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Enlightenment and the Age of Aquarius

The future world requires the enlightenment of
consciousness and not the muttering of lofty expressions. ¹

The Buddha, the Lord of Light, the "Enlightened One" devoted his life to finding the cause and cure for the suffering he saw extent everywhere he looked. As a result of his life-long, dedicated purpose; his continued and one-pointed experimentation and his great and powerful ability to penetrate into a wisdom beyond the ordinary, he understood and taught that it is enlightenment that brings the end of suffering.

As far back, as some say, 10,000 B.C.E., the Indian sage Patanjali wrote down a set of teachings, the Yoga Sutras, which up until his time had been given orally by Spiritual Teachers to their students. Within this set of teachings, Patanjali, like the Buddha, gave us a detailed and comprehensive account of how the thoughts and feelings with which individuals normally identify trap them in misconceptions about themselves and the world, causing pain and suffering. He recorded a spiritual discipline, known as "Raja Yoga," which when practiced can transform consciousness and allow the individual to attain union with the "Kingly Soul"—that aspect of the higher mind that relates the individual to the fifth realm of consciousness.

In one of the 55 sutras of "The Steps to Union," as translated and paraphrased for the Western mind from the original Sanskrit by the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul and given to Alice Bailey,² Patanjali indicates that "when the means of Yoga have been steadily practiced and when impurity has been overcome, enlightenment takes place leading up to full illumination." When practice, purification, discrimination and discernment are part of the every day life of the individual, then the Soul or the thinker brings about the liberating process of enlightenment. Defined as "the light in the head, which is at first but a spark," enlightenment "is fanned to a flame, which illumines all things and is fed constantly from above"—from the plane of Soul.

Enlightenment is the major attribute of the Soul—the inner microcosmic life-giving sun, which is the source and sustenance of each individual. Just as surely as the outer, physical sun provides the vital energy that sustains the life of form, so does the Soul radiate vital energy to the inner life, which grows consciousness and after time cannot help but impact and eventually transform the outer life.

The approach or "touch" of enlightenment is effected through the mind and clear, focused, meditative thinking are the means by which to arrive at this state of full clarity, where life is seen and known truly as it is—devoid of shadows or veils. For just as the outer physical sun shines brightly in spite of closed doors and windows, so too does the Soul shine brilliantly on its own plane. But it is only as the mind, after repeated and continued attempts begins to create a path of light leading to the higher plane of mind that the Soul is eventually contacted. Only after many long years of dedicated practice is the mind able to hold itself steady, withstand the effulgent light and able to receive the touch of enlightenment from the plane of the Soul. The indisputable value of lighted thinking in this process is emphasized in the Agni Yoga Book, Leaves of Morya's Garden (Illumination) which asserts that it is "not words, but the runners of thought [which] weave the aura." (II:VI:9)

From the wisdom of the Native American, to the esoteric wisdom of the Ageless Wisdom, we know that there has never been a period in our planetary history in which opportunity has loomed so large, wherein so much spiritual light can be contacted and utilized by humanity.

This evolving Age of Aquarius facilitates this process of enlightenment because the energies are such that spirit and matter can now be related; the existing cleavages during the past Piscean Age, such as for example the split between religion and science and the mind and the Soul will increasingly be offset and healed, bringing about unity and therefore harmony. It is this eventual union between the inner essence and the outer tangible form that will provide the opportunity for the enlightenment and restoration of humanity to its original high spiritual state. However, this cannot happen unless spiritually aware individuals dedicate themselves to this path of light and identifying themselves with the nature of the Soul, form a channel through which the Soul can enlighten the individual, the group and humanity as a whole.

¹ Signs of Agni Yoga, II:VI:9, Agni Yoga Society.
² These Yoga Sutras are contained within the book, The Light of the Soul, authored by Alice A. Bailey and published by the Lucis Publishing Company.