Every object is but the symbol of a reality, the working out in objective existence of some life.
Robert: Hello and welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Inner sight is the topic of our show and we’re going to explore our title and the levels of meaning to it. We have an opening thought that applies to the beginning of that discussion: “We must learn to see symbols all around us and then to penetrate behind the symbol to the idea which it should express.” This opening thought seems to suggest that inner sight begins with looking at our environment and the world in a new way. Can you share your thoughts on this?
Sarah: Yes. It’s really the essence of what is called spiritual reading, which is an ability to look at one’s life, one’s circumstances, one’s relationships, one’s environment, and read it for the inner significance and meaning that underlie the outer effects and circumstances. In a book by Alice Bailey titled Light of the Soul, she wrote that “Every object is but the symbol of a reality,” and she said, “A symbol is an embodied idea, the working out in objective existence of some life.” Some life. How fascinating to think of symbols in this way. The world is filled with them. Symbols that are associated with religions, with patriotism, with national goals, with clubs and organizations. We can all think of symbols that carry great power, but when you apply the idea of a symbol or the concept of a symbol to everything that’s happening in your life and environment, that it’s all symbolic in the sense that it represents something deeper and underlying, then life becomes one great mystery to be cracked, in a sense. This is the beginning of the real development of a spiritual understanding about life, that you cease accepting things on just the outer form level of appearance, and you start to try to understand what they represent. In other words, it starts with looking at life and relationships as a mirror that is holding an image before you of a situation or a circumstance that you have had a part in creating. For example, every relationship that we have with others is reflecting something back to us about ourselves. Yet it’s the habit, I think, of most people to think that they are a separate entity and the person they’re relating to is a separate entity, and if that person is not so nice to them, then that person has a problem. It’s not like that at all. In fact, everything that we see in others is reflecting something back to us that exists within ourselves, or we wouldn’t react to it. Every circumstance that we’re in, even the challenges of life, are created by choices and decisions that we set in motion, maybe a long time ago, but we had a part in generating the situation we’re in now.
Dale: And we had a part in generating the name for this program, too. It’s related to the very familiar word insight because insight, according to the dictionary is: the power or act of seeing into a situation, or the act of apprehending the inner nature of things, or of seeing intuitively. Now, that’s similar to what inner sight is, but I think inner sight carries it a little bit further. The physical world is essentially dual in nature. There is form life, and then there is formless, and there is an inner life or a spiritual part of life, and then there is the outer form, so there is that basic duality. The outer form is an extension or a product of the inner life.
Sarah: Which comes first?
Dale: Well, like the chicken or the egg, you mean, but I think the inner life comes first because the outer form is a product of the motivation and all the forces and energies on the inner side. All of our senses—the five senses, like hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell—all of these are extensions of these same senses on the inner side. Our sense of sight through our eyes, for example, enables us to see the outer physical world, but to see the inner world requires us to develop our inner eye, which is sometimes referred to as a third eye. The inner eye gives us the ability to see the world from the standpoint of energies and forces and the spiritual laws that govern those energies and forces. , you might say. So, it carries one a little bit deeper into this inner world to see the inner reality.
Sarah: I think that when we start applying this view or this understanding of life, we begin to see causation and responsibility, and we stop feeling like such a victim and a bystander of our life as it progresses and unfolds. I think a lot of people have a feeling that their life unfolds in a way that’s beyond their control, and yet from what you have just described, it’s very much our control and our responsibility. That’s hard for people to accept, and I can understand that, because that’s sort of saying, if things are going wrong, you had a hand in it. It isn’t—the point of this is not to lay blame. We are all developing, and we are all learning, and sometimes our mistakes are our best teachers. So, it isn’t meant to make us feel bad and to feel like failures. The inner side is intended to make us realize that life is a creation and that we can live creatively when we begin to understand that the outer circumstances and the outer environment are simply a depiction of energies and forces that work on the inner plane and we can have a hand in redirecting those energies and forces once we learn to recognize them.
Dale: And that’s what we’re trying to put across in these programs that we call Inner Sight. It’s to help anyone who listens to the programs to begin to think in terms of the inner reality and begin to try to see the world in those terms. That’s where it all begins. It begins small and then it begins to expand outward. It’s not easy at first.
Sarah: I think it’s the beginning of a really profound spiritual understanding that culminates in the realization, as it’s said in the Ageless Wisdom, that God geometrizes. I find that an absolutely staggering thought, that God geometrizes. Don’t ask me what it means, but I can tell you what it seems to suggest on a very low level, and that is that the inner world of reality is best depicted in symbolic forms of lines and circles and patterns that have great spiritual potency and truth within them. Maybe Buckminster Fuller had a glimmer of this when he recognized the triangle as the most stable form in the universe. There’s that wonderful thought from the writings of Alice Bailey that the beneficence of Deity, of Divinity, is distributed throughout the universe in triangular patterns. We can gain some understanding of that when we think about the impact that can be created between two people when they are struggling against each other, but when they redirect their energy toward a third point, something is liberated and set free.
Dale: Yes, good point.
Robert: Do you think the present age works for or against the development of inner sight?
Sarah: Well, in many ways, it works against the development of inner sight because the present time is so focused on materialistic and technological developments. In many ways, this has been the glory of human achievement—the strides made in science, in medicine, in technology have led to better communication, better health, more mass education and so on. But those are all events that are really fixated at the outer level of life. The physical plane circumstances in the last hundred years, you could say, have been improved tremendously, especially in the developed nations of the world. People live much longer now; they have a better education and that’s good. But I think the focus on the outer level has been at the expense of the sense of the sacred that some of the most simple and indigenous peoples had. A lot of that understanding has been lost, but it can be regained.
Dale: Yes, I agree that the material focus of the world has kind of distracted human thought and creativity, perhaps downward, let’s say, into a more physical orientation. But at the same time, the technology and the science of the mind has enabled the development of the mind to increase to an incredible extent. I think it is the mind principle through which we develop the power of inner sight, and I think that’s the next stage, actually.
Sarah: As a guideline for that development, there is that statement in the writings of Alice Bailey that: “All that exists is, in reality, spirit in manifestation.” All that exists is spirit in manifestation. With that as our starting point, we can turn about the use of the mind to a focus on the inner conditioning realities, and people are beginning to do this in their interest in meditation and yoga and spiritual development.
Dale: Yes, I think after a while you get satiated and saturated with the material focus, and you realize it doesn’t bring you the happiness that you’re looking for, or the completion that you’re looking for. People are beginning to get upset, they’re not happy, and they’re looking for something else. I think it’s at that point where a real crisis begins to develop, and they begin to turn inward. Maybe they’re looking for a new spiritual path, or even a new religious path, or a new yoga path, or a new meditation path, or whatever. So, there’s a lot of searching going on, and that eventually will lead the searchers in the right direction towards the spiritual and the inner side.
Sarah: But it doesn’t mean that one has to abandon one’s life or be too intense and inward looking. Alice Bailey said, “That which is to be revealed lies all around us, and within us. It is the significance of all that is embodied in form, the meaning behind the appearance, the reality veiled by the symbol…” that awaits our recognition. So, we begin right where we are in our present environment and with our present duties and relationships and responsibilities, and we try to see them in a new way for the spiritual condition that they express. I don’t mean just our problems, but our blessings too. Try to understand what spiritual truth they contain. It totally transforms one’s approach to life when one starts to accept the present reality as a depiction of just what we need in order to take our next step forward in consciousness.
Dale: You mentioned the word reality, and that’s one of the confusing words because there’s a tendency, I think, to still identify reality with one’s tangible life. The real reality with a capital R lies on that formless side, on the intangible side. That’s where the development of the inner sight will open up, to that inner reality.
Sarah: That’s part of the great illusion that we all live in, that we think the tangible level of form is reality, when in fact it’s like the afterthought of energies and forces that have been set in motion. That’s where the real reality lies. It’s subjective. It’s not tangible, but it’s totally conditioning and energizing.
Dale: Right.
Robert: Well, I certainly value what you said about inner sight, but can you talk about some methods for developing inner sight? How can we all develop that quality of inner sight?
Sarah: Well, I mentioned a while ago the concept of spiritual reading, which includes, but isn’t limited to, the study of spiritual texts of one’s choice. I think a portion of time spent each day in study of spiritual literature is very useful for developing this redirection of consciousness to the inner side of life, whether one reads the Bible or other sacred scriptures, or whether one reads writings by a spiritual teacher who seems to appeal to one. There are bookstores and libraries around all of us that offer a great array of spiritual texts to study. I find the books of Alice Bailey an all-engrossing project and have been reading them for thirty years and I’m not finished yet, but everybody has to make their own choice. But dedicating that portion of time, even fifteen minutes to a half hour every day, studying spiritual readings of some sort is a start. Meditation is another practice for developing inner sight.
Dale: Absolutely, and particularly meditations that direct one’s consciousness and focus inward, away from the little self, away from the outer self. In other words, meditations that direct one’s focus towards the soul and bringing forth that soul and making that connection with the inner soul, the inner self, because that is the direction where the inner sight is found. It’s the inner sight that is gained by way of the soul. That is what we’re aiming for, and that’s really the next stage ahead for human development. That’s the place where the mind principle comes into play, and that’s why it’s so important.
Sarah: Aldous Huxley wrote a wonderful book called The Perennial Philosophy, and he made the comment that one who has learned to regard things as symbols and persons as temples of the Holy Spirit and actions as sacraments is one who has learned who he is, where he stands in relation to the universe, how he should behave toward his fellow men, and what he must do to come to his final end. I love that thought, to regard things as symbols of some deeper spiritual reality, to regard people as temples of the Holy Spirit, no matter whether you like them or dislike them, identify with them or don’t identify with them. Every human being is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And to regard actions as sacraments, as expressions of blessing and of recognition of one’s inner divinity. Those are three guidelines, I think, that help one to connect or redirect one’s consciousness to the inner planes.
Dale: Yes, I would agree. That’s very good. The part that you made about symbols—everything in the outer world can be seen as a symbol. I think it’s important because as you said in the opening thought, you can see symbols all around us, and the objective is to penetrate behind the meaning, into the meaning. In fact, it’s what we call “the world of meaning,” which is the realm of the soul, the realm of meaning.
Sarah: Take a problem that you have, any problem, and ask yourself, What is this situation or this condition teaching me? It represents something. What am I supposed to learn from it? Just try looking for that. Don’t force an answer, just present the question to yourself regularly and allow the realization to come, and it will.
Robert: What you just said makes me think of the thought that the individual should become the way that he wants the world to be. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight, and now we would like to close with the world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
(#124)