Commandment 23:
The Sole Impediment
For the truth seeker, for a student of Yoga, for a disciple the only impediment is his own personality. One’s own personality stands between him and the Truth. This is generally not seen. Men try to see the obstacles outside. But the obstacles are inside. Outer obstacles can be conquered. Inner obstacles are difficult to conquer. They are stronger than the seeker. The personality is built over series of incarnations. It becomes strong. With its right angles and wrong angles to meet one’s own personality is the greatest of all challenges. It is a process of conquering oneself to be the Self. Between the seeking self and the soul there is the prison of personality, which distorts the prism of personality. This prism distorts messages coming from higher circles, it misinforms, it misleads. It suggests things, which are contrary to the seeker’s effort to be the soul.
In a man the self is broken into many selves. A part of the self is with the objectivity. A part of the self is with family, a part of the self is with economic activity, a part of the self is with the society, and a part of the self is for self-improvement. Lastly a part of the self remains the self. All these are linked by one thread of consciousness, which is the Self. They are like the beads of a rosary. Except the Self, the other selves dissolve at every death and emerge gradually after every birth. The tendencies continue to be with the Self from life to life. Yoga practice is a brave attempt to bring forth change in these tendencies. The tendencies are built over series of lives, and hence they are stronger than the seeker’s will. The tendencies always try to manipulate the nascent will of the seeker. It is like an ant meeting an elephant, which is not realised by the initial seeker. The will to seek Truth is just born in a seeker and the tendencies already exist in him since countless years. This fact must be recognised. That is the reason why seeking Truth is seen as an uphill task. Nevertheless one can climb up the hill. Man’s ability to mount the Everest is a symbol of it. When Tenzing Norgay climbed over the Mount Everest and posted the flag it was a signal for mankind that time has come to conquer the mountainous personality.
How to get the Cooperation of Personality
No doubt the personality is stronger than the seeker. But the soul is times stronger than the personality. The soul is the ancient most one. The personality is a much later built-up. While the will to seek is nascent, when it connects to the soul through ardent prayers the seeking self gets strength to meet the personality, to talk to it, to negotiate with it, to discuss and arbitrate with it. Initially one can reach a compromise with the personality. Fighting does not help, conquering does not help. Friendly negotiation helps. Friendliness is the way to conquer one’s own personality. Do not condemn it. Do not try to discipline it too much. If you discipline the personality too much, it revolts and abandons all practices. It becomes repulsive to any practice. Keep satisfying the personality from time to time and fulfil the purposes of seeking truth with the help of the personality. The personality’s cooperation is essential.
The personality is like your spouse. It is the inner spouse. If it is the outer spouse we can seek divorce, but we cannot seek divorce from the inner spouse. You cannot get rid of it. It is part of you. You only have one way to repair it. But the reparation is not possible without its cooperation. It is a very engaging game of patience. Sometimes you win. Remember, only sometimes you win. Many times the personality wins over you. Do not lose heart. Keep trying with the spouse of personality until it feels compassionate with you and obliges you. Great men like Socrates had great difficulties with their ladies. They did not divorce. They had learnt to put up and ultimately the ladies started cooperating. This is not only a factual story. It is symbolically true with you, with me, and with all of us.
Be aware of the inner spouse. Be friendly and ensure her cooperation. Without her cooperation nothing can happen. Nearly nothing can happen. You seek a morning cup of hot coffee. If it does not come, you don’t feel like doing your prayer. Do you know who is demanding coffee in you? It is your personality. It says, “Give me my cup of coffee. Only then I will take you to the prayer hall and let you pray. Otherwise I disturb your prayer.” In these small things also the personality plays its role. Therefore build an agreeable base for working with it without succumbing to it. If you succumb, you are a henpecked one. You would be under house arrest.
Personality demands essentially three things: 1. personal comfort, 2. money and reputation, 3. socialisation. The true seeker should be practical enough to grant these three to the personality from time to time, though not totally. One needs to have a minimum program to satisfy the personality. This is called a flexible attitude. At the same time it cannot go beyond desirable proportions. It is like feeding the bull to do your work. If you feed it too much, it doesn’t work for you. It sleeps and gets irritated when asked to work. Neither starve nor excessively feed the bull of personality.
When one sets himself on the path to the truth livelihood does not constitute to be a major program. The one who sets himself on the path to truth is on a noble program. When he progresses with one-pointed will and single-mindedness the requirements of personality are also taken care of by the soul. Mundaka Upanishad says, “Your effort is needed to realise the soul, the Truth. Do not waste away the effort for livelihood. If you set the former as your goal, the latter would happen automatically.” The Upanishad also says, “Do you need effort to grow nails on your fingers and hair on your head? You need effort to grow into Light.” When you are working for Light the personality needs happen just like the growth of nails and hair. It needs no effort.
Will to Seek Truth, is the Magic Wand
If you really follow the path to truth, you do not have to worry so much about your livelihood. Set your priority to know the truth. Things will fall into order gradually. Do not let the will get away. It is the most important tool in your hand. If you let it get away, you are lost. Will is the magic wand in your hand. It makes the impossible possible. It can turn mountains into molehills. It can clear the way through the high seas. It can turn everything into Divine. It can turn your personality also to be a Divine personality at once, but it is not recommended. It will be a too fiery a process. It surely transforms your personality into a Divine personality gradually, if you hold on to the will to seek the Truth. Buddha did it a little faster and realised that it need not have been so fast. One need not hurt himself on the path to Truth. It is not recommended to hurt oneself on the way to Truth. One can gradually introduce the will of fire into one’s personality. Slowly, slowly the personality gets accustomed to absorb the needed fire, to enflame and become a glowing mantle. The process of enflaming is called rousing Kundalini. The lighted mantle is Buddhi, the light of the soul. All this is possible with the will. Will includes in it all other techniques and qualities. Therefore hold on to the will until your personality becomes a Divine personality. It is called in some books as soul-infused personality. It is also called Divine life. Until this happens, do not let away the will to Truth.
Salomon’s Temple
The Divine personality is called the Salomon’s Temple. It was called by Jesus as the Glorious White Robe. It is with the help of a temple-like personality one can manifest the kingdom of God upon Earth. Jesus used the glorious white robe to fulfil the Plan. Every Initiate, Master or Teacher does so. Remember, the personality is the dragon for the mundane human. It is the black dragon that binds him. For the disciples it turns initially into an orange dragon, later into a golden dragon. When one is a Master it turns out to be white dragon or a diamond dragon. One would not do well to kill the dragon. There is no act of killing in the path of Yoga. There is only transformation. The black dragon needs to be transformed into a white dragon so that acts of God can be performed upon Earth.
This transformation of personality is also referred in the scriptures as transformation of a serpent into an eagle or a winged serpent, a Divine serpent. When the Divine personality happens within oneself, man becomes a son of God. God works through him via his personality. It is the state of three in one: the father, the son and the dragon. The word Salomon is understood to be the state of three in one. In Salomon there are three sounds: Sol–Om–On. Om is the father, Sol is the individual self, On is the dragon. Such is the understanding of the word Solomon. The three are also seen as the cosmic sun, the central solar sun and the planetary sun. The three are also seen as the trinity in their togetherness.
Once the light of the soul is gained, in that light one can stand detached from all mundanity, just like the butter floats in the milk and mixes not anymore with the milk. This is called the state of immortality. In this state one stands in the body of light, which stands aside from the body of flesh and blood. The body of light does not die, even while the body of flesh and blood decays and dies. Thereafter the journey continues as I Am to associate with That to become That I Am, and even to become That. Those are the higher initiations of which one will know when he is at that station. Later one will start a deep contemplation of I Am upon That. I Am gets focussed on That, which is universal. In deep contemplation I Am gets absorbed into That and ceases to be an individual consciousness. It becomes one with the universal consciousness. This is symbolically called the son joining the father. Jesus says, “I shall now rise and go to my Father.” But it is not for him to decide, it is for the father to decide. Therefore he says later, “Father, Thy will be done.” The son cannot decide to join the Father. The Father decides when to absorb the son into his bosom. The son has to leave the magic tool of will and take to the tool of waiting. The will doesn’t work to reach the Father. The will of the soul is too little compared with the will of the Father. When the will of the Father prevails, the son joins the Father. Until then the son has to wait. Therefore waiting becomes the last Mantra. Great beings waited thousands of years and even Yugas to get absorbed. They waited praying. Some are absorbed very soon, some are absorbed very late. One cannot ask why. There is no why with the Divine. It is so high that one has to wait to receive. Such is the beauty of self-realisation.
Such is the beauty of the teaching of Lord Sanat Kumara to this humanity on the planet.
… to be continued
Taken from the book
The Teachings of Sanat Kumara
Dhanishta Publications: dhanishta.org
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