The front end is thanks to the hard work of Mihail Craniunescu, a Romanian friend of mine, who happens to be an IT wizard. Sanat Kumara sent him specifically to Earth to help me!!!

I agree, William. There is no point in going back. We always have the option of standing still, and many people choose to do just that. Going forward carries risks, but so does farting! Has that ever stopped anyone?

I found the overlay of HPB’s Indian concepts with Hylozoics as an added touch to increase overall understanding. Bravo Kazim!

BTW – I hope “humanity” does not wait till the 6th root race to get with the program – that’s a lot of incarnation cycles…

Thank you Kazim – I suppose there is latent esoteric knowing of some sort in my past. Otherwise I would be involved in something else. I have read a bit of Laurency and Lars, and viewed a good portion of your coursework – a newbie! But there is much joy – and after reading the chapter from The Way of Man, describing an approaching aspirant, much sober thought sprouted. Lifetimes!

Your thorough light on the meaning of the Garden of Eden is refreshing, if I may use that term. I will reread it several times.

I’ve read recently from Laurency, that the seeker brings much baggage to the path of truth. He says it takes at least 2 years of dedicated study to get a basic understanding. And understanding is not a guarantee. Study and application – I’m giving it a heartfelt go.

Fortunately, there is more joy than daunt-ing. But there is plenty of the latter to be sure! The more reading, the better I feel inside, knowing a whole world, a universe is available for those willing in the earnest. An opportunity to receive Truth, that is worth all effort and all dark evenings!

There is no going back… perhaps there is much going forward. Peace! -william

Hi William

Once you decide to actively tread the path, the coursework” can seem daunting. However, Nothing worthwhile comes easily. I feel there is no rush to get anywhere. If you things because you think you should be doing it, you will fail. How many people go vegetarian because they think it is good for the planet, their social credibility or some other external factor? When the time is right, everyone will go vegetarian. If you seek meat substitutes, you are being performative. The same goes for walking the Path. When you are ready, there is no other path to walk and travelling along it is a joy.

The Garden of Eden is a metaphor that people misread continuously. From a Hylozoic perspective, the Garden of Eden is best read as a symbol of humanity’s original state of living unity with nature, spirit, and divine life—not a lost real estate location. It points to an inner condition of consciousness in which human beings are still integrated with the whole, before self-separation, fragmentation, and moral dualism dominate experience.

In this reading, Eden represents an evolving relationship between the human and the divine order, not a static paradise that was simply “lost”. The garden is a living image of nature as spiritually meaningful, where growth, participation, and transformation are central themes rather than punishment or exile alone. The two trees symbolize a deeper polarity in consciousness: life in unity versus knowledge grasped through separative self-awareness.

Hylozoic thought treats reality as alive and permeated by meaning, so Eden becomes a metaphor for the soul’s original participation in a living cosmos. The “fall” then signifies not merely disobedience, but the shift into a more divided mode of awareness in which humans experience themselves as separate from the living whole. Read this way, the story is about consciousness, relationship, and return—not just a historical eviction from a garden.

The spiritual point is not nostalgia for a vanished place, but recovery of a more integrated way of being: attentive, participatory, and in harmony with life’s deeper order. Eden thus functions as a map of human potential, showing what it means to move from separation toward wholeness.

The dark night of the soul is a completely different story. From a hylozoic perspective, the dark night of the soul is an inner crisis in which the first self loses its usual emotional and mental supports so that consciousness can move beyond its old identity toward a higher mode of being. In Laurency’s hylozoics, the self is not identical with its envelopes or reactions; it is a monad that develops through successive layers of consciousness, and growth often means detaching from the lower ones.

Hylozoics treats reality as living matter, with consciousness as something present in and through matter rather than separate from it. In that framework, a dark night is not a random breakdown but a phase where the lower envelopes of the person, especially emotional and mental, become unreliable because they are no longer sufficient for further development.

Subjectively, this can feel like emptiness, disorientation, loss of meaning, and the collapse of old beliefs or identities, which matches broader descriptions of the dark night as a stripping-away process. Hylozoically, that distress is interpreted as a necessary loosening of identification with the first self, not as the destruction of the real self.

The purpose is integration and ascent: the monad learns to express consciousness more independently of the lower envelopes and gradually aligns with a more stable, higher selfhood. So the dark night is best understood as a transitional purification in which what is false or too narrow falls away, making room for clearer consciousness and a wider horizon of life.

In simple terms, hylozoics would say the dark night happens when your old way of being can no longer carry your development. It feels like loss, but it is really a forced reorganisation of consciousness toward a more enduring self. It should be pointed out that the monad feels this “Dark Night” most intensely when it transitions from the 4th to the 5th Kingdom of Nature and becomes a 46-Self.

I felt the other day, after the usual esoteric study, like a kid catching a peek through a knothole in a boarded fence at a ballgame. I know there is wonderful action happening; however, the full impact is not being registered. This is not a complaint, but an observation of the process, much like that of an athlete in training. I am not in a hurry to Buddhahood, however, knowing that I am an immortal monad makes the training bearable. But I must say, the cake recipe is quite daunting. Mixed metaphors?

Imagine discussing with the checkout person at the market about the energy reservoir of the ring-pass-not… If only!

Today I read a random section from the Lars material, which seemed to fit my mood perfectly, my slight slacking in spiritual intensity. It had to do with the aspirant’s conviction that they were not the evolutionary envelopes. Yes, that notion is certainly a certainty. To be kicked out of the customary status of mundane comforts, knowing they no longer do the trick, one is left in a predicament. The Garden of Eden story, right? Can’t go back, and the road ahead is rocky; perhaps some black magicians are lying in the bushes with dark intentions, or something less dramatic. The only solution is forward!

I can see why there are warnings given to aspirants about imprudent spiritual practices. Insanity? I used to doubt it was a possibility before; not so much now. Dark night of the soul?

Balance, humility, humor, and prayer are great tools – I try to keep them in good repair. And not to be in a hurry to win some fool’s race. So, thanks for your content, nothing like it that I’ve found. Peace! -william

In today’s world of distractions, it is getting difficult to separate fact from fiction on a mundane level, let alone a spiritual one.

William, separating fact from fiction will only fully occur when you have achieved objective causal consciousness. However, our physical (49:3-7) is objective to us, and currently, it is the only world what we see, is what we get. I am sure there are ways to interpret dreams, but to do so would again require causal consciousness to be active! Instead, our time would be better spent expanding our conceptual consciousness to universal consciousness.

Thanks for your thorough answer. Currently I am working with the “meditation” series, backed up with Laurency. Perhaps one of the thirteen guardian angels will dig my efforts. Taking my fictions less seriously is an engaging activity. Fact and fiction can be sniffed out with some effort and some quiet reflection and practice, and… Your courses on hylozoics/reality are my favorite tonic Kazim – Peace!