The Dayspring of Youth, a book by M

The Nous Atom

There are many petals to a rose, but few breathe the perfume of its heart. Therefore
seek the Innermost so that its fragrance may sweeten and heal the mind.

IN the left ventricle of the heart rests the principal atom: that minute model the physical body
must eventually conform to in its progress. This is a spinning body living within its own
atmosphere and is called the Master Builder; for it has charge over all the constructive principles
of our physical body. Like a general in command it has armies of atomic builders and engineers
that carry out its directions. These are the Aspiring atoms who seek the Innermost as we do.
This Master Builder has its staff of overseers who often sacrifice their own attainments for those
beneath them in development.

Our first practice is to attract the notice of this Master Builder or Nous atom by the use of these
Aspiring atoms that attune us to their intelligence.

The physical organism is like a foreign country to these willing atoms whose task is to attune it to
its greater spiritual possibilities.

The Master Builder rests in the purest blood of the heart in absolute authority over the atoms that
obey it. This blood-stream can exert pressure on these workers and thus stimulate them to
greater activity. Increased pressure demands greater endurance from them as the body must be
repaired regardless of the labourer's desires.

These myriad workerswhom we neither heed nor helpare often discouraged and seemingly
helpless through our excesses in stimulants and labour. The student can encourage them every
morning by this exercise: take a deep breath, stand upon the soles of the feet, pat the tip of the
liverthe Robin Goodfellow of the Yogiand send love and encouragement whilst doing so. The
nerve centre at this spot is vitalised by our thought and love; for there lies the seat of the
imagination, and a healthy imagination makes a healthy body.

These atoms respect an honest mind; for dishonesty in our dealings inflicts disorder in their
atmosphere and they avoid us if possible. Thus only pure aspiration can contact us to their
consciousness. They also bring the influences of the Innermost to our illusioned minds
imprisoned in the mirages of this world.

Between man and Nature lies a vast void over which few have passed, and many Chinese artists
have shown us these great conceptions dealing with the elemental realities that unite the mind to
the consciousness of Nature.

It was the Nous atom or Master Builder that responded to the call of the Reality when asked to
serve and incarnate into the lower stratas of the world before the coming of the sun to the mind.

The physical body only appears solid. When viewed from within it looks like a gaseous envelope,
and is a protective screen for the Innermost, preventing the invasion of foreign, germlike
substances. The penetration of our own thoughts can inflict great sufferings upon these atomic,
faithful workers within us if these thoughts are intense with hatred, malice, or envy; for these
qualities are far more destructive than we realise.

Our education teaches us to think outwardly. This prevents our minds from thinking inwardly.
What we believe to be our own thoughts do not arise from our Innermost and are therefore not of
our own individual Truth.

The Nous atom will never demand anything that is evil from us. On the contrary, it will suggest
only those things that will be helpful for our inner development. Its work is to liberate us from our
bondage in this illusion world. And as we are the architects of our own fate it is for us to decide.

As the student develops he contacts those periods when man was enveloped in an atmosphere
full of divine wisdom, and he again recalls the plan he had determined to accomplish in this world
ere incarnatinga plan forgotten as he descended into the dense matter of this world.

In those ancient days we knew we were composed of atoms possessing different qualities, and
we are still encircled by a powerful protective shield into whose consciousness we must again
enter.

When we receive illumination during our practice we help our atoms by giving them the same
aspiration and aid that we receive. Only when immersed within our own interior planes do we
realise the pain and misery we cause the workers of the Nous atom; for we re-experience their
sufferings and we determine that in the future we will keep a healthy and normal mind in a clean
and healthy body.

When the Master Builder or Nous atom leaves the body the body disintegrates. The Nous atom
desires to establish laws that will cause the nations of the world to be as one.

Man to-day is only four-sevenths developed; but when the Nous atom and its workers respond to
our practices we are taught to stimulate several divisions of the body seemingly atrophied
through disuse.

The body is composed of two types of atoms: good and evil. Through them we re-experience the
good and evil of our past lives.

Atoms resemble their owners, and those whose atoms are firm and solid have strong bodies;
those with weak atoms have weak bodies.
When we enter our intermediate states we develop our hidden senses of perception and become
aware of discarnate intelligences, and we must be careful not to confuse our intuitions with their
communications. In order to know the differences between the true voice and the false we should
feel a vibration that brings us a sense of victory and stillness: like the end of a great
pronouncement.

Our inclinations to be alert and healthy will give us the steady reverence of the Aspiring atoms;
therefore we should not eat impure foods, and be moderate in our stimulants.

Increased blood pressure accounts for abnormal appetites and desires and stimulates our lower
natures to greater activities, and opposes our entry to our inner worlds. This pressure destroys
the nerves that cause the cells of the brain to open and shut. As we breathe, these nerves open
the cells to the energy passing through the body, and if they are shut through abnormal pressure
from sudden exertion this increases the lower centres to a greater alertness and activity and
shuts off the inner worlds from the student and prevents him from receiving their instructions.

We must therefore use a method whereby we can shut off the influences of our lower nature. In
the heart there is a small valve that opens and shuts off interruptions from the lower seats of
consciousness. Later we slowly realise that the Innermost uses a system of irrigation canals
through which flow the beautiful substance that will fertilise our growth and understanding of our
own possessions.

We not only breathe with our lungs but every brain cell is furnished with what we analyse as lung
passages that collect atoms to impress us with their intelligence.

Aspiring atoms are often immersed in substances that destroy their communications with the
Nous atom, and it is the indolent atoms that bring this to pass.

Our minds are collectors of decayed atmospheres of the past filled with the foulness that
generates the taste for war and other great vices. In our practice these decayed conditions will
give way to a Solar force that will burn them up. This fire will destroy those parasites that have
inflicted their burdens upon us and cleanse us for our true minds to manifest.

Throughout history a World Saviour has appeared at the end or beginning of an age, and when
we can read our own inner books of remembrance we shall then know what illumination each
teacher brought to us and to the world; also that they could work miracles through the magical
manipulations of vowel sounds, and that their work had been to attune man to the higher
vibrations released by these atoms.

In every life we have had the same Nous atom, and in some lives obeyed its directions.

The world thinks that when a man becomes a Yogi and goes into retreat he wastes his life. It is
true he may be known to but a few, yet the genuine Yogi has his place in the development of
humanity, and his power increases as he withdraws from the atmosphere of the world that holds
humanity prisoner. He possesses great power, and manipulates the thought-waves of mankind as
the musician manipulates his keyboard.

As the student passes through the astral and mental planes in his journey inwards many of the
subnormal beings that crowd these regionssome earthboundoften listen-in to his thoughts
and strive to disturb and distort his mind.

The Aspiring atoms aid us in bringing to birth the latent energy within us: that sleeping force near
our navel centre that liberates us from bondage. This forcesimilar to static electricityis
evoked, directed up the spinal tract, and opens our great hidden centres or schools; for in the
central nervous system is the Sun intelligence of our miniature universe where man can gain
oneness with the Reality.

We then come under the direction of a most powerful stream of intelligence that helps us to pass
out of our bodies and gain information without resorting to normal methods. If we are observant
we can scan the horizon of all endeavour and accustom ourselves to dwell inwardly regardless of
the world's knowledge and partake of that inner nourishment we outwardly rejected.

In our central system we find certain atoms that represent the consciousness of the great
leaders of humanity. These atoms form an atomic structure from whence one will now and again
descend into the dense atmospheres of our bodies and contact us to those atomic intelligences
that have followed their teachings. They will also flash before us the moving screen of our past
experiences. And again, there will come over the student what he had previously suffered:
feelings of having been conquered and of having conquered. He will aim, after having witnessed
his good and evil deeds, to so live that there will no longer dwell within him those atoms that had
"rebelled against their Lord."

No great administrator has ever used the standards of his age; instead he has created ideals and
used his imagination in order to bring about progressive changes in his civilisation.

Nations have had periods of enlightenment when the moral worth of the individual was
considered a national asset. The Greeks understood this ideal.

The organs of generation are of great importance in these teachings; for their creative power is
not for sex alone, but also for the creation of ideal standards through the use of imagination.

The powerful energy that enters us has several strands, and each one vibrates a different
division of the nervous system.

When seen inwardly these centres radiate different light-waves, like coals glowing in a dark
night.

The energy of our central system keeps us awake; but when we sleep it also rests, and another
form of energy takes its place. This is similar to an engineer overhauling the machinery after the
workmen have left; for this energy repairs broken-down tissues and destroys all that is of an
unhealthy nature. When we awake it ceases functioning and the previous atomic forces resume
their tasks.
The governing intelligences of each atomic colony resist with all their power any outside
influence that attempts to change their attitude towards one another.

It is necessary to be always alert for any message coming from the Nous atom; and there is an
old hermetic saying, "Be alert for your Master's voice as he is alert for yours."

When we can respond to the Innermost we can remedy past ills, live deeper and nobler lives,
and become initiated into the Lesser Mysteries.

This chapter is from The Dayspring of Youth (1931) by M.

raise awareness of Gnosis.