A Word from your Personal Instructor

A word from your Personal Instructor

We welcome you as a fellow traveller on the Great Quest, for we are all Aspirants and seekers of the Ultimate Truth. We make no claim to having found it, believing that even the most enlightened person on Earth sees no more than the reflected light of Truth because the ultimate lies beyond the confines of the physical. What we are going to do is journey with you along the road to full sensory development and personal fulfilment towards what we call The Mastery of Life – a worthwhile goal indeed. So accept, at the beginning that not only your life but you yourself will be radically changed for the better, and who is there among us who can honestly say they need no improvement?

You should select a specific time each day, or every other day, preferably first thing in the morning and again in the evening, for your studies and exercises. If you are one of the lucky ones able to make extra time around noon, so much the better. If your days are really full then set aside an hour or so a week to study, but remember, it is important that the exercises be done regularly, the more often the better. However, we know that most of our students live pretty full lives and have commitments, so we will, as far as it is possible, tailor our instructions to suit these. Therefore it is necessary that you let us know just what your circumstances are.

Try to get into the habit of studying at certain times and in a special place. You will have to do much more than just read through the Lessons, you will have to thoroughly absorb the teachings. Patience and determination are necessary, although these qualities will be taught, and the mental discipline of regular habits will assist you to a very great extent. We have found that quite a number of those taking the Course, after studying the Lessons for some time suddenly realise that they have not been absorbing them as they should, and they request time to go back over them. Therefore, make up your mind to apply yourself from the beginning.

Set aside some particular place where you can be quiet and comfortable. You will absorb the instructions better in an atmosphere of tranquillity and ease. The circumstances should be such that you feel completely relaxed and able to give your whole attention to the exercises. If you are tensed up much of your awareness will be dissipated in sensing the feeling of tenseness, and you will be unable to function properly. Hence the reason for our dealing with stress and tension at the onset. Try your best to organise things so that no one will intrude upon you and break the trend of your thoughts.

Ideally you should be completely on your own, with not too much daylight but enough to read by. At night there should be only a single light, preferably a reading lamp, placed behind you, leaving the rest of the room in semi-darkness. We know that many will not be able to achieve the ideal conditions, but do the best you can under your personal circumstances.

Read through each Lesson carefully from beginning to end, then go back and study any points which are not quite clear. If anything puzzles you make a note of it and, if it is not explained in the following Lesson, write to us about it. Do not try to remember the exercises parrot-fashion, absorb their full meaning and implications. Remember that what you are doing is acquiring knowledge and experience which will expand your horizons beyond present restrictions imposed by physical conditions. You are going to learn how to free yourself from bondage to the flesh, from servitude to materialism, and to discover the answer to the eternal enigma – what is the purpose of earthly life?

Continually consult your notes, pondering over the points that puzzle you. It is all too easy to write in and have the question answered. One of the purposes of this Course is to make you self-reliant, therefore think the matter out and if you reach no satisfactory conclusion, then by all means write to us.

You will need a diary and a notebook of some kind, a school exercise book is excellent, and some system – a file or container – for keeping your Lessons in sequence, so any particular Lesson can be easily reached.

Some of the exercises, especially in the early Lessons, may seem trivial or foolish, but the question is, can you do them or can you not? If you can do them with ease, then certainly pass on from them. If you wonder at their purpose, apart from more specific things they help break up the narrow, egocentric attitude of mind which is the product of illusion which proclaims the unassailability of individual consciousness, an illusion incompatible with full mind development.

All too often a promise may be made to yourself and then broken. Many a genuine effort to persevere will somehow fail. Let us assume that after a series of doubts, reservations and disappointments you have at last achieved some efficiency in the early exercises and after a period of tedious toil some measure of proficiency has been won. What then?

You have now simply prepared the searchlight of the mind and it is ready for the concentrated effort of probing the darkness to reveal hitherto hidden metaphysical truths. What you have done, although you will not immediately recognise it, is to have fashioned the instrument of success.

The intent of this Course is to make the Aspirant master of himself, a director of his own fate and a source of Good in the world; to enable him to spread happiness and goodwill throughout his area of influence and above all to acquire a sound knowledge of the workings of the mind in all its states and manifestations; to awaken and release all the latent potentialities in man, for, to the fully developed mind, the physical body is no more than a mere mechanism. Some of you may doubt this last statement, but wait, it is something easily provable.

The Course will help the Aspirant to know him or her self and others, to learn how to correct his or her faults, to turn failure into success. You will be taught how to materialise your thoughts by the use of certain powers available to everyone; how to obtain release from the limitations within which you have confined yourself by wrongful and idle thinking. The creative power of thought is manifest throughout the universe. It knows no limitations and once Aspirants realise this and learn to utilise it, they can enter into their heritage.

Thousands are suffering from anxieties and afflictions that rob life of the happiness that is mankind’s rightful estate. Their progress, as individual human beings, is hampered by obstacles which can be removed with the application of knowledge. Individuals are enclosed within the environment they themselves create and are bound by limitations of their own making. They live in an atmosphere with which they have an affinity and within the orbit of their own prescribed imagination. Most seem to sell themselves short.

If you are to make a success of this Course you will have to carefully apply yourself to the exercises which develop composure and equanimity. You must become even-tempered, neither wildly excited nor unduly depressed. The human body is designed to function according to certain laws and the ups and downs to which modern society subjects it are definitely harmful and prejudicial to proper development.

The person who frequently becomes moody and depressed is very difficult to live with. What another person would laugh away or shrug off becomes something of great magnitude to the unstable individual, so that he or she suffers almost unbearably. All this must be eliminated before progress can be made, hence the preliminary exercises. One must become a balanced, self-controlled, self-disciplined individual before hoping to achieve supersensory development. Personalities can be changed, this Course proves it.

It is remarkable that people who have no knowledge of the principles underlying psychic phenomena look upon those displaying supernormal abilities as unbalanced or over-imaginative. Nothing could be further from the truth. Only a fraudulent psychic demonstrator will display symptoms of imbalance. It must be stated categorically that one can be truly developed metaphysically only when the mind is functioning normally and the brain waves are even, strong and unruffled. There must never be any undue peaks or depressions.

Maintaining composure is of prime importance to both physical and mental health, so when you feel irritability coming on pull yourself up and ask yourself why you are feeling like this. You will learn later that thoughts create the mood, not the other way around, so perhaps you are thinking defectively. If so you are hurting only yourself, unless there is some innocent person who is inflicted with your presence. Cease to be self-centred, wrapped up in yourself and look around at others, many of whom may have problems greater than yours to cope with.

You perspectives may be wrong. You may feel that you are persecuted, that the world is against you, or that you are the helpless victim of fate. Think carefully about this and you will find that it is all a condition of your own mind. This will be corrected as you progress through the Course.

To their annoyance Aspirants may, in the early stages only, actually find themselves becoming more irritable and hyper-sensitive than before. This is a common enough experience, but bear in mind that increased activity in any machine will inevitably find the flaws.

Many of you probably nurse secret hopes and ambitions which seem impossible to fulfil, so you have come to regard them as nothing more tangible than dreams. Sure enough they will remain dreams unless you resolve the inhibitions which choke the wonderful potentialities smouldering in your subconscious and superconscious minds.

Millions of people in every generation live within a hair’s breadth of fame and fortune. Musicians, artists, sportsmen and businessmen, often wade through the slough of mediocrity, striving desperately to enter the world of supreme achievement. Many fail miserably for no other reason than that they lack the knowledge and ability to claim their rightful heritage awaiting them across the borderland of their higher faculties. Yet it is all so simple once the techniques have been mastered. Over the ages many ways have been evolved to break through into this secret world of supreme power, some dangerous and others difficult, but the ancient methods we use have been time-tested and are neither dangerous nor beyond your capabilities.

Do not expect fully effective results in a few weeks, it will take much longer than that. Certainly there will be encouraging signs of progress from a very early stage, but full development may take several years. It takes a considerable time to make everything work with exactitude, but very worthwhile results can be obtained in a short time provided the exercises are done correctly.

So first and foremost there must be a strong desire to enable one to continue over a reasonable period of time and this desire must be coupled with consistency, for man’s inconsistency is often his undoing. He never seems to know for more than a few weeks at a time what he wants. He flits from desire to desire like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. This kind of attitude is inimical to success in this Course and must be avoided. You must know just what you want to achieve and keep at it until the desire manifests itself in reality.

The Lessons will provide practical suggestions and guidance for successful living. They will answer many everyday questions, thus enabling you to resolve daily problems, and will enlarge your understanding and appreciation of life. Above all they will lead to a direct personal experience of the reality of the Soul, bringing profound peace and assurance.

Intelligence is cultivated and by reasoning from cause to effect, intuitive thinking can be awakened. This is the path along which free investigation and reason will guide the Aspirant who wants to escape from the jungle of ignorance. The thinking processes will be adjusted over the early stages of the Course. We are the results of our own past thoughts, and present thoughts will condition future life. Every deed is the manifestation of a prior thought and a truly peaceful thought cannot give birth to a deed of violence.

When the mind has been sufficiently disciplined it will see the difference between values which are real and those which are false. Once a state of balance has been achieved in the mind and with the senses, the Aspirant will be able to free himself from prejudices and unbalanced personal points of view. To obtain true knowledge it is essential to think impersonally. A definite system of mind-training must be followed. Certain exercises must be undertaken and practised frequently and conscientiously in order to acquire the necessary powers of concentration. So it is that no one is excluded from the Course because of intellectual or educational handicaps, for the powers of intellect are slowly evolved through the early stages of the Course.

To be of any use mental exercises must consist of clearly defined routines. A comfortable posture together with bodily relaxation and regular rhythmic breathing suffice to get started, but there must always be a strong persistency, an effort of will compelling the mind to work along a previously decided path. If you undertake this Course with casual indifference, then already you are foredoomed to failure.

Let us understand the true meaning of the word ‘psychic’, which is so often misconstrued. It relates to the word psyche or soul, therefore a psychic phenomenon is a manifestation of something pertaining to a higher level of consciousness. One of the secrets in controlling psychic phenomena lies in the ability to concentrate fully and to correctly orientate the thought processes. Until this can be done little progress can be made in approaching the metaphysical. Therefore, the early exercises are designed to develop control of the thoughts and emotions, basing that control on a foundation of harmonious vibrations. Having set the scene correctly, the power of thought can be utilised in whatever direction you desire. This promise is the ultimate reward for the preliminary exercises.

Spend a little time ascertaining the best method for you to obtain the best results. Try reading the Lessons right through, and then see if you can remember the essence of what has been said. You may choose to read a few paragraphs then appraise the contents before passing on. Formulate your own method. Do not just memorise what has been said; try to understand it.

We hope you will join us. In an Introductory Lesson such as this it is impossible to indicate what the rest of the Course contains. We can only say that it is comprehensive and complete in itself. May we suggest that the best reaction to this Introductory Lesson might be one of open-mindedness, but without any suppression of natural curiosity; of anticipation and perhaps even a spirit of adventure. For it is certain the Course will carry you into a presently unknown territory where strange and exciting experiences await you. Not the least of the unknown things you will find there is your own true self.

Whether or not you want to make the long journey to complete fulfilment, we do suggest you pursue the matter a little further. Go a few steps further along the path and thus you will gain more insight and be better able to assess what lies ahead. At this early stage it is impossible for you to be able to evaluate the Course, but after a few more Lessons you will be in a better position to judge its worth to you.

Many a person has picked up an uncut diamond and thrown it away because it looked like a stone. Who does not know someone who has thrown away a golden opportunity because he or she failed to properly assesses the prospects of the situation that presented itself? Consider this Course – might it not be the key you have been seeking? Think it over and if you have any reservations, write to us, as now is the time to clarify any points which are unclear.

May you always be guided with wisdom.

Your Personal Instructor.