INITIATION (SPIRITUAL) IN RELATION TO THE DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF NATURE

“A Philosophical Debate”

By H.S.H. Kwang Hsih

Under the auspices of the

“Dharma Yoga Raja Sabha”

of Benares, India.

Series of “Spiritual Depuration of THE BUDHIC INSTITUTE

LECTURE - Friday, August 31, 1934

“PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE”

At the Assembly Hall,

Advance Bookstore Co.

826 Eight Street

Los Angeles, Calif. U.S.A.

Introductory Words by the Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Howard Reed:

Tonight, there has been no set subject. The time for tonight has been assigned to a “Philosophical Debate”. His Serene Holiness the Lord Abbot Kwang Hsih, of the Ch´An Cheng-Lob Budhic Center, in Sinkiang (North Tibet), who is again with us will give us a few introductory remarks. The meeting will be left open for an exchange of ideas.

We have had quite a few lectures here and the subject-matter of most of them has been new to a great number of us. These lectures have opened new fields of thought, foreign perhaps to our previous conceptions along the same lines. So, if you will be thinking of some of the high points that are not yet clear to you, regarding this flawless philosophical revival conducted by his Lordship, a little later in the evening you will be given opportunity to ask questions. We will ask you to be as brief as possible in expressing them, so we can cover as many as possible, and hold these questions within the subject-matter we have discussed in the past or very closely allied. If you prefer, you may write your questions on a piece of paper.

THE LORD ABBOT´S DISCOURSE ON THE INITIATIONS IN RELATION WITH THE DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF NATURE

As it has just been said, tonight we will have no particular subject to deal upon. Nevertheless, this is indeed the reason why we have more to think about, because we have to dwell upon all the fields of thought, all the problems of existence, all our inner yearnings and all the experiences of life.

I want to emphasize one point about the activities which we have been conducting in this city and in the whole country, that it is not our interest to institute any sort of criticism or to create any sort on confusion in the mind of anybody. What we want to strive for, rather, is the bringing about of a mental attitude which will enable everyone to approach the problems of life and the world at large under right lights. By right lights I mean the exact values of life itself.

So far, people have been accustomed to follow the course of life and a trend of thinking in a rather easy way, much to our own interest, just in a way of satisfying our own impulses, satisfying our own desires, -always in a sense of gratifying our own ideas and our senses above all, but not in any way to reach, indeed, the solutions to the problems of life, not with the intent of evolving above the problems and intricacies of life.

We have been used to dwell around all problems in a sense which we have called spiritual, much in the way of satisfying our own earthly ambition. You all know this is no true, and that each one caters mainly to his own intentions.

The great problems of religion today lie in the satisfaction of our personal intentions. It is always dwelling around the problems of seeking happiness. Ask anybody what they conceive as religion or religious attainment or Spiritual unfoldment. They will always speak in terms and also mean certain satisfactions of a purely sensorial human implication. It is always the satisfaction of the senses, the satisfaction of our intentions, the satisfaction, in a word, of our human nature.

Nobody seems to conceive in those matters, the higher aims of life. All we want is to simply satisfy our own intentions, and by this we mean to seek personal happiness. Look at religion, it can be reduced to the following simple formula: “Attain satisfaction of what we consider the utmost or the most interesting point of life”. That is why the heavens of all the religions are pictures in purely human terms. In the Mohammedan religion we find heaven pictured as a place where there are many beautiful women, because that is a characteristic of the people themselves who believe in it. In the Jewish conception of heaven, you find the philosophical tendencies of the people pictures also, and their deity copied after their ancient patriarchs. Christians expect to find music, peace and complacency, etc., in a word, satisfaction of the higher attainments of Heaven or the philosophical implications, we always mean a satisfaction of our senses, the common human physical senses. We scarcely consult the deeper implications of life. We never try to find whether our inner yearnings, our inner self, is something higher, that may have more significant meaning, that may have other requirements of life, and that may also be so much more important than our common being, and that they may be altogether different. Commonly to us, what matters, is what we can feel, what can satisfy our gratifications, which is merely to live according to thar individual animal being which we are by nature.

Of course, we have developed great systems of philosophy and of thinking. We have developed certain theories or doctrines around the satisfaction of our intentions or around the attainment of our yearnings, but these, again, the more we study them, the more we find how anthropomorphical they are. They all tend to satisfy the common intentions of the human nature, that is to say of the material human being that we are. They do not tend to satisfy something greater in us. This is so because we do not know the bigger Self, or the greater yearnings that may be in us. We speak of a certain element or entity in us that may be called Spirit, or may be called many names, among others Divine Being, but what do we know of it? Absolutely nothing. It is simply words. We do not know anything about what we theorize upon. We have great theories about our inner being, our Spirit, etc., but when it comes to practice, or practical revelation of what this inner being may be, we have absolutely no data to justify our belief. We rely simply on the assertions of other people, or upon our own fantasy.

This confronts us with a rather elaborate case that proves how much even our beliefs and our behavior are the outcome of our intentions and expectations.

Another significant case is thar of the “Masters”. Most mystics speak of the Masters. They have very great ideas about the Masters of Wisdom, and their intentions towards the Masters, and expectations regarding them, are also very great, but, indeed, what they know about these Masters is simply but hearsay, simply what they have heard form others, the assertions of other people who may, of course, be very sincere, and may have propounded such ideas or theories in a very honest way. Yet that does not justify the existence of the Masters in any way. Anyhow, how many persons have actually known such Masters or Mahatmas? You will notice also, that all the organizations which are based on the so-called assertions of the Masters, sooner or later always collapse in a shameful way, most of the time in such a way that does not justify the influence of the great Master´s, as should be expected somehow.

That is why also, a great many people doubt the existence of the Masters. Masters have become almost completely legendary beings, something like divinities in the flesh. The motive of such a confusion is that the “theory” about the Masters has become so complicated, so intricate, we have lost completely contact with the reality and lost ourselves in the mire of fantasy.

Therefore, Master, instead of being of constructive help to human beings, have become a most confusing element to mystic as well as philosophically inclined people. This “fancying” about the Masters has become destructive, because it has destroyed the faith and the goodwill of the people. Yet it is not the Masters themselves who thus indulge; it is the people who have developed confused ideas around their uncommon personalities which they understand but faintly.

Masters have become too shrouded in mysteries and fantastic legends, so today it is almost impossible to assert that they are human beings!

Nevertheless, if you will consult the original sources of ideas about the Masters, if you will refer to the monastic centers where these Masters dwell, where they are not only considered real beings but, also, the Instructors, which they are, you will see that the concept is entirely different. Unfortunately, in the Western world, the prevailing ideas are those of a theoretical nature rather tan the Truth itself. There are many reasons for this.

The chief one is the fact that the Western mind is by nature very objective, and has been insistently educated along the lines of ever objectifying its perceptions. They have to objectify abstract principles of Truth to extremes, and in that intention, they bring out objectively, principles of subjective significances, to such an extent that reality is no longer even the shadow of the original abstract Truths.

That is why, again, in the opposite sense, when they come in contact with true reality, they cannot conceive it in any way. When they supposedly come to understand the great Truths, these are to them so abstract, so far from the common ability of the mind to understand, that they convert them into a quaint, and intricate mysticism, which very well exemplifies their complexes, creating a deluding realm of mysticism which itself belongs to the domain of pure fantasy. That is what has happened to most of the Truths that have been propounded in the world; in the Western World, most of all, - Truths that have until recently, been confined to the Monasteries.

It was about the end of the last century thar the Monasteries opened their doors and the Masters went around the world Teaching, but, of course, they had to be very careful in the propagation of their Teachings, because the common thinking trend is one of the crudest types, very objective, positive to the extreme. Therefore, these Masters or Teachers had to live in a secluded way, contenting themselves with contacting but few people who were chosen in a certain way, a very good way-but perhaps not in the way that a Religion would consider a good way. This certain amount of mystery which had to be incurred only served to enshroud in even more mystery the personality of the Masters.

Inasmuch as these Masters could not live the life of the Western people, they had to be very retiring and contact only certain people that could understand them. So those who could not understand them conceived them in a fantastic way, as beings so far beyond the common necessities of life that they were considered almost as Gods, or beings from other lands which occupied human bodies only because of the necessity of being in the world. That is a very easy way of conceiving the personality of the Masters, but it is so far from the Truth, such a confused mystic interpretation of the matter, that it goes beyond limits of Reality. Masters are indeed human beings. They have, of course, evolved above the ordinary human level of mankind, but they are still human beings. They still live here.

It would not be out of place to study, now, how is it that Masters can really be living upon this world and yet belong to the progeny of higher realms, so to say, even while they make use of a human body. Let us see, firsts of all, what difference there is between a Master and the common human being. This will of course be better realized if we proceed to realize the difference there is between the various degrees of Initiation.

Those of you who know, indeed, the Esoteric philosophy, the philosophy of the Monastic Centers, the philosophy of the Masters of Wisdom, know there are four kinds of Initiations. Today the Monasteries or Sanctuaries have again opened their doors, as it happens seldom in the course of history, and the Teachers of the Monasteries again go around the world as Instructors or Guides, trying to lead mankind toward higher destines, to help the world to evolve, and make individuals unfold their inner values. Thus, they make out of mankind at least a species a little more dignified and make important than it has been until now. So, let me entertain you with some important facts about these Four Esoteric Initiations.

In the first Initiation is the orderly contact through life, through experiences that we make with nature, with the world of reality at large. That is to say, it is the awaking of consciousness, so that we can live open-mindedly, with open understanding upon the planes of manifestation or the plane of the three dimensions.

This is the first initiation. When we can live in the world of the senses, and at the same time sense the three dimensions of Nature, contacting reality in its intimacy and feeling ourselves one with this common facts which we have to contact in the course of our daily experiences then we can then say that we have attained the first initiation, or the first step towards the higher aims of life.

This first step, indeed, is more important than it appears from such a simple definition, because it is not so easy to transcend or even contact the three-dimensional world. As a matter of fact, most of us human beings today sense only one dimension. We know there are three dimensions in this physico-chemical world, and we know what they are, but we live so unconcernedly, so superficially; we are so disinterested in the problems of life, so contrary to all understanding of the manifestations of nature, that we hardly sense what is beyond the end of our nose. We look straight ahead, always in a straight line, but we never sense what is outside of its course.

Indeed, we can sense the three dimensions, but we hardly use but one, living only on the “plane” dimension, without sensing in the course of our daily experiences the other two dimensions, that is depth and width. For example, you are all facing me, with yours eyes toward a single point. That is what most people mostly do in life. They focus their senses toward a single point, and let themselves ago at that. Set their senses toward a single point, and this “single point” becomes plane without any other geometrical values at all, for then, people do not exercise their senses on the three physical planes, neither do they sense them.

How many among you right here and now sense the depth below your feet? How many of you sense the space in this room? Perhaps no one. As a matter of fact, if this thought had not come to you this very moment perhaps you might not have had it during your whole lifetime.

So, people mostly live only on one plane. That is the one that attracts our attention the most. We are like butterflies going around from one flame to another, always in search of new interests and always catering to new delusions.

We should rather stay where we are; experience life, but experience it thoroughly, and in all its phases. In order to live on the three dimensions, we would have to sense the three dimensions wherever we are. For instance, we should sense the three dimensions of this room which includes us. Yet we are limited to those three dimensions, for we cannot see what is beyond this room. We can hardly hear or smell or see what is behind this room. We are, so to say, imprisoned “in” this three-dimensional room and “subject To” the conditions. That is the case of most of us. We are imprisoned, and we live according to only one dimension, because our senses are cloistered, shut off from all motives of thoroughly experiencing life. We experience only one dimension, the one straight ahead of us that attracts our attention most.

In such a case, we are not yet in the first Initiation, but in the common exoteric living of physical shortcoming and limitations, which is instinctive and scarcely of any advantage over common animal life.

The second Initiation is when we can transcend the three dimensions; when we sense that there are more than three dimensions. In other words, when we realize that within us there is a greater being than this common physical one, than this little person that hardly conceives one or two thoughts a day, this limited individual who goes on through life only to satisfy his own petty animal desires.

When we sense something greater in us, when we are capable of greater thoughts and greater attainments; capable of contacting nature and life at large in a much more significant sense, then we pass on to the second Initiation.

This second Initiation, indeed, signifies that we are already above the three dimensions, above the common physic-chemical conditions of time-space relations. In other words, we attain an activity that expresses life in a freer way. We are free of material dimensions. That doesn´t mean that we are free completely of the bindings of life, because there are many other material manifestations, the fourth dimension, the fifth, sixth, and so on, are as material as the three with which we are more familiar, but they may not respond to the five physical senses, yet they are just as material, although more subtle. They may vibrate, as is said, at a higher rate, but they are still material…Those of us who can live in other dimensions, sense that there is manifestation. We sense in fact that there is such a thing as reality that can be contacted through the medium of our human nature, but whether of the first or second Initiation, it is still material in kind, modalities, values and significance.

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