...

THE CAMELS BACK

—

LESSON 61

Truly it is said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of. a

needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. One

interpretation of the Master's words is given to the effect that there

was formerly a peculiarly shaped gate in the wall of the ancient city,

called the needle's eye, and the eastern beast of burden, the camel,

could not go through that gate because of the hump on his back.

Similar impedimenta are observed in the case of the rich man, if the

above interpretation of the Bible statement has a basis of truth. The

possessions of the rich man correspond to the hump on the camel's

back, and while he clings to that burden, or it to him, lie must stay on

the outside of the Heavenly City ; that is, in some lower place. But

whether the interpretation is correct or not matters little ; in reality the

statement is true as it stands. I will go still further and say it is

impossible for a rich man to enter the path of occultism. The first task

given him on his application for chelaship is voluntarily to renounce

all hindrances, to give up at once and forever everything that can

impede his progress. He may win back all that he renounced and ten

times over that amount if he be accepted, but it will never be his, it

will belong to the degree which he has entered. He may be appointed

to a stewardship over it, every penny of it may pass through his hands,

but it will be used as dictated by others, and for the benefit of others.

If he receives any personal benefit from it it will be incidental, and

because of his being a part of the degree which is dictating the use of

it. It requires but a little earnest thought to show us why this must

[TT 151] be true. We are well aware of the effect of riches on the

average man of the world. Autocracy, self-indulgence, pride, greed,

are some of the evils engendered by the possession of great wealth ;

and, still worse, contempt for and mastery over the poor, cringing,

fearful sycophants who dog his footsteps, and abuse of the poor man

who has not inherited or gained an equal amount of treasure, all of

which deadens the soul of the rich man, destroys all his confidence in

human nature, and finally leaves him destitute of all that makes life

worth living. Suspicious of his friends, despising the rank and file of

mankind, fearful that his nearest and dearest are watching with

longing eyes for the day that will usher him out of life and give them

an opportunity to handle his wealth, what has he left ? The poorest

man in the world bas more cause for self-laudation than he.

The man who can keep his fingers fast closed on his purse and

pass by another man who lie has reason to believe is homeless and

hungry ; who can refrain from opening that purse while a wounded

beggar, or a sick child lies in a hovel or on the street through which he

must pass to his own comfortable home, could not by any possibility

face the Master at the top of the great Initiation Stair.

I do not pretend to say just how the rich man can most wisely

dispose of his possessions ; that lies between God and his own soul,

but I do most emphatically repeat, a materially rich man cannot enter

the Kingdom of God, the height of perfection, the great Initiation. It is

one of the few privileges that wealth cannot purchase for him. He has

altogether too many "humps on his back." As a rule his one great

haunting dread is that he will have to die and leave that beloved

wealth. Poor man, if lie only could leave it, there might be some hope

for him ; but unfortunately he cannot, he takes it all with him to curse

him for centuries. Not the mere material wealth (that has never been

of any particular value), but the results, the lasting effects of the things

he has done and left undone, the misery lie has caused others in the

gathering of that wealth, the lofty, beautiful, Christly things he might

have done and did not do. The compassion, sympathy, love, charity

for which his hungry soul will cry, he can only sec like Dives, "from

afar." The so-called charity on which he has hitherto prided himself,

he will find is an empty thing, for the only thing that could render that

charity acceptable . Love . was never put into it ; therefore can never

be taken out. A gift has no particular value . it is only too often

accursed, unless actuated by self-surrender and love, and the selfish

man has lost the power of loving and has put in its Place an idol made

by men's hands. [TT 152]

Truly, of all none so greatly in need of our pity as the selfish rich

man. Unfortunately for himself, the poor man does not always realize

the power of the curse of unlimited wealth in time to prevent his

trying to bring down the same curse on himself. Verily, contentment is

a treasure.

...

THE MURDER OF IDEALS

From The Master M.

—

LESSON 62

Has it yet dawned upon your mind that even a premeditated

murder does not bear the dire consequences to the murdered or the

murderer that does the blasting of a high ideal by a scandal monger ?

The death of the body is a light thing compared to the death of a Soul,

and the Soul is dependent for its nourishment, and therefore its life,

upon the force of its high ideals.

Every invidious comparison, innuendo, slighting, sarcastic or

sneering word or thought by another, serves to undermine or tear

down the faith and trust we have placed in some ideal of Truth or

Righteousness. When the first rift is made in the beautiful light that

radiates from that Ideal, you may feel a little uncomfortable, may even

be driven to protest, but you do not realize the enormity of the offense

or its effect upon you. That Ideal is the purest, holiest thing in the

world to you, whatever it may be to others. It is so superhumanly pure

that the least stain stands out in broad relief, and the corroding force

which has made the stain, slowly eats into the inmost recesses of your

being. You cannot forget or ignore it. It tears away the mental tissue

of your ideal and leaves a great cavity which grows wider and deeper

with every attack, with every word that seems to corroborate the first

seed of suspicion, and one day it dawns upon you that you are facing a

perfect Hades, in place of the pure, beautiful Ideal your open enemy or

seeming friend has killed. Your peace of mind is gone. Materialism

takes the place of faith, suspicion ousts trust, you have become a

walking sepulcher of dead hopes, and when you take an inventory of

your possessions and learn the cause of your evident mental

bankruptcy, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you learn that the

ruin has all been wrought by those you have believed to be your

friends, and has been done through jealousy of you or [TT 153]

others, personal ambition or self-gratification, and you, poor innocent

that you were, never suspected the seeming sympathy with your

higher aims, the tenderly drawn comparison between your ideals and

theirs ; never have dreamed that the profound pity expressed for your

ignorance, the warmly offered help, the final caricature and grotesque

cartoons which familiarity with the Ideal and its creator made possible

at the last, were all parts of a deep laid plot by the enemies of the

human race on other planes, and you are left with only an aching void

where once dwelt your heart's ideal, left with your whole being

reeking with the poison so ably administered, and devoid of the power

to build another Ideal ; for all the imagination at your command has

been devitalized, and you have no longer even the desire to seek

another subject for adoration.

"How long, O Lord, how long", will it take us to learn the lesson

that whether our mind be fixed on an individual representation of such

an ideal in some personality, or the ideal of a supernatural God, it

literally makes no difference. It is we, ourselves, who have loved that

ideal into life, and clothed it with spiritual garments. It is what that

ideal stands for to us, that counts, not what it stands for to others, and

whether it be stick or stone, personality or God, it makes no

difference. It is of no consequence to us even what such a personality

does or does not do, whether the stick or stone be rough or hewn ;

through some Cosmic link, some Karmic tie between us and the

substance of that Ideal so represented, it is possible for us to receive

the help from, and offer the requisite devotion to the Lord of all Life

we have mentally photographed within that Ideal. It is only when we

make an idol of the personality, the stick or stone, forgetting that that

idol is only clay, that we are endangered. The Ideal hangs over our

heads, like the weaver's pattern above his loom, and even though it be

unconsciously, it is at that pattern, that sacred Ideal, that the filth and

slime of people's thoughts and tongues is flung, when a deliberate

attempt is made to break down our faith and destroy our love in and

for our Ideals.

...

THE MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS

—

LESSON 63

Words are easily found to express philosophical or scientific ideas

or theories. Expression is readily given to the affairs of material

existence, [TT 154] but where words for, how give expression to the

deep truths of spiritual life, the intense, unspeakable longing of the

awakened soul for the source of its being ? How describe the

unutterable ecstasy of pain of that soul, at last alive, at once to its

separateness and its relationship to . nay, more, its unity with . all it

has ever been taught to believe, or has personally experienced of God,

the Infinite ?

Human life is held se cheap ; nature seems to vie with man in se

underestimating the value of a single life, that its inestimable worth as

a differentiated aspect of the Infinite Father-Mother does net receive

the reverent recognition it deserves, in fact receives no recognition

worth mentioning unless it has become an embodied $ (dollar mark).

This non-recognition of the value of life is especially noticeable in the

cases of the unawakened and the murdered souls of men. The former

have never experienced anything that could by any possibility afford

them a hypothesis or an analogy by or with which comprehensive

comparisons might be made to create an understanding of such a state

of spiritual consciousness ; and the latter, if there yet be left a memory

of such experiences, refuse to dwell upon them because of consequent

fear or hopelessness, either of which conditions awakens unbearable

suffering. It is to those who have reached, even in ever se slight a

degree, some one or, more of the immeasurable heights of spiritual

loneliness, that I would fain make my words convey a tithe of the

sympathy and desire to help that surges through my heart.

O, my children, could you but realize that the one word

"separateness" holds the key to all such suffering ! Could you but

force your hearts to respond to your brains when you attempt to

synthesize the life forces and gain some intellectual concept of unity,

and se reach to the certainty of spiritual knowledge that the same soul-

essence that is pulsing through your own hearts is likewise pulsing

through the heart of every other human being, good, bad or

indifferent ! If you could feel, intuitively, that the great Love Energy

toward which your soul is reaching with such unspeakable anguish

and longing is likewise appealing to you through the eyes of every

living creature, whether or net the intellectual part of that creature is

conscious of the fact, and that it is only a matter of greater or less

experience which keeps both it and you from recognizing your

relationship and duty to each other ! Never, until your own heart is

melted by the true spiritual fire of love for all that lives, will it be

possible for you to pass on over the top of those heights of loneliness.

The human love that you permit to chain you to some one human

being, thus [TT 155] giving rise to indifference toward all others, only

serves to fix your feet on some one step of the mountain side. In that

human love, as in all other material expressions of life, there are

always the two great universal forces of action and reaction in labor.

While that human love May give YOU for a limited time a slight

glimpse of what spiritual love of and for God may be, the reaction of

the same force, which must inevitably ensue, will as inevitably render

you cold and careless, by comparison, toward the object of your

erstwhile affection, as well as toward all others.

It is not for the purpose of repeating for my own satisfaction what

I have told you, over and over again, that I reach out and draw you to

me in longing now, but to try to impress upon you, if it be possible,

that never, until you can see the great Father-Mother force within the

outer lineaments of the most disreputable, repulsive human being .

never until you can feel the heart-beat of the Great Master against

your own heart at the call of your worst enemy as well as your dearly

beloved, will it be possible for you to scale the heights and reach the

haven of soul satisfaction. Do net let the specious reasoning of those

who know net what they say lead you into the belief that Wisdom is to

be gained by stifling sympathy and killing out love, for the reaction

which follows such methods will inevitably plunge you into a hell of

intense, unsatisfied and unsatisfiable Desire, such as no tongue can

describe. God cannot be safely mocked or set at aught, for God is love.

Of what use to you the treasures of sunken Lemuria, the hidden

wisdom of the Pyramids, the knowledge of the action of the combined

Suns of Space, and of Earth and Sea and Sky, if the one great reality

back of all and in all, is denied you ?

All else that I and others like me have gained in countless

incarnations, and might impart to you, is worthless chaff beside the

wheat . the love . which alone can impart life and value to that and to

all else.

What wonder, then, that I sometimes weary some of you with

what seem vain repetitions. Would you have me feed you with husks,

and while watching your starved faces, refuse to give you corn and

wine, and refrain from giving lest it trouble you to eat, or, lest you

throw the corn and wine back in my face again, as you have done

before ?

Some day the scales will fall from eyes now holden, and let the

light I bring reach to the inner chambers of the fast closed hearts now

locked to me by pride and ignorance. [TT 156]

...

LET THERE BE LIGHT

—

LESSON 64

If the generally accepted aphorism, "Self protection is the first

law of nature", contains the truth it implies, and that truth is applicable

to all degrees of selfhood, the preservation of the Self of the average

human being requires a far greater effort on the part of nature than is

perceptible to the casual observer, if it is to counterbalance the efforts

that many human beings put forth for the destruction of Self.

This is especially true as regards the whilom Christian who has

repudiated the fundamental truths of Christianity in favor of the

materialistic clap-trap offered in the much abused name of science,

and offered as a sop to troublesome consciences which as yet cannot

reconcile to their full satisfaction a desire to ride rough-shod over the

existing code of moral laws with the yet live coals of their former

belief ; and so in many cases accept the sop which offers freedom

from all restraint, in the name of materialistic science.

The establishing of the non-existence of a Christ . a Saviour, by

said Science, and the reduction of a formerly accepted ideal God to an

unconscious, impersonal form of energy, and the enthroning of a

lesser God designated Primordial Matter, has been rapidly taking

away Nature's power to protect the Self, which for the time being

appears to be at the mercy of the destructive powers of Nature.

The ideas that have supplanted former Ideals in such instances, at

first slowly filtered through the mind, forced by the tremendous power

of auto-suggestion ; and with the final rejection of the Ideals, the Ideas

sprang into active life as confessed Materialism. One hears here and

there from such self-deceived ones, an expression of pity for "the poor

ignorant dupe who persists in clinging to his worn-out creeds or to a

code of moral laws altogether too narrow for an enlightened

nineteenth century man or woman", and beholds with joy the new altar

set up to the new God, the God of license and self-indulgence.

It is not surprising, amidst all the turmoil, the contradictory

statements made by men he has been taught to honor, the newly

coined phrases indicative of half-revealed discoveries along the line of

evolution, that the sore beset, passion tossed, discouraged human

being is driven to despair, and hopeless of ever seeing "the face of

Truth", finally settles down with the old reckless cry, "Let us eat,

drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die", upon his lips, and a sinking

of heart that baffles understanding ; or else he falls into the hands of

some psychic-mad individual who initiates him into the mysteries of

medium-ship, [TT 157] if so be he cannot yet relinquish all that has

hitherto made his life worth the living . his religion . and finally

travels a similar path to that which his materialistic brother has taken,

as a result of the deceptive, little-understood phenomena he has found

himself enmeshed within.

Ah, the pity of it all ! and all due to a lack of understanding of the

fundamental principles of all religions, an ignorantly inspired

contempt for great truths which the majority have never had the

opportunity of intelligently considering, owing either to mistakes, or

lack of opportunity for investigation, in the cases of those who have

stood in the position of teachers, or to the glamour thrown around the

great mysteries by those who, knowing the truth, yet conceal the same,

either through fear of the derision of the multitude or for selfish,

ambitious projects of their own.

Christ Is Not Dead

If the words of my first quotation, "Self-protection is the first law

of Nature", could but fall on the ears of the self-deceived, or the

victims of man's ignorance and inhumanity, with sufficient force to

hold the attention and cause the hearers to ask themselves how much

truth there really is in those words, and if any, where and what is the

Self that natural law is bound to protect, then put their bias and

prejudice aside and go back to the beginning of Time and the action of

natural law for an answer to those questions ; all their despair, heart-

scorching agony of loss, and feeble snatching at the few realities left

of a formerly acceptable religious experience, would be spared them,

and a glorious Possibility might dawn on their minds, break through

the darkness and flood their souls with understanding of the hitherto

concealed and mysterious meaning of countless dear and reverenced,

though incomprehensible sayings of wise men and prophets in

reference to the Christ, who, they now believe, is either dead or a

myth ; for I, Hilarion, Initiate of the Mysteries, declare to you that

Christ is not dead, will never die, and that you, an expression of that

Christ, are alive, have always lived, and will never die.

Jesus said, "I and my Father are one" ; "whoso liveth and

believeth on Me shall never die" ; "God so loved the world that He

gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him might

not perish, but have eternal life."

These words not only record the accepted truths of Christianity

but they express the deepest truths of all religions.

If you have lost your faith in these grand, soul inspiring promises,

come aside with me awhile and let us see what they mean, and what

effect an understanding of them may have on your life ; but first be

[TT 158] open, brave and just enough to ask yourself the following

questions :

If the personal ideal of God which most Christians form, and

which resembles a little bigger, more powerful and just, as well as

more tender Father than the father who gave you physical life, should

by any chance be lost in an inconceivably greater, more wise and just

vehicle of consciousness in which is preeminently active all Love, all

Wisdom, all Power, and in which you . the real you . the Self, dwells

eternally ; with whom you will by steady growth sometime be

consciously and individually identified ; do you think you would

suffer much by exchanging your ideal of that almost earthly Father,

for the great vehicle of consciousness, Principle, God, call it what you

will, here outlined ? And yet this is the nearest I can come to the truth

in an endeavor to afford you some adequate idea of the greatly

misunderstood Christos whom the ancients and the Initiates of the

Great Mysteries reverence and adore, and do so reverence and adore

because they have seen with unveiled eye its operation upon the lives

and within the souls of the Perfected . the Saviour of mankind, and

know whereof they speak.

Let There Be Sons of Light

This first emanation from the Godhead is referred to in the

familiar expressions of the Bible, as follows : "In the beginning was

the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." "And

God said, Let there be Light." In other words, Let there be Mind, the

Son, the Christos (in that first day, the beginning of a great world

period or age). And Jesus said, "I am the first-born among many

brethren." "The first that shall be last", the first emanation of many

other emanations, of which I shall speak later.

Would it stagger your belief and bankrupt your hope to exchange

the ill formed, generally grotesque and always unsatisfactory image of

a man which so-called Art has fixed in your mind as a picture of the

Saviour of mankind, or any imaginary picture of a man endowed with

all the virtues, subjected to all the abuses, finally "dying on the cross

for your redemption", paying the price of your sin ? . I say, would it

be difficult to exchange such an image for a conscious, omnipotent,

life-manifesting Light, emanating from the hidden source of all Life,

creeping slowly, silently out and over a world of shadows,

illuminating every hidden-corner, every dark place, penetrating to the

heart of every living thing and flooding it with beauty ; teaching by its

very presence the glory of sacrifice as it surrenders its own substance

that all living things should have life more abundantly ; touching and

arousing to action every human impulse for good, as well as every

[TT 159] divine impulse toward the source of its own emanation : the

same creative power which poured through and illuminated the

blessed Master Jesus and made of Him the Saviour, the healer, the

hope of the degraded and outcast, as it shone through other great Souls

before His time, and shines now through still others, and will always

continue to shine when given opportunity, even through you and me ?

What is there in the thought of this omnipotent, omnipresent

beautiful reality, that compares unfavorably with your first ideal

concept, or picture of a Saviour ?

In order to form some faint idea of the Christos, by analogy, think

of the Ether which surrounds and penetrates all planets, suns and stars

in space, as of one definite grade of substance, though composed of

different finer grades, without which no thing or creature could live. If

we can gain an adequate idea of the universality as well as potentiality

of the Ether, its relation to all forms and conditions of life, it may aid

us in the consideration of a more refined, more potent and spiritual

emanation from the First Cause . the Absolute which the ancients

termed the Christos, "the first-born Son of God."

Being nearer to the heart of Nature, as well as purer and much

wiser than the humanity of later ages, some of these ancient Seers and

Prophets came into the possession of great knowledge, which was

handed down under vows of secrecy to disciples who had passed

through the most severe tests as to their ability to keep inviolate the

secrets intrusted to them, until the evolution of later races brought the

humanity of the same to the point where such secrets could be

imparted with benefit to all. Among the latter was the secret of the

seven-fold constitution of Matter, Force and Consciousness ; the

intimate relation of one to, the other, and the periodical manifestation

of each. These Seers and Prophets, Masters of the Mysteries, were

held together in groups by bonds which no earthly power could break ;

and to one of these groups, the Essenes, the Master Jesus belonged ;

and In the private gatherings of these illumined ones, as well as other

groups of a similar kind, He passed much time at one period of His

life. Many of the expressions He commonly used were in continual

use in the ceremonies as well as in the elucidation of the Mysteries by

the Essenes.

The First-born Son, the Christos, the fount of Wisdom, Love and

Power, only required such a purified, perfected vehicle as was Jesus If

Nazareth in order to manifest outwardly as qualities, those inner

attributes of the Christos, which I have mentioned, and to make him

indeed and in truth a very Son of God. [TT 160]

Rightly directed study of these much maligned, greatly

misunderstood and misinterpreted ancient teachings will give a

definite ground work for necessary illustrations of the action of the

one great life principle, God in manifestation, who lives and moves

and has His being in Matter, Force and Consciousness, and such study

will open wide the closed doors of many sacred books, notably of the

Bible, as well as all the phenomena of evolution and involution.

Science is demonstrating the truth of many of these teachings, and

at the points where science fails, they supply the necessary impetus for

far deeper investigation, along much higher lines.

Little can be said in such an article as this for the enlightenment

of an unprepared reader, and I must refer such to other more

comprehensive and all inclusive works on the same subjects, and

confine my efforts to the two least understood and all important

Principles toward which all others converge, and which unfortunately

seem to furnish a basis for all the more violent and even vicious

religious disputes between man and man ; the repudiation of which in

comparatively modern times has led to confusion worse confounded,

and finally to a rejection of all unauthenticated records of Christianity,

and in many cases to loss of all faith in the existence and work of the

Great Master, thus leaving a vacuum in thousands of lives, which

some form of materialism or agnosticism has filled, to the eternal

sorrow and regret of those who know the truth.

Divinity of Jesus

The divinity of Jesus does not rest upon a miraculous or

supernatural conception, birth and resurrection. The life and conduct

accredited to Him are sufficient to show the action of Divinity through

Him, the one perfect pattern in ages of human effort handed down to

the races of mankind now upon the earth, and one who believed in and

taught the truths revealed to the Initiates in the Mysteries, as may be

seen by those who possess the clue to the hidden kernel of His

teachings, which He plainly stated were not for the multitude but for

His chosen disciples alone.

It is contended that the whole Christian theology must stand or

fall by the acceptance or rejection of the miracles noted in the Bible,

and particularly the accounts of the conception, birth and resurrection

of Jesus ; and yet, what essential difference can it make to mankind in

general whether the events recorded were of a miraculous or a purely

natural order of things ; or even if they were a symbolic illustration of

different phases of evolution and involution which could only be

expressed in such language ? What effect would it have on the

[TT 161] character, mental calibre, spiritual power of a man, whether

his physical body was brought into manifestation by means of the

body of a virgin or by one who had lost her virginity ? The laws of

Nature would produce the same kind of a body in either case, every

thing else being equal.

The fundamental cause of the difference between Jesus and

countless other men of similar potentialities, lies in the fact that

through many lives the inner Ego, the Self of that entity, had prepared

conditions by self-sacrifice, indefatigable labor, purity of life and

purpose intense love and unremitting service for others, for the

acceptance and radiation of that divine light we call the Christos, in

and through His whole nature, and which made of Him "One set

apart", a "Light to Lighten the world", a pattern for all men to copy if

they would reach the altitude where He dwells, and at the same time

and by the same means furnish the vehicle through which the

phenomena noted in the various accounts of the descent of the Holy

Spirit, could be manifested to a wondering people who did not yet

know that in the common acceptance of the word, a miracle was an

utter impossibility, or that all seemingly miraculous events were due

to the Self-directed action of a divine, purified Will on Nature's finer

forces, for the greatest good of all concerned.

Divinely Natural Law

Remember that although your concept of maidenly virtue as a

necessary factor in the conception and birth of a Saviour is the

generally accepted concept of the world, and that such a necessity

would seem to arise as a result of a Divine command ; look where you

will in all stages and degrees of natural life and law, you can find no

analogy, no reliable information regarding a necessity for previous

abstinence from sexual contact where was concerned the conception

and birth of the offspring of plant, vegetable, mineral or human being.

Man has made a law, and according to the word of man that law was

made by divine command ; but Nature furnishes no proof of the

probability of such command. We know that previous abstinence (to

the time of conception) or the reverse by the mother, does not of

necessity either injuriously or otherwise affect her offspring. We have

j seen the most beautiful, pure and lovely children whom we knew to

be of so-called illegitimate birth. The air such a one breathes is not

restricted by law, its body is as perfect, its mind and soul are as active

eternal and useful, as that of any other child ; and no more than the

action of air and formation of mind is restricted in such an instance is

the principle of the Christos restricted in its action, by the illegitimacy

of a child. [TT 162]

Please note I am not countenancing lax morals, denying the

legitimacy or Divinity of Jesus, or the understood divine command

concerning the moral law ; I am but endeavoring to show that a

mother's limitations, idiosyncrasies, or lax morals, cannot prevent the

action of a divine power in the case of a child, and therefore the

conception and birth of Jesus literally had nothing to do with His

divinity and power and His mission to earth, and even if he never

came to earth, as is contended by many, and the whole account be a

fabrication or a symbolic representation of the action of great natural

forces, there is no occasion for the upsetting of faith and throwing

away our great opportunities for seeking and finding the truth because

we have not understood some particular phase of that truth.

The Message of Hope

The people of the world are starving for want of the spiritual

sustenance of which they have been robbed by ignorant

misrepresentations or wilful selfishness. The churches are losing their

devotees by thousands because of the bondage of many of their

ministers to worldly opinions, even when light has partially broken in

upon their minds, and it remains for the disciples of the Masters to go

out into the world, and in the highways and byways of life seek for the

"seeing eye", the "open ear", that they may help to stem the tide now

set in for the destruction or degradation of the great ideals through

which humanity has been raised to its present status. The mystery of

the resurrection becomes a simple act of Nature in the light of the

sevenfold Constitution of Matter.

For the love of the Christ that is in us all, let us turn our hearts to

the light and our footsteps in the direction of those "who have marked

the signs of the times" and been permitted to see the sheaf of

Annunciation Lilies held in the hand of the Angel . the progenitor of

the coming Race . and hear the words which bid them seek out the

desolate and faint hearted and give them a message of hope.

...

SOME OF THE HEROES OF LIFE

—

LESSON 65

If the faintest concept of the absolute geometrical and

mathematical perfection of the universe, from the highest to, the

lowest degree, were fixed in the consciousness of a student of life's

mysteries, [TT 163] he would have but little if any difficulty in

solving the ever recurring problem of the position and rights of a

Teacher, Master, or Ruler, and the correct attitude lie should hold

toward such an one.

It is an absurdity to hold that the evolution of the planets in their

own orbits is governed by irrevocable law, while the evolution of one

or more nearly related human beings in their own environment is left

to chance, as it would inevitably be if the same immutable, irrevocable

laws were not guiding every phase of every degree of their evolution.

No human being is drawn to and placed under the direction of a

superior influence for a definite purpose and at a definite period of

time, by chance, nor could such an one be rightly loosed from

subjection to such influence by chance ; he may tear himself away, for

he is a free-will agent as regards certain clearly defined phases of his

separate life, but if lie does so separate himself, the action and results

of the same are analogous to the phenomenon of the star that tears

itself, or is torn from, its own orbit, and goes flying into space, only to

fall and keep on falling, until its mass is disintegrated, and its

insignificant fractions are drawn into the orbit of some greater star,

there to lose its integrity as far as an individualized entity is

concerned. Having been drawn by karmic law and association of long

past lives into one Hierarchical line, the evolution of such an

individual is provided for on that line, and the ruling entity of that

Hierarchical line commands his allegiance by divine right ; and any

important deviation from the right line causes him to lose whatever

degree of knowledge and experience was due him at the particular

period of his recreancy.

Love will invariably attract him back to that line in time, unless

he has gone too far, but in the interim lie has missed just the measure

Of opportunity and development that karmic law had provided for at

that period, and consequently falls behind the other constituent parts

Of that line.

It is a cowardly, selfish man who, for the purpose of saving

himself from a little inconvenience, an insignificant personal trouble

or to enhance his own importance in the eyes of others, tears himself

away from the business, social or religious body with which lie is

connected, on the supposition that lie sees signs of its breaking up ;

and to find an acceptable excuse for his treachery convinces himself

that he is protecting himself or others from the results of the failure or

unworthiness of others who are connected with the same body. The

Moment lie decides to take such action lie prints in fiery letters within

his own aura the words, coward, recreant, unworthy, faithless ; and it

[TT 164] will take long years of almost superhuman effort to erase

those words.

The majority of human beings have been so long tinctured with

selfish worldliness, that they rush with incredible speed to shelter

themselves under the roof of the common opinions, and estimates of

position held by their more influential associates. Man is so fearful of

being made a victim of the contempt and ridicule which he knows is

the portion of the loser in any of the games of life, that lie usually runs

for his life to cover, at a hint of disgrace or failure in connection with

his whilom friends and comrades, and cannot bring himself to stop a

moment and look back at what and who it is that lie is in reality

deserting.

In all the annals of history there is no one crime that awakens

such contemptuous disgust in the minds of the people at large, as does

the crime of the deserter from a post of trust . the coward who shrinks

back and takes to the slums and byways at the first firing of a gun by

the enemy. In all the long list of heroes the world delights to honor,

there are none which move the hearts of all-good, bad or indifferent,

to such admiration and regard as does the hero leader of a forlorn

hope, the man who stands in the breach regardless of what the enemy

may do.

In all life's lists of interior or exterior action, there is not a living

soul over whom the Initiates of the White Lodge so quickly and

efficiently spread the mantle of their love and protection as the man or

woman who, in spite of all the darts of all the demons of the lower

spheres and upon the earth, stands steadily at the post taken at the

signing of the pledge of application for discipleship, and none from

whom that mantle is so quickly withdrawn as from the deserter from

the ranks of comradeship ; and such withdrawal of protection is not a

matter of choice, necessarily, with the Initiates ; for, being

administrators of Nature's laws, they have no alternative ; such a

cowardly deserter has stepped from the line and position that

evolution had placed him. upon and like the falling star has left his

own orbit, has fallen out of the circle of Lodge protection.

The brave man, the accepted disciple, knows that just because

there has arisen a great crisis, just because other comrades have

deserted their post, just because the citadel of his strength is attacked,

because his Master, his leader, has need of him, his hour has come to

prove himself, and wild beasts could not tear him away from that

leader's side, the wealth of the whole world could not tempt him away.

He knows that the reforming of the whole body on higher, better lines

may, sometime, rest on his loyalty. The power to cleanse and purify

the body, to stiffen the weak and lift up the crushed, and [TT 165] so

help to bring harmony out of discord, victory out of defeat, may be

his, if the need should ever arise, and lie will run no risk of being

found wanting or absent if such a calamity should occur. He knows

that countless brave men have gone down to death ; innumerable

grand efforts for the betterment of humanity have been rendered

worthless for want of one unselfish, well qualified person to take up

the reins of power which have fallen from the hands of a wounded

leader, a stricken comrade ;.and the end . no tongue can tell. He is

content to wait.

...

THE PLANES OF REFLECTION

—

LESSON 66

I find that many of the more recently received students of the

Secret Science meet with what seem to them insurmountable

difficulties in the way of reconciling statements made in some one late

instruction with statements made in previous instructions, and in many

instances the difficulty lies in their incomplete grasp of the subject in

toto, or imperfect concept of the vital importance of the laws

governing Reflection, as well as the character of the substances

involved in the media of reflection.

Before passing to further comment on the same, I desire to make

one emphatic statement which you will do well to remember. The

three higher of the seven planes of manifestation are incomprehensible

and eternal so far as any possible computation of time or exercise of

mentality by a human being is concerned ; so, in trying to understand

the planes, states of consciousness, laws and all that pertains to them,

You will save much valuable time and mental force by confining your

efforts to the study of the four lower . the reflected planes, for some

time to come.

The laws governing the energy of reflection are unchangeable. By

the action of these laws, within the same forces by and through which

physical form is reflected on a polished surface, is the potential energy

of the three higher planes . spiritual life . reflected first into the

Akasha, next into the Etheric, and finally into the grosser or material

planes. As the Akasha has three major subdivisions, so the Etheric.

and material have three major subdivisions. The subdivisions of the

material are Water, Air and Earth, those of the [TT 166] Etheric,

Light, Heat and Sound. The ether of science and the real Æther, the

vehicle of electric energy, are the positive and negative aspects of one

homogeneous substance. The three subdivisions of Akasha, in

common parlance, are designated the Higher Astral or Soul Plane, the

Devachanic, and the Nirvanic Planes ; the three higher Fires in and

from which all fiery forces first emanate and proceed, and to which

they finally return.

The fourth of the seven planes, counting from either above or

below, is a combination of three subdivisions of Akasha. It is the great

double cosmic mirror, for it eventually receives back all its own

reflections as their mission is accomplished on lower planes and

transmutes them. It is the plane of the Christos in operation, "in whom

are all things and by whom all things are made." As the light of the

sun or some other bright body is essential to the reflection of a body or

the casting of a shadow on the plane of matter, so a higher form of

light . energy . is essential to the reflection of the potentialities of the

Akashic planes upon or~ within the lower planes or states, and that

light is identical with spiritual love . the Christ-love. As the light of

the sun must be intercepted in order that a body may cast a shadow of

itself on any other thing or object, so the Christ-light . Love . must be

intercepted, the current interrupted, cut off, from the heart of any

human being in order to demonstrate the action of evil, i. e., cast a

negative mental astral shadow on the Soul. You will note, the same

light is requisite for both. It is the use to which that light is put that

determines its plane of action, i. e., whether it will manifest as good or

evil, just as it is the free action of human love, or its interception as

above mentioned, that determines whether that love shall be a blessing

or a curse to the recipient and the giver.

It is difficult for the average man to picture Love to his mind as a

definite form of energy which may be used or abused, according to the

power and desire of the human will, and under a definite code of laws,

as surely and as scientifically as any form of electricity known to man

may be used.

It is claimed by some students, that what is termed sexual love

bears no relation to spiritual love . Christ-love . or that one is the

antithesis of the other ; but here again is a great mistake, for it is the

interception, the interruption of the current of spiritual love by blind

passion which creates the shadow termed sexual love (passion) It is

never love that should be killed out to raise the vibration of man, but

passion that must be raised.

Divine Love, Creative Energy in action, when reflected into the

Etheric plane, becomes the active principle of Gravitation. [TT 167]

The visible sun is often said to be the generator of heat and light,

but in fact it is like unto a concave mirror, and intercepts and gathers

the etheric vibrations of sound, heat and light, and in turn throws them

back into the receptive cushion or aura of the earth and the other

planets of its evolutionary chain. The correspondence between such

action of Cosmic forces upon each other, and the influence of one

human being over another, is perfect, for the magnetic radiations of

any one aura are reflected upon the auras of others, and by means of

the action of the same great Cosmic light, and if the latter is

intercepted by an antagonistic emanation, that which should have been

a spiritual uplifting, upbuilding power for good, for both sender and

receiver, becomes a disrupting, deathly influence, or shadow, which is

in the way of the light, and through which each party must look at the

other, consequently there is friction and hatred where there should be

harmony and power.

Another point you will do well to emphasize and remember, is the

fact of the reversal of all reflected forms or forces, when thrown on

the Earth's aura. You will notice in a reflected form of yourself, you

stand face to face with the reflected form ; you cannot see your own

back without the aid of another mirror. So, you cannot observe the

entire Self of another individual by observation of the reflected image

in your own mind without the aid of another reflector, i. e., without

the clear, pure energy of the Christ-love, which throws so strong a

reflection, that you may be able to perceive the inner self as well as

the outer semblance of that other.

It is the misfortune of not being able to appreciate these great

truths that causes so much misunderstanding of each other's motives,

thoughts and acts. You see a certain characteristic or quality which is

abhorrent to your particular cast of mind, and at once arouses a

sensation of hatred or disgust, and final condemnation, thereby

intercepting the light and casting deep shadows which confuse your

mind, and render it absolutely impossible for you to see the very thing

You have condemned in another all ready for action in yourself-the

ultimate cause of the disagreeable attribute or characteristic in your

brother. In other words, you must cleanse your own mind and make

sure the reflections cast upon it by divine Love are not intercepted by

shadows of your own making, before you presume to judge your

brother or sister, if so be you would become a true reflector of the

Deific vibrations.

Man pays in full for every opportunity Life offers him . not a jot

or tittle less than the ultimate value of the opportunity. The greater his

demands, the more force and energy he puts into those [TT 168]

demands . all that the same or a like opportunity could be forced to

yield by himself or another, just so great will be the price demanded

by the law for the given opportunity. If this were more fully realized,

man would be less careless in demanding greatness when unwilling or

unable to pay the price.

In commenting on the causes and effects of Reflection, I would

call your attention to previous Instruction on Centralization.

Disobedience to the laws of Centralization is primarily responsible for

the confused and confusing conditions now in operation through all

lines of human endeavor.

It is a commonly accepted idea that the repudiation of a

dominating factor in religious, social or material life for some cause,

which is in reality only a matter of controversy, is a desirable and

efficient way of securing better conditions.

The murder of an unpopular king, the vicious attack on the moral

or physical qualities of a lesser ruler, or a presiding officer of any

organized body, which by affecting public opinion results in killing

that individual's power for good (whether deserved or not), if some

selfish purpose is to be served, finds much justification and excuse ;

and the immediate effects often seem to justify such action. But if the

final effects on the individuals concerned were to be taken into

consideration, such reasoning would be found very faulty ; for, no

matter how powerful or how weak the line of life descending through

religious. national, sociological or family groups of people may be,

the evolutionary forces can only operate for normal growth through

that one line, as far as that one natural division of life is concerned,

and the hurt of one is the hurt of all.

Inability to recognize this truth is due to the very deplorable

conditions now existing in the business and social world.

THERE COULD NEVER OCCUR A CONDITION IN THE

CENTRAL CELL (THE NUCLEUS) INIMICAL TO THE BEST

INTERESTS OF THE OTHER CONSTITUENT PART OF ANY

ONE ORGANISM, IF THE LATTER HAD PERFECTLY

SUSTAINED AND SUPPORTED THAT NUCLEUS IN ITS

POSITION AND DUTIES ; FOR ALL THE LAWS OF GROWTH

AND MANIFESTATION ARE AGAINST IT. THAT NUCLEUS, IF

NOT SUFFICIENTLY STRONG, AND VIRILE ENOUGH TO

FUNCTION THE EVOLUTIONARY FORCES, WOULD HAVE

BEEN DESTROYED AT BIRTH. IF IT HAS DEGENERATED

SUBSEQUENTLY, IT HAS BEEN BECAUSE OF LACK OF

SUSTENANCE ON THE MATERIAL SIDE OF LIFE. [TT 169]

Humanity cannot call to itself and retain an individual ruler in any

functional department, who is very far in advance of the other

constituent lines, and this is because of its tendency to neglect or

destroy what it cannot understand or appreciate ; and the very power

which makes the central cell a vehicle for the transmission of the

evolutionary impulses also renders that cell an inexplicable and there

fore-to-be-rejected quantity by the great majority. Consequently, in

stead of supporting and sustaining it, it is, figuratively speaking,

dragged down, beaten and cast out ; becomes, in fact, the rejected Son,

the Sacrifice.

If this statement of facts is comprehended, it will show the great

necessity for centralized efforts if the Temple members are ever to

furnish the nucleus through which the Lodge can reach the world and

teach the revolution of present methods of government and life.

...

LOVE OF IDEALS

—

LESSON 67

There are two ways by which a human being may defend his life

or his honor ; one is by crippling his antagonist, the other is by making

a friend of that antagonist ; but it depends upon what manner Of man

the latter proves to be whether his friendship or his enmity is better

worth the courting. The enmity of a treacherous viper in human or

animal guise is more to be desired than its openly expressed

friendship, for there is possible defense against a known enemy ; none

whatever against the treachery of a supposed friend.

Of all the brave, noble and true men and women of this drear iron

age there are none more worthy of admiration, and of exaltation by

mankind than is the one who can retain a true, unselfish friendship for

another who bas forgiven a great personal injury ; for the fiends of the

nethermost hell delight in the work cut out for them in the heart of the

forgiven one in such an instance ; the fiends begotten Of loss of

self-regard, born of jealousy and nourished by abject fear. A torturing

suspicion of the genuineness of the forgiveness is forever with such an

one, and what words can tell the story of the long, hard struggle . and

frequent failures ?

This is a long preamble to a few stern facts. [TT 170]

Among the Temple members, to our everlasting sorrow and regret

be it said, there are a few who have been forgiven the greatest wrongs

that a human being is capable of doing another . wrongs to which loss

of life would be trifling by comparison. Years have passed since some

of those wrongs were committed ; only months since certain phases of

the same wrongs have been repeated, and have beer again forgiven,

and the fight, if there has been a fight, has gone against the doers of

those wrongs. They could not endure the temptations of the above

mentioned fiends, and thus have fallen so deeply in the toils of the

latter, they need no further forgiveness to strengthen their bondage.

I do not mention this for the purpose of exciting sympathy or

support for any individual, but from an all-engrossing desire to save

others from a like retribution, and to endeavor to strengthen the weak

and encourage the strong.

In the early days of the Temple work, the Aura of each entering

member was thrown open to those who had the right to see therein, for

the better protection of the gestating cell of the Temple work, and

every future vicious attack on that work was prefigured in some Auric

envelope before it was made. But if such knowledge could have

unrighteously and uncharitably affected those on whom the attacks

were primarily to be made ; if it could have influenced the latter to

refuse admission to the association, or to openly resent the sly

untruthful innuendoes, the uncharitable or false statements of those

who applied for or gained membership only to use the organization for

selfish purposes, the fulfilment of a great trust would have been long

delayed, and the recipients of the trust would not have been permitted

to proceed with the work under the direction of the White Lodge, for

they would have degraded the Cosmic Ideal of The Temple, the

Brotherhood of Humanity.

If you could at all times remember the great ideals you have loved

and longed to materialize in the days that are gone . ideals of

courageous, self-sacrificing, noble Knights of the Holy Grail ; of

sweet womanly, tender and faithful Ladies worthy of the love and

sacrifice of those Knights ; of the unselfish, undying devotion, the

charity, helpfulness, wisdom and beneficence of the Priests and

Priestesses of the great Temples of antiquity, unweariedly pursuing

the Path, sometimes by fire and flood, in the midst of carnage and

blood, through years of martyrdom, on, on, to the topmost step of the

great Initiation Stair ; I repeat, if you could always remember those

ideals . remember what they meant to you when you made the first

conscious effort to reach to some height of the ladder of self help, as

well as what they have [TT 171] been to you on every upward step

you have taken since ; through every soul-scorching sorrow. or great

joy ; would you not be more careful how you debased them, how you

dragged them in the mire and mud of a treacherous, unstable, unloving

maze of mind ?

If you could but always remember that those ideals were the first

privations in form of your spiritual selves, created out of your own

spiritual substance, and therefore living images fixed indelibly in your

own auras, and which you had only to fill in, in order to perfect as an

artist fills in the sketch he has drawn, as the musician fills in the trills

and chords, or as he finds suitable words to accompany the melody he

has spiritually caught and brought to outer expression, thus creating a

never dying musical gem ! If you had retained any memory of these

ideals, could you deliberately thrust away from you the opportunity to

grasp the brushes, to make use of the trills and chords for the reason

that some other poor, unfortunate artist bas chosen to cover his sketch

with slime, or paint, in the place of the Ideal, a grinning fiend, or

because some other musician has set the sweet melody caught from

the realms of Spirit to obscene and degrading words ?

You now know what you ought to do ; you have been left in no

doubt about that ; you may know, if you will but listen, what the

inevitable result will be of not doing what you know you ought in the

line of your duty to your co-disciples, and the preservation of your

higher ideals. The signs of coming events, the forerunning tremors of

the coming great storms are filling the very air.

As well as you know that two and two make four, you know that

a willfully broken pledge to your Higher Selves puts an unyielding bar

across the door which leads to the secret places of the Great White

Lodge. You know that a deliberate lie, or a willfully malicious

statement, whether true or false about another human soul who is

courageously trying to climb out of the mud of sense into the light of

Spirit, will surely set you apart from the encircling love of the Great

Master, until you have picked up every dropped or imperfect strand of

the web that the lie or malicious statement has woven therein ; you

need no reminder of this, if you have listened to the inner voice which

always tells you when you have struck a blow at the Christ . have

driven another nail into the cross of the world's woe.

What matters it that you try to salve your conscience by saying "I

believed that brother or sister was bad, was untrue, was deceiving the

world for his or her own advantage" ? Who made you, you who are

incapable of looking into the heart, or the soul of the accused, a judge

of his or her victories or failures, spiritual growth, or ability [TT 172]

to help others ? You who have sinned just as deeply as lies the

accusation you have made ; else you never could have made it .

would never have entertained the thought of it for a moment ; for the

law is inexorable that forbids you to perceive aught that you have not

experienced.

The time is short, oh se short, my children-the day of judgment,

the effects of previous causes approaches se rapidly. You can put your

heads in the sand like the ostrich if you will, and refuse to see the

signs of its coming ; you can deafen your ears to the battle-cry of the

elemental fiends, the yells of maddened, persecuted, enslaved victims

of man's inhumanity, but that will net prevent that judgment day .

your judgment day . from coming.

Self preservation is the first law of nature, you are told, but nature

seems to have failed in the present great crisis in respect to the

majority of human beings, for they have lost even the desire, to say

nothing of the power of self preservation. If all could see and

understand, they would be on their knees at the feet of those they have

wronged, instead of trying to justify that wrong to themselves or to

others. No surer indication of guilt can be given than attempts at

justification may furnish in the case of a wrong.

Why should I attempt to deaden your sensibility in regard to the

most vital issues in your lives by rapidly pouring forth instructions

upon great Cosmic phenomena ? Why give you more definite

directions for the further unfoldment of psychic senses and gaining of

spiritual power as I have been repeatedly requested to do, when I am

forced to see that I would only add to your responsibility and place in

your hands, figuratively speaking, a dangerous two-edged weapon

with which to slay yourselves and others ?

Just as distinctly and emphatically as I have assured you that the

power is mine to lead you to the heights of development toward which

your eyes are turned, have I told you that without the attainment of

true brotherliness toward your co-disciples, without the virtues of

humility, obedience and chastity, as a foundation, the attainment of

such spiritual and psychic qualifications as you desire would be

detrimental in the extreme ; for you would thereby be thrown among

different orders of life than you are accustomed to, which could work

you irremediable harm, if you had net the power to control them to

your advantage ; and such power can only be won by the practice of

the virtues mentioned by me. You would net expect to handle fire with

unprotected hands, and the forces you would manipulate, if you could,

are far more potent, and just as little self-conscious and as

irresponsible as is the fire of the material planes. And remember, it

[TT 173] is not you yourselves alone that you are holding back by

refusing to obey or ignoring your obligations ; it is also all those who

are in the same Auric vibrations as yourselves. For you can no more

reach the height of development to which you aspire, alone, than one

of a single hive of bees can attain to the stature of a man by itself. You

are parts of a single Group Soul, as the atoms of your bodies are a part

of yourselves, and as long as that Group Soul is held back by a

predominance of some one or more detrimental forces, all its

individual parts are restrained to just the degree that they have become

responsible for the same, by "the things they have done or left

undone." So, to just the extent that you are a partaker in the wrong

doing of those others, by joining in with them, countenancing their

evil acts, or deliberately ignoring their effects-to just that extent you

place them and yourselves under restraint.

You will yet wonder at your disregard of and indifference to the

words of a great Master, "Man does net live to himself alone", for the

spiritual significance of the words is se far beyond the material

significance in importance and truthfulness as to be beyond

comparison. Whether you ever reach the material centre of the Temple

work and become associated with your comrades there or net ;

whether you are se isolated as never to meet another Temple member

in your present incarnation, the fact remains that you are one of the

constituent parts of a single Group Soul, else you never would have

been impelled to unite yourselves with the Temple body, for you have

been under the guidance of that Soul since one of its galaxy of stars

watched over your first appearance on earth.

...

THE POWER OF THE CENTRAL CELL

—

LESSON 68

Will you net try to put aside any opinions formed by hearsay in

reference to any member of the Official Staff of the Temple, and for

the sake of your suffering fellow creatures in the world, as well as for

Your own eternal good, and your personal development, ask

yourselves the following questions :

Have you ever heard or read of the advancement of an individual

to a Position of honor or power, that did net arouse the envy, hatred or

jealousy of one or more persons who had been seeking that [TT 174]

particular position for themselves or some other interested individual,

and, regardless of the real worth and ability of the advanced, have you

not seen the simplest, most natural acts and words of such an one

misconstrued and magnified beyond recognition by the latter, or by

those who were not in a position to judge fairly ?

Have you not found in all nature, in all evolutionary aspects from

that of the atom to a God, in every phase or differentiation of the

Eternal, One Life, so far as your observation has extended, that one

single point, cell, organ, individual, nation, star (sun) was the centre of

attraction and distribution for the action of the evolutionary forces

which were in process of creating or had created, not only the

circumference of that great mystery in form, but all else that came into

manifestation between such a centre and the circumference ?

It will be according to the nature of the task allotted such a centre

by the Lords of Karma and its plane of action, whether it will be a

visible or invisible centre, but always its office is the same.

Have you ever known a revolt, a belittling of lawful authority,

usurpation of rightful prerogative, repudiation of requisite directions

in short, injury to or destruction of the centre of action, to yield

anything but disintegration of mass, mental and physical suffering,

and loss of opportunity for many in line for advancement ?

Does not the whole history of the human race, as well as all

known, phases of nature teach us this great truth ?

Is not such rebellion, revolt and disobedience the underlying

cause of all human suffering, delayed progress, and continuance of

warfare between nation and nation, man and man ?

Do not all successful ventures in business, government, and

family life, as well as all lower natural phenomena, plainly teach that

however limited the nucleus, the building centre, may be, if it be in its

rightful karmic position, its destruction leaves the mass in form which

it has created, without a vehicle for the attraction and dissemination of

the requisite building and sustaining forces ; and that by its protection

and sustenance it is enabled to work in harmony with every molecule

of its organic whole, thus giving to the same what it alone could give.

As rapidly as any unit of a given mass reaches a point of development

where it has become a recognized instrument, capable of directing

lesser units to the advantage of the whole mass, the central nucleus, in

accordance with the higher law which governs the whole mass, must

avail itself of the services of that instrument, and must do its utmost to

advance and emplace that instrument where it can do the most good

for the greatest number. Not to do so would be to jeopardise and

eventually to destroy the whole mass of which [TT 175] it is a

constituent part, for evolution is conducted on strictly mathematical

principles. Man's ignorance of or disobedience to that one law is the

primary cause of all the wretched inhuman forms of government, and

political corruption in the world today.

It is an easily demonstrable truth that every cell, every individual

that refuses to perform its own duty and usurps the duty of another ;

every cell, every individual that attacks or minimizes, or detracts from

the authority vested by Nature in the central cell, the electric

generator, receiver and transmitter of the constructive forces, becomes

a source of great danger to the whole mass . becomes an avenue

through which the destructive instead of the constructive forces may

work, and is therefore the common enemy of the constituent parts of

that mass, of whatever it may consist.

Man's cruelty to his kind is seldom the result of an inherent desire

for cruelty ; its basis, if normal, is almost invariably his material self-

interest. But however culpable he may be, if he has not been found

out, he indulges in a little feeling of satisfaction when some other

guilty one is brought to punishment unless he is a partaker in such

punishment. Such characteristics are among the first which must be

killed out in the true disciple of the Lodge.

No pressure could be brought to bear upon an Initiate, great

enough to influence him to hand over to the "tender mercies" of his

kind any poor soul that had sinned against him individually. He knows

that though its judgments tarry long, the guilty one will meet his

punishment by means of the Law of Laws, but even should the latter

escape such payment of indebtedness nothing but regret for the fault

would be tolerated.

If thunder and lightning, earthquake and fire could arouse and

hold the attention of the rebellious, self-righteous man fixed, long

enough for the still small "voice of the silence" which always follows

a storm, to be heard, and the light of the spiritual torch he unwittingly

carries, the torch of Divine Wisdom, could be uncovered, it would

show him how he himself had madly, ignorantly brought on the storm

and the fire, the anguish, loss and disappointment, by the defiance he

has hurled at the law. One short cycle of cause and effect would then

be complete, and he would have learned how he himself had murdered

his loved ones, had laid the lines and carried the explosives, the seeds

of contagious diseases, the poison, the knife, the dagger, that has

wounded himself and destroyed thousands of his equally anguished,

struggling fellow creatures ; has maimed, and crippled others and

brought on famine and pestilence ; and still worse, has destroyed by

self-indulgence the avenue through [TT 176] which the creative

forces must work to furnish vehicles suitable to attract to earth, and

embody, the souls which would be capable of freeing him from

bondage, and teaching him to work intelligently with Nature's great,

immutable principles in order utterly to drive all wilful evil from the

face of the earth, and give the impetus to the divine fiery lives to flash

forth the news of a revivified, forgiven and forgiving, unspeakably

great and glorified New People, in a stream of white light that would

lighten all the dark places of the universe. But ere even the ideal of

such a finality can become the recognized ambition of the people at

large, countless numbers must go down into the great darkness. The

artist, the dreamer, the scientist, all who have caught a glimpse of any

part of that ideal, must pay the price of daring to underestimate the

importance of the material gods who have claimed their worship, and

who, being refused, will sacrifice them as they have sacrificed every

unwilling devotee of Mammon and brute force in the present

manvantara.

Man has never accepted, will never accept the highest ideal of his

fellowman . the Brotherhood of Man . as worthy of his devotion,

until selfishness, poverty and suffering have driven him to it ; at least,

to the extent of acknowledging its worth and generously placing

himself and his substance at the service of the other, to aid in its

materialization. No matter how much good may result to the world en

masse, unless he can see a way to possess himself individually of the

advantages to be gained by associated endeavor, the average man is

not able to overcome the force of jealousy awakened by the thought

that the ideal is not his own, and this limitation in himself keeps him

at the circumference of life, forces him to follow the weary round of

the Great Wheel from life to life. He feels no vibration of attraction

from the centre because he has placed himself at such a distance from

that centre, and meeting with no force of resistance in him, those

vibrations are caught and fixed in a denser, a material state of

substance which forms the circumference, and there must he remain

until he learns that he can wrong no fellow man by word or thought or

deed and go free from Karmic action himself . until he learns that he

himself must open up the avenues he has closed between himself and

the central nucleus of the world cell to which he belongs, and as those

avenues lead through layer after layer, plane after plane of minor cells,

or organized bodies, with which he is connected by unbreakable

strands, he must become able to harmonize himself with all of those

bodies before the full strength of the evolutionary currents of life can

flow unobstructed from the centre to the circumference of his

individuality through the avenues thus kept open, and through which

he himself will be drawn back to the source of his being, back to his

home and his Father's heart where the feast for the prodigal son is set

and awaits his coming.

...

THE ETERNAL QUERY

—

LESSON 69

The one eternal query . How can God be all things, all good, and

evil exist coincidently with God ? It is said to be a law of physics that

no two things can occupy the same space at the same time, yet we are

asked to believe that while God is all things, all reality, the antithesis

of God, Evil, is not only a self-existent reality but is also the cause of

perpetual warfare between the creatures that God has created from His

own substance.

This would indeed be the paradox of all paradoxes if it were

literally true.

The duality of all manifested life 'is such an obvious fact that it

would seem hardly necessary to refer to it as a basis for argument.

Positive and negative, day and night, good and evil ; consciousness of

one implies consciousness of the other.

An object itself is not the picture of that object ; the picture is an

illusion, a reflection, caught and fixed temporarily in substance of

another character. It is also an inversion of the original object. Stand

over a pool of water and note the image of yourself in the water

beneath ; that image will appear to be upside down ; your head will

seem to be where your feet should be.

This simple illustration may help you to some knowledge of the

methods by which some of the phases of spiritual life become phases

of astral life.

In order to externalize Itself, and so to know Itself, Deity reflects

Itself . its own potential attributes and qualities-into what we term

space, but which is eternal substance, at the beginning of a Great Age

. Maha Yuga. This substance, Akasha, is the fundamental principle of

electric energy, the first manifestation of which is Ether.

Darkness has no real existence : let the light shine, and darkness

disappears. So it is with the reflected universe ; while the Light Of

God, the Will to create, is in action for that purpose, the living

reflection of God has a temporary existence, the time limit of which is

set by that Will. [TT 178]

The one great difficulty in the way of our understanding

somewhat of this reflection of God is in the limitations we put to our

ideal conception, and the tendency to cling to the reflection as a

whole, instead of giving more time and thought to the minor

reflections, the constituent parts of the major reflection, and the

problem is then too great for our mentality. If we can understand that

it is not only all form and every degree of substance that are reflected,

but all possible modifications of mind, all possible attributes, qualities,

characteristics, all forms and degrees of force and energy, and that

they are not only reflections, they are also all separate and distinct

inversions of the same, and therefore false in comparison with the

real, the problem will be simplified. The only real and eternal form of

life in such a universe of shadows, is the Ego, the Divine Spark, the

basis of every individual ; and being, as it were, caught and bound in a

universe of reflection, its mission is to transmute that reflection, to

return it to God, plus what it individually has won through its

experience with the shadows. For instance, suppose the reflected

image of yourself in the pool of water has been endowed with

mentality by you, given power of motion and the inspiration to seek

and find out all the pond of water contains and can teach, and that you

who are watching from your standpoint above, become aware that it

has fulfilled its mission, has gained all its experience, and knowing

that its form and substance are not necessary to its real life, you can

just disintegrate them and set the mentality free, embodied in a form

of pure energy which it has won through the experience, and that you

can recall this finer form to your side on the surface of the pool, your

own child, part of yourself ; then suppose by the power of your own

will, which has reflected both the pool of water and the reflected

image of yourself, you withdraw the light by which the reflection was

cast, leaving nothing but darkness and non-existence where the pool

had been.

While not an exact illustration of the manifestation and involution

of matter, the above may serve to enlighten you to, some extent.

The parable of the ten talents refers to these labors of the Ego.

The unworthy disciple who hid his talent . who made no use of the

talent, which he returned to the Master, illustrates the action of an Ego

which has selfishly refused to use its spiritual life to transmute lower

forms of force which must be cyclicly returned to the Absolute for a

stronger impulse. The disciple who used his talent to good purpose

was rewarded with the talent which the unworthy one had returned ; in

other words, the substance of the lasting, finer vehicle of the Ego, was

the reward of its own industry, as was also . the unused substance

which had been returned to the Giver. [TT 179]

...

GOD AND CHRIST

—

LESSON 70

The use by some teachers, of foreign or unfamiliar terms of

expression, owing to the difficulty of expressing deep spiritual truths

for which, the English language is inadequate, has unfortunately led to

a repudiation or misunderstanding of the corollary of some one or

more aspects of those truths, aspects which are familiar to those who

have been connected with any of the more modern systems of

religion ; and in no instance have the results been more disastrous and

far-reaching than when students were ignorantly led to the complete

repudiation of the ideals which had been formerly built up in their

consciousness by long continued use of the words God and Christ,

through the misinterpretation of foreign or unfamiliar terms of

expression, supposed to indicate exactly the same ideals.

No words can convey an idea of the immeasurable loss that has

been sustained by the rejection of these once familiar and precious

concepts of infinite Love and Power. Many are the futile efforts made

to attain to a similarly potent, uplifting, sustaining power to that

formerly idealized and expressed in those words, and to attain the

same by devotion to an impersonal, unfeeling, all powerful,

unreachable, ever receding ideal, while at the same time the human

heart is continually crying out, hopelessly, despairingly, for comfort in

affliction, for a place of refuge in the storms of evolution, a

consciousness of which might indeed "make the angels weep."

Countless numbers are being driven into suicide and crimes of all

kinds by the despair which has succeeded the apparent loss of such

ideals. In the majority of cases it was altogether more than could be

endured to relinquish all that had hitherto given them courage for the

Present and hope for the future as expressed by them in the words, "a

Father's love", "a Saviour's redemption", and they could not see how

the . to them . cold expressions which "only appealed to the

intellect", were in reality but other forms of expressing Divinity and

the higher attributes ; nor could they appreciate the truth of the

(hitherto lacking) details of the interior planes of consciousness and

the inhabitants of the same which lie between humanity as it now

exists, and the Godhead. They cannot understand that a knowledge of

God the Father . the Holy Spirit, the Mother . is being consciously

brought nearer to them, is in fact a part of them . the highest and best

part Divine Wisdom . the power of loving ; and that Christ the Son,

the first expression or reflection in a slightly less concentrated vehicle

is [TT 180] also a part of highest and best in them, represented by the

words service, sacrifice, redemption, and that Christ can be brought

into visible, tangible form through a perfected man, a Saviour.

It should not detract from man's worship of, or reverence for God,

to know, that instead of a great being eternally seated upon a golden

throne above them, that God is speaking to them, comforting them,

blessing them, in every sincere, loving word and act spoken or

performed by any other human being, to or for them ; or that their

eyes behold His glory in every flower, in every sunrise or sunset, in

every lightning flash, in every beautiful thing, creature or scene in the

world. It should not belittle or cast out man's love for Krishna, Jesus,

Buddha or any other incarnated saviour, to know that their faith in the

same is justified because exactly what those great ones taught is now

being verified ; namely, that being one with the Father in essence,

when those Sons of God withdrew from this plane of action, they

would have the power to send back to man the Holy Ghost, the

Comforter, the Divine Essence which had imbued them with wisdom,

to, assist in the regeneration of the human race. In other words, that a

tremendous impulse, an unsurpassable power, namely, the power of

Intuitive wisdom and, knowledge, would be at the service of others as

it had been of themselves, by which those others could have unending

communication, a perfect union with and understanding of, all those

Elder Brothers ; and also that a perfect realization of the truth would

come to them that every unselfish service, every willing sacrifice

rendered by a human being to another is the stretching out of the hand

of the Christ ; that every effort made to atone for wrong doing, is a

step toward self-redemption.

Ah, children mine, do not permit any misinterpretation, any

wrong construction of words and sentences to come between God and

your own souls, or to shut out the love, service and sacrifice of Christ.

Remember that the touch of a loving hand, the low soft word of

sympathy, condolence and compassion spoken by your brother or

sister in your need, is a touch by the hand of God, the voice of an all

powerful servitor, comforter and coadjutor ; that the love welling up in

your hearts unselfishly, is, as it were, the Breath of God out breathed

by yourselves.

The false conceptions that have crept into religious systems . the

qualities which man has evolved, and which have been attributed by

man to Divinity, are all that the sincere, earnest man has really parted

with, in giving up some false idea of God. The highest and best, the

most powerful of all that lie bas intuitively recognized as Godlike . as

[TT 181] well as inconceivably more, he has retain not lie is

conscious of it.

Do not let your own inability to conceive of an ideal which can

adequately express all that you feel there must be, in God and Christ,

rob You of the benefit you may receive from the ideals you are now

capable of creating or of perceiving. Remember you are as yet but

"God's little ones" . immature children . and that God and Christ,

Love and Service, Omnipotent Law and Divine Power are evolving

those "little ones" to perfection. Let no man take your crown, the

crown of your faith, knowledge and growth.

Weighty indeed hath been the karmic action upon the human race

of that trepidation and ever increasing terror of the unknown (the

result of the curse of Fear), first instilled by the selfish, ferocious,

soulless enemies of man. Soulless, yet possessed of intelligence

sufficient to feel the wish to desecrate, and if possible to destroy, the

bridge between the Higher and lower selves of the newly Christ-born

. the evolving race which had already built up suitable vehicles for the

incarnating of the waiting Egos of the spiritual plane, and by such

destruction forever prevent the entrance of the mediatorial element

into embryonic man, leaving merely replicas of their own impalpable,

restricted lives. For it is to these denizens of the lower astral plane that

man must look in his search for the veiling of intellect which cuts off

from him the knowledge that the first awakening of the concept of

God, whatever the thing or creature to which the concept may apply,

is God ; and to these beings lie must look for the blasting of the

reverential awe and intelligent appreciation of the truth which

intuitionally teaches him that there is something, some being, some

power, which is far in advance of aught that he has yet experienced ;

and also for keeping man in ignorance of that immeasurably great

truth that good is God ; God in expression, God in form (as much as

God, who, is all form could be confined in one form), whenever and

however Good is being manifested.

With the acceptance and appreciation of this illimitable,

stupendous fact . the personal realization that God is surrounding,

interpenetrating, informing them, folding them, as it were, within a

garment of love, of Power of expansion, of unification, what room is

there in the heart of I sane, normal human being for aught that can

conflict with his reverent desire for the fulfillment of the evident

divine purpose, conflict with his awe at the grandeur, the

overwhelming greatness of that which no man has ever been able to

express in suitable terms, or will be able While in the flesh. And when

one thinks of the depths to which a normally intelligent human being

may sink, when, from fear of losing [TT 182] some paltry material

advantage, he refuses to affirm his belief in an all-k the source of their

being, and in his puny dread of the ridicule of some other equally

ignorant or defiled burlesque of the truly human, unites with the latter

in discrediting his superiors, it causes one to wonder to what possible

further depth such can descend. One car but pity the cowardice and

weakness which makes a worldly devotee hedge about, belittle his

own soul, and cast a shadow of unjust criticism, on all those human

beings who gladly and gratefully acknowledge their indebtedness to

and love for the Elder Brothers who have pointed out the long hidden

path back to the Godhead, and (O Patience fold me close !) in many

instances docs so for the reason that some other poor unfortunate has

made a futile effort to win reverent obedience or succor from him en

what he believes to be a false basis. He is not wise enough to perceive

that his own limitations have kept him from right discrimination. Ah,

fool, indeed, is he who can surrender his faith, his reverence, his

devotion to Good, however feebly manifested, at the bidding or

because of the example of another, when that other bas never .

touched the hem of the divine garment." Surely of all men he is most

to be pitied and shunned.

No man has ever found God by way of his intellect, but the path

from his heart is straight and always wide open.

...