The mind of the profane man is multipolar. His attention is endlessly dispersed over a vast field of objects, each of which is lightly focused, but none of which is intensely polarized.
When the profane man is interested in reaching a specific material objective, he intensely and daily polarizes his attention in that direction. Some polarize toward a scientific, artistic, or philanthropic ideal and get what they want after a while.
Mental energy is a force that grows directly proportional to its concentration or polarization. Few men can sufficiently polarize their mental strength to materialize a particular objective. Day-to-day mental concentration on a single point is difficult for most people.
When a man goes beyond the horizontal level of physical and mental interests, of more or less immediate and palpable results; when he begins to polarize his attention on the supreme and only Reality that, for him, is still in a distant future, without any certain experience of the past, the difficulty of this polarization grows, demanding from him an almost superhuman “faith”. When apprehended as transcendent, this supreme Reality is called God, and when conceived as immanent, it is called the Self. Still, in any case, whether transcendent or immanent, the difficulty is the same because both the God of the universe external to man and the God of the universe within him is infinitely distant in any situation.
These are two great unknowns, of which the profane man cannot reach a real experience. It is generally easier to focus attention on a God infinitely distant than on a God infinitely near, although the latter process is the most necessary.
This act of polarization, at least initially, has a mental character. However, the great reservoir of energy from which this act starts and from whose content it draws its force is rational, and its endpoint is also rational. Polarization, at first, is mental or analytical, that is, intellectually conscious, gradually becoming rational (spiritual), that is, superconscious or intuitive.
The factors that determine the result of mental-rational polarization are as follows:
1)- its intensity,
2)- its duration,
3)- its attendance.
However, the main of these factors is that of intensity, which consists of the degree of condensation of consciousness and the exclusion of any dispersive element. While man still has any notion of time and space, of object and subject, he is not fully polarized. The increasing intensification is comparable to converging lines that finally disappear in a non-dimensional point; while there is still awareness of duration and dimension, there is no total concentration. This complete emptying of physical-mental consciousness is an indispensable condition for fulfilling rational consciousness. The fullness of one presupposes the emptiness of the other, as the presence of light requires the absence of darkness.
Time and space are two categories that dominate the entire physical-mental world, and it is difficult for a man to free himself from this tyranny. The waking state of mind in which he lives is not full wakefulness; it is a kind of sleep or dream. Mental wakefulness is a kind of semi-conscious, semi-unconscious sleepwalking. In this state, all realities are measured by the standard of time and space, that is, duration and dimension; but as these categories do not represent real objects but only modes of subjective perception, it is clear that the phenomena apprehended through the prism of physical-mental somnambulism do not have full reality. They are reflections of reality, like images in a mirror, but they are not that reality.
If man were able to transcend the plane of mental somnambulism and enter the zone of full rational wakefulness, he would see reality face to face, as it is in itself.
The end of polarization is the entry into that real zone, the awakening to full wakefulness.
However, this intense polarization must not be done in such a way as to overload and ruin the material vehicles, which are, in the first place, the nervous system, because a nervous vibratory process accompanies every mental-rational polarization. The vibratory frequency of the nerves is not susceptible to rapid potentiation. A single degree of future potentiation represents a tremendous nervous effort that is not possible in less than a few weeks or months, depending on the resistance of each organism. And even in this case, this potentiation of vibratory frequency must be prudently counterbalanced by physical work and other appropriate derivatives. Therefore, the initiate in matters of a mystical order must practice physical exercises or sports to counterweight mental-rational concentration activities, even because it is known that internal polarization gradually decreases the movement of pulmonary and blood activities, while any physical exercise accelerates these movements. In a state of regular rest, without concentration, the man breathes less, but when he gives in to deep concentration, breathing decreases considerably.
This polarization is similar to hibernation in certain animals. In this state, the creature reduces the vital process to prevent the expenditure of energies, which in this situation are not renewed by future assimilation of calories. In contrast, the man in a state of mental-spiritual polarity potentiates, to the maximum, qualitatively, the volume of present energies, not needing, therefore, to absorb energies from new sources.
This relay of concentration and expansion is necessary so that the material vehicles of mental-spiritual polarization, such as the nervous system, do not suffer damage and withstand the growing impact of an ever-increasing potentiation. If, for example, a 25-watt light bulb is turned on to an electrical current of 500 volts, it will explode. At the level of electricity, what is impossible is possible at the level of the living organism. The nervous resistance can be gradually potentiated, thus becoming a suitable vehicle to receive an increasing mental-spiritual voltage, making the degree of consciousness grows in direct proportion to the refinement of the nervous' system antennae.
As soon as this system reaches a high degree of resistance and vibration, an intense unipolarization is possible, a rational-spiritual focus so that all objects in the physical-mental environment cease to exist without excluding the subject itself. Sensitive perceptions and intellectual thoughts are eclipsed by the clarity of rational-spiritual intuition, allowing the man to cross the boundary of external quantities and reach the zone of internal quality, a state called ecstasy or absorption in the spirit of Self. For all the physical-mental effects of the horizontal level, this man “died” – and that is why he “lives” intensely. Unipolarity is, so to speak, a “suicide”, a death of the intellective sensorial consciousness, a necessary condition for the birth of the rational-spiritual consciousness.
Once, someone was asked to turn off the Moon and stars light. Knowing that it would accomplish the impossible, the person nevertheless attempted the feat.
It spread an opaque curtain in the air to intercept the light of these stars, but the dimming was only partial, for the light was passing on all sides of the curtain. Then, it resolved to produce thick clouds of smoke, covering a large expanse of the sky. However, beyond this artificial cloud, those stars continued to shine. Disheartened, it gave up the attempt – when a friend offered to do the impossible. What did it do? It did not try to extinguish the brightness of the Moon and the stars – it simply called the Sun to appear and shed its intense clarity throughout the firmament – and, behold, the light of the Moon and the stars disappeared under the Sun's light! Those sidereal bodies, it is true, continued to exist and to shine. However, their brightness was eclipsed by the rays of the star of Life.
And this is exactly what happens in the polarization of the spirit. It is impossible to end the uninterrupted cares and burdens of the mundane life of feelings and thoughts without first focusing on the silent plunge into Ultimate Reality. As long as the Sun does not emerge from an intense spiritual unipolarity, the Moon and the stars of the physical-mental consciousness will not cease to shine. The polarized light of cosmic consciousness eclipses all shadows of ego consciousness.
In this unipolarized consciousness, all strength and happiness reside because, in this spiritual focus, man ceases to feel like an entity separate from the Whole and will experience, in the intimacy of his true Self, his undivided individuality with the Ultimate Reality. The mask of the false ego is dropped, and the semblance of the true Self appears. Consequently, the sinful personality created by the Lucifer of the intellect is redeemed by the saving individuality of the Logos of reason. The man then knows the truth about himself – and the truth sets him free.
What luminosity, how hot do the sun's rays fall on an area of 10 cm in diameter? Insignificant! But if that same amount of light is passed through a lens and centred on a non-dimensional focus, the luminosity and heat will be so intense that nothing will withstand such an impact.
From where does this difference come?
Simply by the concentration of light and heat.
If man were able to concentrate on his true Self, instead of wandering around the periphery of the ego, he would have enough light to clarify all the paths of his existence in all dimensions and enough warmth to carry out with love and enthusiasm all that seems difficult or impossible. Everything intricate, heavy, bitter, excruciating in man's life happens because he cannot focus on the light and heat in him, which is in a state of dispersion. Dispersion is a weakness – polarization is strength. If man could focus his attention on a single point, he would accomplish stupendous things, in any area of life, even in the affairs of the material and mental level.
The ability of intense polarization is a kind of scalpel with which precision surgeries can be performed, which would be impossible with an ordinary knife. However, a scalpel does not determine, by itself, what kind of surgery is to be performed. It can either kill or save a life; it is a suitable instrument that produces an evil effect in the hands of a criminal, but in the hands of a physician, it performs a beneficial result.
The profane man succumbs to everything and everyone, constantly defeated by the adversities of nature and the perversities of men – when there is no reason to be a helpless victim of these forces. The man could and can discover and create from within himself a power greater than all external forces, that is, polarizing his inner energy. Neither cold nor heat, neither hunger nor thirst, neither disease nor accidents, neither blame nor praise, will harm him. Not even death itself would have power over a man if he awakened within himself the forces that slumber in him and which could make him lord and sovereign of his destiny.
In the same way, it would be possible for a man to emancipate himself from the impact that public opinion usually has on him, for, if faced with an offence or injustice, he would not need to pay negative for negative, evil for evil, which is proof of weakness and defeat, opposing the negative received, the strength of positive retribution. If this, by any chance, is not possible, it is because man has not yet managed to find his true centre and polarize all his forces into that Self.
Without its spiritual complement, mental unipolarity is a danger because intelligence is, by its nature, selfish and almost always puts its conquests at the ego’s service, even to the detriment of its fellow beings.
After the spiritual reason, mental forces are the most significant forces in the Universe.
Woe to him who puts his mental strength at the service of destruction!
Well does he who puts his mental forces at the service of universal reason, for the sake of his self-fulfilment and the redemption of humanity!
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