DREAMS/PART 7
Chapter
7
CONCLUSION
Surely these experiments show very
clearly how the remembrance of our dreams becomes so chaotic and inconsequent
as it frequently is. Incidentally they also explain why some people — in whom
the ego is undeveloped and earthly desires of various kinds are strong — never
dream at all, and why many others are only now and then, under a collocation of
favourable circumstances, able to bring back a confused memory of nocturnal
adventure; and we see, further, from them that if a man wishes to reap in his
waking consciousness the benefit of what his ego may learn during sleep, it is
absolutely necessary for him to acquire control over his thoughts, to subdue
all lower passions, and to attune his mind to higher things.
If he will take the trouble to form
during waking life the habit of sustained and concentrated thought, he will
soon find that the advantage lie gains thereby is not limited to the daytime in
its action. Let him learn to hold his mind in check — to show that he is master
of that also, as well as of his lower passions; let him patiently labour to
acquire absolute control of his thoughts, so that he will always know exactly
what he is thinking about, and why, and he will find that his brain, thus
trained to listen only to the promptings of the ego, will remain quiescent when
not in use, and will decline to receive and respond to casual currents from the
surrounding ocean of thought, so that he will no longer be impervious to
influences from the less material planes, where insight is keener and judgment truer
than they can ever be down here.
The performance of a very elementary
act of magic may be of assistance to some people in this training of the
etheric part of the brain. The pictures which it evolves for itself (when the
thought-stream from outside is shut off) are certainly less likely altogether
to prevent the recollection of the ego's experiences, than is the tumultuous
rush of that thought-stream itself; so the exclusion of this turbid current,
which contains so much more evil than good, is of itself no inconsiderable step
towards the desired end. And that much may be accomplished without serious
difficulty. Let a man when he lies down to sleep think of the aura which
surrounds him; let him will strongly that the outer surface of that aura shall
become a shell to protect him from the impingement of influences from without,
and the auric matter will obey his thought; a shell will really be formed
around him, and the thought-stream will be excluded.
WARNING
Students wishing for some reason to
guard their physical bodies during sleep may be warned not to repeat the
mistake made some time ago by a worthy friend who took a great deal of trouble
to surround himself with a specially impenetrable shell on a certain occasion,
but made it of astral instead of etheric matter, and consequently took it away
with him when he left his physical body! Naturally the result was that his
physical body was left entirely unprotected, while he himself floated about all
night enclosed in triple armour, absolutely incapable of sending out a single
vibration to help anybody, or of being helped or beneficially influenced by any
loving thoughts which may have been directed towards him by teachers or
friends. [ From C. W. Leadbeater's The Hidden Side of Things].
Another point very strongly brought
out in our further investigations is the immense importance of the last thought
in a man's mind as he sinks to sleep. This is a consideration which never
occurs to the vast majority of people at all, yet it affects them physically,
mentally, and morally.
We have seen how passive and how
easily influenced man is during sleep; if he enters that state with his thought
fixed upon high and holy things, he thereby draws round him the elementals
created by like thought in others; his rest is peaceful, his mind open to
impressions from above and closed to those from below, for he has set it
working in the right direction. If, on the contrary, he falls asleep with
impure and earthly thoughts floating through his brain, he attracts to himself
all the gross and evil creatures who come near him, while his sleep is troubled
by the wild surgings of passion and desire which render him blind to the
sights, deaf to the sounds, that come from higher planes.
All earnest Theosophists should
therefore make a special point of raising their thoughts to the loftiest level
of which they are capable before allowing themselves to sink into slumber. For
remember, through what seem at first but the portals of dream, entrance may
perchance presently be gained into those grander realms where alone true vision
is possible.
If one guides his soul persistently
upward, its inner senses will at last begin to unfold; the light within the
shrine will burn brighter and brighter, until at last the full continuous
consciousness comes, and then he will dream no more. To lie down to sleep will
no longer mean for him to sink into oblivion, but simply to step forth radiant,
rejoicing, strong, into that fuller, nobler life where fatigue can never come —
where the soul is always learning, even though all his time be spent in
service; for the service is that of the great Masters of Wisdom, and the
glorious task They set before him is to help ever to the fullest limit of his
power in Their never-ceasing work for the aiding and the guidance of the
evolution of humanity.
END OF THIS BOOK
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