A Rosicrucian Speaks

Joseph J. Weed


Reason, The King

1952

Reason is here referred to as King in order to arouse or awaken a line of thought and encourage you to a certain line of conscious activity. Reason is not always King but right now and for most people reason must be so regarded. This means we must take more pains to reason out the rights and wrongs of the situations in which we find ourselves, regardless of whether these quandries be personal, national or worldwide. We must seek below the surface for the causes. But in order to do this intelligently and capably we must first understand more about ourselves and the part Reason plays in our make up.

In our Rosicrucian monographs we are taught that we are dual beings composed of a physical nature on one hand and a psychic nature on the other. Now before anyone jumps to an erroneous conclusion, let me say right now that the statement, "Reason should be King" does not mean it should rule the psychic nature. On the contrary, the psychic nature being higher and finer should always govern the physical which includes the Reason or lower mind. But, unfortunately, very few individuals in the world are at all times and in all circumstances governed by their psychic natures. Most of us, most of the time, have the control of our actions lodged in our lower or physical natures and that is just where the trouble lies.

If it were possible for me to tell you in a few words or to show you with a simple demonstration how to swing the control of all your actions into your psychic nature once and for all, I certainly would not hesitate one minute to do so. But this is a long and difficult task. It has been likened to climbing a high mountain and when an individual sets out to achieve this most worthy end he is said to be a Pilgrim on the Path up the mountain. This Path is long and difficult and beset with many obstacles. Many pilgrims lose heart and only a few persevere until the end is in sight. But upon the Path are certain heights to be attained, certain viewpoints or resting places whence one may look back and survey what has been accomplished. One of the major eminences or heights to be attained on the Path, one that frequently guarantees ultimate success in the striving of the Pilgrim, is the achievement known as the "Crowning of Reason", or making Reason the King.

Now, let us see why this is so and how we can set about attaining it. As we said, the Rosicrucian monographs indicate we are dual beings made up of a physical nature and psychic nature. But for the purposes of study both of these natures may be analyzed down to many components. Actually, no separation or division exists in these various parts or bodies as we shall call them. They are all you. But for the sake of study and clarification, let us divide the physical nature into three parts and call them the physical, emotional and mental bodies. Now, look at these three bodies and see what they are like. First, let us define them.

Physical body is the body you normally think of and refer to as I. The visible collection of cells and molecules known as John Smith or Sally Jones. It eats and breathes to keep alive and rests when it is tired. Most of its functions are automatic and planned by an intelligence far above and beyond our limited creative abilities. All of its functions could and should be automatic if it were working as it had been originally planned, but, as you know, at some time in the dim and distant past man, you, usurped control by means of the God given franchise of free will and since then the physical body itself has usually dominated its own actions and pushed the soul's control into the background. In these cases, the functioning of the physical body is no longer automatic, but purposeful. And when a physical body acts in a purposeful manner, that is to say selfishly and for its own ends, it is not acting as it was created to act and intended to act. It is being misused. It is misusing itself, yes, but it is being misused. And like anything else that is misused it becomes damaged. Just as when you use a fine carving knife to cut wood, you dull it quickly and eventually destroy it, so by permitting your physical body to act in a selfish or purposeful fashion, it damages itself and eventually destroys itself. This is the chief reason we get sick, grow old and die. Our physical bodies are so perfectly constructed they would last in good repair for just as long as we wanted to use them, if they functioned only automatically under soul direction, as they were originally intended to.

Today most intelligent and well educated people control their physical impulses very well. To a degree they have learned the art of self restraint. But, unfortunately, their emotional natures are still dominant and in spite of their good intentions and best efforts, the emotional nature takes control and orders the "complete man" about. This again robs the physical of its tendency toward automatic functioning. The great fears so rampant in the world, and in our present day the greatest sin is probably fear, infect nearly everyone. We fear for the sake of fearing and when we can't find a legitimate bug-a-boo, we conjure one up from our imaginations. Now fear, like several other basic emotions, is an incentive to action in the physical, a powerful incentive. Originally it was implanted for a purpose. When fear was experienced, and primitive man only felt fear when he had a good cause to fear such as being confronted by a wild beast, when primitive man experienced fear, adrenaline was released immediately into his blood stream in order to stimulate his heart action and give him an instantaneous increase in strength and energy with which to meet the threatening danger. Today we experience fear often when there is no danger imminent. Since the body does not analyze, dos not think, it immediately releases adrenaline to provide extra strength and energy which in most cases is not used. This creates a poison in the blood stream which eventually breaks down the physical, and this is usually what happens today. All of our violent emotions have equally harmful effects upon the physical body. They interfere with its normal and proper functioning and serve to shorten its useful existence.

Furthermore, to live on the emotional level; to place the control of our actions in our emotional body, seriously hampers our progress and growth. The emotions were designed as tools to be used, as incentives to action and we have let them rule us. Our consciousness should reside on the spiritual plane and we should use our lower selves, the three physical natures or the physical, emotional and mental bodies, as instruments only. Unfortunately, we only have fleeting moments when we are spiritually focussed. Most of us spend the better part of our lives on the emotional plane, occasionally descending to the physical or raising to the mental. If we would improve at all, if we ever hope to eventually "return to our Father's house" and focus our consciousness upon the spiritual levels, we must learn to take the first step upward. We must learn how to think, we must learn how to live on the mental plane. We must make Reason the King.

Now those of you who have tried this know it to be a lot more difficult than it sounds. Yet, it is not so difficult that everyone of you may not eventually accomplish it – and in this lifetime too. But it requires determination, sustained will and hard work. What I wish to convey to you is that in order to restore the focus of our consciousness to the spiritual, where it belongs, we must first establish it firmly in the mental realm. We must free ourselves of the demands of our physical appetites and loosen the emotional ties which bind us. In the words of the Teacher, we must "Kill out desire."

The old teachings all inform us of this but for the most part they are couched in vigorous language which in many instances tends to mislead the student. Our physical appetites must not be blocked out, they must not be negated. That is the way of suppression which always ends in an explosion. Control and guidance is the proper technique. By means of control, the physical impulse is redirected, re-channeled and not suppressed. For example, if you have a craving for a rich dessert and you know it is not good for you, that it will cause indigestion, it is better to order something simple, like applesauce or fresh fruit than to go without dessert entirely. Likewise, when we read the instruction to "kill out desire", we must understand that this does not mean to eliminate our emotions. We would be only half men if we did this – if we could. Here again the technique to be employed is one of redirection, in this case called sublimation. Each of our emotions is dual in nature. It has lower and higher counterparts our objective is to channel all of our emotional drives into their higher counterparts. Take love, for instance. It is the highest emotion of which our lower nature is capable and yet it has its lower and higher counterparts. Love of self and love of others. Brought to its highest degree, love of others becomes love of all men, nay love of all that lives and breathes. This is true wisdom. On the other hand fear is a most destructive emotion. It must be replaced with trust and confidence which are creative and will bring into our lives the strength and benefits we need. Each emotion must be examined and if it is the lower counterpart we are manifesting, it must be changed into its higher form.

But, you say, how does one do this ? We have tried but success eludes our grasp. Let me tell you. It is most difficult if you attack this problem directly. By so doing you focus your attention upon your desires and in this way they are actually strengthened, for energy follows thought. It is best to go about it another way and this is precisely the reason why I have titled this address "Reason, The King". I want you to think about reason and why it should be the King and how you can achieve the "Crowning of Reason".

Some people have said that the way to develop the mind is to think more. This is perfectly true but it is an over-simplification of the problem. Thinking is difficult and most of us avoid it as skillfully as we can. Thinking takes up energy, lots of energy and since we are generally pretty lazy animals we don't like to use energy. We tell ourselves that we like to conserve it and then, lots of times when we imagine we are thinking, we are not thinking at all. Most people confuse emotional day-dreaming with thought. A person meets you and says, "I was thinking of you only this morning". He doesn't mean lie was thinking in the sense that he was employing thought to reach an objective. He means that an image or impression of you entered his mind. He was not consciously employing thought as an instrument, which is what "thinking" really is.

But I can see that this might become confusing because we have so few words in the English language, to convey ideas about these subjects. Actually, we have to use the same words over and over in slightly different contexts and connections in order to convey different ideas for which we don't have precise words. Now my problem at the minute is to convey to you the actual difference between day dreaming and thinking. Day dreaming is an emotional state in which a succession of images crosses the mind. These images may be involuntary or they may be self induced. Many students indulge in day dreaming in the fond belief that they are meditating.

Let me see if I can give you an illustration of the difference between day dreaming and thinking. A man sits and thinks about a house he would like to have. He wishes for that house and in thinking about the house ideas about houses begin to come to him. He dwells upon these ideas and enlarges upon them. He feels pleasure in the house's beauty and its newness in the attractiveness of the grounds around it, the trees, the lake in the distance and everything about it. He likes to dwell upon them and does so often. Now this is purely emotional and can be described as day dreaming. It is not creative thought and at best will only provide an opportunity for the man to acquire the house by making some physical payment or sacrifice. Actually not even this is likely unless a great deal of emotional energy is put into it.

Now let us consider another man with his mind on a house. This man is an architect and he is planning a house. He measures off each dimension carefully and places each radiator and pipe and doorway with the greatest of skill. This requires concentration and the expenditure of effort, but the end he achieves a result. He has the plan of a house which needs only a builder to complete it. This man has been thinking.

Now like most illustrations this one isn't particularly good because it has too many loopholes in it, but I think it will convey the general idea of the difference between day dreaming and thinking. The main difference is one of control. The man thinking is driving the automobile, the man day dreaming is riding in the back seat.

This brings us to the point where we can say that the way to free ourselves from the glamour induced by our emotional natures, by our desires, is to develop the mind, to turn over the control of our actions to our mental natures with the objective of eventually opening a pathway to spiritual contact and control. The ways to develop the mind are many. You can study. This is natural and beneficial. You can memorize five lines or ten lines of poetry every day. This requires energy as all mental effort does but it is very rewarding. The mental nature is nourished and grows and the memory stays alive and active. But I would like to suggest a technique which everyone of you can practice with little effort and great benefit to yourself.

  1. Meditate for ten minutes daily – no more, no less. It must be daily. Not three days a week, not just week days with Sundays and holidays excluded, but daily. Every day. And it must be meditation, which means constructive thinking and not day dreaming. The Meditation for the first year should be what is known as "meditation with seed". In other words you start with a single thought and work around it. I would suggest that you select twelve words expressive of ideals or higher emotions and use a different one as the seed thought for each month. These could be words like, "wisdom, peace, love, courage, strength, compassion, gratitude" and so forth.
  2. Review your actions and decisions of the day each night. Spend not more than ten minutes each night on this. Don't become morbid or self accusing. You will probably discover plenty to find fault with if you are honest with yourself but don't waste a lot of good time on vain regrets. When you find something wrong, say to yourself – "that was a mistake – it mustn't happen again" and pass on to the next thought. If we are fair and honest in our self-appraisal, we will he able to see ourselves quite impersonally and in this manner correct our mistakes and raise the entire standard of our conduct. In addition to the raising of our vibratory rate which will coincide with the lifting of our ethical standards, this nightly resume will also lift the consciousness into the mental realm and out of the emotional.

Let me recommend this two-fold technique to you for daily practice. Try it for a year and before the end of the year you will most certainly be aware of tangible, noticeable changes in yourself. In this way you can make Reason the King.

Joseph J. Weed

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A Rosicrucian Speaks
Joseph J. Weed

Copyright, The Chatsworth Press
Last Modified: January 19, 2014
E-Mail: arosicrucianspeaks@outlook.com