FOOD
FOR THOUGHT
On a recent Sunday in July Fred Hess presented a talk which gathered
together his observations and perceptions concerning the functioning of
the School over a period of many years. His opinions were spelled out in a
carefully prepared talk and seemed important enough to share with a larger
audience. Not everyone agrees with Fred, or his observations of the
School. Opinions totally opposed to his are expressed often by students
living here as well as by visitors. But in the interest of airing some
controversial issues we decided to present his talk as a contribution to
the Journal. I think you will agree that it is clearly stated and also
thought-provoking. (Jim Dalton, August 1979)
WHAT MAKES A STUDENT?
What makes a student? Is there any need for a student to be highly
educated? Does the Light turn away persons who haven't finished high
school? Does the Light fawn over persons with Ph.D's? How about a person
who sees auras and registers frequencies? Why do some apparently promising
people come to a place like our beloved School and go away unchanged, when
others whom we may not even want to welcome come in and stick? To me there
is only one activity in the consciousness of any person that makes that
one a student, and I describe that activity with the little word urge.
What is the referent for that word urge? The Power-to-be-conscious
directly influencing the consciousness of an individual through internal
motivations. These are the same words we use for our referent for the word
telokinesis (as Vitvan described in the Beginners Course lectures.) URGE!
The Power-to-be-conscious pushing you! "Seek! Find! Learn of Me!" And what
do we do? How do we respond to that push? Well, in the beginning we
justify.
For many years I gave a lot of value to the word student. For my first ten
years in the School I referred to myself as a member of the School of the
Natural Order. I knew I didn't do the exercises; I knew I didn't sustain
any effort. I sagged on the ropes. And I let whoever would carry me, carry
me. And they did. So how could I call myself a student?
Oh, I went through the two-week flurrys that Vitvan often referred to, and
that, more than ever, pin-pointed me as a member. I didn't even have
enough personal pride to try to get off the ropes and stand on my own two
feet. But one day the urge (Remember the referent for the urge is the
Power-to-be-conscious exerting its influence.) said, "Start." And I
started.
What it really said was, "I am here. Start." But I wasn't conscious of the
"I am here" part for many years. Then I felt free to think of myself as a
student. (Please pardon the use of a personal reference to make a point.)
What do we here in the School of the Natural Order have to offer a genuine
student?
1) First and foremost we offer a road map. This much I know - love is not
enough! Pure love is the devotional path to the Light. In the Hindu
teachings it is called Shakti Yoga. If it were enough the Hindus would not
have needed Jnana Yoga, the mental path to the Light. And if those two,
separately, had been enough, they would not have developed Raja Yoga, the
royal yoga, the devotional faculty and the mental faculty working
together. This represents the primary method for development as given here
in the School of the Natural Order. Later other faculties will develop
which allows our yoga to be qualified by a different adjective.
Love is not enough. Those of you who've been there, you know it. Those of
you who haven't, be patient. You'll know it. The classroom in San Marcos
has a long blackboard and over it was a sign saying, "With all thy
getting, get understanding. Proverbs 4.7" This work emphasizes
understanding.
Another way that Vitvan stated it was on the inside cover to the Here-Now:
"Faith, Love, Knowledge, as powerful cosmic forces, represent the way to
Wisdom." My referent for Wisdom is the Power-to-be-conscious, identified
with itself, functioning in Light substance.
Love is born out of many experiences in faith. (Have you experienced that?
Have you ever consciously recognized that?) But love doesn't get you the
rest of the way. Next comes mental understanding - our road map - and then
it (the results of experiences in love) becomes built into your vehicle as
structure, and then we call it knowledge. All else is epistemology, book
learning, etc.
Love is not enough. Get your road map, so you can have stability. Get your
road map, so you can recognize epistemology for what it is. I'm talking to
you older students, too. Some of the verbalizing I've heard over the years
I call a disgrace to the legacy Vitvan left us. So take two years to get,
or improve, your road map. Love is not enough.
2) The second offering that we have for a student is purification -
purification in a chemical sense, not a moral sense. How many incarnations
have we indulged and over-indulged ourselves in activities which were
natural to our state at one time, but which no longer are appropriate?
These over-indulgences created conditions and entities in our psyches and
we died carrying those affinities with us. When we re-incarnated we
brought the affinities with us and soaked up the entities right out of the
race-psyche. How can we enter Light's Regions with an unclean psyche? It
is said that even releasing the Kundalini (the sleeping force at the base
of the spine) into an unpurified psyche produces madness in the extreme.
Thus we offer freedom - freedom from our old self-indulgences via
purification. And in those purifying experiences we develop a new faculty,
discrimination, the ability to tell before you get into something, some
activity, whether it is true to your state or not. One of the quickest
ways to tell how far a young soul is along the path is by looking for the
faculty of discrimination displayed in his/her actions.
3) What else do we have to offer a genuine student? Steps on the path. In
one word: Exercises. Breathing, concentration exercises, et cetera.
Incidentally, if and when this genuine student succeeds in abstracting
consciously to the first order, when he or she consciously differentiates
between the event and the image in the psyche, the rest of the abstracting
process pales into insignificant verbalization. I refer you to the
literature for descriptions of the various exercises.
4) Fourth, we offer Darshan to students in our School. What is the
referent? Darshan is a Sanskrit term referred to on page 8 in The Christos.
The term refers to the radiance of one who has gone through the
purificatory process to be able to stand in the higher power of Light and
reflected Light. I include the term reflected light because I know from
experience that the radiance of one who has not even been inducted into
the inner orders can be a blessing to one in difficulty. It's the
radiance, the quickening power that we call Darshan, but it's the effect
upon us that is our blessing. So, those who think that Darshan went out
when Vitvan checked out may need a few more husks before their pride is
humbled.
5) We have one more thing to offer a real and genuine student. And I would
like to hand it to you on the most beautiful silver tray you can imagine.
But first, I owe some of you an apology. We older students have a club -
not a clubby group, but a heavy club, with a spike in it. And we use it on
the younger students. It starts like this, "When I was with Vitvan...,"
or, "Vitvan said to me...," or, "When Vitvan and I were doing so and so
together..." And I expect you to be in awe of my great erudition. Please
forgive me!
May I make amends? May I offer you a consciousness of Vitvan? May I offer
you Vitvan himself? How many times have I heard, "Gee, I wish I'd known
Vitvan?" I've told you before, he's "alive and well and living in heaven."
His field is our group field. So I say this: Introduce yourself to him.
Meet him in the frequencies. You won't regret it; you surely won't forget
it. And if you're afraid, then do it this way. Sit quietly and say,
"Vitvan, Vitvan, Vitvan, Fred says I should get acquainted with you." And
if you shouldn't, then I'll be the guy who reaps the karma! Now, I'm not
saying to do it all the time, maybe once every year or two. And I'm sure
not saying use him as a leaning post. But do it once and keep trying until
you succeed. And then the next time I try to pull that "Vitvan and me"
stuff on you, you can look me in the eye and say, "Fred, piss on you."
Do you think I'm just talking to you younger students? I am not. How long
has it been since you older students have registered Vitvan? Too long,
I'll bet. Try it. Do it. And then you won't have to cling to a memory of
Vitvan as the high point of your experience in the School. All of you
experience it. Experience it and then ruminate on it until you realize
that there is no gulf between his world and our world. It's the same world
we function in. Our only blockage is our images - "my body is a thing." I
can't offer you a greater gift.
So now I've set up the referent for a student. I've listed the things our
School has to offer a student. Now let's see where we are. Where is we?
The School today seems predominantly composed of two groups, those who
joined in the 50's (I wish more of them were present), and those who
joined in the 70's. I'd like to talk for a moment about the first group
since, by definition, I'm part of it. When we joined the School in the
50's Vitvan was giving his finest work. We dug ditches and laid water
lines and cleaned out springs and we knew that Light's Regions was not far
off. We could see a school for children configurating. We could see the
foundation for a metropolis called New Alexandria configurating. What if
there were a couple of false starts before we got to Nevada? What if it
was a "tough fight with a short stick?" It was all opening up for us.
Vitvan had a loyal bunch of what he called "grey heads" that we younger
ones learned to go to for answers: Connia deBit for gardening, Alice
Moffat for school history, Lu Bacon, Agni Truax and, not the least, Mabel
Hayden. We didn't want to pester Vitvan for everything.
So twenty years went by and what happened? Nothing. We had forgotten to
sustain our exercises. We were just 20 years older. And Vitvan had checked
out - deserted us, some felt. We hadn't become Fourth Degree Initiates,
not even brothers of the Third Degree. We just talked, like you do today.
But one significant event did occur in the late 50's. As Vitvan stated it,
"Mabel Hayden died." After 25 years in the work, Mabel Hayden purified her
vehicles, lifted her forces, brought in and sustained function in a new
level of force and thereby became qualified to carry on with the work
which Vitvan had begun.
Now let me address the older students. We do not feel guilty or ashamed of
anything. Maybe we didn't configurate a New Alexandria. Only those who
were there know how low we sank in spirit after Vitvan left and how we
scratched to hold the School together. Of course, we should have
abstracted, etc., etc., etc. But we did welcome the youngsters who started
coming in because Vitvan had said the New Age children would be more
highly developed. And we watched them screw around and swill beer until we
didn't want to see another New Age child on the place!
But we did one thing - we stuck. We supported Anita and we held. Everyone
supported in his or her way. And if we're still developing our egos, we
take pride in that. But there is still a place for us. Even as we went to
the older students for information and stability, we now have the
opportunity to provide information and stability ourselves. The newer
students today need more than one to look to and we can fill that function
to the degree that we can claim their respect.
Remember, Vitvan said the new cycle started in 1885 and the old cycle
ended in 1945, that it would take 100 years, or three generations for the
new cycle to take hold. The first generation has come and here they sit.
And some of the next generation has been born already.
So now, New Age children, I'm talking to you. You now have some idea of
why you might not have been welcomed with open arms, why you have had to
prove your trustworthiness. But I think you're doing that, and I cast my
lot with you and each succeeding generation. I've registered Vitvan in the
frequencies enough to know that I don't have to cling to a memory of him.
That is why I'm so desirous that all and each of you share that registry
with me. Then we can stand in the here-now with him, just as some of us
did in past years.
Self-development is not easy. Just fulfilling one's natural order state is
not easy. And getting started on finding one's natural order state is
hardest of all. So, how does one get started? The School offers two
methods, and I'm going to add a third.
The first method is exercises. I have never seen anyone make any grade
with the exercises alone. They are designed to develop self-discipline,
but it takes self-discipline at the outset to do them. It's a circle with
no apparent starting point, just like every other circle. Perhaps
self-disciplined students have no need for a school. In 1954 I asked
Vitvan, "How long would it take to make the first crossing?" He replied,
"Six weeks - provided one could concentrate." So I asked, "How long would
it take to learn to concentrate?" And he answered, "Ninety days." How's
that for a plum?
The next method is passive. Get Darshan! Find someone whose radiance can
help you through the purificatory process and get in it and stay in it, or
get in it as often as you can. And let it work! That's all, just cooperate
with it. You know what cooperating with it means. When something makes you
react, it's the Darshan that's working and you have to recognize that fact
and help that which has come to the surface be released from your state.
The third method I want to introduce is a series of breathing exercises
designed to produce a state of controlled hyperventilation. I've seen what
it can do and I'll say that as far as self-development is concerned it's
only a starter, but it will break the periphery of the exercise circle for
you and give you the self-confidence to continue. Unfortunately, it
requires a therapist because it goes by the name of Reichian therapy. But
I believe it is so valuable to one who cannot stand in Darshan that I've
said, once you've got your road map, find a therapist and go get a job
where he lives and live there the four or five years it takes to finish
that process and then start your self-development.
This road map business is so important. Partly for inner harmony, partly
for group harmony. The ones without road maps sit around and criticize -
the ones who are new sit around and criticize other newcomers; the ones
who have been here awhile criticize whomever they choose to react to. And
John Gozzi and I are getting tired of playing the role of peacemaker for
those who refuse to do their homework.
To me, there is one series of talks Vitvan gave which, if all the local
students sat in on all the lessons, would reduce the criticizing and
carping 50%, maybe even criticism relative to the school leadership.
Unfortunately, most of the tapes are incomplete, but there is a complete
manuscript of The Seven Initiations, including the Seven Rays of
Development. Putting the tapes and the manuscript together to make
complete lessons will explain many things, except to those who have chosen
to blind themselves.
These lessons will also explain, I hope, why I believe there must be one
leader who can sustain function on some level other than the personal
level. No one below can contact and hold the focus of the field. Some
people here think that government by committee will work. But there is
another factor. You have heard the quotation, "Where two or more are
gathered in my name, there am I." But I'm going to add, "in a very diluted
form." Why? For this reason - (and this is my road map): Nowhere in the
worlds of reality is there any resistance to the will of God (the
Power-to-be-conscious) except on the human level. Every Being from a Lord
of the Flame down to the tiniest flower fairy responds instantly to the
will of the Power. So any group that assembles in the name of the Power
elicits a response from the heaven worlds, but only to the degree of
purification of the members of the group! It would be a violation of
individual integrity for a Christed one to come in with the power of his
radiance and precipitate the purificatory process in those assembled in an
unpurified group. Therefore, the guidance is diluted, the Darshan is gone
and we have no direct contact with the power of the field and I say that
is an unacceptable way to carry on the configurational activities of this
School, of this field.
Believe me, if we are left without a successor to Anita, my road map says
the Higher Ones have abandoned the School and I should check the outfit
out, no matter how much or for how long Home Farm thrives as a farm, or a
center for literature distribution.
Furthermore, in those lessons (The Seven Initiations) it is said that the
nearest thing, on the objective level, to hierarchical structure is a
corporation. Anyone familiar with corporate life knows that committees do
not exist there. Everything is delegated to people of proven competence.
So, let's put some of this together. First, we have a bunch of students
who have recently contacted Vitvan (meaning you) and, therefore, have new
faith in him. And we also have a process whereby one someone can contact,
hold, and radiate the power of the field for the members thereof to
function under, and in.
So! Can we not hold the idea that Vitvan knows that we will need someone
of that state to carry on after Anita, and can we not have faith in his
seeing to it that we are not left without such a one? And more important
than that, can we not get our road maps together so we can see just how
important it is?
What makes a student? Do you really have the urge?
Fred Hess, August, 1979 |
