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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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BIBLE VERSES
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REGENERATION
A symbol of the production anew, through a
process of spiritual transmutation and evolution, of the purified
and perfected qualities of the ego which thereby rises to a new
birth on the higher planes of consciousness.
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing
of the Holy Ghost." - TITUS iii. 5.
Not by the highest impulses of the lower nature can a spiritual
result, or rise in consciousness, be brought about; but only
according to a free gift of the Spirit can the soul be made
immortal. Spiritual qualities are bestowed in proportion as the
human nature is purified and raised through the transmutations
effected by the operations of Buddhi (Holy Ghost).
The teaching is that the lower nature cannot possibly raise its
condition, for it does not possess or control the higher elements.
The higher elements are given to the struggling soul when it is
sufficiently evolved and prepared to receive them, and chooses to
accept them.
"There is no ascent of the human desires above their source. And
wherever in a heart there springs up heavenward a thought, a wish, a
prayer, a trembling confidence, it is because that came down first
from heaven, and rises to seek its level again. All that is divine
in man comes from God. All that tends towards God in man is God's
voice in the human heart; and were it not for the possession and
operation, the sanctifying and quickening, of a living divine Spirit
granted to us, our souls would for ever cleave to the dust, and
dwell upon earth, nor ever rise to God and live in the light of His
presence." - A. MACLAREN, Sermons, 1st Series, p. 62.
"Regeneration has not merely been an outstanding difficulty, but an
overwhelming obscurity. Philosophically one scarcely sees either the
necessity or the possibility of being born again. Why a virtuous man
should not simply grow better and better until in his own right he
enter the Kingdom of God, is what thousands honestly and seriously
fail to understand. Now Philosophy cannot help us here. Her
arguments are, if anything, against us. But Science answers to the
appeal at once. If it be simply pointed out that this is the same
absurdity as to ask why a stone should not grow more and more living
till it enters the Organic World, the point is clear in an instant."
- H. DRUMMOND, Natural Law, etc., p. 80.
"The true and definitely directed mystical life does and must open
with that most actual and stupendous, though indescribable
phenomenon, the coming forth into consciousness of man's deeper
spiritual self, which ascetical and mystical writers of all ages
have agreed to call Regeneration or Re-birth. Here its more profound
and mystical side is exhibited, its divine character revealed. By a
process which may indifferently be described as the birth of
something new, or the coming forth of something which has slept —
since both these phrases but metaphors for another and more secret
thing — the eye is opened on Eternity; the self, abruptly made aware
of Reality, comes forth from the cave of illusion like a child from
the womb and begins to live upon the super-sensual plane. Then she
feels in her inmost part a new presence, a new consciousness — it
were hardly an exaggeration to say a new Person — weak, demanding
nurture, clearly destined to pass through many phases of development
before its maturity is reached; yet of so strange a nature, that in
comparison with its environment she may well regard it as Divine." -
E. UNDERHILL, Mysticism, p. 147.
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