It can be encouraging when you see conclusions of own contemplations being confirmed by presumed authorities.
I can still remember well the probably first occurrence of such an encouragement. From April 2005 to April 2006 I stayed in the ashram of Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi), and it was exactly in that period that the devotional dedication to guru's and gods slid from me to make place for a more authentic and less docile exploration of principles.
With these explorations I already had made a start when one morning I descended the stairs of a residential flat of the ashram. Suddenly through my mind a memory flashed of a certain statement that was made in one of the books of Alice Bailey, a presumed authority in the Western ageless wisdom. And this statement was in line with the conclusion of a recent contemplation.
I was somewhat amazed that I was able to with own contemplations come to conclusions that were in agreement with the teachings of presumed authorities. The amazement was accompanied by a spark of joy, and it was definitely an encouragement to continue my contemplative path.
Throughout the years that followed I have experienced many of such moments. Usually it were small moments. In the writing of the publications in the Contemplations series for instance often small moments of encouragement took place when conceptions could be grounded with references to explications of presumed authorities in the ageless wisdom.
Now and then the encouragements were also bigger. It was very encouraging for instance to see my conceptions about the three elements of choice acknowledged in the ageless wisdom. In this case this acknowledgement was happily written down in 'Een heer van keuze' [English: 'A Lord of Choice'].1 And in 'Gewetenserkenning' in the Dagboek van de eeuwigheid series [not translated into English] such a moment of acknowledgement was itself described.2
Now I recently contemplated the subject of fascism, as published in 'De Nederfascistische vlag' and '(Spiritueel) fascisme' [English: 'The Netherfascist Flag' and '(Spiritual) Fascism'].3, 4 Hereby I separated fascism from Nazism, arriving at forms of fascism which as political systems are certainly not to be rejected beforehand.
Considerable then was also the encouragement when during my search for other kinds of quotations for another kind of contemplation I discovered that Benjamin Creme, also a presumed authority in the Western ageless wisdom, made comparable statements about fascism. Where he relates communism to the intelligence of the third ray and democracy to the love-wisdom of the second ray, there he relates fascism, separated from Nazism, to the power of the first ray.5
Thus my contemplations on fascism found an acknowledgement. And it was certainly encouraging.