Psychology of the Masters

by Dr George Arnsby Jones

The modern science of psychology is now old enough for the contemporary student to gain a true perspective of its development from the end of the nineteenth century, when it was a mere offshoot of materialism, up to the present day, when its function increasingly appears to be a bridging science between physiology and superphysical states of consciousness. A well-known scientist once said that science ends in mysticism and certainly some idealistic thinkers have seen psychology’s true purpose as that of rationalising mysticism and spiritualising science. Certainly, a study of the progress made by the science of psychology during the present century will demonstrate where it is leading, and will often confirm the dawning realisation that the essence of True Religion is not to bolster up illogical beliefs or to placate some remote deity, but to facilitate Spiritual Realisation by some kind of psychological – or inner – process. However, both the science of psychology and the practice of a religious faith contain serious limitations insofar as Spiritual Realisation is concerned, the social religions have found mass-expression almost entirely at the moral and emotional levels, while the psychological process is not confined even to free emotion but definitely implies application of scientific laws of the mind. And it is not at the moral, emotional, and mental levels that Ultimate Spiritual Liberation is to be found.

Analytical psychology has been publicly known for about fifty-five years. Psycho-analysis, analytical therapy, psychiatry, and so forth, received more and more attention from scientific and medical authorities as the early decades of the twentieth century progressed. There was, as is expected with any departure from habitual ideas, a lot of prejudiced and ignorant abuse of these sciences to begin with, but that had mostly died down by the nineteen-thirties. Cases of shell-shock from World War I attracted medical attention to the fact that negative emotions of fear and worry could destructively affect otherwise healthy bodies. On the other hand, the fact that many physical ailments which had remained unaffected by physical treatment responded to mental treatment was also proved.

Sigmund Freud, the great Austrian founder of psychoanalysis, established a psychic basis of human causation and behaviour by careful observation of symptoms in his patients and their relief over a period of years. Freud used the term ‘libido’ to indicate what he considered to be a general impulse to activity common to all human beings; this he based upon the sex-instinct in one of its many forms, but latter psychological researchers amended this basis. Freud’s statements, not being properly understood by the mass-mind of his day, evoked a storm of hysterical protest, on the completely mistaken assumption that by ‘sex-instinct’ Dr Freud meant immorality. Freud’s work took place before a latter science had officially discarded nineteenth-century materialism, and thus his theory made energy a function of sex instead of calling sex a function of universal energy¹.

Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, orignally Freud’s two leading pupils, later added to and modified their teacher’s theories and practice. Adler based ‘libido’ on the ‘Will-to-power-and-growth’ and Jung considered it as a form of cosmic energy. Jung’s theory was more in keeping with the findings of twentieth-century physics, which said in effect that every form of existence, physical and mental, is really universal energy differentiated in one way or another. The ideal of sublimating cruder form of energy, refining them and using them beneficially instead of destructively is one important ideal that has emerged from the science of psychology and it is this ideal which validates the scientist’s statement that ‘science ends in mysticism.’ It does indeed end in a form of mysticism – even if not the highest form – because by constantly sublimating his energies and freeing himself from the snares of desire and sensual entanglements, the individual can reach some sort of mystical attainment. This much has been verified, through thousands of years, in the teachings of past mystics.

Henri Bergson, the French philosopher, developed the above-mentioned ideas still further in his concept of ‘creative evolution,’ in which he suggested a stream of universal life – a kind of universal ‘libido’ – constantly extending itself in many forms with the underlying cosmic purpose of complete sublimation in the end. This idea approaches the science of the mystic-adepts in that it sees a Spiritual Release – or sublimation – as the end of physical evolution. Since the heyday of such thinkers as Freud, Jung, and Bergson, extreme materialism as a philosophy has died, although it takes time for its death-notices to reach all areas of human thinking. Only prejudice now stands in the way of a general recognition of an underlying Spirtual Reality of life, which expresses itself universally at three main levels.

1. Spiritual
2. Mento-emotional and
3. Physical or chemical²

Human prejudices die very hard and habit-thinking on the part of the preprogrammed, computer-like human mind still forms the greater portion of mankind’s mental activity. Vested interests, built up around ancient customs and superstitions fight to the last ditch to conserve their ‘scriptural truths’ and doctrines, but Truth will always prevail in the consciousness of the aspiring individual who must know what the Inner Reality of life is. Today, it is possible to live as a practising and practical mystic in the world of men. And the higher psychology of the mystic Adepts shows that the mystical approach starts with honest self-analysis, continues with the progressive elimination of the unreal accretions of mind and matter from the absorption of the soul in the Divine Reality of the Holy Shabd. From that final point onwards, the soul is liberated and soars upwards to its True Home. It is said that a Sadhu³ created through progressive self-analysis and self-realisation, and that a Sant⁴ is created through God-Realisation.

The possibility of associating Spiritual Truth solely with mind-perceptions and excluding higher perceptions can no longer be accepted today. In fact, many psychologists have arrived at the conclusion that ‘soul-intuitions’ are ultimately more rapid and accurate in their access to Truth than mind-perceptions a truth always known to the mystic Adepts. Mind can only be a focus for truth if it is the servant of the illumined soul. The point is, of course, that sublimation of the mental powers lies first to take place, and this is achieved through the process of simran. The mystic Adepts have taught that progress towards Reality is made by learning not to identify the intrinsic self with the impermanent physical body, the desire-nature, or the mind, but only with that Divine Spark, which is the atman; theTrue Being of man.

It has been necessary to show something of the basis of modern psychology in order to demonstrate that the higher psychology of the Satgurus is eminently rational in western terms. We can term the process of extending psychology into practical mysticism as the ‘Way of Initiation,’ that mystic way by which the aspirant finds the Eternal Life within the depths of his own being, immersing himself in the Waters of Life, the audible Life-Stream, and eliminating all that is unreal and impermanent in his own nature. The Yoga of the audible Life-Stream places the Way of Initiation before all truly aspiring souls, and the psychology of the mystic Adepts is the ageless formulation of the Highest Spiritual Science by the Inner Consciousness, and ends with the method of self-realisation and God-Realisation. The Satgurus emphasise the Spiritual Path through self-forgetting devotion to God and obedience to the Spiritual Precepts. But in terms familiar to Christians, Jesus the Galilean came to save sinners; that is, to open up the Way of Initiation for those regarded as animals, and thus to win them Eternal Life.

Whoso believeth on Him (the Christ-Force or the Word) shall not perish, but shall have Everlasting Life

– that is, shall not perish after death with his impermanent desire-nature and pass round the wheel of birth and death, but be spiritually liberated into full consciousness or the Eternal.

Accordingly, the priesthood of his own time had Jesus put to death for publicly giving out an esoteric teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven lies within man. Political charges involving the Roman Empire were introduced to confuse the real issue, according to a time honoured custom when somebody has to be judicially murdered in order to ensure silence. The followers of Jesus carried on this particular teaching after His execution, and as a result a campaign of persecution was inaugurated; and it became apparent in later centuries that much of the original wisdom-doctrine of the Galilean was altered and ‘reinterpreted’ by more worldly-astute, although less spiritually-motivated, followers of the Christian Master. In fact the Gospel story of the life of Jesus can reveal a far more Spiritual Meaning and promise than traditional theology would indicate. Stripped of its literal and historic limitations the story of Jesus can be seen to be a gramatic illustration of the cosmic fact of Spiritual Evolution in aspiring human beings. This spiritual-psychological process of self-realisation is symbolically represented in the main Christian festivals:

1. The Nativity
2. The Baptism
3. The Transfiguration
4. The Crucifixion and Resurrection
5. The Ascension

In terms of the Surat Shabd Yoga the first four Christian festivals symbolise the four stages which follow one another from conversion – initiation – to illumination – realisation of True Spiritual Consciousness. The fifth festival, the Ascension, symbolises the complete Spiritual Liberation of the sou1, which begins for the atman a cycle of super-consciousness on the fifth Inner Plane of being which is far beyond normal human comprehension.

This five-fold sequence in the life of Jesus, dramatised in the five festivals of Christendom, can be likened to the drama of the soul in its Spiritual Ascent:

1. The Nativity: the first birth of soul-consciousness at the time of initiation by the mystic Adept.

2. The Baptism: the purification of the soul in the Living Waters of Shabd, the audible Life-Stream, the Word.

3. The Transfiguration: the full renunciation of the lower self and its ties of mind and matter; the knowledge of the identity of the atman.

4. The Crucifixion and the Resurrection: the dying of the lower self on the cross of causality and the appearance of the effulgent atman, which has now transcended the causal scheme of creation.

5. The Ascension: the ascent of the atman to Sach Khand, the True Home of complete Spiritual Being.

When man has truly been burned to his Inner Core by suffering or other circumstances, so as to realise that the sensual, worldly life contains bitter flaws in its apparent happiness, and that its so-called pleasures and sensations all contain the seeds of pain and sorrow, he usually begins to aspire to lead the Spiritual Life, because the moment he starts to do so he begins to find something really satisfying. If he takes the Path of the Highest Spiritual Science, he passes through the four stages outlined above. In the mystical sense of Christian Gospel he elects to follow in the steps of Christ along the road from Bethlehem to Golgothi, in other words, he reaches the

knowledge of the Son of God, unto a prefect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

5 Ephesians 4:13

To travel through these Spiritual Stages in their entirety would necessarily occupy many physical lives on Earth, for even the most spiritual of man find it difficult to pass from the sense-life of ignorance into the fullness of the stature of Christ, although perhaps that is possible to those that believe on Him, that is, follow completely in His Path. However, the Satgurus state that the Highest Spiritual Science enables the aspirant to achieve this goal in one lifetime if he obeys the Spiritual Instructions and precepts of the Living Satguru.

The primary injunction to the aspirant is,

Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

The psychology of the mystic Adepts, the teachings of the Satguru, teach that man is in essence perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect, for the soul is the Real Man, and the soul is a spark from the Infinite Source, a drop from the ocean of being. It is within the soul, the Spiritual Atman itself, that All-Consciousness resides. Nothing below the soul is lasting and of ultimate value, for even the mind itself is automatic and mechanical in its action. If it were not for the soul’s temporary sojourn in the worlds of causality, there would be no need for the instrumentality of the body and the mind. Truly, when one has tested the higher science of the mystic Adepts, he can quote the following words of Bishop Clement of Alexandria with full conviction:

Mysteries truly sacred! Pure Light! At the light of the torches the veil that covers Deity and Heaven falls away. I am holy now that I am an initiate.

*****

Kabir: The cottage of the Saint is comfortable. The village owned by the wicked man is a furnace. May fire play upon these lofty mansions. Where the Name of the Holy Lord is not heard!

Kabir

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Footnotes: 1) In this regard, it is correct to speak of sex as a function of the universal energy of the world of causality, the planes of mind and matter, which, of course, was the level of Dr Freud’s important work. Sex is that function of universal energy which is necessary for the perpetuation of life on the physical plane. 2) This division of Spiritual Reality into three main levels does not invalidate what been said about the four grand divisions of the universe in the teachings of the Masters. In fact, the two central divisions are often described as one in esoteric writings. 3) A Sadhu is technically one who has reached the second or third Inner Regions – of the five Inner Spiritual Levels. 4) A Sant is the Sanskrit term for a Saint or Sat Guru. One Who has reached the Highest – fifth – Spiritual Region.