Section 10

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which is frankly hell at its best, and at its worst,^ something for the description of which language is totally inadequate. It is, of course, true that through asceticism, self-denial, ab- stinence etc., one may to a certain extent, restrain these evils, and to some extent rise above them; but to entirely escape them while in the body is quite impossible. Hence, it is quite impossible for one living in the body to attain the Good. Also, we do not escape this condition when we leave the body at death. The Astral Body is the Body of Desires, and as all of the desires of this mundane life continue after we separate from the body, being located not in the physical body, but in the Astral Body, they continue there, and hence, we are subject to them to the same extent that we were while in the physical body. This being the case, we can see at once that so long as the astral life continues, that is, so long as we live on' the Astral Plane, we cannot escape those desires that will act as an insurmountable barrier in the way of our reaching the Good. But we do not reach the Good in Devachan. When we leave the Astral Plane and the Astral Body behind us, we enter Devachan clothed in our Mental Body; and as it is made up of our thinking while in the physical body, it is surcharged with our errors and our foolish thoughts, and hence, can only express erroneous and foolish thinking there. This bars us from the conception of the Good even while in Devachan. Now so long as the soul has any one of these three material vestures, it cannot reach the Good. Only by passing entirely beyond all these things can the Good be reached. In fact, the Good can be reached only in Nirvana. For this reason, the Buddhists show their true wisdom, and their grasp of the Gnosis of the Good when they spurn everything else save Nirvana. So long as we are on the tempestuous
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sea of Birth and Death we can never reach the Good. Only when we have crossed to the other shore and have entered the haven of Nirvana and have experienced its perfect and Blissful Eest will we ever be able to find the Good. Seeing that in this material existence we can never realize the Good, what should we do? Live as near its realization as we possibly can, and ever hold up to our consciousness the ideal of the Good, realizing all the time that it is an unat- tainable ideal, but yet ever hold it as the ideal of life, the standard by which all is to be judged.
LESSON IX. The Beautiful and The Good.
And I, for my own part, give thanks to God, that He hath cast it in my mind about the Gnosis of the Good, that it can never be It should be in the world. For that the world is "fullness" of the bad, but God of Good, and Good of God.
The excellencies of the Beautiful are round the very essence [of the Good] ; nay, they do seem too pure, too unalloyed; perchance 'tis they that are themselves Its essences.
For one may dare to say, Asclepios, — if es- sence, sooth, He have — God's essence is the Beautiful ; the Beautiful is further also Good.
There is no Good that can be got from ob- jects in the world. For all the things that fall beneath the eye are image-things and pictures as it were ; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities], especially the [essence] of the beautiful and Good.
Just as the eye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful and Good. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Him alone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with whom God is Himself in love, or they with God.
And I, for my own part, give thanks to God, that He hath cast it in my mind about the Gnosis of the Good, that it can never be It should be in the world. For that the world is
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"fullness" of the bad, but God of Good, and
Good of God.
The Good can never be in the world or kosmos. The kosmos is the Pleroma or the complete full- ness of the bad. The Good can never live in a body, but only in the bodiless. No matter how great or how small the body may be, the Good can never find expression in it. This applies to all forms of whatever nature they may be. The kosmos taken as a whole, is limited in this way also. It is of the very nature of the kosmos that it must be the embodiment of all that is bad, but that the Good can never manifest itself through it. This is a fundamental characteristic of the kosmos, and hence, there can never be any excep- tion to this rule. God is the Pleroma of the Good, and Good is the Pleroma of God as we have previously indicated. For this reason, the Good and Go#d are to be taken as interchangeable terms. They merely indicate diverse functions exercised by the same Divine Principle. They are the two simultaneous expressions of the same Divine Unity, and in that sense are they One.
The excellencies of the Beautiful are round the very essence of the Good ; nay, they do seem too pure, too unalloyad; perchance 'tis they that are themselves Its essences.
The Beautiful is also at one with the Good. We stated before that the Good was in a certain sense the Moral aspect of Ku. It is in Her as- pect as the Maker that She is the Good. Also in this function as the Maker is She the Beau- tiful. Just as Good is the moral side of the making of Ku, so does the Beautiful represent Her Graces and Accomplishments employed in this making. The Beautiful subsists in the Es-
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sence of Ku, and nowhere else. This essence of Ku is absolute Beauty. "We can never separate It from Beauty or Beauty from it. True Beauty is the harmony, the symmetry, the Grace of the makings of Ku. There is no true Beauty save that of the Mother Ku. It is Her very essence manifesting or acting as Beauty, that is the one and only Beauty. All else is ugly in comparison with Her.
For one may dare to say, Asciepios, — if es- sence, sooth, He have-God's essence is the Beautiful; the Beautiful is further also Good.
The essence of God, that is Ku, is the Beauti- ful, that is the essence full of Beauty. We are not here speaking of beautiful things, that is, things that please the eye, and thereby arouse a pleasant sensation, so that one says, they are beautiful. Neither is it the Beautiful in thought which pleases the mental conception, but rather is it that Ideal Beauty the very thought of which ravishes the soul for all time and for eternity so that it can never be whole again. All beauty is but a symbol of this transcendent, Divine Beauty. It is the Absolute Essence of Beauty. Beauty conceived as Essence, not as a thing. The Greeks had three Goddesses each of whom represented a definite aspect of their ideal of beauty. Aph- rodite, who was the epitome of the beauty that appeals to the senses. Athene, who was the epit- ome of the beauty that appeals to the mind, and Hera, the epitome of that majestic grandiose* beauty that ravishes the soul, but each of these was but a manifestation of that Essential Beauty that is of the essence of Ku, the Beautiful Mother of all. The Beautiful is the very essence of Ku. It is Her esthetieism, *so to speak. Her Heart in another aspect. In a still higher sense, this
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Beauty is Her Idealism, that which makes Her ever strive to be Herself and to surpass Herself. It is Ithe Absolute Beauty of Her Essence, and as such is it the Quintessence of Ku, the Heart of God. One whose soul has for an instant grasped the fleeting vision of that transcendent, essential Beauty will never be able to see beauty in any- thing else, and will be haunted by that Beatific Vision through all eternity, until he has been able to see it as It is. This Beauty essence, is also the essence of the Good, and they are one essence, not two.
There is no Good that can be got from ob- jects in the world. For all the things that fall beneath the eye are image-things and pictures as it were ; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities], especially the [essence] of the Beautiful and Good.
The objects that are in the world will none of them ever lead one unto the Gnosis of the Good. They do not contain any of Good, and therefore none of Good can ever be derived from them. All the objects of sense are mere images and pic- tures. The realities that are back of these images and pictures, and that are imaged and pictured in these objects, are beyond the range of the senses, and never make any impression upon them because of the invisibility in which these realities ever abide. Here is the great mistake which so many people make. They think that the objects of a material nature are the realities, and that the immaterial is an illusion, whereas, just the re- verse is the case. The intangible and immaterial, is the real, while the tangible and the material is but the illusive and the mirage of this reality. To see the apparent beauty in the picture of a pretty woman, and take this for the beauty of the woman herself is similar to thinking that the
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apparent beauty of the objects in the world is the real beauty. But above all the realities that we can conceive or above all that are, the most real of them all are the essence of the Beautiful and Good. There is not an essence of the Beauti- ful and an essence of the Good, but on the con- trary there is one essence that is in itself, Abso- lute Beauty and Absolute Goodness. They are one in essence. This One Essence of Absolute Beauty and Absolute Goodness, is the One Abso- lute Eeality. All else is merely an appearance. Divine Beauty and Divine Goodness are identical terms, and they are each identical with Divinity, there is absolutely no distinction. Therefore see that thou dost never separate the Beautiful and the Good, for if thou dost, thou shalt impious be. Also, see that thou dost never separate them from God, for if so, again wilt thou be impious. Never attribute reality to anything save the es- sence of the Beautiful and the Good, for this would be an impiety. Never attribute this es- sence of the Beautiful and the Good to anything else save Ku, for she alone is this essence and do thou never deny to Her this essence of Absolute Beauty and absolute Good. Never be guilty of calling anything save Her Beautiful or Good. She is the Pleroma of all Beauty, and hence there is no Beauty left for any one else save Her. She is All Beauty. Neither is there Goodness in! any one else save Her, for she is the Pleroma of the Good and there is no Goodness left for any one else save Her alone. She is at once therefore, the Pleroma both of the Beautiful and the Good, and they are one, and identical with Her essence. She is the essence of the Beautiful and the Good. She is the Beautiful and the Good essence. One essence is there which is at once, the Maker, the Mother, the Beautiful and the Good, all spon- taneously and simultaneously, and this essence is Ku.
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Just as the eye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful and Good. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Him alone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with whom God is Himself in love, or they with God.
As the eye cannot see God, therefore it cannot behold the Beautiful and the Good, because there is no Beauty and no Good save in God. There is no Beauty save the Beauty of Ku, and there is no Good save the Goodness of Ku. Just as we may speak of a woman as being both beautiful and good, can we separate her beauty and her goodness from her, and see them as beauty and goodness independent of the woman whom we think is beautiful? We say that red lips, rosy cheeks, blue eyes, Titian hair, a fair complexion make a beautiful woman, but would the red, the blue, the titian and the rose color be beautiful if they were simply shown in strips of paper of those colors ? The beauty of a beautiful woman is seen in the woman, but would not be seen as such beauty apart from her. Therefore, Beauty exists as the Beauty of Ku, separated from Her, it would cease to be Beautiful, it lives as Beauty only in Her, as Her Beauty, a Beauty that cannot exist apart from Her. She is perfectly Beautiful, and perfect Beauty is the Beauty of Ku. Even so, when we speak of a good woman, can we think of that goodness apart from the woman? Can we think of this womanly goodness in the ab- stract? Does not what we term goodness in man, cease to exist when we separate it from the life of the man? Must not goodness be active in order that it may be goodness at all? Even so Good exists or subsists only as the Goodness of Ku. If it were separated from Ku, It would at once cease to be Good. Therefore both the Beau-
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tiful and the Good are nothing other than the activity of the Essence of Ku. They are Her Goodness and Her Beauty and nothing else be- sides. They are integral parts of Her very Esse, without them She would not be Ku. With them anything that possessed them would be Ku, hence they can be found in nothing but Her Essence. They are Her Graces, like the Beauty, Truth, Love, Modesty, Chastity, Conscience and Good- ness of a woman in whom all of these conditions are present. Ku is in love with Her Beauty and Her Goodness. Dearest of all are They to Her. She is beloved of Her Beauty and her Goodness. They are Her very Self. They could not be apart from Her, and She could not be apart from Her Beauty and Her Truth. Beauty and Goodness are the Essence of Ku, just as She is the Esse of the Beautiful and the Good. In Her alone do they subsist, just as in Her Beauty and Her Goodness alone does She subsist. Wouldst thou see the Beautiful and the Good? Then behold Ku, for there alone wilt thou find them.
LESSON X. The Gnosis of The Good.
5. If thou canst God conceive, thou shalt conceive the Beautiful and Good, transcend- ing Light, made lighter than the Light by God. That Beauty is beyond compare, inimi- tate that Good, e'en as God is Himself.
As, then, thou dost conceive of God, con- ceive the Beautiful and Good. For they can- not be joined with aught of other things that live, since they can never be divorced from God.
Seek'st thou for God, thou seekest for the Beautiful. One is the Path that leadeth unto It — Devotion joined with Gnosis.
If thou canst God conceive, thou shalt con- ceive the Beautiful and Good, transcending Light, made lighter than the Light by God. That Beauty is beyond compare, inimitate that Good, e'en as God is Himself.
No one can conceive of the Beautiful and the Good unless he can conceive of God. To con- ceive of the Beautiful and the Good is to conceive of God. To conceive of God is to conceive of the Beautiful and the Good. They are One, and in no sense diverse. They are one absolute Iden- tity. That Beauty and Good transcends Light. The Light here indicated is the Ultimate Divine Light, and even that is not so light as the Beau- tiful and the Good, for the Divine Light is made by the Beauty and the Goodness of Ku, it is one
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of the first expressions of the Beautiful and the Good in Ku. Divine Beauty is in fact the Soul of the Divine Light. Nothing can ever be com- pared with that Beauty. It has nothing that in any way compares with it. And just as Beauty is beyond compare, so is it utterly impossible for any one or anything to ever imitate the Di- vine Goodness. They alike subsist in Ku, and there alone. No more can anyone imitate this Goodness than he can God Himself or rather Her- self as this is Ku of which we are speaking. No more can there be another in whom there is this Good or this Beauty than there can be another Absolute Unmanifest God. They are entirely separated from all else. This Trinity, of Ku, Her Beauty and Her Goodness, stand absolutely alone and without a second.