BE
YE PERFECT
ΔΔ
by Geoffrey
Hodson
CONTENTS
Preface
Part I
FROM
THE UNREAL TO THE REAL
Chapter
1- The Babe
Chapter 2- From Birth to Ten Years Old
Chapter 3- The Principles of Education
Chapter 4- From Ten to Twenty Years
Chapter 5- From Twenty to Forty Years
Chapter 6- From Forty to Eighty Years
Part II
THE
THREE PATHS
Chapter
7- The Way of Will
Chapter 8- The Way of Knowledge
Chapter 9- The Way of Love
PREFACE
THIS book is the second
of the series containing the teachings received from the angel who inspired
the volume entitled The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men.
Though some may dismiss
these present teachings as being entirely impracticable, I nevertheless offer
them for consideration because I believe that they contain much that is of value
and significance at the present time, when the changing race-consciousness
is finding old methods of education inadequate, and new ones are everywhere
sought.
The errors and deficiencies
of the book are due to my lack of competence to receive the angel's teaching
in all its clarity and beauty; my hope is that gleams of the light of his wisdom
may find their way through the darkness of my limitations and may serve to illumine
the minds that are open to receive them; and particularly those responsible
for the upbringing of the children of the new age.
Only broad outlines
are sketched in this volume, offered now at the dawn of a new day in the evolution
of race-consciousness; more detailed teaching may be expected as the sun
climbs towards his zenith, for then human and angel consciousness will be united
to form one splendid channel for the power, the wisdom, and the knowledge of
That which is their common source. Human vehicles of consciousness will then
have evolved a degree of refinement and responsiveness in which the new powers
resulting from the fusion may be adequately expressed.
The angel has endeavoured
to indicate the main principles and the ideal influences by means of which man
may be enabled to develop to their full perfection the God-like capacities
to which every son of man is heir ; hence the title : " Be Ye Perfect."
Geoffrey Hodson
PART I
FROM THE UNREAL TO THE REAL
CHAPTER
I
THE BABE
THE babe is a symbol
of a new-born universe; it's first breath represents the breath of God
as He breathes upon the face of the waters and its first cry the music of the
voice of God, the sound of the Creative Word. The first breath and cry of the
babe are the divine messages which he brings from God to man.
The babe comes straight
from the Creator; he is a messenger of God, the most heavenly thing on earth
and nearest of all things to the Divine.
The babe comes from
the past and passes through the mother's womb on his way to the future. At birth,
the past shines all about him, as the glory of the setting sun; the future he
holds in his hands. Past, present and future form the trinity of his Godhead.
The babe is born in
order to unite the past, present and future. The goal of every human life is
to know past, present and future as one; to the fulfilment of this destiny everything
must be subordinated.
Down to the moment of
birth the babe is in the hands of God and by Him everything is subordinated
to the fulfilment of his destiny. At birth the child is delivered from the hands
of God into the hands of man; man must lead him back to God. The reason for
his pilgrimage, the motive of his voluntary imprisonment in the flesh is that
he may find the way from God and, through the material worlds, back to God.
The difference between
the outgoing and the return is that as he goes forth, the hands of God support
him; as he returns he supports himself. The lesson he learns is to release the
power of God within himself, that he may walk alone. Having learned, he delivers
himself once more into the hands which brought him forth, which guarded him
invisibly and which now he fills with precious gifts of gold, of frankincense,
of myrrh, symbols of the trinity within, whose triple powers he has used to
conquer the material worlds and has translated into will and love and thought;
these are the powers by which he reigns supreme throughout the worlds of form.
His destiny fulfilled,
at last he kneels before his Father's throne ; the gifts with which his Father
sent him forth, those precious jewels, hidden deep within his heart, are now
effulgent rays of life, shining resplendent from the crown upon his kingly brow.
He stands at His right hand, no longer child, no longer man, but child and man
grown into God, his Father's equal and his Father's self.
This is the purpose,
aim, and end of all that happens to the babe; to this should all things be subordinate.
As the child, symbol
of the new-born universe, proceeds along his destined road, his progress
and his growth must be entrusted to the wisdom of the life within, not ordered
by a power from without. Despite the teachings of an ancient race, God does
not interfere. He Who filled the form with life, knows well that no harm can
come to that life, whatever happens to the form. He helps continually from
within by the rhythmic impulse of the beating of His heart. At certain cyclic
epochs of the universal and the human life, He pours forth an added power, illumines
with an added light, quickens with an impulse from His will. By this He stimulates
the universal soul, knowing that eventually the impulse will find expression
in the form.
So should the parent
cherish the child, seeking ever to illumine and strengthen the soul and leaving
it free to use the added power for mastery of form. Therefore both the parents
should concentrate their aid upon the soul in the child. Only such things as
infancy and impotence prevent it doing for itself, should be performed for the
body; every tendency towards self-help should be watched for, fostered,
and encouraged, the ideal being to withdraw external aid in all things so soon
as development permits.
The child must step
forward into the world unhindered by too much guidance, unfettered by too much
care. Even if at first he falls, let him rise alone, do not seek too soon to
wipe away the childish tears; thus accustom him early to walk alone, interfering
only when real danger approaches too closely. It is not well to stimulate the
growth of habit, of childish idiosyncrasy; these limit the soul by making grooves
through which the life-force learns to run, forming a personal character
too soon.
Remembering his own
childhood, the parent will encourage the babe to observe, and so will institute
early in its life the growth of faculty and of knowledge, that the teacher may
find rich material on which to work, when the child shall come to him as a pupil.
The greatest gift with
which the parents can provide the soul to help him in his task of regaining
the technique of life imprisoned in a form, is freedom; freedom of mind, of
feeling and of action. In every nursery this should be the rule, that the child
should have freedom. Freedom of body, not enwrapped by oppressive clothing which
shuts out the air from his skin; freedom to crawl and kick and walk whenever
the impulse arises. Freedom of feeling, not encompassed by a love that is too
personal; not shut in by another's sense of possession of the form; rather should
the parent be irradiated by a love, mingled with reverence, which recognises
the privilege of parenthood, of receiving the wondrous messenger, direct from
the hands of God. Freedom of mind, that the mental form may grow according to
the pattern of the soul within, and not be shaped by the prejudices and limitations,
or even by the acquired knowledge of those of greater age in worlds of form.
Thus shall the ego find
no hindrance to the full expression of the many faculties he brings from many
births and deaths. Thus, to the man, shall parenthood be a source of continual
joy, a field of selfless service, an experience which shall enrich the content
of his soul.
CHAPTER II
FROM
BIRTH TO TEN YEARS OLD
THE periods of man's
life, from birth to death, are marked by tens of years. During each period a
special kind of life should be lived, suited exactly to the needs of the developing
body and mind.
The first ten years
should be devoted entirely to growth; every experience should lead to expansion
of mind, of feeling and of body. The lifeforce is pouring into the triple man-to-be,
in all its abundance; let nothing stem its flow. Every cell must receive it,
so that every organ may be quickened and every sense developed to the full.
During this period the child must represent embodied life-force; later,
he will represent embodied mind and finally embodied spirit. The inrush of the
vital power is the dominant characteristic of the first ten years and gives
the child his periods of tireless activity, drives him on to exercise and use
the growing faculties, that later he may develop the spring-like resilience
of muscle and of sinew. No limit should be put upon that active self-expression;
the child should be allowed to tire himself and then to sleep in open air until
his life-force is renewed.
The early years consist
of alternating periods of activity and rest; their length should not be governed
by any rule imposed from without; the resurgent life within will determine
the time which each demands. The child should play till he is tired, lie down
and sleep until refreshed, then play again ; play and rest, the twin companions
of the first ten years, form, with nourishment, a trinity of essentials.
Nature should be his
only teacher until the age of ten and play his only "work." The lessons
he will learn in Nature's school are twofold: to observe and to express. No
pressure should be brought to bear to make him catalogue or memorise. The child
should not be asked to repeat, for repetition dulls the brain setting a limit
to the power of observation, the capacity for comprehension and to the addition
of new experiences; it turns into a single groove the energy which must be free
to flow through every channel which thought, feeling and action can provide.
The rule of the first ten years is to let the life-force flow free and
unfettered and to use external influence only to guard from harm.
The growing body should
not be too closely enwrapped; the clothing must be light, allowing the vital
force to take its part in generating heat; there must be no pressure on the
skin at any point, other than that of the child's own weight, and the movement
of the limbs must be left free. Head, hands and feet should be left uncovered,
neck and throat should be bare; these are the vital points of the body during
the earlier years. The child, as far as possible, should live out of doors.
All children have affinity
with trees whose life-force they absorb and whose greenery is beneficial
to the growing form. The child should learn to love the trees, to greet them
as his friends, to know the saplings as his playmates, the old trees as his
god-parents.
The trees may be the
teacher of the child; from them he will learn all that he need know of birth,
of death, of strength and straightness, of sheltering service and of poise;
of bending to a force which, erect, may not be withstood; of seeds and their
begetting, of birds and insects who share with him the service of the trees.
He should sleep in hammocks swung from their branches, with air and vitality
flowing freely about him. He should play round their trunks ; their branches
and their leaves should shelter him from rain. Next to his human guardians and
his invisible friends, the trees are his most valuable companions. From the
first, he should approach them as living, breathing and conscious beings, friends
who know him well and speak to him with swaying branch and rustling leaves;
left to himself he will learn to interpret their speech. At the same time, the
need for sunshine must be borne in mind.
In these years the
child will benefit from the companionship of animals and of other children.
No child should spend his first ten years separated from these three; trees,
animals and others of his own age.
No limit should be set
to the play of his imagination, other than the correction of deliberate falsehood
in the world of objective fact. His teaching should be of one kind only, he
should be taught to observe. There is no need to fill his mind with names and
words, nor much necessity to aid the drawing of conclusions; he must be left
free to learn these things for himself. Let knowledge sink, and not be driven,
into his mind; trust the childish intuition and the guidance of the higher self
to make the most of all that he observes.
The human life and love
with which he is surrounded must tend to make him impersonal. From the very
first he must see that, like the animals, the trees and birds, he is but part
of the scheme, a unit of no greater importance than any other. The greatest
gift of character with which he could emerge from the first ten years of his
life is that of impersonality; can he but preserve it through his later years,
he will be saved from many sorrows.
Affection for the child
must show itself in wise and loving care, and most of all, in self-restraint
in all things with which he is concerned; on no occasion should he receive the
sense of special privilege, even when ill; though all things needful are provided,
they should be as means to cure the illness, not as special gifts or privilege
to the child; he should not know the meaning of personal privilege.
The only rules with
which his life in early days must be governed, are those necessitated by consideration
for the welfare of the community; to them he must readily subscribe; he will
learn them quickly, if taught to notice their observance in animals, birds and
trees. The reason for restriction, if need of it arise, should always be to
safeguard the general well-being of the whole; action should be regarded
as right or wrong, according to that rule.
Thus the first ten years
should be passed in growing, in observing and in becoming impersonal; then he
is ready to learn.
CHAPTER III
THE
PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
THE principle by which
the teaching of the child should be governed, is that all knowledge is available
to him as soon as he is capable of acquiring it. Thus, schooling should have
as its object to train him to acquire knowledge, to develop in him the capacity
for obtaining any knowledge which he requires. Knowledge itself, as an object
of learning, is not the goal of education; that goal is the development of faculty
and the acquiring of wisdom.
Education should be
accompanied by meditation. Meditation should be so designed as to be progressive
in its nature, both as regards the age of the student and the levels of consciousness
attained. He cannot be educated until the channels through which he will acquire
knowledge are open; they can only be opened by meditation.
The levels of consciousness,
their characteristics, the vehicles by which they are employed, the means whereby
the consciousness can be focussed in any one of them at will, must become familiar
to the student in the early years of his school life. The principles and laws
of natural science must be studied arid applied to life and to consciousness,
so that the scholar may quickly discover that his own nature and that of the
world in which he lives, are governed by exact laws.
Principles, rather
than facts, must be the object of study. The practice of confronting the mind
of the scholar with great collections of facts, is a hindrance to the development
of his faculty for acquiring knowledge. It is a crudity which must disappear
from future methods, for both mind and brain are blunted by a plethora of facts;
rather should they be stimulated, quickened and illumined by the discovery of
principles. One principle realised, in all its perfection, is of more value
than a thousand facts.
The most obvious fact
in the world of form portrays but a fragment of the truth of the principle of
which it is an expression. Facts chain the mind to the illusion of separateness,
principles uplift it towards a realisation of unity. As the relation of facts
and phenomena to each other may lead to the discovery of a principle, so the
study of principles will lead to the realisation of unity, which is the highest
illumination of which the human mind is capable.
The aim of education
is the development of pure reason, of capacity for abstract calculation and
of will. The few but necessary facts which the student must learn, must not
be memorised; they must be meditated upon, until the principle which underlies
them is revealed. When many principles have thus been discovered, further and
deeper meditation will reveal their unity, whereupon a perfect comprehension
of the chain of causation, from inception to objective expression, will be gained.
A practical application
of this might be employed with success as follows: the student or class (if
the latter, it should be small, and consist of those of like temperament, mutual
ideals and between whom there is personal affection), should be given a series
of facts capable of co-ordination, which express a common principle. The
facts chosen may be historical, psychological, scientific, political, mathematical
or artistic ; the student should meditate upon them, and, raising his consciousness
to the highest level he has yet learned to reach, seek to discover the common
principle.
The teacher should
also meditate, taking care not to influence the mind, feeling or brain of his
charges and should endeavour to assist them to gain self-illumination
from the super-mental or intuitional levels; the student must continue
to meditate until he finds the principle, no matter how long it may take. When
a number of principles have been discovered in this way, those which do not
present difficulties of coordination beyond the attainments of the students
should be collected and made the subject of a further meditation, until illumination
is gained.
In one direction only
should the student be made to feel the pressure of the curriculum of the school;
he must be trained to extreme and scrupulous accuracy of thought; accuracy of
feeling and of action following as a natural corollary. From accuracy of thought
springs precision of action, and these two are essential, both for the acquirement
of wisdom and its expression in life.
The effort of the teacher
must ever be to lead the pupil to the source of knowledge, which is wisdom.
That source is no external library in any world; it is the encyclopedic wisdom
stored in the treasure-house of the soul. It is dual in its nature, consisting
of the garnered harvestings of a thousand cycles of life in worlds of form.
The wisdom which he has wrested from life, the fruits of his pilgrimage, the
essence which he has distilled from sorrow and from joy, the precious attar
from every rose which blossomed in his heart, life after life, is the treasure
of the soul, priceless and indestructible; it is the vision splendid, the glory
of the heavenly man, the jewel in his Father's crown.
The symbol by which
this wisdom may be represented is that of two long-petalled flowers connected
by a sphere, one pointing to the heavens, the other to the earth below, the
sphere mid-way between; the downward pointing petals golden and green,
with a shining heart of palest yellow, the sphere a silver ball, the upward
pointing petals gleaming white. The lower flower is formed by the radiance of
the wisdom of the soul stored in the sphere; it shines down upon and envelops
the enlightened man; the higher is also formed by the radiance from the sphere;
its upward flowing light becomes the bright chalice into which the wisdom of
the Father, the wine of the Logos, will flow.
As the wisdom of man
is the essence of every experience of planetary life, so the wisdom of the Father
is the essence of every experience of universal life; the wisdom of the Supreme
is the spiritual wine by which, alone, the soul of man may be refreshed; it
is the nectar of the gods, the sacred ambrosia; it is also the life-blood
of the universe.
As man wins wisdom through
many lives, in diverse forms and worlds, so God gains universal wisdom through
many solar systems, through many universes. As God treads the mighty spiral
of His evolutionary pathway, through the worlds and systems which He brings
forth, maintains, and destroys in the vast procession of that continuous creation
of which His wondrous life consists, the fruit of His many gardens throughout
space is Wisdom. He is the Tree, which ever grows in the eternal Eden of the
universe; Adam is man's lower self, Eve his higher; the serpent is the teacher,
the symbol of wisdom; neither Eve nor Adam sinned, they sought wisdom. The serpent
is successively the teacher of the growing man, the Guru of the soul, and later
the initiator and illuminator who fills the upward pointing chalice with the
wisdom of the Father, so that in the sphere wisdom of man and of God are mingled;
thus is man's wisdom dual. The sphere is Eden's apple, the fruit of the knowledge
of good and evil.
The teacher should keep
this symbol ever before his mental eye; it would be well to paint and carve
and model it, and set it up as ornament in every room where the sacred rite
of teaching is performed. Meditation on the Tree, growing amid the fair beauties
of Eden, on the man, the woman, and the snake, will aid both teacher and pupil
in their complementary tasks of directing towards, and reaching, wisdom.
CHAPTER IV
FROM
TEN TO TWENTY YEARS
THE years from ten to
twenty must be spent in initiating the search for wisdom under the guidance
of the teacher; it is the age of the bird in man, the period when he is learning
to stretch forth his wings and soar towards the lofty realms, the illimitable
heights of pure reason. Within himself he must find the bird, whose wings will
bear him thither. He is not yet animal and man, he is bird and man; from the
age of ten to twenty years he must bestride the bird of his soul.
Before he enters the
period of animal man, in which he can no longer fly, he should know no touch
of passion; the creative urge should not descend into the flesh, until his first
flying-time is passed. He must learn the principles of creation, but not
experience the facts. Creative force, thus stored and not expressed, will give
intense virility of body and of mind; he will be strong, yet pure; it is the
ideal time for flight, the time in which the soul may use her wings. The body
also must be birdlike in its growth, lithe, active and light ; strong, not with
the strength of weight and size, of muscle and of bone, but with the vital energy
of abundant nerve-force; it must be trained to a lightning swiftness of
obedience to the will, of answer by the limbs to impulse through the brain.
At this time he must
develop skill of hand, and eye, and brain, swift accuracy, exact judgment of
pace or swing, of distance and of height, of movement and of weight. All these
he best may gain among the trees, which he may climb, even to the topmost branches,
learning to swing, agile and graceful, from stem to stem.
There is no better playground,
no finer gymnasium in all the world, than a great wood of tall old trees, of
beech, of oak and fir; here he may play, till the body becomes birdlike in the
skill and certainty with which it swings through the air, arid moves among the
trees. In these years, the symbol he should keep before his mind is that of
the bird, which he should seek to emulate as far as a human body will allow;
learning silence and swiftness of movement, the perfected instinct of direction,
the mastery of the element in which he lives, the perfect development of all
his powers.
At the same time he
must develop the capacity for inward flight, for moving from fact to principle,
from principle to wisdom, and gain the habit of seeking the essence rather than
the form, of discriminating between the temporal, the external, the unreal,
and the eternal. He must acquire a thirst for the real.
When he has gained familiarity
with the vestures of his soul, his vehicles of flesh, of feeling, and of mind,
and has learned to know himself a thing apart, at once their ruler and their
life, he enters freely and at will into the formless worlds.
He has laid the foundation
of the temple, which he will complete in later years, and he has acquired the
faculties, which he may perfect before he dies; he has seen the vision by which
his life must be ruled, he knows the purpose of his being, he has planted within
his heart the seeds of wisdom. Though the time may come soon when he may fold
his wings and concentrate upon another aspect of his being, yet the seeds will
germinate; silently they will grow. Once more, in later years, the wings will
be unfolded, and having borne the boy and rested for awhile, will become strong
enough to bear the man in his maturity.
Then may the seeds of
wisdom grow into a mighty tree, and the tree bear fruit; such is the promise
of his later years, for which, in the earlier days, he now prepares. The fruits
of his life largely depend upon the wisdom with which he is guided, taught,
and trained in the first twenty years of his life.
To that great and noble
task the teacher is called.
CHAPTER V
FROM
TWENTY TO FORTY YEARS
THE child now enters
the third ten-yearly period of his life, the period of the animal-man.
From the years of twenty to forty the world is his school, which he must enter,
and in which he must be tested; only the advanced soul can pass through this
period and retain hold upon the bird-man of his youth. He leaves the birds
and trees, who teach him no longer, and enters the world of men in search of
manhood. Manhood begins with the first conscious contact with creative fire
which surges up within him and demands expression; until the means for that
expression are found, there will be conflict in his soul.
From that conflict,
will is born. Whether he suffers defeat, or rises triumphant over desire, will
is born ; the difference between defeat and triumph being shown in the rapidity
of the growth of the will. If he has been taught aright, learning from animal,
flower, bird, and tree, he will be ready for the fight.
The teacher's task in
earlier years is to forewarn him of the conflict, that, forewarned, he may be
forearmed ; to explain its nature, purpose, mechanism, and goal; to see always
that the pupil stands aloof, regards the subject as a science, establishes an
attitude which is impersonal; that he knows, but feels not, that he understands
creation, but is not touched by desire.
While coldly scientific
in his earlier years, the pupil must learn to recognise the creative fire and
the creative act as sacred, as by far the most sacred thing throughout the realms
of nature and objective life; he must be trained from the first to approach
it with reverence amounting to awe, to see it as the most directly God‑like
manifestation of the God which is himself; he must see creation as a solemn
rite, a microcosmic drama of macrocosmic genesis, a ceremonial in which the
microcosm and the macrocosm meet.
After he has gained
a scientific grasp of the necessary laws which govern creation in the worlds
of form, his whole attention must be directed to its spiritual expression; love
and nature will teach him all the rest. He must learn to use creative force
as a source of power which he taps and directs at will; he must learn the channels
of its flow, that he may create at will in formless worlds, in worlds of thought
and feeling, regarding its expression in the world of flesh as of least importance,
and as soonest to be laid aside.
So will he learn the
proper outlets for creative power; his use of them and the extent of his knowledge
will decide whether he shall suffer defeat and become a slave of passion, a
clod, with brain and nerve be-dulled, or conquer and become a man of fire,
a genius, who turns his god-like gifts to the service of his will.
The proper channels
are: the HEART, through which the force may flow as ever
deepening compassion for the world; the THROAT, giving
to his voice an irresistible power of command; the EYES, giving to him the vision
of the seer ; the TOP OF THE HEAD, giving him freedom
from the flesh, and power to range the worlds invisible. These he must learn
to use with eve-growing power, reserving the fifth, the physical creative channel,
for the special purpose of physical creation.
The creative force is
a fire which either burns, sears, and finally consumes the soul, or refines,
illumines and empowers it with god-like energy and will; there is no middle
way, though man may seek a compromise, pandering to his desires. Each time he
gratifies his lusts, he bemires the wings of the soul, until only in some far
distant time can she ever hope again to spread her bright pinions abroad and
bear him to the regions of the spiritual worlds.
One thing alone may
save him from the depths into which the misuse of the power divine threatens
to plunge his soul. That saving power is love; for if he procreates with love,
love that is true, unselfish, faithful, and ever seeking to serve, then, and
then alone, will he save himself from lust.
Love, and love alone, will guide him in the years from twenty to thirty through
the difficulties of his entry into manhood; therefore after twenty he should
seek for love, should meet the partner of his life-one trained and taught as
he has been, a friend, companion, fellow-student of the science of the soul;
one who, also having known the joy of flight, will see that their souls' wings,
though they may rest, are kept free from the mire of lustfulness, the slime
of sensuality and vice. Together, full of love, they may unite and lead each
other through the dark maze of earthly life, of which their teacher has given
them the key.
The teacher now retires,
for he is needed no more; each has found his complement, and will find in each
the other's teacher. Thus is the true purpose of marriage revealed: to teach.
Each teaches the other, each is the pupil, each welcomes every lesson taught
and grows in wisdom.
The goal of marriage
is the perfecting and the beautifying of the soul, not the creation of the flesh;
that is an incident. Man errs, and deeply errs, in laying stress upon the incident
and ignoring the goal.
The years from twenty
to forty should thus be chiefly devoted to work, to love, to marriage and to
parenthood. Through these years, like a silver thread, should be woven the experiences
of the life the man lived as a pupil; it is the thread which will guide him
from youth to manhood, through manhood to maturity, when he will bring to full
fruition the promise of his earlier years. His life and love will be enriched
by parenthood, a high mission, to which he is called by the Divine Parent,
Who established him in fleshly form and lent him His own power to create.
To his own children
he will make return for all the love his parents have him. From the very first
he will seek to guide their feet to wisdom; surrounding the body with every
necessary care, he will leave the soul free to develop as it will. He must surround
the child with harmony and beauty, for these are the expressions, in the lower
world, of wisdom's self. He must regard the child as God regards His universe,
as something into which he has put life, as a form which he has created and
must cherish, until its destiny is fulfilled.
At the age of forty
comes the time when he must be celibate, if once more he shall unfold the wings
he learned to use in his virginity. Once more he must mount the great bird,
and continue the flight of his early years. Onwards and upwards must he fly,
soaring towards the sun. The swan, which bore him o'er the waters in his early
years, has now become an eagle, which shall bear him to the sun. Every power
of mind and body will be needed if he is to embark upon that great flight from
earth to heaven, from heaven to the throne of God.
CHAPTER VI
FROM
FORTY TO EIGHTY YEARS
EIGHT cycles of ten
complete the normal life of man ; in each and in all he must work out all that
is significant of the numbers governing the year and the decade. At forty the
first cycle is closed, and a new one begins in which he will repeat, in a spiritual
cycle, that which he has experienced in the earlier material one; he will begin
to reap the spiritual fruits of his material sowing. These later cycles may
be passed in tens of lives or tens of years, according to the development of
the soul.
At forty he must be
born again; it is the natural age of birth into new worlds of spiritual consciousness.
At fifty he must be free of his bodies, which should hamper him no more; having
mastered them, he lays them aside at will, and mounts freely upon the wings
of the great bird into the realms of immortality; henceforth he is free and
immortal, a spirit wearing bodies, instead of bodies enclosing spirit. The Godhead
which came forth and was made man returns, taking the manhood up into God. The
abyss has been crossed, the gulf has been bridged. Man and God are one.
He is a pillar, supporting
the bridge which spans the gulf; his feet become a pedestal resting upon foundations
sunk deep and immovable into the earth, his head a fair capital, bearing, with
unwearying strength, the weight of the bridge and of those for whom it has been
raised. His brothers will cross, upborne by his strength, from Godhood to man,
from manhood back to God. He is an Atlas who supports the world; upon his shoulders,
bowed beneath its weight, rests the kârmic burden of the world. He is the mountain
upon whose sides the vineyards flourish, whose summit is lost above the clouds
which veil its beauty and sunlit glory from the labourers in the fields below.
The fertile slopes support their bodies, the unknown heights call ever for their
daring, inspire them to take the path by which they, too, will pierce the clouds,
and find the freedom, light, and sunshine of the world above.
At sixty, his flights
begin to take him further from the haunts of men and nearer to the home of God.
His humanity decreases still further, as his Godhood grows; yet he remains on
earth, a man to those whose vision cannot show them more than man, a God to
those who see the Godhood shining through the man; to men he is a man, to Gods
he is a God.
At seventy he veils
his glory, lest it should dazzle the eyes of men, and blind them with intensity
of light. Though the glory of his divinity shines resplendent through all his
work, he but rarely reveals it through his person. For him, that person ceases
to exist, it has been displaced by his work.
At eighty, if all things
have gone well and kârma is outworn, the three worlds claim him no more, he
stays or goes at will; he is free. He enters upon a new phase, is born again
in higher worlds, and treads a new cycle of the mighty spiral, glorious and
infinite, up which his giant soul is climbing, through regions immeasurable
and limitless, towards the heart of That from Which he first came forth.
In order to achieve
this great result and win the prize of bliss eternal, from the fortieth to the
fiftieth year he must undertake the task of emancipating himself from the age-long
delusion of separateness. He must learn to pierce the veil of illusion, must
know that many shadows may be cast by the one light, that though the shadows
may be as countless as the sands upon the shore, the Light is one , into that
Light he must rise, must discover himself therein, and for ever win release
from self-identification with the shadows of the shadow-world, through which
he has evolved. He must learn to pass " from the unreal to the real, from
darkness to light, from death to immortality."
To aid him in this great
task he must practise continually the art of UNIFICATION,
the supreme art from which all other arts are born. He must learn to see himself
in every form, to find himself in every guise, to recognise the light which
is himself, behind every shadow which it casts upon the ever-moving sands of
space and time. He may begin with men, with animals, plants or gems, with rocks,
trees, flowers, birds, his own race or another, the down-trodden, the fallen,
the saint or the Saviour; he may take the mass or the individual, the tree or
a single leaf, the ocean or a single grain of sand. In his long pilgrimage he
will have found an affinity with nature, or with men, which may serve as starting
place, from which he may commence the journey from affinity to unity, from unity
to identity.
Using the object to which he feels most drawn, he will meditate, seeking to
find himself therein, to know and feel in and with another's mind and heart.
Meditating, he will strive to catch the rhythm of another's life, and blend
his own therewith; he will listen to the music, search for the vision, and feel
the pulse of another's soul, and having found, know them as his own. Life thus
becomes for him a great experiment, the world, for him, a studio in which he
practises his art. No longer does he ask what does his brother think or feel;
no longer does he dwell on colour or on form, of landscape or of leaf, of shell
or diatom, for he knows that that which once seemed to reveal, now serves but
to conceal the knowledge he desires.
He seeks the soul of
all things, great or small; to find it he must become the shell, the diamond,
the blade of grass, the floweret, the eagle or the dove; he must become his
brother man, must know him better than he knows himself, must see, more clearly
than he, the vision of his life. He must learn to drop a portion of himself
down through the worlds into another's heart; he must fall into the depths of
another's soul, as a pebble falls into a well.
If the varied garb of
nature draws forth sweet beauty from his soul, then to nature he must retire.
Seated beneath the wide-spreading branches of an ancient tree, he may seek to
pass into its soul; may learn to feel the mighty forces which surge from root
to trunk, from trunk to stem, from stem to leaf, and through the leaf flow outwards
in radiant and magnetic streams into the air; he may learn to sway with the
tree under the pressure of the winds, to feel the strain and leverage by which
its uprightness is maintained, may feel the evolving consciousness within, stretching
along the lines of force which govern its growth, answering to the forward driving
impulse of the Will Divine; may feel Its power pulsing through atom and through
cell. If a leaf fall from the tree, he too must fall, knowing himself one with
the leaf, and as it spins and floats, caught by the eddies of wind, he, too,
must spin and float, and know the feel even of the lightest pressure of air-streams
striking into the leaf-curves above and below ; he must sink with the leaf,
fluttering to the ground, and there find rest, merged with a thousand other
leaves.
Thus, day by day, with
unwearying patience, he will meditate, seeking to enter the inmost heart, the
very life of the tree. With intensity of desire, with concentrated and unwavering
mind, he will rise to that level of unity where life of tree and life of man
are known as one. Until achievement has been reached, this must be the daily
practice of his life; every craving for the objects of desire, every longing
for union with the object of his love, which he has ever known, must be transmuted
and directed with flame-like aspiration, unconquerable determination,
to union with the life behind all form, to find the soul of unity, the very
essence of union, to lose himself in the ocean of the one life, to unite himself
with God.
If he seek to pass in
thought through bark and trunk towards the heart of the tree, though he may
feel its life, he will not lose himself therein; he must rise in thought above
the realms of form, past trunk and stem and leaf, past even the ideation of
colour, of form, to that level from which alone the life within all forms can
be revealed; then may he sink into the heart of the tree and know its very life.
Thus exalted he may descend through worlds of form, back to the densest, holding
the vision of the Self, bringing to the cells and fibers of his brain the knowledge
of the One.
Then should a bird take
refuge behind the leafy screen and rest upon a branch, his soul will flow into
the bird, like a river to the sea. The power of inmost union will thus be made
manifest and fill his soul with joy; he will exult in his new-found power;
one with the bird he, too, will preen feathers and scrape beak upon the bark,
know the ever-watchful instinct, hear every lightest sound, see every
shadow that passes over the sky, and feel within himself the calling of the
mate, the direction of the nest; he will feel the balance of the feather-covered
form, sustained with ease, by lightly-griping claws, upon the swaying
branch. Then, as the wings are spread for flight, he too shall fly, shall know
the happiness of outstretched wings, the buoyancy of air, the swift passage
of the wind, the downward swooping flight, and come to rest again beside his
mate.
Then he may turn to
things by men regarded as inanimate, a rock, a mountain side, a pebble or a
shell, and find their living heart, and for a time answer to their rhythm, and
know the meaning of their life; or he may choose a landscape, as the angels
do, and merge himself therein, until he knows the whole as One.
The beast of burden
he may enter, too, and share its load, know the tension of straining muscles,
feel the beating heart, the sublime patience, the willingness to serve, the
wondrous beauty of the soul of every animal that lends itself to man. He must
learn to know the feel and balance of a body supported on four feet, the weight,
the size, the strength, the dimly comprehending mind, he must share the torment
of the flies on summer days, the pressure of the collar, the soft and tender
lips bruised by the bit; the glad release from harness, the freedom of the pasture,
the succulence of the green grass, the refreshment of the long and cooling draught,
the uncomprehending fear of man's brutality, the answer of the brute-soul
to the love of man, when that love is bestowed. Thus may he meditate upon the
beast of burden, most faithful servant of man.
Then he may pass to
man himself, and strive to know the meaning and the ideal of another's life,
the lessons he must learn, and how, and why; learn to see that in his present
state his past is revealed, that from past and present he may intuit the future.
This lesson he must learn if he would free himself from the bondage of separated
form, and escape into the knowledge of the unity of life. Every man he meets
must be his brother, not because of similarity of form, or membership of race,
but from a knowledge of the identity of life. His fallen sister of the lustful
life he must know, and if need be, enter into her soul, and share the searing
degradation of her way of life. Despite the horror, the agony, the shame, he
must know no division between himself and her, for there is but One Life, and
therein the two are one.
Then, and then alone,
may he truly heal and teach, then only may he save; not by the application of
external force, but by sharing the life within, by illuminating the soul, by
bestowing his own new-found strength and knowledge upon the immortal self which
dwells within, that through it the soul may be made clean.
So, into the heart of
every man, in every walk of life, of every race and creed, he must find an entrance
and learn to see himself ; even if the eyes are filmed with age, or bloodshot
with indulgence and with vice, or dimmed by multitudes of lusts, or shining
with the dazzling radiance of sainthood, or the fire of genius, through each
and all he must see the shining of the light which he loves beyond all other
lights, the light of the One Life, in which he himself is merged, the light
of his own soul. Thus he will find himself in every man.
Finding the self, he
will find beauty everywhere; despite the ugliness of form, he will know the
joy of union with the life in every form; for him all barriers will melt away,
as he himself becomes the living embodiment of the unity of life. Should angels
pass before his entranced vision, he will be one with them too, will share the
glory of their life of freedom from the clogging densities of form, of instant
obedience to the One Will, of tireless and unending labour in the service of
that Will.
This is the way of freedom,
this the pathway to knowledge, to power and to love, to the ecstasy which never
ceases, which nothing can bedim, which neither comes nor goes with seasons or
events, but is eternal, increasing in intensity with the growing capacities
which the soul acquires as the long pilgrimage draws to its close.
Upwards into the serene
heights of eternal bliss the soul of man may climb, and having climbed, dwell
there for ever, shedding forth continually radiance and power on all who follow
after, on all who dwell imprisoned in the darkness of the worlds below. Into
that world of peace unshakable, of poise which nothing can disturb, God invites
His children from age to age, calling them home. From that land come forth the
Saviours of men, the messengers of God, seeking ever the sheep which have strayed
into the darkness, into the deep ravines, caught in the thorns, lost in the
dark woods, imprisoned in the deep pits of earthly life. Theirs is the task
to rescue, to win, to lead, to draw and to bear within their arms the wandering
ones, and carry them back to their spiritual home.
They are the great ambassadors
of God. They live on earth to form an embassy, through which They may represent
the glory, the splendour, the bliss of the land in which They dwell, the embodiments
of unity. Masters of life, conquerors of form; illumined by the vision of the
highest; they keep alive the flame of idealism in the souls of men, lest it
should die out, and dying, leave mankind without a light to guide him on his
long journey through the dark night of time and space. They and Their angel
servers, Their shining brothers, live but to show to men the way from the darkness
to the light.
The turning point is
past, the depths have been plumbed, man enters the pathway of return, which
will lead him back to his eternal home. His angel brothers bid him haste upon
the way, call him to the path of swift unfolding, bid him release himself from
slavery of circumstance, give him their strength and knowledge that he may take
his destiny into his own hands, may rule his life, expand his soul, release
the powers of the immortal self, and know himself a God, an unconquerable
ruler, a spiritual king.
From fifty to sixty
he establishes himself m the inner world into which he has won an entrance;
he learns to live therein, and yet to maintain order and precision in all his
actions in the world without. The light of the inner world illumines every word
and every deed; he is the inspired teacher, the interpreter of the law, the
wise one, the counselor and guide of those who, having witnessed the power
and splendour of his flight, seek eagerly to follow close behind.
He becomes to the man
what the teacher was to the youth, but now he teaches in another way; no longer
does he impart knowledge, or even lead to principles, he simply inspires; the
fact of his achievement is sufficient. His pupils drink freely at the fountain
of his wisdom, each one imbibing to the full, according to his capacity; his
presence in their midst is all they need. Thus does he teach.
Even while he inspires,
he grows, penetrating deeper and deeper into the world which he has made his
own. As he grows and penetrates, upon his entranced sight the gleams of an ever
brighter light, a more brilliant glow, begin to fall; he senses the existence
of an even fiercer flame than that which has been lighted in his heart. Upon
his music-charmed ear another sound begins to fall, like the distant thunder
of an approaching storm. Towards that light and sound he feels his spiritual
senses drawn, something within him answers them, a flame leaps forth from his
eyes to meet the light; within himself he hears an answering sound, a low yet
thunderous roar; by these he is impelled to travel onwards, deeper into the
heart of being, further into the depths of his own soul.
Into his actions and
his words in worlds below, an added power comes; a greater force, a fiery will
begins to be added to his all-embracing love; his face grows stern, greater
tasks are undertaken, heavier weights are borne, as wider fields of labour in
the worlds of form give proof of greater power in the formless worlds. He exerts
a quickening energy upon all who come within his reach, a dynamic power reveals
itself in every task he undertakes.
Having become a lover
of the world, he now becomes a leader; where once he drew by powers of compassion,
and by love, he now rules with resistless will; he walks the earth, a giant
among men, towering o'er them all.
Then all the forces
of disruption, all the powers of hate, let loose their venom arid their spite,
and seek to stay his progress, to undo all his work, to blind the eyes and hearts
of men, and to divert their minds, till they see but a twisted and distorted
view of the greatness which once they so admired; they turn trust into distrust,
love into hatred, and courage into fear. Those whom once he knew as closest
friends become his enemies; he feels the bitterness of love denied, his heart
is pierced by treachery and guile.
Still must he labour
on, fearless and undaunted; however dark the way may seem, however much his
heart and feet may bleed, he shines with ever-growing glory in the higher
worlds. Serene and poised immovable, he sees the dawning of a new light, hears
the thunder of a new sound, feels his body tremble at the descent of a new power.
He knows that naught can stay his progress on the Path, for already he begins
to hear the striking of the hour when his irrevocable destiny shall be fulfilled.
Thus it is that men
marvel at his firmness, his courage and endurance, and wonder at his faith.
They cannot see the light at which his flaming torch of dauntless courage and
faith unshakable is lit; they only see the struggle and the tears, which, as
he is still imperfect, delay, but cannot stay, the steady and majestic progress
of his labours upon earth. By these trials of his strength, by the all-conquering
power which he wins from them, he becomes established in the spiritual worlds.
There his stature increases day by day, and from fifty to sixty he moves towards
the light and sound which guide and call him ever onward, nearer to That in
which, his labours ended, he shall be merged.
So man shall pass onwards
into the light and disappear from mortal gaze. Thus is his destiny fulfilled;
this is the road which stretches from infinity to infinity; this road the feet
of every man must tread, this is the way for every soul. This is the pathway
pre-ordained by God, along which every living thing must pass into eternal
peace.
At last the purpose
of the woes of life, of birth and death, of love and hate, of sorrow and of
joy is revealed; by them alone can man become a God; they are his true teachers,
they draw forth the hidden divinity, they release the God-like energy
imprisoned in the soul. This pathway many men and many angels have trodden;
already the universal garden has begun to bear fruit. When all have passed along
the road, then every star will be a flowering bed, watered by the broad rivers
of interstellar space. This is the dream which God the Father dreams. Man, a
living creature in His dream, himself will one day dream creative dreams, will
call forth stars from nebula, stars to which he himself will be a sun.
You, who read, and knowing
not the immortal self within, feel yourself swayed by every passing breeze,
by the strong winds of desire, who feel yourself imprisoned in the grip of circumstances,
and believe not in any destiny or goal, to you the angel speaks, telling you
the meaning of your life, its purpose and its end. He bids you rise up in your
God-like strength, call forth the will divine, which is your deepest self,
and set forth upon the road. There is no obstacle on earth, or in the heaven
above, that can stay your progress, when once you take the road. However much
you have dallied hitherto, henceforth cast aside your sloth, and invoke the
powers of your soul by meditation and by prayer, call up the strength which
only waits your call to reveal itself to you in unconquerable power; master
the desires of the flesh, control and purify your thoughts, and send up from
your heart the cry for light, the prayer for guidance, the aspiration, which
will unlock the power to lift yourself above the bonds of earthly circumstance,
so that you may begin to know yourself the ruler of your fate, a God with limitless
power to mould yourself into the likeness of Him from Whom you came.
Thousands of your race
have already achieved this great result; others press on; already the road is
thronged with aspirants, men and women who have outstripped their race, and
are within measurable distance of the goal. They and their angel fellow-travelers
call you to the road, hold out their hands in welcome, offer you their growing
strength and knowledge. Will you not come, and prove for yourselves, beyond
all gainsaying, the truth of all that you have read? There is no other test,
nor can you honestly deny, until you have dared as they have dared, and found
as they have found. We call to you and bid you hear and answer the call to rise
up and become your greatest self; to live your life with every faculty developed
to the full; to know the joy of full expression of every power of your heart
and mind.
Wake from your sleep,
dreamers of mankind, for while you sleep you know not what it is to live. Your
brains are dulled with sloth, your eyes bedimmed by sleep ; your hearts are
unlocked treasure-chests, because you love yourselves alone.
There awaits you, if
you will but open your eyes, if you will but stretch forth your hand, a life
so vivid, so keen, so full of ecstasy and power, that your present existence
seems, by contrast, but a living death. To awaken you, this book is written;
to call you from the land of shadow into the land of light; to offer you the
help of angels, of sages, saints, and spiritual kings; to bid you gird up your
loins, and take to the road. The angels who guard and bless you, even while
you sleep, will welcome you with joy into their world of splendour, and of light;
and when you shall awake, angels and men together shall mount; cycle after cycle
of the mighty spiral way, which winds throughout the universe into the cosmos,
throughout the cosmos into the infinitude beyond. Singing for gladness, we will
march, and angel hosts from worlds beyond our world will greet us as we pass.
There, at last, sorrow shall be no more.
Peace and blessing
from angels to men.
PART II
THE THREE PATHS
CHAPTER VII
THE
WAY OF WILL
THE way of will is at
once the straightest and the hardest way of all. He who would tread this way
must summon to his aid all the forces of his being and collect them into a single
shaft. Having collected, he must concentrate them until the shaft has a needle-point.
That point he must direct towards his goal, which is omnipotence. The man of
will must use the powers of his nature as a general his army; must search out
the weaknesses, and replace them by strength; must reinforce the breaches in
the walls which guard the citadel of his divinity; must carefully prepare his
armour and his arms, that in the shock of battle they may not fail. Thus the
first essential is that he should pass his forces in view; seated upon his charger;
- a great war-horse of snowy whiteness, symbolising truth - surrounded by his
captains, he makes a splendid picture, as, in full armour, his banner floating
in the breeze, from an eminence he passes his army in review; he examines its
accoutrements, and all the necessary equipment for the war which shall decide
the fate of the kingdom over which he is to rule.
First he inspects his
physical forces, and notes their strength and weaknesses. Every cell of which
his body is composed is, as it were, a soldier who must fulfill the soldier's
duty of obedience; every organ is a regiment, and every member a brigade; the
fibers of his nerves are messengers, which he, the head and heart, employs to
order and direct the manoeuvres and operations of the forces under his command.
His body must be healthy, strong, virile, sensitive, cultured and refined, and
all the instincts which mark its animal descent must be transmuted into powers,
used consciously by mind and will. The body must be bereft of all initiative,
except that which guides a well-trained army to carry out the details
and meet the emergencies which may arise during the fulfilment of the order
of the commander-in-chief. Apart from this the body must be nothing
more than an instrument with all its forces completely controlled; it must render
absolute obedience to the will which gives it life.
So, too, with feeling
and with thought; these branches of the army must be equally controlled and
trained, and he must direct them towards the single objective, which is the
fulfilment of his destiny. He must train himself to recognise an obstacle as
an opportunity, to see in present failure a certainty of future success, to
welcome resistance as a friend by whose aid he tests and strengthens all his
powers; by the aid of obstacles, failures and resistances, he must march towards
the goal on which his eyes are set. If he turns aside, it is but to right a
wrong, to share his growing might with others, to study their failure and success.
As the soldier must
needs encounter danger, suffering and death, so the man of will, as he rides
along the road of life, will find his passage marked by tragedy. He must learn
to know both the horror and the glory of war; its horror is the physical cruelty
and death from which it is inseparable; its glory is the spiritual regeneration
resulting from its heroism, selfsacrifice and courage.
The man of will has
trained himself by many lives of war upon the earth, but now he battles on another
field and learns to conquer other worlds. He is an Alexander, never satisfied,
but ever yearning to extend the boundaries of his kingdom, not outwards, over
mountain range and desert, but inwards, where the boundless dominions of the
spiritual world call with resistless voice to the explorer and adventurer within
his soul. No longer does he seek to plant the banner of a single nation upon
the citadels which he shall conquer, or on the unknown lands which he has discovered;
the flag which he unfolds is embroidered with one word. That word is WILL,
and signifies the power of the King Who sent him forth and Whom he serves. Under
that flag he fights, explores and seeks great adventures. He rids the world
of evil, he fills it with romance, and he makes pathways through unknown lands,
for weaker feet to tread. Wherever he is, he commands ; wherever he goes, he
leads; wherever he fights, he conquers, for within him there resides a power
which is irresistible, a power which is not his own, but of which he is ever
more and more the embodiment. In the heat of the conflict, in the exhaustion
to which his labours reduce his body and his mind, that power uplifts him, till
men call him the unconquerable. To that supreme will he, in his turn, is but
an instrument, obedient as is his body to his mind.
The time shall ultimately
come when he shall lay his arms aside, when those who have been his comrades
and his followers through many lives of great adventure and glorious achievement
shall know him no more as captain and leader of a warrior-band; for he
shall be recalled to the peace and great rewards which await him in that City,
where the King, Whom he has served throughout the centuries, shall crown him
with the crown of His own kingship, and shall give him absolute command over
the lands and peoples which he has made his own. Then shall he come forth to
all his waiting people as wise counselor, as father, and as ambassador of
his King; all the souls that loved and followed him through many wars, in many
lives, shall find in him their saviour and their king; they, too, shall serve
him as he has served his King; and he shall lead them along the path which he
has trodden, till they, too, are crowned, and in the crowning, know the splendour
and the power of the one resistless and eternal will.
Thus shall the man of
will fulfill his destiny. He becomes a king in the power of the one King, an
ambassador of the One Whose will he now knows as his own.
Will is the power which
he wields, will is the blessing which he gives, for now he lights within the
souls of all his subjects the fire of the same resistless will of which his
own is a part. Under his touch, men feel its glowing flame arise within them;
thus he gives to them their first glimpse of their own divinity, the first vision
of the splendour which it is their mission to reveal. He fans these sparks into
a flame, till all the people of his kingdom glow with the self-same fire by
means of which he himself was lighted on his path; they learn to burn away all
obstacles by the flamelike intensity of their will, till one day, in their
turn, and in their thousands, they will learn to rule and bestow upon the world
the benediction of that Omnipotence whose priests they have become.
So down the ages the
flame of will passes from the mighty Flame which lights the universe, through
the glowing fires which men know as central suns, which pour forth life and
light and power to system after system, down to the fiery life-giver of a single
planet, its lord and ruler, who dwells thereon in absolute command, down through
the spiritual kings who serve Him, the mighty Lords of Will, His regents and
His agents, and through them to their followers, the peoples of the globe, and
further yet, through animals and lower forms of life.
Arise then, ye men of
Will; be renegades no longer; rejoin the ranks you have deserted and re-enter
the service of this wondrous hierarchy of kings, in the sure knowledge that
one day you, yourselves, shall win the power to command that vast army which
is yourself; that one day, you, too, shall be crowned monarch of a world, and
shall be named the Sun, and one day shall take your place amid the wheeling
systems of the stars as Lord and Ruler of a Universe.
CHAPTER VIII
THE
WAY OF KNOWLEDGE
THE way of knowledge
is the way of light, and he who would tread that way must learn to cast aside
all attributes which might veil the light; for his destiny is to become so filled
with light, that it may shine through him to illumine all the world. From the
beginning, therefore, he must divest himself of aught that would veil the light
from the eyes of those whom, later, he will illumine.
Prejudice is the great
weaver of veils, the greatest enemy of all who seek knowledge, the greatest
barrier to illumination. Let the neophyte, in his search for knowledge, begin
by studying himself, for only by self-knowledge may he gain a knowledge
of the Self; only by self‑knowledge may he discover the many veils in
which his long pilgrimage has enfolded him; only by self-knowledge may
he find the way to tear those veils aside. Inwards, therefore, and not outwards
must the student direct his search; having found the Self within, the self without
will be revealed to him.
There is a pathway leading
from the not-self to the Self, from the material to the spiritual, from ignorance
to illumination; that pathway is the way of knowledge; one end of it is in the
flesh, the other is in the spirit. The fleshly man must seek the entrance in
the flesh, while his spiritual counterpart - the man that is within - must find
the entrance in the spirit, and these found, the twain must walk towards the
common center to which both these entrances lead. That common center is the
Hall of Light, the place of illumination, the holy of holies, wherein spirit
and matter are linked by light. It is no earthly building; it is no external
shrine; it is the inner Temple of Light from which shines "the true light
that lighteth every man into the world "; it forms the vessel through which
the one light, which ever shines forth from the spiritual sun, reaches the darkness
of the material worlds on its pathway of illumination.
Within that temple is
an altar, and on the altar burns a flame which was lit when first the soul of
man was formed, and burns continuously until the man has become the flame; then,
like Samson of old, he leans with all his new-found might against the
pillars of the temple, which falls in ruins at his feet; for he who has become
a God, no longer needs an altar on which to worship that which he has become;
so the temple falls in ruins, and the thousands slain are the thousand veils
which he now has learned to cast aside, that the light may shine forth, undimmed,
upon the world.
Before that great consummation,
many lives of study and research lie before the neophyte who would tread the
way of knowledge. In all the many lives, before the great resolve was born,
he has been drawing around himself veil after veil, each one concealing more
and more the light which bums upon the altar of his highest self. Henceforth
he must know himself as the " render‑of‑the‑veils,"
for such is his mission on the path of knowledge. First he will rend the veils
which he has drawn about himself, then he will rend the veils of others, for
every true teacher is a render‑of‑the‑veils. The greatest
veil of all is prejudice, and therefore on this path, as on every other, he
must become as a little child, confessing utter ignorance that, possessing no
knowledge, he may have no prejudice; that, being empty, he may be completely
filled; that, having an open and unclouded mind, he may offer a chalice, perfect
in its translucency, to be filled with the light of knowledge.
Having become as a
little child, ready to cast aside all that he thinks he knows, all that is prized
of men, let him seek the pathway which leads from flesh to spirit. The entrance
to that path is in the heart; from the heart he must find a passage to the brain,
and through the brain into the worlds of feeling and of thought, in which the
foundations of the Temple of Light are laid. The temple lies beyond, and from
the world of thought he must build a mighty stairway up which he shall pass
to find the temple door. Those stairs are built by study, by concentrated thought,
and by unwearying pursuit of knowledge.
This is the way the
pathway may be found and trodden, the steps be built and the temple door be
found. Let the student lay aside his books, and leave his test-tubes and
his scales behind, for he must learn to read in the book of nature, to treasure
his discoveries in the test-tube of his mind, and balance his discoveries
on the scales of his highest intuition; being emancipated from these superficial
aids, let him retire into a place where he may be ensured a period of undisturbed
peace. The cell, a country garden, the woods, the fields, some sandy nook beside
the sea, some sheltered resting place upon a mountain side, may well suffice;
there let him set forth upon the voyage of discovery. Let him tread the path
that all the knowers of the world have trod, and find the self-same way
that all the teachers of the world have found in search of the light, which
now shines resplendent and glorious through their eyes.
Fear not the strangeness
of the quest, fear not to relinquish all supports hitherto regarded as essential;
fear not the ridicule of those who still cling to them, and who blindly hug
their ignorance in the delusion that it is knowledge. To the light which you
seek, their knowledge is as darkness, for all the men whom you have deemed so
high in the realm of knowledge possess but the chaff, the husks, the shell -
the kernel ever eludes them; so they dress up the shell and offer it as knowledge.
There is hardly one among your men of learning today who is not blinded by prejudice,
who does not mistake learning for knowledge.
Be guided, therefore,
by the voice which teaches him who writes these words, the voice of an angel
who has won his way by these self-same means into the presence of knowledge,
and now offers himself to those who seek a greater light than that which shines
in any university, a wiser teacher than any earthly professor can ever be; who
brings the light of spiritual knowledge to illumine the darkness of mere earthly
learning; who would lead you along the spiritual pathway to the very seat of
knowledge, which lies deep within your truest self. Come, human brother,
accept my guidance, and I will lead you to the goal.
Having obtained seclusion
and complete repose, send forth an earnest invocation to the Gods of Light and
to the Lord of Light, that you may be illumined in your quest; consecrate your
life to the search, and swear a solemn vow that all the knowledge which you
gain shall be dedicated to the service of your fellow-men. Seek knowledge, only
that you may teach; seek light, only that you may illumine others; seek the
power which knowledge gives, that you may rend the veils of prejudice and ignorance,
in which the human race is so deeply enwrapped. Your office shall be a dual
one, you shall become a torch-bearer and a render-of-the-veils.
Having offered up your
prayer and sworn your vow, practise the art of setting your body utterly at
rest, of stilling the tempest of your emotions, of quietening your mind, for
this is an essential preliminary. When, throughout your inner and your outer
nature, stillness reigns, think strongly of your heart as a cave, through which
your soul must pass on its quest of light. Think quietly and steadily for many
days of the cave within the heart, and try to concentrate your mind therein
; gradually, where all was dark, a light will shine - the light which is to
guide you on the path. Sink deep in contemplative thought upon the true light,
which lighteth every man, the gleams of which, at last, you begin dimly to perceive.
As the light grows and begins to envelop you, rise upward, in thought, within
yourself, to the middle of your head, where you will find an even greater light
; having found that passage, continue there to meditate upon the light. Think
of yourself as a gleam from the One Light, as a spark from the One Flame, and
strive with all your powers of thought and will to rise upwards - still within
yourself - to that parent Light from which you sprang. Rise through your head,
through feeling into thought, striving to drink thought-essence, to become embodied
thought, and fix your mind unwaveringly upon the light, seeking the temple door.
The key is in your hands,
I have given it to you; it is the knowledge that the gleam which is yourself
emanates from the One Light, that the spark which you are is part of the One
Flame, that gleam and spark must again become that which they are.
Gradually you will learn
to travel by this road which leads from the heart to the head, and from the
head towards the place of light. You will find your light illumined by an inward
light, and you will learn to recognise its glow. By these daily meditative exercises
you will have mastered all the many tendencies of feeling and of mind to escape
from your control. You will have built the steps up which you now can pass towards
the temple door. The key is in your hands, place it boldly in the lock, and,
turning, enter the temple of light.
As you climb the steps,
reach upward with all the power of your will, seeking to lift your soul free
from its bodily encasement, as if you would rise above the great arch of the
sky itself, in quest of light. The pass-word, which all who enter the
temple must know, must form the subject of continual meditation; it is : "The
gleam and the light are one," or "The spark and the flame are one."
From concentrated thought upon this theme pass into meditation, in which all
knowledge of the outer world is lost, from meditation pass to contemplation,
in which all knowledge of yourself is lost, arid only the light remains.
Thus will you pass through
the temple door, and having passed, you will need a guide no longer, for you
will be in the presence of That which has guided you through every life since
first your human incarnations were begun - your highest self, which is the embodiment
of light. As you kneel before the altar on which the sacred flame is burning,
he will refresh you with spiritual food, will place in your hands the sword
with which, henceforth, you will become a render-of-the-veils, will give you
the torch, by means of which all darkness may be dispelled.
Then at last, as standing
on the altar steps you look down upon the world in which you live, you will
begin to know. The light which now is yours will lay bare the secrets which
once were hid from you, and you may return to your studies and research with
certainty of success; for now the key of knowledge is in your hands, and the
chalice of your lower self is filled with wisdom's wine. Daily you must kneel
before the shrine, that the chalice may be refilled; having set your feet upon
the path, march onwards deeper and deeper into your innermost self, nor ever
rest, until at last the gleam once more becomes the light, the spark becomes
the flame.
In your newly-directed
search for knowledge, learn the meditative art; place before yourself the object
of research, be it flower, jewel, animal, or man; keep them alive and meditate
upon them in all their living and perfect expression of That which is immanent
within them. You cannot discover perfect truth unless the form in which you
seek it is perfect, is living and unharmed. Meditate upon the immanence, seek
the soul which keeps the form alive; finding the soul, meditate upon it, as
you did upon the form, and seek from it its own knowledge of the way by which
it lives arid grows, and having found that way, seek any knowledge which you
need. The past, however remote, may be revealed to you that you may study the
ways of the past; from that study, the processes of unfolding may be grasped.
Having discerned the past, look reverently into the future, seeking to gain
a vision of the whole. You cannot meditate upon a flower that is plucked or
dead, for you have severed its connection with its soul, and so the flower does
not know the way by which it lives; that knowledge is seated in the flower's
soul.
Shun the dark ways of
animal research as you would shun the vilest hell; there is no viler hell in
all the cosmos than the vivisector's table; no greater blindness than that of
him who thinks that by practising cruelty upon another portion of God's life,
he may illumine himself. Did he but know, he is building veils so dense about
himself, that a hundred lives will scarce suffice to find the way by which he
may free himself from their dark folds; and even then truth will hide her bright
face from his eyes, in her shame of that which he has done in her fair name.
Seek truth among the living and you shall find living truth, and Nature's vast
store of knowledge shall be yours. To this end I teach you the meditative way.
CHAPTER
IX
THE
WAY OF LOVE
HE who would tread the
way of love must discover that spiritual alchemy by means of which the lower
love may be transmuted to the higher; must know the sacred science by means
of which alone the baser qualities of soul, having been placed within the crucible
of thought, may be subjected to the fiery heat of the will, so that their essence
may be distilled, drop by drop, and thus place in the hands of the experimenter
the long-sought elixir of life. From the base he will obtain the pure;
from the imperfect, the perfect; from the impermanent, the everlasting. Until
that science has been learnt, and all that is base has been made pure, man cannot
become a saviour of the world.
A saviour of the world
is one who has won emancipation from every human weakness, has trod the way
of love, and treading, has become divine. Those who would follow in that path,
which They with bleeding feet have trod, must learn the science by which They
have achieved; must prepare the crucible of thought, must light within themselves
the fiery power of will, and taking every vice, must make of each the subject
of experiment, and so transmute them, one by one, into their opposing virtue;
for above all things, the lover must be pure.
As earthly garbage is
destroyed by fire, so must the garbage of the soul be burned by the fire of
the will. Every vice, however low, will yield the precious attar which he seeks,
every weakness will be found to conceal a strength, every error will reveal
a truth; vice, weakness, error, these are the equipment with which man commences
to tread the path of love. In order that they may be transformed into their
opposites, man must retire into the laboratory of his soul, and there prepare
the instruments of his research. Those instruments are thought and will; these
two alone provide him with everything he needs; from their union a child shall
be born; that child is love. Men know Him as Horus, and as Christ.
Having retired into
the seclusion of the inner recesses of his nature, the would-be lover
of his fellow-men must take stock of his resources, must search his earthy
self for the herbs from which his essences shall be distilled. Detached from
his desires, he will pluck them one by one from the soil of his nature in which
they have so firmly taken root. Viciousness, lewdness, sensuality, impurity,
selfishness, self-interest, cruelty, deceit, gossip, superstition, greed,
and cunning, such are the names of the plants which he will gather in the wilderness
of his lower nature, a wilderness which it is his duty to transform into the
fairest of earth's gardens. Each plant which he has plucked he will place in
the crucible of thought and subject it continuously to the fiery power of his
will; nor shall the flame flicker, even by a hair's breadth, nor ever die, but
shall maintain its fierce intensity until the roots, leaves and flowers have
been utterly consumed. Then within that spiritual receptacle, the vehicle of
his higher self, in which his immortality resides, the precious liquid which
he has thus distilled shall be gathered, drop by drop. There it shall be stored
until the secret dispensary of his soul is filled, shelf upon shelf, with those
vital essences from which the universal panacea shall one day be dispensed.
That panacea is love.
So he who would become
a lover must first become a worker and a knower. He must be steeped in the knowledge
of the science of the soul, and he must labour continually in the application
of that knowledge; nor does he need to go abroad to obtain the materials for
his research; for nature has ordained that each man produces within himself
all the elements which he requires. So he directs the full force of all his
powers of will and thought upon the products of his own being; not upon his
being, not upon himself, lest, traveling inwards, he but describe a circle
which closes on itself, and thus prevents all progress, rather than a spiral
which shall wind, turn upon turn, up into the spiritual worlds; not on his being,
therefore, but on the products of his being.
Nor must he pay undue
attention to the weaknesses of other men, for only from his own may he gain
strength. Each man is complete, each man is distinct, as are the facets of a
jewel, and that which each distills from his own completeness will differ from
the distillations of another. The great Alchemist alone can blend the myriad
essences distilled by myriads of men into one glorious whole. Until that great
experiment is complete He must labour without ceasing in that universal laboratory
in which He, the Supreme Scientist, works from age to age.
The love which saves
the world bears but small resemblance to that which men call love; it is a universal
pouring forth of power, wisdom and knowledge upon every form of life; it knows
no distinctions of age, of body or of soul. It does not choose between the insect
and the man, the animal or the angel, the sinner or the saint; all are equally
included in the glory of its wondrous flow. It does not judge the worth of man
or beast, of angel, tree or flower, nor does it pause to measure out the blessing
which it brings; such is the love which flows forth continually from the heart
of Those who are the Saviours of the world by the mighty power of love. Their
love seeks not to embrace, nor even to enfold; as it pours forth, it pervades
every cell, every atom of the bodies of those who receive its down-poured
beneficence.
Let the pilgrim on the
path of love begin to imitate Their perfect way of loving, that he may learn
to make his love akin to Theirs; for he, too, must learn to radiate a stream
of glowing, rosy light as he pours forth his measure of the universal love;
he must emancipate himself for ever more from the slavery of earthly love of
form; no single form must ever hold his love within its grasp, no single person
be the sole object of his love, for he aspires to be a universal lover. The
love which he pours forth is directed to the soul, the evolving God within,
to help it to evolve, not to the form. Gradually he must loosen every earthly
tie, till no single person in all the world can lay claim to the sole possession
of his love. He must love all, and with a love so tender, so compassionate,
so full of divine beneficence, that in its glowing light and power all earthly
love seems but the darkness of desire. Later the love of which he now makes
sacrifice will return to him in fullest measure, when men shall see in him a
saviour by the power of love, and seeing, shall pour forth to him a love which,
by his office, he has taught them how to purify. The whole ideal of love must
thus be lifted up; it must be disentangled completely from the clinging embraces
of desire; the pilgrim must become pure, selfless and unsullied, if the love
with which he shall save the world is to be pure and unsullied.
You who would tread
this road, who feel the call of love, who yearn to heal, to teach and to save,
must make your choice. Are you prepared to forgo all the happinesses of that
which, hitherto, has passed with you for love, to renounce the earthly happiness
of love returned? Feeling a growing pity in your heart, conscious of a growing
power of love, are you ready to withdraw from every human tie, in order that
your earthly love may be transmuted into love that is divine? The cell, the
hermit's cave, the jungle, or the mountain side, offer you places of retreat
where, seated alone, you may subdue the demons of desire and break the fetters
which hold you in the thraldom of the flesh; yet, in truth, you need no physical
retreat, your cell or cave is deep within yourself, and unless you have found
them there, no outer retirement will avail you on your quest. Learn, then, to
find the place of peace within; retire into the silence of your own being and
there, in perfect equipoise of heart and mind, review the nature of the task
to which your hand is set. Envisage clearly the goal you seek, then note the
obstacles upon your path. Those barriers must be taken one by one and overcome.
Seek not to destroy, but to transform; kill not lust, rather withdraw the love
from it, and leave it to perish; kill not desire, withdraw the will from it,
and leave it to perish; kill not the evil thought, withdraw thought from it,
and leave it to perish. As you must withdraw from love of men and become a man
apart, so must you withdraw from the man whom, hitherto, you regarded as yourself.
Note well that you conquer by retreating, not by slaughter; withdraw yourself,
therefore, from all that would oppose you; the way of victory for you is not
by conquering your opponents, whether within or without, but by saving them.
Every antagonist who comes against you must be won over to your side; from every
power of evil which meets you on the path, withdraw the good, leaving the evil
to perish by the way, until in every form of life you learn to see the good,
and having learned to see, you learn to love, until, for you, all evil ceases
to exist.
In the light of your
growing love, evil is but good in the becoming - a necessary phase in the
Divine alchemical experiment.
So shall you grow in
wisdom, strength and knowledge, of which the saving love, which you aspire to
irradiate upon the world, shall be compounded. Love shall be your queen, and
you her knight; she shall gird you in her armour, making you invulnerable; for
against the power of love, naught in heaven or earth can prevail. Riding on
the white charger of truth, which is her gift, you shall dispel all darkness,
for no darkness can withstand the light of that love which is divine. Heaven's
radiance shall play about your brow, the mystic rose shall bloom upon your breast,
divine beauty, radiant as the morn, shall shine about your person; you shall
become a veritable Galahad, and to you shall be given the vision of the Holy
Grail.
Wait no longer, therefore,
in the vale below, so deep that only with difficulty the sun's rays penetrate
its gloom, but take the steep path, which now you see opening at your feet,
for it shall lead you to the summit of the mountain which is ever illumined
by the splendour of the spiritual sun.
You shall not find the
road too hard, for the self-same power by which you see it shall enable you
to tread its rugged way. If you can truly see, then you can truly tread. Pause
not to regret the companions whom you leave behind; you shall find new lovers
and new friends who shall leave you nevermore. Fear not the loneliness of spiritual
adventuring; from the moment when you set your foot upon the road you will,
henceforth, never be alone. Guides, both human and angelic, shall travel by
your side, shall warn you of the dangers, and lead you to the goal.
Come then to the great
adventure; prove for yourself that the glorious days of knight errantry have
not departed, that Galahad and Percival still live, that the Holy Grail has
not been lost, and that the King still presides at that Round Table which has
existed since the world began. Weep not that you are leaving love behind; love
is the prize which awaits you at the end of your quest. Heed not the tears of
those who think they lose you; what they now lose for a brief time they shall
find unto eternity. Earthly bonds and friendships, by their very nature, pass
away; your ties with those to whom you will, henceforth, be united, shall nevermore
be broken, for they are of a love which is eternal. Your true friends and lovers
await you on the path; with them you shall enter into that perfect companionship
which is found in spiritual realms alone.
On, therefore, to the
summit. Those whom you leave behind, you will one day save, when you enter into
the fulfilment of your destiny and become the Love of God Incarnate upon earth.