The devas of the lower four feel the force when the eye opens; they are driven forth and lose their master.

The Work of the Eye

We have for consideration now one of the simplest of the Rules for Magic yet at the same time one of the most practical, and one upon which the entire success of all magical work depends.

I would like to point out to the investigating aspirant that the key to the situation depicted in the rule lies in the word contemplation found in the preceding one. Let us therefore study that word with care and seek its accurate definition.

To contemplate involves steady vision, one-pointedly directed towards a specific objective. The soul or solar angel might be regarded as gazing in three directions.

1. Towards the Light Supernal, towards that central Life or Energy which holds hid within Itself the purpose and plan towards which all Being tends. I know not how to express this more clearly. What that directive force may be, what is the secret of Being Itself is only revealed during the more advanced initiations, and is only finally grasped when the causal body itself, the karana sarira, disintegrates and the final limitation slips away. With this direction of the solar Angel's vision we need not concern ourselves.

2. Over the kingdom wherein the solar Angel reigns supreme, over the world of souls, or egoic impulses, of hierarchical work and of pure thought. This is the Kingdom of God, the world of heavenly Being. It is the state whereof disciples are becoming increasingly aware, wherein initiates work, and from which the Masters in Their graded ranks direct the evolutionary process of [212] the planet. These two directions in which the soul looks constitute the world of its spiritual experience and the object of its aspiration. Let it not be forgotten that the spiritual man, the solar Angel, has also his goal of endeavor, and that his becomes the predominant impulse once the subjugation of the vehicle in the three worlds is brought about. Just as the fully intelligent human being can only begin consciously to function as a soul and to contact the kingdom of the soul, so only the fully active and dominant soul, in which the buddhic principle is potentially controlling, can begin to contact the state of pure Being in which the monad or spirit eternally rests.

The development of the intellect in man marks his fitness for the work of treading the Path, back to full soul consciousness. The development of the buddhic or wisdom-love aspect in the solar Angel demonstrates his fitness for further progression in the awareness of the state of pure Being.

3. The third direction in which the soul looks and wherein he exercises the faculty of contemplative vision is towards his reflection in the three worlds. The object of the long struggle between the higher and the lower man has been to make the lower responsive to and sensitively aware of the forces emanating from the soul as the soul "contemplates" his triple instrument.