The Portal

The Portal is envisaged by many aspirants as the gate for the daily consciousness to extend towards deeper realities. This is very flawed thinking. Taking the desire body together with the aspirant to the higher consciousness is a contradiction, as the desire body is lower than the mental body. What happens in the Portal grade is that the Astral (desire) body is set free. It does not bring any new motivations or passions to the mundane mind. It leads the aspirant through life, shapes his mundane mind with the necessary experiences, gives his life a meaning. After the work is finished, the desire body leaves the Initiate. The Portal is the realization of this fact and requires the Initiate to adapt to this new reality. His journey from being a Subject upon earth to becoming an Object has started. The new action is through Magic, but the purpose of Magic is yet obscure to the aspirant. Mundane life resembles a seashell floating in the ocean. Once set foot in the Portal grade, the Initiate loses his ability, but more correctly his delusion of controlling his destiny. He does not know what to think, what to expect, what to desire. It is important to understand that most 'thinking' is actually a form of desire, hence the Astral body will take away a good portion of the aspirant's thoughts with itself. He will bestow upon the aspirant just enough passion to endure through life. Although the bulk of Astral body has left the Initiate, it will still provide Life to him with the condition that his pride, desires, dreams, purpose, etc. are aligned to his new reality. A sense of meaning is the only thing offered to the aspirant. Life on this note is like a spiritual boot camp. 

The courage to let the Astral body free on his own domain and to deal with the lifeless husk that remains afterwards might be the beginning of all Magic (source: pinterest)

Results are necessary for the 'I' in the aspirant to yield to the magical reality. The 'I' is the mundane mind which strives to find a mundane purpose. The purpose serves as a substitute for passion. The 'I' is inside the brain, but it is not the ego. It can be thought of as the God-mind roaming the Earth. It is all-enduring but not omniscient. In the esoteric literature, some authors place the God-mind at a height invisible to the mundane mind. I don't agree with this view. As Transpersonal psychology also proposes, the 'I' is the pure mind and pure light in our life that observes other bodies. Thus the vegetable mind deep in the brain and the God-mind are united. Then, the only variable that this unity strives is Experience. Logically, Experience is bound to become more spiritual and mental, as one progresses towards discarnation. The devachan is the evening school that will prepare Souls that have not been successful in Attainment of the necessary grades to attempt more times. Due to many reasons, Death is necessary for advancing in the spiritual path. The conditions of life that are established in the aspirant's current Life may not be conducive to the realization of spiritual will as connected to a mundane reality. The Initiate may be truly cornered into a meaningless and purposeless life. In that case, the purpose of Life becomes pure observation.