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VADE MECUM~ VOLVENTIBUS ANNIS

THE MAYANS
SAN ANTONIO. Number
TEXAS
Copyright 1960 by The Mayans
 . c •

. . .

Wbat ~re ~our lllans?

Mayan Revelation Num6er 217

Division of Mental Powers

J)our 9ntelligence Department ~udgment

Knowledge Reason

9nsight Wisdom

Odds and Snds

Rev. 217: P2: G:H: 4.65

iiiELOVED CENTURION:

Most of us have, I am sure, heard the saying, 11 If you want a job done, go to
the busy man." It hardly seems logical. It would seem that the man who is very
busy would not have enough time for little extra jobs or requests that might be
made of him, but the saying has a basis.

The reason a busy man is always available for even more undertakings is the
ver¥ fact that doing so much keeps him alert and he has learned to find short cuts
to accomplishing the many things he must do. He has learned how to do a job effi-
ciently. He is in constant practice, never permits himself to get rusty. And that
is the reason that we can always call on the busy man.

It has been said that the mind does not wear out, but rather that it rusts
out, and that is certainly true. Cultivation is as necessary to the mind as food
is to the body, for it needs to be used. It has certain vegetative power and
cannot be idle. If i t is not cultivated into a beautiful garden, i t will come up
with something, if only weeds or some other wild growth. That is why it must be
cultivated, and it can be .

. There is nothing quite as elastic as the human mind. We can do with it wht
we will, for the mind is truly the master over every kind of fortune. It acts in
two ways: It can bring you happiness or it can bring you misery, depending on the
way you use it. I do not mean by all this that you should overwork the mind any
more than you should overwork the body. Your Mayan Order teaches that you should
do everything in moderation.

In the pages of this lesson, we take up the following subjects: Knowledge,

Insight, Judgment, Reason, Wisdom, and others. All of these faculties are so
closely linked to the Divine.

I have heard many people speak of being bored, not knowing what to do with
themselves - and I know you have too. I have never had that experience. I find
that it is a great pleasure just to sit at times, alone, and think and enjoy
those things that are stored away in the remembrance of my mind. Truly, it is the
mind that makes the body rich.

The subject of the mind is a great one. If I were able to discuss all that
I would like to on this subject regarding all your mental powers, this one lesson
would comprise a whole book, and there are many other subjects to be considered.
We must get on.

But right here, I would like to pause and say that while the mind is exer-
cised by systems, really faith is that which enlightens it and guides it, so that
which your mind produces in every department of your life depends largely on your
faith . Bear this in mind as we repeat together the following prayer:
Rev. 217: PJ: G:H: 4.65

PRAYER

0 Thou of the Infinite Mind, I ask Thee to make my

mind an effective instrument to acquire knowledge,
to explore truth, and to make right decisions.
Amen.

YOUR INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT

~~EAVING you now to proceed with details, developments, and plans in your
1!JDivision of Health, we pass on to another indispensable and wonderful
phase of your life and your equipment for living it; namely your mental powers and
the various kinds of things that proceed from your mind.

At birth we receive our ea:cthly'house of being wired and equipped for light-
ing; but like any householder we have to look after the use and maintenance of
that miraculous equipment, consciousness and its products. It is a finer light
than any man has developed because it will shine anywhere, any time, any distance,
and through anything. It can penetrate the fogs and distances of the present, and
it can reach into the past and the future. It can pierce problems and reveal the
answers to questions. It can perceive the visible and sense thE · ::· ~..i.ble. A
priceless thing is the mind, and we get it without cost.

We could think of this marvelous possession as our intelligence department,

for it reveals opportunity, warns against danger, and even has a quiet but potent
power to help us discriminate between right and wrong. A wonderful tt;ng is the
mind, and one of your most necessary to inventory, equip, maintain, improve, and
use. For these all your business check-ups should plan and provide. If from year
to year you have a better mind, you can do better work, attain better goals, and
live a more satisfying life, all of which tends to provide you with a stiil better
mind.

Many people fall into the easy way of thinking of the mind as the brain.
There is as much distinction between them as there is between the soul and the body.
As in the case of the soul and body, the brain is only the aid the mind uses in its
work. Not only that, but the entire nervous system is included in that mechanism.
The anatomist calls the brain the central nervous system, meaning the clearing
house in which all the nerves and combinations of nerves center, and which receives
impulses from some and sends out impulses over others. It has areas of centers
something like those on a telephone switchboard for sensation, motion, and thought.

The mind appears to be a part of our spiritual self, using this intricate
machinery to guide our lives and make them intelligent and purposeful. A person
with a good mind may have an impaired brain, which gives his mind a poor means of
expression, something like a master organist trying to play on a poor instrument.
Rev. 217: P4: G:H: 4.65

All this is a part of your equipment for living. It needs to be listed as an

item to be incl ud.e d in all programs of maintenance and improvement. Like other
powers and equipment) i t needs to be cared for, cultivated, and us.ed, to keep it in
good working order. Be sure and give it adequate consideration in both your inven-
tory and your plans, keep it producing, and regularly check its product for quality.

KNOWLEDGE

J;fHE mind uses the brain and the rest of the nervous system to serve us in a
~number of ways. The most familiar one is knowledge. The mind has, first,
the power to learn things and remember them. Somewhere early in the history of
life forms, consciousness developed and began to grow to this stage and beyond it.
Perhaps some tiny creature then existing touched something and became conscious of
resistance. Then its kind became conscious of movement when they found they could
propel themselves by swimming or crawling.

These first crude sense powers built up into the senses of hearing, sight,
taste, and the rest. Life was beginning to mean something. Now we have magnificent
equipment for learning as we hear a st~tement, or read a page, or observe some fact,
or exchange data with other people. Thus our knowledge grows from day to day, and
we can go as far with it as we will.

This is but the primary phase of the second area of life values for your in-
ventory sheet. You have a mind with a marvelous mechanism for acquiring, storing>
and expressing knowledge . How good is it? As good as the use you make of it. Are
you getting the most benefit from it? Are you making its powers grow by exercise
and experience? What objectives have you set for it in the period ahead?

This last answer would have an element of uncertainty in it. You can set an
objective but you are not sure whether you can reach it, or when. Then why not
just set a program of effort, do your best, and let the objective be what you can
accomplish by faithful effort? You cannot learn everything there is to know. That
would take countless lifetimes and include much for which you have no real use.
Anyway, you do not want to spend all your time and strength acquiring knowledge and
have none left for applying it.

If you begin with whatever knowledge will make you a more adequate
person, living an increasingly effective and worthwhile life, and add
something to that knowledge every day, it will carry you toward real
mastery in your work and an increasing store of what it will be good
and satisfying to know. If you do that steadily, and continue to do
it, you can know to a certainty that you are growing and that you will
attain one desirable goal after another.

That matter of constancy is the trouble with many of us. Our efforts are
spasmodic and intermittent. We do not remember to add a little to the stature of
our minds every day. The consequences of our failure to do anything really con-
secutive about our mental store has a direct bearing also on our spiritual growth.
We move in a world of wonder and do not observe how marvelous it is. We err when
Rev. 217: P5: G:H: 4.65

we are content with what we call good enough, and leave the rest to take care of
itself.

Life, nature, and recorded knowledge hold their secrets up to us everywhere

we turn. It is our loss if, having eyes, we see not, or, having ears, do not hear;
to move among all these opportunities and challenges thinking of unimportant
things, or of nothing at all. Keep growing, and never stop reaching.

INSIGHT

~ S knowledge is learning things, insight is understanding them. Of what

~use is knowing anything if we do not understand what it is, what it is
for, and how to use it? In fact, one does not fully know a thing till he has some
understanding of its nature and application.

Insight, or seeing into things, is something like a flashlight, with a good

battery in working order, turned into a dark and mysterious place. It is the power
to look into facts and see their meanings and uses. That is, it is the power plus
the effort. Like a fine tool rusting away in dull idleness, insight may be present
and serving no purpose, perhaps because one does not know he has it. It might as
well not exist if it is never put to use.

Who have been the master teachers in your life? Have they not been people
who had both knowledge and insight? Some of the best informed people only let it
make them dull and uninteresting. They have knowledge stored away, but there is no
light shining on it to make it sparkle, no life in it to give it interest and appeal.

No one can practice any one of the professions without knowing a great many
things, but the shining examples in all of them are the ones who have insight added
to knowledge so they can bring forth facts and principles and make them transparent
enough to see through and understand.

Insight works on knowledge something like a solvent on a solid or a heavy

fluid that will not flow through its course and serve its intended purpose. It
clears what is turgid and hardened and makes it pliable and responsive, changes it
from an obstruction to a current.

We have all had teachers who knew we could repeat a table, a paradigm, or a
formula , by rote, which anyone can do if he goes over it enough times; yet these
teachers kept asking us over and over whether we understood. If not, they wanted
us to say so in order that insight might be sought in time.

Suppose you find a dirty object in the ground and stand holding it and wonder-
ing what it is. How are you going to find out unless you clean it off and let the
revealing light to it1 It may be a crystal, a gold nugget, or a precious stone.
Even then, what would be the difference unless you know these things when you see
them?

Have you not heard people talking very glibly about things without making it
Rev. 217; P6: ' G:H: 4.65

plain what they are7 That is because they do not know themselves. Anyone can
multip~ words, and even make them a kind of mask for the fact that he does not
really understand the subject in hand. Insight is that which distinguishes the
person who does not lunow what he is talking about. The person who has it does
no,t need to pile up words. He can come to the point and be through with it.

Do not be content with merely knowing things by sense perception. That is a

very limited kind of knowledge indeed. Do not be content even with holding things
in memory. That is automatic and gives you no credit of your own. Ponder on
things till a light shines through and reveals their true meaning. That will be
insight .

JUDGMENT

~S you survey your mental powers and what you can do to maintain and im-
prove them, you come to that department of mental activity called judgment.
It is the power and art of knowing how to apply knowledge and understanding rightly
and to the best advantage.

It means that among other things you are a judge duly appointed to make
decisions and render verdicts on desires, plans, and possibilities in your business
of living. It is your legal department, in which you are your own counsel and must
know how to reach wise conclusions and take right actions.

Suppose you are traveling on foot in the Arctic, and you come to a crevasse
open hundreds of feet down over crags of ice. Self-preservation depends on being
a good judge of what to do.

You stand there looking down and across the yawning space. You have a deci-
sion to make, and you are sifting the evidence and examining the facts and the
exhibits. Here are some of the questions that should be decided, and rightly. How
deep is it? How steep are the sides? Are they rough or smooth1 How wide is it?
Can you leap that far? Is the condition on the opposite side such that you could
gain and keep a foothold? If it is too far to jump, are there any ice bridges you
can reach and cross? Are they solid enough to support you? If you fall and sur-
vive, is help likely to reach you? What time is it? What are the weather prospects?
Can you survive where you are, or is there any other way?

These and perhaps other questions you will have to consider and judge. The
verdict will be either that you will try to get across or not. The situation and
the possible price of failure indicate that you had better be right.

You may not travel in the Arctic, but you face demands for judgment just the
same. Everywhere you go, everything you do, and everything that involves you,
presents a hazard or an opportunity to be judged. The business of living, like any
other business, is full of situations where you must make important decisions in-
volving your advantage and safety.

You must be ready and able to ask the right questions, get the right answers,
 -
Rev. 217: P7: G:H: 4.65

and so interpret the answers as to render the right decisions. Unless you do this
you will find yourself on the losing side in your own court. You must have,
develop, and use the best possible judgment. You have been given this ability be-
cause you need it. The conditions of life demand that you use it and use it well.

The kind of questions that will come up on your inner witness stand will
vary with age, location , situation, need, possibility, and the like . As we move
on in life our problems and needs change, so that each of us has a personal set of
problems to judge. There is no use to keep questions of past cases on the docket.
If they no longer apply, throw them out of court, and give your whole attention to
problems and interests that now apply.

Have the judicial temperament and use it. Do not pass judgment without cause
and evidence. Consider the rights of others as well as yourself .

REASON

~ NOTHER department of mind power to be kept in working condition and used

~when needed is the power of reason . It is a little different from judg-
ment. Judgment is a ~rocess of determining what to do, while reason is a process
of proceeding from the known to the unknown - mental bridge-building, so to speak.
Judgment deals with known facts, while reason is a process of determining what to
think and believe . Judgment is a process of weighing evidence, while reason is
one of extending understanding .

Reason uses the device called the syllogism. This device is found in all
expressions of thought and knowledge, but recognizable only by one who can see it
there . It consists of three parts - a major premise or a known fact, a minor
premise, or another known fact depending on it , and the conclusion to be drawn
from their relationship .

An example might be as follows : All boats sail on water. A ship is a boat.

Therefore, a ship sails on water. You see, two known facts are put together and
indicate a third fact . This device, then, can be made to reveal new truth when the
conclusion has been hitherto unknown . You cannot mix your premises and begin by
saying that all ships are boats, for that is not true . You have to get your major
and minor premises in the right order .

This is what is called Logic, and what has to be looked out for in using it
is the fallacy, of which there are several . We can say that all ships are boats
because we know it is true , but we have to be careful about universal words like
"all " where there may be exceptions . For instance, you could not say that all
Germans are blonde , because you cannot be sure it is true . This is called the fal-
lacy of the universal .

You cannot be sure that a thing is true because it sounds well , or that it
will work because the description seems to indicate it . These are not real evi-
dence . The only real proof is whether the statement proves true or whether the
idea or device will really work. An idea or statement is not proof of itself . To
Rev. 217: P8: G:H: 4.65

assume that it is we call the fallacy of abstraction . That is , it must prove out i n
the concrete as well as sound promising in the abstract . There are many more , but
these will serve as examples .

Logic carelessly used can be quite deceptive , and may lead us away from the
truth rather than to it. A class of people called sophists in Greece used to give
instruction in Logic to young men , especially law students , showing them how to
reach untrue conclusions by introducing false premises or by using them in tricky
ways. Socrates used to denounce them as men who taught others how to "make the
worse appear the better reason" .

Philosophy ~nd the sciences have used Logic very extensively and elaborately ,
and much of human progress has been based on the principle that if this is true,
and that is true, then the other must be true. But we must remember that a thing
is not proved till it has been tried and has met the test . But y ou can see that in
reason you have a wonderful piece of equipment for use in living .

&&& WISDOM ~

~HE processes of the conscious mind build up through the various stages
~ we have described and attain a superior functi on called wisdom. The wise
man knows things, how to interpret them, how to extend their meanings by the pro-
cesses of reason; but after all that he knows how to blend them and his reflections
on them into a ripeness of thought, an excellence of attitude, and a richness of
living, which make their lives infinitely more admirable, satisfying, and useful .

One wise man said the great wonder to him was not when men suffer but what
they miss. This is indeed a pitiful thing, and it is mostly the result of people's
not putting their understanding into action . Some try and fail. Some do not even
try because they think they might fail. Some of these would fail anyway because
they are not strong enough; but a surprising number of them would succeed if they
would try. They would surely try if they were even wise enough to realize how many
things are always operating in their favor.

This is especially likely to happen to us as we grow older and lose our dar-
ing and spirit of adventure . We succeed at many things in youth because we feel
capable of anything. We fail at many things later because we get the spirit of
defeat before we even try . This is the unwisdom that costs mankind so much and so
holds back the progress of the world toward its better day.

The first few chapters of the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament give the
message of wisdom to those who seek it, and would richly repay a careful rereading,
especially Proverbs 3; "13-24, in which we are told that: "Length of days is in her
right hand; in her left are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace."

The world owes its greatest debt to its good men, and its second greatest to
its wise men; but when we begin to list them we find that in most cases they are
the same. Goodness grows from wisdom and is the tes t of its genuineness.
Rev. 217: P9: G:H: 4.65

Likely you are finding your plans and endeavors a little more difficult than
usual now because of the confused condition of the world life. Conditions are so
changed that one can easily be mistaken about what is the wise thing to do, but we
must find it. If barriers stand in the way that is all the greater indication of
the need for wisdom, for that is what it will take to find the way around them or
to break them down.

We are always hearing people saying something like, "Well, there isn't any-
thing we can do about it." That is a surrender to unfaith and an admission that
the way of wisdom cannot be followed, even that it would do no good if it could be
followed. We forget that many others think as we do, and we must never forget the
power of the everlasting arm.

Seek wisdom and practice it, no matter what happens. It is a special honor
to be the first one to set the example. The most unwise thing anyone can do is
to assume that wisdom is a failure and that unwisdom will control us and the world.

ODDS AND ENDS

J;fHERE are several phases of the mind and its use that must now be listed
~together in this final section of this lesson. Some of them would justify
more space, but this brief mention of them will at least suggest that you have them
and that they make you a very rich and fortunate person indeed. Count them in your
inventory and plan to make them serve you increasingly well.

One of them is the fact that your mind has various capabilities in the way of
learning and practicing arts and skills, and of doing whatever your work is so well
as to bring it to that level. Somewhere in your makeup is a special ability. Find
what it is and start polishing and practicing it. It may really be what you are
here for . Call it a genius, a talent, or what you will. It is a point where your
mental power reaches high above its general level. Unless you use it you lose it,
and what it could have done for you and through you.

Be sure to realize that you possess not only the conscious mind functioning
through your brain and nervous system, but in the silences of your inner life you
possess another mentality called the subconscious or unconscious mind, but which
should probably be called the superconscious mind .

It took man a long time even to discover its existence, but thoughtful men
kept noticing the functioning of an unnamed something; and the evidence kept indi-
cating that there is a deeper mentality in our lives, which seeks, hears, sees,
knows, discovers, and acts, beyond our understanding or power to control. It may
help to build genius. It may be the sources of insight and wisdom. It does some
reasoning on its own account. It seems to play a large part in spiritual under-
standing, and it has a wonderful way of taking our dreams, hopes, and perhaps our
prayers, into its hidden shop and building them into reality.

It seems to join forces with that wonderful power climax into which our mental
processes can build, the one we call faith, which St. Paul has so understandingly
Rev. 217: P1J: G:H: 4.65

defined as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
We all know we can do best what we believe in, cooperate best with the person we
believe in. As through life we labor to make our dreams come true, we find that
hidden influences and higher powers are working with us to bring about what we have
faith in. It has sometimes been defined as entering that level of consciousness
where we see without eyes, hear without ears, and accomplish the impossible.

If we were to think of the mental processes as a ladder, the rungs might

appear in this order - perception, knowledge, insight, judgment, wisdom, faith -
the latter being the point at which our minds and the divine mind meet, agree, and
begin to work together. As we have organs to perform other functions, so we have
within ourselves the facilities to carry on these amazing processes; but like the
mind itself they are metaphysical or spiritual in their natures. They operate at
the threshold between the two worlds.

We shall now proceed to list other groups of assets to be listed in your

inventory, but you can see that in your mental powers alone your interests cover a
very wide territory. Man has come a long way in the use of them, but as yet he
has scarcely scratched the surface. There is much more ground, and a part of your
work in life is to possess it.

AFFIRMATION

I think, and therefore I know that I exist

and that I have the power to exist at an
ever higher level of worth and satisfaction.
This is my program.