Letters on Occult Meditation by Alice Bailey

We have a recognized cleavage to be bridged in the world today, usually known as the cleavage between "East and West", but termed more accurately between "Orient and Occident". Behind the differences in culture, tradition, religion, ideology and social customs, however, there is a growing interchange of thought and mental understanding.  One powerful stimulation to this mental rapport may be in an increasing tendency for the westerner to cultivate the science of meditation long practiced in the East as an essential part of religious and spiritual experience. In this day and age, and as we move on into the mentally oriented age of Aquarius, with increasing numbers of men and women transferring from an emotional to a mental focus, the science of meditation as a mind training technique in concentration and invocation will become increasingly practiced in the West. 

However, there are deeper and more profound areas of life and consciousness to be penetrated and revealed in meditation. Meditation, in the occult sense, is not only a training technique for the mind, but a means of achieving alignment, union and identification with the soul, with the Christ, and ultimately with "the Father". As distinct from the experience of mystical union, occult meditation establishes a scientific process by which causes set in motion will produce identifiable effects, which can be repeated at will. This is a technique to be mastered by the mind; it involves intense mental activity followed by an absolute stillness, with the ability so to control and order the mind that it engages in action or becomes stilled to "reflection" at will. 

The first purpose of this form of meditation is the conscious integration of soul and personality, so that the livingness of the soul may impress and influence the quality of the personality life. This draws a man steadily into that centre of consciousness within the planet we call the spiritual Hierarchy, the Kingdom of God; the spiritual Man then assumes control, and the divine potential is unfolded. 

Since we are dealing in meditation with energy flow which is literally fiery and impersonal, there are pitfalls and dangers to be understood and avoided; these, too, are discussed. And also the colours and sounds corresponding to the various ray energies which, occultly speaking, are vibrations of different frequencies. 

In looking towards the future, the author predicts the growing influence of the science of meditation, leading eventually to the establishing of schools of meditation under the guidance and instruction of initiated disciples. These schools will be of two kinds: one, preparatory; and the other actually training the student for initiation. The ultimate objective of these comprehensive training schools will be to provide qualified disciples for planetary service. In all training work inspired by Hierarchy the motif is service- the spontaneous effect of soul contact in the selflessly motivated disciple. 

• "The motive may be epitomized in these few words: The sacrifice of the personal self for the good of the One Self. 
• The method may also be shortly put: Wise control of the personality, and discrimination in work and time. 
• The resultant attitude will be: Complete dispassion, and a growing love of the unseen and the real. 
• All this will be consummated through steady application to occult Meditation."

Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949), came from a conservative British background, and her life led her in many directions, but always in one direction- towards the time when through drastic personal experience of many kinds she had acquired a synthesis of outlook and understanding, and an absolute conviction that one divine life pervades and animates the one humanity; that the Plan for humanity requires the cooperation and service of trained and dedicated human beings intelligently informed about world affairs, in collaboration with those who form the spiritual Hierarchy, the inner government of the planet. Her life work became an integral part of this synthesis and this realization.

Without in the least losing any of her very human qualities and involvement, her soul took up its commitment to her Master, and her personality provided full cooperation in the field of her accepted service. Basically her work developed as a duality- her discipleship service which included the establishment of an esoteric school; and her initially reluctant agreement to work with the Tibetan, Djwhal Khul, in the writing of a series of books presenting the next phase in the continuity of the Ageless Wisdom teaching for the present and the immediate future.