that our karma is final and nothing can change it. This is a superstition. We can change our karma. We can improve it, even totally erase it by actions that are sacrificial, heroic, all-inclusive. Even in a dire situation a bad karma can appear as a feathered friend if you lead a sacrificial and intelligent life.

We must consider our karma as a chemical compound. It is possible to change its chemistry using chemicals that change it, dissolve it, or render it totally beneficial.

Chemicals are not only physical elements. They are also heroic actions, sacrifice, devotion, dedication, lofty thoughts, unconditional love, spatial ideas, and supreme striving. Such chemicals have power to change the compounds of our karma.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation, p.168