The Priest's Craft: the inner side

I would like to suggest that most of you do not put enough meaning in to what you are saying during the Mass. You have the habit of saying things in a rather perfunctory and formal way, not putting much activity of the mind behind what you say. The consequence of this is that during the whole of the service one misses something which should be there. I know that in your case it is partly due to the fact that you are using a foreign language [English: the audience consisted of Dutch priests in training], and one cannot avoid a certain amount of what one may call "stickiness", of lagging back, when the people are not familiar with the language they are using. It is, of course, not easy for them to throw themselves with great flexibility into the meaning of what is being said. But apart from this, you should be able to put much more realization than you do of your thought and feeling into the words you are using.

We will take the gloria in excelsis and just say it. You have here a series of different sentiments of an uplifting nature, and in order that they may be realized satisfactorily, you need to have a certain conception of things. I have been speaking to our people here a good deal on this subject. It is natural to man to express himself in praise and adoration of the deity.

Of course, there are a great many people to whom the idea of God means nothing at all. Either they associate Him with theological arguments, or with teachings of their childhood when He was held over them as a kind of menace; but few people, I am afraid, have a realization of God as a living power, and I do not think there is any better way of getting that experience than through the services of the Church. There you have a way of getting that living realization.

Working with Aura

Most of us here of course approach these matters from the Theosophica1 point of view, and you will be able better to grasp what I am saying if you approach the subject in terms of the aura.

Most people think that they end here, at the periphery of the physical body; but the man who has practiced a little Yoga, and has tried to make the aura a reality to him, who thinks of the aura as responsible for the work he does and for the influences he sends out into the world, comes to realize himself definitely as a sphere or influence; he realizes that there is something radiating from him all the time, and as he goes through his work in the world, he comes to think of himself instinctively and definitely as carrying everywhere with him this body of influence.

You will have heard how, when a person becomes blind, he develops a greater sensitiveness of touch. That is because the organ of touch is transferred from the skin to the periphery of the aura, and he will instinctively move out of the way of an obstacle.

You know that when people make very rapid progress in spiritual things their aura becomes extended. The aura of the Lord Buddha, we are told, extended from three miles, while that of the "King" encompasses the world; or, expressing it from another point of view, we may say that sphere of the King's consciousness extends over the hole world.

If you follow up that line of reasoning, you can think of the consciousness of the Logos as extending over the whole of His system. And we are, each one of us, in very close touch with that conciousncss, so that there is a reaction in that consciousness -- in the consciousness of God -- immediately to every thought, to every emotion, to everything that takes place within us; and every activity of our consciousness finds its immediate response in the consciousness of God.

You become aware of that, I think, at certain important moments in the Church services.

I wonder how many people have that experience, -- when you feel that force showering down upon you sometimes like a great blaze of power, sometimes shimmering down like a beautiful soft rain. You notice this response of some power outside of you, some wave of power flowing and raining down upon you; and that is the response from the consciousness of God.

Now you will find that the work divides itself naturally and under two heads -- certain devotions turned towards God, the Logos, and another class of service in which you are dealing less directly with the power of the Logos, but more with the specialized power of the Christ through the Host. In Vespers, for instance, and in the early part of the Eucharist, from the Asperges to the Gradual, you are dealing more directly with the consciousness of the Logos. Now when you get the reaction from the power of the Logos, it is a much more impersonal thing, and the curious point one remarks is that you cannot use it so well for specific purposes, as you can that power which comes from the Christ. This you can specialize for your purpose, and it will follow very well. You can use it for helping people in difficulties, perplexities, and for healing and so on. You can direct the force of the Logos, but not to the same extent.

Realization of God

We have gradually to sensitize to this reaction, and as we do this, God becomes less of a theological or intellectual idea, and more of a living reality; so that there comes a time when you can really say that you have a love for God -- which I suppose very few in these days I can say.

Possibly the last generation, and our forefathers, could say this, but to-day there are few who have a definite feeling of love for God because we realize very little about Him. Today it is the fashion to think very little of the cosmic God outside us, but only to recognize Him as God in our fellow man -- as, of course, He is in everybody -- but it a mistake to forget that He exists outside us, as well as within all of us. It is as well to recognize that there is the God without and the God within, if we wish to make a balanced and orderly progress the spiritual life.

The understanding of our liturgy depends rather on the degree to which we have realized all this.

You remember that when the Christ was asked what was the greatest commandment, He replied, "First Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy strength." and then "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as Thyself". Of course, the modern Theosophist would put the second one first (he knows more about it than Christ did!). He thinks it is more important to love one's neighbor. But the point is that you cannot love him in the real sense until you have discovered the divinity within him.

You can have all sorts of emotional impulses towards your neighbor, but your love for him really springs from this recognition of the divinity within him. It is the God in you responding to the God within him. That is the only real basis for love between people. We have plenty of emotional experience of love but before we attain to that; it comes and goes in great surges or waves, but the real love, which we call buddhi, does not come and go; it is like a great sun steadily shining, always glowing, without fluctuation.

It does not come and go in surges like the emotional impulses. Therefore, if you examine the facts, you will see that the injunction of our Lord was quite right; that first you have to realize this great love for God, and then you will love your neighbor as yourself.

I think you need first to realize that before you can grasp all that is in the Liturgy. I think that if God is for you only an intellectual conception, you cannot make much out of the liturgy. When you say "Glory to God in the Highest", have you had any experience of the immense satisfaction of merging yourself in the larger consciousness of God, when the consciousness within you, imprisoned within you, reaches up and strives to unite with the consciousness of the God outside you? It is a natural thing that we should want to give praise and glory to God, to unite our consciousness with His, that the human consciousness should reach up in the endeavor to unite with the larger consciousness.

Then you turn your thought outward, and send out to men of goodwill (because only it you have goodwill can you be peaceful) as much as they will be able to receive, the benediction of peace.

"We bless Thee, we worship Thee"-- we recognize the greatness of God in relation to ourselves "We glorify Thee" -- we allow the divine life in us to shine out to the greater life outside.

"We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory." -- we lift up ourselves in recognition of that glory.

Those words stamp all this passage as reflecting the First Ray aspect, and you can put an enormous amount of power into these words if you think of their real meaning -- the recognition of the kingship, the magnificence and the might of God.

You can lift up the whole congregation into that source of power, the strength of God Himself.

You can if you wish, work through the First Ray center of the church, raising not only yourself, but the whole congregation with you, into the omnipotence of God. You think of the divine life outside of us, which is so much greater than anything we have in our own consciousness. Now we will practice it.

You notice the difference when you say it with meaning as you have just done. Do you not get an impression as of a rain of power coming down on the top of the head? Do you not feel a hush of holiness in the church as the result of saying that? It is the response that comes from outside. You should go through the whole service in that way.

In the next paragraph you turn to the Second Aspect of the Logos: "O Lord Christ, alone-born of the Father ". Those words were originally put in, I suppose, for some theological purpose. They mean that there is One Life, which is the Father's life. Then it gives a different aspect; you notice a change: "O Lord God Indwelling Light." Here your outlook is changed; you have been thinking of the life without, and here you think of the life and light which dwells within the human heart. You become a mystic for the moment, and think of "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world". You think as strongly as you can of the divine life which has imprisoned itself in you.

"Son of the Father, Whose wisdom mightily and sweetly ordereth all things". There you have the Second Aspect. I always put myself into the ashram of the Master K.H. at this part, but if you do that you must always be careful not to go with a demand to the Master, with an idea of pulling Him down to you, of getting Him to do something for you. But you may take the wisdom aspect of yourself , unite that with the accumulation of wisdom in the church, and offer that to the Master. You should have the attitude of giving, the attitude of pouring forth our life and our wisdom as an offering to the Christ.

"Thou Whose strength upholdeth and sustaineth all creation ". Here you can think of the Master M., if you like, and send up a great blaze of strength from yourself and the congregation to Him for His service.

"Thou Whose beauty shineth through the whole universe, unveil Thy glory." You take the idea of beauty, you lift up your consciousness in the sense of splendor, and offer it with the prayer that the beauty and splendor of God may be revealed. I generally think of the Master R. when saying these words.

In the last paragraph we are addressing the Christ, as you usually do whenever at the end of passages you have ascriptions to the Holy Trinity. You wrap it up, as it were, send it up as an offering, gathered together as a tribute to the higher worlds before the Throne. All unselfish thought, every thought of feeling which is not colored by self-interest or selfishness, goes up into that spiritual reservoir which, we are told, exists for the helping of the world.

Thus the unselfish thought sent up in Church worship flows into that reservoir and is thus used. Having lifted your consciousness and attained a kind of ecstasy, you finally merge your thought of the Second and Third into the First Aspect of the Trinity.