Some Notes on the Diary Form

by Robert Leverant

These are some notes on the diary form. They were written in preparation for a discussion of the form with new initiates. The diary form was designed by a Conscious Entity, Who in life was an accountant, to help others reach His level. In other words: the diary form is an aid to help us live in accordance with the Divine Plan until we become Conscious Co-Workers of the Divine Plan.

It operates on two useful qualities of the mind: hindsight and foresight. How often we wish that we had another chance or say, ‘If only I had known.’ The diary form gives us this opportunity. By sincerely filling out the form, we see in the present – foresight – that the past is continually recreating itself, giving us an opportunity to change – hindsight.

The wonder of it is that most of us really don’t want to change, and yet, by filling out the form and meditating, we do.
This takes to task another beneficial quality of a trained mind: analysis, a word whose connotation means to separate, to sort out. Many of us have done experiments in chemistry classes where we analysed or differentiated a substance, sometimes an unknown one. We did this by accurately and creatively following an established procedure, and making notes of the same on a form or in a journal.

The form we are to use for our experiment is one which enables us to analyse or separate a very subtle substance, the Soul, from two grosser substances – the mind and the body. As we proceed, two qualities or characteristics of the Soul emerge: Light and Sound.

The Soul is called the – True – Self, and the form is called a Diary for self-introspection. The word introspection tells us that the laboratory for our experiments is ourselves, our own minds.

The words experiment, analysis, etc., are scientific or normative words. They are value free, and this is the spirit of the form, our inquiry, and our practise which is called the Divine Science of the Soul.

Like any science, our study rests upon some hypotheses; ours are two: that there is a God, and that He can be seen by one and all.

The form, which helps us validate these hypotheses, has for its column heading observe and failures. The word observe suggests that we watch with an open or objective or detached mind. Just note. That’s all.

Nowhere does it say that we should feel guilty or get discouraged, or take credit when we don’t fail, or any other such attitude which, out of masochism or pride or whatever, we can use with our own propensities to deter us from our goal of self-knowledge.

The form then is to show us who we are, for who we are is where we are at any given moment in time.

Master:

It is not what a man is doing, but what he is thinking.

So we note the failures, or where in our experiment we did not use our foresight gained from the previous day.

After a while, the voice which notes at night begins to speak in the day when the same situation comes up. This voice some call Conscience. The more we listen to it, the stronger it becomes. It too is a value free voice. It does not point with a reproachful finger or in hot and emotionally charged words, which is a clue to knowing when it is speaking and not our egos. In mystical literature this voice is called The Witness or The Watcher. It watches and takes in our whole melodrama, noting everything. It is a valuable friend whose acquaintance we make by filling in the form accurately and regularly.

The trait headings on the form deal with the five attachments, or the points where the soul is identified with or lost in the body and mind. Below these there is a heading to note failures in selfless service, and below this a heading to note the time put in for meditation. It is natural for these two to be together as they are linked, are different sides of the same coin, so to speak.

Master has written at length on the five attachments. In time we may see that marking off one, leads us to see its connectedness with another trait. Why is this? They all stem from one common cause: the falling of our attention from Simran or sweet remembrance. Thus, each is simply a different road away from Love. What may be helpful to remember is that these traits are called virtues in Christian literature. The root of the word virtue is ‘vir,’ which is Latin for ‘man.’

This insight gives us another aspect of the form: man-making, which is how Master describes His work with us. He says finding God is very easy, becoming a man very difficult.

Master’s task is made more difficult by the times, in that today there is a breakdown in the system of education.

The Indians say there are three relationships to be revered in life: our parents who brought us into the world and reared us; our teachers who made us from animals into men; and the Saints Who take us from the man state into Godhood.

Through the form, Master is making us into men, or fulfilling the task that in other times was done by teachers. As we fill it out and progress, we can see He is also doing the work of rearing us.

All this He has to do before He can do His real work, His God-appointed or commissioned task, of guiding us on the Inner Planes back Home.

Who is this form – which is called a diary denoting that it is filled out daily and at night – for? For us or for Him?

I would say it is for us. Its purpose is to make us responsible for ourselves, so we can stand on our own two legs, not His. We become responsible by becoming conscious and accepting of who we are. Until we see we have an option, we are unable to turn the other cheek or do something differently than before. To do this, it is essential to continually take stock, to self-analyse, which are prerequisites for self-surrender.

There is enough written on the necessity of our being one, so that our thoughts and words and acts all agree. And on the form there are separate headings for thought, word, and deed under each trait to be observed.

The attitude of mind with which we fill out the form is very important. I find that the physical state of my diary form reflects my attitude – if it is sloppy, inconsistent, disorderly, bent every which way, etc. In other words, the physical appearance shows everything.

If we take the form as being something done solely for the Master, something to be sent to India every four months, we do two things which I would say are very harmful to our growth. One is that we forget that Master is not India – that He is here right now, and that this is not a correspondence course which, ipso facto, would end at His passing on. Receptivity is the key.

The second danger is that we become technicians or form-filler-outers, and no more. This is a very creative study involving experimentation which is a practise of inspiration upon a lawful base.

Such trial and error work is joyful. If we forget this, if we allow ourselves to be mere technicians, life becomes dull, less interesting, and our practise becomes rigid, full of oughts and shoulds and have-tos and Master says.

We lose our common sense, Inner Requiredness, and get out of touch with the spirit of the teachings, the purport of the form which is to help us to stay alive and growing in the living present, the here and now, going jolly.

Master advises us to work on one trait at a time, calling them weeds to be weeded out and not watered. So we are all gardeners. The difference between His method and that of modern psychology is profound. Modern psychology teaches us how to express these traits. Master teaches us how to uproot them. Both agree repressing these traits is harmful.

There is a story which some of you may know. If you do, think about how it applies to yourselves, that is, how with in your own means and personality, you can overcome your own limitations.

There was a woman who could not read or write. Because of this she did not fill out the forms. She was neither seeing anything nor hearing anything. She went to Master quite despondent.

He asked her,

Are you filling out the forms?

The woman was really caught in a mental bind. How could she do this? She began to cry.

Someone said to Master,

She can’t read or write.

Master said,

Fill out the forms.

To all appearances or from the level of individual mind, if Master understood He was asking the impossible and was being very cruel.

From the tour some of you may have realised Master’s answers are on two levels: One, to the mind where it sometimes makes no sense at all, thereby short-circuiting the mind, and the other, a higher understanding pertinent to the asker.

The woman went home. And for the first time, she took the form seriously, as something holy, which it is, for the form makes us whole or one, and she became creative. It is said that night she took the form and lit candles around it, and reflected on her day, and then she prayed. The next morning in her meditation she saw Master’s Radiant Form inside.

One word of caution from my own experience: when the form goes, everything goes. Like all practices belief is first, and when we do not believe, the world we believed in vanishes. And the section at the side of the form – What do you see inside? What do you hear? What difficulties do you have in meditation? How far are you withdrawn from the body? – become meaningless. And each day we put off filling in the form makes our journey longer and longer, makes going back Home harder and harder.