One point you all need to grasp is that the progressing disciple does not move into new fields or areas of awareness, like a steady marching forward from one plane to another (of the visual symbols of the theosophical literature would indicate).
What must be grasped is that all that IS is ever present. What we are concerned with is the constant awakening to that which eternally IS, and to what is ever present in the environment, but of which the subject is unaware, owing to short-sightedness.
The aim must be to overcome the undue concentration upon the foreground of daily life which characterises most people, the intense preoccupation with the interior states or moods of the lower self which characterises the spiritually minded people and the aspirants, and the imperviousness or lack of sensitivity which characterises the mass of men. The
The sounds and sights of the heavenly world (as the mystics call it) are as clearly perceived by the higher initiate, as are the sights and sounds of the physical plane as you contact it in your daily round of duties. The world of energies, with its streams of directed force and its centers of concentrated light, are likewise present, and the eye of the 'see-er' can see it, just as the eye of the mental clairvoyant can see the geometrical pattern which thoughts assume upon the mental plane, or as the lower psychic can contact the glamours, the illusions and delusions of the astral world.
The subjective realm is vitally more real than is the objective, once it is entered and known. It is simply (how simple to some and how insuperably difficult to others, apparently!) a question of the acceptance, first of all, of its existence, the development of a mechanism of contact, the cultivation of the ability to use this mechanism at will, and then inspired interpretation.
It might be said that consciousness itself, which is the goal -- on this planet -- of all the evolutionary process, is simply the demonstrated result of the Science of Contact. It is likewise the goal in some form or other, and at some stage or other, of all planetary existences within the solar system itself. The unfoldment of this conscious response is, in reality, the growth of the sensitive awareness of the planetary Logos HIMSELF.
The human mechanism and its ability to respond to its environment (as science well knows) has been developed in response to an inner urge, present in every human being and in all forms of life, and to the 'pull' and magnetic effect of the surrounding environment. Step by step, the forms of life upon the physical plane, down through the ages, have unfolded one sense after another; one form of sensitive response after another becomes possibe as the mechanism is produced, until the human being can receive impressions from the physical plane and rightly interpret them; can respond to the emotional contacts of the astral plane, and succumb to them or surmount them; and can become telepathic to the world of the mental plane, thus sharing -- physically, emotionally and mentally -- in the life and contacts of the three worlds which constitute his environment, and in which he is submerged whilst in incarnation. What he gets out of this life of constant impression, is largely dependent upon his power to invoke his environment and draw from it (in evocative response) what he needs in all the various departments of his being.
This, in its turn, forces him -- whether he likes it or not -- to produce an effect upon other people; this can be far more potent for good or evil, and from the telepathic angle, than he likes to think or can conceive.
Each point of life within a centre has its own sphere of radiation, or its own extending field of influence; this field is necessarily dependent upon the type and the nature of the indwelling Consciousness.
It is this magnetic interplay between the many vast centers of energy in space which is the basis of all astronomical relationships -- between universes, solar systems and planets. Bear in mind, however, that it is the CONSCIOUSNESS aspect which renders the form magnetic, receptive, repudiating and transmitting; this consciousness differs according to the nature of the entity which informs or works through a center, great or small. Bear in mind also that the life which pours through all centers, and which animates the whole of space, is the life of an Entity; it is, therefore, the same life in all forms, limited in time and space by the intention, the wish, the form and the quality of the indwelling Consciousness; the types of consciousness are many and diverse, yet life remains ever the same and indivisible, for it is ONE LIFE.