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  • Wisdom for practice
  • Wisdom is applied knowledge
  • Wisdom spreads itself

Wisdom for practice

Wisdom is for practice, not for continuous speaking. If we keep on speaking about the Masters, the Rays, and the Hierarchies, we are only missing our duties for the present.

Wisdom is applied knowledge

Knowledge, when applied becomes wisdom. We gain a lot of knowledge, but it has to be applied in daily life, then it transforms itself into wisdom. Through wisdom we will experience the existence.

Wisdom spreads itself

We need not be anxious to spread the wisdom without working it with ourselves. It is a wrong understanding if one thinks that he can spread wisdom. Wisdom knows how to spread itself. It only needs channels.

The Gandharvas

Waves in Space

Cosmic Musicians and the Moon Principle

The boundless space is no vacuum but it is penetrated by space energies and it pulsates. These pulsating energies move like waves and are therefore called the waters of space in eastern wisdom. From out of these waves a bubble might form and become a future universe. This bubble has a certain duration of existence; it is also described as the Egg of Space. It contains innumerable smaller bubbles, the beings within the universe. The content of the beings is the same as the content of the bubble. It is the essence and is called Narayana in the Scriptures. The name indicates that the essence leads by itself to birth, growth and seeming existence and back again to itself.

The waves are called Gandharvas in the Scriptures. Symbolically they are represented by the sign of Aquarius ♒. They move according to a rhythm, and when a wave condenses to a universe, the cosmic, solar and planetary planes are created. The Gandharvas exist on the supra-cosmic plane, unaffected by creation and independent of whether a universe makes an appearance or not. In creation they appear as the four Kumaras, the four states of existence (pure existence, existence as awareness, as thought and as action).

The Gandharavas can also be understood as the background of every existence. They are the bridge which bridges the fine gap between matter and spirit, between one plane of existence and another. Thus, our Sun and the other planets are not just hanging in space but are interrelated, even though we cannot see the coordinating connections. Holding the things together is an influence of the Gandharvas. They also produce the duration and the periodicities which the universe follows.

The Musical Devas

All these vibrations are called “music” in the Vedas, the harmonies of the cosmos, and the Gandharvas are thus called the musical Devas. In artistic representation they therefore hold musical instruments in their hands. What we discover on the conscious plane as music has its basis on the Deva plane of existence to which we are usually unconscious. A musician judges the musicality of sounds by these standards which are felt by him through intuition and partly realised through his intelligence. The physical location of this function is in a centre which we call the pineal gland. It is located in a cavity of the cerebrum, and nearby there is the pituitary gland. The Gandharvas are functioning between the two glands and their work creates a subtle fiery connection or light-bridge. The pineal is the cause of the musical sensibility and also its forms of expression as respiration, circulation and behaviour. When the pineal is disturbed there are serious disturbances in the behaviour of a person. The intelligences working in the pineal gland are part of the staff of Shamballa. Their functions are expressions of the music of the Gandharvas coming down from the subtle planes to the dense physical.

The Gandharvas are also called the blissful Devas and they convey the highest bliss. Happiness relates to the happiness we experience through the senses and the body – doing sport, dancing, or travelling. Some also seek happiness with the help of mental activities. Joy relates to the soul. Bliss is a state where the soul goes beyond its individual existence and merges with the universal soul. We address this bliss of existence in the invocation, “Master, please let us receive … the bliss of existence…”

When the individual soul attunes to the universal soul, it ceases to exist as an individual. When we come back from this bliss, we know that we have experienced it. But the bliss is beyond any definition. It is the final grace that the Lord can shower on us. Even the greatest initiates crave for this bliss which is bestowed by the presence of the Gandharavas. Music is originally closely linked to this self-forgetfulness of musing. Forgetting oneself means merging with the source. This is caused by sound.

The Main Gandharvas

The Vedas mention four main Gandharvas. One of them is called Soma. He brings about this ineffably blissful merging of the soul with the super-soul. Soma is also referred to as the nectar of creation, the drink of immortality. This is a secretion from seeming nothingness into apparent something. Soma governs the cosmic principle of reflection. Astrologically, Soma functions in its lower aspect through the Moon and in its higher aspect through Neptune; they are centres of distribution for his vibrations. Through a reflection of his activity Soma generates magnetic currents which produce the ebb and tide in the etheric and the astral currents as well as in the waters of the earth. His influence via the moon creates the fertilisation of the ovum in the female womb. His vibration also enables the unfoldment of soul awareness so that we can receive wisdom through higher impression.

Another name for Soma is Lord Shiva. We know his symbol as the dancing Lord creating one universe after the other in a perpetual dance. In the Vedic rites the Soma sacrifice is described as drinking the juice of a plant which enables us to taste the juice of our own existence by consecrating ourselves to Indra. In Ayurveda the juice of the Soma plant (Ephedra Vulgaris) is used to prolong the span of life. Drinking this juice is an exoteric ritual to explain an esoteric truth. Thus, it says in the Rig Veda, “When someone squeezes the Soma herb, he thinks he has drunk the Soma. Whom the initiates know as Soma, no one (except the initiate) ever tastes“.

In the human body the seat of Soma is located in the gap between the pineal gland and the pituitary gland. When Soma is pleased, he emits a secretion from this centre in the head of a Yogi which enables musing of the soul with the universal soul.

In the Vedas, Soma is also known as the Lord of aesthetic sense and romance. Together with the Gandharva Kama he produces the sexual attraction and makes the bride and the bridegroom shine in youthful splendour before the marriage. In the Indian marriage ritual this Gandharva is invoked so that the couple experiences bliss during the marriage sacrament.

Another Gandharva is Vena. He presides over the path from sleep to awareness, from death to birth and from dissolution to recreation. For us, the most important characteristic of Vena is that he wipes out the binding karma and lifts up. For this, Master CVV gives a specific meditation: “Vena, the Gandharva, is wiping off the pictures of the subconscious mind on the walls of my nature with the hieroglyphs of sounds from his seven stringed lyre.”

In the Mahabharata Vena is described as a fiery river flowing through the kingdom of Aquarius. The upper part of the forehead is governed by Aquarius. We can visualize the energy of Vena above our Sahasrara, how it enters at the top of the forehead, reaches the Ajna and awakens all the seven centres with his touch through the Sushumna. This touch awakens the hieroglyphs of sound (the vibrations of the lotus leaves) in the centres, and the sound conducts the related alchemy. Thus, the impressions in the subconscious mind get dissolved and the Karma gets neutralised. Then the energy ascends in us – the serpent sheds off its skin and becomes an eagle.

A third Gandharva is Visvavasu; Visva means ‘universal’ and Vasu ‘be-ness’. Through him the universal be-ness enters into life as the individual be-ness. Visvavasu is a cosmic principle which presides over the musical sense and the romantic muse in the created beings. It says that Visvavasu conducts the ‘marriages’ of solar systems on the cosmic plane and also the marriages on earth.

A fourth Gandharva is Chitraratha. Ratha means ‘the vehicle’. In creation, all forms are vehicles because the beings move in them. Chitra means peculiar, wonderful. To a being, its own vehicle is wonderful.

We should not let ourselves get confused by the names. It is better to know the Gandharvas by their function than by their names, since their functions are universal.

The Magic of Music

There is a separate Veda for the wisdom of music, the Sama Veda. This Veda intuitively gives us the origin of music. A subsidiary of the Sama Veda is the Gandharva Veda which is devoted to the science of music, both singing and instrumental.

The musical forces of the Gandharvas cause the lower nature of man to develop and to ascend into the buddhic consciousness. They guide the higher emotional side of man to construct the bridge between our consciousness and the wisdom of the universe. Krishna’s flute music also generates music of Gandharvas of the highest order; it enchants all listeners and makes them sink into ecstasy.

Sources: K.P. Kumar: Occult Meditations / notes from seminars. E. Krishnamacharya: Book of Rituals. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India (www.worldteachertrust.org)