We are coming towards the end of the struggle to master the Paramita virtues. Recognizing that all the virtues are interdependent and have to be practised simultaneously, we are now nearing the fruition of that attempt to concentrate without which no progress would so far have been made. On this Paramita Path, the further we go the harder the effort that is needed; and we are warned that the full cultivation of Dhyana needs the greatest effort on our part.

This Paramita comes after the development of "dauntless energy," for we come to a struggle so difficult that we need in full measure courage and energy, active and rigidly defensive. We can perhaps sense the difficulty if we realize here and now that the hardest thing we have to control is our mind and thoughts, and Dhyana has to do with the control of thoughts. Our thoughts pertain sometimes to the lower self and sometimes to the higher Self. But there is a SELF which is greater still, for it is the Universal SELF. Contemplation on this SELF carries the ascetic who practises it far above this plane of sensuous perception and out of the world of matter. To attain to Dhyana, we are told, is to become like a transparent alabaster vase through which shines forth the flame of Prajna that burns within. It is the flame of Wisdom-Compassion that radiates from Atma, the SELF, the Supreme Spirit.

We are asked to become "ALL-THOUGHT" and yet exile all thoughts out from our Soul. That is our difficulty. How can we retain our individuality and at the same time feel ourselves "ALL-THOUGHT"?

Just as we struggled while passing through the Dana gate to feel the unity of all life in ourselves, so here we are trying to perform the same feat with regard to thoughts. We are trying to reach Paramartha—"self-evident consciousness which we read about in the First Fundamental Proposition is hard to understand. Ordinary concentration-contemplation-meditation should help us to see that here we have a focal point of attention which reflects those conditions of the higher world that are beyond our ken. We fail when we try to put our experience on that plane into words of this plane, that is, words which embody our own personal experience rather than the actual experience undergone at the higher stage. By effort, repeated effort, we have the assurance of Krishna that we shall reach that stage.

We need to distinguish between ordinary knowledge and pure knowledge or knowledge in itself, things as they are and not as they appear. No fraction of our own ideas should be allowed to interfere with the reflection or shining outward of the pure light within. Therefore we are told to make hard our soul "against the snares of Self."

The words "ceaseless contemplation" are mantramic when thought about. They remind us of Shiva, "the Spirit of limitless contemplation," "the Universal Spiritual Essence of Nature." "The adept sees and feels and lives in the very source of all fundamental truths," which is the Spirit of Shiva, the Great Contemplator, the Patron of all Yogis.

"Absorbed in the absolute self-unconsciousness of physical Self, plunged in the depths of true Being, which is no being but eternal, universal Life, his whole form as immovable and white as the eternal summits of snow in Kailasa where he sits, above care, above sorrow, above sin and worldliness, a mendicant, a sage, a healer, the King of Kings, the Yogi of Yogis," such is the ideal Shiva of Yoga Shastras, the culmination of Spiritual Wisdom.

This reminds us of the Solitary Watcher as described in The Secret Doctrine (I, 207-8).

The alabaster vase which we are, and which was created by us through countless births, must be pure in order that the glorious light within may shine outwardly. Any taint or blemish, any personal thought, feeling or act, affects the whiteness and transparency of that vase. But the vase must be able to withstand the force of ALL-THOUGHT, must be porous to it. The idea of strength-energy comes in here, the dauntless energy that preserves the stability of the vase. To change the analogy, the Divine Wisdom we have attained must, like a stream, be poured forth into another bed, must be used for the service of others, and not be kept for oneself. This is the porous quality of the vase and it is only possible to achieve it when Dana is practised in full measure throughout the Path.

We are now at the very beginning of what will blossom countless ages hence into such a condition.

Since truth is a multifaced jewel, the facets of which it is impossible to perceive all at once; and since, again, no two men, however anxious to discern truth, can see even one of those facets alike, what can be done to help them to perceive it? As physical man, limited and trammelled from every side by illusions, cannot reach truth by the light of his terrestrial perceptions, we say—develop in you the inner knowledge. From the time when the Delphic oracle said to the enquirer "Man, know thyself," no greater or more important truth was ever taught. Without such perception, man will remain ever blind to even many a relative, let alone absolute, truth. Man has to know himself, i.e., acquire the inner perceptions which never deceive, before he can master any absolute truth. Absolute truth is the symbol of Eternity, and no finite mind can ever grasp the eternal, hence, no truth in its fulness can ever dawn upon it. To reach the state during which man sees and senses it, we have to paralyze the senses of the external man of clay. This is a difficult task, we may be told, and most people will, at this rate, prefer to remain satisfied with relative truths, no doubt. But to approach even terrestrial truths requires, first of all, love of truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow.

—H.P.B.