The Teaching creates reactions

In all departments of human endeavor, people react to those who bring new ideas, new visions, and new goals.

First of all, when someone speaks to us about the Teaching and about what the Teaching expects from us, we feel a reaction from our lower self. The reason for this reaction is that the crystallized habits, emotions, and thoughtforms feel that they are under attack. It is not easy to break our habits, our mechanical responses and reactions, our ways of thinking, not only because they are set in certain patterns but also because they are associated with our immediate families, churches, businesses, and traditions. Yet, nothing can change within us without changing all those things with which we are associated. This is often painful for ourselves and for others.

For example, the Teaching suggests that we not eat meat, drink alcohol, or smoke. When you decide to abstain from these things, your friends and family will probably wonder if you have lost your mind. This creates family and social problems, and sometimes in changing yourself you may lose your family, friends, and job. Sometimes you even lose your church, if the people in your church see that you are really entering the path of transformation. Thus we can see that the Teaching not only creates reactions from your lower self, from your habits, from your crystallized emotions, beliefs, traditions, and religions but also from your environment and everyone in it.

For an advanced human being, his family, group or society becomes like his lower self. Just as his lower self reacts to the Teaching, similarly and for almost the same reasons his family, group, and society attack and react to him.

-Torkom Saraydarian

The Ageless Wisdom, p.61

Inhalation and exhalation of the moon

During the waxing period, the moon acts as a vampire and sucks from the emotional sphere of the earth all elements of fear, anger, hatred, revenge, and greed. During its waning time, it exhales into the sphere of our planet these five elements, plus its own decaying particles.

During the waning time, people inhale the emotional pollution of the moon. This creates various tensions, pressures, and psychological disturbances in the masses. Actually, we feed the astral body of the moon and this extends its life span. If humanity enters the age of understanding and eliminates fear, anger, hatred, revenge, and greed, the disintegration of the astral body of the moon will be accelerated, and our planet will become free from such a polluting factor.

One day I was in a monastery and I was in a depressed mood, sitting on a rock and feeling blue. My Teacher came and whispered in my ear, "Do not feed the moon."

It took me long years to understand the meaning of his words. It was not the moon I was feeding, but its astral body. The food that we feed to the astral body of the moon is the same food it will feed us back, adding to its decomposed emanations.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation vol1, p.110

Busying ourselves with worldly activities is a form of laziness

From a Buddhist perspective, busying ourselves with worldly activities is a form of laziness, because we're lax in self-cultivation. Our lives are so busy in modern society: Our appointment books are completely full and we're always running here and there. We often complain there isn't enough time for the Dharma.

However, whenever we have a spare moment, we work overtime or call some friends to fill in the gap. We always have time to eat, but we hardly ever have time to nourish ourselves spiritually by attending Dharma classes or meditating. When the temple has entertainment and free meals, we go; but when there is meditation or lessons, we're busy.

This hindrance to spiritual progress comes because we're attached to worldly pleasures: food, money, reputation, amusement, and friends. The harm comes from our inappropriate way of relating to them. Attached, we selfishly indulge in them. However, these things in and of themselves aren't bad. Through pacifying our afflictions, we can enjoy these things with a good motivation--to improve ourselves for the benefit of others.

-Ven. Thubten Chodron

Taming the Mind

The pull of the full moon

When the moon is waxing, it is drawing millions and millions of tons of water toward the center of the oceans and seas. This is how the ebb comes into existence. What a powerful energy is exercised upon the waters of the earth by the moon.

If we had eyes to see, we would observe that not only is water drawn up but also gases, emotions, and thoughts are caught in the current of magnetism of the waxing phase of the moon.

Man is eighty percent liquid. It will be very interesting if one day scientists prove to us that during the waxing period of the moon not only are the bloodstream, the lymphatic system, the glands and their secretions under a heavy pull, but also the emotional body and mental body are drawn up toward the head and above the head.

During the full moon, dislocations of the subtle bodies are not uncommon. This is why people are excited, irritated, and sometimes irrational, aggressive, demanding, forceful, or "spaced" around the full moon. During the full moon period, various sicknesses related to certain glands increase.

In human relationships, there is more emotional tension during the waxing period than during the waning period. This can be noticed in schools, on freeways, and in various offices. We must remember, however, that every cycle can present an opportunity for us if we prepare for it and are watchful.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation, p.107,108

What is evil? Who is the enemy?

The enemy is any person or force which retards your evolution, growth, unfoldment, and beauty. There are five things that we can say about the enemy.

First, the enemy or evil is a force which makes you ugly. If any force makes you physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually ugly, then it is a dark force. You are yielding yourself and cooperating with it.

Second, if any force takes your goodwill from you and replaces it with evil, it is the enemy.

Third, if anyone or any impression or suggestion makes you fight against righteousness or forces you to be unrighteous, it is evil.

Fourth, if anyone or anything tries to take your joy away from you and load you with grief, fear, or depression, know that it is evil.

Lastly, if anyone or anything takes away your rights or freedom and tries to make you a slave or a hostage of his self-interest or beliefs, know that it is evil.

These forces are everywhere. Because they are everywhere, you are used to them and so you can no longer see them. They are even present in your food and water, in your churches, in your sacred literature. They have penetrated into all layers of human experience. If you are smart, you will develop the great sense of discrimination.

Discrimination means to know exactly which path leads to your destination and which path leads to your destruction.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Battling Dark Forces

How to unfold the chakras

We see that in every age people tried to introduce methods to unfold the chakras

1. by artificial means

2. by meditating upon them

3. through the process of meditation, purification, and expansion of consciousness

4. through initiations

The first two methods are considered very dangerous by certain Teachers. The third method is the safest method. The fourth method is exercised only by the Great Master, to meet certain planetary crises and prepare a certain number of people to handle the danger accumulating upon the planet.

The third, safest method is recommended in Ashrams and in true esoteric schools.

The artificial methods are hatha yoga, breathing exercises, certain exercises of will, and concentration upon the chakras. In far eastern countries, these are exercised with only failing results; but in western countries, because of our chaotic and polluted environment, such methods have very destructive effects.

Those who want to develop their chakras safely must lay a good foundation. When one carefully lives according to such a foundation, the rest will be easy. This foundation is built by

1. purity of life - physical, moral, and mental

2. sacrificial service - service to spread Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom

3. fearlessness - which is a state of consciousness not identified with material values

4. striving toward perfection - with one's deeds, words, expressions, creativity, thought, and communication

Striving is like having a purpose and making all possible efforts to reach that purpose, then making it a group, national, and global purpose. Without a purpose, even if the centers are open they will destroy you under their flooding currents.

The head center opens when you develop your willpower in trying to serve others and in overcoming problems and obstacles. It opens when you are striving toward a great vision and in the meantime meeting your duties and responsibilities and paying your karmic debts.

The ajna center unfolds through right thinking, in trying to be accurate in your thinking, speech, and expressions; in being simple, straightforward and discriminative of values; in having clear and right direction. When you fabricate or exercise wrong thinking or build wrong motives, you close this chakra. As much as possible, you must give right direction to your thoughts, your speech, and your actions.

The throat chakra unfolds as a result of your right speech, creativity, tolerance, silence, and purity in sex. Malice, slander, cursing, and swearing create blockages in this chakra. The throat chakra starts to unfold when you nourish it with your creativity and your Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom. Joy is the vitamin of the throat center. Malice, slander, lying, gossip, idle talk, swearing and cursing damage this center.

Love, inclusiveness, compassion, feelings of brotherhood, unity, wholeness, courage, and fearlessness - these are the elements which nourish your heart chakra. When the heart chakra opens, it becomes a door through which you pass into higher spheres of love and wisdom and eventually come in contact with the Great Ones. Hatred, revenge, and grief damage this center.

The higher solar plexus opens when you live a life of peace, serenity, sharing, forgiveness, renouncement, and humility. These are the virtues through which your solar plexus unfolds and makes available for you the higher psychic gifts, especially healing. These virtues are developed first by thinking about them and then by trying to actualize them in your life. Thinking and actualization are methods to expand your consciousness and unfold your centers. Jealousy, greed, fear, and hurry damage this center.

The sacral center can be unfolded by living a life of purity, occasional celibacy, and creativity, by controlling your sensual imagination, and by living a righteous life. The sex center is very sensitive to your actions. Every time your conscience does not approve of your actions, the sex center is disturbed. Many sexual problems are the result of living an unrighteous life.

The base of spine center unfolds and develops safely when one dedicates himself to a life of sacrificial service and striving, and when he works for freedom and makes it his life-aim to serve humanity. Anger, resentment, and hatred damage this center.

What happens when your chakras begin to unfold?

1. When the head center begins to unfold, you develop Soul contact. You start to be impressed by the "Center where the Will of God is known." You develop true leadership. You experience and demonstrate heroism. You liberate yourself from the domination of illusions. You feel bliss.

2. When the ajna center begins to unfold, you develop foresight, the sense of direction, and control over your personality and over destructive forces.

3. When the throat center begins to unfold, you develop discrimination and creativity. You become enlightened. You gain intellectual power. You feel joy.

4. When the heart center begins to unfold, you develop understanding and inclusiveness. You begin to register higher impressions. You reach the hearts of people. You attend Ashrams. You develop intense and inclusive love for all forms of life.

5. When the solar plexus begins to unfold, you develop healing power. You become sensitive to psychic energy and to the psychological conditions of human beings related to you. You develop astral consciousness.

6. When the sacral center begins to unfold, you create magnetism and healthy children. Your aura shines like a rainbow.

7. When the base of spine center begins to unfold, you develop illumination and at-one-ment with your spirit.

One begins to develop the sense of synthesis immediately when the threefold fire begins to fuse with the fire of spirit.

In the future, instead of prescribing chemical drugs, physicians will give patients certain forms of meditation to cure their physical ills. Most of our physical ills are the result of those actions which are harmful, separative, and ugly. Physical health depends upon moral health. The future physician will see that the patient strengthens his morality before he expects to be healed.

The unfoldment of the centers is related to our karma. Our karma is the result of how we used our thoughts, words, emotions, and bodies in the past. Unless the karma of our wrong actions, words, and thoughts is cleared, the development of the chakras may still go on but with many problems, pain, and suffering.

All progress in Nature must have the assistance of the Law of Karma.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation vol.1

Time is not limitless

Do not listen to those philosophers who say time is limitless and you can fool around as long as you want and eventually everything will be alright. Eventually everything will not be alright. You can be eliminated, totally evaporated and annihilated if you do not fulfill the time limit and reach the stage where you should have reached to pass the gate.

God gave you life. Carry that light, that torch until the end. Do not let any stupid things stop your progress.

A girl, who was a student, wrote that she cannot meditate because her boyfriend was fooling around. I asked her, "Don't you have greater interests than your boyfriend?" Your spiritual progress is of supreme value. You cannot sell your diamond for a stone. How precious you are. Unfortunately, all our television programs, newspapers, and books tell you, "How stupid you are, how nonsense you are, how valueless you are. You do not have value. What are you? Nothing. One bullet can kill you and you are finished." They put this trash in your mind and slowly, slowly you believe that you do not have value. That is why Christ said, "You are Gods." Look at what He is saying. He did not say that you are trash. He said, "You are Gods." When is that God going to manifest itself? How long will it take? Ask yourself every night, "Did I manifest my God today? Or was I really a monkey?" You find yourself and every day try again and again and again.

Do not give up because this is a chance for you. This life is a great chance for you. Save your time. Save your emotions. Save your money. Save everything so that you focus yourself on your spiritual progress. Do not depend on anybody else. Depend on your Inner Lord, and open your ears and eyes and listen, and let your Inner Lord guide you.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Dynamics of the Soul

Blending of energies and karma through sexual relationships

Q: Is it just in marriage that there is a blending of the energies, or is there an interchange in any sexual relationship?

A: If a person is promiscuous, he takes on the energies of his sexual partners. I am not saying that promiscuity is a transgression and that promiscuous people are going to hell. But chemically-combined results create different effects. Young people must be very careful about what they are doing. They must try to find the best partner and continue with him or her. Sexual promiscuity can change future incarnations. If a person is not a liberated human being and he has a lot of different sexual partners, he will have trouble with these people in future lives.

Sex is very important; we do not know how really beautiful it is. In sexual activity, one combines karmic conditions. You can be a very beautiful man, but you go with a girl who is karmically loaded. While driving home, a car hits you because you share her karma, even though you did not do anything bad.

We have all "mixed our waters," so to speak. Now what can we do? We can take vows of celibacy and dedicate all our energies, transmuting them to higher development and slowly clean ourselves, or we can find the best partner and say, "This is it." If a person is physically celibate, but mentally imagining, there is no progress. If he is really celibate, physically, emotionally and mentally, then he progresses. When St. Paul was asked whether it was good to marry or not, he said that if a person could do it, he should stay alone, but if he was boiling inside, he should marry. The person has to be the one to choose. No one else knows his own heart.

The opposite is also true. A boyfriend or girlfriend may help us advance ten thousand miles. Who can determine these things? It is better to take slow and careful action, so that you have time to think and observe and not hurry.

There is a great science of love - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual love - which is not taught here. Most men and women do not know how to make love or what love is. They are producing children without knowing what they are doing. Sometimes they are forced; sometimes they are caught in a trap; sometimes there is no chance to escape. But this situation must end. In the future, we must have a university that will prepare men and women for sexual activity, marriage, and child-rearing. (See also Sex, Family, and the Woman in Society and Woman, Torch of the Future).

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma and Reincarnation

Regularity in meditation

The first labor to improve meditation is regularity in meditation. Many people do "rabbit" meditation. This is a symbolic way of saying that they are not stable or steady. One day they meditate; the next three days they do not. They start again, and then they stop.

If meditation is performed regularly, it expands your consciousness. Meditation is an effort to cast out limiting factors from your mind. If you are not regular, you cannot cast them out. If you are successful in pushing out the limiting factors, and then you stop meditating, they will return with stronger force, occupy your mind, and make it impossible for it to expand. Limiting factors are illusions, glamors, habits, hang-ups, and fanaticism, to name a few. Regular meditation clears these things.

In meditation you contact beautiful ideas or visions. But if you do not feed them regularly, they fade away. Every time you meditate, you nourish ideas that will bring more harmony and rhythm into the lives of all nations. Regular meditation keeps your highest visions, impressions, and inspirations alive.

Regular meditation builds subjective contacts between you and Higher Forces. Through regular meditation you refine your mind and gradually function on higher levels where creative forces exist. Creative forces are attracted to rhythm and harmony. Wherever there are rhythm and harmony, there are creative forces present which bring in more inspiration and fiery striving.

Creative forces are not interested in irregular, flickering lights. Such influences repel creative forces. This is why rhythmic and harmonious motions, invocations, singing, and dancing are performed in temples. Regularity, rhythm, and harmony attract Higher Forces.

If your meditation is not regular, cyclic, rhythmic, and harmonious, the Higher Forces know that you are not yet geared to the natural laws of rhythm, harmony, and cycles. Because of this, They consider contact with you to be dangerous to you and to those around you.

Regular meditation disciplines your bodies, your nervous system, heart, and brain. It disciplines your emotional body, and it makes your mental body focused, concentrated, awake, and creative.

When you forget to meditate for a few days, the old habits of your bodies return. Your emotional habits sneak in; your mind feels that it is time to be as it was before - scattered, unfocused, rebellious, and foggy. Then when you resume your meditation, you have a hard time because you must fight against the limitations of your bodies. Eventually you will give up under the pressure of your age-long habits.

Regular meditation helps your mind concentrate, focus, analyze, and synthesize without drifting. Regularity disciplines the mind. Regular meditation makes your etheric centers more receptive and sensitive to higher impressions. In regular meditation, you feed your centers with higher substances and charge their central fires. You create synchronization within the centers and between the centers. Sensitive centers receive and transmit more energy. Through energy, you serve; you keep yourself healthy and dynamic so that you are able to offer yourself for greater sacrificial service. Regular meditation builds a magnetic and protective sphere wherever you are doing your daily meditation, and you develop a magnetic aura which attracts the interest of the Great Ones Who can impress and reach you.

During meditation, your psychic energy flows out and accumulates in the place where you sit, in the walls around the spot you are sitting. Your lofty thoughts increase the beauty of the electromagnetic sphere which is building around your room. When you enter that room, you feel the power of the sphere. In this sphere, you can more easily contact creative forces which not only inspire you with great visions but also protect you from various attacks from mental and astral sources. This sphere requires regularity to build itself. Every time you forget to meditate, the sphere dissipates, melts away, and eventually evaporates.

Your sphere of energy is your temple. Energy spheres remain only when the Law of Compression is used or applied. Continuity creates compression and increases density because it exercises heavy pressure on existing spheres.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation vol.1

What is hell?

Two or three days later [after death] you enter the astral plane. The astral plane consists of two sections - the lower and higher sections. The lower astral plane is hell. Hell is a state of friction between the astral energy and your aura. If you participated in wrong speech, wrong thinking, wrong feeling, and wrong action you violated the laws of love, justice, beauty, goodness, and freedom. Because of this, you accumulated a lot of pollution in your astral aura, which is flammable material. The instant this material comes into friction with astral energy, a tremendous explosion of fire occurs, which is the origin of the idea of hell.

Hell is not reality, in a sense. But hell exists because you create it. Your astral body burns until all the pollution in it is totally melted, at which point your astral body either dies or releases itself from the pollution and enters the higher astral level. In the higher astral plane you see greater beauty, greater freedom and liberation to use Cosmic direction as your own will. At these first stages you do not control what you want to do. As you proceed, you gain more control over your time, direction, and activities.

The higher astral plane is occupied mostly by artists, humanitarians, and those who sacrificed their lives for others. It is here where you meet your teachers and guides. Your Solar Angel immediately appears to you. In the lower levels It watches you as you go through the "valley of tears," the "valley of gnashing teeth," but It does not contact you at that level.

In writing about these levels, the Great Sage says that Urusvati heard the lamentations and grinding of teeth coming from the lower astral plane. The inhabitants at this level really suffer not for punishment but because they created it. Their pollution contacts the fire of the astral plane and creates a hell for them.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation

When animals die

Q: You said that animals incarnate again after only a few days. Is there anything special we can do for them?

A: Just send them your love. They will follow you astrally for three or four days; you can say, "Poochy, I love you. You are here, i feel you," and put out some dinner for him. Many advanced animals come back in different forms.

Q: Do they suffer when they die?

A: They go directly into their astral body and do not hurt like humans do. Humans have imagination, which makes them hurt more. Animals do not have this kind of imagination; they withdraw immediately to the astral plane. That is why if an animal breaks its leg it can sit for three or four days without making a sound. It is in the astral plane watching its body.

Q: Do animals take longer to incarnate if you killed the animal and it is mad at you? Can it bug you?

A: I think that killing animals is very bad because when you die they find you and really harass you. Can you imagine what will happen to butchers and the people who eat meat? They do not know what they are creating.

A scientist who kills three or four hundred monkeys has his astral body eaten day and night by the astral bodies of the monkeys. The Ten Commandments say, "Thou shalt not kill." But we kill: guns, bombs, war.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Karma & Reincarnation, p.296

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