from The Theosophist April 1977
The Dweller on the Threshold
Hugh Shearman
The expression "the dweller on the threshold" was
used by Madame Blavatsky to refer to a particular and rather rare
phenomenon;
but it may very properly be used to indicate a universal law of human
experience
which is often too lightly regarded.
In old folktales, the hidden treasure, the sleeping beauty,
the imprisoned
princess - or whatever might be the object of desire and aspiration -
was
represented as guarded by a dragon or some other fearsome creature. Or
if
there was no living guardian, there was at least an obstacle of very
formidable
character.
In the experiences of life we find repeatedly that this is
true, either psychologically
and within ourselves, or in simple external material fact. At the
threshold
of any new thing that we undertake, there is an obstacle to be
encountered.
In terms of the laws of physics, the basis of this experience
is the law
of momentum or of the conservation of kinetic energy. If we have
momentum
causing an object to move in a particular direction, and we want to
stop
it or make it change course, we have first to neutralise that momentum.
Or,
in psychological terms, if we want to take some new course in thought,
feeling
or action, then we are brought into confrontation with everything in
our
natures that is incompatible with that new course.
In our personal lives, this works at every level. Once we
have followed for
a while a certain course of living, we have acquired a momentum which
carries
us along, the momentum of habit. A great part of this is unconscious.
We
are not aware of all the forces in our natures which we have mobilised
by
our pattern of repeated daily habit in thought, feeling and action.
Then
for some reason we decide to change direction , to abandon old habits
and
adopt new ones, to direct our live in some new way. At once we find
that
we are up against the accumulated momentum or our past, which we had
hitherto
been hardly aware of.
So, at the beginning of every new enterprise or the taking of
any fresh resolve
in a person's life, there is a dweller on the threshold - an obstacle
made
up of al the tendencies in his habits and personality which are
incompatible
with this new undertaking.
This appears, on the face of it, fairly obvious. What is not
so obvious is
the complex nature of this obstacle, made up as it is of forces working
at
many levels of our personalities, some of them levels of which we are
not
normally conscious at all. People make good resolves to change some
commonplace
physical habit; but we know what difficulties can arise for the person
who
decides to give up drugs, alcohol or smoking or even to stop taking the
occasional
unnecessary cup of tea.
Consider the nature of the apparently simple problem of
giving up the habit
of taking a dietetically quite unnecessary cup of tea at a particular
time
each day. The resolve is made, and at first all seems well. But when
the
time at which tea is normally consumed comes round, the physical
organism
asserts the habit that has been implanted in it and demands tea. The
emotional
nature does the same thing, probably at several levels at the same
time.
There is likely to be a subtle and deeply rooted urge to have the cup
of
tea because it symbolises the satisfaction of the oral cravings of
infancy,
the instinctual satisfaction of the baby at its mother's breast, a
satisfaction
which is emotional as well as physical and is closely identified with
the
child's whole feeling of security and the enhancement of its sense of
individuality.
At the same time a cup of tea would provide a pretext for
resting from some
other activity, abandoning perhaps some anxiety, ceasing from some work
which
does not bring satisfaction. The result of all this is that a clamour
for
the cup of tea is set up at many levels of our personal being. And at
this
point the mind is activated and offers the comment that we might as
well
take a cup of tea today, and that if we want to give it up, we can do
that
tomorrow instead.
This sort of encounter with a dweller on the threshold
invites us to reconsider
the nature of the resolve which brought us into confrontation with it.
When
we decide to take some new course of action, or abandon an old one, how
much
of our nature is committed to the resolve? This is really the question
of
how much new momentum we are bringing into the situation to neutralise
the
old momentum, and at what levels this new momentum is capable of being
effective.
Much has been said and written about this. It has been shown
that if we make
up our "minds", we are liable to fail; but, if we make up our
imaginations
and our feelings, we are much more likely to succeed. At least it is
necessary
to be aware that there is a dweller on the threshold of our new resolve
and
that to ignore it, or to mistake it for something else, is only foolish
and
ineffective.
For some purposes, people work on the principle of actually
calling up a
dweller on the threshold so as to force it out into the open and have
done
with it. This would appear to be the technique adopted by certain
schools
of "nature cure". The patient is put on an austere and scanty diet and
may
begin to feel rather poorly. Then there comes a crisis, or a succession
of
crises, in which the body, perhaps through a heavy cold or some other
form
of illness, throws off poisons and purifies itself' and in the end the
patient
can achieve a relatively purified body and a higher level of health.
Of course what often happens in this, as in other enterprises
involving the
surfacing of poisons and incompatibles, is that the individual says,
"This
is terrible. This course of treatment is no good. I shall stop it at
once".
And this he does, abandoning the regime and doing all he can to put the
poisons
back into his system and get them to say quiet there.
This is very much what often happens when people embark on
some "occult"
or merely ethical way of living. The dweller that they evoke by trying
to
cross this threshold is made up of all the elements in their own
personalities
or characters which are incompatible with their new enterprise or
aspiration.
If, for example, they have set themselves the goal of becoming
peaceful,
then every element of conflict and turbulence that is in them is liable
to
emerge. And often they will not see that this is indeed an element in
their
own natures. They will look out through that turbulence in themselves
and
claim that it is really in other people.
When people take "steps" and enter, or achieve some promotion
in, an occult
or mystical organisation or brotherhood, they can sometimes become very
upset
and hard to deal with. Madame Blavatsky used to warn people against
lightly
taking occult pledges, because in her experience this was so often
followed
by an acute fir of what she called "pledge fever", a condition of great
emotional
tension in which the pledged person often did something extremely
foolish
or broke down altogether.
Since, in courtesy, we tend to accept people at their own
level of professed
aspiration, we are perhaps too unwilling to give a warning that this
kind
of upset is liable to occur when they join certain activities and
fraternities.
A formidable dweller, with great disintegrative psychological power,
can
be melt at the threshold of many highminded undertaking. Many a man has
been
staggered, rocked on his heels emotionally, after being ordained a
priest.
Some people have been quite deeply and apparently inexplicably upset
after
being initiated into a masonic or other fraternal body. It can happen
when
somebody joins the Theosophical Society.
Probably much depends on the depth and completeness with
which a person gives
himself to the new thing that he enters. Yet it has always to be
remembered
that joining something that seems relatively superficial and taking on
what
seems a relatively shallow commitment, may nevertheless have quite deep
unconscious
roots and motivations.
There are people who give talks and lectures which are only
descriptions
in words or minor exercises in speculation or emotionalism; and they
can
go through life giving such talks. But those who speak with a depth of
sincerity,
trying to convey the essence of true experience; will sooner or later
be
brought to the testing of their own teaching; and, if they pass that
test,
getting past the dweller on that threshold, they acquire a certain
authority,
even they are not accomplished speakers.
The dweller on the threshold that is evoked by those who try
to approach
the occult world sometimes takes the form of external circumstances;
but
very often there is an acute emotional storm, some deep depression or
sense
of desolation or failure or loneliness, perhaps a bitter aversion to
some
other person, or a jealous and possessive personal attachment. The
residue
of incompatibles that surface in such a case can be complex and very
crippling.
The most important safeguard is the honesty and humility to recognise
what
it is that is happening. Then we can wait patiently and watch the storm
blow
itself out over a longer or shorter period. This can be a very
distressing
experience, and many suffer a great deal. But it is possible to go
through
it without collapsing and without striking some foolish attitude and
then
imagining that one has to lay claim to self-consistency on the basis of
our
folly.
It is certainly vanity that leads to a fall. There is a kind
of person who
makes heroic entries upon new undertakings, only to collapse each time
a
dweller on the threshold is to be faced. The more personally and
self-consciously,
if not actually ostentatiously, we approach the new undertaking, the
more
certain it is that the testing will be sharp and revealing. Perhaps
this
is what is referred to in that petition in the Lord's Prayer in the
Christian
Scriptures : "Lead us not into temptation". That word "temptation" must
be
taken in its seventeenth century sense as meaning a testing. Indeed the
Greek
words of the prayer mean, "Bring us not to a testing".
Nobody can restrain or set limits to the ambitions or
aspirations of another,
but the insight of a Master will instantly perceive whether an
individual
may be encouraged to advance boldly or whether he would be better to be
humble
in his expectations lest he should evoke such a mass of psychological
conflict
as will be likely to cripple his future usefulness.
There come to mind two "K.H" letters. In one, addressed to C.W. Leadbeater,
the writer said, " Force any one of the "Masters" you may happen to
choose;
do good works in his name and for the love of mankind; be pure and
resolute
in the path of righteousness (as laid down in our rules); be honest and
unselfish;
forget yourself but remember, the good of other people - and you will
have
forced that "Master" to accept you".
But, to another unnamed person, not seen to have Leadbeater's
potential,
a letter over the same initials said, "Sigh not for chelaship; pursue
not
that, the dangers and hardships of which are unknown to you. Verily
many
are the chelas offering themselves to us, and as many have failed this
year
as were accepted on probation. Chelaship unveils the inner man and
draws
forth the dormant vices as well as the dormant virtues. Latent vice
begets
active sins and is often followed by insanity".
Probably the greatest danger in crossing threshold is that
most of those
who seek to cross them do so with a motive which is, in a refined and
subtle
form, a desire for gain for themselves. For humanity, the final dweller
on
the threshold seems to be the great illusion that there is any self at
all
for whom gain can accrue from anything. The encounter with this last
incompatible
is symbolised as the crucifixion, and it is to this that anything that
can
truly be called "theosophy" is intended to lead us.
As well as clarifying many experiences of our lives, this
occult principle
of what it is convenient to refer to as the dweller on the threshold
can
help to a better understanding of other people. No doubt it applies to
whole
communities and nations, or to humanity as a whole, now seeking so
greedily
to cross certain thresholds whatever the cost to other human beings or
other
creatures or to nature as a whole.
And if we credit the possibility of a long series of
incarnations, then the
same law that brings masses of conflict to the surface at some stage of
single
life must also be thought of as bringing up long phases of conflict
that
might occupy an entire life or several lives, as the individual
traverses
some of the thresholds along the occult path.
From time to time in the Theosophical Society, we have been
blessed with
the company of great people who have gone far along that occult path;
but
many of us may feel that we might not really have wanted to live in the
same
house with some of them, for, along with great insight and wisdom, some
of
them had strange and difficult personalities and qualities obviously
open
to adverse criticism.
In certain works of fiction the mental image has been created
of advanced
individual who are calm and wise and can pick their way through life
with
stately detachment. No doubt there are people like that. But, at the
personal
level, many of the greatest people in humanity's history have been
difficult
to deal with and rather tormented in their lives. Crossing many
thresholds,
they have surfaced more conflict than other less bold and creative
people.
A person was once heard to say of another, "Well, if he is
really an occultist,
he ought to know how to achieve good physical health". But many will
remember
how Mr. Jinarajadasa, a former president of the Theosophical Society,
used
sometimes to say that one of the greatest blessings of the occult life
can
be ill health, particularly if it involves physical pain. For the
purpose
of life is not to create conditions which respond to personal hopes and
desires
but rather to liberate consciousness from imprisonment in conditioned
existence.
This liberation is a great and splendid work, to be
accomplished, not for
any individual participating in it apart from others, but for the
whole.
Like any great work it involves grave tensions for the creative artists
who
is the worker. If we can cope with these in our lives we are
contributing
to the great work; and we may then be rewarded by being given further
and
greater tension to cope with, until in the end we find that there has
all
along been only one Artist at work.