From Aivanhov on "Know Thyself"

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The Path of Silence

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov





We all need silence. We particularly need the silence of nature, for that is where our roots lie: in nature.

Sometimes, when one is alone in a forest or up in the mountains, one feels as though one were being carried back into a distant past, into an era in which human beings were in communion with the forces and the spirits of nature. And if the call of a bird or the sound of a waterfall is heard, it is as though these very sounds were part of the silence: rather than destroying it, they emphasize and contribute to it. For, quite often, we are not even conscious of silence; we don’t notice it. It takes the sound of a twig snapping, a bird singing or a pebble falling to awaken us suddenly to an acute perception of the silence around us. Even the subdued roaring of the waves cannot destroy the profound silence of the oceans.

Silence is inhabited
Many people confuse silence with solitude. That is why they are afraid of silence: they are afraid of loneliness. The truth is, though, that silence is inhabited. If you want to ensure that you will never be poor and lonely, seek silence, for true silence is inhabited by countless beings. The Lord has populated the whole of creation; in the forests, lakes, and oceans, in the mountains and even in the depths of the earth dwell living beings. Even fire has its inhabitants. Yes, even the ether and the stars; everything is inhabited. Unfortunately, the noise of civilization, that is gradually invading every corner of the earth, and the increasingly materialistic and prosaic lives of most human beings have created conditions that are far from conducive to the presence amongst them of entities from the invisible world. On the contrary, these entities are forced to shun their company. Not that they have an aversion for human beings; but how can they stay in places that are constantly disturbed and desecrated by men’s lack of respect, by their crudeness and violence? Is there any wonder that these spirits are more and more inclined to withdraw into places that are inaccessible to men? I have already seen evidence of this for myself. In the Yosemite National Park in the United States, for instance, there are some 4000-year old trees. I have seen them and they are magnificent but they are no longer inhabited. The trees and this whole glorious region have been abandoned by their devas because all the tourists and holiday-makers bring in so much noise and turmoil. In almost every tree that grows there is a living creature but here, in this park, these gigantic trees are no longer inhabited. Just as human sages escape from the noise and agitation of unconscious human beings by going off and taking refuge in the solitude of the desert, a mountain or a cave, the luminous spirits of nature take refuge in places that human beings have not yet managed to spoil. Perhaps you are thinking, ‘They must be terrible weaklings if they can’t put up with a little noise!’ Well, you are free to think what you like.

Mountain peaks
In most mythological traditions, mountains are seen as the home of the gods. This can be understood symbolically, of course, but it is also a reality: the peaks of high mountains are antennae which put the earth in contact with Heaven. This is why they are the home of very pure and very powerful entities. When you climb a mountain, the higher you go the deeper the silence, and in this silence you discover the origin of all things, you become one with the First Cause, you are plunged into the ocean of divine light.

Nowadays, unfortunately, with the constant improvements in the means of transport, mountains have become fashionable resorts and more and more people flock to them for winter sports. They amuse themselves on the ski slopes all day and spend their evenings boasting about their skiing or climbing exploits. Instead of respecting the silence of the mountains and allowing it to influence them and lead them to the discovery of higher states of consciousness, they behave as they are accustomed to behaving everywhere else. With their bottles of wine, their hams, their cigarettes and their cacophonous music, their raucous shouts and jokes and arguments, how could any shreds of silence survive? As though there were not plenty of other places they could go to for their rowdy parties! No wonder the luminous inhabitants of these regions are driven away by such disruptive behaviour.

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Nobody ever tells people that their lack of attention and respect destroys the atmosphere and distresses these invisible beings. In fact, if the commotion goes on for too long, they simply go away and find somewhere where they can enjoy true silence, somewhere that is virtually inaccessible to human beings. And this is a great pity for, when their ancient dwelling places are deserted, their mystery and their aura of sacredness is lost; the light and all the spiritual currents that impregnated them gradually fade and disappear.

Let this be quite clear, therefore: if you are not in the right frame of mind when you go for a holiday in the mountains, the invisible creatures that inhabit them will guard against you by disappearing and you will receive nothing from them. When you go home you will be as indigent and as limited as ever. In fact, even your physical health will not really benefit from your stay, because your physical health depends to a great extent on your psychic state.

What is the use of going up into the mountains if you are no purer, no stronger, no nobler and no healthier when you come down?
What is the use if you have not understood that the ascension of a physical mountain symbolizes the ascension of a spiritual mountain? To climb up and then to come down...

To climb up is to free yourself, little by little, from all that burdens and restricts you until you attain silence, purity, light and immensity and can feel divine order flowing into you.

I hardly need to explain in detail what it means to come down again; you all understand that: it is to come back to the noise of your thoughts and feelings, to your habitual inner state of turmoil, disorder and conflict. Yes, this is just one example of how to read the great Book of Nature by learning to interpret its various manifestations.

The blessing of the Nature Spirits
Wherever you go, whether it be up in the mountains, in the depths of a forest, by the shores of lakes or oceans, if you want to manifest yourselves as children of God who aspire to a subtler, more luminous life, you must be conscious of the presence of the etheric inhabitants of that place. Approach them with an attitude of respect and reverence; begin by greeting them, by expressing friendship and love for them and then ask them for their blessing. They will be so delighted with your attitude that, when they see you coming, they will prepare their gifts of peace, light and pure energy and pour them into your heart. You will feel yourself bathed in the love and delight of these spiritual beings and, when you come back into the valley or the town, you will bring all these treasures with you. And you will also bring back revelations and more open, vaster, broader ideas.

And then, of course, there is the joy you get from knowing that your attitude contributes to causing these celestial beings to stay in those regions or even to persuading others to come and dwell there. Yes, you must never forget that it is only in silence that you can prepare conditions conducive to the manifestation of divine entities. These entities need silence and they are always waiting for the rare occasions when human beings provide the conditions they need. Henceforth, therefore, learn to love this silence; try to surround yourself with an atmosphere of spiritual silence and harmony so as to prepare for the coming of powerful, luminous beings.

From The Path of Silence by Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov,

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for mind, body and spirit

Esoteric Reasons Not to Eat Meat

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov





The difference between flesh foods and vegetarian foods resides in the relative amount of sunlight they contain. Fruit and vegetables are so steeped in sunlight that one could say they are a condensed form of light. When you eat a fruit or a vegetable, therefore, you are absorbing the sun's rays; and light leaves very little waste. Whereas meat has only a low content of sunlight and this explains why it rots so quickly. And anything that rots quickly is very injurious to health.

The hormones of fear and anger
But the harmfulness of meat has yet another origin. When animals are being led to the slaughterhouse they sense where they are going and what is going to happen to them and they are mortally afraid: terrified. Their terror disrupts the proper functioning of certain glands which start to secrete toxic substances and there is no way of eliminating that poison from the flesh of the animal: man ingests it in his meat, it enters into his own organism and, naturally, it is not conducive either to good health or to long life. You will say, ‘Oh, but meat can be so delicious!' Perhaps so, but you never think of anything but your own pleasure and satisfaction. The only thing that interests you is the pleasure of the moment, even if it has to be paid for by the death of countless animals and the ruin of your own health.

Meat attunes us to the lower astral
In addition, you must realize that everything we eat is like an antenna within us which picks up certain specific wave-lengths. Meat tunes us in to the astral world, in the lower regions of which teem masses of beings, all devouring and preying on each other like wild beasts. By eating meat, therefore, we are in daily contact with the fear, cruelty and sensuality of animals. Those who eat meat maintain this invisible link with the animal world: they would be horrified if they could see the colour of their auras.

Heavy karma
And, finally, anyone who takes the life of an animal is assuming a very heavy responsibility: it is breaking the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill'.When men kill animals for food they are not only depriving them of life, they are also depriving them of the possibilities for evolution which Nature had planned for them during this life. This explains why each human being is accompanied through life - although invisibly - by the souls of all the animals whose flesh he has eaten.

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They press in on him, claiming satisfaction for the wrong he has done to them: ‘You have deprived us of the possibility of evolving and learning, so now it's up to you to take care of our education'. Although the animal soul is not the same as that of human beings, yet animals do have souls and he who has eaten the flesh of an animal is obliged too put up with the presence of its soul within him. This presence manifests itself in states of mind which belong to the animal world, and this is why, even though someone may wish to cultivate his Higher Self, he finds it very difficult to do so: the animal cells refuse to obey his wishes, they have their own free will which resists his. And this explains, also, why many of the ways in which man manifests do not really belong to the human but to the animal kingdom.

Don’t attract vultures
The food we absorb passes into the bloodstream and from there it attracts entities with which it has an affinity. As it says in the Gospel, ‘Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together', and this is true in the three worlds: physical, astral and mental. So, if you want to be healthy on the three levels, don't attract the vultures by eating carcasses! Heaven will never manifest itself through those who allow impurity to infiltrate them, whether it be physical, astral or mental.

A hidden cause of war
On the surface it may seem that wars are caused by economic or political questions, but in fact they are caused by our wholesale slaughter of animals. The laws of justice are inexorable, and men are going to have to pay with their own blood: they are going to have to spill the same amount of blood that they have caused animals to spill. How many millions of gallons of blood have been poured out on the earth and are now crying to Heaven for vengeance! And the vapours rising from all this blood attract not only microbes but also billions of maggots and pestilential entities from the invisible world. These are truths that most people do not know and which many may not accept, but whether they accept them or not I am bound to reveal them to you.

We kill animals, but nature is an organic whole, and by killing animals we are, as it were, wounding certain glands in that organism: when this happens there is a disruption of balance in the organism and it is not astonishing that, before long, war breaks out amongst men. Yes, men have slaughtered millions of animals for their meat without realizing that, on the invisible level, they are linked to certain human beings and that it is these human beings who are now going to have to share the fate of the animals. When we slaughter animals we are slaughtering men. Everybody agrees that it is time to establish a reign of peace in the world, that there must be no more wars. Yes, but war will go on just as long as we continue to slaughter animals because, by destroying them, we are destroying ourselves.

From The Yoga of Nutrition, by Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov,