I WOULD like to start with a quotation from the Catechism in The Secret Doctrine (SD), vol. I, p. 120:
 

This quotation expresses beautifully the essence of Wholeness. In the first part, it refers to the fundamental Unity of Existence, the Oneness of life as it might be experienced by a mystic, occultist or yogi. It reflects the depth of a mystical experience of Oneness. The second part indicates why this wholeness is not experienced in our normal daily life: imprisoned by Karma and thus in bondage.

Wholeness is that which is undivided, that in which no part is missing. We hear from the SD (vol. I, p. 2): the One Life, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end has one attribute - ceaseless Motion, which is called in esoteric parlance the 'Great Breath', and is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE. There is nothing 'absolutely motionless within the universal soul'. Also that occultism sees no difference between force or motion (SD, vol.1, p. 512). It means that there is nothing without force or energy within the universal soul.

Forces are said to be dual in character; being composed of (a) the irrational brute energy, inherent in matter and (b) the intelligent soul or cosmic consciousness which directs and guides that energy and is the Dhyan Chohanic thought reflecting the Ideation of the Universal Mind. (The Dhyan Chohans are the divine Intelligences charged withthe supervision of the Cosmos.) This results in a perpetual series of physical manifestations and moral effects on Earth, during manvantaric periods, the whole being subservient to Karma. As that process is not always perfect - even results very often in evident failures - therefore, there are no proper subjects for divine honours and worship. All are entitled to the grateful reverence of Humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming, to the best of his ability, a co-worker with Nature in the cyclic task. The ever-unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart - invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through 'the still small voice' of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence.

How can we hear that still small voice of our spiritual consciousness? How can we become like the Lanoo and see one flame with countless undetached sparks, or become that intelligent soul or cosmic consciousness which guides and directs irrational brute force? How can we become co-workers in the divine evolutionary plan? A few hints have already been given: good actions, which are the mediators with the universal spirit, and the sacrifice of all sinful intentions.

A clearer idea of what this implies may be obtained by going deeper into the meaning of Karma, taking the advice in the Mahatma Letters (no. 16):
 

The Maha Chohan says (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1st Series, p. 3) that

 

This also is good action in a different way. Good actions result in the spiritualizing of our lower nature.

We are apt to say that something is somebody's karma, but do we know what is really meant by it and why it is so troublesome for humanity? The word 'karma' means 'action', metaphysically the Law of Retribution, of cause and effect or ethical causation. In the SD (vol. II, p. 305) we find that the Law of Retribution
 

Further on the SD says:
 

And again SD, vol. II, p. 306:
 

We find in The Theosophical Glossary: Karma is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal Law which guides unerringly all other laws, and is productive of effects arising from their respective causations. Though nothing remains of each personality after death, the causes remain until they are exhausted by their legitimate effects during the life of the person who produced them. They will follow the reincarnated Ego until a harmony between effects and causes is fully re-established. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence exists forever. Only when we live a pure, spiritual life as a result of following the promptings of our higher, divine nature, is it possible to experience something of our divine life. In this case, there is no moral effect following the satisfaction of personal desires and passions.

In the Mahatma Letters (Chr. edn., p. 472), KH explains to Hume that they (the Masters) 'see a vast difference earth and may be the evolutionary purpose of man, because it is in humans that the manas principle has been activated, manas being the link between spirit and matter, and the brain being the instrument of manas. To do this manas must turn away from kama, that is, brute energy, towards that 'guiding intelligence', Buddhi, which HPB describes as an indescribable feeling of unity.

In The Inner Life of Krishnamurti (IL), Aryel Sanat states (p. 63) that Krishnamurti has spoken from the beginning about the need for radical transformation or mutation and that, without such a mutation humanity would not have a spiritually meaningful future, and perhaps no future at all. During the last years of his life, Krishnamurti elucidated more carefully that this mutation was not only psycho-spiritual, but also biological, a mutation of the brain cells. Sanat indicates that only in the late twentieth century scientists have begun to note that evolution in Nature does not take place gradually through very small changes and adaptations, but in sudden spurts of mutation, for reasons not yet clearly known, after long periods of relative equilibrium that often last millions of years. HPB's teachers seem to have said (IL, p. 235) that 'human consciousness is now ready for mutation on a grand scale ... as a result of great crises that cry out for transformation'.

It is obvious that transformation on a global scale will be the result of the mutation of individuals. One of the reasons why the TS was founded, with universal brotherhood as its foremost important objective, is this mutation. 'But. . . universal brotherhood is far from realized', to quote Radha Burnier (Human Regeneration, p. 21); and
 

Let us see whether we can get a clearer idea about this necessary and urgent transformation on which we, as members of the TS, are supposed to work. Krishnamurti talked again and again about the necessity for all of us to 'cleanse the brain' (IL, p. 76), of the debris of conditioned patterns of response, the dying to the known. It means letting go of every identification with a particular religion, belief system, and one's expectations. Mutation or transformation implies no identification. In a dialogue with David Bohm, they noted that knowledge and thought are not adequate to make us move away from patterns. Krishnamurti stated that insight, arising in full, undirected attention without a centre, can alone change the brain cells and remove destructive conditioning (p. 64).

Another perspective comes from what HPB says in How to Study Theosophy, as reported in the well-known Bowen Notes:
 

Master KH said in 1922 (IL, p. 57): 'Strive more and more to bring the mind and the brain into subservience to the true Self within.'

Krishnamurti also writes in his Notebook (p. 9) about the brain:
 

When Krishnamurti was still very young, and at the beginning of his process, in August 1922, it became clear to him what he had to do. He started meditating every morning and, to his astonishment, could concentrate with considerable ease and within a few days he began to see clearly where he had

failed and where he was failing. Immediately he set about, consciously, to annihilate the wrong accumulations of the past years. I quote (op. cit, pp. 77-8):
 

Ultimately, looking into the distance of man's evolutionary journey, this process of the union of manas with Buddhi, the sixth or spiritual principle in man, is, according to HPB's The Secret Doctrine, one of the most important teachings of those great beings who help humanity to achieve its evolutionary goal. To quote the Mahatma Letters (no. 13, Rev. edn.):
 

But to be able to do this we must quality of cosmic force, which means first of all become conscious of the using energy/force for the benefit of the fact that the human brain - being an individual and humanity.