©skydancer

In your work you have to go through the astral plane, and that means you have to be in control of the astral, instead of the astral being in control of you. Because the astral is like-this plastic, malleable substance and it conforms to our thoughts and emotions. So for example you have a figure that has been fed by thoughts of people for quite a long time now such as that of Jesus. There's a very real astral figure of Jesus, very potent, a lot of desire around it, a lot of thought-forms around it, and a lot of images around it. There are many such figures, not just religious but other people and things that have attracted a lot of attention and desire in this time as well as other times.

When we say Jesus, what are we really talking about? The personality that we have been told about? Oftentimes, particularly on the lower astral, that is what is personified - it's the personality, or what we call the personality, or what people have built up to be the personality. If enough people with strong thought-forms and emotions have attributed traits to this personality image of this figure, called Jesus, they will be formed in this astral image.

A lot of what you encounter, particularly in the lower astral, are thought-forms, and a lot of them are charged by what humanity has poured into them. They actually exist because they are constantly held in the desire nature and the thought nature of humanity, and therefore in a form they do exist. And many of them, whether it's the devil, whether it's Jesus, whether it's Krishna, whether it's Santa Claus, whether it's the pearly gates of heaven, the tooth fairy - they are very strong and alive thought-forms that have the impressions of what we perceive that to be. That's not to judge that, because it's very purposeful. But on the other side it can also be very limiting, because if you have a relationship with Jesus that says Jesus has these qualities, and Jesus looks this way and Jesus embodies this, then that is your stopping point there. The Master Jesus holds a pattern and it isn't attached to how you at any point in your progression may experience that energy. However, from your standpoint if you give yourself permission to open to a wider expanse of that energy, you have a greater level of access to that Master. You are not limited by your own beliefs and your own thoughts and your own limitations and particularly your emotional content, because our emotions are wonderful tools that pull us up, but they can also be a limitation.

What has visualization got to do with what I've just told you about Jesus? You're building patterns on the astral plane and you're building doorways into those patterns. It's the first step in taking control, but it's also a step that if you have an encounter in your meditation, and you experience the energy of Master Jesus, maybe you even have a visual image of a face - what do you do then? What is the potential? You can move into it. Usually what happens is that when we encounter a Being like that we are so overwhelmed by our own feelings, thoughts, and emotions that we stop right there, we lose all focus. And actually, usually, if we can stay in that focused place, then we can say to that figure, that form, "Show me". There's a level of protocol. You don't just want to go up to anybody and blithely go where they want to take you. This is where you get into some magical training. But you can, when you encounter an energy like that, you can say, "What are you a gateway to?" Oftentimes the face of that energy dissolves and it opens up into another gateway.

And so what you need to understand about the astral is that the astral is not only malleable by the huge thoughts that are held by humanity's consciousness, but is also under the influence of your own thoughts and your feelings, particularly the lower astral.

Why do we have an astral? Have we always had an astral plane? We keep talking about humanity's astral; does the planet have an astral body? It is said that as we moved into involution that there was not an astral body, as we understand it. The astral body was actually developed as we moved into what was known as the Atlantean period. In the Lemurian period it was primarily focused on the development and attainment of your physical vehicle. So Lemuria is generally associated with - as we came down into the form nature, we didn't just plop down here and here we are. The builders of form - there were prototypes of human form that didn't work, and eventually the builders of form came up with this body that we have now, but it was a somewhat more rugged version and hence we developed into this working unit that we call the physical body. Now we talk about this as a temple, and it is true that at this point in time we have reached the place in our development where the physical body is pretty much the physical body. It has reached its point of development and perfection that it serves its purpose.

We then moved into a time where we were not doing too much more than eating and propagating. We had a very tribal, community consciousness. There wasn't individuality. There wasn't too much of a separation between you and me. And then we had the gift of the spark of mind, and at that point we developed individuality. I became aware of a sense of me versus you. And we began to separate out of the group mind and into a mind of individuality. That was at the beginning of the Atlantean period. And with the spark of individuality there began "I want what you have". Desire! "I want". Passion! Sex began to move out of "there's a familiar odor here, my body's responding to it and I'm going to crawl on top of you and do it" into "I want you". Sex became more than just a physiological response. It became something of a desire nature.

We think of the Atlantean fall primarily being associated with technology. There were technological advances but what motivated most of the technological advances? Desire! There was a lot of experimentation. The mythological figures of half-man half-beast, there was a lot of interbreeding and experimentation. It was a lot of stimulation. In Atlantis the technological aspect was there, but the technology was driven by power, by the desire nature of things, and also by a lot of exploration around sexuality and the fire of sexuality. There was obviously this huge development of what we call the astral body.

Now we are in the Aryan race. What is its purpose? The development of the mental, the dispelling of the glamour on the astral. As we gain mastery over and eventuality dispel our own astral body; we will also dispel the planetary astral body. And how do we do this? We move out of the polarization in the emotional body and develop the higher mental body. We are beginning the upward path of evolution. Returning back to source enriched with all of these experiences, making choices in alignment with the higher will. We take our sense of individuality and move into the group consciousness, as individuals in alignment with the will to good.