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Tilak of Tibet Reveals Life's Purpose, by Ann Hackett [1944], at sacred-texts.com
One night a woman visited Tilak in the Chamber of the Great Potential. When she entered the Chamber her step appeared uncertain.
"I have come," she; said to Tilak, "for your advice.
I have been drawn here several times before, while my I earthly body was sleeping, but did not have enough strength to complete the journey until tonight."
"I will help you, friend," said Tilak gently.
"Since a child," the woman began, "I have not had the use of my legs. I cannot walk a step. For over thirty years I have been in a wheel-chair and have had to be lifted about as a baby. Why am I so punished?"
Tilak, who had been studying the woman's aura, replied: "What so often in earthly life appears as a punishment is a preparation for a future work in the world. Every great and useful work requires patience. When patience becomes the modifier of unruly faculties, the individual then has a clearer understanding of many things that before were dormant or covered. One of the greatest aids to patience is bodily impairment.
[paragraph continues] When an individual is deprived for a life of the use of arms or legs, such deprivation is a great test of patience. There are other tests, such as bedridden individuals, and individuals with one or more impaired senses, or any bodily disruption that makes an individual physically dependent upon others. Seldom is an individual visited with any of these bodily impairments unless the individual is being prepared for an important work at a later period. In the coming physical life, or lives, all that contributed to the individual's preparation for a great service is forgotten. The individual then is only happy that he is qualified to perform well a service."
The woman's face brightened appreciably. She nodded affirmatively, as she said: "Everything then serves a purpose. If I only could remember what you have told me when I awaken in my earthly body!"
"I will help you to remember, friend."
"You can do that!" eagerly asked the woman.
"I can, friend. I will visit you during your sleeping period and during your waking period. I will fuse your waking and sleeping memories."
"You give me courage to continue with patience in my impaired physical body."
Unseen, Tilak visited the woman deprived of locomotion. Tilak fused the woman's waking and sleeping memories. After many such visits from Tilak the woman awoke one morning with the thought: "I am
in this wheel-chair to develop patience; then I will be ready to serve wherever I am permitted; to serve those who will need what I have to give."
The woman's family and friends noticed that the woman's outlook had changed. Self-pity, and her former questionings of a cruel fate, disappeared. Now the woman was cheerful. Her face had softened. Soon people were bringing to the woman their problems. She gave them all encouragement. The many who came to her, and who saw her patience and cheerfulness, went away with a firm determination to meet their problems with the same spirit. Thus the woman rendered a service, even while preparing for a greater service.
Tilak wrote on parchment leaf:
During the waking period, in earthly existence, the individual uses continually the selective power. All individuals have decided and definite preferences. These preferences apply to every physical object, and to every other individual. That which prompts selection varies in all individuals.
Some individuals are prompted by physical gain, and thus turn the selective power to that end, selecting only those things that will contribute to earthly gain. Other individuals are prompted by earthly power, and
they use the selective faculty toward that end. It is what prompts the selective power that gives value to the individual's acts.
What is it that passes judgment on events, conditions, and other individuals? It cannot be the senses, nor the faculties, for they but report their findings. To what do the senses and faculties report their findings? TO THE INDIVIDUAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
For long periods the individual's self-consciousness consists principally of the findings of the senses and the faculties. The judgment passed on these findings determines the condition of the self-consciousness. Self-consciousness implies self-awareness. Self-awareness is not physical body awareness, or faculty awareness; it is much greater than these. What is often called self-consciousness is but body consciousness. The individual is much more than body consciousness. The individual is greater than anything he uses, for everything the individual uses reports its findings to him. It is when these findings are presented to self-consciousness that judgment is passed. How often does the individual realize that he is passing judgment? The individual more often than not accepts the findings of the physical body and the faculties as they are presented to him.
During the physical life the senses continually demand attention; the senses constantly . interrupt
faculty action. If the mental faculty wishes to dwell upon something that is independent of sense impression the senses become restive.
The mind, or mental faculty, whose chief function is thinking, is probably the most difficult faculty to direct and control. When the mental faculty is brought into action it is so eager to express itself that thoughts pour into the mind from every direction; the thoughts pour in so fast that the individual has difficulty in making proper selections. It is at this point that training is necessary. The training is long and arduous. Under training the individual is required to select a thought and its related thoughts, and to give no attention to other thoughts that may pour into the mind's field. When this can be accomplished in a degree the individual can follow the thought selected to a completeness not to be accomplished in any other way.
If the thought selected is home, only the thoughts related to home are permitted to enter the mental field. Then the individual will have a greater and wider concept of home than he had before. The wider the concept the more interesting the subject becomes; the greater the interest the better the understanding.
What pertains to thought also applies to feeling. Feelings are closely related to the imagination. Feeling, as thought, should be trained.
The method for training feeling is similar to the method for training thought. The individual selects a
feeling and related feelings. When this can be accomplished without other feelings interrupting, the feeling selected by the individual expands and reveals much that was hidden before. This adds beauty to the feeling. Higher feelings and thoughts are never concerned with what might be, but only with what is.
All peculiar mannerisms are emotionally formed. Few individuals can sit down quietly without moving their hands or fingering some part of their body. This indicates pent-up emotions; pent-up emotions are chaotic uncontrolled feelings. The faculties of thinking and feeling are related to vanity. The less ability an individual has the more vanity. A vain individual often uses his vanity in attempting to cover up an individual defect from himself. However, when the individual begins to train his thinking and his feeling, and brings thought and feeling under the control of his self-consciousness, vanity flees.
The first work of self-consciousness is to control everything it uses. If any faculty, or the sense 'life, or anything else other than self-consciousness, directs, the individual is permitting himself to become lost to himself. During all physical lives, and the lives between physical lives, self-consciousness is the individual's highest power. The self-consciousness should never be surrendered to anything but itself. Earthly life is a condition wherein the self-consciousness can learn in degree its own great magnitude. That self-consciousness
can absorb everything in physical life shows that it is superior to physical life, for that which absorbs is always superior to that which is absorbed. Should any individual be satisfied that he is only self-conscious of his body and his thoughts and feelings? Should not the individual extend his self-consciousness to fields infinitely greater than the earthly life? Is there anything in earthly life that self-consciousness would like to have with it always? It is the lack of balance between the faculties and sense life that leads to varied opinions. Opinions are often grounded in confusion. Often the faculties and the senses return different reports on the same things to the self-consciousness. How can this condition be remedied? By training the senses and faculties so that they will report accurately to the self-consciousness.