55. Pride

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LV

The Final Frontier:

Pride, Vanity, & Hubris

Lecture based Questions:

1. Draw or describe one of your helpers.

How about honoring someone who helped you to reduce your pride? Even apparent enemies can be helpers.

2. Why don’t we lose pride early in our spiritual journey?

Pride is part of the stuff we are made of. Because it is part of the Mental Body, it dies with the Mental Body at the 5DI. It is the low end of a universal energy, which the Hierarchy calls the accretion of lower existence. The high end of this energy is confidence and memory. We never can take things for granted or feel entitled to our blessings.

3. What is the greatest danger of hubris as we gain personal power?

Hubris is a combination of believing that you know better than other people, a manic feeling, and the use of will force. It creates destruction in our lives and disturbs the correct order. The more personal power you have the more danger there is to feel proud of it. The last thing you want to do is use personal power, because to use it (with will force) is to spend it, which postpones your next initiation, since you need a certain accumulation of personal power for each initiation.

4. What does pride look like in the Astral World?

Sometimes prideful people make their Astral Bodies very tall so that they can look down on people. Sometimes they get very big heads. It can also look like a black stain on the back between the shoulder blades.

In the Mental World?

It exits as thought forms in the aura. The color of these are an acid-green with dirty yellow. It smells bad like flatulence. It can also look like a crust (hard, thick, and sometimes spiky) on the perimeter of the aura. Elementals that feed off of this energy hang around the person.

5. Do angels have pride?

Yes until they reach the initiation that would be equivalent to our 5DI. They deal with the same universal energies that we do. If you have a Mental Body, then you deal with the issue of pride. There are certain functions that angels must do at the Mental Dimension, and while they are using a Mental Body, they have all challenges that go with that body.

6. How does vanity or pride hamper us at our spiritual levels?

Pride creates negative karma, gives rise to conflicts with other people, makes us feel ungrateful. When you faith is gone, you are believing in yourself, which is a dangerous state of mind. It leaves you vulnerable to attack. Also, it throws up a barrier to clairvoyance. It makes you self-conscious. If your are watching yourself, can’t have the outgoing perspective that is necessary for clear perception.

7. Meditation Exercise: Tea with My Soul

The soul is already awake much of the time, but at our stage of evolution, its consciousness is dim compared to its future capacity at the 6DI. Mostly, it exists in a dreaming state as it observes and records our expressions of incarnation and lower body adventures. All the wisdom of the ages is accessible through portals to the soul level of consciousness.

• Envision the golden waterfall of Divine Light pouring into the top of your head or your crown chakra. Also, envision a beautiful golden flower at the ridge of your forehead. These are your conduits to the Soulic Region and should be maintained constantly (at least that is what we strive for).

• Look up at the golden waterfall. It falls from so high up that you cannot see where it comes from.

• Imagine yourself as separate from your body. You can observe the golden waterfall and flower at the top of your body.

• You are very small and you stand at the foot of this golden waterfall. A magical boat appears before you. Step into it and sit down.

• The boat lifts up and along the waterfall, carrying you high into the unknown. It gains speed until it is rising very fast—faster than a roller coaster. You ascend beyond any height you can imagine.

• Finally, the boat slows down and stops. You have arrived at a country of exquisite beauty, color, and light. It is the world the way that you wish it were, only a million times more wonderful, bright, comfortable, pleasurable, and sweet. Welcome home.

• The boat transforms into a carriage. It conveys you through this delightful area to a glorious castle. It stops, you get out, and knock on the door.

• Two beautiful children open the door and let you in. They fill you with feelings of peacefulness and love. They introduce themselves as they make you comfortable in their home. They are the biune spirits that you call your soul and soul-opposite. They are very excited to meet you and know all about your life experiences.

• If you have a question to ask, this is the time to do it.

===

Ego, Identity, and Self-Image

Were Fishing In the Middle of a Lake…

Ego said, “Darn! I broke my line! I’ll go get another one.”

He stood up in the boat, walked painstakingly across the lake, got the fishing line from the car, and walked back to the boat. Self-Image was astounded. He flushed with excitement. Was he in the presence of a saint? He was speechless.

They fished some more without comment.

Identity said, “Oh, phooey! my bait just fell overboard! I have some more in the car. Be right back.”

He got up, walked carefully across the lake, retrieved the bait, and walked back to the boat. Self-Image really couldn’t take this. He had always considered himself to be superior over Identity. And come to think of it, Ego couldn’t be so saintly—he had bad habits all over the place. Self-Image thought that he also must be able to walk on the water if these two Bozos could do it. He snagged his his fishing hook on a rock at the bottom of the lake and tugged until the line broke.

“Oops! There goes my hook! No matter! I’ll just walk over to the car and get another one!”

Ego piped up, “I have a spare if you don’t want to bother.”

“No no. I don’t mind.”

Self-Image stood up carefully. He steeled his nerve. He stepped slowly out onto the surface of the water. I can do it I can do it I can do it. He leaned forward.

He fell and sank with a great splash, flailing, sputtering.

The other two stared at him open-mouthed. Identity turned to Ego with a quizzical look.

“Didn’t he know where the stones were?”

===

A dog was about to swim across a river. A scorpion wanted to cross, too.

“Let me ride on your back and I’ll pay you handsomely when I get home,” said the scorpion.

“No. You might sting me and then we would both drown,” said the dog.

“I swear I would not do such a stupid thing. What do you think I am, suicidal?”

“Well, okay then.”

It was a wide river and about half way across the scorpion got excited. Instinct kicked in and he stung the dog.

“How could you do that? I’m dying and now you’ll die too! You promised you could control yourself!”

The scorpion shrugged.

“It’s what I do.”

===

Pride is the source of much foolishness. It prevents caution. It obstructs courtesy. It creates bad energy between yourself and others. It turns away healing and love. It replaces faith. It forgets gratitude. It expends personal power. It boils down to this: if you are busy watching yourself, you cannot watch where you are going.

Every Ray has its point of pride: First Ray—Control & Property, Second Ray—Clever & Attractive, Third Ray—Irreverent & Challenging, Fourth Ray—Exhibitionism & Mimicking, Fifth Ray—Intelligent & With Answers, Sixth Ray—Service & Being Loved, Seventh Ray—Organized & Structured.

If there were no one else in the world for you to compare against your worth or your accomplishments, it would still be there. It is made up of the composite of our memories. It constantly weighs the present against the past. It urges us to evaluate ourselves, to promote ourselves, to find validation and encouragement. Elementals have it, plants have it, animals have it too.

Pride is the lowest form of a universal, intelligent energy (such as anger-red energy and fear-adrenaline energy). The Hierarchy calls it the accretion of lower existence. It builds up around a seed atom and manifests as identity. Let us use the metaphor of walking through a muddy area. As we step in it, it builds up on our feet and makes them seem larger than they actually are. If we slip and fall in it, it sticks to us and our clothing. It clings everywhere. If we really get covered in it, we become unrecognizable. In this way, events cling to us as we pass through lifetimes and Astral and Mental involvement. You could say that it is the elemental that you consider to be your personality, and in a way it is, although you must keep in mind that you are more than your personality.

As with all universal energies, we are most successful when we farm and purify the energy in our auras on a daily basis. To repress the energy is to invite failure and illness. It is easy to seek out and to treat. Wherever we have fallen is where pride needs to be transformed in Divine Light into faith. When confidence in focused on the Infinite Source, floodgates of creative energy are opened and miracles can occur. To monitor the self against vanity is to simply watch the thought process and the point of view. When the world is perceived through simple eyes, the danger is abated. When we impose opinions and will force on any subject, the danger is present.

In its most positive form, we call it confidence. It gives us assurance that we can succeed. We can call on the memory of past success and move ahead with what we must do. Through meditation we can control the quality of this energy and maintain a fine grade of non-fatuous self-image.

The challenge is greatest after the Fourth Degree of Initiation. When personal power is high and the ego is still intact, there are armies of mischief makers who would love to tempt such a one to expend personal power for any small or large manipulation. The Arhat must learn to act indirectly.

Up until the Fifth Degree of Initiation, the accretion is still with us. When the Mental Body dies, the coating of identity is sloughed off with it. Until then, it is a constant process for the spiritual ascendant to purify and maintain a well-groomed self-image that supports spiritual success and generates good energy.

Fun Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arhat

http://www.robhand.com/journal.htm

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/arhats.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/indie/anna_jones1/arhat.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/arhat