The student should familiarize himself with the fact that rising in the scale of evolution does not move him from place to place, but renders him more and more able to receive impressions.
Every sphere is around us, the astral, the mental, the buddhic, the nirvanic, and worlds higher yet, the life of the supreme God; we need not stir to find them, for they are here; but our dull unreceptivity shuts them out more effectively than millions of miles of mere space. We are conscious only of that which affects us, which stirs us to responsive vibration, and as we become more and more receptive, as we draw into ourselves finer and finer matter, we come into contact with subtler and subtler worlds. Hence, rising from one level to materials and can receive through them the contacts of finer worlds; and it means further that, in the Self within these vestures, diviner powers are waking from latency into activity, and are sending out their subtler thrills of life.
At the stage now reached by the Thinker he is fully conscious of his surroundings, and is in possession of the memory of his past. He knows the bodies he is wearing, through which he is contacting the lower planes, and he is able to influence and guide them to a great extent. He sees the difficulties, the obstacles, they are approaching—the results of past careless living—and he sets himself to pour into them energies by which they may be better equipped for their task. His direction is sometimes felt in the lower consciousness as an imperiously compelling force that will have its way, and that impels to a course of action for which all the reasons may not be clear to the dimmer vision caused by the mental and astral garments.
Men who have done great deeds have occasionally left on record their consciousness of an inner uplifting and compelling power, which seemed to leave them no choice save to do as they had done. They were then acting as the real men ; the Thinkers, that are the inner men, were doing the work consciously through the bodies that then were fulfilling their proper functions as vehicles of the individual. To these high powers all will come as evolution proceeds. On the third, the highest, level of the upper region of the mental plane dwell the Egos of the Masters and lnitiates, Their chelas, the Thinkers having here a preponderance of the matter of this region in their bodies.
From this world of subtlest mental forces the Masters carry on Their gracious and beneficent work for humanity, raining down noble ideals, inspiring thoughts, devotional aspirations, streams of spiritual and intellectual help for men. Every force there generated rays out in myriad directions, and the noblest, purest, souls catch most readily these helpful influences.
A discovery flashes into the mind of the patient searcher into Nature’s secrets; a new melody entrances the ear of a great musician; the answer to a long-studied problem illumines the intellect of a lofty philosopher; a new energy of hope and love suffuses the heart of an unwearied philanthropist. Yet men think that they are left uncared for, although the very phrases they use: the thought occurred to me,” ‘the idea came to me,” ‘the discovery flashed on me,” unconsciously testify to the truth known to their inner selves though the outer eyes be blind.
***From Annie Besant – The Ancient Wisdom