The Secret of the Golden Flower

T282 The Inner Teachings 27th July 1966 New Lands, Liss

Invocation: Beloved brethren, we come as a group to bring you all love and to help you in your work of healing and radiating the light and power of the Sun, the Great White Light. Let us as one brotherhood in the Light open our hearts to the Great White Spirit, giving thanks for this meeting.

We thank Thee, O lord, that we can meet together in spirit and that we who dwell in the spirit can speak clearly to our beloved brethren on earth. In Thy holy name we call on the angels of the Christ Circle to enfold this group in their love and wisdom and power. May every soul here encased in flesh realise that all around are the brethren of the Ancient Wisdom who come to bless and help them in their work. Amen. We want you all to realise this truth that no one need be left without the help of a spiritual guardian and guide. Sometimes we are asked why we come back to talk to earthly people. We come back because we love our brethren on earth, and because we have been initiated into the mysteries of the inner powers and know from experience that when man* opens his consciousness to the presence of the Almighty Spirit and the reality of spiritual power, he will be assisted in every possible way in his life. All through his many incarnations he will be given the help which he can command. [*For editorial policy around gender, see the introduction.] It may sound strange to you when we use the word ‘command,’ but we use it in a scientific sense. If you create in yourself a certain condition of light and a power, by this very fact you attract to yourself the light and power that you need to help you. This is what we mean by ‘command.’ In other words, if a brother seeks help and he goes quietly into his inmost sanctuary and sounds the note or the vibration for the help he needs, it instantly flows to him. It is like a magnet attracting steel. It is a spiritual, a scientific law. It is perfectly natural for the help to come to you if you know how to attract that help. We want to say a little to you tonight about the ancient wisdom and what we mean by the term ‘ancient wisdom.’ It is a secret which is held within certain forms of teaching. We would first call your attention to the duality that runs all through life: the positive and negative, light and darkness, good and so-called evil. We say ‘so-called evil’ because when it is seen rightly it is recognised as a balancing force that has its part to play in the general balance of life. This is one of the secrets of the ancient wisdom, the balancing of opposites. In man the pull is between spirit and matter. In early stages the soul on earth is unable to balance that pair of opposites and there is a strong pull to physical matter. Therefore a very large number of people are immersed entirely in material things. They have no use at all for the invisible or intangible; they say it does not exist. On the other hand some souls seem to be imprisoned in matter because they are bringing back certain conditions they have created for themselves in the past, thus they appear to be imprisoned for a time, but they are learning through being bound in a state of materialism. Man is on earth to learn to balance these two opposites, the spiritual and the material, and in this great lesson you will see the meaning of the perfectly balanced triangles of the six-pointed star. We like to use the Greek word Christos for the Great White Light, the Christ Light, but we notice that many of you are not yet clear what we mean by the Christos. It does not matter what religion you follow, what scriptures you have studied, behind the scriptures of all the ages lies this fundamental truth: the light which came into the darkness of matter, and the whole purpose of man’s many incarnations, is to develop within physical matter this beautiful light which we call the Christos, or in your language the Christ spirit. It is within all religions no matter what name you give it, the same light. The White* Brotherhood consists of these souls who are able to use intelligently the power which that Great White Light brings to them. [*Here the word ‘white’ is used to indicate ‘light-filled’ and does not refer to colour.] Now in this development the White Brother will come to feel the pain and suffering of others, particularly the pain of the defenceless ones, the pain and suffering of children and of animals. Let us instance the great St Francis of Assisi. He was so attuned to this Great White Light that he could feel his brotherhood with all creatures and with all nature, with sister water, brother air, brother sun. St Francis had arrived at the full consciousness of an elder brother. As we come to recognise that man is working to balance these two aspects, positive and negative, light and dark, good and evil, we begin to think about the inner power of the light and how to use this power. Now you may know a lot of things with your brain, but the one secret you cannot know with your brain only is how to use inner or occult power effectively. This secret culture, or the development of what they called the ‘golden flower’ within themselves, was known to our brethren in the Far East, handed down to them from the lost continent of Mu.

Now let us touch for a moment the two aspects of life in religion. In all religions there is an outer and an inner truth. The masses* know only the outer aspect, and interpret the words of the scriptures according to their own ideas, but there are others who, being a little more evolved, are beginning to see that there is an inner and an esoteric meaning which deals with the soul and with the development of occult powers within man. For instance in the Revelation of St John these secrets are to be found, but of course man with his active mind only reads words and only interprets in a material way the meaning of these sacred revelations which were given to beloved St John. This Ancient Wisdom is to be found in all the scriptures, but it is veiled and not yet understood by man. Man has to undergo certain experiences on the inner planes during meditation before he can catch a glimpse of the true wisdom in the ancient scriptures.

Certain mystery schools of the past revealed these occult truths. In the school of ancient freemasonry*, for instance, the way to develop this inner power is clearly revealed to the aspirant. Again, if you study esoteric astrology and apply the laws of astrology to the development of the soul, you begin again to see the way revealed. Some of the ancient peoples learned this ancient wisdom, this inner secret, the secret of the golden flower, through the science of astrology. [*White Eagle refers to freemasonry as a form of universal truth or teaching, with no specific reference to the freemasonry of today.] Now today we are endeavouring to help you to find this truth within yourself, not through the development of the mind and the activity of the brain, but through your soul, through meditation. Many of you in this group are accustomed to meditation, but you are only just on the fringe, just at the very beginning. Indeed, it may seem to more advanced pupils that we are like children in a kindergarten, but our mission in coming back to the earth is to start with the kindergarten, and to help the very simple and young to build within themselves this temple of the golden flower. We are not going into a deep dissertation about meditation, but most of you will know that the truth we are referring to is the positive development of the creative power in man, which can be directed and drawn up through the etheric and physical body right into the dome or the highest chakra called by our brethren in the East the thousand-petalled lotus, where it brings illumination. Yet even in this development we get the opposites: on the one hand the pure and the good wanting only to use this power to glorify God and to bless and help all creatures, and on the other the baser beings who have not yet found the light, who would use this power for what is called black magic to dominate others. On the one hand you have the white magic, on the other hand the black. Again what has to be done is the blending of the two aspects. We do not mean that you should ever use this power for black purposes. We mean that the soul has to learn how to control and use this power by drawing it up from the lower chakras of the body right up into the dome or the highest point, the apex.

In your meditation we direct you first of all to go right up to the apex of the golden triangle and there meditate upon the Great White Light or the Golden One, the Christos, the Supreme Light. As you do this, as you go directly and earnestly to that point and you focus your worship, your adoration, your consciousness in that universal and infinite Light, you must also at the same time use all your chakras; in other words you must bring all your devotion, all your power to that one supreme point. This creates in you the perfectly straight line of light which comes from the base of your body or the kundalini right up through the spine to the crown of the head. It is just like a plumb line which the mason uses, or the builder uses. This is the meaning of the plumb line. Not only is your body straight, and the power rising straight up through your body but all your concentration is on God, on what is good, what is lovely, what is beautiful, what is true, just and wise; the whole being is brought into poise, into straightness.

This same teaching is to be found in masonic law, the ‘building on the square,’ which means to build on a foundation of truth and rightness, with all the virtues of the white brother expressed and manifested in your life. That is building on the square. The ancient Egyptians had this same truth when they built their pyramids on a square foundation with the triangle pointing up to the heaven, symbolising the divine spirit, the eternal flame of life. In human terms it simply means that you are honest, true, sincere and loyal. Remember again the two aspects of life: the outer which is your everyday life which must be clean and wholesome and straight and good and kind, and also the inner life. Now you have been brought on to the Path, and you are learning by slow degrees how to bring into operation the power of the golden flower. Sometimes you say you cannot see anything in meditation but that is all nonsense. It is impossible for your mind to be a blank. Some say you must make your mind a blank but this is an utter impossibility. You can keep your mind at peace, which is a different thing. You must keep it still and at peace, but you must centre it on something. You must have your mind either on God or on mammon, on material things. It cannot be a vacuum. Therefore in meditation the very first thing to do—and this should apply to all in healing groups, and to all groups and societies who are learning to project the ancient white light of the Christ Star—the very first thing is to think of God. Then, when you visualise that Star, we advise you to see it on the point of the triangle because that immediately lifts you up into the star, which you must imagine or visualise. In answer to people who say it is all imagination and therefore no good, let us explain that any form that you imagine or think of you create. You create it out of soul matter. An author in creating his characters builds those characters on the etheric plane. He does not realise he does so, but if his mind is powerful and he thinks earnestly and powerfully of certain characters and builds them up strongly, those characters live, as thought-forms if you like, on the astral plane, and many of those characters remain until their creator comes to meet them. Then that form has to be absorbed again into its creator. If it is not a very nice character it has to be absorbed into the heart by love. This is a law of life. What is created has to be reabsorbed into the creator. This starts a train of thought for some of you. It makes you think seriously about your thought creations. In your meditation you may be told by your leader to imagine or to create the image of, shall we say a temple. The leader will say, ‘We are now being taken into the temple.’ Or perhaps you are told sometimes to visualise the lotus flower on the still water. Some who do not know would say, ‘That’s all rubbish. It’s all in the imagination’, but it isn’t only imagination; by the very fact of your thinking about it and trying to image it you are building that form out of soul and etheric substance. One who has really gained mastery over him or herself (this means mastery first of all over the physical body, over the nervous system, and mastery over the thinking, so that in all ways he or she can create the condition that the divine Will within him wishes to create) such a one is able when he sits in meditation to build round him, shall we call it ‘the Temple of the Golden Flower’, exquisitely formed of spiritual or celestial substance. All substance of whatever plane of life can be moulded by man, by man’s thought, by his will, he can mould this substance into form. So when you are in mediation and you are fully open like a beautiful flower, like the thousand-petalled lotus of the head chakra, or the many petalled lotus of the heart chakra, you as a spirit are actually in that flower, and that flower builds up all around you in the form of a most beautiful temple, a spiritual temple. You are in the temple of your own soul and spiritual world. Now perhaps you will begin to understand how heaven and hell are created. Now let us return to the projection of the Star, which you visualise at the apex of the golden triangle. You not only visualise that Star but you are that Star. You are the soul poised on the apex. You are in a higher state of consciousness and all around you has formed by your own spiritual development, by your devotion, faithfulness and loyalty, the temple of the Star. You are in that temple of the Star, and even as you wish to send out help and light and healing, this beautiful power is going out from that Star of your creation. Perhaps now you will see the importance of your everyday life, your thoughts, your actions, your speech? Because all these things are built into form in the higher ether on the etheric plane. Man is his own creator. You create your own conditions in your home. However difficult your life may be, you still have the power to create beauty in your home, even if it is only in your own particular room. Man is his own creator. Man is his own saviour. We mean by this that man has been given freewill. He can create exactly what he is in himself. And when man comes to the spirit world all that beauty and that love and that selflessness and that devotion which he has poured out on others in this life, he finds reproduced around him in his home. Many souls when awakening on the astral plane, say, ‘All I can see is God. God in the flowers, God in the trees, God in form, God in the landscape, God in everything!’ Yes, ‘I am in God and God is in me. We are inseparable.’ And yet man retains his individuality. All the beauty of God flows through man, and the more Godlike man is, the more beautiful his surroundings and his appearance and in every way he is a channel of God.

When you wish to send out the light of the Star, do not merely force it out from your brow chakra. Open yourself in humility, sweetness and love to the Christos, to the one who is called Christ. Man made perfect is the perfect Son of God. That is the meaning of the word ‘Christos’—the Christed One. There are a number of Christed ones on earth now. There have been a number of Christed ones throughout the ages because there must always be Christed ones on earth, otherwise the earth would not be saved. It is this Christed spirit which is the salvation of mankind. When you want to send out the light of the Star, try first to get that feeling of love in your heart. Jesus said so simply, ‘Love one another.’ Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. Upon this law hangs the whole of spiritual evolution. So we love God. We raise our thoughts to the apex of the Golden Triangle and visualise there the glorious Star. We hold that Star, that point of light, and in that point of light, right in the centre of that perfect geometrical six-pointed Star, we may hold the image of anyone we desire to help. Or we may just hold the Star and see the rays raying forth. If you do this properly and in sincerity, in truth and in belief that what we tell you is true, you will succeed not only in helping your patients, helping the world by sending out light into the darkness of matter, but you will at the same time be developing within yourself that lovely golden flower and be living in the Star temple. This is the secret: To live, to know and to be, to be in the consciousness of the Infinite Love and Light, and to live for spirit and not for matter. Matter is secondary; spirit is the first and foremost in man, and to live rightly you must live to develop the consciousness of the Great White Light or the Christ within yourself. Not here in the brow, my friends, but here in the heart, and in the thousand-petalled lotus at the apex of your triangle. Work always with this higher triangle and the Star. The triangle is in the Star: your triangle on its base and the balancing triangle penetrating, coming down to unite and form the Star. You are in it, and you have to become aware that you are in it, and you have to develop the consciousness of the power of this Star to perform miracles, but remember it is not your will when a miracle is performed; it is God’s power, it is God’s will. Only God works miracles. God is the light in man and God alone gives or He withdraws according to His wisdom. We hope you understand that and will not force what you think ought to be done. Surrender, my children, surrender to God’s will in all things. And now as we leave you we are going to ask you to meditate with us upon this Golden Triangle and to feel this power descending into you. You will be filled, filled with this divine fire, this white magic…the Saviour. Benediction: O angels of God, come down to these our earthly brethren. Enfold them in the love of our Lord, the Great White Light, the God in Whom all live, by Whom all things and beings are created. We pray, O Gracious Spirit, that these our brethren may be touched by angel wings so that they are receptive to Thy truth and to the wisdom of all the ages. We thank God, we thank God, we worship, we glorify Thy holy name. Amen. Amen. Amen.