|
Agni Yoga (1929) - 386:
386. Psychic energy needs exercising, and you see how challenging is its proper application. Agni Yoga (1929) - 551:
For a true understanding of psychic energy, one must first develop attentiveness. It is useful, therefore, for the teacher to ask unexpected questions, to request descriptions of occurrences, and to require the keeping of daily notes. It is known that even a very sluggish attentiveness will awaken through such exercising. The inattentive, the unobservant, cannot even notice the development of psychic energy. The advice to observe is the advice of a friend, for the future demands attentiveness. Hierarchy (1931) - 89:
89. When your consciousness prompts you to the necessity of possessing the constant Image of the Lord, retire to a quiet place and direct your sight upon the chosen Image. But remember, one must decide irrevocably, because in case of treason the constant Image will be a constant reproach. After gazing intensely upon the Image, close your eyes and transmit it to the third dye. Exercising thus you will attain a vivid Image, and you will feel a special intensified tremor of the heart. Soon the Image of the Lord will remain inseparably with you. You can test yourself before the sun, and you will still see the Lord before you, sometimes without color, but afterward vividly and even in action. Your prayer will lose the need of words and only the tremor of the heart will suffuse your understanding. Thus one may reach in life much that is useful, but the consciousness must be in conformity with it. Heart (1932) - 30:
30. Why do so many experiments remain without result? First of all, on account of impatience and the lack of desire to assume responsibility. Sometimes We are reproached that help did not come in time. But instead of a reproach, the one who asked should remember how prematurely he deviated or considered the load excessive. We deplore it greatly when we see faint-hearted deviations or an unwillingness to place oneself on the edge of a precipice. But how to strain the energy if not by an extreme situation? Such situations ought only to be considered not as the end, but as the beginning. Likewise, exercising patience, it is useful to acquire a conception of beginning. For some, everything is definitely an end, but for Our pupils everything is a beginning. Heart (1932) - 327:
327. Exercising attention is a condition of observation of the signs of the Subtle World. Attention can be developed by various means. In a symphony one can choose and follow one voice, or one can identify several melodies simultaneously. It is also useful to establish the sonance of silence. Silence has many delicate voices, and to observe their rhythm means to come closer to the Subtle World. But, in studying silence it is instructive to recognize the dissonance of each physical intrusion. One cannot find a better example than the comparison of a physical sound with the Subtle World. And such an antithesis is also observed in the sphere of the sense of smell. Yet this quality is developed much more rarely! If smell appears as a form of nourishment in the Subtle World, it is understood that in the physical world it is not so highly developed. Of course, as you have noticed, the Subtle World is full of odors. The higher, the more perfect they are. But the lower strata are full of decomposition. If disincarnated beings are delayed in the lower strata, they carry around themselves the shell of decomposition; therefore, during life it is very useful to get accustomed to the flight into the higher strata. AUM (1936) - 351:
351. Exercising the energy is useful; each testing awakens in it a new quality. It is especially necessary to keep this in mind, for not so long ago I spoke about fatigue under the pressure of the energy. But one should not deduce from the possibility of fatigue that experiments are undesirable. It is possible to exercise the energy without falling into a state of weariness. It also needs exercising as does all that exists. Through rational exercise fatigue is diminished. Each energy must be tested in action. Even muscles must be exercised; thus people can continually awaken forces dormant in themselves. One should understand such an awakening as the duty of man before the higher worlds. The reasons are many why energies can remain in a somnolent state. They can be enumerated beginning with karmic effects. But usually people's consciousness slumbers through indolence. Such a quality is called the featherbed of evil. The best possibilities are not transformed into life when the gaze is heavy laden with the veil of laziness. One need search for no excuse when body and spirit droop from indolence.
|