The Five Fetters - Ernest Wood

Obstacles to Intuition

It appears that intuitions come and go in a spontaneous manner. Yet their coming depends entirely upon certain precise conditions, and there is a definite science in these matters. Unquestionably the "higher self", like the sun in the sky, is shining all the time, and if its light does not penetrate into the personal mind and heart in the form of intuition it is because of earth-born clouds which obstruct its light. When a man has had some glimpses of the higher light and power, he afterwards wonders why they do not constantly irradiate his life; he feels that they ought to do so, that he should be able to enjoy them when he will. He feels in some way fettered or bound: He knows that he has wings, but finds that somehow when he flaps them he does not rise. All this is because he is actually fettered or bound by certain defects in this personality. There are five of these fetters on what is sometimes called the ladder’s lower rung; he must deliberately remove them one by one.

The First Fetter

The first fetter is called the delusion of the body. This means that the person lives in the belief that he or she is the body. Imagining himself to be a material thing he loses status as a spiritual being, and enters the ranks of slaves or careerists. That person must forever be watching out to avoid dangers, or to discover what direction someone else is going to give him or her.

It is not always the case that men and women with this fetter still upon them are highly conscious of their personal appearance. But still they may live in sensation. The stream of life for them is a succession of bodily sensations; they aim at comfort or pleasurable excitement in body, emotions or mind; their interests are confined to these things.

However, to ignore the personal life is as much an error as to deify it. You must give it full attention in your consciousness, and picture in the most unequivocal terms of unrestrained imagination exactly what you would have it be. The men and women whom we see around us are pictures painted by themselves; the artist has remembered some things and forgotten others.

You must not wish anything around were at all different from what it is, but you must not wait for it to change. Nothing better than the past comes to her or him who waits.

© "Theosophy" (September 2003) published by The Theosophical Society in New Zealand Inc., 18 Belvedere Street, Epsom, Auckland 1003, New Zealand. Website: www.theosophy.org. Reprinted with permission.

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