Theosophy - Light on the Path by Mabel Collins (M.C.)
LIGHT
ON THE PATH
A TREATISE WRITTEN
FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THOSE WHO ARE IGNORANT OF THE EASTERN WISDOM, AND WHO
DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN ITS INFLUENCE
WRITTEN DOWN BY M.C.
(Mabel Collins) WITH NOTES AND
COMMENTS BY THE AUTHOR. (REPRINTED VERBATIM FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXTS)
-1-
These rules are written
for all disciples: Attend you to them.
Before the eyes can
see, they must be incapable of tears. Before the ear can hear, it must have
lost its sensitiveness. Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters
it must have lost the power to wound. Before the soul can stand in the presence
of the Masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.
1.- Kill out ambition.
(1)
2.- Kill out desire
of life.
3.- Kill out desire
of comfort.
4.- Work as those
work who are ambitious. Respect life as those do who desire it. Be happy as
those are who live for happiness.
Seek in the heart
the source of evil and expunge it. It lives fruitfully in the heart of the devoted
disciple as well as in the heart of the man of desire. Only the strong can kill
it out. The weak must wait for its growth, its fruition, its death. And it is
a plant that lives and increases throughout the ages. It flowers when the man
has accumulated into himself innumerable existences. He who will enter upon
the path of power must tear this thing out of his heart. And then the heart
will bleed, and the whole life of the man seem to be utterly dissolved. This
ordeal must be endured: it may come at the first step of the perilous ladder
which leads to the path of life: it may not come until the last. But, O disciple,
remember that it has to be endured, and fasten the energies of your soul upon
the task. Live neither in the present nor the future, but in the Eternal. This
giant weed cannot flower there: this blot upon existence is wiped out by the
very atmosphere of eternal thought.
5.- Kill all sense
of separateness. (2)
6.- Kill out desire
for sensation.
7.- Kill out the
hunger for growth.
8.- Yet stand alone
and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is conscious of
separation, nothing that is out of the eternal, can aid you. Learn from sensation
and observe it, because only so can you commence the science of self-knowledge,
and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as the flower grows,
unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you
press forward to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the Eternal that
draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For in the one case
you develop in the luxuriance of purity; in the other your harden by the forcible
passion for personal stature.
9- Desire only that
which is within you.
10- Desire only that
which is beyond you.
11- Desire only that
which is unattainable.
12- For within you
is the light of the world- the only light that can be shed upon the Path. If
you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.
It is beyond you; because when you reach it you have lost yourself. It is unattainable,
because if forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch
the flame.
13- Desire power
ardently.
14- Desire peace
fervently.
15- Desire possessions
above all.
16- But those possessions
must belong to the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore by all pure souls
equally, and thus be the especial property of the whole only when united. Hunger
for such possessions as can be held by the pure soul, that you may accumulate
wealth for that united spirit of life which is your only true self. The peace
you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which
the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons. And that power
which the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing
in the eyes of men.
17- Seek out the
way. (3)
18- Seek the way
by retreating within.
19- Seek the way
by advancing boldly without.
20- Seek
it not by any one road. To each temperament there is one road which
seems the most desirable.
But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation
alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labour, by studious
observation of life.
None alone can take the disciple more than one step onward. All steps
are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps
in the ladder, one by one,
as they are surmounted. The virtues of man are steps indeed, necessary
- not by any means to be dispensed with. Yet, though they create
a fair atmosphere
and a happy future, they are useless if they stand alone. The whole
nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter
the way. Each man is
to himself absolutely the way, the truth, and the life. But he is
only so when he grasps his whole individuality firmly, and by the
force of his awakened spiritual
will recognizes this individuality as not himself, but that thing
which he has with pain created for his own use, and by means of
which he purposes, as his
growth slowly develops his intelligence, to reach to the life beyond
individuality. When he knows that for this his wonderful complex,
separated life exists, then,
indeed, and then only, he is upon the way. Seek it by plunging into
the mysterious and glorious depths of your own inmost being. Seek
it by testing all experience,
by utilizing the senses in order to understand the growth and meaning
of individuality, and the beauty and obscurity of those other divine
fragments which are struggling
side by side with you, and form the race to which you belong. Seek
it by study of the laws of being, the laws of nature, the laws
of the supernatural; and
seek it by making the profound obeisance of the soul to the dim star
that burns within. Steadily, as you watch and worship, its light
will grow stronger. Then
you may know you have found the beginning of the way. And when you
have found the end, its light will suddenly become the infinite
light. (4)
21- Look for the
flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then.
It shall grow, it
will shoot up, it will make branches, and leaves and form buds, while the storm
continues, while the battle lasts. But not till the whole personality of the
man is dissolved and melted- not until it is held by the divine fragment which
has created it, as a mere subject for grave experiment and experience- not until
the whole nature has yielded and become subject unto its Higher Self, can the
bloom open. Then will come a calm such as comes in a tropical county after the
heavy rain, when Nature works so swiftly that one may see her action. Such a
calm will come to the harassed spirit. And in the deep silence the mysterious
event will occur which will prove that the way has been found. Call it by what
name you will, it is a voice that speaks where there is none to speak - it is
a messenger that comes, a messenger without form or substance; or it is the
flower of the soul that has opened. It cannot be described by any metaphor.
But it can be felt after, looked for, and desired, even amid the raging of the
storm. The silence may last a moment of time or it may last a thousand years.
But it will end. Yet you will carry its strength with you. Again and again the
battle must be fought and won. It is only for an interval that nature can be
still. (5)
These written above
are the first of the rules which are written on the walls of the Hall of Learning.
Those that ask shall have. Those that desire to read shall read. Those that
desire to learn shall learn.
Peace
be with you.
-II-
OUT of the silence
that is peace a resonant voice shall arise. And this voice will say: It is not
well; thou hast reaped, now thou must sow. And knowing this voice to be the
silence itself thou wilt obey.
Thou who art now
a disciple, able to stand, able to hear, able to see, able to speak; who hast
conquered desire and attained to self knowledge; who hast seen thy soul in its
bloom and recognized it, and heard the voice of the silence, go thou to the
Hall of Learning and read what is written there for Thee.(6)
1-. Stand aside in
the coming battle, and though thou fightest be not thou the warrior.
2- Look for the warrior
and let him fight in Thee.
3- Take his orders
for battle, and obey them.
4- Obey him, not
as though he were a general, but as though he were thyself, and his spoken words
were the utterance of thy secret desires; for he is thyself, yet infinitely
wiser and stronger than thyself. Look for him, else in the fever and hurry of
the fight thou mayest pass him; and he will not know Thee unless thou knowest
him. If thy cry reach his listening ear then will he fight in Thee and fill
the dull void within. And if this is so, then canst thou go through the fight
cool and unwearied, standing aside and letting him battle for Thee. Then it
will be impossible for Thee to strike one blow amiss. But if thou look not for
him, if thou pass him by, then there is no safeguard for Thee Thy brain will
reel, thy heart grow uncertain, and in the dust of the battlefield thy sight
and senses will fail, and thou will not know thy friends from thy enemies.
He is thyself. Yet
thou art but finite and liable to error; he is eternal and is sure. He is eternal
truth. When once he has entered Thee and become thy Warrior, he will never utterly
desert Thee; and at the day of the great peace he will become one with Thee
5- Listen to the
song of life. (7)
6- Store in you memory
the melody you hear.
7- Learn from it
the lesson of harmony.
8- You can stand
upright now, firm as a rock amid the turmoil, obeying the Warrior who is thyself
and thy king. Unconcerned in the battle save to do his bidding, having no longer
any care as to the result of the battle, for one thing only is important, that
the warrior shall win, and you know he is incapable of defeat- standing thus,
cool and awakened, use the hearing you have acquired by pain and by the destruction
of pain. Only fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are
but man. But if you listen to it, remember it faithfully, so that none which
has reached you is lost, and endeavour to learn from it the meaning of the mystery
which surrounds you. In time you will need no teacher. For as the individual
has voice, so has that in which the individual exists. Life itself has speech
and is never silent. And its utterance is not, as you that are deaf may suppose,
a cry: it is a song. Learn from it that you are a part of the harmony; learn
from it to obey the laws of the harmony.
9- Regard earnestly
all the life that surrounds you.
10-Learn to look
intelligently into the hearts of men. (8)
11-Regard most earnestly
your own heart.
12- For through your
own heart comes the one light which can illuminate life and make it clear to
your eyes.
Study the hearts
of men, that you may know what is that world in which you life and of which
you will to be a part. Regard the constantly changing and moving life which
surrounds you, for it is formed by the hearts of men; and as you learn to understand
their constitution and meaning, you will by degrees be able to read the larger
word of life.
13- Speech comes
only with knowledge. Attain to knowledge and you will attain to speech. (9)
14- Having obtained
the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the outer senses,
having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge,
prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. The path is found:
make yourself ready to tread it.
15- Inquire of the
earth, the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold for you. The development
of your inner senses will enable you to do this.
16- Inquire of the
Holy Ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you. The conquering of the
desires of the outer senses will give you the right to do this.
17- Inquire of the
inmost, the One, of its final secret which it holds for you through the ages.
The great and difficult
victory, the conquering of the desires of the individual soul, is a work of
ages; therefore expect not to obtain its reward until ages of experience have
been accumulated. When the time of learning this seventeenth rule is reached,
man is on the threshold of becoming more than man.
18- The knowledge
which is now yours is only yours because your soul has become one with all pure
souls and with the inmost. It is a trust vested in you by the Most High. Betray
it, misuse your knowledge, or neglect it, and it is possible even now for you
to fall from the high estate you attained. Great ones fall back, even from the
threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable to pass
on. Therefore look forward always with awe and trembling to this moment, and
be prepared for the battle.
19- It is written
that for him who is on the threshold of divinity no law can be framed, no guide
can exist. Yet to enlighten the disciple, the final struggle may be thus expressed;
Hold fast to that
which has neither substance nor existence.
20- Listen only to
the voice which is soundless.
21- Look only on
that which is invisible alike to the inner and the outer sense.
Peace
be with you.
NOTES
(1)
AMBITION is the first curse: the great tempter of the man who is rising above
his fellows. It is the simplest form of looking for reward. Men of intelligence
and power are led away from their higher possibilities by it continually. YET
it is a necessary teacher. Its results turn to dust and ashes in the mouth;
like death and estrangement it shows the man at last that to work for self is
to work for disappointment. But though this first rule seems so simple and easy,
do not quickly pass it by. For these vices of the ordinary man pass through
a subtle transformation and reappear with changed aspects in the heart of the
disciple. It is easy to say, I will not be ambitious: it is not so easy to say,
When the Master reads my heart He will find it clean utterly. The pure artist
who works for the love of his work is sometimes more firmly planted on the right
road than the occultist, who fancies he has removed his interest from self,
but who has in reality only enlarged the limits of experience and desire, and
transferred his interest to the things which concern his larger span of life.
The same principle applies to the other two seemingly simple rules. Linger over
them, and do not let yourself be easily deceived by your own heart. For now,
at the threshold, a mistake can be corrected. But carry it on with you and it
will grow and come to fruition, or else you must suffer bitterly in its destruction.
(2)
Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man. They are
yourself, though in a less degree than your friend or your Master. But if you
allow the idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within
you, by so doing you create Karma, which will bind you to that thing or person
till your soul recognizes that it cannot be isolated. Remember that the sin
and shame of the world are your sin and shame; for you are a part of it; your
Karma is inextricably interwoven with the great Karma. And before you can attain
knowledge you must have passed through all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore,
remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours
yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with horror from it, when
it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you. The
self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right
to abstain, not that yourself shall be kept clean.
(3)
These four words seem, perhaps, too slight to stand alone. The disciple may
say, Should I study these thoughts at all did I not seek out the way? Yet do
not pass on hastily. Pause and consider awhile. Is it the way you desire, or
is it that there is a dim perspective in your visions of great heights to be
scaled by yourself, of a great future for you to compass? Be warned. The way
is to be sought for its own sake, not with regard to your feet that shall tread
it.
There is a correspondence
between this rule and the seventeenth of the second series. When after ages
of struggle and many victories the final battle is won, the final secret demanded,
then you are prepared for a further path. When the final secret of this great
lesson is told, in it is opened the mystery of the new way- a path which leads
out of all human experience, and which is utterly beyond human perception or
imagination. At each of these points it is needful to pause long and consider
well. At each of these points it is necessary to be sure that the way is chosen
for its own sake. The way and the truth come first, then follows the life.
(4)
Seek it by testing all experience, and remember that when I say
this I do not
say, "Yield to the seductions of senses in order to know it".
Before you have become an occultist you may do this; but not afterwards.
When you have
chosen and entered the Path you cannot yield to these seductions
without shame. Yet you can experience them without horror; can weigh,
observe and test them,
and wait with the patience of confidence for the hour when they shall
affect you no longer. But do not condemn the man that yields; stretch
out your hand
to him as a brother pilgrim whose feet have become heavy with mire.
Remember, O disciple, that great though the gulf may be between the
good man and the sinner,
it is greater between the good man and the man who has attained knowledge;
it is immeasurable between the good man and the one on the threshold
of divinity.
Therefore be wary lest too soon you fancy yourself a thing apart
from the mass. When you have found the beginning of the way the star
of your soul will show
its light; and by that light you will perceive how great is the darkness
in which it burns. Mind, heart, brain, all are obscure and dark until
the first
great battle has been won. Be not appalled and terrified by this
sight; keep your eyes fixed on the small light and it will grow.
But let the darkness within
help you to understand the helplessness of those who have seen no
light, whose souls are in profound gloom. Blame then not- Shrink
not from them, but try to
lift a little of the heavy Karma of the world; give your aid to the
few strong hands that hold back the powers of darkness from obtaining
complete victory.
Then do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed
terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing
delight.
(5)
The opening of the bloom is the glorious moment when perception awakes: with
it come confidence, knowledge, certainty. The pause of the soul is the moment
of wonder, and the next moment of satisfaction, that is the silence.
Know, O disciple,
that those who have passed through the silence and felt its peace and retained
its strength, they long that you shall pass through it also. Therefore, in the
Hall of Learning, when he is capable of entering there, the disciple will always
find his Master.
Those that ask shall
have. But though the ordinary man ask perpetually, his voice is not heard. For
he asks with his mind only; and the voice of the mind is only heard on that
plane on which the mind acts. Therefore, not until the first twenty-one rules
are passed do I say those that ask shall have.
To read, in the
occult senses, is to read with the eyes of the spirit. To ask is to feel the
hunger within- the yearning of spiritual aspiration. To be able to read means
having obtained the power in a small degree of gratifying that hunger. When
the disciple is ready to learn, then he is accepted, acknowledged, recognised.
It must be so, for he has lit his lamp, and it cannot be hidden. But to learn
is impossible until the first great battle has been won. The mind may recognize
truth, but the spirit cannot receive it. Once having passed through the storm
and attained the peace, it is then always possible to learn, even thought the
disciple waver, hesitate and turn aside. The Voice of the Silence remains within
him. And though he leave the Path utterly, yet one day it will resound, and
rend him asunder and separate his passions from his divine possibilities. Then
with pain and desperate cries from the deserted lower self he will return.
Therefore
I say, Peace be with you." My peace I give unto you" can
only be said by the Master to the beloved disciples who are as
Himself. There are some even
among those who are ignorant of the Eastern wisdom to whom this can
be said, and to whom it can daily be said with more completeness.
++ Regard the three
truths. They are equal.
(6)
To be able to stand is to have confidence; to be able to hear is to have opened
the doors of the soul; to be able to see is to have attained perception; to
be able to speak is to have attained the power of helping others; to have conquered
desire is to have learned how to use and control the self; to have attained
to self-knowledge is to have retreated to the inner fortress from whence the
personal man can be viewed with impartiality; to have seen thy soul in its bloom
is to have obtained a momentary glimpse in thyself of the transfiguration which
shall eventually make Thee more than man; to recognize is to achieve the great
task of gazing upon the blazing light without dropping the eyes and not falling
back in terror, as though before some ghastly phantom. This happens to some,
and so when the victory is all but won it is lost. To hear the Voice of the
Silence is to understand that from within comes the only true guidance; to go
to the Hall of Learning is to enter the state in which learning becomes possible.
Then will many words be written there for Thee, and written in fiery letters
for Thee easily to read. For when the disciple is ready the Master is ready
also.
7-
Look for it and listen to it, first in your own heart. At first
you may say, "It is not there; when I search I find only discord".
Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause and look deeper
again. There is a natural
melody, an obscure fount in every human heart. It may be hidden over
and utterly concealed and silenced- but it is there. At the very
base of your nature you
will find faith, hope, and love. He that chooses evil refuses to
look within himself, shuts his ears to the melody of his heart,
as he blinds his eyes to
the light of his soul. He does this because he finds it easier to
live in desires. But underneath all life is the strong current
that cannot be checked; the great
waters are there in reality. Find them, and you will perceive that
none, not the most wretched of creatures, but is a part of it,
however he blind himself
to the fact and build up for himself a phantasmal outer form of horror.
In that sense it is that I say to you: All those beings among whom
you struggle on are
fragments of the Divine. And so deceptive is the illusion in which
you live, that it is hard to guess where you will first detect
the sweet voice in the
hearts of others. But know that it is certainly within yourself.
Look for it there, and once having heard it, you will more readily
recognize it around you.
8-
From an absolutely impersonal point of view, otherwise your sight is coloured.
Therefore impersonality must first be understood.
Intelligence is impartial:
no man is your enemy; no man is your friend. All alike are your teachers. Your
enemy becomes a mystery that must be solved, even though it takes ages: for
man must be understood. Your friend becomes a part of yourself, an extension
of yourself, a riddle hard to read. Only one thing is more difficult to know-
your own heart. Not until the bonds of personality are loosed can that profound
mystery of self begin to be seen. Not till you stand aside from it, will it
in any way reveal itself to your understanding. Then, and not till then, can
you grasp and guide it. Then, and not till then, can you use all its powers,
and devote them to a worthy service.
9-
It is impossible to help others till you have obtained some certainty of your
own. When you have learned the first twenty-one rules and have entered the Hall
of Learning , with your powers developed and sense unchained, then you will
find there is a fount within you from which speech will arise.
After the thirteenth
rule I can add no words to what is already written. My peace I give unto you.
These rules are written
only for those to whom I give my peace; those who can read what I have written
with the inner as well as the outer sense.
COMMENTS
ON "LIGHT
ON THE PATH" by The Author
[taken from H.P.B.'s
Lucifer,
Vol. I, pages.
.8--- 14 September 1887 ......................90--- 96 October...... 1887
................... 170- 172 November ..1887 ....................379- 383
January .......1888
COMMENTS
-I-
"Before
the eyes can see they must be incapable of tears. "
It should be very
clearly remembered by all readers of this volume that it is a book which may
appear to have some little philosophy in it, but very little sense, to those
who believe it to be written in ordinary English. To the many, who read in this
manner it will be- not caviare so much as olives strong of their salt. Be warned
and ready but a little in this way.
There is another
way of reading, which is, indeed, the only one of any use with many authors.
It is reading, not between the lines but within the words. In fact, it is deciphering
a profound cipher. All alchemical works are written in the cipher of which I
speak; it has been used by the great philosophers and poets of all time. It
is used systematically by the adepts in life and knowledge, who, seemingly giving
out their deepest wisdom, hide in the very words which frame it its actual mystery.
They cannot do more. There is a law of nature which insists that a man shall
read these mysteries for himself. By no other method can he obtain them. A man
who desires to live must eat his food himself: this is the simple law of Nature-
which applies also to the higher life. A man who would live and act in it cannot
be fed like a babe with a spoon; he must eat for himself.
I propose
to put into new and sometimes plainer language parts of "Light on the Path";
but whether this effort of mine will really be any interpretation
I cannot say. To a deaf
and dumb man, a truth is made no more intelligible if, in order to
make it so, some misguide linguist translates the words in which
it is couched into every
living or dead language, and shouts these different phrases in his
ear. But for those who are not deaf and dumb one language is generally
easier than the
rest; and it is to such as these I address myself.
The very
first aphorisms of "Light on the Path," included under Number I,
have, I know well, remained sealed as to their inner meaning to
many who have otherwise followed the purpose
of the book.
There are four proven
and certain truths with regard to the entrance to occultism. The Gates of Gold
bar that threshold; yet there are some who pass those Gates and discover the
sublime and illimitable beyond. In the far spaces of Time all will pass those
gates. But I am one who wishes that Time, the great deluder, were not so over-masterful.
To those who know and love him I have no word to say; but to the others- and
there are not so very few as some may fancy- to whom the passage of Time is
as the stroke of a sledgehammer, and the sense of Space like the bars of an
iron cage, I will translate and retranslate, until they understand fully.
The fourth
truths written on the first page of "Light on the Path," Refer
to the trial initiation of the would-be Occultist. Until he has
passed it, he cannot even reach to the
latch of the gate which admits to knowledge. Knowledge is man's greatest
inheritance; why, then, should he not attempt to reach it by every
possible road? The laboratory
is not the only ground for experiment; science, we must remember, is
derived from sciens, present participle of scire, ""to know,"- its origin
is similar to that of the word "discern," "to ken." Science does
not therefore deal only with matter, no, not even its subtlest and
obscurest forms. Such an
idea is born merely of the idle spirit of the age. Science is a word
which covers all forms of knowledge. It is exceedingly interesting
to hear what chemists
discover, and to see them finding their way through the densities
of matter to its finer forms; but there are other kinds of knowledge
than this, and it
is not every one who restricts his (strictly scientific) desire for
knowledge to experiments which are capable of being tested by the
physical senses.
Everyone who is not
a dullard, or a man stupefied by some predominant vice, has guessed, or even
perhaps discovered with some certainty, that there are subtle senses lying within
the physical senses; there is nothing at all extraordinary in this; if we took
the trouble to call Nature into the witness box we should find that everything
which is perceptible to the ordinary sight, has something even more important
than itself hidden within it; the microscope has opened a world to us, but within
those encasements which the microscope reveals, lies a mystery which no machinery
can probe.
The whole
world is animated and lit, down to its most material shapes, by
a world within it. This
inner world is called Astral by some people, and it is as good a
word as any other, though it merely means starry; but the stars,
as Locke pointed out, are
luminous bodies which give light of themselves. This quality is characteristic
of the light which lies within matter; for those who see it, need
no lamp to
see it by. The word "star', moreover, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon "stir-an," to
steer, to stir, to move, and undeniably it is the inner life which
is master of the outer, just as a man's brain guides the movements
of his lips. So that
although Astral is no very excellent word in itself, I am content
to use for my present purposes.
The whole
of "Light
on the Path" is written in an astral cipher and can therefore only
be deciphered by one who reads astrally. And its teaching is chiefly
directed towards the
cultivation and development of the astral life. Until the first step
has been taken in this development, the swift knowledge, which is
called intuition with
certainty, is impossible to man. And this positive and certain intuition
is the only form of knowledge which enables a man to work rapidly
or reach his
true and high estate, within the limit of his conscious effort. To
obtain knowledge by experiment is too tedious a method for those
who aspire to accomplish real
work: he who gets it by certain intuition, lays hands on its various
forms with supreme rapidity, by fierce effort of will; as a determined
workman grasps his
tools, indifferent to their weight or any other difficulty which
may stand in his way. He does not stay for each to be tested- he
uses such as he sees are
fittest.
All the
rules contained in "Light on the Path," are written for all disciples, but only for disciples-
those who "take knowledge". To none else but the student in this
school are its laws of any use or interest.
To all who are interested
seriously in Occultism, I say first- take knowledge. To him who hath shall be
given. It is useless to wait for it. The womb of Time will close before you,
and in later days you will remain unborn, without power. I therefore say to
those who have hunger or thirst for knowledge, attend to these Rules.
They are none of
my handicraft or invention. They are merely the phrasing of laws in supernature,
the putting into words truths as absolute in their own sphere, as those laws
which govern the conduct of the earth and its atmosphere.
The senses spoken
of in these four statements are the astral, or inner senses.
No man desires to
see that light which illumines the spaceless soul until pain and sorrow and
despair have driven him away from the life of ordinary humanity. First he wears
out pleasure, then he wears out pain- till, at last, his eyes become incapable
of tears.
This is a truism,
although I know perfectly well that it will meet with a vehement, denial from
many who are in sympathy with thoughts which spring from the inner life. To
see with the astral sense of sight is a form of activity which it is difficult
for us to understand immediately. The scientist knows very well what a miracle
is achieved by each child that is born into the world, when it first conquers
its eye sight and compels it to obey its brain. An equal miracle is performed
with each sense certainly, but this ordering of sight is perhaps the most stupendous
effort. Yet the child does it almost unconsciously, by force of the powerful
heredity of habit. No one now is aware that he has ever done it at all; just
as we cannot recollect the individual movements which enabled us to walk up
a hill a year ago. This arises from the fact that we move an live and have our
being in matter. Our knowledge of it has become intuitive.
With our
astral life it is very much otherwise. For long ages past, man
has paid very little attention
to it- so little, that he has practically lost the use of his senses.
It is true, that in every civilization the star arises and man
confesses, with more
or less of folly and confusion, that he knows himself to be. But
most often he denies it, and in being a materialist becomes that
strange thing, a being
which cannot see its own light, a thing of life which will not live,
an astral animal which has eyes, and ears, and speech, and power,
yet will use none of
these gifts. This is the case, and the habit of ignorance has become
so confirmed, that now none will see with the inner vision till
agony has made the physical
eyes not only unseeing, but without tears- the moisture of life.
To be incapable of tears is to have faced and conquered the simple
human nature, and to have
attained an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotions.
It does not imply any hardness of heart, or any indifference. It
does not imply the
exhaustion of sorrow, when the suffering soul seems powerless to
suffer acutely any longer; it does not mean the deadness of old
age, when emotion is becoming
dull because the strings which vibrate to it are wearing out. None
of these conditions are fit for a disciple, and if any one of them
exists in him, it
must be overcome before the path can be entered upon. Hardness of
heart belongs to the selfish man, the egotist, to whom the Gate
is for ever closed. Indifference
belongs to the fool and the false philosopher; those whose lukewarmness
makes them mere puppets, not strong enough to face the realities
of existence. When
pain or sorrow has worn out the keenness of suffering, the result
is a lethargy not unlike that which accompanies old age, as it
is usually experienced by men
and women. Such a condition makes the entrance to the path impossible,
because the first step is one of difficulty and needs a strong
man full of psychic and
physical vigour, to attempt it.
It is a truth, that,
as Edgar Allen Poe said, the eyes are the windows for the soul, the windows
of that haunted palace in which it dwells. This is the very nearest interpretation
into ordinary language of the meaning of the text. If grief, dismay, disappointment
or pleasure, can shake the soul so that it loses its fixed hold on the calm
spirit which inspires it, and the moisture of life breaks forth, drowning knowledge
in sensation, then all is blurred, the windows are darkened, the light is useless.
This is as literal a fact as that if a man, at the edge of a precipice, loses
his nerve through some sudden emotion he will certainly fall. The poise of the
body, the balance, must be preserved, not only in dangerous places, but even
on level ground, and with all the assistance Nature gives us by the law of gravitation.
So it is with the soul, it is the link between the outer body and the starry
spirit beyond; the divine spark dwells in the still place where no convulsion
of Nature can shake the air; this is so always. But the soul may lose its hold
on that, its knowledge of it, even though these two are part of one whole; and
it is by emotion, by sensation, that this hold is loosed. To suffer either pleasure
or pain causes a vivid vibration which is, to the consciousness of man, life.
Now this sensibility does not lessen when the disciple enters upon his training;
it increases. It is the first test of his strength; he must suffer, must enjoy
or endure, more keenly than other men, while yet he has taken on him a duty
which does not exist for other men, that of not allowing his suffering to shake
him from his fixed purpose. He has, in fact, at the first step to take himself
steadily in hand and put the bit into his own mouth; no one else can do it for
him.
The first
four aphorisms of "Light on the Path' refer entirely to astral
development. This development must be accomplished to a certain
extent- that is to say, it must be fully entered
upon- before the remainder of the book is really intelligible except
to the intellect; in fact, before it can be read as a practical,
not a metaphysical
treatise.
In one
of the great mystic Brotherhoods, there are four ceremonies, that
take place early in the
year, which practically illustrate and elucidate these aphorisms.
They are ceremonies in which only novices take part, for they are
simply services of the threshold.
But it will show how serious a thing it is to become a disciple,
when it is understood that these are all ceremonies of sacrifice.
The first one is this
of which I have been speaking. The keenest enjoyment, the bitterest
pain, the anguish of loss and despair, are brought to bear on the
trembling soul, which
has not yet found light in the darkness, which is helpless as a blind
man is, and until these shocks can be endured without loss of equilibrium
the astral
senses must remain sealed. This is the merciful law. The "Medium", or "spiritualist"
who rushes into the psychic world without preparation, is a lawbreaker, a breaker
of the laws of supernature. Those who break Nature's laws lose their physical
health; those who break the laws of the inner life, lose their psychic health.
"Mediums" become mad, suicides, miserable creatures devoid of moral
sense; and often end as unbelievers, doubters even of that which
their own eyes have seen.
The disciple is compelled to become his own master before he adventures
on this perilous path, and attempts to face those beings who live
and work in the astral
world, and whom we call Masters, because of their great knowledge
and their ability to control not only themselves but the forces around
them.
The condition
of the soul when it lives for the life of sensation as distinguished
from that
of knowledge, is vibratory or oscillating, as distinguished from
fixed. That is the nearest literal representation of the fact;
but it is only literal to
the intellect, not to the intuition. For this part of man's consciousness
a different vocabulary is needed. The idea of "fixed" might perhaps be transposed
into that of "at home." In
sensation no permanent home can be found, because change is the law
of this vibratory existence. That fact is the first one which must
be learned by the
disciple. It is useless to pause and weep for a scene in a kaleidoscope
which has passed.
It is
a very well-know fact, one with which Bulwer Lytton dealt with
great power, that an intolerable
sadness is the very first experience of the neophyte in Occultism.
A sense of blankness falls upon him which makes the world a waste,
and life a vain exertion.
This follows his first serious contemplation of the abstract. In
gazing, or even in attempting to gaze, on the ineffable mystery
of his own higher nature,
he himself causes the initial trial to fall on him. The oscillation
between pleasure and pain ceases for perhaps an instant of time;
but that is enough
to have cut him loose from his fast moorings in the world of sensation.
He has experienced, however briefly, the greater life; and he goes
on with ordinary
existence weighted by a sense of unreality, of blank, of horrid negation.
This was the nightmare which visited Bulwer Lytton's neophyte in "Zanoni";
and even Zanoni himself, who had learned great truths, and been
entrusted with
great powers, had not actually passed the threshold where fear and
hope, despair and joy, seem at one moment absolute realities, at
the next mere forms of fancy.
This initial trial
is often brought on us by life itself. For life, is after all, the great teacher.
We return to study it, after we have acquired power over it, just as the master
in chemistry learns more in the laboratory than his pupil does. There are persons
so near the door of knowledge that life itself prepares them for it, and no
individual hand has to invoke the hideous guardian of the entrance. These must
naturally be keen and powerful organizations, capable of the most vivid pleasure;
then pain comes and fills its great duty. The most intense forms of suffering
fall on such a nature, till at last it arouses from its stupor of consciousness,
and by the force of its internal vitality steps over the threshold into a place
of peace. Then the vibration of life loses its power of tyranny. The sensitive
nature must suffer still; but the soul has freed itself and stands aloof, guiding
the life towards its greatness. Those who are the subjects of Time, and go slowly
through all his spaces, live on through a long-drawn series of sensations, and
suffer a constant mingling of pleasure and of pain. They do not dare to take
the snake of self in a steady grasp and conquer it, so becoming divine;; but
prefer to go on fretting through divers experiences, suffering blows from the
opposing forces.
When one
of these subjects of Time decides to enter on the path of Occultism,
it is this which
is his first task. If life has not taught it to him, if he is not
strong enough to teach himself, and if he has power enough to demand
the help of a Master,
then this fearful trial, depicted in "Zanoni," is put upon
him. The oscillation in which he lives, is for an instant stilled;
and he has to survive the shock
of facing what seems to him at first sight as the abyss of nothingness.
Not till he has learned to dwell in this abyss, and has found its
peace, is it possible
for his eyes to have become incapable of tears.
II
"Before
the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness. "
The first
four rules of "Light on the Path" are, undoubtedly, curious though
the statement may seem, the most important in the whole book, save
one only. Why they are so important
is that they contain the vital law, the very creative essence of
the astral man. And it is only in the astral (or self-illuminated)
consciousness that the
rules which follow them have any living meaning. Once attain to the
use of the astral senses and it becomes a matter of course that
one commences to use them;
and the later rules are but guidance in their use. When I speak like
this I mean, naturally, that the first four rules are the ones
which are of importance
and interest to those who read them in print upon a page. When they
are engraved on the man's heart and on his life, unmistakably then
the other rules become
not merely interesting, or extraordinary metaphysical statements,
but actual facts in life which have to be grasped and experienced.
The four
rules stand written in the great chamber of every actual lodge
of a living Brotherhood.
Whether the man is about to sell his soul to the devil, like Faust;
whether he is to be worsted in the battle, like Hamlet;; or whether
he is to pass on
within the precincts; in any case these words are for him. The man
can choose between virtue and vice, but not until he is a man;
a babe or a wild animal
cannot so choose. Thus with the disciple, he must first become a
disciple before he can even see the paths to choose between. This
effort of creating himself
as a disciple, the rebirth, he must do for himself without any teacher.
Until the four rules are learned no teacher can be of any use to
him; and that is
why "the Masters" are referred to in the way they are. No real Masters,
whether Adepts in power, in love, or in blackness, can affect a man
till these four
rules are passed.
Tears as I have said,
may be called the moisture of life. The soul must have laid aside the emotions
of humanity, must have secured a balance which cannot be shaken by misfortune,
before its eyes can open the superhuman world.
The voice of the
Masters is always in the world; but only those hear it whose ears are no longer
receptive of the sounds which affect the personal life. Laughter no longer lightens
the heart, anger may no longer enrage it, tender words bring it no balm. For
that within, to which the ears are as an outer gateway, is an unshaken place
of peace in itself which no person can disturb.
As the eyes are the
windows of the soul, so are the ears its gateways or doors. Through then comes
knowledge of the confusion of the world. The great ones who have conquered life,
who have become more than disciples, stand at peace and undisturbed amid the
vibration and kaleidoscopic movement of humanity. They hold within themselves
a certain knowledge, as well as a perfect peace; and thus they are not roused
or existed by the partial and erroneous fragments of information which brought
to their ears by the changing voices of those around them. When I speak of knowledge,
I mean intuitive knowledge. This certain information can never be obtained by
hard work, or by experiment; for these methods are only applicable to matter,
and matter is in itself a perfectly uncertain substance, continually affected
by change. The most absolute and universal laws of natural and physical life,
as understood by the scientist, will pass away when the life of this universe
has passed away, and only its soul is left in the silence. What then will be
the value of the knowledge of its laws acquired by industry and observation?
I pray that no reader
or critic will imagine that by what I have said I intend to depreciate or disparage
acquired knowledge, or the work of scientists. On the contrary, I hold that
scientific men are the pioneers of modern thought. The days of literature and
of art, when poets and sculptors saw the divine light, and put it into their
own great language- these days lie buried in the long past with the ante-Phidian
sculptors and the pre-Homeric poets. The Mysteries no longer rule the world
of thought and beauty; human life is the governing power, not that which lies
beyond it. But the scientific workers are progressing, not so much by their
own will as by sheer force of circumstances, towards the far line which divides
things interpretable from things uninterpretable. Every fresh discovery drives
them a step onward. Therefore do I very highly esteem the knowledge obtained
by work and experiment.
But intuitive knowledge
is an entirely different thing. It is not acquired in any way, but is, so to
speak, a faculty of the soul; not the animal soul, that which becomes a ghost
after death, when lust or liking or the memory of ill-deeds holds it to the
neighbourhood of human beings, but the divine soul which animates all the external
forms of the individualized being.
This is,
of course, a faculty which indwells in that soul, which is inherent.
The would-be disciple
has to arouse himself to the consciousness of it by a fierce and
resolute and indomitable effort of will. I use the word indomitable
for a special reason.
Only he who is untameable, who cannot be dominated, who knows he
has to play the lord over men, over facts, over all things save
his own divinity, can arouse
this faculty. "With faith all things are possible." The sceptical
laugh at faith and pride themselves on its absence from their own
minds. The truth is that
faith is a great engine, an enormous power which, in fact can accomplish
all things. For it is the covenant or engagement between man's divine
part and his
lesser self.
The use of this engine
is quite necessary in order to obtain intuitive knowledge; for unless a man
believes such knowledge exists within himself how can he claim and use it?
Without it he is
more helpless than any driftwood or wreckage on the great tides of the ocean.
They are cast hither and thither indeed; so may a man be by the chances of fortune.
But such adventures are purely external and of very small account. A slave may
be dragged through the streets in chains, and yet retain the quiet soul of a
philosopher, as was well seen in the person of Epictetus. A man may have every
worldly prize in his possession, and stand absolute master of his personal fate,
to all appearance, and yet he knows no peace, no certainty, because he is shaken
within himself by every tide of thought that he touches on. And these changing
tides do not merely sweep the man bodily hither and thither like driftwood on
the water; that would be nothing. They enter into the gateways of his soul,
and wash over that soul, and make it blind and blank and void of all permanent
intelligence, so that passing impressions affect it.
To make
my meaning plainer I will use an illustration. Take an author at
his writing, a painter
at his canvas, a composer listening to the melodies that dawn upon
his glad imagination; let any one of these workers pass his daily
hours by a wide window
looking on a busy street. The power of the animating life blinds
sight and hearing alike, and the great traffic of the city goes
by like nothing but a passing
pageant. But a man whose mind is empty, whose day is objectless,
sitting at that same window, notes the passers-by and remembers
the faces that chance to
please or interest him. So it is with the mind in its relation to
eternal truth. If it no longer transmits its fluctuations, its
partial knowledge, its unreliable
information to the soul, then in the inner place of peace, already
found when the first rule has been learned- in that inner place
there leaps into flame
the light of actual knowledge. Then the ears begin to hear, very
dimly, very faintly at first. And, indeed, so faint and tender
are these first indications
of the commencement of true actual life, that they are sometimes
pushed aside as mere fancies, mere imaginings. But before these
are capable of becoming more
than mere imaginings, the abyss of nothingness has to be faced in
another form. The utter silence which can only come by closing
the ears to all transitory
sounds comes as a more appealing horror than even the formless emptiness
of space. Our only mental conception of blank space is, I think,
when reduced to
its barest element of thought, that of black darkness. This is a
great physical terror to most persons, and when regarded as an
eternal and unchangeable fact,
must mean to the mind the idea of annihilation rather than anything
else. But it is the obliteration of one sense only; and the sound
of a voice may come
and bring comfort even in the profoundest darkness. The disciple,
having found his way into this blackness, which is the fearful
abyss, must then so shut the
gates of his soul that no comforter can enter there nor any enemy.
And it is in making this second effort that the fact of pain and
pleasure being but one
sensation becomes recognizable by those who have before been unable
to perceive it. For when the solitude of silence is reached the
soul hungers so fiercely
and passionately for some sensation on which to rest, that a painful
one would be as keenly welcomed as a pleasant one. When this consciousness
is reached
the courageous man by seizing and retaining it, may destroy the "sensitiveness"" at
once. When the ear no longer discriminates between that which is
pleasant or that which is painful, it will no longer be affected
by the voices of others.
And then it is safe and possible to open the doors of the soul.
"Sight" is
the first effort, and the easiest, because it is accomplished partly
by an intellectual
effort. The intellect can conquer the heart, as is well known in
ordinary life. Therefore, this preliminary step still lies within
the dominion of matter. But
the second step allows of no such assistance, nor of any material
aid whatever. Of course, I mean by material aid the action of the
brain, or emotion, or human
soul. In compelling the ears to listen only to the eternal silence,
the being we call man becomes something which is no longer man.
A very superficial survey
of the thousand and one influences which are brought to bear on us
by others will show that this must be so. A disciple will fulfil
all the duties of his
manhood; but he will fulfil them according to his sense of right,
and not according to that of any person or body of persons. This
is a very evident result of following
the creed of knowledge instead of any of the blind creeds.
To obtain the pure
silence necessary for the disciple, the heart and emotions, the brain and its
intellectualisms, have to be put aside. Both are but mechanisms, which will
perish with the span of man's life. It is the essence beyond, that which is
the motive power, and makes man live, that is now compelled to rouse itself
and act. Now is the greatest hour of danger. In the first trial men go mad with
fear; of this first trial Bulwer Lytton wrote. No novelist has followed to the
second trial, though some of the poets have. Its subtlety and great danger lies
in the fact that in the measure of a man's strength is the measure of his chance
of passing beyond it or coping with it at all. If he has power enough to awaken
that unaccustomed part of himself, the supreme essence, then has he power to
lift the gates of gold, then is he the true alchemist, in possession of the
elixir of life.
It is
at this point of experience that the occultist becomes separated
from all other men and enters
on to a life which is his own; on to the path of individual accomplishment
instead of mere obedience to the genii which rule our earth. This
raising of himself
into an individual power does in reality identify him with the nobler
forces of life and make him one with them. For they stand beyond
the powers of this
earth and the laws of this universe. Here lies man's only hope of
success in the great effort; to leap right away from his present
standpoint to his next,
and at once become an intrinsic part of the divine power as he has
been an intrinsic part of the intellectual power, of the great
nature to which he belongs. He
stands always in advance of himself, if such a contradiction can
be understood. It is the men who adhere to this position, who believe
in their innate power
of progress, and that of the whole race, who are the Elders Brothers,
the pioneers. Each man has to accomplish the great leap for himself
and without aid; yet it
is something of a staff to lean on to know that others have gone
on that road. It is possible that they have been lost in the abyss;
no matter, they have had
the courage to enter it. Why I say that it is possible they have
been lost in the abyss is because of this fact, that one who has
passed through is unrecognizable
until the other and altogether new condition is attained by both.
It is unnecessary to enter upon the subject of what that condition
is at present. I only say this,
that in the early state in which man is entering upon the silence,
he loses knowledge of his friends, of his lovers, of all who have
been near and dear
to him; and also loses sight of his Teachers and of those who have
preceded him on his way. I explain this because scarce one passes
through without bitter
complaint. Could but the mind grasp beforehand that the silence must
be complete, surely this complaint need not arise as a hindrance
on the path. Your teacher,
or your predecessor may hold your hand in his, and give you the utmost
sympathy the human heart is capable of. But when the silence and
the darkness comes,
you lose all knowledge of him; you are alone and he cannot help you,
not because his power is gone, but because you have invoked your
great enemy.
By your great enemy,
I mean yourself. If you have the power to face your own soul in the darkness
and silence, you will have conquered the physical or animal self which dwells
in sensation only.
This statement, I
fear, will appear involved; but in reality it is quite simple. Man, when he
has reached his fruition, and civilization is at its height, stands between
two fires. Could he but claim his great inheritance, the encumbrance of the
mere animal life would fall away form him without difficulty. But he does not
do this, and so the races of men flower and then droop, and die and decay off
the face of the earth, however splendid the bloom may have been; and it is left
to the individual to make this great effort; to refuse to be terrified by his
greater nature, to refuse to be drawn back by his lesser or more material self.
Every individual who accomplishes this is a redeemer of the race. He may not
blazon forth his deeds, he may dwell in secret and silence; but it is a fact
that he forms a link between man and his divine part; between the known and
the unknown; between the stir of the marketplace and the stillness of the snow-capped
Himalayas. He has not to go about among men in order to form this link; in the
astral he is that link, and this fact makes him a being of another order
from the rest of mankind. Even so early on the road towards knowledge, when
he has but taken the second step, he finds his footing more certain, and becomes
conscious that he is a recognized part of the whole.
This is
one of the contradictions in life which occur so constantly that
they afford fuel to the
fiction writer. The Occultist finds them become much more marked
as he endeavours to live the life he has chosen. As he retreats
within himself and becomes self-dependent,
he finds himself more definitely becoming part of a great tide of
definite thought and feeling. When he has learning the first lesson,
conquered the hunger of
the heart, and refused to live on the love of others, he finds himself
more capable of inspiring love. As he flings life away it comes
to him in a new form
and with a new meaning. The world has always been a place with many
contradictions in it, to man; when he becomes a disciple he finds
life is describable as a
series of paradoxes. This is a fact in Nature, and the reasons for
it is intelligible enough. Man's soul "dwells like a star apart," even that of the vilest among
us; while his consciousness is under the law of vibratory and sensuous life.
This alone is enough to cause those complications of character which are the
material for the novelist; every man is a mystery, to friend and enemy alike,
and to himself. His motives are often undiscoverable, and he cannot probe to
them or know why he does this or that. The disciple's effort is that of awaking
consciousness in this starry part of himself, where his power and divinity lie
sleeping. As this consciousness becomes awakened, the contradictions in the
man himself become more marked than ever; and so do the paradoxes which he lives
through. For, of course man creates his own life; and "adventures are to the
adventurous" is one of those wise proverbs which are drawn from actual
fact, and cover the whole area of human experience.
Pressure on the divine
part of man reacts upon the animal part. As the silent soul awakes it makes
the ordinary life of the man more purposeful, more vital, more real and responsible.
To keep to the two instances already mentioned,: the Occultist who has withdrawn
into his own citadel has found his strength; immediately he becomes aware of
the demands of duty upon him. He does not obtain his strength by his own right,
but because he is a part of the whole; and as soon as he is safe from the vibration
of life and can stand unshaken, the outer world cries out to him to come and
labour in it. So with the heart. When it no longer wishes to take, it is called
upon to give abundantly.
"Light on the Path" has
been called a book of paradoxes, and very justly; what else could
it be, when it deals with the actual personal experience of the
disciple?
To have acquired
the astral senses of sight and hearing; or, in other words to have attained
perception and opened the doors of the soul, are gigantic tasks, and may take
the sacrifice of many successive incarnations. And yet, when the will has reached
its strength, the whole miracle may be worked in a second of time. Then is the
disciple the servant of Time no longer.
These two first steps
are negative; that is to say they imply retreat from a present condition of
things rather than advance towards another. The two next are active, implying
the advance into another state of being.
III
THE DEMAND
OF THE NEOPHYTE
"Before
the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters. "
Speech is the power
of communication; the moment of entrance into active life is marked by its attainment.
And now,
before I go any further, let me explain a little the way in which
the rules written down
in "Light on the Path" are arranged. The first seven of those which are numbered
are subdivisions of the two first unnumbered rules, those with which I have
dealt in the two preceding papers. The numbered rules were simply an effort
of mine to make the unnumbered ones more intelligible. "Eight" to "fifteen" of
these numbered rules belong this unnumbered rule which is now my
text.
As I have said, these
rules are written for all disciples, but for none else; they are not of interest
to any other persons. Therefore I trust no one else will trouble to read these
papers any further. The first two rules, which include the whole of that part
of the effort which necessitates the use of the surgeon's knife. But the disciple
is expected to deal with the snake, his lower self, unaided; to suppress his
human passions and emotions by the force of his own will He can only demand
assistance of a Master when this is accomplished, or at all events, partially
so. Otherwise the gates and windows of his soul are blurred, and blinded, and
darkened, and no knowledge can come to him. I am not, in these pages, purposing
to tell a man how to deal with his own soul; I am simply giving, to the disciple,
knowledge. That I am not writing, even now, so that all who run may read, is
owing to the fact that supernature prevents this by its own immutable laws.
The four rules which
I have written down for those in the West who wish to study them, are as I have
said, written in the antechamber of every living Brotherhood; I may add more,
in the antechamber of every living or dead Brotherhood, or Order yet to be formed.
When I speak of a Brotherhood or an Order, I do not mean an arbitrary constitution
made by scholiasts and intellectualists; I mean an actual fact in supernature,
a stage of development towards the absolute God or Good. During this development
the disciple encounters harmony, pure knowledge, pure truth, in different degrees
and, as he enters these degrees, he finds himself becoming part of what might
be roughly described as a layer of human consciousness. He encounters his equals,
men of his own selfless character, and with them his association becomes permanent
and indissoluble, because founded on a vital likeness of Nature. To them he
becomes pledged by such vows as need no utterance or framework in ordinary words.
This is one aspect of what I mean by a Brotherhood.
If the first rules
are conquered the disciple finds himself standing at the threshold. Then if
his will is sufficiently resolute his power of speech comes; a twofold power.
For, as he advances now, he finds himself entering into a state of blossoming,
where every bud that opens throws out its several rays or petals. If he is to
exercise his new gift, he must use it in its twofold character. He finds in
himself the power to speak in the presence of the Masters; in other words, he
has the right to demand contact with the divinest element of that state of consciousness
into which he has entered. But he finds himself compelled, by the nature of
his position, to act in two ways at the same time. He cannot send his voice
up to the heights where sit the gods till he has penetrated to the deep places
where their light shines not at all. He has come within the grip of an iron
law. If he demands to become a Neophyte, he at once becomes a servant. Yet his
service is sublime, if only form the character of those who share it. For the
Masters are also servants; they serve and claim their reward afterwards. Part
of their service is to let their knowledge touch him; his first act of service
is to give some of that knowledge to whose who are not yet fit to stand where
he stands. This is no arbitrary decision, made by any Master or Teacher or any
such person, however divine. It is a law of that life which the disciple has
entered upon.
Therefore
was it written in the inner doorway of the Lodges of the old Egyptian
Brotherhood, "The Labourer is worthy of his hire."
"Ask and ye shall
have," sounds like something too easy and simple to be credible. But the disciple
cannot "ask" in the mystic sense in which the word is used in this
scripture, until he has attained the power of helping others.
Why is this? Has
the statement too dogmatic a sound?
Is it too dogmatic
to say that a man must have foothold before he can spring? The position is the
same. If help is given, if work is done, then there is an actual claim- not
what we call a personal claim of payment, but the claim of co-nature. The divine
give, they demand that you also shall give before you can be of their kin.
This law
is discovered as soon as the disciple endeavours to speak. For
speech is a gift which comes
only to the disciple of power and knowledge. The spiritualist enters
the psychic-astral world, but he does not find there any certain
speech, unless he at once claims
it and continues to do so. If he is interested in "phenomena," or
the mere circumstance and accident of astral life, then he enters
no direct ray of thought or purpose,
he merely exists and amuses himself in the astral life as he has
existed and amused himself in the physical life. Certainly there
are one or two simple lessons
which the psychic-astral can teach him, just as there are simple
lessons which material and intellectual life teach him. And these
lessons have to be learned;
the man who proposes to enter upon the life of the disciple without
having learned the early and simple lessons must always suffer from
his ignorance. They are
vital, and have to be studied in a vital manner; experienced through
and through, over and over again, so that each part of the nature
has been penetrated by
them.
To return. In claiming
the power of speech, as it is called, the Neophyte cries out to the Great One
who stands foremost in the ray of knowledge on which he has entered, to give
him guidance. When he does this, his voice is hurled back by the power he has
approached, and echoes down to the deep recesses of human ignorance. In some
confused and blurred manner the news that there is knowledge and a beneficent
power which teaches, is carried to as many men as will listen to it. No disciple
can cross the threshold without communicating this news, and placing it on record
in some fashion or other.
He stands horror-struck
at the imperfect and unprepared manner in which he has done this, and then comes
the desire to do it well, and with the desire thus to help others comes the
power. For it is a pure desire, this which comes upon him; he can gain no credit,
no glory, no personal reward by fulfilling it. And therefore he obtains the
power to fulfil it.
The history of the
whole past, so far as we can trace it, shows very plainly that there is neither
credit, glory, nor reward to be gained by this first task which is given to
the Neophyte. Mystics have always been sneered at, and seers disbelieved' those
who have had the added power of intellect have left for posterity their written
record, which to most men appears unmeaning and visionary, even when the authors
have the advantage of speaking from a far-off past. The disciple who undertakes
the task, secretly hoping for fame or success, to appear as a teacher and apostle
before the world, fails even before his task is attempted, and his hidden hypocrisy
poisons his own soul, and the souls of those he touches. He is secretly worshiping
himself, and this idolatrous practice must bring its own reward.
The disciple who
has the power of entrance, and is strong enough to pass each barrier, will,
when the divine message comes to his spirit, forget himself utterly in the new
consciousness which falls on him. If this lofty contact can really rouse him,
he becomes as one of the Divine in his desire to give rather than to take, in
his wish to help rather than be helped, in his resolution to feed the hungry
rather than take manna from Heaven himself. His nature is transformed, and the
selfishness which prompts men's actions in ordinary life suddenly deserts him.
IV
THE SECLUSION
OF THE ADEPT
"Before
the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters, it must have
lost the power
to wound."
Those who give a
merely passing and superficial attention to the subject of Occultism- and their
name is legion- constantly inquire why, if Adepts in life exist, they do not
appear in the world and show Their power. That the chief body of these wise
ones should be understood to dwell beyond the fastnesses of the Himalayas, appears
to be a sufficient proof that They are only figures of straw. Otherwise, why
place Them so far off?
Unfortunately,
Nature has done this and not personal choice or arrangement. There
are certain spots
on the earth where the advance of "civilization" is unfelt, and the
nineteen century fever is kept at bay. In these favored places there
is always time,
always opportunity, for the realities of life; they are not crowded
out by the doings of an inchoate, money-loving, pleasure seeking
society. While there are
Adepts upon the earth, the earth must preserve to Them places of
seclusion. This is a fact in Nature which is only an external expression
of a profound
fact in supernature.
The demand
of the Neophyte remains unheard until the voice in which it is
uttered has lost the
power to wound. This is because the divine-astral life is a place
in which order reigns, just as it does in natural life. There
is, of course, always the centre and the circumference as there is
in Nature. Close to the central heart of life, on any plane, there
is knowledge, there
order reigns completely; and chaos makes dim and confused the outer
margin of the circle. In fact, life in every form bears a more
or less strong resemblance
to a philosophic school. There are always the devotes of knowledge
who forget their own lives in their pursuit of it; there are always
the flippant crowd
who come and go- Of such, Epictetus said that it was as easy to teach
them philosophy as to eat custard with a fork. The same state exists
in the super-astral life;
and the adept has an even deeper and more profound seclusion there
in which to dwell. This place of retreat is so safe, so sheltered,
that no sound which
has discord in it can reach His ears. Why should this be, will be
asked at once, if he be a being of such great powers as those say
who believe in his existence?
The answer seems very apparent. He serves humanity and identifies
Himself with the whole world; he is ready to make vicarious sacrifice
for it at any moment- by living not by dying for it. Why should He not die for it? Because
He is a part of the great whole, and one of the most valuable parts of it. Because
He lives under laws of order which He does not desire to break. His life is
not His own, but that of the forces which work behind Him. He is the flower
of Humanity, the bloom which contains the Divine Seed. He is, in His own person,
a treasure of the universal Nature, which is guarded and made safe in order
that the fruition shall be perfected. It is only at definite periods of the
world's history that He is allowed to go among the herd of men as their Redeemer.
But for those who have the power to separate themselves from this herd He is
always at hand. And for those who are strong enough to conquer the vices of
the personal human nature, as set forth in these four rules, He is consciously
at hand, easily recognized, ready to answer.
But this
conquering of self implies a destruction of qualities which most
men regard as not only
indestructible but desirable. The "power to wound" includes much
that man value, not only in themselves, but in others. The instinct
of self-defence and of self-preservation
is part of it; the idea that one has any right or rights, either
as citizen, or man, or individual, the pleasant consciousness of
self-respect and of virtue.
These are hard sayings to many; yet they are true. For these words
that I am writing now, and those which I have written on this subject,
are not in any
sense my own. They are drawn from the traditions of the Lodge of
the Great Brotherhood, which was once the secret splendour of Egypt.
The rules written in its antechamber
were the same as those now written in the antechamber of existing
schools. Through all time the wise men have lived apart from the
mass. And even when some temporary
purpose or object induces one of Them to come into the midst of human
life, His seclusion and safety are preserved as completely as ever.
It is part of
His inheritance, part of His position, he has an actual title to
it, and can no more put it aside that the Duke of Westminster can
say he does not choose
to be the Duke of Westminster. In the various great cities of the
world an Adept lives for a while from time to time, or perhaps only
passes through; but all
are occasionally aided by the actual power and presence of one of
these men. Here in London, as in Paris and St Petersburg, there are
men high in development.
But They are only known as mystics by those who have the power to
recognize; the power given by the conquering of self. Otherwise how
could They exist, even
for an hour, in such a mental and psychic atmosphere as is created
by the confusion and disorder of a city? Unless protected and made
safe Their own growth would
be interfered with, Their work injured. And the Neophyte may meet
an Adept in the flesh, may live in the same house with Him, and yet
be unable to recognize
Him, and unable to make his own voice heard by Him. For no nearness
in space, no closeness of relations, no daily intimacy, can do away
with the inexorable
laws which give the Adept his seclusion. No voice penetrates to His
inner hearing till it has become a divine voice, a voice which gives
no utterance to the cries
of self. Any lesser appeal would be as useless, as much a waste of
energy and power, as for mere children who are learning their alphabet
to be taught it
by a professor of philology. Until a man has become, in heart and
spirit, a disciple, he has no existence for those who are Teachers
of disciples. And he
becomes this by one method only- the surrender of his personal humanity.
For the voice to
have lost the power to wound, a man must have reached that point where he sees
himself only as one of the vast multitudes that live; of the sands washed hither
and thither by the sea of vibratory existence. It is said that every grain of
sand in the ocean bed does, in its turn, get washed up on the shore and lie
for a moment in the sunshine. So with human beings, they are driven hither and
thither by a great force, and each, in his turn, finds the sun rays on him.
When a man is able to regard his own life as part of a whole like this he will
no longer struggle in order to obtain anything for himself. This is the surrender
of personal rights. The ordinary man expects, not to take equal fortunes with
the rest of the world, but in some points about which he cares, to fare better
than the others. The disciple does not expect this. Therefore, though he be,
like Epictetus, a chained slave, he has no word to say about it. He knows that
the wheel of life turns ceaselessly. Burnes-Jones has shown it ,in his marvelous
picture; the wheel turns, and on it are bound the rich and the poor, the great
and the small; each has moment of good fortune when the wheel brings him uppermost;
the King rises and falls, the poet is feted and forgotten, the slave
is happy and afterwards discarded. Each in his turn is crushed as the wheel
turns on. The disciple knows that this is so, and though it is his duty to make
the utmost of the life that is his, he neither complains of it nor is elated
by it, nor does he complain against the better fortune of others. All alike,
as he well knows, are but learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist
and the reformer who endeavour by sheer force to rearrange circumstances which
arise out of the forces of human nature itself. This is but kicking against
the pricks; a waste of life and energy.
In realizing this
a man surrenders his imagined individual rights, of whatever sort. That takes
away one keen sting which is common to all ordinary men.
When the disciple
has fully recognized that the very thought of individual rights is only the
outcome of the venomous quality in himself, that it is the hiss of the snake
of self which poisons with its sting his own life and the lives of those about
him, then he is ready to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open to all
Neophytes who are prepared for it. All weapons of defence and offence are given
up; all weapons of mind and heart, and brain, and spirit. Never again can another
man be regarded as a person who can be criticized or condemned; never again
can the Neophyte raise his voice in self-defense or excuse. From that ceremony
he returns into the world as helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born child.
That, indeed, is what he is. He has begun to be born again on to the higher
plane of life, that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence the eyes see intelligently
and regard the world with a new insight.
I have said, a little
way back, that after parting with the sense of individual rights, the disciple
must part also with the sense of self-respect and of virtue. This may sound
a terrible doctrine, yet all Occultists know well that it is not a doctrine,
but a fact. He who thinks himself holier than another, he who has any pride
in his own exemption from vice or folly, he who believes himself wise, or in
any way superior to his fellow men, is incapable of discipleship. A man must
become as a little child before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Virtue and wisdom
are sublime things; but if they create pride and a consciousness of separateness
from the rest of humanity in the mind of a man, then they are only the snake
of self reappearing in a finer form. At any moment he may put on his grosser
shape and sting as fiercely as when he inspired the actions of a murderer who
kills for gain or hatred, or a politician who sacrifices the mass for his own
or his party's interests.
In fact, to have
lost the power to wound, implies that the snake is not only scotched, but killed.
When it is merely stupefied or lulled to sleep it awakes again and the disciple
uses his knowledge and his power for his own ends, and is a pupil of the many
masters of the Black Art, for the road to destruction is very broad and easy,
and the way can be found blindfold. That it is the way to destruction is evident,
for when a man begins to live for self he narrows his horizon steadily till
at last the fierce driving inwards leaves him but the space of a pin's head
to dwell in. We have all seen this phenomenon occur in ordinary life. A man
who becomes selfish isolates himself, grows less interesting and less agreeable
to others. The sight is an awful one, and people shrink from a very selfish
person at last, as from a best of prey. How much more awful is it when it occurs
on the more advanced plane of life, with the added powers of knowledge, and
through the greater sweep of successive incarnations!
Therefore I say,
pause and think well upon the threshold. For if the demand of the neophyte is
made without the complete purification it will not penetrate the seclusion of
the Divine Adept, but will evoke the terrible forces which attend upon the black
side of our human nature.
-V-
"Before
the soul can stand in the presence of the masters its feet must
be washed in
the blood of the heart."
The word
soul, as used here, means the Divine Soul, or "starry Spirit."
"To be able to stand
is to have confidence;" and to have confidence means that the disciple is sure
of himself, that he has surrendered his emotions, his very self, even his humanity;
that he is incapable of fear and unconscious of pain; that his whole consciousness
is centered in the Divine Life, which is expressed symbolically by the term
"the Masters;" that he has neither eyes, nor ears, nor speech, nor
power, save in and for the divine ray on which his highest sense
has touched. Then is he
fearless, free from suffering, free from anxiety or dismay; his soul
stands without shrinking or desire of postponement, in the full blaze
of the Divine
Light which penetrates through and through his being. Then he has
come into his inheritance and can claim his kinship with the Teachers
of men; he is upright,
he has raised his head, he breathes the same air that They do.
But before it is
in any way possible for him to do this, the feet of the soul must be washed
in the blood of the heart.
The sacrifice,
or surrender of the heart of man, and its emotions, is the first
of the rules;
it involves the "attaining of an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal
emotion." This is done by the stoic philosopher; he, too, stands
aside and looks equably upon his own sufferings, as well as on those
of others.
In the
same way that "tears" in the language of Occultists expresses the soul of emotion, not its
material appearance, so blood expresses not that blood which is an essential
of physical life, but the vital creative principle in man's nature, which drives
him into human life in order to experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow.
When he has let the blood flow from the heart he stands before the Masters as
a pure spirit which no longer wishes to incarnate for the sake of emotion and
experience. Through great cycles of time successive incarnations in gross matter
may yet be his lot; but he no longer desires them, the crude wish to live has
departed from him. When he takes upon him man's form in the flesh he does it
in the pursuit of a divine object, to accomplish the work of "the Masters," and
for no other end. He looks neither for pleasure nor pain, asks for
no heaven, and fears no hell; yet he has entered upon a great inheritance,
which is not
so much a compensation for these things surrendered, as a state which
simply blots out the memory of them. He lives now not in the world,
but with it; his
horizon has extended itself to the width of the whole universe.
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INTRODUCTION
Occult tradition
has it that where is the Atlantic Ocean today there once existed the great continent
of Atlantis. Tales of the wisdom possessed by the Atlanteans and of their material
grandeur came to the Greeks through the priests of Egypt, and Plato in his Timaeus
and Critias makes mention of this lost land. Its last remnant
sank under the waves in 9564 B.C. Creating a devastating tidal wave
that left behind in
men's memories the tale of a Flood that drowned every creature "that moved
upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of very creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man".
Many thousands of
years before this cataclysm, however, Atlantis was at the height of its civilization,
and the capital city of the Atlantean empire was known far and wide as the City
of the Golden Gate, from a gate of gold in it that was the emblem of the power
of its emperors. In this city there ruled for ages a dynasty of Perfect Men
known to tradition as the Divine Rulers of the Golden Gate.
These Divine Rulers
of the Golden Gate were, in the key-dey of Atlantean culture, Adepts and Initiates
of the Great Brotherhood; not only were they men with wisdom and power to direct
the destinies of the mighty Atlantean empire, they were also sages versed in
the Divine Mysteries. During the period of their rule in Atlantis, they formed
a collection of mystical and occult treatises, some written by the Divine Rulers
themselves, and others by the initiated Priest of Atlantis. These works, of
profoundest philosophy and highest spirituality, were copied and translated
into the languages of the various peoples that were governed by the Divine Rulers
in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. With the passing away of the dynasty of
the Divine Rulers began the decadence of Atlantis, and the treatises slowly
disappeared one by one. Yet not all the treatises. Fragments of some still remain
in the ancient literature of China and India.
Among the texts of
Taoism in China, there is to be found an exquisite fragment known as The
Classic of Purity. It gives the essence of a philosophical
system later known as Taoism, whose last historical exponent was
Lao Tse in the fifth century
B.C. The scribe Ko Hsuan says of this work: "I got from the Divine Ruler
of the eastern Hwa; he received it from the Divine Ruler of the Golden Gate;
he received it from the Royal Mother of the West". (Texts of Taoism,
translated by James Legge, Vol. 40, Sacred Books of the East.
The treatise
expounds the mystery of the Tao, "the Way" the Heart of all Being, the Logos.
From far off Atlantis thus we hear of the Tao: "The great Tao has no bodily
form, but It produced and nourishes heaven and earth. The Great Tao has no passions,
but It causes the sun and the moon to revolve as they do. The Great Tao has
no name, but It affects the growth and maintenance of all things. I do not know
Its name, but I make an effort, and call It the Tao".
Fragments
of other Atlantean treatises are to be found as the nucleus of
some of the most ancient
Upanishads of India. Wherever in them we hear of Tat, "That", the
Absolute Being, we find the teaching of Atlantis, which later the Aryan Hindus
assimilated with their polydaemonism of Varuna, Mitra, Indra and the other gods,
thus giving rise to the heno-theism so characteristic of India. Thus in the
Katha Upanishad, we have Atlantean fragments: "One thing is the right,
while the sweet is another; these two tie a man to objects apart. Of the twain,
it is well for who taketh the right one; who chooseth the sweet, goes wide of
the aim. The right and the sweet come unto a mortal; the wise sifts the two
and sets them apart. For, right unto sweet the wise one preferreth; the fool
taketh sweet to hold and retain". "The singer is not born, nor dies
He ever; He came not anywhence nor anything was He. Unborn, eternal, everlasting,
this, ancient; unslain He remains though the body he slain. If slayer things
he slays, if slain thinks he is slain, both these known naught; this slays not
nor is slain". (Mead and Chatterji's translation).
Another
fragment of a treatise probably forms the first recension of the
Bhagavat Gita, that
part of the poem which speaks of the Absolute super-personally as "That",
"He", "The Man", in contradistinction to that
other part that identifies the Absolute with Shri Krishna, an incarnated
Divine Hero.
Yet another treatise
of the Divine Rulers of the Golden Gate we have in the oldest and original nucleus
of the present work, Light on the Path. This original nucleus consisted
of thirty aphorisms or rules, each a text for philosophical expositions, containing
in a condensed form many principles of life and conduct for the aspirant and
the Initiate. Copies of this treatise, as too of all the other treatises of
the Divine Rulers, have been preserved by the Adept Brotherhood in their museums
for the use of themselves and their pupils.
Light on the Path
as it
now stands consists of three elements,distinguished in the present edition by
three kinds of type.
1- The
oldest part, the original thirty rules, is printed in large type.
These thirty rules from
far off Atlantis were later translated into archaic Sanskrit, and
were then written down on ten palm leaves, having on each of the
leaves three of the rules.
Then one of the Masters of Wisdom, known among us as "The Venetian",
when He lived in Alexandria in the third century A.D., Transcribed
them into
Greek for the use of His pupils. Among these pupils was Iamblichus,
known to us in His present incarnation as the Master Hilarion.
2- The Venetian Master
of Alexandria, in transcribing from Sanskrit into Greek, added to the rules
certain introductory remarks and explanations. These form the second element
of the book and are printed in the smaller Roman type.
Early
in the year 1885, the Master Hilarion caused to be written in English
through "M.C.",
Then a leading member of the London Lodge of the young Theosophical
Society, the original thirty rules and the explanations given Him
by His teacher in far
off days. M.C. (Mabel Collins), a lady of much literary ability,had
from past lives earned the privilege, and it fell to her lot to
be a channel for a work
the Master Hilarion desired to do for the world through The Theosophical
Society. Each rule with its explanations was presented, in the
form of a many dimensional
concept, before the mind of M.C., who, then, in full waking consciousness,
but nevertheless under the Master's guidance, wrote down in English
as we have them
now. Light on the Path was then published, and bore on the
title page the following words: "Light on the Path- A Treatise written for the personal
use of those who are ignorant of the Eastern wisdom, and who desire to enter
within its influence. Written down by M.C., a Fellow of The Theosophical Society".
Immediately on its
publication,the Theosophists hailed it as a masterpiece and a priceless contribution
to Theosophical literature,and we find a prominent Theosophist,the late Judge
P. Sreenavas Row of Madras, writing a series of annotations to the work in The
Theosophist of June 1885, and in subsequent issues.
3- Almost immediately
after the publication of Light on the Path, the Master Hilarion
once more gave to the world through M.C. some additional teaching,
explanatory of
what He had already given. This is the third element in the book
and is printed in italics. The Master Hilarion's additions are known
as the "Notes",
and for the first edition they were printed separately; in the second edition
the "Notes" were printed in their appropriate places in
the body of the book.
The present reprint,except
for difference of type to distinguish the three sources, follows the text of
this second edition, which in America was the first edition of the work.
Later
M.C. herself wrote a series of "Comments" to the book;
they will be found in some editions of Light on the Path, but,
valuable though they no doubt are to the student,they are not embodied
in this edition, as in our judgment and
that of older students they do not altogether reflect the spirit
of the great Teachers to whom we owe the original thirty rules,the
elucidations on them,
and the "Notes".
The composite character
of Light on the Path will be clearly seen by each student. He will note
that usually three brief rules come one after another, followed by a fourth
long rule, which is a commentary on the three that precede it. Indeed it will
be found that each of the three brief rules, it it is to be fully understood,must
be taken with that part referring to it in the fourth longer rule,with the addition
of some word that forms a connecting link, thus:
"1- Kill out
ambition, (but) work as those work who are ambitious. 2- Kill out desire of
life, (but) respect life as those do who desire it. 3- Kill out desire of comfort,
(but) be happy as those who desire it. 13. Desire power ardently. And that power
which the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing
in the eyes of men. 14. Desire peace fervently. The peace you shall desire is
that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul grows as
does the holy flower upon the still lagoons 15. Desire possessions above all.
But those possessions must belong to the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore
by all pure souls equally, and thus be the especial property of the whole only
when united. Hunger for such possessions as can be held by the pure soul, that
you may accumulate wealth for that united spirit of life which is your only
true self".
There exists another
work by M.C. written under the direction of the Master Hilarion,and reference
is made to it by Him at the end of Part I of Light on the Path in
these words: "Regard the three truths. They are equal".
These three truths are in Chapter VIII of Book II of The Idyll of
the White lotus.
In Light on the
Path as we have it today there are forty-two rules, with explanations
and notes. They are divided into two groups of twenty-one rules each.
Part I, with
the first twenty-one rules, deals with the life of the aspirant "in the
Outer Court". They are "the first of the rules which are written on
the walls of the Hall of Learning". The Hall of Learning is
a symbolic phrase used in another mystic work, The Voice
of the Silence, to describe the astral world and the states of consciousness
appropriate to that realm of being.
Part II
of the work will be understood in its fullest significance only
by those who are the accepted
disciples of a Master of the Wisdom, and have "entered upon the Path".
It contains instructions on the life of the Initiate on his upward
way, till,
become more than man and on the threshold of divinity, he passes
to become himself a Master of the Wisdom.
The exquisite fragment
on Karma, which follows Light on the Path,
is from the Venetian Master, though also written down by M.C..
It too has the indescribable spiritual quality of the larger manual
and reveals to us some
glimpses of the light of the "Grail".
What Parsifal
is to lovers of music, that Light on the Path is to aspiring souls-
a never-ending source of inspiration and wonder. They both proclaim that gospel
of gospels that teaches men to seek God, not for a life of blessedness in heaven
, but for one of service on earth lifting a little of the heavy Karma of the
world.
C.JINARADASA. Past
international president of The Theosophical Society
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