# Light on the Path and Through the Gates of Gold

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> The present edition of LIGHT ON THE PATH
> is a verbatim reprint of the 1888 edition
> (George Redway, London) in which later edition
> the NOTES by the Author first appear. The
> COMMENTS, which are not in the 1888 edition,
> are here taken directly from _Lucifer_, Volume I,
> 1887-8, where they were first published.
> 
> Also in this volume we reprint verbatim the
> original edition (1887) of THROUGH THE
> GATES OF GOLD by the same Author, together
> with a commentary by William Q. Judge taken
> from his magazine, _The Path_, March, 1887.
> 
> *Light on the Path*
> 
> _A Treatise_
> 
> WRITTEN FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THOSE WHO
> ARE IGNORANT OF THE EASTERN WISDOM, AND
> WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN ITS INFLUENCE
> 
> _Written down by_ M.C.
> 
> _with Notes by the Author_
> 
> *LIGHT ON THE PATH*
> 
> LIGHT ON THE PATH
> 
> I
> 
> These rules are written for all disciples:
> Attend you to them.
> 
> Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable
> of tears. Before the ear can hear, it
> must have lost its sensitiveness. Before the
> voice can speak in the presence of the Masters
> it must have lost the power to wound. Before
> the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters
> its feet must be washed in the blood of
> the heart.
> 
> 1. Kill out ambition.
> 
> 2. Kill out desire of life.
> 
> 3. Kill out desire of comfort.
> 
> 4. Work as those work who are ambitious.
> 
> Respect life as those do who desire it. Be
> happy as those are who live for happiness.
> 
> Seek in the heart the source of evil and
> expunge it. It lives fruitfully in the heart of
> the devoted disciple as well as in the heart of
> the man of desire. Only the strong can kill it
> out. The weak must wait for its growth, its
> fruition, its death. And it is a plant that lives
> and increases throughout the ages. It flowers
> when the man has accumulated unto himself
> innumerable existences. He who will enter
> upon the path of power must tear this thing
> out of his heart. And then the heart will bleed,
> and the whole life of the man seem to be utterly
> dissolved. This ordeal must be endured:
> it may come at the first step of the perilous
> ladder which leads to the path of life: it may
> not come until the last. But, O disciple, remember
> that it has to be endured, and fasten
> the energies of your soul upon the task. Live
> neither in the present nor the future, but in
> the eternal. This giant weed cannot flower
> there: this blot upon existence is wiped out by
> the very atmosphere of eternal thought.
> 
> 5. Kill out all sense of separateness.
> 
> 6. Kill out desire for sensation.
> 
> 7. Kill out the hunger for growth.
> 
> 8. Yet stand alone and isolated, because
> nothing that is imbodied, nothing that is conscious
> of separation, nothing that is out of the
> eternal, can aid you.  Learn from sensation and
> observe it, because only so can you commence
> the science of self-knowledge, and plant your
> foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as
> the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly
> anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you
> press forward to open your soul to the eternal.
> But it must be the eternal that draws forth your
> strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For
> in the one case you develop in the luxuriance of
> purity, in the other you harden by the forcible
> passion for personal stature.
> 
> 9. Desire only that which is within you.
> 
> 10. Desire only that which is beyond you.
> 
> 11. Desire only that which is unattainable.
> 
> 12. For within you is the light of the world--the
> only light that can be shed upon the
> Path. If you are unable to perceive it within
> you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. It is
> beyond you; because when you reach it you
> have lost yourself. It is unattainable, because it
> for ever recedes. You will enter the light, but
> you will never touch the flame.
> 
> 13. Desire power ardently.
> 
> 14. Desire peace fervently.
> 
> 15. Desire possessions above all.
> 
> 16. But those possessions must belong to
> the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore
> by all pure souls equally, and thus be the
> especial property of the whole only when
> united. Hunger for such possessions as can be
> held by the pure soul; that you may accumulate
> wealth for that united spirit of life, which is
> your only true self. The peace you shall desire
> is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb,
> and in which the soul grows as does the holy
> flower upon the still lagoons. And that power
> which the disciple shall covet is that which
> shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes
> of men.
> 
>  17. Seek out the way.
> 
>  18. Seek the way by retreating within.
> 
>  19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without.
> 
>  20. Seek it not by any one road. To each
> temperament there is one road which seems the
> most desirable. But the way is not found by devotion
> alone, by religious contemplation alone,
> by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labor, by
> studious observation of life. None alone can
> take the disciple more than one step onward.
> All steps are necessary to make up the ladder.
> The vices of men become steps in the ladder,
> one by one, as they are surmounted. The virtues
> of man are steps indeed, necessary--not
> by any means to be dispensed with. Yet,
> though they create a fair atmosphere and a
> happy future, they are useless if they stand
> alone. The whole nature of man must be used
> wisely by the one who desires to enter the way.
> Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the
> truth, and the life. But he is only so when he
> grasps his whole individuality firmly, and, by
> the force of his awakened spiritual will, recognises
> this individuality as not himself, but that
> thing which he has with pain created for his
> own use, and by means of which he purposes,
> as his growth slowly develops his intelligence,
> to reach to the life beyond individuality. When
> he knows that for this his wonderful complex
> separated life exists, then, indeed, and then
> only, he is upon the way. Seek it by plunging
> into the mysterious and glorious depths of your
> own inmost being. Seek it by testing, all experience,
> by utilizing the senses in order to
> understand the growth and meaning of individuality,
> and the beauty and obscurity of those
> other divine fragments which are struggling
> side by side with you, and form the race to
> which you belong. Seek it by study of the laws
> of being, the laws of nature, the laws of the
> supernatural: and seek it by making the profound
> obeisance of the soul to the dim star that
> burns within. Steadily, as you watch and worship,
> its light will grow stronger. Then you
> may know you have found the beginning of
> the way. And when you have found the end its
> light will suddenly become the infinite light.
> 
> 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the
> silence that follows the storm not till then.
> 
> It shall grow, it will shoot up, it will make
> branches and leaves and form buds, while the
> storm continues, while the battle lasts. But
> not till the whole personality of the man is dissolved
> and melted--not until it is held by the
> divine fragment which has created it, as a mere
> subject for grave experiment and experience--not
> until the whole nature has yielded and
> become subject unto its higher self, can the
> bloom open. Then will come a calm such as
> comes in a tropical country after the heavy rain,
> when Nature works so swiftly that one may see
> her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed
> spirit. And in the deep silence the mysterious
> event will occur which will prove that
> the way has been found. Call it by what name
> you will, it is a voice that speaks where there
> is none to speak--it is a messenger that comes,
> a messenger without form or substance; or it is
> the flower of the soul that has opened. It cannot
> be described by any metaphor. But it can
> be felt after, looked for, and desired, even
> amid the raging of the storm. The silence may
> last a moment of time or it may last a thousand
> years. But it will end. Yet you will carry its
> strength with you. Again and again the battle
> must be fought and won. It is only for an interval
> that Nature can be still.
> 
> These written above are the first of the
> rules which are written on the walls of the
> Hall of Learning. Those that ask shall have.
> Those that desire to read shall read. Those who
> desire to learn shall learn.
> 
> PEACE BE WITH YOU.
> 
> II
> 
> Out of the silence that is peace a resonant
> voice shall arise. And this voice will say, It is
> not well; thou hast reaped, now thou must sow.
> And knowing this voice to be the silence itself
> thou wilt obey.
> 
> Thou who art now a disciple, able to stand,
> able to hear, able to see, able to speak, who
> hast conquered desire and attained to self-knowledge,
> who hast seen thy soul in its bloom
> and recognised it, and heard the voice of the
> silence, go thou to the Hall of Learning and
> read what is written there for thee.
> 
>  1. Stand aside in the coming battle, and
> though thou fightest be not thou the warrior.
> 
>  2. Look for the warrior and let him fight in
> thee.
> 
>  3. Take his orders for battle and obey
> them.
> 
>  4. Obey him not as though he were a general,
> but as though he were thyself, and his
> spoken words were the utterance of thy secret
> desires; for he is thyself, yet infinitely wiser
> and stronger than thyself. Look for him, else
> in the fever and hurry of the fight thou mayest
> pass him; and he will not know thee unless
> thou knowest him. If thy cry meet his listening
> ear, then will he fight in thee and fill the
> dull void within. And if this is so, then canst
> thou go through the fight cool and unwearied,
> standing aside and letting him battle for thee.
> Then it will be impossible for thee to strike
> one blow amiss. But if thou look not for him,
> if thou pass him by, then there is no safeguard
> for thee. Thy brain will reel, thy heart grow
> uncertain, and in the dust of the battlefield thy
> sight and senses will fail, and thou wilt not
> know thy friends from thy enemies.
> 
> He is thyself, yet thou art but finite and
> liable to error. He is eternal and is sure. He
> is eternal truth. When once he has entered
> thee and become thy warrior, he will never utterly
> desert thee, and at the day of the great
> peace he will become one with thee.
> 
> 5. Listen to the song of life.
> 
> 6. Store in your memory the melody you
> hear.
> 
> 7. Learn from it the lesson of harmony.
> 
> 8. You can stand upright now, firm as a
> rock amid the turmoil, obeying the warrior
> who is thyself and thy king. Unconcerned in
> the battle save to do his bidding, having no
> longer any care as to the result of the battle, for
> one thing only is important, that the warrior
> shall win, and you know he is incapable of defeat--standing
> thus, cool and awakened, use
> the hearing you have acquired by pain and by
> the destruction of pain. Only fragments of
> the great song come to your ears while yet you
> are but man. But if you listen to it, remember
> it faithfully, so that none which has reached
> you is lost, and endeavor to learn from it the
> meaning of the mystery which surrounds you.
> In time you will need no teacher. For as the
> individual has voice, so has that in which the
> individual exists. Life itself has speech and is
> never silent. And its utterance is not, as you
> that are deaf may suppose, a cry: it is a song.
> Learn from it that you are part of the harmony;
> learn from it to obey the laws of the
> harmony.
> 
> 9. Regard earnestly all the life that surrounds
> you.
> 
> 10. Learn to look intelligently into the
> hearts of men.
> 
> 11. Regard most earnestly your own heart.
> 
> 12. For through your own heart comes the
> one light which can illuminate life and make it
> clear to your eyes.
> 
> Study the hearts of men, that you may know
> what is that world in which you live and of
> which you will to be a part. Regard the constantly
> changing and moving life which surrounds
> you, for it is formed by the hearts of
> men; and as you learn to understand their
> constitution and meaning, you will by degrees
> be able to read the larger word of life.
> 
> 13.  Speech comes only with knowledge. Attain
> to knowledge and you will attain to
> speech.
> 
> 14.  Having obtained the use of the inner
> senses, having conquered the desires of the
> outer senses, having conquered the desires of
> the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge,
> prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon
> the way in reality. The path is found: make
> yourself ready to tread it.
> 
> 15. Inquire of the earth, the air, and the
> water, of the secrets they hold for you. The
> development of your inner senses will enable
> you to do this.
> 
> 16. Inquire of the holy ones of the earth
> of the secrets they hold for you. The conquering
> of the desires of the outer senses will
> give you the right to do this.
> 
> 17. Inquire of the inmost, the one, of its
> final secret which it holds for you through
> the ages.
> 
> The great and difficult victory, the conquering
> of the desires of the individual soul, is a
> work of ages; therefore expect not to obtain
> its reward until ages of experience have been
> accumulated. When the time of learning this
> seventeenth rule is reached, man is on the
> threshold of becoming more than man.
> 
> 18. The knowledge which is now yours is
> only yours because your soul has become one
> with all pure souls and with the inmost. It is
> a trust vested in you by the Most High. Betray
> it, misuse your knowledge, or neglect it, and
> it is possible even now for you to fall from
> the high estate you have attained. Great ones
> fall back, even from the threshold, unable to
> sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable
> to pass on. Therefore look forward always
> with awe and trembling to this moment, and
> be prepared for the battle.
> 
> 19. It is written that for him who is on the
> threshold of divinity no law can be framed, no
> guide can exist. Yet to enlighten the disciple,
> the final struggle may be thus expressed:
> 
> Hold fast to that which has neither substance
> nor existence.
> 
> 20. Listen only to the voice which is soundless.
> 
> 21. Look only on that which is invisible
> alike to the inner and the outer sense.
> 
> PEACE BE WITH YOU.
> 
> NOTES
> 
> _Note on Rule 1._--Ambition is the first
> curse: the great tempter of the man who is
> rising above his fellows. It is the simplest
> form of looking for reward. Men of intelligence
> and power are led away from their
> higher possibilities by it continually. Yet it is
> a necessary teacher. Its results turn to dust
> and ashes in the mouth; like death and
> estrangement it shows the man at last that to
> work for self is to work for disappointment.
> But though this first rule seems so simple and
> easy, do not quickly pass it by. For these
> vices of the ordinary man pass through a subtle
> transformation and reappear with changed
> aspect in the heart of the disciple. It is easy
> to say, I will not be ambitious: it is not so
> easy to say, when the Master reads my heart
> he will find it clean utterly. The pure artist
> who works for the love of his work is sometimes
> more firmly planted on the right road
> than the occultist, who fancies he has removed
> his interest from self, but who has in reality
> only enlarged the limits of experience and
> desire, and transferred his interest to the things
> which concern his larger span of life. The
> same principle applies to the other two seemingly
> simple rules. Linger over them and do
> not let yourself be easily deceived by your own
> heart. For now, at the threshold, a mistake
> can be corrected. But carry it on with you
> and it will grow and come to fruition, or else
> you must suffer bitterly in its destruction.
> 
> _Note on Rule 5_.--Do not fancy you can
> stand aside from the bad man or the foolish
> man. They are yourself, though in a less
> degree than your friend or your master. But
> if you allow the idea of separateness from any
> evil thing or person to grow up within you,
> by so doing you create Karma, which will
> bind you to that thing or person till your soul
> recognises that it cannot be isolated. Remember
> that the sin and shame of the world are
> your sin and shame; for you are a part of it;
> your Karma is inextricably interwoven with
> the great Karma. And before you can attain
> knowledge you must have passed through all
> places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember
> that the soiled garment you shrink
> from touching may have been yours yesterday,
> may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn
> with horror from it, when it is flung upon
> your shoulders, it will cling the more closely
> to you. The self-righteous man makes for
> himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is
> right to abstain--not that yourself shall be
> kept clean.
> 
> _Note on Rule 17._--These four words
> seem, perhaps, too slight to stand alone. The
> disciple may say, Should I study these thoughts
> at all did I not seek out the way? Yet do
> not pass on hastily. Pause and consider awhile.
> Is it the way you desire, or is it that there
> is a dim perspective in your visions of great
> heights to be scaled by yourself, of a great
> future for you to compass? Be warned. The
> way is to be sought for its own sake, not with
> regard to your feet that shall tread it.
> 
> There is a correspondence between this rule
> and the 17th of the 2nd series. When after
> ages of struggle and many victories the final
> battle is won, the final secret demanded, then
> you are prepared for a further path. When
> the final secret of this great lesson is told, in
> it is opened the mystery of the new way--a
> path which leads out of all human experience,
> and which is utterly beyond human perception
> or imagination. At each of these points
> it is needful to pause long and consider well.
> At each of these points it is necessary to be
> sure that the way is chosen for its own sake.
> The way and the truth come first, then follows
> the life.
> 
> _Note on Rule 20_.--Seek it by testing all
> experience, and remember that when I say this
> I do not say, Yield to the seductions of sense
> in order to know it. Before you have become
> an occultist you may do this; but not afterwards.
> When you have chosen and entered
> the path you cannot yield to these seductions
> without shame. Yet you can experience them
> without horror: can weigh, observe and test
> them, and wait with the patience of confidence
> for the hour when they shall affect you no
> longer. But do not condemn the man that
> yields; stretch out your hand to him as a
> brother pilgrim whose feet have become heavy
> with mire. Remember, O disciple, that great
> though the gulf may be between the good man
> and the sinner, it is greater between the good
> man and the man who has attained knowledge;
> it is immeasurable between the good man and
> the one on the threshold of divinity. Therefore
> be wary lest too soon you fancy yourself
> a thing apart from the mass. When you have
> found the beginning of the way the star of
> your soul will show its light; and by that light
> you will perceive how great is the darkness
> in which it burns. Mind, heart, brain, all are
> obscure and dark until the first great battle
> has been won. Be not appalled and terrified
> by this sight; keep your eyes fixed on the small
> light and it will grow. But let the darkness
> within help you to understand the helplessness
> of those who have seen no light, whose souls
> are in profound gloom. Blame them not, shrink
> not from them, but try to lift a little of the
> heavy Karma of the world; give your aid to
> the few strong hands that hold back the
> powers of darkness from obtaining complete
> victory. Then do you enter into a partnership
> of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and
> profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing
> delight.
> 
> _Note on Rule 21._--The opening of the
> bloom is the glorious moment when perception
> awakes: with it comes confidence, knowledge,
> certainty. The pause of the soul is the moment
> of wonder, and the next moment of satisfaction,
> that is the silence.
> 
> Know, O disciple, that those who have
> passed through the silence, and felt its peace
> and retained its strength, they long that you
> shall pass through it also. Therefore, in the
> Hall of Learning, when he is capable of entering
> there, the disciple will always find his
> master.
> 
> Those that ask shall have. But though the
> ordinary man asks perpetually, his voice is not
> heard. For he asks with his mind only; and
> the voice of the mind is only heard on that
> plane on which the mind acts. Therefore, not
> until the first twenty-one rules are past do I
> say those that ask shall have.
> 
> To read, in the occult sense, is to read with
> the eyes of the spirit. To ask is to feel the
> hunger within--the yearning of spiritual
> aspiration. To be able to read means having
> obtained the power in a small degree of gratifying
> that hunger. When the disciple is ready
> to learn, then he is accepted, acknowledged,
> recognised. It must be so, for he has lit his
> lamp, and it cannot be hidden. But to learn
> is impossible until the first great battle has
> been won. The mind may recognise truth, but
> the spirit cannot receive it. Once having passed
> through the storm and attained the peace, it is
> then always possible to learn, even though the
> disciple waver, hesitate, and turn aside. The
> voice of the silence remains within him, and
> though he leave the path utterly, yet one day
> it will resound and rend him asunder and
> separate his passions from his divine possibilities.
> Then with pain and desperate cries
> from the deserted lower self he will return.
> 
> Therefore I say, Peace be with you. My
> peace I give unto you can only be said by the
> Master to the beloved disciples who are as
> himself. There are even some amongst those
> who are ignorant of the Eastern wisdom to
> whom this can be said, and to whom it can
> daily be said with more completeness.
> 
> Regard the three truths. They are equal.
> 
> PART II
> 
> _Note on Sect. II_--To be able to stand is
> to have confidence; to be able to hear is to
> have opened the doors of the soul; to be able
> to see is to have attained perception; to be
> able to speak is to have attained the power
> of helping others; to have conquered desire
> is to have learned how to use and control the
> self; to have attained to self-knowledge is to
> have retreated to the inner fortress from
> whence the personal man can be viewed with
> impartiality; to have seen thy soul in its bloom
> is to have obtained a momentary glimpse in
> thyself of the transfiguration which shall eventually
> make thee more than man; to recognise
> is to achieve the great task of gazing upon the
> blazing light without dropping the eyes and
> not falling back in terror, as though before
> some ghastly phantom. This happens to some,
> and so when the victory is all but won it is lost;
> to hear the voice of the silence is to understand
> that from within comes the only true
> guidance; to go to the Hall of Learning is to
> enter the state in which learning becomes possible.
> Then will many words be written there
> for thee, and written in fiery letters for thee
> easily to read. For when the disciple is ready
> the Master is ready also.
> 
> _Note on Rule 5_.--Look for it and listen to
> it first in your own heart. At first you may
> say it is not there; when I search I find only
> discord. Look deeper. If again you are disappointed,
> pause and look deeper again. There
> is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every
> human heart. It may be hidden over and utterly
> concealed and silenced--but it is there.
> At the very base of your nature you will find
> faith, hope, and love. He that chooses evil
> refuses to look within himself, shuts his ears to
> the melody of his heart, as he blinds his eyes
> to the light of his soul. He does this because
> he finds it easier to live in desires. But underneath
> all life is the strong current that cannot
> be checked; the great waters are there in reality.
> Find them, and you will perceive that none,
> not the most wretched of creatures, but is a
> part of it, however he blind himself to the
> fact and build up for himself a phantasmal
> outer form of horror. In that sense it is that I
> say to you--All those beings among whom
> you struggle on are fragments of the Divine.
> And so deceptive is the illusion in which you
> live, that it is hard to guess where you will first
> detect the sweet voice in the hearts of others.
> 
> But know that it is certainly within yourself.
> Look for it there, and once having heard it, you
> will more readily recognise it around you.
> 
> _Note on Rule 10._--From an absolutely impersonal
> point of view, otherwise your sight is
> colored. Therefore impersonality must first be
> understood.
> 
> Intelligence is impartial: no man is your
> enemy: no man is your friend. All alike are
> your teachers. Your enemy becomes a mystery
> that must be solved, even though it take ages:
> for man must be understood. Your friend becomes
> a part of yourself, an extension of yourself,
> a riddle hard to read. Only one thing is
> more difficult to know--your own heart. Not
> until the bonds of personality are loosed, can
> that profound mystery of self begin to be seen.
> Not till you stand aside from it will it in any
> way reveal itself to your understanding. Then,
> and not till then, can you grasp and guide it.
> Then, and not till then, can you use all its
> powers, and devote them to a worthy service.
> 
> _Note on Rule 13._--It is impossible to help
> others till you have obtained some certainty
> of your own. When you have learned the first
> 21 rules and have entered the Hall of Learning
> with your powers developed and sense unchained,
> then you will find there is a fount
> within you from which speech will arise.
> 
> After the 13th rule I can add no words to
> what is already written.
> 
> My peace I give unto you. [Greek: D]
> 
> These notes are written only for those to
> whom I give my peace; those who can read
> what I have written with the inner as well as
> the outer sense.
> 
> COMMENTS
> 
> I
> 
> "BEFORE THE EYES CAN SEE THEY MUST BE
> INCAPABLE OF TEARS."
> 
> It should be very clearly remembered by
> all readers of this volume that it is a book
> which may appear to have some little philosophy
> in it, but very little sense, to those who
> believe it to be written in ordinary English.
> To the many, who read in this manner it will
> be--not caviare so much as olives strong of
> their salt. Be warned and read but a little in
> this way.
> 
> There is another way of reading, which is,
> indeed, the only one of any use with many
> authors. It is reading, not between the lines
> but within the words. In fact, it is deciphering
> a profound cipher. All alchemical works
> are written in the cipher of which I speak;
> it has been used by the great philosophers and
> poets of all time. It is used systematically by
> the adepts in life and knowledge, who, seemingly
> giving out their deepest wisdom, hide in
> the very words which frame it its actual mystery.
> They cannot do more. There is a law of
> nature which insists that a man shall read these
> mysteries for himself. By no other method can
> he obtain them. A man who desires to live
> must eat his food himself: this is the simple law
> of nature--which applies also to the higher
> life. A man who would live and act in it cannot
> be fed like a babe with a spoon; he must
> eat for himself.
> 
> I propose to put into new and sometimes
> plainer language parts of "Light on the Path";
> but whether this effort of mine will really be
> any interpretation I cannot say. To a deaf
> and dumb man, a truth is made no more intelligible
> if, in order to make it so, some misguided
> linguist translates the words in which
> it is couched into every living or dead language,
> and shouts these different phrases in his ear.
> But for those who are not deaf and dumb one
> language is generally easier than the rest; and
> it is to such as these I address myself.
> 
> The very first aphorisms of "Light on the
> Path," included under Number I, have, I know
> well, remained sealed as to their inner meaning
> to many who have otherwise followed the purpose
> of the book.
> 
> There are four proven and certain truths
> with regard to the entrance to occultism. The
> Gates of Gold bar that threshold; yet there are
> some who pass those gates and discover the
> sublime and illimitable beyond. In the far
> spaces of Time all will pass those gates. But
> I am one who wish that Time, the great deluder,
> were not so over-masterful. To those
> who know and love him I have no word to
> say; but to the others--and there are not so
> very few as some may fancy--to whom the
> passage of Time is as the stroke of a sledge-hammer,
> and the sense of Space like the bars
> of an iron cage, I will translate and re-translate
> until they understand fully.
> 
> The four truths written on the first page
> of "Light on the Path," refer to the trial initiation
> of the would-be occultist. Until he has
> passed it, he cannot even reach to the latch of
> the gate which admits to knowledge. Knowledge
> is man's greatest inheritance; why, then,
> should he not attempt to reach it by every
> possible road? The laboratory is not the only
> ground for experiment; _science_, we must remember,
> is derived from _sciens_, present participle
> of _scire_, "to know,"--its origin is similar
> to that of the word "discern," to "ken."
> Science does not therefore deal only with
> matter, no, not even its subtlest and obscurest
> forms. Such an idea is born merely of the idle
> spirit of the age. Science is a word which
> covers all forms of knowledge. It is exceedingly
> interesting to hear what chemists discover,
> and to see them finding their way through the
> densities of matter to its finer forms; but there
> are other kinds of knowledge than this, and it
> is not every one who restricts his (strictly scientific)
> desire for knowledge to experiments
> which are capable of being tested by the physical
> senses.
> 
> Everyone who is not a dullard, or a man
> stupefied by some predominant vice, has
> guessed or even perhaps discovered with some
> certainty, that there are subtle senses lying
> within the physical senses. There is nothing at
> all extraordinary in this; if we took the trouble
> to call Nature into the witness box we should
> find that everything which is perceptible to the
> ordinary sight, has something even more important
> than itself hidden within it; the microscope
> has opened a world to us, but within
> those encasements which the microscope reveals,
> lies a mystery which no machinery can
> probe.
> 
> The whole world is animated and lit, down
> to its most material shapes, by a world within
> it. This inner world is called Astral by some
> people, and it is as good a word as any other,
> though it merely means starry; but the stars, as
> Locke pointed out, are luminous bodies which
> give light of themselves. This quality is characteristic
> of the life which lies within matter;
> for those who see it, need no lamp to see it by.
> The word star, moreover, is derived from the
> Anglo-Saxon "stir-an," to steer, to stir, to move,
> and undeniably it is the inner life which is
> master of the outer, just as a man's brain
> guides the movements of his lips. So that although
> Astral is no very excellent word in
> itself, I am content to use it for my present
> purpose.
> 
> The whole of "Light on the Path" is written
> in an astral cipher and can therefore only be
> deciphered by one who reads astrally. And
> its teaching is chiefly directed towards the cultivation
> and development of the astral life.
> Until the first step has been taken in this development,
> the swift knowledge, which is called
> intuition with certainty, is impossible to man.
> And this positive and certain intuition is the
> only form of knowledge which enables a man
> to work rapidly or reach his true and high
> estate, within the limit of his conscious effort.
> To obtain knowledge by experiment is too
> tedious a method for those who aspire to accomplish
> real work; he who gets it by certain
> intuition, lays hands on its various forms with
> supreme rapidity, by fierce effort of will; as a
> determined workman grasps his tools, indifferent
> to their weight or any other difficulty
> which may stand in his way. He does not stay
> for each to be tested--he uses such as he sees
> are fittest.
> 
> All the rules contained in "Light on the
> Path," are written for all disciples, but only
> for disciples---those who "take knowledge."
> To none else but the student in this school are
> its laws of any use or interest.
> 
> To all who are interested seriously in Occultism,
> I say first--take knowledge. To him
> who hath shall be given. It is useless to wait for
> it. The womb of Time will close before you,
> and in later days you will remain unborn, without
> power. I therefore say to those who have
> any hunger or thirst for knowledge, attend to
> these rules.
> 
> They are none of my handicraft or invention.
> They are merely the phrasing of laws in
> super-nature, the putting into words truths as
> absolute in their own sphere, as those laws
> which govern the conduct of the earth and its
> atmosphere.
> 
> The senses spoken of in these four statements
> are the astral, or inner senses.
> 
> No man desires to see that light which
> illumines the spaceless soul until pain and sorrow
> and despair have driven him away from
> the life of ordinary humanity. First he wears
> out pleasure; then he wears out pain--till, at
> last, his eyes become incapable of tears.
> 
> This is a truism, although I know perfectly
> well that it will meet with a vehement denial
> from many who are in sympathy with thoughts
> which spring from the inner life. _To see_ with
> the astral sense of sight is a form of activity
> which it is difficult for us to understand immediately.
> The scientist knows very well what a
> miracle is achieved by each child that is born
> into the world, when it first conquers its eyesight
> and compels it to obey its brain. An equal
> miracle is performed with each sense certainly,
> but this ordering of sight is perhaps the most
> stupendous effort. Yet the child does it almost
> unconsciously, by force of the powerful heredity
> of habit. No one now is aware that he
> has ever done it at all; just as we cannot recollect
> the individual movements which enabled
> us to walk up a hill a year ago. This arises
> from the fact that we move and live and have
> our being in matter. Our knowledge of it has
> become intuitive.
> 
> With our astral life it is very much otherwise.
> For long ages past, man has paid very
> little attention to it--so little, that he has
> practically lost the use of his senses. It is true,
> that in every civilization the star arises, and
> man confesses, with more or less of folly and
> confusion, that he knows himself to be. But
> most often he denies it, and in being a materialist
> becomes that strange thing, a being
> which cannot see its own light, a thing of life
> which will not live, an astral animal which has
> eyes, and ears, and speech, and power, yet
> will use none of these gifts. This is the case,
> and the habit of ignorance has become so confirmed,
> that now none will see with the inner
> vision till agony has made the physical eyes not
> only unseeing, but without tears--the moisture
> of life. To be incapable of tears is to have
> faced and conquered the simple human nature,
> and to have attained an equilibrium which cannot
> be shaken by personal emotions. It does
> not imply any hardness of heart, or any indifference.
> It does not imply the exhaustion of
> sorrow, when the suffering soul seems powerless
> to suffer acutely any longer; it does not
> mean the deadness of old age, when emotion is
> becoming dull because the strings which vibrate
> to it are wearing out. None of these conditions
> are fit for a disciple, and if any one of
> them exist in him it must be overcome before
> the path can be entered upon. Hardness of
> heart belongs to the selfish man, the egotist, to
> whom the gate is forever closed. Indifference
> belongs to the fool and the false philosopher;
> those whose lukewarmness makes them mere
> puppets, not strong enough to face the realities
> of existence. When pain or sorrow has worn
> out the keenness of suffering, the result is a
> lethargy not unlike that which accompanies old
> age, as it is usually experienced by men and
> women. Such a condition makes the entrance
> to the path impossible, because the first step is
> one of difficulty and needs a strong man, full
> of psychic and physical vigor, to attempt it.
> 
> It is a truth, that, as Edgar Allan Poe said,
> the eyes are the windows for the soul, the windows
> of that haunted palace in which it dwells.
> This is the very nearest interpretation into ordinary
> language of the meaning of the text. If
> grief, dismay, disappointment or pleasure, can
> shake the soul so that it loses its fixed hold on
> the calm spirit which inspires it, and the moisture
> of life breaks forth, drowning knowledge
> in sensation, then all is blurred, the windows
> are darkened, the light is useless. This is as
> literal a fact as that if a man, at the edge of a
> precipice, loses his nerve through some sudden
> emotion he will certainly fall. The poise of the
> body, the balance, must be preserved, not only
> in dangerous places, but even on the level
> ground, and with all the assistance Nature
> gives us by the law of gravitation. So it is with
> the soul, it is the link between the outer body
> and the starry spirit beyond; the divine spark
> dwells in the still place where no convulsion of
> Nature can shake the air; this is so always. But
> the soul may lose its hold on that, its knowledge
> of it, even though these two are part
> of one whole; and it is by emotion, by
> sensation, that this hold is loosed. To suffer
> either pleasure or pain, causes a vivid vibration
> which is, to the consciousness of man,
> life. Now this sensibility does not lessen when
> the disciple enters upon his training; it
> increases. It is the first test of his strength;
> he must suffer, must enjoy or endure, more
> keenly than other men, while yet he has taken
> on him a duty which does not exist for other
> men, that of not allowing his suffering to shake
> him from his fixed purpose. He has, in fact,
> at the first step to take himself steadily in
> hand and put the bit into his own mouth;
> no one else can do it for him.
> 
> The first four aphorisms of "Light on the
> Path," refer entirely to astral development.
> This development must be accomplished to a
> certain extent--that is to say it must be fully
> entered upon--before the remainder of the
> book is really intelligible except to the intellect;
> in fact, before it can be read as a practical,
> not a metaphysical treatise.
> 
> In one of the great mystic Brotherhoods,
> there are four ceremonies, that take place early
> in the year, which practically illustrate and
> elucidate these aphorisms. They are ceremonies
> in which only novices take part, for they
> are simply services of the threshold. But it
> will show how serious a thing it is to become
> a disciple, when it is understood that these
> are all ceremonies of sacrifice. The first one
> is this of which I have been speaking. The
> keenest enjoyment, the bitterest pain, the
> anguish of loss and despair, are brought to
> bear on the trembling soul, which has not yet
> found light in the darkness, which is helpless
> as a blind man is, and until these shocks can
> be endured without loss of equilibrium the
> astral senses must remain sealed. This is the
> merciful law. The "medium," or "spiritualist,"
> who rushes into the psychic world without
> preparation, is a law-breaker, a breaker of
> the laws of super-nature. Those who break
> Nature's laws lose their physical health; those
> who break the laws of the inner life, lose their
> psychic health. "Mediums" become mad, suicides,
> miserable creatures devoid of moral
> sense; and often end as unbelievers, doubters
> even of that which their own eyes have seen.
> The disciple is compelled to become his own
> master before he adventures on this perilous
> path, and attempts to face those beings who
> live and work in the astral world, and whom
> we call masters, because of their great knowledge
> and their ability to control not only
> themselves but the forces around them.
> 
> The condition of the soul when it lives for
> the life of sensation as distinguished from that
> of knowledge, is vibratory or oscillating, as
> distinguished from fixed. That is the nearest
> literal representation of the fact; but it is only
> literal to the intellect, not to the intuition.
> For this part of man's consciousness a different
> vocabulary is needed. The idea of "fixed"
> might perhaps be transposed into that of "at
> home." In sensation no permanent home can
> be found, because change is the law of this
> vibratory existence. That fact is the first one
> which must be learned by the disciple. It is
> useless to pause and weep for a scene in a
> kaleidoscope which has passed.
> 
> It is a very well-known fact, one with which
> Bulwer Lytton dealt with great power, that
> an intolerable sadness is the very first experience
> of the neophyte in Occultism. A sense of
> blankness falls upon him which makes the
> world a waste, and life a vain exertion. This
> follows his first serious contemplation of the
> abstract. In gazing, or even in attempting to
> gaze, on the ineffable mystery of his own higher
> nature, he himself causes the initial trial to
> fall on him. The oscillation between pleasure
> and pain ceases for--perhaps an instant of
> time; but that is enough to have cut him loose
> from his fast moorings in the world of sensation.
> He has experienced, however briefly, the
> greater life; and he goes on with ordinary
> existence weighted by a sense of unreality, of
> blank, of horrid negation. This was the nightmare
> which visited Bulwer Lytton's neophyte
> in "Zanoni"; and even Zanoni himself, who
> had learned great truths, and been entrusted
> with great powers, had not actually passed the
> threshold where fear and hope, despair and
> joy seem at one moment absolute realities, at
> the next mere forms of fancy.
> 
> This initial trial is often brought on us by
> life itself. For life is after all, the great
> teacher. We return to study it, after we have
> acquired power over it, just as the master in
> chemistry learns more in the laboratory than
> his pupil does. There are persons so near the
> door of knowledge that life itself prepares
> them for it, and no individual hand has to
> invoke the hideous guardian of the entrance.
> These must naturally be keen and powerful
> organizations, capable of the most vivid pleasure;
> then pain comes and fills its great duty.
> The most intense forms of suffering fall on
> such a nature, till at last it arouses from its
> stupor of consciousness, and by the force of its
> internal vitality steps over the threshold into a
> place of peace. Then the vibration of life loses
> its power of tyranny. The sensitive nature
> must suffer still; but the soul has freed itself
> and stands aloof, guiding the life towards its
> greatness. Those who are the subjects of Time,
> and go slowly through all his spaces, live on
> through a long drawn series of sensations, and
> suffer a constant mingling of pleasure and of
> pain. They do not dare to take the snake of
> self in a steady grasp and conquer it, so becoming
> divine; but prefer to go on fretting through
> divers experiences, suffering blows from the
> opposing forces.
> 
> When one of these subjects of Time decides
> to enter on the path of Occultism, it is this
> which is his first task. If life has not taught
> it to him, if he is not strong enough to teach
> himself and if he has power enough to demand
> the help of a master, then this fearful trial,
> depicted in Zanoni, is put upon him. The
> oscillation in which he lives, is for an instant
> stilled; and he has to survive the shock of
> facing what seems to him at first sight as the
> abyss of nothingness. Not till he has learned
> to dwell in this abyss, and has found its peace,
> is it possible for his eyes to have become
> incapable of tears.
> 
> II
> 
> "BEFORE THE EAR CAN HEAR, IT MUST
> HAVE LOST ITS SENSITIVENESS."
> 
> The first four rules of "Light on the Path"
> are, undoubtedly, curious though the statement
> may seem, the most important in the whole
> book, save one only. Why they are so important
> is that they contain the vital law, the very
> creative essence of the astral man. And it is
> only in the astral (or self-illuminated) consciousness
> that the rules which follow them
> have any living meaning. Once attain to the
> use of the astral senses and it becomes a matter
> of course that one commences to use them;
> and the later rules are but guidance in their
> use. When I speak like this I mean, naturally,
> that the first four rules are the ones which are
> of importance and interest to those who read
> them in print upon a page. When they are
> engraved on a man's heart and on his life, unmistakably
> then the rules become not merely
> interesting, or extraordinary, metaphysical
> statements, but actual facts in life which have
> to be grasped and experienced.
> 
> The four rules stand written in the great
> chamber of every actual lodge of a living
> Brotherhood. Whether the man is about to
> sell his soul to the devil, like Faust; whether
> he is to be worsted in the battle, like Hamlet;
> or whether he is to pass on within the precincts;
> in any case these words are for him.
> The man can choose between virtue and vice,
> but not until he is a man; a babe or a wild
> animal cannot so choose. Thus with the disciple,
> he must first become a disciple before
> he can even see the paths to choose between.
> This effort of creating himself as a disciple,
> the re-birth, he must do for himself without
> any teacher. Until the four rules are learned
> no teacher can be of any use to him; and that
> is why "the Masters" are referred to in the
> way they are. No real masters, whether adepts
> in power, in love, or in blackness, can affect a
> man till these four rules are passed.
> 
> Tears, as I have said, may be called the
> moisture of life. The soul must have laid aside
> the emotions of humanity, must have secured
> a balance which cannot be shaken by misfortune,
> before its eyes can open upon the
> super-human world.
> 
> The voice of the Masters is always in the
> world; but only those hear it whose ears are
> no longer receptive of the sounds which affect
> the personal life. Laughter no longer lightens
> the heart, anger may no longer enrage it, tender
> words bring it no balm. For that within,
> to which the ears are as an outer gateway, is
> an unshaken place of peace in itself which no
> person can disturb.
> 
> As the eyes are the windows of the soul, so
> are the ears its gateways or doors. Through
> them comes knowledge of the confusion of the
> world. The great ones who have conquered
> life, who have become more than disciples,
> stand at peace and undisturbed amid the
> vibration and kaleidoscopic movement of
> humanity. They hold within themselves a certain
> knowledge, as well as a perfect peace; and
> thus they are not roused or excited by the
> partial and erroneous fragments of information
> which are brought to their ears by the changing
> voices of those around them. When I speak
> of knowledge, I mean intuitive knowledge.
> This certain information can never be obtained
> by hard work, or by experiment; for these
> methods are only applicable to matter, and
> matter is in itself a perfectly uncertain substance,
> continually affected by change. The
> most absolute and universal laws of natural
> and physical life, as understood by the scientist,
> will pass away when the life of this universe
> has passed away, and only its soul is left in
> the silence. What then will be the value of
> the knowledge of its laws acquired by industry
> and observation? I pray that no reader or
> critic will imagine that by what I have said I
> intend to depreciate or disparage acquired
> knowledge, or the work of scientists. On the
> contrary, I hold that scientific men are the
> pioneers of modern thought. The days of literature
> and of art, when poets and sculptors saw
> the divine light, and put it into their own
> great language--these days lie buried in the
> long past with the ante-Phidian sculptors and
> the pre-Homeric poets. The mysteries no longer
> rule the world of thought and beauty; human
> life is the governing power, not that which
> lies beyond it. But the scientific workers are
> progressing, not so much by their own will as
> by sheer force of circumstances, towards the
> far line which divides things interpretable from
> things uninterpretable. Every fresh discovery
> drives them a step onward. Therefore do I
> very highly esteem the knowledge obtained by
> work and experiment.
> 
> But intuitive knowledge is an entirely different
> thing. It is not acquired in any way, but
> is, so to speak, a faculty of the soul; not the
> animal soul, that which becomes a ghost after
> death, when lust or liking or the memory of
> ill deeds holds it to the neighborhood of
> human beings, but the divine soul which
> animates all the external forms of the individualized
> being.
> 
> This is, of course, a faculty which indwells
> in that soul, which is inherent. The would-be
> disciple has to arouse himself to the consciousness
> of it by a fierce and resolute and
> indomitable effort of will. I use the word
> indomitable for a special reason. Only he who
> is untameable, who cannot be dominated, who
> knows he has to play the lord over men, over
> facts, over all things save his own divinity
> can arouse this faculty. "With faith all things,
> are possible." The skeptical laugh at faith and
> pride themselves on its absence from their own
> minds. The truth is that faith is a great
> engine, an enormous power, which in fact can
> accomplish all things. For it is the convenant
> or engagement between man's divine part and
> his lesser self.
> 
> The use of this engine is quite necessary
> in order to obtain intuitive knowledge; for
> unless a man believes such knowledge exists
> within himself how can he claim and use it?
> 
> Without it he is more helpless than any
> drift-wood or wreckage on the great tides of
> the ocean. They are cast hither and thither
> indeed; so may a man be by the chances of
> fortune. But such adventures are purely
> external and of very small account. A slave
> may be dragged through the streets in chains,
> and yet retain the quiet soul of a philosopher,
> as was well seen in the person of Epictetus. A
> man may have every worldly prize in his possession,
> and stand absolute master of his
> personal fate, to all appearance, and yet he
> knows no peace, no certainty, because he is
> shaken within himself by every tide of thought
> that he touches on. And these changing tides
> do not merely sweep the man bodily hither
> and thither like drift-wood on the water; that
> would be nothing. They enter into the gate-ways
> of his soul, and wash over that soul and
> make it blind and blank and void of all permanent
> intelligence so that passing impressions
> affect it.
> 
> To make my meaning plainer I will use an
> illustration. Take an author at his writing, a
> painter at his canvas, a composer listening to
> the melodies that dawn upon his glad imagination;
> let any one of these workers pass his daily
> hours by a wide window looking on a busy
> street. The power of the animating life blinds
> sight and hearing alike, and the great traffic of
> the city goes by like nothing but a passing
> pageant. But a man whose mind is empty,
> whose day is objectless, sitting at that same
> window, notes the passers-by and remembers
> the faces that chance to please or interest him.
> So it is with the mind in its relation to eternal
> truth. If it no longer transmits its fluctuations,
> its partial knowledge, its unreliable information
> to the soul, then in the inner place of
> peace already found when the first rule has
> been learned--in that inner place there leaps
> into flame the light of actual knowledge. Then
> the ears begin to hear. Very dimly, very
> faintly at first. And, indeed, so faint and
> tender are these first indications of the commencement
> of true actual life, that they are
> sometimes pushed aside as mere fancies, mere
> imaginings.
> 
> But before these are capable of becoming
> more than mere imaginings, the abyss of
> nothingness has to be faced in another form.
> The utter silence which can only come by closing
> the ears to all transitory sounds comes as
> a more appalling horror than even the formless
> emptiness of space. Our only mental conception
> of blank space is, I think, when reduced
> to its barest element of thought, that of black
> darkness. This is a great physical terror to
> most persons, and when regarded as an eternal
> and unchangeable fact, must mean to the mind
> the idea of annihilation rather than anything
> else. But it is the obliteration of one sense
> only; and the sound of a voice may come and
> bring comfort even in the profoundest darkness.
> The disciple, having found his way into
> this blackness, which is the fearful abyss, must
> then so shut the gates of his soul that no
> comforter can enter there nor any enemy. And
> it is in making this second effort that the fact
> of pain and pleasure being but one sensation
> becomes recognisable by those who have before
> been unable to perceive it. For when the solitude
> of silence is reached the soul hungers so
> fiercely and passionately for some sensation on
> which to rest, that a painful one would be as
> keenly welcomed as a pleasant one. When
> this consciousness is reached the courageous
> man by seizing and retaining it, may destroy
> the "sensitiveness" at once. When the ear no
> longer discriminates between that which is
> pleasant or that which is painful, it will no
> longer be affected by the voices of others. And
> then it is safe and possible to open the doors
> of the soul.
> 
> "Sight" is the first effort, and the easiest,
> because it is accomplished partly by an intellectual
> effort. The intellect can conquer the
> heart, as is well known in ordinary life. Therefore,
> this preliminary step still lies within the
> dominion of matter. But the second step allows
> of no such assistance, nor of any material aid
> whatever. Of course, I mean by material aid
> the action of the brain, or emotions, or human
> soul. In compelling the ears to listen only to
> the eternal silence, the being we call man
> becomes something which is no longer man. A
> very superficial survey of the thousand and
> one influences which are brought to bear on
> us by others will show that this must be so.
> A disciple will fulfil all the duties of his manhood;
> but he will fulfil them according to
> his own sense of right, and not according to
> that of any person or body of persons. This
> is a very evident result of following the creed
> of knowledge instead of any of the blind
> creeds.
> 
> To obtain the pure silence necessary for the
> disciple, the heart and emotions, the brain and
> its intellectualisms, have to be put aside. Both
> are but mechanisms, which will perish with the
> span of man's life. It is the essence beyond,
> that which is the motive power, and makes man
> live, that is now compelled to rouse itself and
> act. Now is the greatest hour of danger. In
> the first trial men go mad with fear; of this
> first trial Bulwer Lytton wrote. No novelist
> has followed to the second trial, though some
> of the poets have. Its subtlety and great
> danger lies in the fact that in the measure of a
> man's strength is the measure of his chance of
> passing beyond it or coping with it at all. If
> he has power enough to awaken that unaccustomed
> part of himself, the supreme essence,
> then has he power to lift the gates of gold,
> then is he the true alchemist, in possession of
> the elixir of life.
> 
> It is at this point of experience that the
> occultist becomes separated from all other men
> and enters on to a life which is his own; on to
> the path of individual accomplishment instead
> of mere obedience to the genii which rule our
> earth. This raising of himself into an individual
> power does in reality identify him with
> the nobler forces of life and make him one
> with them. For they stand beyond the powers
> of this earth and the laws of this universe. Here
> lies man's only hope of success in the great
> effort; to leap right away from his present
> standpoint to his next and at once become an
> intrinsic part of the divine power as he has
> been an intrinsic part of the intellectual power,
> of the great nature to which he belongs. He
> stands always in advance of himself, if such
> a contradiction can be understood. It is the
> men who adhere to this position, who believe
> in their innate power of progress, and that
> of the whole race, who are the elder brothers,
> the pioneers. Each man has to accomplish the
> great leap for himself and without aid; yet it is
> something of a staff to lean on to know that
> others have gone on that road. It is possible
> that they have been lost in the abyss; no
> matter, they have had the courage to enter it.
> Why I say that it is possible they have been
> lost in the abyss is because of this fact, that one
> who has passed through is unrecognisable until
> the other and altogether new condition is attained
> by both. It is unnecessary to enter upon
> the subject of what that condition is at present.
> 
> I only say this, that in the early state in
> which man is entering upon the silence he loses
> knowledge of his friends, of his lovers, of all
> who have been near and dear to him; and also
> loses sight of his teachers and of those who
> have preceded him on his way. I explain this
> because scarce one passes through without
> bitter complaint. Could but the mind grasp
> beforehand that the silence must be complete,
> surely this complaint need not arise as a hindrance
> on the path. Your teacher, or your
> predecessor may hold your hand in his, and
> give you the utmost sympathy the human heart
> is capable of. But when the silence and the
> darkness comes, you lose all knowledge of him;
> you are alone and he cannot help you, not
> because his power is gone, but because you
> have invoked your great enemy.
> 
> By your great enemy, I mean yourself. If
> you have the power to face your own soul in
> the darkness and silence, you will have conquered
> the physical or animal self which dwells
> in sensation only.
> 
> This statement, I feel, will appear involved;
> but in reality it is quite simple. Man, when
> he has reached his fruition, and civilization is
> at its height, stands between two fires. Could
> he but claim his great inheritance, the encumbrance
> of the mere animal life would fall away
> from him without difficulty. But he does not
> do this, and so the races of men flower and
> then droop and die and decay off the face of
> the earth, however splendid the bloom may
> have been. And it is left to the individual to
> make this great effort; to refuse to be terrified
> by his greater nature, to refuse to be drawn
> back by his lesser or more material self. Every
> individual who accomplishes this is a redeemer
> of the race. He may not blazon forth his deeds,
> he may dwell in secret and silence; but it is
> a fact that he forms a link between man and
> his divine part; between the known and the
> unknown; between the stir of the marketplace
> and the stillness of the snow-capped Himalayas.
> He has not to go about among men in
> order to form this link; in the astral he _is_ that
> link, and this fact makes him a being of
> another order from the rest of mankind. Even
> so early on the road towards knowledge, when
> he has but taken the second step, he finds his
> footing more certain, and becomes conscious
> that he is a recognised part of a whole.
> 
> This is one of the contradictions in life
> which occur so constantly that they afford fuel
> to the fiction writer. The occultist finds them
> become much more marked as he endeavors to
> live the life he has chosen. As he retreats within
> himself and becomes self-dependent, he finds
> himself more definitely becoming part of a
> great tide of definite thought and feeling.
> When he has learned the first lesson, conquered
> the hunger of the heart, and refused
> to live on the love of others, he finds himself
> more capable of inspiring love. As he flings
> life away it comes to him in a new form and
> with a new meaning. The world has always
> been a place with many contradictions in it,
> to the man; when he becomes a disciple he
> finds life is describable as a series of paradoxes.
> This is a fact in nature, and the reason for it is
> intelligible enough. Man's soul "dwells like
> a star apart," even that of the vilest among
> us; while his consciousness is under the law of
> vibratory and sensuous life. This alone is
> enough to cause those complications of character
> which are the material for the novelist;
> every man is a mystery, to friend and enemy
> alike, and to himself. His motives are often
> undiscoverable, and he cannot probe to them or
> know why he does this or that. The disciple's
> effort is that of awakening consciousness in
> this starry part of himself, where his power
> and divinity lie sleeping. As this consciousness
> becomes awakened, the contradictions in the
> man himself become more marked than ever;
> and so do the paradoxes which he lives
> through. For, of course man creates his own
> life; and "adventures are to the adventurous"
> is one of those wise proverbs which are drawn
> from actual fact, and cover the whole area of
> human experience.
> 
> Pressure on the divine part of man re-acts
> upon the animal part. As the silent soul
> awakes it makes the ordinary life of the man
> more purposeful, more vital, more real, and
> responsible. To keep to the two instances
> already mentioned, the occultist who has withdrawn
> into his own citadel has found his
> strength; immediately he becomes aware of
> the demands of duty upon him. He does not
> obtain his strength by his own right, but because
> he is a part of the whole; and as soon as
> he is safe from the vibration of life and can
> stand unshaken, the outer world cries out to
> him to come and labor in it. So with the heart.
> When it no longer wishes to take, it is called
> upon to give abundantly.
> 
> "Light on the Path" has been called a book
> of paradoxes, and very justly; what else could
> it be, when it deals with the actual personal
> experience of the disciple?
> 
> To have acquired the astral senses of sight
> and hearing; or in other words to have attained
> perception and opened the doors of the soul,
> are gigantic tasks and may take the sacrifice
> of many successive incarnations. And yet, when
> the will has reached its strength, the whole
> miracle may be worked in a second of time.
> Then is the disciple the servant of Time no
> longer.
> 
> These two first steps are negative; that is
> to say they imply retreat from a present condition
> of things rather than advance towards
> another. The two next are active, implying the
> advance into another state of being.
> 
> III
> 
> "BEFORE THE VOICE CAN SPEAK IN THE
> PRESENCE OF THE MASTERS."
> 
> Speech is the power of communication; the
> moment of entrance into active life is marked
> by its attainment.
> 
> And now, before I go any further, let me
> explain a little the way in which the rules
> written down in "Light on the Path" are arranged.
> The first seven of those which are
> numbered are sub-divisions of the two first
> unnumbered rules, those with which I have
> dealt in the two preceding papers. The numbered
> rules were simply an effort of mine to
> make the unnumbered ones more intelligible.
> "Eight" to "fifteen" of these numbered rules
> belong to this unnumbered rule which is now
> my text.
> 
> As I have said, these rules are written for
> all disciples, but for none else; they are not
> of interest to any other persons. Therefore
> I trust no one else will trouble to read these
> papers any further. The first two rules, which
> include the whole of that part of the effort
> which necessitates the use of the surgeon's
> knife, I will enlarge upon further if I am asked
> to do so. But the disciple is expected to deal
> with a snake, his lower self, unaided; to suppress
> his human passions and emotions by the
> force of his own will. He can only demand
> assistance of a master when this is accomplished,
> or at all events, partially so. Otherwise
> the gates and windows of his soul are blurred,
> and blinded, and darkened, and no knowledge
> can come to him. I am not, in these papers,
> purposing to tell a man how to deal with his
> own soul; I am simply giving, to the disciple,
> knowledge. That I am not writing even now,
> so that all who run may read, is owing to the
> fact that super-nature prevents this by its own
> immutable laws.
> 
> The four rules which I have written down
> for those in the West who wish to study them,
> are as I have said, written in the ante-chamber
> of every living Brotherhood; I may add more,
> in the ante-chamber of every living or dead
> Brotherhood, or Order yet to be formed. When
> I speak of a Brotherhood or an Order, I do not
> mean an arbitrary constitution made by scholiasts
> and intellectualists; I mean an actual
> fact in super-nature, a stage of development
> towards the absolute God or Good. During
> this development the disciple encounters harmony,
> pure knowledge, pure truth, in different
> degrees, and, as he enters these degrees, he
> finds himself becoming part of what might be
> roughly described as a layer of human consciousness.
> He encounters his equals, men of
> his own selfless character, and with them his
> association becomes permanent and indissoluble,
> because founded on a vital likeness of
> nature. To them he becomes pledged by such
> vows as need no utterance or framework in
> ordinary words. This is one aspect of what I
> mean by a Brotherhood.
> 
> If the first rules are conquered, the disciple
> finds himself standing at the threshold. Then
> if his will is sufficiently resolute his power of
> speech comes; a two-fold power. For, as he
> advances now, he finds himself entering into
> a state of blossoming, where every bud that
> opens throws out its several rays or petals. If
> he is to exercise his new gift, he must use it
> in its two-fold character. He finds in himself
> the power to speak in the presence of the
> masters; in other words, he has the right to
> demand contact with the divinest element of
> that state of consciousness into which he has
> entered. But he finds himself compelled, by
> the nature of his position, to act in two ways
> at the same time. He cannot send his voice up
> to the heights where sit the gods till he has
> penetrated to the deep places where their light
> shines not at all. He has come within the grip
> of an iron law. If he demands to become a
> neophyte, he at once becomes a servant. Yet
> his service is sublime, if only from the character
> of those who share it. For the masters
> are also servants; they serve and claim their
> reward afterwards. Part of their service is to
> let their knowledge touch him; his first act of
> service is to give some of that knowledge to
> those who are not yet fit to stand where he
> stands. This is no arbitrary decision, made by
> any master or teacher or any such person, however
> divine. It is a law of that life which the
> disciple has entered upon.
> 
> Therefore was it written in the inner doorway
> of the lodges of the old Egyptian Brotherhood,
> "the laborer is worthy of his hire." "Ask
> and ye shall have," sounds like something too
> easy and simple to be credible. But the disciple
> cannot "ask" in the mystic sense in which the
> word is used in this scripture until he has
> attained the power of helping others.
> 
> Why is this? Has the statement too dogmatic
> a sound?
> 
> Is it too dogmatic to say that a man must
> have foothold before he can spring? The position
> is the same. If help is given, if work is
> done, then there is an actual claim--not what
> we call personal claim of payment, but the
> claim of co-nature. The divine give, they
> demand that you also shall give before you
> can be of their kin.
> 
> This law is discovered as soon as the disciple
> endeavors to speak. For speech is a gift
> which comes only to the disciple of power and
> knowledge. The spiritualist enters the psychic-astral
> world, but he does not find there any
> certain speech, unless he at once claims it and
> continues to do so. If he is interested in "phenomena,"
> or the mere circumstance and accident
> of astral life, then he enters no direct ray
> of thought or purpose, he merely exists and
> amuses himself in the astral life as he has
> existed and amused himself in the physical life.
> Certainly there are one or two simple lessons
> which the psychic-astral can teach him, just
> as there are simple lessons which material and
> intellectual life teach him. And these lessons
> have to be learned; the man who proposes to
> enter upon the life of the disciple without having
> learned the early and simple lessons must
> always suffer from his ignorance. They are
> vital, and have to be studied in a vital manner;
> experienced through and through, over and
> over again, so that each part of the nature has
> been penetrated by them.
> 
> To return. In claiming the power of speech,
> as it is called, the Neophyte cries out to the
> Great One who stands foremost in the ray of
> knowledge on which he has entered, to give
> him guidance. When he does this, his voice is
> hurled back by the power he has approached,
> and echoes down to the deep recesses of human
> ignorance. In some confused and blurred manner
> the news that there is knowledge and a
> beneficent power which teaches is carried to
> as many men as will listen to it. No disciple
> can cross the threshold without communicating
> this news, and placing it on record in some
> fashion or other.
> 
> He stands horror-struck at the imperfect
> and unprepared manner in which he has done
> this; and then comes the desire to do it well,
> and with the desire thus to help others comes
> the power. For it is a pure desire, this which
> comes upon him; he can gain no credit, no
> glory, no personal reward by fulfilling it. And
> therefore he obtains the power to fulfil it.
> 
> The history of the whole past, so far as we
> can trace it, shows very plainly that there is
> neither credit, glory, nor reward to be gained
> by this first task which is given to the Neophyte.
> Mystics have always been sneered at,
> and seers disbelieved; those who have had the
> added power of intellect have left for posterity
> their written record, which to most men appears
> unmeaning and visionary, even when the
> authors have the advantage of speaking from a
> far-off past. The disciple who undertakes the
> task, secretly hoping for fame or success, to
> appear as a teacher and apostle before the
> world, fails even before his task is attempted,
> and his hidden hypocrisy poisons his own soul,
> and the souls of those he touches. He is
> secretly worshiping himself, and this idolatrous
> practice must bring its own reward.
> 
> The disciple who has the power of entrance,
> and is strong enough to pass each barrier, will,
> when the divine message comes to his spirit,
> forget himself utterly in the new consciousness
> which falls on him. If this lofty contact can
> really rouse him, he becomes as one of the
> divine in his desire to give rather than to take,
> in his wish to help rather than be helped, in
> his resolution to feed the hungry rather than
> take manna from Heaven himself. His nature
> is transformed, and the selfishness which
> prompts men's actions in ordinary life suddenly
> deserts him.
> 
> IV
> 
> "BEFORE THE VOICE CAN SPEAK IN THE
> PRESENCE OF THE MASTERS, IT MUST HAVE
> LOST THE POWER TO WOUND."
> 
> Those who give merely passing and superficial
> attention to the subject of occultism--and
> their name is Legion--constantly inquire
> why, if adepts in life exist, they do not appear
> in the world and show their power. That the
> chief body of these wise ones should be understood
> to dwell beyond the fastnesses of the
> Himalayas, appears to be a sufficient proof that
> they are only figures of straw. Otherwise why
> place them so far off?
> 
> Unfortunately, Nature has done this and
> not personal choice or arrangement. There are
> certain spots on the earth where the advance
> of "civilization" is unfelt, and the nineteenth
> century fever is kept at bay. In these favored
> places there is always time, always opportunity,
> for the realities of life; they are not crowded
> out by the doings of an inchoate, money-loving,
> pleasure seeking society. While there are
> adepts upon the earth, the earth must preserve
> to them places of seclusion. This is a fact in
> nature which is only an external expression of
> a profound fact in super-nature.
> 
> The demand of the neophyte remains unheard
> until the voice in which it is uttered has
> lost the power to wound. This is because the
> divine-astral life[A] is a place in which order
> reigns, just as it does in natural life. There
> is, of course, always the center and the circumference
> as there is in nature. Close to the
> central heart of life, on any plane, there is
> knowledge, there order reigns completely; and
> chaos makes dim and confused the outer margin
> of the circle. In fact, life in every form
> bears a more or less strong resemblance to a
> philosophic school. There are always the devotees
> to knowledge who forget their own lives
> in their pursuit of it; there are always the
> flippant crowd who come and go--of such,
> Epictetus said that it was [as] easy to teach
> them philosophy as to eat custard with a fork.
> The same state exists in the super-astral life;
> and the adept has an even deeper and more
> profound seclusion there in which to dwell.
> This place of retreat is so safe, so sheltered,
> that no sound which has discord in it can reach
> his ears. Why should this be, will be asked at
> once, if he is a being of such great powers as
> those say who believe in his existence? The
> answer seems very apparent. He serves humanity
> and identifies himself with the whole world;
> he is ready to make vicarious sacrifice for it at
> any moment--_by living not by dying for it_.
> Why should he not die for it? Because he is
> part of the great whole, and one of the most
> valuable parts of it. Because he lives under
> laws of order which he does not desire to
> break. His life is not his own, but that of the
> forces which work behind him. He is the
> flower of humanity, the bloom which contains
> the divine seed. He is, in his own person, a
> treasure of the universal nature, which is
> guarded and made safe in order that the fruition
> shall be perfected. It is only at definite
> periods of the world's history that he is allowed
> to go among the herd of men as their redeemer.
> But for those who have the power to separate
> themselves from this herd he is always at hand.
> And for those who are strong enough to conquer
> the vices of the personal human nature, as
> set forth in these four rules, he is consciously
> at hand, easily recognised, ready to answer.
> 
> [Footnote A: Of course every occultist knows by reading
> Eliphas Lévi and other authors that the "astral"
> plane is a plane of unequalized forces, and that a
> state of confusion necessarily prevails. But this does
> not apply to the "divine astral" plane, which is a
> plane where wisdom, and therefore order, prevails.]
> 
> But this conquering of self implies a destruction
> of qualities which most men regard
> as not only indestructible but desirable. The
> "power to wound" includes much that men
> value, not only in themselves, but in others.
> The instinct of self-defense and of self-preservation
> is part of it; the idea that one has any
> right or rights, either as a citizen, or man, or
> individual, the pleasant consciousness of self-respect
> and of virtue. These are hard sayings
> to many; yet they are true. For these words
> that I am writing now, and those which I have
> written on this subject, are not in any sense
> my own. They are drawn from the traditions
> of the lodge of the great Brotherhood, which
> was once the secret splendor of Egypt. The
> rules written in its ante-chamber were the same
> as those now written in the ante-chamber of
> existing schools. Through all time the wise
> men have lived apart from the mass. And
> even when some temporary purpose or object
> induces one of them to come into the midst of
> human life, his seclusion and safety is preserved
> as completely as ever. It is part of his
> inheritance, part of his position, he has an
> actual title to it, and can no more put it aside
> than the Duke of Westminster can say he does
> not choose to be the Duke of Westminster. In
> the various great cities of the world an adept
> lives for a while from time to time, or perhaps
> only passes through; but all are occasionally
> aided by the actual power and presence of one
> of these men. Here in London, as in Paris and
> St. Petersburgh, there are men high in development.
> But they are only known as mystics by
> those who have the power to recognise; the
> power given by the conquering of self. Otherwise
> how could they exist, even for an hour,
> in such a mental and psychic atmosphere as is
> created by the confusion and disorder of a city?
> Unless protected and made safe their own
> growth would be interfered with, their work
> injured. And the neophyte may meet an adept
> in the flesh, may live in the same house with
> him, and yet be unable to recognise him, and
> unable to make his own voice heard by him. For
> no nearness in space, no closeness of relations,
> no daily intimacy, can do away with the inexorable
> laws which give the adept his seclusion.
> No voice penetrates to his inner hearing till it
> has become a divine voice, a voice which gives
> no utterance to the cries of self. Any lesser
> appeal would be as useless, as much a waste of
> energy and power, as for mere children who
> are learning their alphabet to be taught it by
> a professor of philology. Until a man has
> become, in heart and spirit, a disciple, he has no
> existence for those who are teachers of disciples.
> And he becomes this by one method only--the
> surrender of his personal humanity.
> 
> For the voice to have lost the power to
> wound, a man must have reached that point
> where he sees himself only as one of the vast
> multitudes that live; one of the sands washed
> hither and thither by the sea of vibratory existence.
> It is said that every grain of sand in the
> ocean bed does, in its turn, get washed up on to
> the shore and lie for a moment in the sunshine.
> So with human beings, they are driven hither
> and thither by a great force, and each, in his
> turn, finds the sunrays on him. When a man
> is able to regard his own life as part of a whole
> like this he will no longer struggle in order
> to obtain anything for himself. This is the surrender
> of personal rights. The ordinary man
> expects, not to take equal fortunes with the
> rest of the world, but in some points, about
> which he cares, to fare better than the others.
> The disciple does not expect this. Therefore,
> though he be, like Epictetus, a chained slave,
> he has no word to say about it. He knows that
> the wheel of life turns ceaselessly. Burne Jones
> has shown it in his marvellous picture--the
> wheel turns, and on it are bound the rich and
> the poor, the great and the small--each has
> his moment of good fortune when the wheel
> brings him uppermost--the King rises and
> falls, the poet is _fêted_ and forgotten, the slave
> is happy and afterwards discarded. Each in his
> turn is crushed as the wheel turns on. The disciple
> knows that this is so, and though it is his
> duty to make the utmost of the life that is his,
> he neither complains of it nor is elated by it,
> nor does he complain against the better fortune
> of others. All alike, as he well knows, are but
> learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist
> and the reformer who endeavor by sheer force
> to re-arrange circumstances which arise out of
> the forces of human nature itself. This is but
> kicking against the pricks; a waste of life
> and energy.
> 
> In realizing this a man surrenders his
> imagined individual rights, of whatever sort.
> That takes away one keen sting which is
> common to all ordinary men.
> 
> When the disciple has fully recognised that
> the very thought of individual rights is only
> the outcome of the venomous quality in himself,
> that it is the hiss of the snake of self
> which poisons with its sting his own life and
> the lives of those about him, then he is ready
> to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open
> to all neophytes who are prepared for it. All
> weapons of defense and offense are given up;
> all weapons of mind and heart, and brain, and
> spirit. Never again can another man be regarded
> as a person who can be criticized or
> condemned; never again can the neophyte
> raise his voice in self-defense or excuse. From
> that ceremony he returns into the world as
> helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born child.
> That, indeed, is what he is. He has begun to
> be born again on to the higher plane of life,
> that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence
> the eyes see intelligently and regard the world
> with a new insight.
> 
> I have said, a little way back, that after
> parting with the sense of individual rights, the
> disciple must part also with the sense of self-respect
> and of virtue. This may sound a terrible
> doctrine, yet all occultists know well that it
> is not a doctrine, but a fact. He who thinks
> himself holier than another, he who has any
> pride in his own exemption from vice or folly,
> he who believes himself wise, or in any way
> superior to his fellow men, is incapable of
> discipleship. A man must become as a little
> child before he can enter into the kingdom of
> heaven.
> 
> Virtue and wisdom are sublime things; but
> if they create pride and a consciousness of
> separateness from the rest of humanity in the
> mind of a man, then they are only the snakes
> of self re-appearing in a finer form. At any
> moment he may put on his grosser shape and
> sting as fiercely as when he inspired the actions
> of a murderer who kills for gain or hatred,
> or a politician who sacrifices the mass for his
> own or his party's interests.
> 
> In fact, to have lost the power to wound,
> implies that the snake is not only scotched,
> but killed. When it is merely stupefied or
> lulled to sleep it awakes again and the disciple
> uses his knowledge and his power for his own
> ends, and is a pupil of the many masters of
> the black art, for the road to destruction is very
> broad and easy, and the way can be found
> blindfold. That it is the way to destruction
> is evident, for when a man begins to live for
> self he narrows his horizon steadily till at last
> the fierce driving inwards leaves him but the
> space of [a] pin's-head to dwell in. We have
> all seen this phenomenon occur in ordinary life.
> A man who becomes selfish isolates himself,
> grows less interesting and less agreeable to
> others. The sight is an awful one, and people
> shrink from a very selfish person at last, as
> from a beast of prey. How much more awful is
> it when it occurs on the more advanced plane
> of life, with the added powers of knowledge,
> and through the greater sweep of successive
> incarnations!
> 
> Therefore I say, pause and think well upon
> the threshold. For if the demand of the neophyte
> is made without the complete purification,
> it will not penetrate the seclusion of the
> divine adept, but will evoke the terrible forces
> which attend upon the black side of our human
> nature.
> 
> V
> 
> "BEFORE THE SOUL CAN STAND IN THE
> PRESENCE OF THE MASTERS, ITS FEET MUST
> BE WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE HEART."
> 
> The word soul, as used here, means the
> divine soul, or "starry spirit."
> 
> "To be able to stand is to have confidence";
> and to have confidence means that the disciple
> is sure of himself, that he has surrendered his
> emotions, his very self, even his humanity;
> that he is incapable of fear and unconscious of
> pain; that his whole consciousness is centered
> in the divine life, which is expressed symbolically
> by the term "the Masters"; that he has
> neither eyes, nor ears, nor speech, nor power,
> save in and for the divine ray on which his
> highest sense has touched. Then he is fearless,
> free from suffering, free from anxiety or dismay;
> his soul stands without shrinking or
> desire of postponement, in the full blaze of the
> divine light which penetrates through and
> through his being. Then he has come into his
> inheritance and can claim his kinship with the
> teachers of men; he is upright, he has raised
> his head, he breathes the same air that they do.
> 
> But before it is in any way possible for him
> to do this, the feet of the soul must be washed
> in the blood of the heart.
> 
> The sacrifice, or surrender of the heart of
> man, and its emotions, is the first of the rules;
> it involves the "attaining of an equilibrium
> which cannot be shaken by personal emotion."
> This is done by the stoic philosopher; he, too,
> stands aside and looks equably upon his own
> sufferings, as well as on those of others.
> 
> In the same way that "tears" in the language
> of occultists expresses the soul of
> emotion, not its material appearance, so blood
> expresses, not that blood which is an essential
> of physical life, but the vital creative principle
> in man's nature, which drives him into human
> life in order to experience pain and pleasure,
> joy and sorrow. When he has let the blood
> flow from the heart he stands before the Masters
> as a pure spirit which no longer
> to incarnate for the sake of emotion and
> experience. Through great cycles of time successive
> incarnations in gross matter may yet
> be his lot; but he no longer desires them, the
> crude wish to live has departed from him.
> When he takes upon him man's form in the
> flesh he does it in the pursuit of a divine object,
> to accomplish the work of "the Masters," and
> for no other end. He looks neither for pleasure
> nor pain, asks for no heaven, and fears
> no hell; yet he has entered upon a great
> inheritance which is not so much a compensation
> for these things surrendered, as a state
> which simply blots out the memory of them.
> He lives now not in the world, but with it: his
> horizon has extended itself to the width of
> the whole universe.
> 
> KARMA
> 
> Consider with me that the individual existence
> is a rope which stretches from the
> infinite to the infinite and has no end and no
> commencement, neither is it capable of being
> broken. This rope is formed of innumerable
> fine threads, which, lying closely together,
> form its thickness. These threads are colorless,
> are perfect in their qualities of straightness,
> strength, and levelness. This rope, passing as
> it does through all places, suffers strange
> accidents. Very often a thread is caught and
> becomes attached, or perhaps is only violently
> pulled away from its even way. Then for a
> great time it is disordered, and it disorders the
> whole. Sometimes one is stained with dirt or
> with color, and not only does the stain run on
> further than the spot of contact, but it discolors
> other of the threads. And remember that the
> threads are living--are like electric wires,
> more, are like quivering nerves. How far, then,
> must the stain, the drag awry, be communicated!
> But eventually the long strands, the
> living threads which in their unbroken
> continuity form the individual, pass out of the
> shadow into the shine. Then the threads are no
> longer colorless, but golden; once more they lie
> together, level. Once more harmony is established
> between them; and from that harmony
> within the greater harmony is perceived.
> 
> This illustration presents but a small
> portion--a single side of the truth: it is less
> than a fragment. Yet, dwell on it; by its aid
> you may be led to perceive more. What it is
> necessary first to understand is, not that the
> future is arbitrarily formed by any separate
> acts of the present, but that the whole of the
> future is in unbroken continuity with the
> present as the present is with the past. On one
> plane, from one point of view, the illustration
> of the rope is correct.
> 
> It is said that a little attention to occultism
> produces great Karmic results. That is because
> it is impossible to give any attention to
> occultism without making a definite choice between
> what are familiarly called good and evil.
> The first step in occultism brings the student to
> the tree of knowledge. He must pluck and eat;
> he must choose. No longer is he capable of the
> indecision of ignorance. He. goes, on, either on
> the good or on the evil path. And to step
> definitely and knowingly even but one step on
> either path produces great Karmic results. The
> mass of men walk waveringly, uncertain as to
> the goal they aim at; their standard of life is
> indefinite; consequently their Karma operates
> in a confused manner. But when once the
> threshold of knowledge is reached, the confusion
> begins to lessen, and consequently the
> Karmic results increase enormously, because
> all are acting in the same direction on all the
> different planes: for the occultist cannot be
> half-hearted, nor can he return when he has
> passed the threshold. These things are as
> impossible as that the man should become the
> child again. The individuality has approached
> the state of responsibility by reason of growth;
> it cannot recede from it.
> 
> He who would escape from the bondage of
> Karma must raise his individuality out of the
> shadow into the shine; must so elevate his
> existence that these threads do not come in
> contact with soiling substances, do not become
> so attached as to be pulled awry. He simply
> lifts himself out of the region in which Karma
> operates. He does not leave the existence which
> he is experiencing because of that. The ground
> may be rough and dirty, or full of rich flowers
> whose pollen stains, and of sweet substances
> that cling and become attachments--but
> overhead there is always the free sky. He who
> desires to be Karmaless must look to the air
> for a home; and after that to the ether. He
> who desires to form good Karma will meet
> with many confusions, and in the effort to sow
> rich seed for his own harvesting may plant a
> thousand weeds, and among them the giant.
> Desire to sow no seed for your own harvesting;
> desire only to sow that seed the fruit of which
> shall feed the world. You are part of the
> world; in giving it food you feed yourself. Yet
> in even this thought there lurks a great danger
> which starts forward and faces the disciple,
> who has for long thought himself working for
> good, while in his inmost soul he has perceived
> only evil; that is, he has thought himself to
> be intending great benefit to the world while
> all the time he has unconsciously embraced the
> thought of Karma, and the great benefit he
> works for is for himself. A man may refuse to
> allow himself to think of reward. But in that
> very refusal is seen the fact that reward is
> desired. And it is useless for the disciple to
> strive to learn by means of checking himself.
> The soul must be unfettered, the desires free.
> But until they are fixed only on that state
> wherein there is neither reward nor punishment,
> good nor evil, it is in vain that he endeavors.
> He may seem to make great progress, but some
> day he will come face to face with his own
> soul, and will recognise that when he came to
> the tree of knowledge he chose the bitter fruit
> and not the sweet; and then the veil will fall
> utterly, and he will give up his freedom and
> become a slave of desire. Therefore be warned,
> you who are but turning toward the life of
> occultism. Learn now that there is no cure for
> desire, no cure for the love of reward, no cure
> for misery of longing, save in the fixing of the
> sight and hearing upon that which is invisible
> and soundless. Begin even now to practise it,
> and so a thousand serpents will be kept from
> your path. Live in the eternal.
> 
> The operations of the actual laws of Karma
> are not to be studied until the disciple has
> reached the point at which they no longer affect
> himself. The initiate has a right to demand
> the secrets of nature and to know the rules
> which govern human life. He obtains this right
> by having escaped from the limits of nature
> and by having freed himself from the rules
> which govern human life. He has become a
> recognised portion of the divine element, and
> is no longer affected by that which is temporary.
> He then obtains a knowledge of the laws
> which govern temporary conditions. Therefore
> you who desire to understand the laws of
> Karma, attempt first to free yourself from
> these laws; and this can only be done by
> fixing your attention on that which is unaffected
> by those laws.
> 
> *THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD*
> 
> *Through the
> 
> Gates of Gold*
> 
> *A FRAGMENT OF THOUGHT*
> 
> PROLOGUE
> 
> Every man has a philosophy of life of his
> own, except the true philosopher. The most
> ignorant boor has some conception of his object
> in living, and definite ideas as to the easiest
> and wisest way of attaining that object. The
> man of the world is often, unconsciously to
> himself, a philosopher of the first rank. He
> deals with his life on principles of the clearest
> character, and refuses to let his position be
> shattered by chance disaster. The  man of
> thought and imagination has less certainty,
> and finds himself continually unable to formulate
> his ideas on that subject most profoundly
> interesting to human nature,--human life
> itself. The true philosopher is the one who
> would lay no claim to the name whatever, who
> has discovered that the mystery of life is
> unapproachable by ordinary thought, just as
> the true scientist confesses his complete
> ignorance of the principles which lie behind
> science.
> 
> Whether there is any mode of thought or
> any effort of the mind which will enable a
> man to grasp the great principles that evidently
> exist as causes in human life, is a
> question no ordinary thinker can determine.
> Yet the dim consciousness that there is cause
> behind the effects we see, that there is order
> ruling the chaos and sublime harmony pervading
> the discords, haunts the eager souls of the
> earth, and makes them long for vision of the
> unseen and knowledge of the unknowable.
> 
> Why long and look for that which is beyond
> all hope until the inner eyes are opened? Why
> not piece together the fragments that we have,
> at hand, and see whether from them some
> shape cannot be given to the vast puzzle?
> 
> CHAPTER I
> 
> THE SEARCH FOR PLEASURE
> 
> I
> 
> We are all acquainted with that stern thing
> called misery, which pursues man, and strangely
> enough, as it seems at first, pursues him with
> no vague or uncertain method, but with a positive
> and unbroken pertinacity. Its presence is
> not absolutely continuous, else man must cease
> to live; but its pertinacity is without any break.
> There is always the shadowy form of despair
> standing behind man ready to touch him with
> its terrible finger if for too long he finds
> himself content. What has given this ghastly
> shape the right to haunt us from the hour we
> are born until the hour we die? What has
> given it the right to stand always at our door,
> keeping that door ajar with its impalpable yet
> plainly horrible hand, ready to enter at the
> moment it sees fit? The greatest philosopher
> that ever lived succumbs before it at last; and
> he only is a philosopher, in any sane sense, who
> recognises the fact that it is irresistible, and
> knows that like all other men he must suffer
> soon or late. It is part of the heritage of men,
> this pain and distress; and he who determines
> that nothing shall make him suffer, does but
> cloak himself in a profound and chilly selfishness.
> This cloak may protect him from pain, it
> will also separate him from pleasure. If peace
> is to be found on earth, or any joy in life, it
> cannot be by closing up the gates of feeling,
> which admit us to the loftiest and most vivid
> part of our existence. Sensation, as we obtain
> it through the physical body, affords us all that
> induces us to live in that shape. It is inconceivable
> that any man would care to take the
> trouble of breathing, unless the act brought
> with it a sense of satisfaction. So it is with
> every deed of every instant of our life. We
> live because it is pleasant even to have the
> sensation of pain. It is sensation we desire,
> else we would with one accord taste of the deep
> waters of oblivion, and the human race would
> become extinct. If this is the case in the
> physical life, it is evidently the case with the
> life of the emotions,--the imagination, the
> sensibilities, all those fine and delicate formations
> which, with the marvellous recording
> mechanism of the brain, make up the inner
> or subtile man. Sensation is that which makes
> their pleasure; an infinite series of sensations
> is life to them. Destroy the sensation which
> makes them wish to persevere in the experiment
> of living, and there is nothing left.
> Therefore the man who attempts to obliterate
> the sense of pain, and who proposes to maintain
> an equal state whether he is pleased or
> hurt, strikes at the very root of life, and
> destroys the object of his own existence. And
> that must apply, so far as our present reasoning
> or intuitive powers can show us, to every
> state, even to that of the Oriental's longed-for
> Nirvana. This condition can only be one of
> infinitely subtiler and more exquisite sensation,
> if it is a state at all, and not annihilation; and
> according to the experience of life from which
> we are at present able to judge, increased
> subtility of sensation means increased vividness,--as,
> for instance, a man of sensibility
> and imagination feels more in consequence of
> the unfaithfulness or faithfulness of a friend
> than can a man of even the grossest physical
> nature feel through the medium of the senses.
> Thus it is clear that the philosopher who
> refuses to feel, leaves himself no place to
> retreat to, not even the distant and unattainable
> Nirvanic goal. He can only deny himself
> his heritage of life, which is in other words
> the right of sensation. If he chooses to sacrifice
> that which makes him man, he must be
> content with mere idleness of consciousness,--a
> condition compared to which the oyster's
> is a life of excitement.
> 
> But no man is able to accomplish such a
> feat. The fact of his continued existence proves
> plainly that he still desires sensation, and
> desires it in such positive and active form that
> the desire must be gratified in physical life. It
> would seem more practical not to deceive one's
> self by the sham of stoicism, not to attempt
> renunciation of that with which nothing would
> induce one to part. Would it not be a bolder
> policy, a more promising mode of solving the
> great enigma of existence, to grasp it, to take
> hold firmly and to demand of it the mystery
> of itself? If men will but pause and consider
> what lessons they have learned from pleasure
> and pain, much might be guessed of that
> strange thing which causes these effects. But
> men are prone to turn away hastily from self-study,
> or from any close analysis of human
> nature. Yet there must be a science of life as
> intelligible as any of the methods of the
> schools. The science is unknown, it is true,
> and its existence is merely guessed, merely
> hinted at, by one or two of our more advanced
> thinkers. The development of a science is only
> the discovery of what is already in existence;
> and chemistry is as magical and incredible now
> to the ploughboy as the science of life is to
> the man of ordinary perceptions. Yet there
> may be, and there must be, a seer who perceives
> the growth of the new knowledge as the
> earliest dabblers in the experiments of the laboratory
> saw the system of knowledge now
> attained evolving itself out of nature for man's
> use and benefit.
> 
> II
> 
> Doubtless many more would experiment in
> suicide, as many now do, in order to escape
> from the burden of life, if they could be convinced
> that in that manner oblivion might be
> found. But he who hesitates before drinking
> the poison from the fear of only inviting
> change of mode of existence, and perhaps a
> more active form of misery, is a man of more
> knowledge than the rash souls who fling themselves
> wildly on the unknown, trusting to its
> kindliness. The waters of oblivion are something
> very different from the waters of death,
> and the human race cannot become extinct by
> means of death while the law of birth still
> operates. Man returns to physical life as the
> drunkard returns to the flagon of wine,--he
> knows not why, except that he desires the sensation
> produced by life as the drunkard desires
> the sensation produced by wine. The true
> waters of oblivion lie far behind our consciousness,
> and can only be reached by ceasing
> to exist in that consciousness,--by ceasing to
> exert the will which makes us full of senses
> and sensibilities.
> 
> Why does not the creature man return into
> that great womb of silence whence he came,
> and remain in peace, as the unborn child is at
> peace before the impetus of life has reached
> it? He does not do so because he hungers for
> pleasure and pain, joy and grief, anger and
> love. The unfortunate man will maintain that
> he has no desire for life; and yet he proves
> his words false by living. None can compel
> him to live; the galley-slave may be chained to
> his oar, but his life cannot be chained to his
> body. The superb mechanism of the human
> body is as useless as an engine whose fires are
> not lit, if the will to live ceases,--that will
> which we maintain resolutely and without
> pause, and which enables us to perform the
> tasks which otherwise would fill us with dismay,
> as, for instance, the momently drawing
> in and giving out of the breath. Such herculean
> efforts as this we carry on without complaint,
> and indeed with pleasure, in order that
> we may exist in the midst of innumerable
> sensations.
> 
> And more; we are content, for the most
> part, to go on without object or aim, without
> any idea of a goal or understanding of which
> way we are going. When the man first becomes
> aware of this aimlessness, and is dimly conscious
> that he is working with great and
> constant efforts, and without any idea towards
> what end those efforts are directed, then
> descends on him the misery of nineteenth-century
> thought. He is lost and bewildered,
> and without hope. He becomes sceptical, disillusioned,
> weary, and asks the apparently
> unanswerable question whether it is indeed
> worth while to draw his breath for such
> unknown and seemingly unknowable results.
> But are these results unknowable? At least, to
> ask a lesser question, is it impossible to make a
> guess as to the direction in which our goal lies?
> 
> III
> 
> This question, born of sadness and weariness,
> which seems to us essentially part of the
> spirit of the nineteenth century, is in fact a
> question which must have been asked all
> through the ages. Could we go back throughout
> history intelligently, no doubt we should
> find that it came always with the hour when
> the flower of civilization had blown to its
> full, and when its petals were but slackly held
> together. The natural part of man has
> reached then its utmost height; he has rolled
> the stone up the Hill of Difficulty only to watch
> it roll back again when the summit is reached,--as
> in Egypt, in Rome, in Greece. Why this
> useless labor? Is it not enough to produce a
> weariness and sickness unutterable, to be forever
> accomplishing a task only to see it undone
> again? Yet that is what man has done throughout
> history, so far as our limited knowledge
> reaches. There is one summit to which, by
> immense and united efforts, he attains, where
> there is a great and brilliant efflorescence of all
> the intellectual, mental, and material part of
> his nature. The climax of sensuous perfection
> is reached, and then his hold weakens, his
> power grows less, and he falls back, through
> despondency and satiety, to barbarism. Why
> does he not stay on this hill-top he has
> reached, and look away to the mountains
> beyond, and resolve to scale those greater
> heights? Because he is ignorant, and seeing
> a great glittering in the distance, drops his
> eyes bewildered and dazzled, and goes back
> for rest to the shadowy side of his familiar
> hill. Yet there is now and then one brave
> enough to gaze fixedly on this glittering, and
> to decipher something of the shape within it.
> Poets and philosophers, thinkers and teachers,--all
> those who are the "elder brothers of the
> race,"--have beheld this sight from time to
> time, and some among them have recognised
> in the bewildering glitter the outlines of the
> Gates of Gold.
> 
> Those Gates admit us to the sanctuary of
> man's own nature, to the place whence his
> life-power comes, and where he is priest of the
> shrine of life. That it is possible to enter here,
> to pass through those Gates, some one or two
> have shown us. Plato, Shakespeare, and a few
> other strong ones have gone through and
> spoken to us in veiled language on the near
> side of the Gates. When the strong man has
> crossed the threshold he speaks no more to
> those at the other side. And even the words
> he utters when he is outside are so full of
> mystery, so veiled and profound, that only
> those who follow in his steps can see the light
> within them.
> 
> IV
> 
> What men desire is to ascertain how to
> exchange pain for pleasure; that is, to find out
> in what way consciousness may be regulated
> in order that the sensation which is most
> agreeable is the one that is experienced.
> Whether this can be discovered by dint of
> human thought is at least a question worth
> considering.
> 
> If the mind of man is turned upon any
> given subject with a sufficient concentration,
> he obtains illumination with regard to it sooner
> or later. The particular individual in whom
> the final illumination appears is called a genius,
> an inventor, one inspired; but he is only the
> crown of a great mental work created by
> unknown men about him, and receding back
> from him through long vistas of distance.
> Without them he would not have had his material
> to deal with. Even the poet requires
> innumerable poetasters to feed upon. He is the
> essence of the poetic power of his time, and
> of the times before him. It is impossible to
> separate an individual of any species from
> his kin.
> 
> If, therefore, instead of accepting the
> unknown as unknowable, men were _with one
> accord_ to turn their thoughts towards it, those
> Golden Gates would not remain so inexorably
> shut. It does but need a strong hand to push
> them open. The courage to enter them is the
> courage to search the recesses of one's own
> nature without fear and without shame. In
> the fine part, the essence, the flavor of the
> man, is found the key which unlocks those
> great Gates. And when they open, what is it
> that is found?
> 
> Voices here and there in the long silence
> of the ages speak to answer that question.
> Those who have passed through have left
> words behind them as legacies to others of
> their kin. In these words we can find definite
> indications of what is to be looked for beyond
> the Gates. But only those who desire to go
> that way read the meaning hidden within the
> words. Scholars, or rather scholiasts, read the
> sacred books of different nations, the poetry
> and the philosophy left by enlightened minds,
> and find in it all the merest materiality.
> Imagination glorifying legends of nature, or
> exaggerating the psychic possibilities of man,
> explains to them all that they find in the Bibles
> of humanity.
> 
> What is to be found within the words of
> those books is to be found in each one of us;
> and it is impossible to find in literature or
> through any channel of thought that which
> does not exist in the man who studies. This
> is of course an evident fact known to all real
> students. But it has to be especially remembered
> in reference to this profound and obscure
> subject, as men so readily believe that nothing
> can exist for others where they themselves find
> emptiness.
> 
> One thing is soon perceived by the man
> who reads: those who have gone before have
> not found that the Gates of Gold lead to
> oblivion. On the contrary, sensation becomes
> real for the first time when that threshold is
> crossed. But it is of a new order, an order
> unknown to us now, and by us impossible to
> appreciate without at least some clew as to its
> character. This clew can be obtained undoubtedly
> by any student who cares to go through
> all the literature accessible to us. That mystic
> books and manuscripts exist, but remain inaccessible
> simply because there is no man ready
> to read the first page of any one of them,
> becomes the conviction of all who have studied
> the subject sufficiently. For there must be the
> continuous line all through: we see it go from
> dense ignorance up to intelligence and wisdom;
> it is only natural that it should go on to
> intuitive knowledge and to inspiration. Some
> scant fragments we have of these great gifts
> of man; where, then, is the whole of which
> they must be a part? Hidden behind the thin
> yet seemingly impassable veil which hides it
> from us as it hid all science, all art, all powers
> of man till he had the courage to tear away
> the screen. That courage comes only of conviction.
> When once man believes that the thing
> exists which he desires, he will obtain it at any
> cost. The difficulty in this case lies in man's
> incredulity. It requires a great tide of thought
> and attention to set in towards the unknown
> region of man's nature in order that its gates
> may be unlocked and its glorious vistas
> explored.
> 
> That it is worth while to do this whatever
> the hazard may be, all must allow who have
> asked the sad question of the nineteenth century,--Is
> life worth living? Surely it is sufficient
> to spur man to new effort,--the
> suspicion that beyond civilization, beyond
> mental culture, beyond art and mechanical
> perfection, there is a new, another gateway,
> admitting to the realities of life.
> 
> V
> 
> When it seems as if the end was reached,
> the goal attained, and that man has no more
> to do,--just then, when he appears to have
> no choice but between eating and drinking and
> living in his comfort as the beasts do in theirs,
> and scepticism which is death,--then it is that
> in fact, if he will but look, the Golden Gates
> are before him. With the culture of the age
> within him and assimilated perfectly, so that
> he is himself an incarnation of it, then he is fit
> to attempt the great step which is absolutely
> possible, yet is attempted by so few even of
> those who are fitted for it. It is so seldom
> attempted, partly because of the profound difficulties
> which surround it, but much more
> because man does not realize that this is actually
> the direction in which pleasure and
> satisfaction are to be obtained.
> 
> There are certain pleasures which appeal
> to each individual; every man knows that in
> one layer or another of sensation he finds his
> chief delight. Naturally he turns to this systematically
> through life, just as the sunflower
> turns to the sun and the water-lily leans on the
> water. But he struggles throughout with an
> awful fact which oppresses him to the soul,--that
> no sooner has he obtained his pleasure
> than he loses it again and has once more to
> go in search of it. More than that; he never
> actually reaches it, for it eludes him at the
> final moment. This is because he endeavors to
> seize that which is untouchable and satisfy
> his soul's hunger for sensation by contact with
> external objects. How can that which is
> external satisfy or even please the inner man,--the
> thing which reigns within and has no
> eyes for matter, no hands for touch of objects,
> no senses with which to apprehend that which
> is outside its magic walls? Those charmed
> barriers which surround it are limitless, for
> it is everywhere; it is to be discovered in all
> living things, and no part of the universe can
> be conceived of without it, if that universe is
> regarded as a coherent whole. And unless that
> point is granted at the outset it is useless to
> consider the subject of life at all. Life is indeed
> meaningless unless it is universal and coherent,
> and unless we maintain our existence by
> reason of the fact that we are part of that
> which is, not by reason of our own being.
> 
> This is one of the most important factors
> in the development of man, the recognition--profound
> and complete recognition--of the
> law of universal unity and coherence. The
> separation which exists between individuals,
> between worlds, between the different poles of
> the universe and of life, the mental and
> physical fantasy called space, is a nightmare
> of the human imagination. That nightmares
> exist, and exist only to torment, every child
> knows; and what we need is the power of
> discrimination between the phantasmagoria of
> the brain, which concern ourselves only, and
> the phantasmagoria of daily life, in which
> others also are concerned. This rule applies
> also to the larger case. It concerns no one
> but ourselves that we live in a nightmare of
> unreal horror, and fancy ourselves alone in
> the universe and capable of independent
> action, so long as our associates are those
> only who are a part of the dream; but when
> we desire to speak with those who have tried
> the Golden Gates and pushed them open, then
> it is very necessary--in fact it is essential--to
> discriminate, and not bring into our life the
> confusions of our sleep. If we do, we are
> reckoned as madmen, and fall back into the
> darkness where there is no friend but chaos.
> This chaos has followed every effort of man
> that is written in history; after civilization has
> flowered, the flower falls and dies, and winter
> and darkness destroy it. While man refuses
> to make the effort of discrimination which
> would enable him to distinguish between the
> shapes of night and the active figures of day,
> this must inevitably happen.
> 
> But if man has the courage to resist this
> reactionary tendency, to stand steadily on the
> height he has reached and put out his foot in
> search of yet another step, why should he
> not find it? There is nothing to make one
> suppose the pathway to end at a certain point,
> except that tradition which has declared it is
> so, and which men have accepted and hug to
> themselves as a justification for their indolence.
> 
> VI
> 
> Indolence is, in fact, the curse of man. As
> the Irish peasant and the cosmopolitan gypsy
> dwell in dirt and poverty out of sheer idleness,
> so does the man of the world live contented
> in sensuous pleasures for the same reason. The
> drinking of fine wines, the tasting of delicate
> food, the love of bright sights and sounds, of
> beautiful women and admirable surroundings,--these
> are no better for the cultivated man,
> no more satisfactory as a final goal of enjoyment
> for him, than the coarse amusements and
> gratifications of the boor are for the man
> without cultivation. There can be no final
> point, for life in every form is one vast series
> of fine gradations; and the man who elects to
> stand still at the point of culture he has
> reached, and to avow that he can go no
> further, is simply making an arbitrary statement
> for the excuse of his indolence. Of course
> there is a possibility of declaring that the gypsy
> is content in his dirt and poverty, and, because
> he is so, is as great a man as the most highly
> cultured. But he only is so while he is ignorant;
> the moment light enters the dim mind the
> whole man turns towards it. So it is on the
> higher platform; only the difficulty of penetrating
> the mind, of admitting the light, is even
> greater. The Irish peasant loves his whiskey,
> and while he can have it cares nothing for the
> great laws of morality and religion which are
> supposed to govern humanity and induce men
> to live temperately. The cultivated gourmand
> cares only for subtle tastes and perfect flavors;
> but he is as blind as the merest peasant to the
> fact that there is anything beyond such gratifications.
> Like the boor he is deluded by a
> mirage that oppresses his soul; and he fancies,
> having once obtained a sensuous joy that
> pleases him, to give himself the utmost satisfaction
> by endless repetition, till at last he
> reaches madness. The bouquet of the wine he
> loves enters his soul and poisons it, leaving
> him with no thoughts but those of sensuous
> desire; and he is in the same hopeless state
> as the man who dies mad with drink. What
> good has the drunkard obtained by his
> madness? None; pain has at last swallowed
> up pleasure utterly, and death steps in to
> terminate the agony. The man suffers the final
> penalty for his persistent ignorance of a law
> of nature as inexorable as that of gravitation,--a
> law which forbids a man to stand still.
> Not twice can the same cup of pleasure be
> tasted; the second time it must contain either
> a grain of poison or a drop of the elixir of life.
> 
> The same argument holds good with regard
> to intellectual pleasures; the same law operates.
> We see men who are the flower of their
> age in intellect, who pass beyond their fellows
> and tower over them, entering at last upon a
> fatal treadmill of thought, where they yield
> to the innate indolence of the soul and begin
> to delude themselves by the solace of repetition.
> Then comes the barrenness and lack of
> vitality,--that unhappy and disappointing
> state into which great men too often enter
> when middle life is just passed. The fire of
> youth, the vigor of the young intellect, conquers
> the inner inertia and makes the man
> scale heights of thought and fill his mental
> lungs with the free air of the mountains. But
> then at last the physical reaction sets in; the
> physical machinery of the brain loses its powerful
> impetus and begins to relax its efforts,
> simply because the youth of the body is at an
> end. Now the man is assailed by the great
> tempter of the race who stands forever on the
> ladder of life waiting for those who climb so
> far. He drops the poisoned drop into the ear,
> and from that moment all consciousness takes
> on a dulness, and the man becomes terrified
> lest life is losing its possibilities for him. He
> rushes back on to a familiar platform of
> experience, and there finds comfort in touching
> a well-known chord of passion or emotion.
> And too many having done this linger on,
> afraid to attempt the unknown, and satisfied to
> touch continually that chord which responds
> most readily. By this means they get the assurance
> that life is still burning within them.
> But at last their fate is the same as that of the
> gourmand and the drunkard. The power of
> the spell lessens daily as the machinery which
> feels loses its vitality; and the man endeavors
> to revive the old excitement and fervor by
> striking the note more violently, by hugging
> the thing that makes him feel, by drinking
> the cup of poison to its fatal dregs. And then
> he is lost; madness falls on his soul, as it
> falls on the body of the drunkard. Life has no
> longer any meaning for him, and he rushes
> wildly into the abysses of intellectual insanity.
> A lesser man who commits this great folly
> wearies the spirits of others by a dull clinging
> to familiar thought, by a persistent hugging of
> the treadmill which he asserts to be the final
> goal. The cloud that surrounds him is as fatal
> as death itself, and men who once sat at his
> feet turn away grieved, and have to look back
> at his early words in order to remember his
> greatness.
> 
> VII
> 
> What is the cure for this misery and waste
> of effort? Is there one? Surely life itself has
> a logic in it and a law which makes existence
> possible; otherwise chaos and madness would
> be the only state which would be attainable.
> When a man drinks his first cup of pleasure
> his soul is filled with the unutterable joy that
> comes with a first, a fresh sensation. The drop
> of poison that he puts into the second cup, and
> which, if he persists in that folly, has to become
> doubled and trebled till at last the whole cup
> is poison,--that is the ignorant desire for
> repetition and intensification; this evidently
> means death, according to all analogy. The
> child becomes the man; he cannot retain his
> childhood and repeat and intensify the pleasures
> of childhood except by paying the
> inevitable price and becoming an idiot. The
> plant strikes its roots into the ground and
> throws up green leaves; then it blossoms and
> bears fruit. That plant which will only make
> roots or leaves, pausing persistently in its development,
> is regarded by the gardener as a thing
> which is useless and must be cast out.
> 
> The man who chooses the way of effort,
> and refuses to allow the sleep of indolence to
> dull his soul, finds in his pleasures a new and
> finer joy each time he tastes them,--a something
> subtile and remote which removes them
> more and more from the state in which mere
> sensuousness is all; this subtile essence is that
> elixir of life which makes man immortal. He
> who tastes it and who will not drink unless it
> is in the cup finds life enlarge and the world
> grow great before his eager eyes. He recognises
> the soul within the woman he loves, and
> passion becomes peace; he sees within his
> thought the finer qualities of spiritual truth,
> which is beyond the action of our mental machinery,
> and then instead of entering on the
> treadmill of intellectualisms he rests on the
> broad back of the eagle of intuition and soars
> into the fine air where the great poets found
> their insight; he sees within his own power of
> sensation, of pleasure in fresh air and sunshine,
> in food and wine, in motion and rest, the possibilities
> of the subtile man, the thing which
> dies not either with the body or the brain. The
> pleasures of art, of music, of light and loveliness,--within
> these forms, which men repeat
> till they find only the forms, he sees the glory
> of the Gates of Gold, and passes through to
> find the new life beyond which intoxicates and
> strengthens, as the keen mountain air intoxicates
> and strengthens, by its very vigor. But
> if he has been pouring, drop by drop, more
> and more of the elixir of life into his cup, he
> is strong enough to breathe this intense air and
> to live upon it. Then if he die or if he live in
> physical form, alike he goes on and finds new
> and finer joys, more perfect and satisfying
> experiences, with every breath he draws in and
> gives out.
> 
> CHAPTER II
> 
> THE MYSTERY OF THRESHOLD
> 
> I
> 
> There is no doubt that at the entrance on
> a new phase of life something has to be given
> up. The child, when it has become the man,
> puts away childish things. Saint Paul showed
> in these words, and in many others which he
> has left us, that he had tasted of the elixir of
> life, that he was on his way towards the Gates
> of Gold. With each drop of the divine draught
> which is put into the cup of pleasure something
> is purged away from that cup to make room
> for the magic drop. For Nature deals with
> her children generously: man's cup is always
> full to the brim; and if he chooses to taste
> of the fine and life-giving essence, he must
> cast away something of the grosser and less
> sensitive part of himself. This has to be done
> daily, hourly, momently, in order that the
> draught of life may steadily increase. And to
> do this unflinchingly, a man must be his own
> schoolmaster, must recognise that he is always
> in need of wisdom, must be ready to practise
> any austerities, to use the birch-rod unhesitatingly
> against himself, in order to gain his
> end. It becomes evident to any one who regards
> the subject seriously, that only a man who has
> the potentialities in him both of the voluptuary
> and the stoic has any chance of entering
> the Golden Gates. He must be capable of
> testing and valuing to its most delicate fraction
> every joy existence has to give; and he must
> be capable of denying himself all pleasure, and
> that without suffering from the denial. When
> he has accomplished the development of this
> double possibility, then he is able to begin
> sifting his pleasures and taking away from his
> consciousness those which belong absolutely to
> the man of clay. When those are put back,
> there is the next range of more refined pleasures
> to be dealt with. The dealing with these
> which will enable a man to find the essence of
> life is not the method pursued by the stoic
> philosopher. The stoic does not allow that
> there is joy within pleasure, and by denying
> himself the one loses the other. But the true
> philosopher, who has studied life itself without
> being bound by any system of thought, sees
> that the kernel is within the shell, and that,
> instead of crunching up the whole nut like
> a gross and indifferent feeder, the essence of
> the thing is obtained by cracking the shell and
> casting it away. All emotion, all sensation,
> lends itself to this process, else it could not be
> a part of man's development, an essential of
> his nature. For that there is before him power,
> life, perfection, and that every portion of his
> passage thitherwards is crowded with the means
> of helping him to his goal, can only be denied
> by those who refuse to acknowledge life as
> apart from matter. Their mental position is so
> absolutely arbitrary that it is useless to encounter
> or combat it. Through all time the unseen
> has been pressing on the seen, the immaterial
> overpowering the material; through all time
> the signs and tokens of that which is beyond
> matter have been waiting for the men of
> matter to test and weigh them. Those who
> will not do so have chosen the place of pause
> arbitrarily, and there is nothing to be done
> but let them remain there undisturbed, working
> that treadmill which they believe to be the
> utmost activity of existence.
> 
> II
> 
> There is no doubt that a man must educate
> himself to perceive that which is beyond matter,
> just as he must educate himself to perceive
> that which is in matter. Every one knows that
> the early life of a child is one long process
> of adjustment, of learning to understand the
> use of the senses with regard to their special
> provinces, and of practice in the exercise of
> difficult, complex, yet imperfect organs entirely
> in reference to the perception of the world of
> matter. The child is in earnest and works on
> without hesitation if he means to live. Some
> infants born into the light of earth shrink from
> it, and refuse to attack the immense task which
> is before them, and which must be accomplished
> in order to make life in matter possible.
> These go back to the ranks of the unborn;
> we see them lay down their manifold instrument,
> the body, and fade into sleep. So it is
> with the great crowd of humanity when it has
> triumphed and conquered and enjoyed in the
> world of matter. The individuals in that
> crowd, which seems so powerful and confident
> in its familiar demesne, are infants in the
> presence of the immaterial universe. And we
> see them, on all sides, daily and hourly, refusing
> to enter it, sinking back into the ranks of
> the dwellers in physical life, clinging to the
> consciousnesses they have experienced and
> understand. The intellectual rejection of all
> purely spiritual knowledge is the most marked
> indication of this indolence, of which thinkers
> of every standing are certainly guilty.
> 
> That the initial effort is a heavy one is
> evident, and it is clearly a question of strength,
> as well as of willing activity. But there is
> no way of acquiring this strength, or of using
> it when acquired, except by the exercise of the
> will. It is vain to expect to be born into great
> possessions. In the kingdom of life there is no
> heredity except from the man's own past. He
> has to accumulate that which is his. This is
> evident to any observer of life who uses his
> eyes without blinding them by prejudice; and
> even when prejudice is present, it is impossible
> for a man of sense not to perceive the fact. It
> is from this that we get the doctrine of punishment
> and salvation, either lasting through great
> ages after death, or eternal. This doctrine is a
> narrow and unintelligent mode of stating the
> fact in Nature that what a man sows that shall
> he reap. Swedenborg's great mind saw the fact
> so clearly that he hardened it into a finality in
> reference to this particular existence, his prejudices
> making it impossible for him to perceive
> the possibility of new action when there is no
> longer the sensuous world to act in. He was too
> dogmatic for scientific observation, and would
> not see that, as the spring follows the autumn,
> and the day the night, so birth must follow
> death. He went very near the threshold of the
> Gates of Gold, and passed beyond mere intellectualism,
> only to pause at a point but one
> step farther. The glimpse of the life beyond
> which he had obtained appeared to him to
> contain the universe; and on his fragment of
> experience he built up a theory to include all
> life, and refused progress beyond that state
> or any possibility outside it. This is only
> another form of the weary treadmill. But
> Swedenborg stands foremost in the crowd of
> witnesses to the fact that the Golden Gates
> exist and can be seen from the heights of
> thought, and he has cast us a faint surge of
> sensation from their threshold.
> 
> III
> 
> When once one has considered the meaning
> of those Gates, it is evident that there is
> no other way out of this form of life except
> through them. They only can admit man to
> the place where he becomes the fruit of which
> manhood is the blossom. Nature is the kindest
> of mothers to those who need her; she never
> wearies of her children or desires them to lessen
> in multitude. Her friendly arms open wide to
> the vast throng who desire birth and to dwell
> in forms; and while they continue to desire
> it, she continues to smile a welcome. Why,
> then, should she shut her doors on any? When
> one life in her heart has not worn out a hundredth
> part of the soul's longing for sensation
> such as it finds there, what reason can there
> be for its departure to any other place? Surely
> the seeds of desire spring up where the sower
> has sown them. This seems but reasonable; and
> on this apparently self-evident fact the Indian
> mind has based its theory of re-incarnation, of
> birth and re-birth in matter, which has become
> so familiar a part of Eastern thought as no
> longer to need demonstration. The Indian
> knows it as the Western knows that the day
> he is living through is but one of many days
> which make up the span of a man's life. This
> certainty which is possessed by the Eastern with
> regard to natural laws that control the great
> sweep of the soul's existence is simply acquired
> by habits of thought. The mind of many is
> fixed on subjects which in the West are considered
> unthinkable. Thus it is that the East
> has produced the great flowers of the spiritual
> growth of humanity. On the mental steps of a
> million men Buddha passed through the Gates
> of Gold; and because a great crowd pressed
> about the threshold he was able to leave behind
> him words which prove that those Gates
> will open.
> 
> CHAPTER III
> 
> THE INITIAL EFFORT
> 
> I
> 
> It is very easily seen that there is no one
> point in a man's life or experience where he
> is nearer the soul of things than at any other.
> That soul, the sublime essence, which fills the
> air with a burnished glow, is there, behind the
> Gates it colors with itself. But that there is no
> one pathway to it is immediately perceived
> from the fact that this soul must from its very
> nature be universal. The Gates of Gold do
> not admit to any special place; what they do
> is to open for egress from a special place.
> Man passes through them when he casts off
> his limitation. He may burst the shell that
> holds him in darkness, tear the veil that hides
> him from the eternal, at any point where it is
> easiest for him to do so, and most often this
> point will be where he least expects to find it.
> Men go in search of escape with the help of
> their minds, and lay down arbitrary and limited
> laws as to how to attain the, to them, unattainable.
> Many, indeed, have hoped to pass
> through by the way of religion, and instead they
> have formed a place of thought and feeling so
> marked and fixed that it seems as though long
> ages would be insufficient to enable them to
> get out of the rut! Some have believed that
> by the aid of pure intellect a way was to be
> found; and to such men we owe the philosophy
> and metaphysics which have prevented the race
> from sinking into utter sensuousness. But the
> end of the man who endeavors to live by
> thought alone is that he dwells in fantasies,
> and insists on giving them to other men as
> substantial food. Great is our debt to the meta-physicians
> and transcendentalists; but he who
> follows them to the bitter end, forgetting that
> the brain is only one organ of use, will find
> himself dwelling in a place where a dull
> wheel of argument seems to turn forever on
> its axis, yet goes nowhither and carries no
> burden.
> 
> Virtue (or what seems to each man to be
> virtue, his own special standard of morality
> and purity) is held by those who practise it to
> be a way to heaven. Perhaps it is, to the heaven
> of the modern sybarite, the ethical voluptuary.
> It is as easy to become a gourmand in pure
> living and high thinking as in the pleasures of
> taste or sight or sound. Gratification is the
> aim of the virtuous man as well as of the drunkard;
> even if his life be a miracle of abstinence
> and self-sacrifice, a moment's thought shows
> that in pursuing this apparently heroic path he
> does but pursue pleasure. With him pleasure
> takes on a lovely form because his gratifications
> are those of a sweet savor, and it pleases him
> to give gladness to others rather than to enjoy
> himself at their expense. But the pure life and
> high thoughts are no more finalities in themselves
> than any other mode of enjoyment; and
> the man who endeavors to find contentment
> in them must intensify his effort and continually
> repeat it,--all in vain. He is a green
> plant indeed, and the leaves are beautiful; but
> more is wanted than leaves. If he persists in
> his endeavor blindly, believing that he has
> reached his goal when he has not even perceived
> it, then he finds himself in that dreary
> place where good is done perforce, and the
> deed of virtue is without the love that should
> shine through it. It is well for a man to lead
> a pure life, as it is well for him to have clean
> hands,--else he becomes repugnant. But
> virtue as we understand it now can no more
> have any special relation to the state beyond
> that to which we are limited than any other
> part of our constitution. Spirit is not a gas
> created by matter, and we cannot create our
> future by forcibly using one material agent
> and leaving out the rest. Spirit is the great life
> on which matter rests, as does the rocky world
> on the free and fluid ether; whenever we can
> break our limitations we find ourselves on that
> marvellous shore where Wordsworth once saw
> the gleam of the gold. When we enter there
> all the present must disappear alike,--virtue
> and vice, thought and sense. That a man reaps
> what he has sown must of course be true also;
> he has no power to carry virtue, which is of the
> material life, with him; yet the aroma of his
> good deeds is a far sweeter sacrifice than the
> odor of crime and cruelty. Yet it may be,
> however, that by the practice of virtue he will
> fetter himself into one groove, one changeless
> fashion of life in matter, so firmly that it is
> impossible for the mind to conceive that death
> is a sufficient power to free him, and cast him
> upon the broad and glorious ocean,--a sufficient
> power to undo for him the inexorable
> and heavy latch of the Golden Gate. And
> sometimes the man who has sinned so deeply
> that his whole nature is scarred and blackened
> by the fierce fire of selfish gratification is at
> last so utterly burned out and charred that
> from the very vigor of the passion light leaps
> forth. It would seem more possible for such
> a man at least to reach the threshold of the
> Gates than for the mere ascetic or philosopher.
> 
> But it is little use to reach the threshold of
> the Gates without the power to pass through.
> And that is all that the sinner can hope to
> do by the dissolution of himself which comes
> from seeing his own soul. At least this appears
> to be so, inevitably because his condition is
> negative. The man who lifts the latch of the
> Golden Gate must do so with his own strong
> hand, must be absolutely positive. This we can
> see by analogy. In everything else in life, in
> every new step or development, it is necessary
> for a man to exercise his most dominant will
> in order to obtain it fully. Indeed in many
> cases, though he has every advantage and
> though he use his will to some extent, he will
> fail utterly of obtaining what he desires from
> lack of the final and unconquerable resolution.
> No education in the world will make a man
> an intellectual glory to his age, even if his
> powers are great; for unless he positively
> desires to seize the flower of perfection, he will
> be but a dry scholar, a dealer in words, a proficient
> in mechanical thought, and a mere wheel
> of memory. And the man who has this positive
> quality in him will rise in spite of adverse circumstances,
> will recognise and seize upon the
> tide of thought which is his natural food, and
> will stand as a giant at last in the place he
> willed to reach. We see this practically every
> day in all walks of life. Wherefore it does not
> seem possible that the man who has simply
> succeeded through the passions in wrecking the
> dogmatic and narrow part of his nature should
> pass through those great Gates. But as he is
> not blinded by prejudice, nor has fastened
> himself to any treadmill of thought, nor
> caught the wheel of his soul in any deep rut
> of life, it would seem that if once the positive
> will might be born within him, he could at
> some time not hopelessly far distant lift his
> hand to the latch.
> 
> Undoubtedly it is the hardest task we have
> yet seen set us in life, that which we are now
> talking of,--to free a man of all prejudice,
> of all crystallized thought or feeling, of all
> limitations, yet develop within him the positive
> will. It seems too much of a miracle; for in
> ordinary life positive will is always associated
> with crystallized ideas. But many things which
> have appeared to be too much of a miracle for
> accomplishment have yet been done, even in
> the narrow experience of life given to our
> present humanity. All the past shows us that
> difficulty is no excuse for dejection, much less
> for despair; else the world would have been
> without the many wonders of civilization. Let
> us consider the thing more seriously, therefore,
> having once used our minds to the idea
> that it is not impossible.
> 
> The great initial difficulty is that of fastening
> the interest on that which is unseen. Yet,
> this is done every day, and we have only to
> observe how it is done in order to guide our
> own conduct. Every inventor fastens his interest
> firmly on the unseen; and it entirely
> depends on the firmness of that attachment
> whether he is successful or whether he fails.
> The poet who looks on to his moment of
> creation as that for which he lives, sees that
> which is invisible and hears that which is
> soundless.
> 
> Probably in this last analogy there is a
> clew as to the mode by which success in this
> voyage to the unknown bourn ("whence,"
> indeed, "no traveller returns") is attained. It
> applies also to the inventor and to all who
> reach out beyond the ordinary mental and
> psychical level of humanity. The clew lies in
> that word "creation."
> 
> II
> 
> The words "to create" are often understood
> by the ordinary mind to convey the idea of
> evolving something out of nothing. This is
> clearly not its meaning; we are mentally obliged
> to provide our Creator with chaos from which
> to produce the worlds. The tiller of the soil,
> who is the typical producer of social life, must
> have his material, his earth, his sky, rain, and
> sun, and the seeds to place within the earth.
> Out of nothing he can produce nothing. Out
> of a void Nature cannot arise; there is that
> material beyond, behind, or within, from which
> she is shaped by our desire for a universe. It
> is an evident fact that the seeds and the earth,
> air, and water which cause them to germinate
> exist on every plane of action. If you talk to
> an inventor, you will find that far ahead of
> what he is now doing he can always perceive
> some other thing to be done which he cannot
> express in words because as yet he has not
> drawn it into our present world of objects.
> That knowledge of the unseen is even more
> definite in the poet, and more inexpressible
> until he has touched it with some part of that
> consciousness which he shares with other men.
> But in strict proportion to his greatness he
> lives in the consciousness which the ordinary
> man does not even believe can exist,--the
> consciousness which dwells in the greater
> universe, which breathes in the vaster air, which
> beholds a wider earth and sky, and snatches
> seeds from plants of giant growth.
> 
> It is this place of consciousness that we
> need to reach out to. That it is not reserved
> only for men of genius is shown by the fact
> that martyrs and heroes have found it and
> dwelt in it. It is not reserved for men of genius
> only, but it can only be found by men of
> great soul.
> 
> In this fact there is no need for discouragement.
> Greatness in man is popularly supposed
> to be a thing inborn. This belief must be a
> result of want of thought, of blindness to facts
> of nature. Greatness can only be attained by
> growth; that is continually demonstrated to us.
> Even the mountains, even the firm globe itself,
> these are great by dint of the mode of growth
> peculiar to that state of materiality,--accumulation
> of atoms. As the consciousness inherent
> in all existing forms passes into more
> advanced forms of life it becomes more active,
> and in proportion it acquires the power
> of growth by assimilation instead of accumulation.
> Looking at existence from this special
> point of view (which indeed is a difficult one
> to maintain for long, as we habitually look
> at life in planes and forget the great lines
> which connect and run through these), we
> immediately perceive it to be reasonable to
> suppose that as we advance beyond our present
> standpoint the power of growth by assimilation
> will become greater and probably change into
> a method yet more rapid, easy, and unconscious.
> The universe is, in fact, full of magnificent
> promise for us, if we will but lift our
> eyes and see. It is that lifting of the eyes
> which is the first need and the first difficulty;
> we are so apt readily to be content with
> what we see within touch of our hands. It is
> the essential characteristic of the man of genius
> that he is comparatively indifferent to that
> fruit which is just within touch, and hungers
> for that which is afar on the hills. In fact
> he does not need the sense of contact to arouse
> longing. He knows that this distant fruit,
> which he perceives without the aid of the
> physical senses, is a subtler and a stronger
> food than any which appeals to them. And
> how is he rewarded! When he tastes that
> fruit, how strong and sweet is its flavor, and
> what a new sense of life rushes upon him!
> For in recognising that flavor he has recognised
> the existence of the subtile senses, those
> which feed the life of the inner man; and it is
> by the strength of that inner man, and by his
> strength only, that the latch of the Golden
> Gates can be lifted.
> 
> In fact it is only by the development and
> growth of the inner man that the existence
> of these Gates, and of that to which they
> admit, can be even perceived. While man is
> content with his gross senses and cares nothing
> for his subtile ones, the Gates remain literally
> invisible. As to the boor the gateway of the
> intellectual life is as a thing uncreate and
> non-existent, so to the man of the gross senses,
> even if his intellectual life is active, that which
> lies beyond is uncreate and non-existent, only
> because he does not open the book.
> 
> To the servant who dusts the scholar's
> library the closed volumes are meaningless;
> they do not even appear to contain a promise
> unless he also is a scholar, not merely a servant.
> It is possible to gaze throughout eternity
> upon a shut exterior from sheer indolence,--mental
> indolence, which is incredulity, and
> which at last men learn to pride themselves
> on; they call it scepticism, and talk of the reign
> of reason. It is no more a state to justify pride
> than that of the Eastern sybarite who will not
> even lift his food to his mouth; he is "reasonable"
> also in that he sees no value in activity,
> and therefore does not exercise it. So with the
> sceptic; decay follows the condition of inaction,
> whether it be mental, psychic, or physical.
> 
> III
> 
> And now let us consider how the initial
> difficulty of fastening the interest on that
> which is unseen is to be overcome. Our gross
> senses refer only to that which is objective in
> the ordinary sense of the word; but just beyond
> this field of life there are finer sensations
> which appeal to finer senses. Here we find
> the first clew to the stepping-stones we need.
> Man looks from this point of view like a point
> where many rays or lines centre; and if he
> has the courage or the interest to detach himself
> from the simplest form of life, the point, and
> explore but a little way along these lines or
> rays, his whole being at once inevitably widens
> and expands, the man begins to grow in greatness.
> But it is evident, if we accept this illustration
> as a fairly true one, that the chief
> point of importance is to explore no more
> persistently on one line than another: else the
> result must be a deformity. We all know how
> powerful is the majesty and personal dignity
> of a forest tree which has had air enough to
> breathe, and room for its widening roots, and
> inner vitality with which to accomplish its
> unceasing task. It obeys the perfect natural
> law of growth, and the peculiar awe it inspires
> arises from this fact.
> 
> How is it possible to obtain recognition of
> the inner man, to observe its growth and
> foster it?
> 
> Let us try to follow a little way the clew
> we have obtained, though words will probably
> soon be useless.
> 
> We must each travel alone and without
> aids, as the traveller has to climb alone when
> he nears the summit of the mountain. No beast
> of burden can help him there; neither can the
> gross senses or anything that touches the gross
> senses help him here. But for a little distance
> words may go with us.
> 
> The tongue recognises the value of sweetness
> or piquancy in food. To the man whose
> senses are of the simplest order there is no
> other idea of sweetness than this. But a finer
> essence, a more highly placed sensation of the
> same order, is reached by another perception.
> The sweetness on the face of a lovely woman,
> or in the smile of a friend, is recognised by
> the man whose inner senses have even a little--a
> mere stirring of--vitality. To the one
> who has lifted the golden latch the spring of
> sweet waters, the fountain itself whence all
> softness arises, is opened and becomes part of
> his heritage.
> 
> But before this fountain can be tasted, or
> any other spring reached, any source found, a
> heavy weight has to be lifted from the heart,
> an iron bar which holds it down and prevents
> it from arising in its strength.
> 
> The man who recognises the flow of sweetness
> from its source through Nature, through
> all forms of life, he has lifted this, he has
> raised himself into that state in which there is
> no bondage. He knows that he is a part of
> the great whole, and it is this knowledge which
> is his heritage. It is through the breaking
> asunder of the arbitrary bond which holds him
> to his personal centre that he comes of age
> and becomes ruler of his kingdom. As he
> widens out, reaching by manifold experience
> along those lines which centre at the point
> where he stands embodied, he discovers that
> he has touch with all life, that he contains
> within himself the whole. And then he has
> but to yield himself to the great force which
> we call good, to clasp it tightly with the grasp
> of his soul, and he is carried swiftly on to the
> great, wide waters of real living. What are
> those waters? In our present life we have but
> the shadow of the substance. No man loves
> without satiety, no man drinks wine without
> return of thirst. Hunger and longing darken
> the sky and make the earth unfriendly. What
> we need is an earth that will bear living fruit,
> a sky that will be always full of light.
> Needing this positively, we shall surely find it.
> 
> CHAPTER IV
> 
> THE MEANING OF PAIN
> 
> I
> 
> Look into the deep heart of life, whence
> pain comes to darken men's lives. She is always
> on the threshold, and behind her stands
> despair.
> 
> What are these two gaunt figures, and
> why are they permitted to be our constant
> followers?
> 
> It is we who permit them, we who order
> them, as we permit and order the action of our
> bodies; and we do so as unconsciously. But
> by scientific experiment and investigation we
> have learned much about our physical life, and
> it would seem as if we can obtain at least as
> much result with regard to our inner life by
> adopting similar methods.
> 
> Pain arouses, softens, breaks, and destroys.
> Regarded from a sufficiently removed standpoint,
> it appears as medicine, as a knife, as a
> weapon, as a poison, in turn. It is an implement,
> a thing which is used, evidently. What
> we desire to discover is, who is the user; what
> part of ourselves is it that demands the
> presence of this thing so hateful to the rest?
> 
> Medicine is used by the physician, the knife
> by the surgeon; but the weapon of destruction
> is used by the enemy, the hater.
> 
> Is it, then, that we do not only use means,
> or desire to use means, for the benefit of our
> souls, but that also we wage warfare within
> ourselves, and do battle in the inner sanctuary?
> It would seem so; for it is certain that if man's
> will relaxed with regard to it he would no
> longer retain life in that state in which pain
> exists. Why does he desire his own hurt?
> 
> The answer may at first sight seem to be
> that he primarily desires pleasure, and so is
> willing to continue on that battlefield where
> it wages war with pain for the possession of
> him, hoping always that pleasure will win the
> victory and take him home to herself. This is
> but the external aspect of the man's state. In
> himself he knows well that pain is co-ruler
> with pleasure, and that though the war wages
> always it never will be won. The superficial
> observer concludes that man submits to the
> inevitable. But that is a fallacy not worthy
> of discussion. A little serious thought shows
> us that man does not exist at all except by
> exercise of his positive qualities; it is but
> logical to suppose that he chooses the state
> he will live in by the exercise of those same
> qualities.
> 
> Granted, then, for the sake of our argument,
> that he desires pain, why is it that he
> desires anything so annoying to himself?
> 
> II
> 
> If we carefully consider the constitution of
> man and its tendencies, it would seem as if
> there were two definite directions in which he
> grows. He is like a tree which strikes its roots
> into the ground while it throws up young
> branches towards the heavens. These two lines
> which go outward from the central personal
> point are to him clear, definite, and intelligible.
> He calls one good and the other evil. But
> man is not, according to any analogy, observation,
> or experience, a straight line. Would
> that he were, and that life, or progress, or
> development, or whatever we choose to call it,
> meant merely following one straight road or
> another, as the religionists pretend it does.
> The whole question, the mighty problem,
> would be very easily solved then. But it is not
> so easy to go to hell as preachers declare it
> to be. It is as hard a task as to find one's
> way to the Golden Gate! A man may wreck
> himself utterly in sense-pleasure,--may debase
> his whole nature, as it seems,--yet he fails
> of becoming the perfect devil, for there is still
> the spark of divine light within him. He tries
> to choose the broad road which leads to
> destruction, and enters bravely on his headlong
> career. But very soon he is checked and
> startled by some unthought-of tendency in
> himself,--some of the many other radiations
> which go forth from his centre of self. He
> suffers as the body suffers when it develops
> monstrosities which impede its healthy action.
> He has created pain, and encountered his own
> creation. It may seem as if this argument is
> difficult of application with regard to physical
> pain. Not so, if man is regarded from a loftier
> standpoint than that we generally occupy. If
> he is looked upon as a powerful consciousness
> which forms its external manifestations according
> to its desires, then it is evident that physical
> pain results from deformity in those desires.
> No doubt it will appear to many minds that
> this conception of man is too gratuitous, and
> involves too large a mental leap into unknown
> places where proof is unobtainable. But if the
> mind is accustomed to look upon life from
> this standpoint, then very soon none other is
> acceptable; the threads of existence, which
> to the purely materialistic observer appear
> hopelessly entangled, become separated and
> straightened, so that a new intelligibleness
> illumines the universe. The arbitrary and cruel
> Creator who inflicts pain and pleasure at will
> then disappears from the stage; and it is well,
> for he is indeed an unnecessary character, and,
> worse still, is a mere creature of straw, who
> cannot even strut upon the boards without
> being upheld on all sides by dogmatists. Man
> comes into this world, surely, on the same
> principle that he lives in one city of the earth
> or another; at all events, if it is too much to
> say that this is so, one may safely ask, why is
> it not so? There is neither for nor against
> which will appeal to the materialist, or which
> would weigh in a court of justice; but I aver
> this in favor of the argument,--that no man
> having once seriously considered it can go back
> to the formal theories of the sceptics. It is
> like putting on swaddling-clothes again.
> 
> Granting, then, for the sake of this argument,
> that man is a powerful consciousness
> who is his own creator, his own judge, and
> within whom lies all life in potentiality, even
> the ultimate goal, then let us consider why he
> causes himself to suffer.
> 
> If pain is the result of uneven development,
> of monstrous growths, of defective
> advance at different points, why does man not
> learn the lesson which this should teach him,
> and take pains to develop equally?
> 
> It would seem to me as if the answer to
> this question is that this is the very lesson
> which the human race is engaged in learning.
> Perhaps this may seem too bold a statement
> to make in the face of ordinary thinking,
> which either regards man as a creature of
> chance dwelling in chaos, or as a soul bound
> to the inexorable wheel of a tyrant's chariot
> and hurried on either to heaven or to hell. But
> such a mode of thought is after all but the
> same as that of the child who regards his
> parents as the final arbiters of his destinies,
> and in fact the gods or demons of his universe.
> As he grows he casts aside this idea, finding
> that it is simply a question of coming of age,
> and that he is himself the king of life like any
> other man.
> 
> So it is with the human race. It is king of
> its world, arbiter of its own destiny, and there
> is none to say it nay. Who talk of Providence
> and chance have not paused to think.
> 
> Destiny, the inevitable, does indeed exist
> for the race and for the individual; but who
> can ordain this save the man himself? There
> is no clew in heaven or earth to the existence
> of any ordainer other than the man who suffers
> or enjoys that which is ordained. We know
> so little of our own constitution, we are so
> ignorant of our divine functions, that it is
> impossible for us yet to know how much or
> how little we are actually fate itself. But this
> at all events we know,--that so far as any
> provable perception goes, no clew to the
> existence of an ordainer has yet been discovered;
> whereas if we give but a very little
> attention to the life about us in order to
> observe the action of the man upon his own
> future, we soon perceive this power as an
> actual force in operation. It is visible, although
> our range of vision is so very limited.
> 
> The man of the world, pure and simple,
> is by far the best practical observer and
> philosopher with regard to life, because he is
> not blinded by any prejudices. He will be
> found always to believe that as a man sows so
> shall he reap. And this is so evidently true
> when it is considered, that if one takes the
> larger view, including all human life, it makes
> intelligible the awful Nemesis which seems
> consciously to pursue the human race,--that
> inexorable appearance of pain in the midst of
> pleasure. The great Greek poets saw this
> apparition so plainly that their recorded observation
> has given to us younger and blinder
> observers the idea of it. It is unlikely that so
> materialistic a race as that which has grown
> up all over the West would have discovered for
> itself the existence of this terrible factor in
> human life without the assistance of the older
> poets,--the poets of the past. And in this we
> may notice, by the way, one distinct value of
> the study of the classics,--that the great ideas
> and facts about human life which the superb
> ancients put into their poetry shall not be
> absolutely lost as are their arts. No doubt
> the world will flower again, and greater
> thoughts and more profound discoveries than
> those of the past will be the glory of the men
> of the future efflorescence; but until that
> far-off day comes we cannot prize too dearly
> the treasures left us.
> 
> There is one aspect of the question which
> seems at first sight positively to negative this
> mode of thought; and that is the suffering in
> the apparently purely physical body of the
> dumb beings,--young children, idiots, animals,--and
> their desperate need of the power
> which comes of any sort of knowledge to help
> them through their sufferings.
> 
> The difficulty which will arise in the mind
> with regard to this comes from the untenable
> idea of the separation of the soul from the
> body. It is supposed by all those who look
> only at material life (and especially by the
> physicians of the flesh) that the body and the
> brain are a pair of partners who live together
> hand in hand and react one upon another.
> Beyond that they recognise no cause and
> therefore allow of none. They forget that the
> brain and the body are as evidently mere mechanism
> as the hand or the foot. There is the
> inner man--the soul--behind, using all these
> mechanisms; and this is as evidently the truth
> with regard to all the existences we know of as
> with regard to man himself. We cannot find
> any point in the scale of being at which soul-causation
> ceases or can cease. The dull oyster
> must have that in him which makes him choose
> the inactive life he leads; none else can choose
> it for him but the soul behind, which makes
> him be. How else can he be where he is, or be
> at all? Only by the intervention of an impossible
> creator called by some name or other.
> 
> It is because man is so idle, so indisposed
> to assume or accept responsibility, that he falls
> back upon this temporary makeshift of a
> creator. It is temporary indeed, for it can only
> last during the activity of the particular brain
> power which finds its place among us. When
> the man drops this mental life behind him,
> he of necessity leaves with it its magic lantern
> and the pleasant illusions he has conjured up
> by its aid. That must be a very uncomfortable
> moment, and must produce a sense of nakedness
> not to be approached by any other sensation.
> It would seem as well to save one's
> self this disagreeable experience by refusing to
> accept unreal phantasms as things of flesh
> and blood and power. Upon the shoulders of
> the Creator man likes to thrust the responsibility
> not only of his capacity for sinning and
> the possibility of his salvation, but of his very
> life itself, his very consciousness. It is a poor
> Creator that he thus contents himself with,--one
> who is pleased with a universe of puppets,
> and amused by pulling their strings. If he is
> capable of such enjoyment, he must yet be in
> his infancy. Perhaps that is so, after all; the
> God within us is in his infancy, and refuses
> to recognise his high estate. If indeed the soul
> of man is subject to the laws of growth, of
> decay, and of re-birth as to its body, then there
> is no wonder at its blindness. But this is
> evidently not so; for the soul of man is of that
> order of life which causes shape and form,
> and is unaffected itself by these things,--of
> that order of life which like the pure, the
> abstract flame burns wherever it is lit. This
> cannot be changed or affected by time, and is
> of its very nature superior to growth and
> decay. It stands in that primeval place which
> is the only throne of God,--that place whence
> forms of life emerge and to which they return.
> That place is the central point of existence,
> where there is a permanent spot of life as
> there is in the midst of the heart of man. It
> is by the equal development of that,--first
> by the recognition of it, and then by its equal
> development upon the many radiating lines of
> experience,--that man is at last enabled to
> reach the Golden Gate and lift the latch. The
> process is the gradual recognition of the god
> in himself; the goal is reached when that
> godhood is consciously restored to its
> right glory.
> 
> III
> 
> The first thing which it is necessary for the
> soul of man to do in order to engage in this
> great endeavor of discovering true life is the
> same thing that the child first does in its desire
> for activity in the body,--he must be able to
> stand. It is clear that the power of standing,
> of equilibrium, of concentration, of uprightness,
> in the soul, is a quality of a marked character.
> The word that presents itself most
> readily as descriptive of this quality is
> "confidence."
> 
> To remain still amid life and its changes,
> and stand firmly on the chosen spot, is a feat
> which can only be accomplished by the man
> who has confidence in himself and in his
> destiny. Otherwise the hurrying forms of life,
> the rushing tide of men, the great floods of
> thought, must inevitably carry him with them,
> and then he will lose that place of consciousness
> whence it was possible to start on the
> great enterprise. For it _must_ be done knowingly,
> and without pressure from without,--this
> act of the new-born man. All the great
> ones of the earth have possessed this confidence,
> and have stood firmly on that place
> which was to them the one solid spot in the
> universe. To each man this place is of necessity
> different. Each man must find his
> earth and his own heaven.
> 
> We have the instinctive desire to relieve
> pain, but we work in externals in this as in
> everything else. We simply alleviate it; and
> if we do more, and drive it from its first chosen
> stronghold, it reappears in some other place
> with reinforced vigor. If it is eventually driven
> off the physical plane by persistent and successful
> effort, it reappears on the mental or
> emotional planes where no man can touch it.
> That this is so is easily seen by those who
> connect the various planes of sensation, and
> who observe life with that additional illumination.
> Men habitually regard these different
> forms of feeling as actually separate, whereas
> in fact they are evidently only different sides
> of one centre,--the point of personality. If
> that which arises in the centre, the fount of
> life, demands some hindered action, and consequently
> causes pain, the force thus created
> being driven from one stronghold must find
> another; it cannot be driven out. And all the
> blendings of human life which cause emotion
> and distress exist for its use and purposes as
> well as for those of pleasure. Both have their
> home in man; both demand their expression of
> right. The marvellously delicate mechanism of
> the human frame is constructed to answer to
> their lightest touch; the extraordinary intricacies
> of human relations evolve themselves, as
> it were, for the satisfaction of these two great
> opposites of the soul.
> 
> Pain and pleasure stand apart and separate,
> as do the two sexes; and it is in the merging,
> the making the two into one, that joy and deep
> sensation and profound peace are obtained.
> Where there is neither male nor female
> neither pain nor pleasure, there is the god in
> man dominant, and then is life real.
> 
> To state the matter in this way may savor
> too much of the dogmatist who utters his
> assertions uncontradicted from a safe pulpit;
> but it is dogmatism only as a scientist's record
> of effort in a new direction is dogmatism.
> Unless the existence of the Gates of Gold can
> be proved to be real, and not the mere phantasmagoria
> of fanciful visionaries, then they
> are not worth talking about at all. In the
> nineteenth century hard facts or legitimate
> arguments alone appeal to men's minds; and
> so much the better. For unless the life we
> advance towards is increasingly real and
> actual, it is worthless, and time is wasted in
> going after it. Reality is man's greatest need,
> and he demands to have it at all hazards, at
> any price. Be it so. No one doubts he is right.
> Let us then go in search of reality.
> 
> IV
> 
> One definite lesson learned by all acute
> sufferers will be of the greatest service to us
> in this consideration. In intense pain a point is
> reached where it is indistinguishable from its
> opposite, pleasure. This is indeed so, but few
> have the heroism or the strength to suffer to
> such a far point. It is as difficult to reach
> it by the other road. Only a chosen few have
> the gigantic capacity for pleasure which will
> enable them to travel to its other side. Most
> have but enough strength to enjoy and to
> become the slave of the enjoyment. Yet man
> has undoubtedly within himself the heroism
> needed for the great journey; else how is it
> martyrs have smiled amid the torture?
> How is it that the profound sinner who lives
> for pleasure can at last feel stir within himself
> the divine afflatus?
> 
> In both these cases the possibility has arisen
> of finding the way; but too often that
> possibility is killed by the overbalance of the
> startled nature. The martyr has acquired a
> passion for pain and lives in the idea of heroic
> suffering; the sinner becomes blinded by the
> thought of virtue and worships it as an end,
> an object, a thing divine in itself; whereas it
> can only be divine as it is part of that infinite
> whole which includes vice as well as virtue.
> How is it possible to divide the infinite,--that
> which is one? It is as reasonable to lend
> divinity to any object as to take a cup of water
> from the sea and declare that in that is contained
> the ocean. You cannot separate the
> ocean; the salt water is part of the great sea
> and must be so; but nevertheless you do not
> hold the sea in your hand. Men so longingly
> desire personal power that they are ready to
> put infinity into a cup, the divine idea into a
> formula, in order that they may fancy themselves
> in possession of it. These only are those
> who cannot rise and approach the Gates of
> Gold, for the great breath of life confuses
> them; they are struck with horror to find how
> great it is. The idol-worshipper keeps an
> image of his idol in his heart and burns a
> candle always before it. It is his own, and he
> is pleased at that thought, even if he bow in
> reverence before it. In how many virtuous and
> religious men does not this same state exist?
> In the recesses of the soul the lamp is burning
> before a household god,--a thing possessed
> by its worshipper and subject to him. Men
> cling with desperate tenacity to these dogmas,
> these moral laws, these principles and modes
> of faith which are their household gods, their
> personal idols. Bid them burn the unceasing
> flame in reverence only to the infinite, and
> they turn from you. Whatever their manner
> of scorning your protest may be, within themselves
> it leaves a sense of aching void. For
> the noble soul of the man, that potential king
> which is within us all, knows full well that
> this household idol may be cast down and
> destroyed at any moment,--that it is without
> finality in itself, without any real and absolute
> life. And he has been content in his possession,
> forgetting that anything possessed can only by
> the immutable laws of life be held temporarily.
> He has forgotten that the infinite is
> his only friend; he has forgotten that in its
> glory is his only home,--that it alone can be
> his god. There he feels as if he is homeless;
> but that amid the sacrifices he offers to
> his own especial idol there is for him a brief
> resting-place; and for this he clings passionately
> to it.
> 
> Few have the courage even slowly to face
> the great desolateness which lies outside themselves,
> and must lie there so long as they cling
> to the person which they represent, the "I"
> which is to them the centre of the world, the
> cause of all life. In their longing for a God
> they find the reason for the existence of one;
> in their desire for a sense-body and a world to
> enjoy in, lies to them the cause of the universe.
> These beliefs may be hidden very deep beneath
> the surface, and be indeed scarcely accessible;
> but in the fact that they are there is the reason
> why the man holds himself upright. To himself
> he is himself the infinite and the God; he
> holds the ocean in a cup. In this delusion he
> nurtures the egoism which makes life pleasure
> and makes pain pleasant. In this profound
> egoism is the very cause and source of the
> existence of pleasure and of pain. For unless
> man vacillated between these two, and ceaselessly
> reminded himself by sensation that he
> exists, he would forget it. And in this fact lies
> the whole answer to the question, "Why does
> man create pain for his own discomfort?"
> 
> The strange and mysterious fact remains
> unexplained as yet, that man in so deluding
> himself is merely interpreting Nature backwards
> and putting into the words of death the
> meaning of life. For that man does indeed
> hold within him the infinite, and that the ocean
> is really in the cup, is an incontestable truth;
> but it is only so because the cup is absolutely
> non-existent. It is merely an experience of the
> infinite, having no permanence, liable to be
> shattered at any instant. It is in the claiming
> of reality and permanence for the four walls of
> his personality, that man makes the vast
> blunder which plunges him into a prolonged
> series of unfortunate incidents, and intensifies
> continually the existence of his favorite forms
> of sensation. Pleasure and pain become to him
> more real than the great ocean of which he is
> a part and where his home is; he perpetually
> knocks himself painfully against these walls
> where he feels, and his tiny self oscillates
> within his chosen prison.
> 
> CHAPTER V
> 
> THE SECRET OF STRENGTH
> 
> I
> 
> Strength to step forward is the primary
> need of him who has chosen his path. Where
> is this to be found? Looking round, it is not
> hard to see where other men find their strength.
> Its source is profound conviction. Through this
> great moral power is brought to birth in the
> natural life of the man that which enables him,
> however frail he may be, to go on and conquer.
> Conquer what? Not continents, not worlds, but
> himself. Through that supreme victory is
> obtained the entrance to the whole, where all
> that might be conquered and obtained by effort
> becomes at once not his, but himself.
> 
> To put on armor and go forth to war,
> taking the chances of death in the hurry of the
> fight, is an easy thing; to stand still amid
> the jangle of the world, to preserve stillness
> within the turmoil of the body, to hold silence
> amid the thousand cries of the senses and
> desires, and then, stripped of all armor and
> without hurry or excitement take the deadly
> serpent of self and kill it, is no easy thing.
> Yet that is what has to be done; and it can
> only be done in the moment of equilibrium
> when the enemy is disconcerted by the silence.
> 
> But there is needed for this supreme
> moment a strength such as no hero of the
> battlefield needs. A great soldier must be filled
> with the profound convictions of the justness
> of his cause and the rightness of his method.
> The man who wars against himself and wins
> the battle can do it only when he knows that
> in that war he is doing the one thing which
> is worth doing, and when he knows that in
> doing it he is winning heaven and hell as his
> servitors. Yes, he stands on both. He needs
> no heaven where pleasure comes as a long-promised
> reward; he fears no hell where pain
> waits to punish him for his sins. For he has
> conquered once for all that shifting serpent
> in himself which turns from side to side in
> its constant desire of contact, in its perpetual
> search after pleasure and pain. Never again
> (the victory once really won) can he tremble
> or grow exultant at any thought of that which
> the future holds. Those burning sensations
> which seemed to him to be the only proofs
> of his existence are his no longer. How, then,
> can he know that he lives? He knows it only
> by argument. And in time he does not care to
> argue about it. For him there is then peace;
> and he will find in that peace the power he
> has coveted. Then he will know what is that
> faith which can remove mountains.
> 
> II
> 
> Religion holds a man back from the path,
> prevents his stepping forward, for various very
> plain reasons. First it makes the vital mistake
> of distinguishing between good and evil.
> Nature knows no such distinction; and the
> moral and social laws set us by our religions
> are as temporary, as much a thing of our own
> special mode and form of existence, as are the
> moral and social laws of the ants or the bees.
> We pass out of that state in which these things
> appear to be final, and we forget them forever.
> This is easily shown, because a man of broad
> habits of thought and of intelligence must
> modify his code of life when he dwells among
> another people. These people among whom
> he is an alien have their own deep-rooted
> religions and hereditary convictions, against
> which he cannot offend. Unless his is an
> abjectly narrow and unthinking mind, he sees
> that their form of law and order is as good as
> his own. What then can he do but reconcile
> his conduct gradually to their rules? And then
> if he dwells among them many years the sharp
> edge of difference is worn away, and he forgets
> at last where their faith ends and his commences.
> Yet is it for his own people to say he
> has done wrong, if he has injured no man and
> remained just?
> 
> I am not attacking law and order; I do not
> speak of these things with rash dislike. In
> their place they are as vital and necessary as
> the code which governs the life of a beehive
> is to its successful conduct. What I wish to
> point out is that law and order in themselves
> are quite temporary and unsatisfactory.
> a man's soul passes away from its brief
> dwelling-place, thoughts of law and order do
> not accompany it. If it is strong, it is the
> ecstasy of true being and real life which it
> becomes possessed of, as all know who have
> watched by the dying. If the soul is weak, it
> faints and fades away, overcome by the first
> flush of the new life.
> 
> Am I speaking too positively? Only those
> who live in the active life of the moment, who
> have not watched beside the dead and dying,
> who have not walked the battlefield and
> looked in the faces of men in their last agony,
> will say so. The strong man goes forth from
> his body exultant.
> 
> Why? Because he is no longer held back
> and made to quiver by hesitation. In the
> strange moment of death he has had release
> given him; and with a sudden passion of
> delight he recognises that it is release. Had;
> he been sure of this before, he would have
> been a great sage, a man to rule the world,
> for he would have had the power to rule
> himself and his own body. That release from
> the chains of ordinary life can be obtained as
> easily during life as by death. It only needs a
> sufficiently profound conviction to enable the
> man to look on his body with the same emotions
> as he would look on the body of another
> man, or on the bodies of a thousand men. In
> contemplating a battlefield it is impossible to
> realize the agony of every sufferer; why, then,
> realize your own pain more keenly than
> another's? Mass the whole together, and look
> at it all from a wider standpoint than that
> of the individual life. That you actually feel
> your own physical wound is a weakness of
> your limitation. The man who is developed
> psychically feels the wound of another as
> keenly as his own, and does not feel his own
> at all if he is strong enough to will it so.
> Every one who has examined at all seriously
> into psychic conditions knows this to be a fact,
> more or less marked, according to the psychic
> development. In many instances, the psychic is
> more keenly and selfishly aware of his own
> pain than of any other person's; but that is
> when the development, marked perhaps so far
> as it has gone, only reaches a certain point.
> It is the power which carries the man to the
> margin of that consciousness which is profound
> peace and vital activity. It can carry him no
> further. But if he has reached its margin he
> is freed from the paltry dominion of his own
> self. That is the first great release. Look at
> the sufferings which come upon us from our
> narrow and limited experience and sympathy.
> We each stand quite alone, a solitary unit, a
> pygmy in the world. What good fortune can
> we expect? The great life of the world rushes
> by, and we are in danger each instant that
> it will overwhelm us or even utterly destroy us.
> There is no defence to be offered to it; no
> opposition army can be set up, because in this
> life every man fights his own battle against
> every other man, and no two can be united
> under the same banner. There is only one way
> of escape from this terrible danger which we
> battle against every hour. Turn round, and
> instead of standing against the forces, join
> them; become one with Nature, and go easily
> upon her path. Do not resist or resent the
> circumstances of life any more than the plants
> present the rain and the wind. Then suddenly,
> to your own amazement, you find you have
> time and strength to spare, to use in the great
> battle which it is inevitable every man must
> fight,--that in himself, that which leads to
> his own conquest.
> 
> Some might say, to his own destruction.
> And why? Because from the hour when he
> first tastes the splendid reality of living he
> forgets more and more his individual self. No
> longer does he fight for it, or pit its strength
> against the strength of others. No longer does
> he care to defend or to feed it. Yet when
> he is thus indifferent to its welfare, the individual
> self grows more stalwart and robust,
> like the prairie grasses and the trees of untrodden
> forests. It is a matter of indifference to
> him whether this is so or not. Only, if it is so,
> he has a fine instrument ready to his hand; and
> in due proportion to the completeness of his
> indifference to it is the strength and beauty
> of his personal self. This is readily seen; a
> garden flower becomes a mere degenerate copy
> of itself if it is simply neglected; a plant must
> be cultivated to the highest pitch, and benefit
> by the whole of the gardener's skill, or else it
> must be a pure savage, wild, and fed only by
> the earth and sky. Who cares for any intermediate
> states? What value or strength is
> there in the neglected garden rose which has
> the canker in every bud? For diseased or
> dwarfed blossoms are sure to result from an
> arbitrary change of condition, resulting from
> the neglect of the man who has hitherto been
> the providence of the plant in its unnatural
> life. But there are wind-blown plains where
> the daisies grow tall, with moon faces such
> as no cultivation can produce in them. Cultivate,
> then, to the very utmost; forget no inch
> of your garden ground, no smallest plant that
> grows in it; make no foolish pretence nor fond
> mistake in the fancy that you are ready to
> forget it, and so subject it to the frightful consequences
> of half-measures. The plant that is
> watered to-day and forgotten to-morrow must
> dwindle or decay. The plant that looks for no
> help but from Nature itself measures its
> strength at once, and either dies and is
> re-created or grows into a great tree whose
> boughs fill the sky. But make no mistake like
> the religionists and some philosophers; leave
> no part of yourself neglected while you know
> it to be yourself. While the ground is the
> gardener's it is his business to tend it; but
> some day a call may come to him from another
> country or from death itself, and in a moment
> he is no longer the gardener, his business is at
> an end, he has no more duty of that kind
> at all. Then his favorite plants suffer and die,
> and the delicate ones become one with the
> earth. But soon fierce Nature claims the place
> for her own, and covers it with thick grass or
> giant weeds, or nurses some sapling in it
> till its branches shade the ground. Be warned,
> and tend your garden to the utmost, till you can
> pass away utterly and let it return to Nature
> and become the wind-blown plain where the
> wild-flowers grow. Then, if you pass that way
> and look at it, whatever has happened will
> neither grieve nor elate you. For you will be
> able to say, "I am the rocky ground, I am the
> great tree, I am the strong daisies," indifferent
> which it is that flourishes where once your rose-trees
> grew. But you must have learned to study
> the stars to some purpose before you dare to
> neglect your roses, and omit to fill the air
> with their cultivated fragrance. You must
> know your way through the trackless air, and
> from thence to the pure ether; you must be
> ready to lift the bar of the Golden Gate.
> 
> Cultivate, I say, and neglect nothing. Only
> remember, all the while you tend and water,
> that you are impudently usurping the tasks of
> Nature herself. Having usurped her work,
> you must carry it through until you have
> reached a point when she has no power to
> punish you, when you are not afraid of her,
> but can with a bold front return her her own.
> She laughs in her sleeve, the mighty mother,
> watching you with covert, laughing eye, ready
> relentlessly to cast the whole of your work
> into the dust if you do but give her the chance,
> if you turn idler and grow careless. The idler
> is father of the madman in the sense that the
> child is the father of the.man. Nature has
> put her vast hand on him and crushed the
> whole edifice. The gardener and his rose-trees
> are alike broken and stricken by the great
> storm which her movement has created; they
> lie helpless till the sand is swept over them
> and they are buried in a weary wilderness.
> From this desert spot Nature herself will
> re-create, and will use the ashes of the man
> who dared to face her as indifferently as the
> withered leaves of his plants. His body, soul,
> and spirit are all alike claimed by her.
> 
> III
> 
> The man who is strong, who has resolved
> to find the unknown path, takes with the
> utmost care every step. He utters no idle word,
> he does no unconsidered action, he neglects no
> duty or office however homely or however
> difficult. But while his eyes and hands and
> feet are thus fulfilling their tasks, new eyes
> and hands and feet are being born within
> him. For his passionate and unceasing desire
> is to go that way on which the subtile organs
> only can guide him. The physical world he has
> learned, and knows how to use; gradually his
> power is passing on, and he recognises the
> psychic world. But he has to learn this world
> and know how to use it, and he dare not lose
> hold of the life he is familiar with till he has
> taken hold of that with which he is unfamiliar.
> When he has acquired such power
> with his psychic organs as the infant has with
> its physical organs when it first opens its lungs,
> then is the hour for the great adventure. How
> little is needed--yet how much that is! The
> man does but need the psychic body to be
> formed in all parts, as is an infant's; he does
> but need the profound and unshakable conviction
> which impels the infant, that the new
> life is desirable. Once those conditions gained
> and he may let himself live in the new atmosphere
> and look up to the new sun. But then
> his must remember to check his new experience
> by the old. He is breathing still, though differently;
> he draws air into his lungs, and takes
> life from the sun. He has been born into the
> psychic world, and depends now on the
> psychic air and light. His goal is not here: this
> is but a subtile repetition of physical life; he
> has to pass through it according to similar
> laws. He must study, learn, grow, and conquer;
> never forgetting the while that his goal is that
> place where there is no air nor any sun or
> moon.
> 
> Do not imagine that in this line of progress
> the man himself is being moved or changing
> his place. Not so. The truest illustration of the
> process is that of cutting through layers of crust
> or skin. The man, having learned his lesson
> fully, casts off the physical life; having learned
> his lesson fully, casts off the psychic life; having
> learned his lesson fully, casts off the contemplative
> life, or life of adoration.
> 
> All are cast aside at last, and he enters the
> great temple where any memory of self or sensation
> is left outside as the shoes are cast from
> the feet of the worshipper. That temple is the
> place of his own pure divinity, the central flame
> which, however obscured, has animated him
> through all these struggles. And having found
> this sublime home he is sure as the heavens
> themselves. He remains still, filled with all
> knowledge and power. The outer man, the
> adoring, the acting, the living personification,
> goes its own way hand in hand with Nature,
> and shows all the superb strength of the savage
> growth of the earth, lit by that instinct which
> contains knowledge. For in the inmost sanctuary,
> in the actual temple, the man has found
> the subtile essence of Nature herself. No
> longer can there be any difference between
> them or any half-measures. And now comes
> the hour of action and power. In that inmost
> sanctuary all is to be found: God and his creatures,
> the fiends who prey on them, those
> among men who have been loved, those who
> have been hated. Difference between them exists
> no longer. Then the soul of man laughs in
> its strength and fearlessness, and goes forth
> into the world in which its actions are needed,
> and causes these actions to take place without
> apprehension, alarm, fear, regret, or joy.
> 
> This state is possible to man while yet he
> lives in the physical; for men have attained it
> while living. It alone can make actions in the
> physical divine and true.
> 
> Life among objects of sense must forever
> be an outer shape to the sublime soul,--it can
> only become powerful life, the life of accomplishment,
> when it is animated by the crowned
> and indifferent god that sits in the sanctuary.
> 
> The obtaining of this condition is so supremely
> desirable because from the moment it
> is entered there is no more trouble, no more
> anxiety, no more doubt or hesitation. As a
> great artist paints his picture fearlessly and
> never committing any error which causes him
> regret, so the man who has formed his inner
> self deals with his life.
> 
> But that is when the condition is entered.
> That which we who look towards the mountains
> hunger to know is the mode of entrance and
> the way to the Gate. The Gate is that Gate of
> Gold barred by a heavy bar of iron. The way
> to the threshold of it turns a man giddy and
> sick. It seems no path, it seems to end perpetually,
> its way lies along hideous precipices,
> it loses itself in deep waters.
> 
> Once crossed and the way found it appears
> wonderful that the difficulty should have looked;
> so great. For the path where it disappears does
> but turn abruptly, its line upon the precipice
> edge is wide enough for the feet, and across
> the deep waters that look so treacherous there,
> is always a ford and a ferry. So it happens in
> all profound experiences of human nature.
> When the first grief tears the heart asunder it
> seems that the path has ended and a blank
> darkness taken the place of the sky. And yet by
> groping the soul passes on, and that difficult
> and seemingly hopeless turn in the road is
> passed.
> 
> So with many another form or human torture.
> Sometimes throughout a long period or
> a whole lifetime the path of existence is perpetually
> checked by what seem like insurmountable
> obstacles. Grief, pain, suffering, the loss
> of all that is beloved or valued, rise up before
> the terrified soul and check it at every turn.
> Who places those obstacles there? The reason
> shrinks at the childish dramatic picture which
> the religionists place before it,--God permitting
> the Devil to torment His creatures for their
> ultimate good! When will that ultimate good
> be attained? The idea involved in this picture
> supposes an end, a goal. There is none. We
> can any one of us safely assent to that; for as
> far as human observation, reason, thought, intellect,
> or instinct can reach towards grasping
> the mystery of life, all data obtained show that
> the path is endless and that eternity cannot be
> blinked and converted by the idling soul into
> a million years.
> 
> In man, taken individually or as a whole,
> there clearly exists a double constitution. I am
> speaking roughly now, being well aware that
> the various schools of philosophy cut him up
> and subdivide him according to their several
> theories. What I mean is this: that two great
> tides of emotion sweep through his nature, two
> great forces guide his life; the one makes him
> an animal, and the other makes him a god. No
> brute of the earth is so brutal as the man who
> subjects his godly power to his animal power.
> This is a matter of course, because the whole
> force of the double nature is then used in one
> direction. The animal pure and simple obeys
> his instincts only and desires no more than to
> gratify his love of pleasure; he pays but little
> regard to the existence of other beings except
> in so far as they offer him pleasure or pain; he
> knows nothing of the abstract love of cruelty or
> of any of those vicious tendencies of the human
> being which have in themselves their own
> gratification. Thus the man who becomes a
> beast has a million times the grasp of life over
> the natural beast, and that which in the pure
> animal is sufficiently innocent enjoyment, uninterrupted
> by an arbitrary moral standard, becomes
> in him vice, because it is gratified on
> principle. Moreover he turns all the divine
> powers of his being into this channel, and degrades
> his soul by making it the slave of his
> senses. The god, deformed and disguised,
> waits on the animal and feeds it.
> 
> Consider then whether it is not possible to
> change the situation. The man himself is king
> of the country in which this strange spectacle
> is seen. He allows the beast to usurp the place
> of the god because for the moment the beast
> pleases his capricious royal fancy the most. This
> cannot last always; why let it last any longer?
> So long as the animal rules there will be the
> keenest sufferings in consequence of change,
> of the vibration between pleasure and pain,
> of the desire for prolonged and pleasant
> physical life. And the god in his capacity of
> servant adds a thousand-fold to all this, by
> making physical life so much more filled with
> keenness of pleasure,--rare, voluptuous,
> aesthetic pleasure,--and by intensity of pain
> so passionate that one knows not where it
> ends and where pleasure commences. So
> long as the god serves, so long the life of
> the animal will be enriched and increasingly
> valuable. But let the king resolve to change
> the face of his court and forcibly evict the animal
> from the chair of state, restoring the god
> to the place of divinity.
> 
> Ah, the profound peace that falls upon the
> palace! All is indeed changed. No longer is
> there the fever of personal longings or desires,
> no longer is there any rebellion or distress, no
> longer any hunger for pleasure or dread of
> pain. It is like a great calm descending on a
> stormy ocean; it is like the soft rain of summer
> falling on parched ground; it is like the
> deep pool found amidst the weary, thirsty
> labyrinths of the unfriendly forest.
> 
> But there is much more than this. Not only
> is man more than an animal because there is
> the god in him, but he is more than a god because
> there is the animal in him.
> 
> Once force the animal into his rightful
> place, that of the inferior, and you find yourself
> in possession of a great force hitherto unsuspected
> and unknown. The god as servant
> adds a thousand-fold to the pleasures of the
> animal; the animal as servant adds a thousand-fold
> to the powers of the god. And it is upon
> the union, the right relation of these two forces
> in himself, that man stands as a strong king,
> and is enabled to raise his hand and lift the
> bar of the Golden Gate. When these forces
> are unfitly related, then the king is but a
> crowned voluptuary, without power, and whose
> dignity does but mock him; for the animals,
> undivine, at least know peace and are not torn
> by vice and despair.
> 
> That is the whole secret. That is what
> makes man strong, powerful, able to grasp
> heaven and earth in his hands. Do not fancy
> it is easily done. Do not be deluded into the
> idea that the religious or the virtuous man does
> it! Not so. They do no more than fix a standard,
> a routine, a law, by which they hold the
> animal in check. The god is compelled to
> serve him in a certain way, and does so, pleasing
> him with the beliefs and cherished fantasies
> of the religious, with the lofty sense of personal
> pride which makes the joy of the virtuous.
> These special and canonized vices are
> things too low and base to be possible to the
> pure animal, whose only inspirer is Nature herself,
> always fresh as the dawn. The god in
> man, degraded, is a thing unspeakable in its infamous
> power of production.
> 
> The animal in man, elevated, is a thing unimaginable
> in its great powers of service and
> of strength.
> 
> You forget, you who let your animal self
> live on, merely checked and held within certain
> bounds, that it is a great force, an integral
> portion of the animal life of the world you
> live in. With it you can sway men, and influence
> the very world itself, more or less perceptibly
> according to your strength. The god,
> given his right place, will so inspire and guide
> this extraordinary creature, so educate and
> develope it, so force it into action and recognition
> of its kind, that it will make you tremble
> when you recognise the power that has awakened
> within you. The animal in yourself will
> then be a king among the animals of the world.
> 
> This is the secret of the old-world magicians
> who made Nature serve them and work
> miracles every day for their convenience. This
> is the secret of the coming race which Lord
> Lytton foreshadowed for us.
> 
> But this power can only be attained by giving
> the god the sovereignty. Make your animal
> ruler over yourself, and he will never rule
> others.
> 
> EPILOGUE
> 
> Secreted and hidden in the heart of the
> world and in the heart of man is the light
> which can illumine all life, the future and the
> past. Shall we not search for it? Surely some
> must do so. And then perhaps those will add
> what is needed to this poor fragment of
> thought.
> 
> THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD
> 
> From _The Path_, March, 1887
> 
> The most notable book for guidance in Mysticism
> which has appeared since _Light on the Path_
> was written has just been published under the
> significant title of _Through the Gates of Gold_.
> Though the author's name is withheld, the occult
> student will quickly discern that it must proceed
> from a very high source. In certain respects the
> book may be regarded as a commentary on _Light
> on the Path_. The reader would do well to bear
> this in mind. Many things in that book will be
> made clear by the reading of this one, and one will
> be constantly reminded of that work, which has
> already become a classic in our literature. _Through
> the Gates of Gold_ is a work to be kept constantly
> at hand for reference and study. It will surely take
> rank as one of the standard books of Theosophy.
> 
> The "Gates of Gold" represent the entrance to
> that realm of the soul unknowable through the
> physical perceptions, and the purpose of this work
> is to indicate some of the steps necessary to reach
> their threshold. Through its extraordinary beauty
> of style and the clearness of its statement it will
> appeal to a wider portion of the public than most
> works of a Theosophical character. It speaks to the
> Western World in its own language, and in this
> fact lies much of its value.
> 
> Those of us who have been longing for something
> "practical" will find it here, while it will
> probably come into the hands of thousands who
> know little or nothing of Theosophy, and thus meet
> wants deeply felt though unexpressed. There are
> also doubtless many, we fancy, who will be carried
> far along in its pages by its resistless logic until
> they encounter something which will give a rude
> shock to some of their old conceptions, which they
> have imagined as firmly based as upon a rock--a
> shock which may cause them to draw back in alarm,
> but from which they will not find it so easy to
> recover, and which will be likely to set them
> thinking seriously.
> 
> The titles of the five chapters of the book are,
> respectively, "The Search for Pleasure," "The
> Mystery of Threshold," "The Initial Effort," "The
> Meaning of Pain," and "The Secret of Strength."
> Instead of speculating upon mysteries that lie at the
> very end of man's destiny, and which cannot be
> approached by any manner of conjecture, the work
> very sensibly takes up that which lies next at hand,
> that which constitutes the first step to be taken if
> we are ever to take a second one, and teaches us its
> significance. At the outset we must cope with
> sensation and learn its nature and meaning. An
> important teaching of _Light on the Path_ has been
> misread by many. We are not enjoined to kill out
> sensation, but to "kill out _desire_ for sensation,"
> which is something quite different. "Sensation, as
> we obtain it through the physical body, affords us
> all that induces us to live in that shape," says this
> work. The problem is, to extract the meaning which
> it holds for us. That is what existence is for. "If
> men will but pause and consider what lessons they
> have learned from pleasure and pain, much might
> be guessed of that strange thing which causes these
> effects."
> 
> "The question concerning results seemingly
> unknowable, that concerning the life beyond the
> Gates," is presented as one that has been asked
> throughout the ages, coming at the hour "when the
> flower of civilization had blown to its full, and when
> its petals are but slackly held together," the period
> when man reaches the greatest physical development
> of his cycle. It is then that in the distance a great
> glittering is seen, before which many drop their
> eyes bewildered and dazzled, though now and then
> one is found brave enough to gaze fixedly on this
> glittering, and to decipher something of the shape
> within it. "Poets and philosophers, thinkers and
> teachers, all those who are the 'elder brothers of the
> race'--have beheld this sight from time to time,
> and some among them have recognized in the bewildering
> glitter the outlines of the Gates of Gold."
> 
> Those Gates admit us to the sanctuary of man's
> own nature, to the place whence his life-power
> comes, and where he is priest of the shrine of life.
> It needs but a strong hand to push them open, we
> are told. "The courage to enter them is the courage
> to search the recesses of one's own nature without
> fear and without shame. In the fine part, the
> essence, the flavor of the man, is found the key
> which unlocks those great Gates."
> 
> The necessity of killing out the sense of separateness
> is profoundly emphasized as one of the most
> important factors in this process. We must divest
> ourselves of the illusions of the material life. "When
> we desire to speak with those who have tried the
> Golden Gates and pushed them open, then it is very
> necessary--in fact it is essential--to discriminate,
> and not bring into our life the confusions of our
> sleep. If we do, we are reckoned as madmen, and
> fall back into the darkness where there is no friend
> but chaos. This chaos has followed every effort of
> man that is written in history; after civilization has
> flowered, the flower falls and dies, and winter and
> darkness destroy it." In this last sentence is indicated
> the purpose of civilization. It is the blossoming
> of a race, with the purpose of producing a certain
> spiritual fruit; this fruit having ripened, then the
> degeneration of the great residuum begins, to be
> worked over and over again in the grand fermenting
> processes of reincarnation. Our great civilization
> is now flowering and in this fact we may read the
> reason for the extraordinary efforts to sow the seed
> of the Mystic Teachings wherever the mind of man
> may be ready to receive it.
> 
> In the "Mystery of Threshold," we are told that
> "only a man who has the potentialities in him both
> of the voluptuary and the stoic has any chance of
> entering the Golden Gates. He must be capable of
> testing and valuing to its most delicate fraction every
> joy existence has to give; and he must be capable of
> denying himself all pleasure, and that without
> suffering from the denial."
> 
> The fact that the way is different for each individual
> is finely set forth in "The Initial Effort," in
> the words that man "may burst the shell that holds
> him in darkness, tear the veil that hides him from
> the eternal, at any moment where it is easiest for
> him to do so; and most often this point will be
> where he least expects to find it." By this we may
> see the uselessness of laying down arbitrary laws
> in the matter.
> 
> The meaning of those important words, "All
> steps are necessary to make up the ladder," finds a
> wealth of illustration here. These sentences are particularly
> pregnant: "Spirit is not a gas created by
> matter, and we cannot create our future by forcibly
> using one material agent and leaving out the rest.
> Spirit is the great life on which matter rests, as
> does the rocky world on the free and fluid ether;
> whenever we can break our limitations we find ourselves
> on that marvellous shore where Wordsworth
> once saw the gleam of the gold." Virtue, being of
> the material life, man has not the power to carry
> it with him, "yet the aroma of his good deeds is a
> far sweeter sacrifice than the odor of crime and
> cruelty."
> 
> "To the one who has lifted the golden latch
> the spring of sweet waters, the fountain itself whence
> all softness arises, is opened and becomes part of
> his heritage. But before this can be reached a heavy
> weight has to be lifted from the heart, an iron bar
> which holds it down and prevents it from arising
> in its strength."
> 
> The author here wishes to show that there is
> sweetness and light in occultism, and not merely a
> wide dry level of dreadful Karma, such as some
> Theosophists are prone to dwell on. And this sweetness
> and light may be reached when we discover
> the iron bar and raising it shall permit the heart
> to be free. This iron bar is what the Hindus call
> "the knot of the heart"! In their scriptures they
> talk of unloosing this knot, and say that when that
> is accomplished freedom is near. But what is the
> iron bar and the knot? is the question we must
> answer. It is the astringent power of self--of
> egotism--of the idea of separateness. This idea has
> many strongholds. It holds its most secret court and
> deepest counsels near the far removed depths and
> centre of the heart. But it manifests itself first, in
> that place which is nearest to our ignorant perceptions,
> where we see it first after beginning the search.
> When we assault and conquer it there it disappears.
> It has only retreated to the next row of outworks
> where for a time it appears not to our sight, and
> we imagine it killed, while it is laughing at our
> imaginary conquests and security. Soon again we
> find it and conquer again, only to have it again
> retreat. So we must follow it up if we wish to
> grasp it at last in its final stand just near the "kernel
> of the heart." There it has become "an iron bar
> that holds down the heart," and there only can
> the fight be really won. That disciple is fortunate
> who is able to sink past all the pretended outer
> citadels and seize at once this _personal devil_ who
> holds the bar of iron, and there wage the battle.
> If won there, it is easy to return to the outermost
> places and take them by capitulation. This is very
> difficult, for many reasons. It is not a mere juggle of
> words to speak of this trial. It is a living tangible
> thing that can be met by any real student. The
> great difficulty of rushing at once to the centre lies
> in the unimaginable terrors which assault the soul
> on its short journey there. This being so it is better
> to begin the battle on the outside in just the way
> pointed out in this book and _Light on the Path_,
> by testing experience and learning from it.
> 
> In the lines quoted the author attempts to direct
> the eyes of a very materialistic age to the fact which
> is an accepted one by all true students of occultism,
> that the true heart of a man--which is visibly represented
> by the muscular heart--is the focus point
> for spirit, for knowledge, for power; and that from
> that point the converged rays begin to spread out
> fan-like, until they embrace the Universe. So it is
> the Gate. And it is just at that neutral spot of
> concentration that the pillars and the doors are fixed.
> It is beyond it that the glorious golden light burns,
> and throws up a "burnished glow." We find in
> this the same teachings as in the Upanishads. The
> latter speaks of "the ether which is within the
> heart," and also says that we must pass across
> that ether.
> 
> "The Meaning of Pain" is considered in a way
> which throws a great light on the existence of that
> which for ages has puzzled many learned men.
> "Pain arouses, softens, breaks, and destroys. Regarded
> from a sufficiently removed standpoint, it
> appears as a medicine, as a knife, as a weapon, as a
> poison, in turn. It is an implement, a thing which
> is used, evidently. What we desire to discover is,
> who is the user; what part of ourselves is it that
> demands the presence of this thing so hateful to
> the rest?"
> 
> The task is, to rise above both pain and pleasure
> and unite them to our service. "Pain and pleasure
> stand apart and separate, as do the two sexes; and
> it is in the merging, the making the two into one,
> that joy and deep sensation and profound peace are
> obtained. Where there is neither male nor female,
> neither pain nor pleasure, there is the god in man
> dominant, and then is life real."
> 
> The following passage can hardly fail to startle
> many good people: "Destiny, the inevitable, does
> indeed exist for the race and for the individual;
> but who can ordain this save the man himself?
> There is no clew in heaven or earth to the existence
> of any ordainer other than the man who suffers or
> enjoys that which is ordained." But can any earnest
> student of Theosophy deny, or object to this? Is it
> not a pure statement of the law of Karma? Does it
> not agree perfectly with the teaching of the Bhagavat-Gita?
> There is surely no power which sits apart
> like a judge in court, and fines us or rewards us
> for this misstep or that merit; it is we who shape,
> or ordain, our own future.
> 
> God is not denied. The seeming paradox that a
> God exists within each man is made clear when we
> perceive that our separate existence is an illusion;
> the physical, which makes us separate individuals,
> must eventually fall away, leaving each man one
> with all men, and with God, who is the Infinite.
> 
> And the passage which will surely be widely
> misunderstood is that in "The Secret of Strength."
> "Religion holds a man back from the path, prevents
> his stepping forward, for various very plain reasons.
> First, it makes the vital mistake of distinguishing
> between good and evil. Nature knows no such distinctions."
> Religion is always man-made. It cannot
> therefore be the whole truth. It is a good thing for
> the ordinary and outside man, but surely it will
> never bring him to the Gates of Gold. If religion
> be of God how is it that we find that same God
> in his own works and acts violating the precepts
> of religion? He kills each man once in life; every
> day the fierce elements and strange circumstances
> which he is said to be the author of, bring on
> famine, cold and innumerable untimely deaths;
> where then, in The True, can there be any room
> for such distinctions as right and wrong? The disciple,
> must as he walks on the path, abide by law
> and order, but if he pins his faith on any religion
> whatever he will stop at once, and it makes no
> matter whether he sets up Mahatmas, Gods, Krishna,
> Vedas or mysterious acts of grace, each of these
> will stop him and throw him into a rut from which
> even heavenly death will not release him. Religion
> can only teach morals and ethics. It cannot answer
> the question "what am I?" The Buddhist ascetic
> holds a fan before his eyes to keep away the sight
> of objects condemned by his religion. But he thereby
> gains no knowledge, for that part of him which is
> affected by the improper sights has to be known by
> the man himself, and it is by experience alone that
> the knowledge can be possessed and assimilated.
> 
> The book closes gloriously, with some hints that
> have been much needed. Too many, even of the
> sincerest students of occultism, have sought to ignore
> that one-half of their nature, which is here taught
> to be necessary. Instead of crushing out the animal
> nature, we have here the high and wise teaching
> that we must learn to fully understand the animal
> and subordinate it to the spiritual. "The god in
> man, degraded, is a thing unspeakable in its
> infamous power of production. The animal in man,
> elevated, is a thing unimaginable in its great powers
> of service and of strength," and we [are] told that
> our animal self is a great force, the secret of the
> old-world magicians, and of the coming race which
> Lord Lytton foreshadowed. "But this power can
> only be attained by giving the god the sovereignty.
> Make your animal ruler over your self, and he will
> never rule others."
> 
> This teaching will be seen to be identical with
> that of the closing words of _The Idyll of the White
> Lotus_: "He will learn how to expound spiritual
> truths, and to enter into the life of his highest self,
> and he can learn also to hold within him the glory
> of that higher self, and yet to retain life upon this
> planet so long as it shall last, if need be; to retain
> life in the vigor of manhood, till his entire work is
> completed, and he has taught the three truths to all
> who look for light."
> 
> There are three sentences in the book which
> ought to be imprinted in the reader's mind, and we
> present them inversely:
> 
> "Secreted and hidden in the heart of the world
> and the heart of man is the light which can illumine
> all life, the future and the past."
> 
> "On the mental steps of a million men Buddha
> passed through the Gates of Gold; and because a
> great crowd pressed about the threshold he was able
> to leave behind him words which prove that those
> gates will open."
> 
> "This is one of the most important factors in
> the development of man, the recognition--profound
> and complete recognition--of the law of
> universal unity and coherence."
>
> — *Light on the Path and Through the Gates of Gold (Public Domain (Project Gutenberg))*