Points of crisis are periods of examination to test just how much one has assimilated or learned.
Robert: 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. Our topic for today is Crisis, part 2. All of the discussion that you’ll hear on this show emanates from the literature of Alice Bailey. Alice Bailey is the founder of the Lucis Trust organization and all of the dialogue emanates from her twenty-four volumes of books as does this thought: “We grow by the presentation of moments of crisis.” That may sound a little cryptic and hard to understand. I like to think of the universe as being a friendly place, and I can think of all the challenges and difficult times that I’ve had, and as I really look back at them, in retrospect I grew so much from them. If we could only look at the world and the universe and also at difficult times as a tool or a means to develop and to grow stronger. If we look at difficult times of crisis like that, I think it will help us to have a more positive feeling about reality in general. What is it about crisis that makes us grow?
Sarah: I’m not sure, but I think it’s related to the fact that crisis is an aspect, an expression or a factor that’s associated with conflict, and certainly all of us are probably familiar with conflict. The inner quarrel that rages within one is what leads us to a point of crisis. Most of us probably think that conflict and crisis are signs of failures. I think one of the most important things that we would want to get across in our discussion of crisis is that it’s not a sign of failure to generate a crisis; in fact, it’s a sign of potential growth and forward movement. To me, knowing that is deeply reassuring. According to the writings of Alice Bailey, nothing is deadlier to the life of the soul than a kind of stasis, a status quo in the life when everything is on an even keel, everything is humming along, there are no great crises or major tests. We might think that’s a life that’s really well handled, but in fact it can be a life that’s of terminal inertia in terms of the soul. So sometimes those periods in life that kick up a lot of dust and perhaps raise the blood pressure are lives where a great deal is being learned. There’s testing occurring. The thing about conflict is that it makes one face the need to discriminate and make choices because when you’re experiencing conflict, you’re seeing the clash of opposites, and that means that you have to decide between them. That’s what leads one to a crisis—the need to make a discriminative choice.
Dale: Yes, there’s usually some kind of a cleavage that’s been arrived at in a person’s life and this cleavage actually means there’s an opportunity to transcend this point of cleavage and to build a bridge over it and thereby come out on the other side much improved, a better person with a more balanced outlook. So, if we could see crises that happen in our lives in this way, then we wouldn’t have to be defeated by the cleavage that arises.
Sarah: In fact, be exhilarated by the fact that you’re facing such a point. One of the sayings in the books of Alice Bailey that I really love is something to the effect that if you’re not experiencing a crisis, you should create one. Most of us would think, what? That must be the exact opposite of what it means to lead a spiritual life. But in fact, what she was trying to say was that only through these critical experiences do we test the waters and see how we might incorporate a larger view, which I think is what you mean when you speak of bridging a cleavage.
Dale: Yes, that’s how we can grow and that’s what the question was: what is it about crises that makes us grow? The whole point is if we’re just standing still, we’re not necessarily growing in terms of consciousness and in our outlook and quality of life because we reach a static point and everything stops. That’s deadly to the soul, because the whole point for the soul working through us in the world is to effect this kind of constant growth and expansion of consciousness.
Sarah: And for every human being, these crises are different because we’re not all alike. For some people, a crisis might concern the conflict between the more spiritual and the more material values, the need to make a choice between the two to decide what might be more spiritual, what might be more related to the form and material plane, and to choose the higher over the lower. For other people, the crisis might concern matters of ethics and morals. For others, it might be a conflict between the furthering of self-interest and the interests of the group, whether we’re speaking of the family or the workplace or the community or society. Making the choice between deciding to further self-interest or to sacrifice — to use the word that a lot of people don’t like — in order to support the greater good of the larger group. Those are all different kinds of crises. The most spiritual crises are those which pit individual goals, even very high, very spiritually elevated, but individual goals versus the goals of the Plan of God. For the real spiritually developed people among us, their crises are on that level. The individual might have a very highly dedicated, refined spiritual vision of how to live his life and yet that might not be the supreme good. The plan of God might require something quite different. So, these are very subtle crises on that level. You can see that there is a progression from one stage to another; that’s why we repeat these crises over and over and over on the spiritual way.
Dale: And we do tend to repeat these situations that lead to crisis over and over again until we arrive at some point of real discontent about our situation. It’s at that point that we seek an alternative and thereby grow. This calls in the creative imagination and the ability to visualize and to imagine a better solution to one’s situation. That’s a very spiritual point in a person’s life.
Robert: When you consider crisis occurs at a less evolved state of consciousness, the growth that I think you’re talking about Dale, is that as a result of a crisis occurring at the less evolved state of consciousness it can rocket us into a higher more evolved state of consciousness, which is the growth that we’re talking about. The Alice Bailey writings speak of points of crisis of the soul. Can you say something about that?
Sarah: Well, one thought that occurs to me is what I was just mentioning a few moments ago, that crises become increasingly subtle and my understanding of spiritual crisis in terms of the soul’s evolution is that the greatest crises can be almost purely subjective. By that I mean on the outer levels of life, everything might look very calm and well ordered. I suppose most of us think of crisis as the kind of experience when everything falls apart and there’s a collapse of relationships, of employment, of health or whatever. Those, in fact, are not particularly high-level crises in terms of the soul. They can be deeply educational and productive of growth —I’m not saying they’re not meaningful —they can be devastating and very conducive to growth, but in terms of the soul, the greatest crises are subjective, which means that they occur on the level that’s hidden below the surface of the outer life. An onlooker or a bystander might not see anything occurring. Everything might look as if it’s perfectly normal, and yet for the person undergoing such a crisis, it can be profound and in fact devastating, because it occurs on the levels of the mind and the spiritual level. Nobody else sees them, but they can be really transformative if handled rightly.
Dale: Yes, and we have to remember that these are crises of the soul, as opposed to the crises of the outer personality self. Those are two distinct areas. Even the soul can go through these moments of crisis which are really opportunities for the soul to grow as it works through this personal self in the world.
Sarah: That’s why it’s said that only when we are undergoing a crisis do we really come in contact with our higher self, or the soul. There’s something about the nature of crisis that makes us look for other resources than we normally draw upon, search for another kind of wisdom and understanding than we might normally live by. It makes us dig deeper and try to see beyond the barrier that’s been thrown up by this crisis. That’s what brings in the soul, which is the higher consciousness. So, these moments of crisis can be times when we really come in contact with our highest and best self. That’s why I think a lot of people who have gone through a crisis, even when they suffer from it, they at the same time have a sense of accomplishment and even joy. It’s the oddest thing, but I’ll bet many of our listeners could look upon crises in their lives and remember that there was this undercurrent of real joy and kind of a triumph and hope that was generated by the crisis. So, it’s a dual current that runs through them.
Dale: I think we’ve mentioned this before, but there are certain ages in the person’s life when these turning points occur. One of them is around the age of thirty-five, when there is a real point where one’s life can make a definite turn and go off in another direction, and that point represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of another cycle. If you think about your own life, particularly those who are setting out on the path and who have a real spiritual inclination and are searching for something greater than where they are now, then about that age of thirty-five, in mid-life, you might find a definite choice being given to you.
Sarah: Another aspect of crisis that I find interesting is comparing it to a college course. Most of us who have gone to school are used to taking tests or exams. Crises are very similar to the tests and exams that we have to pass in an educational course. Those aren’t punishments. They are periods of assessment when one determines what has really been learned and how well it’s been learned. Without that exam, if you were just given the diploma or the certificate, you wouldn’t really know if you had assimilated what the course taught you, but the exam is meant to determine that. The same it is with crisis. These points of crisis are periods of examination to test just how much one has assimilated, how much wisdom one has brought into one’s mind and heart. So, they’re similar to reviews or tests; they are not indications of failure.
Robert: I agree with what you are both saying about crisis. I also am reminded of that famous quotation, that once the mind expands to a new dimension, it can never return to its original form. I think it’s crisis really that sends us into that new dimension and higher consciousness.
Sarah: It’s interesting that you say that, Robert, because one of the aspects of crisis that indicates it’s been successfully handled is the factor of expansion. A real soul crisis produces expansion. It produces a greater inclusiveness in terms of how one views the world and ones relationships and one’s place within the world, whereas a more purely emotional kind of crisis can often produce the reverse of expansion, a kind of constriction, the turning in upon oneself, contracting one’s sensitive antennae and drawing into oneself.
Robert: It’s said that man has the habit of crisis, but I guess it could be positive the way we’re looking at it in this show. What does that suggest, the habit of crisis?
Sarah: Well, I think it’s obvious to anybody that looks at humanity — especially in the last five hundred years since the enlightenment, and particularly the past one hundred years which are said to have been the bloodiest in the whole of human history — we certainly have created a habit of crisis. One hurdle, one test after another seems to affect not only individuals, but the whole of humanity. To me, it’s indicative that we’re reaching a climax. The events of the past recent months since September 11th certainly have thrown the whole world into a crisis, and I think a lot of people sense that we’re reaching a point where some kind of decision is going to be made that will be, in a sense, irrevocable. If we don’t do something about resolving the conflict and the inharmony between peoples, we are all going to pay a terrific price.
Dale: Yes, and I suppose perhaps the real esoteric reasons are, as we’ve talked about before, the new age energies are coming in now and the old age energies are phasing out, so there is a transition period between these ages. The energies that are impacting upon human consciousness are creating a lot of these crises in the world today, and this is inevitable given that this is a transition time that we’re experiencing and going through in the world right now. When going from an old age to a new age these kinds of crises come up because there’s a lot of old stuff that has to come up for resolution so that we can grow and move on to the next stage.
Sarah: There is also a conflict of energies, isn’t there? We’ve talked about this so much, that the energies that have characterized the past two thousand years are being replaced by incoming new energies of an age that we don’t really know too much about, because it is new. But I think we all sense that there’s a riptide that, if possible, is going in two directions. You either follow the undertow which carries you back into the past, into the familiar, into the old and the tried and true, or you allow yourself to be carried along by this inpouring wave of energy that is bringing about so much that is new. All of us are reaching and participating in this crisis that requires discrimination in terms of where we want to line up our forces, with the new or with the old, or in the case of some souls, to form a bridge that unites past and future. I suppose I would say that’s my preference: to preserve the best of the past and yet bravely face the new and unknown and be open and ready for it.
Dale: And to realize that we can no longer follow the mistakes of the past, that we have to look to the future, learn from those mistakes and move on. I think that’s the great question that’s coming out of the situation in the Middle East and in the Eastern Asian sections of the world, the tremendous conflicts that are building up there; we’re being faced with very definite questions. There’s an opportunity here for real growth if we can take advantage of this opportunity.
Sarah: Taking advantage of it is exactly the right words. We can either sit around asking ourselves, “why me, why me?” or we can say, “what can I learn from this experience, what is this trying to teach me?” That’s where the habit of crisis comes in. We have to ask ourselves, “What is it that circumstances and the various conflicts that are being generated are trying to teach me, and what am I supposed to learn from this?” Everything can be educational, the good and the bad experiences, if we look for the underlying meaning. That’s what I meant about the subjective nature of the really spiritual crises.
Dale: It’s the same crisis that’s occurring in the churches too: the crisis of faith. A lot of the old past mistakes are coming up to the surface now, creating situations that have to be changed.
Robert: The idea that I’ve adopted from the Alice Bailey works and from what you’re just saying, too, is that whatever situation you have, no matter how painful, look for the blessing in it. We may have to search hard, but it’s there. What are some of the spiritual qualities that are gained from crisis rightly handled?
Sarah: Oh, there’s so many. It’s said that crises produce points of revelation, and to me what that means is that when we’re going through a crisis, or perhaps after we’ve been through it, we can hopefully discern a new understanding. Something has been revealed that we didn’t understand before the crisis. We have a better sense of ourselves and our potential and our strengths perhaps, and hopefully we have a better understanding of all human beings and of the purpose of life. Maybe not some sweeping vision, but stage by stage going through these crises, we get a better understanding of what it means to be human, why we are here, what our little place is within this great plan that God has for all of us. So, that is all revealed through crises rightly undergone. There are so many other soul qualities, but that’s one.
Robert: Well, soul crisis is another topic for some time in the future that I’d love to get into. That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a 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)
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