Unpacking the Kybalion

The Kybalion contains a series of 7 Laws. The First Law is Mentalism which states that "All is Mind." As human beings we perceive our reality through our consciousness. We do not have any other way to relate to the world. Even physical touch is felt through a relationship with our minds. It is from this vantage point that we can see the wisdom of viewing the world as stemming from our minds. No matter how hard we try to escape from our own minds we can't do it. Bruce Rawles describes this union of consciousness in the following manner:

Pure consciousness is at our center, the ineffable quintessence of life at the focus of each being. Mystical traditions inform us that all matter is permeated with consciousness, the one foundational principle that science tries in vain to localize in the context of an assumed finite material reference frame. Our prime awareness, eternal, unchanging in a Universe of change, defies definition.

Rawles goes on to say that the "lab assignment" of this Law is to be kind to ourselves. Ruben Cedeno advises us that "Once an idea has been strongly fixed in the conscious mind, it will be stored in the subconscious mind as a mental image."

Now that we have glimpsed the Power of the Mind let us move to the 2nd Law of the Kybalion which is the Law of Correspondence which states that "As above, so below." By applying this Law we can glimpse realities which would otherwise be kept hidden from us. In the natural progression of the previous Law from understanding that our perceptions form our reality we can now see that they directly correspond to what is outside of ourselves. The Kybalion tells us that we can uncover truths which otherwise would remain unknown to us because of this matching relationship with each other.

If we can learn to ask the right questions then we are immediately led to uncovering the right answers. Are you asking the right questions in your life? And do you believe that by asking these appropriate questions you will be naturally led to the answers? This is the power of your intuition and it can provide powerful guidance in your life.

In a previous post I explored some ideas around the 3rd and4th Laws (Vibration and Polarity) so to follow these concepts further I'd suggest you read that post also.

Gleanings from The Kybalion

A couple of years ago I came across this text called The Kybalion while looking up info on Summum which some refer to as a Sex Cult. A writer friend of mine mentioned them and it sounded too interesting to not look into further. They are based out of Salt Lake City, Utah and have built a full scale pyramid which apparently all are welcome to visit. They are also very big into mummification.

Anyway, the Kybalion is an important book to Summum and is available in full in the public domain (I am a huge fan of all books about spirituality in the public domain). The book is traced back to William Walker Atkinson who also wrote under the psuedonym Yogi Ramacharaka among many other aliases, and is widely known for his law of attraction book Thought Vibration. The Kybalion is said to be very similar to another book which he wrote called The Arcane Teachings.

Regardless of its origins I found the laws stated in the Kybalion to be easy to understand and instantly applicable even if they all really just appeared to be reworked concepts around the age old Law of Attraction teachings. At that time I set to writing some of my own thoughts on the book and today came across them as I continue to organize and develop a system to house all of my computer files. In the interest of not holding back and in openly sharing the wisdom sitting in my hard drive I decided to post some of them here. With that being said what follows is a  a short rundown on 2 of the laws: Vibration and Polarity.

The 3rd Hermetic Law of Vibration tells us that everything is perpetually in motion. Presuming you buy into this fact (which I certainly do and thus feel no need to convince anyone or harp on any detailed explanation of proofs of this truth) then the dual question becomes:

• How do we choose to Vibrate?
• How do we align ourselves to pick up beneficial Vibrations from the world?

I feel that we are on an ever expansive journey with many things to be revealed along the way. A teacher once advised us to treat the teachings as an "open filing cabinet." Our present understanding will evolve and deepen as we continue to apply ourselves toward learning life's truths. As practitioners we must remain skillful and approach life with a sense of service. There is great danger in falling into the trap of puffed up ego and thinking we are the end-all of the universe.

The 4^th Hermetic Law of Polarity talks about how all things contain their opposites. By use of this law when you find yourself caught in an unwelcome situation you can flip the circumstance to its opposite on a dime. This is because they are of the same class, and only differ by their degrees. Once we begin to realize how these poles relate to each other we can transmute them in a way that we are no longer bound to seeing ourselves trapped in one extreme or the other.

The true test comes from trying these things out in daily lives. If we don't take this leap then all we have is a pile of words, and ideas with no bite to them. If you want to be in the vibration of life then you must actively engage in the ideas set forth in the teachings that you encounter. This will enable you to determine which ones work for you, what makes sense, and what doesn't need to be adopted into your personal belief system. Action always trumps belief. Belief can put you on the road, but it is the act of doing that will move your cart along life's highway.

By applying the antidote and moving into an embodied or felt sense we can radically shift the experiences of our daily life. We could practice this both in the fire of the everyday as well as back at the lab with our minds and body through meditative repetition.