by Manly P. Hall

While the mind and emotions are burdened with the tremendous pressures resulting from external experiences ill digested within the personality, it is impossible to achieve the state of internal quietude which is necessary before the eye of the soul can be opened. What the soul requires primarily is a complete relaxation of the self from all intensities, pressures, remembrances, and all occurrences by which the inner life is disturbed. It is often quite possible to mentally achieve a cleansing of the life, but if the emotional pressures are not also regenerated, the achievement is not complete. What we need, therefore, for the development of the inner faculty of sight is a perfect quietude of the mind, the emotions, and the body itself.

This quietude comes in various ways—some by way of acceptance. Experiences we have rebelled against can be transformed into acceptances. We can forget the circumstances and remember only the lessons that we learned. We can in many cases analyze, if we wish, how the most difficult happenings in our lives have been the most beneficial in terms of internal growth.

One by one we need to transform every negative emotion into a positive spiritual acceptance of experiences. We have to, therefore, enter what has been sometimes referred to as a continual remembering of the Divine. It is not a particular prayer at a particular time, but it is to live forever in the presence of the Divine Purpose for things. The essential foundation of this gives rise to what we call mysticism. Mysticism is actually the heart doctrine. It is the individual growing not by expanding the mental faculties but using these faculties primarily to sustain the quietude of the heart.

The heart, because of its intense inner nature, has always been considered a symbol of love. It has been associated with natural affections, with gentleness, kindness, consideration, forgiveness, and for practically all purposes it is a symbol of complete internal peace. Peace is not in this case the result of an escape or of rejecting the difficulties of life. With the opening of the third eye, peace is the realization that we are forever in the presence of divine peace. Peace is not something we have to invent or struggle after. Rather, it is a state of natural existence when we have made peace with ourselves, when we have achieved a natural sympathy and a proper union of the parts and fragments of the personality which are so often in continuous conflict—the gradual sustaining of internal humility, a quiet acceptance of life, a desire to grow through service, a realization that we are all servants and grow most rapidly when serving the causes for life’s experiences.

The simplest form of these services is that we take the symbolic aspect and serve the normal boundaries of relationship such as family and intimate associates and expand our desire for service out of the natural environment with which we are familiar into the great environment which is dominated by the Divine Love which serves all things great and small, every form of life being benefited thereby. As we grow we become servants of this internal light and seek in every way at our command to serve the Divine Purpose and in this way permit the Divine Purpose to flow unimpeded through
our own natures.

~Excerpted from Manly P Hall Lecture #271 – “The Third Eye in the Soul.”