Growth and Discipline: Manly Hall

This is another post quoting excerpts from one of the lectures of Manly Hall:

"Growth in this world is the gradual control of the elements which make up living."

"Growth is the individual putting himself in order, on purpose."

"As we grow, the challenge grows with us."

"Growth for each person is his own next step."

"The next step for each person is the correction of the most glaring fault.  And the individual is the one most able to say what that is."

"We graduate from school the slave of mental processes but with no skill in how to change ourselves."

"Physical discipline can be achieved through practice, dedication, and continuity of effort.  But as to disciplining our emotional or mental character, we are at a loss.  We feel we must kill off our faults by brute force."

"Discipline is not whipping yourself or gritting your teeth.  You cannot nag yourself into a state of grace."

"Discipline is a striving for balance, a matter of not permitting any excess.  We must develop a placidity of nature.  To keep a certain distance."

"We must begin to grow where we are, and we must grow in a manner that does not cause us to become fanatical."

"We should listen to learn rather than to criticize."

"Placidity is the power to gently accept a situation without becoming emotionally involved, but staying alert to all of its aspects."

"Emotional outbursts are escapes that are useful to the individual who has no better way to use his energy.  It lets off steam."

"The individual who is not using his own energy intelligently has to have these emotional outbursts to let off steam."

"All energetic control arises from insight about your own abilities.  You must know that you have outgrown emotional hysteria, not that you have outlawed it."

"If an individual is placid, then nature finds him the most plastic instruments to achieve her own purpose."

"Nature is not interested in our economic or industrial development.  Nature is only interested in our development as human beings.  And when we serve Nature's ends, she rewards us with her finest gifts: health, happiness, contentment, and freedom from stress, doubt, and worry."

Meditation, Realization, and Illumination: from Manly Hall

According to Manly Hall there are three practices that we can engage in to facilitate growth on the spiritual journey:  meditation, realization, and illumination (actually illumination comes of itself or not.)

These are just a few scattered thoughts from his lecture:

"Meditation is a rest from the conflicts of daily living."

"Realization is an attempt to rise above judging things from their appearances."

"Illumination is at-one-ment with universal principle, an experience of participation in the divine nature."

"Nothing we deserve can be kept from us, but nothing we do not YET deserve can be bestowed upon us."

"Man can never forget that which he has actually experienced."

"Illumination is a total state of being capable of bearing the consciousness of truth."

"When we forget ourselves in doing other things that are right, we suddenly discovere that we are happy."

"All three things have a common factor of relaxation, of dedication to 'not my will but thine'."

On Loneliness:
"Frenquently we learn the most from those most different from us."

"All things are the degrees of one thing."

"The moment an individual takes control of hie own destiny, he goes against the current of the collective and things may seem harder."

"The individual who is dedicated to principles has to live them."

"All true development brings with it an experience of wider living."

"The more we can include, the more of God we can bring into our lives."

"Anything that we leave out may in truth be the key to our own survival."

Manly Hall on "The Unseen Forces"

"We are isolated into a very small part of a living universe because of our limited senses."

"The way in which life comes to man is determined by his capacity to accept it."

"Man has never had an optimistic attitude about the unknown."

"That which lay beyond sensory ipressions seemed frightening."

"The unknown world which most constantly concerns the individual is his own inner world."

"Every problem that we fear on the outside exists on the inside."

"The individual grows not by what is easily handed to him but by what he achieves out of the smallness of his own insight."

"Man must grow through the gradual process of affirming the realities and having the courage to live by the principles which he cannot prove but which by his consciousness he knows to be true."

"He must, with the courage of partial insight, meet the challenge of his own spiritual needs."

"If man will just do what is next, all the rest will be forgiven him."

"At all times we should turn to the unknown and bless it and not curse it."

"Man cannot acknowledge the evil in anything without acknowledging it in himself."

"There is no way a person can be hurt unless he has opened himself to being hurt by a disobedience to the laws of benevolence."

"Sometimes our worst enemies are shadows."

An Unlikely Combination

This, of course, is another of my "fashion illustrations."  I used a shot of Nat that I took at the Hotel Manin in Milano several years ago as the base and added color to it.

But the unlikely combination is, I am going to post my watercolor images along with quotes from some Many Hall tapes that I am currently listening to while I sketch and paint.  We'll see how it goes:

Manly Hall Quotes:

"The education of consciousness is the purpose of existence."

"Consciousness is recondite, hidden, and must be earned."

"Man has both a conscious and an unconscious memory."

"He has a sleep memory and a waking memory -- without their ever coming together. Dreams have a subjective continuity."

"Man is a manifestation of some kind of energy everywhere in space."

"Are we conscious beings or merely sensory beings?"

"Man has the power to know and it is within himself."

"We are all in the midst of reality, but we live in unreality."

"All problems have to be solved on the level of consciousness.  There are no problems which can be solved on the level of emotion and sense.  All problems have to be causally solved."

"Consciousness must be an infinite capacity in which all things are possible, but which must arise from a living thing."

"The one who attempts to find the reason for his own being escapes into consciousness."

"Nothing is required but the courage to climb out of the well (the body of senses, emotion, and mind.)"

"The average person thinks only in emergencies and protects himself more and more from such emergencies."

Well -- that's a mouthful.

Playing around with Fashion Illustration

I'm so tired of looking at that "Wisdom" image when I go to the blog, that I thought I would just post a couple of the watercolors I've been doing for the past two weeks, so I would have something different to look at.

There's nothing much to write about them, except that being "fashion illustration" there is no background.  Already there were no faces or hands, only a few feet.

This one with her back turned is quite colorful and compelling though. I copied the silhouette from a magazine.  Turns out, on closer observation, she was facing forward and looking down, but I instinctively turned her head.

Actually, she's much sassier this way to me.

More later.

Wisdom

Wisdom

Wisdom!  Wow!  I made it to the end of the seven qualities recommended by the ancient Hindus and described by Manly Hall in WORDS TO THE WISE.

And every time I look at her, I am amazed. Of course you won't understand the electrical current around her head until I tell you what Manly Hall says in another of his works:  LECTURES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

In Chapter 14, he talks about how inadequate words are to describe intuitive knowledge. Science, he says can only deal with the physical world, the subtle world can't be measured by scientific means, nor described using words.

The Ancients developed a way to convey knowledge to those who were being initiated into the Mystery Schools, thus:  The Masters activated a "mysterious electric fluid" as the disciples gathered about him (in our case her).  The hierophant is seated in repose while all around his head this electrical fluid flows out and those who are listening, as pictured in the Samothracian carvings and figures have their hair standing on end "as though caused by a current of electrical energy, in each instance flowing away from the central figure from whom the current emanates."

This current stimulated "certain rational faculties in the inner natures of the disciples." who were then able to sense, feel, or intuitively grasp the knowledge that was being communicated to them without the use of words.

So, my image of the faceless woman representing Wisdom,  has these emanations coming from around her head, radiating knowledge to those who seek it, without words.

Charity

Charity

Charity?  You say.  How can this image represent "charity"?

Because I adore what Manly Hall says about Charity in WORDS TO THE WISE:  "We must not only give of what we have, but of what we are."

Although some women now have material wealth to give, traditionally women have been able to give only "of what they are."

It seems to me that this gift has too long gone unrecognized.  Whenever a woman spends time, money and energy making herself beautiful for others, that is one of the most precious gifts she can offer.

Hall says later in the another work, "Beauty is a soul quality, and like the soul is visible only in its tincturing effect upon its immediate environment."

And again, "When we love the beautiful as we now love the dollar, we shall have a great and enduring civilization."

I am aware that some women are capable of using their ability to be an incarnation of Venus to manipulate others, but when it is done in the spirit of "charity" of giving, of giving of yourself to whoever has eyes to see, it is certainly a quality to be cultivated.