The Principle of Essential Divinity

Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible Sun.
- Sir Thomas Brown

Key Thoughts on Essential Divinity

The Divinity in All - Essential Divinity is the fundamental essence found at the heart of all things, the Spirit Within, the Inner Fire, the "most basic reality of all." It is the life force at the core of every creation, the cornerstone of every structure. In the writings of all the world's great religions this Principle is confirmed, that there is a universal Energy or Life which is the essence of all things. "Having pervaded this entire Universe with a fragment of Myself, I remain." Krishna speaks these words in the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu Song of God.

Cultivation of Essential Divinity - Essential Divinity is a living reality which must be experienced, through inner illumination and revelation. We therefore "awaken" to this Divine aspect of ourselves, the highest aspect, the true essence of our being. Once awakened we begin to see the Divinity in all things, and as the light naturally attracts and cultivates the growing plant, we begin to cultivate Divinity within ourselves and in all around us, seeing ever more clearly the Divine Plan and Purpose working in and through all that is.

United Divine Purpose - Seeing the Divine in all inspires Right Human Relations and stimulates Goodwill, these energies are required for Group Endeavor and Spiritual Approach. As we become ever more aware of the Divine in all, we welcome and cooperate with an ever–growing number of beings on the path of evolution, and we in turn are welcomed and cooperated with. This sets up a potent, ever-growing vibration of energy within humanity. This energy, once understood and controlled, is the very way we can contact and come into closer alignment with Shamballa, "the center where the will of God is known." This great invocative appeal on the part of Humanity will be answered, and Humanity in closer rapport with God will continue our evolutionary path toward the "Life Abundant."

Discussion of the Principle of Essential Divinity

The Principles and Laws we’re exploring are a modern restatement for this time period of those commandments, rules, and techniques given from time immemorial for the awakening of humanity to its divine heritage.

The practice of the Principles and Laws presents a Way of life, from the Right Human Relations of the human condition through the Group Endeavor of the Soul, into the eternal Sunlight of full Divinity. Throughout this journey of the Spirit through the worlds of form, the invisible Life Force unfolds each step of the Way.

Matter is the Vehicle for the manifestation of Soul on this plane of existence and Soul is the Vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit and these three are a Trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all.
       - The Secret Doctrine, from Bailey's The Soul and Its Mechanism, p. 81–82

The animating current energizes the Life Force at the core of all creation, that essential divinity which permeates every aspect of consciousness. This Reality has been called Monadic Essence ~ as well as Purpose, Power, Will, Life, the Presence.

From the realm of the Originator of all that exists straight through the seven dimensions of incarnated life, down to the personality ~ the monadic consciousness of that Absolute Being links every aspect, form, and vehicle with every other. And humanity itself is the veiled expression of that Greater Life, engaged in a vast experiment in form, in a seemingly endless journey through cycles of incarnation, and increasingly unveiling that essential Divinity within ~ uniting Heaven with earth, infusing matter with Spirit, and eventually, at the end of the process, releasing the imprisoned Reality into full expression.

"Essential," in terms of "Essential Divinity," does not mean "needed" or "necessary." Instead, it means "fundamental" "basic," "primal." Essential Divinity, then, indicates a fundamental essence found at the heart of all things. The human being is essentially divine, held in form by a current of Life Energy flowing from the inmost, emergent ground of Being to the lowest anchoring point on the levels of manifesting appearance. There is no escape from this continuous flow of divine energy. When the current of energy ceases, the human unit returns to the Source, back to that realm from which the cycle of incarnations issued forth.

That the human being is in essence divine has been taught throughout the ages, but this truth for most still remains a theory and not a certainty.

The Presence of the Soul abides with me. I walk with God by night and day. I stand with God upon the ways of men; the shadow of His Presence, which is the Presence of my Soul, reveals the God on every hand, in every man. I see divinity on every hand in every form.
       - Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I, p. 176

The Principle of Essential Divinity can be realized and cultivated most effectively through the "Practice of the Presence." This technique of the great mystics is not only a form of mystical or abstract awareness of God, but a method of progression into the presence ~ or higher vibration ~ of the enfolding divinity. The occult and mystic ways meet and blend to make the Practice of the Presence a dynamic and powerful method of realizing our essential nature, and for cooperating with the Plan and Purpose of that great Intelligence Who initiated the universal process of unfoldment through form.

The value of the individual is based on the inherent divinity of the human spirit and on the integrity of the Whole. The Biblical passage "In Him we live and move and have our being" is the statement of a fundamental law in nature, and to this statement we might add another: "In us He lives and moves and has life."

"Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun" within. That sun is the Presence. It is veiled by golden light, that is, by the Angel of the Presence, the Soul.

A "cryptogram" in Leaves of Morya's Garden (Volume II, p. 110) indicates the passage through the Soul to Spirit, the Essential Divinity within:

Night fell. Christ was seated at a threshold.
A scribe approached and asked: "Why dost thou sit in the passageway?"
Christ answered: "Because I am the threshold of the Spirit. If thou wouldst pass, pass through me."

This same message is given in the Biblical passage, "I am the way, the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6); that is, by way of the Soul or Christ Consciousness.

The disciple, having developed two divine aspects ~ the creative activity of the personality and the impersonal, inclusive love of the Soul ~ now approaches the highest aspect, the "Will, the Life, the Father, the Monad, the One." (The Rays and the Initiations, p. 105)

A distinction must be made between the words "spiritual" and "divine," between the Soul and the Spirit, the Essential Divinity within. The quality of spirituality is Love. The quality of divinity is Will. The mediating principle which relates and unites the two is Wisdom. The final achievement of the universal process is attained through Love-Wisdom-Will.

The first of the factors revealing the divine nature is the tendency to synthesis. This tendency runs through all nature, all consciousness, and is Life itself. The motivating urge of God, Spirit, the Monad, is towards union and at-one-ment.

The truth of the Essential Divinity of all life empowers each of the Principles and Laws. It energizes the pull-from-above and the urge-from-below in all the approaches between the individual or group and the Originator of the incarnation process. It is this Life, this Fire, Spirit, and synthesizing energy that gives livingness to the expression of the Laws and Principles in the manifested form life. The microcosm reflects the Macrocosm, and therefore each human being is related to God through essential similarity. The reality of this divine essence at the heart of the evolutionary process has provided the incentive for humanity's steady movement into greater knowledge, wisdom and wider inclusiveness. Belief in the Essential Divinity of humanity provides the incentive toward building the new world.

The livingness of the Christ Presence in every human's nature and the strengthening use of the spiritual Will is bringing about a "living transfiguration of the lower aspects" and the increasing Soul-infusion of all life. A growing recognition of the Essential Divinity of all life, at the same time, brings an awareness of its special qualities of magnetism, love, nonseparativeness, intuitive understanding, and cooperation with the Plan of God. These qualities are all associated with the second, or building Ray of Love-Wisdom. This essential Life provides the fuel which activates the mechanism of the Soul and personality into the needed movement.

The human unit, the living Monad in form, is veiled or hidden by the Angel of the Presence ~ the Soul, or solar Angel. Indeed, life in form is more than the activity of atoms, more than that living principle which produces self-perpetuation, reproduction, motion, growth, and that elusive aspect we call livingness, vitality, and vibrancy. Life in form is fed by an invisible, indescribable, indestructible flame.

Humanity, it is said, provides one of the "fundamental, original centers of force which can and will form an outpost of the divine consciousness," and an expression of the divine Soul, manifesting eventually as the three psychological characteristics of divinity: Light, Energy, and Magnetism.

The fifth kingdom, the kingdom of Souls, provides a field of service wherein the human unit has full scope for the use of their innate divinity in human service to the plan.

The glory of scientific attainment and the magnificent evidence of creative art ~ both modern and ancient ~ leave no room to question man's divinity. Here then are the "great things" of which Christ spoke, and here again is the triumph of the Christ within the human heart.
       - The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 605

There is one major Reality and that reality is the fact of Being and Essential Divinity, the initiator of all that is, and the source of that Life Force which holds all things in form within the manifested world. In that stage of pure Being the Monad, the sustaining force, eternally rests, while its energy flows downward through the planes of expression to sustain the worlds of form.

The human being is on the threshold of establishing this fact in consciousness. Theorizing about this Reality is gradually giving place to certainty. The force of this life-sustaining energy, of this innate divinity, embodied in some measure, large or small, by each member of the human family (as well as by groups) can now act as a mediating transformer.

The aspects and attributes of this divinity have been listed as follows:

... God is mind. God is intelligent functioning. God is creative activity. These are the qualities of the deva [form nature] evolution. God is love. God is relationship. God is consciousness. These are the three qualities of the Christ [Soul] evolution ... God is life. God is fire. God is pure being. These are the qualities of the Spirit aspect, the omnipotent aspect of Deity.
       - The Rays and the Initiations, p. 180

Humanity is the planetary group which expresses all the divine aspects, in various degrees, in time and space. The realization that the human unit is not only the vehicle or personality, but that both body and personality are vehicles for the expression of a willing Life, of an inclusive Love, and of creative, lighted energy, enables consciousness to cross the barriers that divide and separate in order to reveal the Essential Divinity that synthesizes every aspect, visible and invisible, known and unknown, latent or in full expression.

Every great religion has taught in one way or another that humanity is the child, the fragment, the expression of God, or of some unknown Power and has put forward different commandments, rules and techniques, to bring about greater recognition of this fact and truer expression of it. And, in fact, human conflict all down through the ages has been, fundamentally, the pull between an egocentric, separative attitude and a partnership in the great whole.
       - Meditation Group for the New Age, First Year, Set VI, p. 15

One purpose for the existence of humanity in time and space in the form world is this: the human family is a mediating and transmitting agent for the higher energies to the three lower kingdoms. Humanity, as a group, stands midway between the three higher expressions of essential divinity and the three lower kingdoms ~ the animal, plant, and mineral.

Discussion of Essential Divinity adapted from
"The Laws and Principles of the Kingdom of Souls"
booklet by Frances Adams Moore
published by The Group for Creative Meditation,
Meditation Mount, Ojai

Quotes from The Reappearance of the Christ, The Soul and Its Mechanism,
The Rays and the Initiations, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy and
Discipleship in the New Age, Volumes I and II are by Alice A. Bailey
© Lucis Publishing Co., 120 Wall St., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10005

Read about Avatars on SouledOut.org.

Read about the Law of Spiritual Approach,
embodiment of the Principle of Essential Divinity.

Meditative impressions received and offered
on the Principle of Essential Divinity ...

Think globally, act locally.

A State of Being.

I visualize the top of the head (as it were) of the whole vast universe. There is a sieve or funnel opening at the top of the head Chakra of this universe. Essential Divinity, from in its most highest, enters the head Chakra of the universe in this manner. It is the infuse of energy by which all matter is animated with light. As the Essential Divinity enters the funnel and moves towards the head Chakra, the Chakra is enlightened, heightened, infused, vitalized. From this action are the other chakras otherwise divine.

I am reminded from the reading that, “Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul. The Soul is the vehicle on the higher plane.”

As matter becomes infused, and I am speaking of the vast universal body and the microcosm of our bodies, we are born of the light. We are infused with divinity. With destiny.

Christ said that we cannot go to His Father if not through Him. He is stating that through Christ’s Consciousness we are given the path to the Father. That is the essentiality of divinity.

Essential Divinity is magnetic in nature ~
just to think and meditate on it
necessarily brings more of its quality closer to us.

Essential Divinity is a fundamental Principle that opens the gateway to greater understanding. A vast new world of Oneness, connectedness and compassion becomes possible when identifying with the Principle of Essential Divinity.

The contemplation of the Principle of Essential Divinity inspired a meditation on the seven planes of the Cosmic Physical Plane. With this understanding of Essential Divinity as the lens, there was no difference in the planes; they were all divine. Spirit and matter were simply different expressions of the One. All is Divine. From the larger perspective down to the demonstration of this Principle in the lower three worlds, this appeared a key truth to embody. An essential step on the path is about learning to recognize this Principle, to know our essential divinity and once this is known, separation ends and there is only One, with its myriad unique expressions.

At first my mind wanted to play saying, "Isn't all divinity essential?" Of course it is, but that is not the point or the 'Principle'. In reading and meditating I saw that the principle embodies the energy, the essence, it is the originating source. Essential Divinity is that life force at the core of all creation, 'the most basic reality of all'.

What a joy to know that at the very heart of humanity, at the very core of each of us 'is' the essence of divinity. For me this further illumined, made even more real that basic fact that we all are divine.

In this time of conflict, of seeming separativeness, it is essential that we look for and recognize the the divinity within. How different our world would be if each and every one of us did this simple thing before each interaction. Let us see and know the truth ~ We are all divine.

We are not human beings on a spiritual path, we are spiritual beings on a human path.

*    *    *

Get enough sand in your shoes, or well in your life, and you just might find a pearl. I was searching through the different 'wisdom traditions' in regards to a path to God. I was in one of those 'gritty' places, a piece of sand was rubbing me the wrong way and it hurt. I was looking to transcend that place, to step outside of myself, and looking for God is a good way for me to do just that. And in doing this I moved out of the pain and stepped onto a different plane, and there right before was this pearl ~ "Tat Tvam Asi," the Hindu understanding that the deepest element in us is Divine.

It is the message of 'Essential Divinity' yet again of that life force at the core of all creation, 'the most basic reality of all'. I closed my eyes and repeated the Hindu mantram "Tat Tvam Asi" over and over, again and again. From the the still place within my heart opened, my mind opened too and I was told again what we all already knew ~ 'We are divine!'

Hindu Healings, Ted

Essential Realization: Self-Remembering in memory of 9/11
The life of essence is such that it penetrates and illuminates all that we are, and yet our average life is generally devoid of contact with this powerful mystery. The tragedy is not simply the loss of real connection, the loss of our dreams for peace, but the loss of the penetrating substance that would enable humanity to make the leap from a life of separation to one of wisdom.

In the memory of 9/11 we have once again the opportunity to review what we are here for, what purpose we seek and what contribution we make. We have the chance to ask ourselves whether it is enough to occasionally glimpse the truth; or will we give ourselves over to this mystery of being and allow it to envelop and guide our ancient reptilian brains towards the unity of purpose that we have been created for.

The leela of unfolding consciousness is infinite, eternal and unidirectional, and yet humanity is at a loss for time. We no longer have the luxury of passively waiting to see what will happen. Humanity is approaching a crossroads, and to traverse this journey will take an amazing leap of understanding, consciousness and selflessness. To expend our energies attempting to protect our individual bodies from the extremes of hatred and fear is not enough. To unite as one country against another will no longer serve us. For beneath the violence of humankind is a deeper violence, that being the betrayal of our true nature, our true purpose on this planet.

Throughout time poets, saints and mystics have spoken the truth that is possible, holding a vision for humanity. Their words have guided individuals and cultures towards the moment of awakening. But no one, no single entity, no religion or government can adequately speak the truth of our destiny as a human species. We have far too many examples of how one vision can be used as the justification for inflicting damage upon another. Nor have we time to wait for humanity to mature into a collective vision, powerful enough to unite all the factions that divide the planet.

No, it is up to each of you, the embodied individual consciousness, to discover uniquely and intimately your own unfathomable center of heart. For in that heart center can be discovered the role that you have uniquely come here to play. At the center of heart radiates absolute being, already unified in all aspects, already full in silent self-knowledge, already connected to all other beings: universal, individual, embodied and disembodied.

In the silence of your precious heart center, the awakening human intelligence waits only for your attentive self-recognition. Through the portal of fear and resistance lies the real death ~ the surrender of the separate ego-contraction and the merging into the universal field. The moment we surrender our separate identity, our separate idea of who we are and our concept of what needs to happen, the universal field can act spontaneously and effortlessly through us. This time in eternity is one of those moments, to stop in our tracks and be still.

In the stillness, individual awareness can be experienced as nothing other than a complete holographic microcosm of the whole universe. This revelation, the surrender of the individuated self to the wholeness inherent within each being, is the treasure that awaits each of us. None other will ultimately serve us but to become the reality that we truly are.

In this realization, the culture of misunderstanding and strife is seen to be a reflection of the desire for the deepest freedom to express itself in all people, in all nations, as the awakening of global consciousness.

This present transformation of human consciousness is an unprecedented opportunity to awaken from the trance of the individual dream, the tribal dream, and to realize Self as the collective universal spirit that animates all form, all people, all life. We don’t need to wait for someone else to discover this truth, we can embody it within our own heart of Self immediately. By actualizing our unified field, we have the opportunity to awaken the life of essence and embody peace beyond understanding.

Many blessings in memory of all, Aaron

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