New World Religion
by Lawson Bracewell

*This talk was given at the April, 2004
Seven Ray Institute/University of
the Seven Rays Conference in Mesa, Arizona.

I feel so completely surrounded by love and when I look out on you there's virtually not a face that I haven't seen before and not a soul present that I don't feel connected to. So it's an absolute joy to be here with you and I of course as always have no idea what's going to happen in this moment, I'm simply open to it and willing and able to enjoy it, and always it's the contact; for me to be in this position is wonderful just because of you. I get all of you in this continuous contact with your eyes and with the energy that's streaming around me in this moment.

So I'm going to talk about something which is very near and dear to me as it is near and dear to you-- meditation. I'm going to tie it into the theme of this conference which is the New World Religion. Exactly how that's going to work out, well there are, I think, segments to this--working from the personal to the impersonal and back again to the personal.

I can start by asking when meditation came consciously into my life? It entered into my life at around age 30 and it came in through the death of someone with whom I had a very strong connection. This was not someone who was important in the same way as a father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or child is; it was somebody, and just like you, and they died. It was such a shocking, vivid, joyful moment. I had no words for it, I didn't know how to talk about it, think about it, express it. This person was a meditator so I felt I was being given a possibility of learning how to talk about it by stepping into a system of meditation. That, of course, over time, led to the blue books and to the idea of occult meditation as presented by the Tibetan Master, D.K., and I've spent many years immersed in studying what he had to say about meditation and practicing that as an individual and of course practicing it in a group.

So I come at this point in my life to a place where I'm thinking of meditation stripped from many of the things which I've learned about it over the years. I've come back to thinking of it simply as conversation-- it's just talking, communicating, with you, with the environment, with myself in all of the extensions of myself which includes all aspects of what I or you might call divinity. It's just conversations and although I've never read the book Conversations with God and have no particular inclination to do so, I love the title. Because I think that's meditation--it's simply conversations with God. Whether I'm communicating with the God which I see in you, or the Christ which I see in you, or I'm communicating with the God which is within me, it's all just conversations with God. And there are wonderfully illuminating moments in those conversations--whether they are within or without something being said and, suddenly, light floods the field and things that had not been there before, appear instantaneously. Such a rich experience and then it's gone--leaving only a perfume, an essence, an access point, when the conversation is over. But it's never over, because every one of those moments connects to the next conversation and builds on the next conversation and is added to by the next illuminating moment.

What the Tibetan says is that meditation is the highest expression of the third aspect. We often belittle the third aspect whereas we're more than happy to glorify the first aspect and we're more than happy to love the second aspect and to talk a lot about that whole interconnecting process of love; but the third aspect-- the matter aspect, the light within the form, the intelligence, the Holy Spirit--these are things which are often secondary in our consideration, and yet, we're all advocates of meditation.

So I want to say that meditation is a working man's approach, a working woman's approach, to divinity, to relationship, to understanding and it is very practical. It's just about establishing these meaningful connections so that light, energy, power and love can find practical expressions in the world so that there can be all sorts of appropriate wirings and so that languages can be translated across patterns that maybe don't understand those languages, breaking down barriers through all sorts of creative ways of grounding light and anchoring it in the world.

At the moment I want to assert one of my greatest teachers and that is my grandson. I am one of these fortunate people, at this point in my life, who has a three-and-a-half year old grandson. Of course, in his world, things are changing so rapidly that to say that he's three-and-a-half years old is definitely out of date. His name is Anton and at the moment Anton is very aware of his name and that it begins with an A. Anton tells me over and over again, “there's an A, there's an A, there's an A, there's an A”.

What's Anton telling me? He's telling me about divinity, he's telling me there I am, there I am, there I am. Wow, what a statement. What a powerful, powerful statement. In all things, there I am. He keeps reminding me of the A, What is an A? In our alphabet it's got three sides to it--one, two, three; so he's telling me over and over again about the three aspects of divinity and how they're absolutely entwined within each other. They are separate but interrelated and there is this aspect of the A, the horizontal plane, that has to do with making contact--making contact through language, and through light, and through intelligence.

A, of course, is the first letter, so even in the A he's saying here is the first aspect. It’s always enlivening, always destroying, always encouraging detachment, always freeing us from the dogma, the confinements, and the techniques. It’s always reminding us that the truth, the connection, the two-way interplay of communication, is always available, always present, as long as it doesn't become frozen and crystallized. Anton's doing that for me right now.

But I have three grandchildren and two of them are only 7 months old but I remember when they arrived; I remember when they all arrived, and how we immediately entered into conversation with each other. Energetically our energy bodies locked onto each other and we were reading each other and I was learning. We were meditating together immediately and everything that I was, was communicated to my grandchildren. I was teaching them the whole of my lives of experience because it's all contained within my energy body. They were sharing with me all their many lives of experience, even the ones that I had the privilege of seeing on day one, when they were still arriving into these energy bodies.

So I think that it's all very simple. The Tibetan tells us that everyone meditates, it's universal. He says that there are many different forms of meditation--prayer, contemplation, chanting, you can call it whatever you want but, like theosophy, it becomes this wonderful, all inclusive container which describes the process of linking up and communicating.

One of the things that he does, too, is that he describes meditation as being something which everyone who feels the pain, everyone who senses a problem, everyone who senses a solution, enters into it. So the artist who broods upon, the philosopher who broods upon, the housewife who broods upon, are all, eventually, open to this inspiration.

I remember that most vividly in my own life when, after a period of studying the books, I was engaged in doing something as simple as weaving rugs. So here I was in this repetitive pattern of simply putting the wool back and forth across a string and producing something, and in that simple process it freed me to brood upon the problems that I saw in the world around me. It opened me up to inspiration for what needed to be said, what needed to be done. I received practical solutions.

Think about it. If we break our meditative practices down they become just that. We go through a process in which we set ourselves up to be impressed and we do it out of a sense of need. At times we do it purely selfishly; it's the need for our own evolution, a need for breaking free of some limitation and confinement. At other times, we're a part of a group and we sense a group need and we put ourselves into that practice that we have in order to receive something that's going to move us into helping the group evolve and realize its purpose and its potential.

In Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. II, in the second section, there is a teaching on meditation that gives a summary of eight types of meditation. D.K. gave these out to his students, to the disciples in his group. In reading them and living them I think that he's giving these to all of us as a kind of eight-fold path for communicating more effectively with ourselves and with other people.

In thinking about these eight different methods I was wondering about how I could communicate these methods to my grandson, Anton. Also I have been pondering how best to communicate these methods to other people as well as how best to practice them myself. I'm going to summarize each one of the methods but, basically, what the Tibetan says, is that each one of these methods is essentially contemplation--you use whatever technique works for you to get into that meditative state and then there are a series of contemplations that the Tibetan offers.

The first one is really a theme that we spent several days working with in the esoteric astrology pre-conference. The first one is the one that Humanity is struggling with and, of course, we are very much a part of Humanity. We are engaged in a process of moving energy from a state of personal, egoistic, "I want" desire, focused in the solar plexus, up into the higher aspect of the solar plexus. In this higher aspect there is a yearning for transcendence--for a reaching into the higher qualities of emotion, of aspiration, and then bridging into the heart where there is an all inclusive, compassionate understanding of our inter-connectedness to each other.

So the first meditation is just learning how to build that bridge. The contemplation is a visual one because in our form of meditation the mind sheds light upon the problem and shifts it with what it sees; it creates the solution as well as seeing where it is currently lodged. This is a scientific process of simply using the mind to reflect upon our base aspect, that which is full of energy and the vitality of the organism in the material world, and then contemplating how that can be shifted higher.

Well, my life is a living example of this; so when I'm thinking of Anton, you know, here I am, I'm relating to Anton, Anton is relating to me. I'm always aware, “are Anton and I locked into a battle?” Are you going to have your, whatever it is, right now when I want it? Is there something more in the game that we're playing? Is there some principle? Anton is at that age when he is beginning to realize that there are causes that are worth fighting for, that there are principles: he's beginning to become aware of the fact that he can be a hero. It doesn't have to be just about his own life. And what does he see his grandfather doing? He sees his grandfather sacrificing his time and his life in order to help others. Anton watches me, Anton comes along to the conferences that we have in New Zealand and he sees his grandfather in situations like this--embracing the audience and feeling not much separation from the audience and he is observing all that I am in truth. He's observing all of my failures as well; when I fall right back into being just as disagreeable about what's mine as he can be.

So the second one is that the Tibetan encourages contemplation on simply the movement of energy through the centers. So he's encouraging this shedding of light upon all the different routes that light can move through as it penetrates through these seven great centers of knowledge, comprehension and wisdom.

So the one that I find most practical in the many ideas that the Tibetan suggests is related to the first--seeing light descending from the soul, moving down through the crown, the ajna, the heart and lodging in the solar plexus, then rising to the heart, then moving out from the heart guided by the light from the ajna centre.

Again, when I'm dealing with Anton in my life, he's being exposed to the vision, he's going out there on the land, Christ College of Trans-Himalayan Wisdom, and he's being exposed to the idea that there's something at a very high level that's manifesting there. It's manifesting with all of his grandfather's desire--his personal desire, but also his grandfather's willingness to stand and articulate a vision which is inclusive rather than separative.

The next consideration that the Tibetan encourages us to focus upon is the subject of alignment. All of these things are related to each other--so pulling them apart is, of course, somewhat of an abstraction, in the same way as when we pull apart our chakras and say that they are separate one from another when, in fact, of course they're not. But alignment is my connection, it is our connection from the personality to the soul; from the soul to the Master within the Hierarchy, our own master, our ashram; the alignment from the ashram to Shamballa--and then the alignment as it comes through all of our centers.

The next meditation is a process of learning how to stand. Of course this is a moment by moment daily event. The lovely thing about introductions, such as the one given by Halina, is that the person can't be saying the things unless they're living it, unless they're doing it. So maybe an introduction is about the person being introduced but, in a lot of ways, the person is also about themselves. Halina is great at standing and this is what this teaching is talking about--you have to just stand, all the time, it's about standing. It's about understanding that there's this great vivifying drenching fire that's moving through the highest aspects. We stand within the Will of God, in every moment, pierced by the fire of Shamballa, pinned to the ground at the other end, like a needle point, like an acupuncture point. You just can't move until it's appropriate, until you are released, or until the energy is moved, or your assignment is completed. Until then, you must stand in that alignment.

The next consideration is the contemplation of Hierarchy. What a tremendous contemplation this is. This involves entering into the heart, our own hearts, as well as the heart of this planetary Life. It is an attempt to be sensitive, sensitive to the Purpose and the Plan that the Hierarchy is continuously brooding upon and working out solutions for Humanity. The reason that the Hierarchy turns toward us, as Michael said, is because we are finally thinking as they are. The Hierarchy is continuously thinking of how they can stimulate the understanding, the wisdom that lies latent within the hearts of Humanity? What practical things can they impulse into those beings, those groups that are standing and that are connected energetically within themselves and to other people? So this is about understanding the Hierarchy, attuning with the Hierarchy, finding one's place within the Hierarchy, finding one's own ability to stand in love and in the heart.

The next consideration is related to seed thoughts. Words are powerful things. A word that Anton vibrates to is freedom; so do I. Sirius, that great Lodge, so far beyond my mundane daily experience and so ever present--signifies freedom. The theme of freedom is related to the understanding of pattern, of perfect pattern, karmic fulfillment, and joy--the absolute joy of conformance to the law. That is freedom.

But there are many, many of these wonderfully evocative powerful seed thoughts that we take into our meditation, into our conversations with each other and, just by uttering them, neutron bombs go off in consciousness--irradiating the field with ideas that will grow over long periods of time. This is really an anchoring from on high, these potent seeds, whether we take them internally into our meditation or externally into our meditation.

The sixth consideration that the Tibetan asks us to contemplate is a very interesting pattern: God. Matter. Method. Achievement. Unity. Goodwill. Expression. Understanding. And this is a great global positioning device that we're been given. So, contemplating this, this eight armed cross, positions us as representatives of the Christ in all of the many connections that the Christ has to past, present, future, relationship, radiating out in eight paths, all leading to the heart.

That was not the sixth consideration--I jumped the gun. The sixth is the Great Invocation, so I've just given you the seven points to consider. The sixth one was the Great Invocation which links very much into the whole Sirian theme that I enunciated with the key word of freedom. The Great Invocation, as I think we all know, is something which has been with the whole stream of human evolution from its very beginning. It has been an invocation uttered in the high places, far past any understanding that we have of time. Its power, its potency, its love, its understanding is far beyond our ability to grasp, except that we are now at a place where, through our evolution, we have an ability to sound it, to use it, and to be focalizing points for these three aspects.

So we have an ability to express the intelligence of God, we have the ability to express the love of God, we have the ability to express the will of God and we have this ability--through thinking upon, articulating and sounding the Great Invocation--to be furthering this evolutionary process, this scientific experiment, which is occurring on our planet.

The final consideration, the eighth one, is the antahkarana meditation. So this is really a meditation on fire, it's a meditation in which we come to the antechamber of God, where the sound is reverberating, where pure sound is reverberating, where we become lost and found in the sound, where there is a dynamic will activating the sound and we become, through this, tuning forks for an expression of that sound. It's all about a process where we reach this place of originating sound through sounding the word, the Om, saying the words of power, aligned with our own soul, and visualizing light ascending through a cone of light colored by the ray color of our own soul. So this final point is a scientific instrument for receiving the word of God so that our communications take on the quality of that sound.

So now I come back again to the practical--we are moving into, we are a part of, we are in an Aquarian Age. The New World Religion is already happening, it's not something in the future, it's already here, we're talking about it, we're meditating about it, we're in it. I think that it's a religion which is based on communication.

Aquarius is an air sign. Just look at what we're experienced of the age so far. Suddenly it’s possible to be connected anywhere on the planet by the means of simple technology--people can now be in contact with each other, they can always be sharing. Maybe a lot of it is just, you know, chaotic sound, but some of it is profound. All of it reflects the level of understanding that that person has reached. So the whole of the Aquarian Age is about binding us together in light; it's about increasing the quality of the communication, it's about the fifth ray and its clarification through a scientific set of practices, techniques and tools to make sure that what's going across the communication wires is going to carry the note of the soul.

I was trying to think in terms of the appropriate type of meditation for the future school, Christ College. I was trying to think of Anton's level of consciousness and what would appeal to him if I was going to help him increase his communication abilities through meditation. I was thinking of "accelerated communication technologies" and how those might be far more appealing words than the word "meditation" with all its connotations to the past and to various religions. These words speak right to our modern age with its desire for communication. Then I did the little adding in my brain because I like numbers and I thought, well, what does A-C-T add up to--well, it's a one, a three and a two; 1, 2, 3, Anton can definitely get on board, 1, 2, 3, and it's the three aspects coming through a meditation languaging technique.

What does ACT mean? Well, it means that you get off your butt and you do something. And that's what all communication from the top down is about. Hierarchy is not even vaguely interested in conversation that just stays up here. Wonderful words, beautiful experiences, lofty ideals, all those sorts of things, they're nice, they drug a person out so that they do things that might be not so nice. But what Hierarchy and the soul, what our own individual souls are interested in, is experience and expression--something that really connects us so that change happens, evolution happens. So I think ACT is at the centre of the New World Religion.

And inside myself a little bell has sounded which said I just came to the end of my words. So I have no idea what time it is, but if there is time we could fill it up with any kind of dialogue that you would like to have.