THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER VII

MENTAL DESTINY

Section 2

An Intelligence. The Triune Self. The three orders of Intelligences. The Light of the Intelligence.

It is important to understand the distinction between an Intelligence and a Triune Self, (Fig. V-C). The Intelligence lends its Conscious Light to its Triune Self. Without the Conscious Light, the Triune Self has no means of thinking. Though the Triune Self is conscious of itself as the doer, the thinker, and the knower, it cannot relate, coordinate, work or use these parts without the Light. The Light of the Intelligence is merely loaned to the Triune Self and never becomes a part of it. The Light is that which relates and, so to speak, links the Intelligence which is in the spheres, with the Triune Self which is in the worlds. The Light is potential in the Triune Self; it will become actual when the Triune Self becomes an Intelligence.

Ordinarily, when the senses receive impressions from nature, feeling-and-desire of the doer-in-the-body merely respond to the impressions without thinking. But when feeling-and-desire as the doer thinks, the feelings and desires will be guided and raised and refined according to the thinking done. Then thinking with the body-mind will be done for the advancement of nature; thinking with the feeling-mind, for the development of beauty in character and form; thinking with the desire-mind for the discipline and exercise of power.

The term “mind” will be used as that with which thinking is done. The doer as feeling-and-desire uses the body-mind and may use the feeling-mind and the desire-mind. The thinker as rightness-and-reason uses the mind of rightness and the mind of reason; and the knower as I-ness-and-selfness uses the mind of I-ness and the mind of selfness. It is to be remembered that by mental destiny is meant the mental destiny of the portion of the doer that has entered into the human, not destiny of the thinker or knower; by mental operations is meant that they are mental performances of that portion of the doer which is in the body; by mental set, by attitude of mind, and by actions of the mind is meant that they are of the doer in so far as it is in the human being; by a thought is meant the result of the action of mind and desire; by Self-knowledge is meant knowledge of the Triune Self. Knowledge of the Intelligence is so far beyond ordinary humanity that it is useless to speculate about it.

The loose use of the term intelligence is due to the fact that people do not know about a real Intelligence. Therefore, no words are ready to designate the Intelligence as beyond the Triune Self, or its spheres, or the various degrees of the Light of the Intelligence, when it is, metaphorically speaking, direct, diffused, reflected or focused, or to name the parts and the functions of the thinker and the knower of the Triune Self.

All these spheres, degrees, parts and functions are distinct, and they are as different from each other as is the sun from its reflections in a mirror, and from the mirrored reflection imposed upon a picture on a wall, which reflection lights up the picture. They are as different each from the other as an oyster from its shell, the electric current from the wire, and as both from the voice heard over the telephone; as different as printed words are from the brain through which they were thought. In these examples there is some connection, but to speak of the doer as the Intelligence would be like identifying the picture made visible with the sun, and the voice heard over the telephone with the source of electricity.

When the Light which an Intelligence loans to its Triune Self has been sent into nature by the doers in human beings, it is the intelligence that is everywhere manifesting in the order and the laws of nature. An Intelligence is not in a body. It is in one or any of the three spheres, which surround the three atmospheres of the Triune Self.

Some information as to the nature of the Intelligence, its faculties and the manner of some of their functionings, and on the other hand the receptive and responsive reactions of the doer, is necessary in order to understand what thinking means, what it is and how it is done.

The doer is always within the spheres of the Intelligence, in life and after the death of the body. A human body is in its own physical atmosphere and stands within the three atmospheres of the Triune Self and in the three spheres of the Intelligence. In such a body and its atmospheres the three atmospheres of the Triune Self and the four spheres of nature intermingle, (Fig. V-B and V-C).

An Intelligence is a consciously immortal ultimate unit, that is, it has developed to be the highest kind of unit that it is possible for a unit to become, and it has power and jurisdiction in the spheres and worlds. Such a One has passed through all stages of nature and of a Triune Self and is an Intelligence under the Supreme Intelligence. There are many stages in the development of Intelligences, but all Intelligences are conscious of their identity, immortality and indestructibility; they are conscious of all other Intelligences, of all things in nature, and of the Triune Selves in their charge.

An Intelligence started as a primordial unit in the sphere of fire and progressed through all stages of nature until it became an aia and then a Triune Self. Then it progressed until it became an Intelligence, that is, became conscious as an Intelligence and knew itself to be an Intelligence. It will continue its progress as an Intelligence until it knows the entire manifested Universe with its four spheres in their entirety.

The Intelligences are connected with the earth of the doers by furnishing the Light to their Triune Selves and by directing the activities of that Light when it has gone into nature, and by serving under the Supreme Intelligence to carry out the purpose of the Universe. Every ultimate unit that is conscious in the degree called an Intelligence has certain qualities which distinguish it as an Intelligence. An Intelligence is one unit having seven faculties, which are inseparable, make up the sevenfoldness of it as an Intelligence as a whole and are conscious immortal witnesses to its unity as an Intelligence. Its seven faculties act in four spheres; the light and I-am faculties in the sphere of fire, the time and motive faculties in the sphere of air, the image and dark faculties in the sphere of water and the focus faculty in the sphere of earth, (Fig. V-C).

Each faculty has a special function and power and is represented in each other faculty, any of which it may reinforce or modify. The light faculty sheds Light into the worlds through its Triune Self. The time faculty regulates and measures the changes of units or bodies in their relations to each other. The image faculty gives form to matter. The focus faculty centers other faculties upon the subject to which it is directed. The dark faculty resists or gives strength to the other faculties. The motive faculty gives purpose and direction to thought. The I-am faculty is the real Self of the Intelligence.

These statements about the seven faculties of an Intelligence are mere suggestions by which the faculties may be thought of. The faculties are not things of the senses or even of the Triune Selves. Only one of them, the focus faculty comes into contact with the body. Even this faculty reaches the body only through the doer. The six other faculties can act on the Triune Self but only through the focus faculty; and through the same faculty only does an Intelligence receive reactions from its Triune Self until feeling-and-desire of the doer are in union. The focus faculty transmits the Light of the Intelligence to the noetic atmosphere of the Triune Self.

The term “faculty” as here used is therefore not to be understood in the ordinary meaning of “faculty of mind.” The faculties here referred to are far removed from the mental powers, properties or operations of the human, original or acquired, which are generally spoken of as “faculties of the mind.” The phrase is here adopted because it is in common usage, and because it is suited to characterize the constitution of an Intelligence.

As the worlds in the earth sphere are to the Triune Selves, so the great spheres of earth, water, air and fire are to the Intelligences. An Intelligence is One in the fire sphere, as a Triune Self is a One in the light world of the earth sphere. The Triune Self is to the Intelligence somewhat as the doer is to its knower.

Somewhat as an aia when it became a Triune Self, was at once taken to the light plane of the light world and had there made actual by the direct Light of the Intelligence its potential knowledge as a Triune Self, so the Triune Self, when it is raised and becomes an Intelligence, is at once in the sphere of fire. There in the Light of the Supreme Intelligence of the Universe, what was potential in the Triune Self becomes actual knowledge as an Intelligence. It is its own immense Light and knows itself as the identity of that Light, in the presence of the Supreme Intelligence. It is conscious of certain truths: let them be called Substance, Conscious Sameness, or I-Am-Thou-And-Thou-Art-I-ness, Motion, Pure Intelligence, and Consciousness. These words are merely markers to complete a system, only the sensuous part of which in the sphere of earth relates to human interests, but the whole of which is required to show the difference between the Triune Self and the Intelligence.

In this state the Intelligence is as though it had always been an Intelligence. Time does not exist for it; it knows what its purpose is; all things and their possibilities are present and are as one. This is the state of knowledge as an Intelligence. It is in the Eternal of the spheres of the Great Universe. The Intelligence begins to think, and this thinking takes all but the Light and the I-am faculties out of the eternality of the fire sphere into the spheres of air and water. This is the downward path and leads to the boundary where the sphere of water and the sphere of earth meet.

Just as the Triune Self has three beings or material aspects potentially in the worlds, so the Intelligence is as three eternal beings in the spheres of water, air and fire. These are not three distinct Intelligences, but three distinct stages or orders of the same Intelligence. As the parts of the Triune Self are the doer, the thinker, and the knower, so the dark faculty, the motive faculty and the I-am faculty of the Intelligence are three related orders of one Intelligence, the Desirer, the Thinker and the Knower. These terms are used relatively to knowledge as an Intelligence, which is quite different from knowledge as a Triune Self. Knowledge as a Triune Self is knowledge of the four worlds; knowledge as an Intelligence is knowledge of the four spheres. The majority of human beings now on the outer crust of the earth are sense-bound and the Intelligences connected with them are of the order of the Desirers.

These Intelligences, even of the order of the Desirers, are superior Ones, far beyond the present comprehension of ordinary men. Men do not know of them, but they are the real givers of the Conscious Light to human beings on earth. The relative distance between a human and an Intelligence is greater than the distance between the human and the being he conceives as the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent God.

These three orders of Intelligences and the complete Triune Selves are those who order and direct the operations in universal nature. Their thinking contacts the form world and the physical world through their Triune Selves and is sufficient to compel elementals to carry out the law under their directions. Both the machinery of nature and the operators of it are elementals, units or masses of units of the elements. The Intelligences direct certain of the nature gods, the upper elementals, which control the lower elementals. The Intelligences, with the assistance of their Triune Selves, carry out the purpose of the physical world by thus controlling the elementals, called the forces of nature and the material universe.

This range of visible and invisible activity includes the powers ascribed to God in many religions. In these three orders the difference between the Intelligences is correspondingly as great as the difference in development of human beings. A Knower is in the sphere of fire, a Thinker works in the sphere of air and a Desirer works in the spheres of water and of earth.

Besides superintending collectively the plan of operating physical nature, each of these Intelligences has its related Triune Self in charge, which it had raised from the state of aia. The Intelligences have the double aspect of being the Light in the Triune Self, and of being the directors with their Triune Selves, of the forces of outer nature to produce physical results as exteriorizations of thoughts.

The Light of the Intelligence, in the Triune Self, is conscious as Light. In the noetic atmosphere the Light is clear, self-luminous and self-conscious; in the mental atmosphere it is also clear; but in that portion of the mental atmosphere which is in the psychic atmosphere of the human, it is diffused, obscured, dimmed. Desires for objects interact there with this diffused Light.

There are no limitations to the Light. It can go through everything in nature and can make known to the searcher everything for which he searches. The power of the Light is available to the human to the degree that he can hold the Light steady on the subject of his thinking.