Tenth Mansion - TO ACHEIVE

In the Tenth Mansion the individual self realizes the full and vital significance of power. Power, when actually in operation, real and fulfilled power, means always a demonstrated ability to achieve definite results. Moreover, in order to achieve results the Self must of necessity deal with elements, materials or other selves outside of himself. He must deal with those masterfully, bringing the many elemental or separate wills into a harmony of which he is the center and tonic.

There are two kinds of "outside": the first is that outside which is called at one level the body and at the other the psyche, if this term is given its widest possible significance; the second kind is represented by the "outer world" composed of objects and of people. The first type is so peculiarly related to the self that it is identified but too often with the self: as when we say "I am ill," or "I am angry." Actually, what is ill is the body, and what is in a state of anger is the psyche.

Now, both body and psyche (that is, the sum total of physical cells and of psychic energies, tendencies, faculties) are composed of elements or materials which come within the zone of influence of the self, either through parental inheritance or because they have been absorbed from the environ merit (from the physical as foodstuff, or from the psychological as traditions, habits, preconceptions, and the like). If the self manages to control, organize and integrate these elements of his body and of his psyche — that is, if he has power over them — he achieves "personality integration". He becomes a wholesome, harmonious and efficient personality. This comes to pass in the fourth mansion.

A somewhat similar process occurs in the cycle of development which begins with the seventh, which becomes consolidated (if all goes well) in the eighth, and expanded through understanding in the ninth mansion. Through these mansions the Self gathers to himself elements and materials which no longer will become the substance of his body and psyche, but which instead will build his place and function in the greater Whole of which he is then learning to become an efficiently functioning part.

This "greater Whole" means, first of all, human society. It may be a very limited "human society" — a small group and a village. Or it may be a vast nation; or the whole of mankind, visible and invisible as well. In any case, it is a whole composed of units more or less similar to the self, and to which he relates himself on the basis of a give-and-take operation (seventh mansion keynote).

It is a whole which may not as yet be considered as a real organism, but one which eventually and ultimately should reach the state of organic wholeness. A tribe is an organic whole of a kind; so is a nation which is the possessor of a well established culture and national spirit. Humanity will become some day, in an even more definite manner, a planetary organism. Each human personality will be then a cell of this organism, which we have named elsewhere the Synanthropy.

Ideally speaking, the message of the tenth mansion for any human personality is this: Find your place and function in that Greater human Whole which you are able realistically to envision and in which you are ready, by birthright, efficiently to participate. If you can actually see no farther than a small tribal or economic group, then that for you is the "greater Whole". If you can conceive clearly and act efficiently in terms of humanity-in-the-whole, then that should be for you the "greater Whole". The important thing is not to confuse an intellectual dream with an actual reality; not to consume yourself yearning for an unattainable ideal, and thus fail to participate efficiently in the only "greater Whole" in which you are able to function with competence.

The crux of this tenth-mansion problem is the matter of "power" — actual, real, operative power. The scope of your participation in any human whole composed of units similar to you is determined always by the "power" which you can marshal and put to efficient use. It is wise not to yearn for attainment beyond your power to achieve. Yet it is most unwise to bind yourself to narrow ranges of power-operation out of false modesty, psychological inhibitions and fears. It is true that "all nature's powers are there for you to use: take them. But it is also true that "it is better to fulfill your dharma (or inherent capacities); the dharma of another is full of danger," Self-inflation, imperialism, auto-hallucinations and ideas of grandeur do not pay. But to shrink from fulfilling the greater purpose of your life, because of an inferiority complex and fears, pays even less.

What then shall guide our judgment and the scope of our attempts at establishing on true bases and in true proportions our participation in the "work of the world"? Obviously, the only guide is understanding. It is this understanding; gained in the ninth mansion, which will enable us to evaluate the nature and scope of the "greater Whole" in which we are to function as an efficient part. As the gates of the tenth mansion open, the final revelation of the purpose of our destiny, in terms of whatever represents for us by birthright the "greater whole", should come upon us. It may come to us by the force of circumstances — as a job, or as the nearly unavoidable choice of a profession. Or it may reach us in the form of a vision of a Work of Destiny that will compel us to grow beyond our apparent limits — this according as we are men of the first or the second birth. But, whether with the sharp intensity of a release of power from on high, or with the matter-of-fact compulsion of social necessity, it will come, at the threshold or at some critical moment of the phase of development which we now symbolize as the tenth mansion — the mansion of power, of achievement and mastery.

What is achievement, and what is mastery? To "achieve" is "to become chief". The word "chief" comes from the Latin caput, which means "head". Achievement signifies therefore "coming to a head". But what is head without body? What are the best brains without the vital organs contained in the trunk of the human body — organs which feed and sustain the brain? In what, moreover, resides the "power" of the master, save in the unanimous allegiance of those over whom he rules, as chief or head? In other words, what is the great individual without the collectivity of which it is the fruition and seed? There comes a time when the seed leaves the plant which gave it birth, when the great individual leaves the collectivity which fulfilled itself unconsciously in and through him as chief and master. But as this occurs, the collectivity disintegrates, and the great individual finds his place and function in a still greater collectivity or Whole, to which he brings the fruition of that from which he arose. He goes as a plenipotentiary; that is, as one who has assumed the power of his collectivity.

This all means that power is not of the individual, but of the collectivity or group; even though it is the individual who, as chief and master, wields and manages this power. He wields power because he has achieved social recognition, because he has fulfilled — through relationship, sacrifice and understanding — one aspect of the culture of his social group, the aspect which was his by birthright. "By birthright" may be interpreted at the level of outer social functioning; in which case it refers to an inherited trade or a traditional professional or aristocratic duty. It may also mean the fulfillment in a personality of a long trend of spiritual endeavor. In such a case the united powers of a host of ancestors descend, as it were, as a regal mantle upon the man who, as "son of his fathers," becomes the spiritual fruition and seed of his genealogical Tree.

"Humanity is composed more of the dead than of the living," wrote, a century ago, the French philosopher Auguste Comte. A true statement indeed. The focalized power of the dead is what makes of a man a chief and master. "A buddha is the flower of his race," wrote a great adept. Buddhahood is humanity meeting a man and investing this man with the power to be MAN. In this same sense, Christ is "Son of Man" and "Son of David", as well as "Son of God" — God who is always at any stage of development the next "greater Whole", "in whom we live and have our being". And it is in this tenth mansion, which is symbolized by the noon-point of the Sun, that this power which has been accumulated by the ancestors descends upon the man who has been fulfilled in understanding, after having died the death of selfishness.

Thus the man becomes a consecrated chief — and as such is invested with the power to achieve his destiny: to fulfill his part within the "greater Whole" to which he belongs by birthright. This power is what the Hindu philosopher named shakti. It is the power of culmination of all life-processes. More than this, it is essentially and at whatever level the term may have to be understood, mastery. Mastery is the power of culmination, and yet it is more. It is not only the apex of the pyramid of man's successful efforts toward his goal, but just as much the descent of the Fire from Heaven upon this apex. A man does not entirely become a master by his own efforts. He qualifies to become a master through his own efforts; but to qualify as, and actually to become a master are two different things. What happens is that, in some mysterious way, mastery descends upon the would-be master and consecrates him a master. And this, which may be true of those great Initiations during which the disciple is invested with the magic power of the "Word" by the One Initiator, is also true in lesser ways in every case when a man emerges as a leader, a true chief, and is given public recognition. Such a recognition is an elusive thing; but it is at best only the outer reflection of an interior happening, a real consecration of that man by the invisible unity of his community: a mastery investing a ready personality with the power to act as a master.

In order to realize the meaning of the foregoing we will have to remember that in the fourth mansion the individual foundation, the roots, of power and achievement are built. The self must first build inward a soul foundation, or a "home", before he is able to meet the challenge , the loves and the many deaths of the life of relationship. The physical body, the house of earth, stone and wood, — such are the roots of the individual. They are foundations whence power starts on its long journey upward and outward. The culmination of this journey — the fabled rise of kundalini — takes place in the tenth mansion, at the noon point of individual selfhood. There power is released, and man as a social personality achieves. And the achievement consists in this, that he who has understood his place and function in the "greater Whole" not only assumes henceforth the responsibility of operating outwardly as an organic part, or as an agent, of this "greater Whole", but actually receives from the "greater Whole" the very power of mastery.

This ascent of power from the "midnight sun" to the "noon sun" occurs along the Meridian of the man. It links the roots to the seed, the base of the spine where "kundalini is coiled, asleep" to the center of the head, which is the "house of the creative". This "house of the creative" is the very form of the individual's participation in the "greater Whole". It is his cell-form within the cosmic organism which tribe, nation, mankind, and even more universal collectivities, in turn represent for him.

Thus in the tenth mansion the archetypal form of man is revealed: that for which he emerged out of the inchoate earth, his form of destiny, his Work of destiny. But it is not only revealed as a form, as an abstract structure. It is made an actual and concrete experience. It is lived and made a reality for all to behold. Thus in this mansion man experiences his "birth of light". He is born in the open, as a solar chief invested with the mastery which is the active, effective and permanent reality, beyond all masters who have come before him and will come after him. And this is true, potentially, at whatsoever level he is operating.

In the cycle of the first birth, the individual's achievement is fundamentally one which not only results from, but which repeats his or his ancestors' achievements. As man emerges into the full realization of his individual selfhood, he reaches toward his individual Work of destiny. To what he has received from heredity and environment he adds the seal of his own present mastery. And as the wide horizons of the third birth are opening, the transfigured personality, now fully participating in uttermost consciousness as a cell of the "greater Whole", becomes a fully commissioned agent of this "greater Whole". He becomes an avatar, a Christ. The "Son of Man" proves himself "Son of God" by the eternal, ancient and veracious proof of works.