CHAPTER X.

The Law of Sacrii^ice:.
The study of the Law of Sacrifice follows naturally on the study of the Law of Karma, and the under- standing of the former, it was once remarked by a Master, is as necessary for the world as the under- standing of the latter. By an act of Self-sacrifice the Logos became manifest for the emanation of the universe, by sacrifice the universe is maintained, and by sacrifice man reaches perfection.* Hence every religion that springs from the Ancient Wisdom has sacrifice as a central teaching, and some of the pro- foundest truths of occultism are rooted in the law of sacrifice.
An attempt to grasp, however feebly, the nature of the sacrifice of the Logos may prevent us from falling into the very general mistake that sacrifice is an essentially painful thing; whereas the very essence of sacrifice is a voluntary and glad pouring forth of life that others may share in it; and pain
* The Hindu will remember the opening words of the Bri- hadaranyakopanishad, that the dawn is in sacrifice; the Zoroastrian will recall how Ahura-Mazdao came forth from an act of sacrifice ; the Christian will think of the Lamb — the symbol of the Logos — slain from the foundation of the world.
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only arises when there is discord in the nature of the sacrificer, between the higher whose joy is in giving and the lower whose satisfaction lies in grasping and in holding. It is that discord alone that introduces the element of pain, and in the supreme Perfection, in the Logos, no discord could arise ; the One is the perfect chord of Being, of infinite melodious con- cords, all tuned to a single note, in which Life and Wisdom and Bliss are blended into one keynote of Existence.
The sacrifice of the Logos lay in His voluntarily circumscribing His infinite life in order that He might manifest. Symbolically, in the infinite ocean of light, with centre everywhere and with circum- ference nowhere, there arises a full-orbed sphere of living light, a Logos, and the surface of that sphere is His will to limit Himself that He may become manifest. His veil* in which He incloses Himself that within it a universe may take form. That for which the sacrifice is made is not yet in existence; its future being lies in the "thought" of the Logos alone; to Him it owes its conception and will owe its manifold life. Diversity could not arise in the "partless Brahman" save for this voluntary sacrifice of Deity taking on Himself form in order to emanate myriad forms each dowered with a spark of His life and therefore with the power of evolving into His
* This is the Self -limiting power of the Logos, His Maya, the limiting principle by which all forms are brought forth. His Life appears as "Spirit," His Maya as "Matter," and these are never disjoined during manifestation.
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image. *'The primal sacrifice that causes the birth of beings is named action (karma)," is is said;* and this coming forth into activity from the bliss of the perfect repose of self-existence has ever been recog- nized as the sacrifice of the Logos. That sacrifice continues throughout the term of the universe, for the life of the Logos is the sole support of every separated 'life," and He limits His life in each of the myriad forms to which He gives birth, bearing all the restraints and limitations implied in each form. From any one of these He could burst forth at any moment, the infinite Lord, filling the uni- verse with His glory; but only by sublime patience and slow and gradual expansion can each form be led upward until it becomes a self-dependent centre of boundless power like Himself. Therefore does He cabin Himself in forms, and bear all imperfec- tions till perfection is attained, and His creature is like unto Himself and one with Him, but with its own thread of memory. Thus this pouring out of His Hfe into forms is part of the original sacrifice, and has in it the bliss of the eternal Father sending forth His ofifspring as separated lives, that each may evolve an identity that shall never perish, and yield its own note blended with all others to swell the eternal song of bliss, intelligence, and life. This marks the essential nature of sacrifice, whatever other elements may become mixed with the central idea; it is the voluntary pouring out of life that others may partake of it, to bring others into life and * Bhagavad Gita, viii. 3.
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to sustain them in it till they become self-dependent, and this is but one expression of divine joy. There is always joy in the exercise of activity which is the expression of the power of the actor; the bird takes joy in the outpouring of song, and quivers with the mere rapture of the singing; the painter rejoices in the creation of his genius, in the putting into form of his idea; the essential activity of divine hfe must lie in giving, for there is nothing higher than itself from which it can receive; if it is to be active at all — and manifested life is active motion — it must pour itself out. Hence the sign of the spirit is giving, for spirit is the active divine life in every form.
But the essential activity of matter, on the other hand, lies in receiving; by receiving life impulses it is organized into forms ; by receiving them these are maintained ; on their withdrawal they fall to pieces. All its activity is of this nature of receiving, and only by receiving can it endure as a form. There- fore is it always grasping, clinging, seeking to hold for its own ; the persistence of the form depends on its grasping and retentive power, and it will there- fore seek to draw into itself all it can, and will grudge every fraction with which it parts. Its joy will be in seizing and holding; to it giving is like courting death.
It is very easy, from this standpoint, to see how the notion arose that sacrifice was suffering. While the divine life found its delight in exercising its activity of giving, and even when embodied in form cared not if the form perished by the giving, know-
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ing it to be only its passing expression and the means of its separated growth; the form which felt its life-forces pouring away from it cried out in an- guish, and sought to exercise its activity in holding, thus resisting the outward flow. The sacrifice di- minished the life-energies the form claimed as its own; or even entirely drained them away, leaving the form to perish. In the lower world of form this was the only aspect of sacrifice cognizable, and the form found itself driven to the slaughter, and cried out in fear and agony. What wonder that men, blinded by form, identified sacrifice with the agoniz- ing form instead of with the free life that gave itself, crying gladly: "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God; I am content to do it." Nay, what wonder that men — conscious of a higher and a lower nature, and oft identifying their self -consciousness more with the lower than with the higher — felt the struggle of the lower nature, the form, as their own struggles, and felt that they were accepting suffering in resignation to a higher will, and regarded sacrifice as that de- vout and resigned acceptance of pain. Not until man identifies himself with the life instead of with the form can the element of pain in sacrifice be got- ten rid of. In a perfectly harmonized entity, pain cannot be, for the form is then the perfect vehicle of the life, receiving or surrendering with ready accord. With the ceasing of struggle comes the ceasing of pain. For suffering arises from jar, from friction, from antagonistic movements, and where the whole nature works in perfect harmony
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the conditions that give rise to suffering are not present.
The law of sacrifice being thus the law of life- evolution in the universe, we find every step in the ladder is accomplished by sacrifice — the life pouring itself out to take birth in a higher form, while the form that contained it perishes. Those who look only at the perishing forms see Nature as a vast charnel-house; while those who see the deathless soul escaping to take new and higher form hear ever the joyous song of birth from the up-ward springing Hfe.
The Monad in the mineral kingdom evolves by the breaking up of its forms for the production and support of plants. Minerals are disintegrated that plant-forms may be built out of their materials ; the plant draws from the soil its nutritive constituents, breaks them up, and incorporates them into its own substance. The mineral forms perish that the plant- forms may grow, and this law of sacrifice stamped on the mineral kingdom is the law of the evolution of life and form. The life passes onward and the Monad evolves to produce the vegetable kingdom, the perishing of the lower form being the condition for the appearing and the support of the higher.
The story is repeated in the vegetable kingdom, for its forms in turn are sacrificed in order that ani- mal forms may be produced and may grow ; on every side grasses, grains, trees perish for the sustenance of animal bodies; their tissues are disintegrated that the materials comprising them may be assimilated by
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the animal and build up its body. Again the law of sacrifice is stamped on the world, this time on the vegetable kingdom; its life evolves while its forms perish; the Monad evolves to produce the animal kingdom, and the vegetable is offered up that animal forms may be brought forth and maintained.
So far the idea of pain has scarcely connected itself with that of sacrifice, for, as we have seen in the course of our studies, the astral bodies of plants are not sufficiently organized to give rise to any acute sensations either of pleasure or of pain. But as we consider the law of sacrifice in its working in the animal kingdom, we cannot avoid the recognition of the pain there involved in the breaking up of forms. It is true that the amount of pain caused by the preying of one animal upon another in "the state of nature" is comparatively trivial in each case, but still some pain occurs. It is also true that man, in the part he has played in helping to evolve animals, has much aggravated the amount of pain, and has strengthened instead of diminishing the predatory instincts of carnivorous animals ; still, he did not implant those instincts, though he took advantage of them for his own purposes, and innumerable va- rieties of animals, with the evolution of which man has had directly nothing to do, prey upon each other, the forms being sacrificed to the support of other forms, as in the mineral and vegetable king- doms. The struggle for existence went on long be- fore man appeared on the scene, and accelerated the evolution alike of life and of forms, while the pains
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accompanying the destruction of forms began the long task of impressing on the evolving Monad the transi- tory nature of all forms, and the difference between the forms that perished and the life that persisted.
The lower nature of man was evolved under the same law of sacrifice as ruled in the lower kingdoms. But with the outpouring of divine Life which gave the human Monad came a change in the way in which the law of sacrifice worked as the law of life. In man was to be developed the will, the self-mov- ing, self-initiated energy, and the compulsion which forced the lower kingdoms along the path of evolu- tion could not therefore be employed in his case, without paralyzing the growth of this new and essen- tial power. No mineral, no plant, no animal was asked to accept the law of sacrifice as a voluntarily chosen law of life. It was imposed upon them from without, and it forced their growth by a necessity from which they could not escape. Man was to have the freedom of choice necessary for the growth of a discriminative and self-conscious intelligence, and the question arose : "How can this creature be left free to choose, and yet learn to choose to follow the law of sacrifice, while yet he is a sensitive organ- ism, shrinking from pain, and pain is inevitable in the breaking up of sentient forms?"
Doubtless aeons of experience, studied by a crea- ture becoming ever more intelligent, might have finally led man to discover that the law of sacrifice is the fundamental law of life; but in this, as in so much else, he was not left to his own unassisted
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efforts. Divine Teachers were there at the side of man in his infancy, and they authoritatively pro- claimed the law of sacrifice, and incorporated it in a most elementary form in the religions by which They trained the dawning intelligence of man. It would have been useless to have suddenly demanded from these child-souls that they should surrender without return what seemed to them to be the most desirable objects, the objects on the possession of which their life in form depended. They must be led along a path which would lead gradually to the heights of voluntary self-sacrifice. To this end they were first taught that they were not isolated units, but were parts of a larger whole, and that their lives were linked to other lives both above and below them. Their physical lives were supported by lower lives, by the earth, by plants ; they consumed these, and in thus doing they contracted a debt which they were bound to pay. Living on the sacrificed lives of others, they must sacrifice in turn something which should support other lives ; they must nourish even as they were nourished ; taking the fruits pro- duced by the activity of the astral entities that guide physical Nature, they must recruit the ex- pended forces by suitable offerings. Hence have arisen all the sacrifices to these forces — as science calls them — to these intelligences guiding physical order, as religions have always taught. As fire quickly disintegrates the dense physical, it quickly restores the etheric particles of the burnt offerings to the ethers ; thus the astral particles were easily set
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free to be assimilated by the astral entities concerned with the fertility of the earth and the growth of plants. Thus the wheel of production was kept turning, and man learned that he was constantly incurring debts to Nature which he must as con- stantly discharge. Thus the sense of obligation was implanted and nurtured in his mind, and the duty that he owed to the whole, to the nourishing mother Nature, became impressed on his thought. It is true that this sense of obligation was closely con- nected with the idea that its discharge was neces- sary for his own welfare, and that the wish to continue to prosper moved him to the payment of his debt. He was but a child-soul, learning his first lessons, and this lesson of the interdependence of lives, of the life of each depending on the sacrifice of others, was of vital importance to his growth. Not yet could he feel the divine joy of giving; the reluc- tance of the form to surrender aught that nourished it had first to be overcome, and sacrifice became identified with this surrender of something valued, a surrender made from a sense of obligation and the desire to continue prosperous.
The next lesson removed the reward of sacrifice to a region beyond the physical world. First, by a sacrifice of material goods material welfare was to be secured. Then the sacrifice of material goods was to bring enjoyment in heaven, on the other side of death. The reward of the sacrificer was of a higher kind, and he learned that the relatively per- manent might be secured by the sacrifice of the
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relatively transient — a lesson that was important as leading to discriminative knowledge. The clinging of the form to physical objects was exchanged for a clinging to heavenly joys. In all exoteric relig- ions we find this educative process resorted to by the Wise Ones — too wise to expect from child-souls the virtue of unrewarded heroism, and content, with a sublime patience, to coax their wayward charges slowly along a pathway that was a thorny and a stony one to the lower nature. Gradually men were induced to subjugate the body, to overcome its sloth by the regular daily performance of religious rites, often burdensome in their nature, and to regulate its activities by directing them into useful channels; they were trained to conquer the form and to hold it in subjection to the life, and to accustom the body to yield itself to works of goodness and charity in obedience to the demands of the mind, even while that mind was chiefly stimulated by a desire to enjoy reward in heaven. We can see among the Hindus, the Persians, the Chinese, how men were taught to recognize their manifold obli- gations; to make the body yield dutiful sacrifice of obedience and reverence to ancestors, to parents, to elders; to bestow charity with courtesy; and to show kindness to all. Slowly men were helped to evolve both heroism and self-sacrifice to a high degree, as witness the martyrs who joyfully flung their bodies to torture and death rather than deny their faith or be false to their creed. They looked indeed for a ''crown of glory" in heaven as a recompense for the
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sacrifice of the physical form, but it was much to have overcome the cHnging to that physical form, and to have made the invisible world so real that it out- weighed the visible.
The next step was achieved when the sense of duty was definitely established; when the sacrifice of the lower to the higher was seen to be "right," apart from all question of a reward to be received in another world; when the obligation owed by the part to the whole was recognized, and the yielding of ser- vice by the form that existed by the service of others was felt to be justly due without any claim to wages being established thereby. Then man began to per- ceive the law of sacrifice as the law of life, and voluntarily to associate himself with it; and he began to learn to disjoin himself in idea from the form he dwelt in and to identify himself with the evolving life. This gradually led him to feel a certain indif- ference to all the activities of form, save as they consisted in ''duties that ought to be done," and to regard all of them as mere channels for the life- activities that were due to the world, and not as activities performed by him with any desire for their results. Thus he reached the point already noted, when karma attracting him to the three worlds ceased to be generated, and he turned the wheel of existence because it ought to be turned, and not be- cause its revolution brought any desirable object to himself.
The full recognition of the law of sacrifice, how- ever, lifts man beyond the mental plane — whereon
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duty is recognized as duty, as "what ought to be done because it is owed" — to that higher plane of Buddhi where all selves are felt as one, and where all activities are poured out for the use of all, and not for the gain of a separated self. Only on that plane is the law of sacrifice felt as a joyful privilege, instead of only recognized intellectually as true and just. On the buddhic plane man clearly sees that life is one, that it streams out perpetually as the free outpouring of the love of the LoGOS_, that life holding itself separate is a poor and a mean thing at best, and an ungrateful one to boot. There the whole heart rushes upwords to the Logos in one strong surge of love and worship, and gives itself in joy fullest self- surrender to be a channel of His life and love to the world. To be a carrier of His light, a messen- ger of His compassion, a worker in His realm — that appears as the only life worth living; to hasten hu- man evolution, to serve the Good Law, to lift part of the heavy burden of the world — that seems to be the very gladness of the Lord Himself.
From this plane only can a man act as one of the Saviours of the world, because on it he is one with the selves of all. Identified with humanity where it is one, his strength, his love, his life, can flow down- wards into any or into every separated self. He has become a spiritual force, and the available spiritual energy of the world-system is increased by the pour- ing into it of his life. The forces he used to expend on the physical, astral, and mental planes, seeking things for his separated self, are now all gathered
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up in one act of sacrifice, and, transmuted thereby into spiritual energy, they pour down upon the world as spiritual life. This transmutation is wrought by the motive which determines the plane on which the energy is set free. If a man's motive be the gain of physical objects, the energy liberated works only on the physical plane; if he desire astral objects, he liberates energy on the astral plane; if he seek mental joys, his energy functions on the mental plane; but if he sacrifice himself to be a channel of the Logos, he liberates energy on the spiritual plane, and it works everywhere with the potency and keenness of a spiritual force. For such a man action and inaction are the same ; for he does everything while doing nothing, he does nothing while doing everything. For him, high and low, great and small are the same; he fills any place that needs filling, and the Logos is alike in every place and in every action. He can flow into any form, he can work along any line, he knows not any longer choice or difference; his life by sacrifice has been made one with the life of the Logos — he sees God in everything and everything in God. How then can place or form make to him any difference? He no longer identifies himself with form, but is self-con- scious Life. "Having nothing, he possesseth all things;" asking for nothing, everything flows into him. His life is bliss, for he is one with his Lord, who is Beatitude ; and, using form for service with- out attachment to it, ''he has put an end to pain." Those who grasp something of the wonderful pos-
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sibilities which open out before us as we voluntarily associate ourselves with the law of sacrifice will wish to begin that voluntary association long ere they can rise to the heights just dimly sketched. Like other deep spiritual truths, it is eminently prac- tical in its application to daily life, and none who feel its beauty need hesitate to begin to work with it. When a man resolves to begin the practice of sacrifice, he will train himself to open every day with an act of sacrifice, the offering of himself, ere the day's works begins, to Him to whom he gives his life; his first waking thought v/ill be this dedica- tion of all his power to his Lord. Then each thought, each word, each action in daily life will be done as a sacrifice — not for its fruit, not even as duty, but as the way in which, at the moment, his Lord can be served. All that comes will be accepted as the ex- pression of His will ; joys, troubles, anxieties, suc- cesses, failures, all to him are welcome as marking out his path of service ; he w^ill take each happily as it comes and offer it as a sacrifice ; he will loose each happily as it goes, since its going shows that his Lord has no longer need for it. Any powers he has he gladly uses for service; when they fail him, he takes their failure with happy equanimity; since they are no longer available he cannot give them. Even suffering that springs from past causes not yet exhausted can be changed into a voluntary sacrifice by welcoming it ; taking possession of it by willing it, a man may oft'er it as a gift, changing it by this motive into a spiritual force. Every human life 19
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offers countless opportunities for this practice of the law of sacrifice, and every human life becomes a power as these opportunities are seized and utilized. Without any expansion of his waking consciousness, a man may thus become a worker on the spiritual planes, liberating energy there which pours down into the lower worlds. His self-surrender here in the lower consciousness, imprisoned as it is in the body, calls out responsive thrills of life from the buddhic aspect of the Monad which is his true Self, and hastens the time when that Monad shall become the spiritual Ego, self-moved and ruling all his vehicles, using each of them at will as needed for the work that is to be done. In no way con prog- ress be made so rapidly, and the manifestation of all the powers latent in the Monad be brought about so quickly, as by the understanding and the practice of the law of sacrifice. Therefore was it called by a Master, "The law of evolution for the man." It has indeed profounder and more mystic aspects than any touched on here, but these will unveil them- selves without words to the patient and loving heart whose life is all a sacrificial offering. There are things that are heard only in stillness ; there are teachings that can be uttered only by "the Voice of the Silence." Among these are the deeper truths rooted in the law of sacrifice.
• CHAPTER XL Man's Ascent.
So stupendous is the ascent up which some men have cHmbed, and some are climbing, that when we scan it by an effort of the imagination we are apt to recoil, wearied in thought by the mere idea of that long journey. From the embryonic soul of the low- est savage to the liberated and triumphant perfected spiritual soul of the divine man — it seems scarcely credible that the one can contain in it all that is ex- pressed in the other, and that the difference is but a difference in evolution, that one is only at the begin- ning and the other at the end of man's ascent. Be- low the one stretch the long ranks of the sub-human — the animals, vegetables, minerals, elemental es- sences ; above the other stretch the infinite grada- tions of the superhuman — the Chohans, Manus, Bud- dhas. Builders, Lipikas ; who may name or number the hosts of the mighty Ones? Looked at thus, as a stage in a yet vaster life, the many steps within the human kingdom shrink into a narrower compass, and man's ascent is seen as comprising but one grade in evolution in the linked lives that stretch from the elemental essence onwards to the manifested God.
We have traced man's ascent from the appearance
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of the embryonic soul to the state of the spiritually advanced, through the stages of evolving conscious- ness from the life of sensation to the life of thought. We have seen him re-tread the cycle of birth and death in the three v^orlds, each world yielding him its harvest and offering him opportunities for prog- ress. We are now in a position to follow him into the final stages of his human evolution, stages that lie in the future for the vast bulk of our humanity, but that have already been trodden by its eldest chil- dren, and that are being trodden by a slender num- ber of men and women in our own day.
These stages have been classified under two head- ings— the first are spoken of as constituting "the probationary Path," while the later ones are included in "the Path proper" or "the Path of discipleship." We will take them in their natural order.
As a man's intellectual, moral, and spiritual nature develops, he becomes more and more conscious of the purpose of human life, and more and more eager to accomplish that purpose in his own person. Re- peated longings for earthly joys, followed by full possession and by subsequent weariness, have grad- ually taught him the transient and unsatisfactory na- ture of earth's best gifts ; so often has he striven for, gained, enjoyed, been satiated, and finally nauseated, that he turns away discontented from all that earth can offer. "What doth it profit?" sighs the wearied soul. "All is vanity and vexation. Hundreds, yea, thousands of times have I possessed, and finally have found disappointment even in possession. These
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joys are illusions, as bubbles on the stream, fairy- colored, rainbow-hued, but bursting at a touch. I am athirst for realities ; I have had enough of shad- ows ; I pant for the eternal and the true, for free- dom from the limitations that hem me in, that keep me a prisoner amid these changing shows."
This first cry of the soul for liberation is the re- sult of the realization that, were this earth all that poets have dreamed it, were every evil swept away, every sorrow put an end to, every joy intensified, every beauty enhanced, were everything raised to its point of perfection, he would still be aweary of it, would turn from it void of desire. It has become to him a prison, and, let it be decorated as it may, he pants for the free and limitless air beyond its in- closing walls. Nor is heaven more attractive to him than earth ; of that too he is aweary ; its joys have lost their attractiveness, even its intellectual and emotional delights no longer satisfy. They also ''come and go, impermanent," like the contacts of the senses ; they are limited, transient, unsatisfying. He is tired of the changing; from very weariness he cries out for liberty.
Sometimes this realization of the worthlessness of earth and heaven is at first but as a flash in con- sciousness, and the external worlds reassert their em- pire and the glamour of their illusive joys again laps the soul into content. Some lives even may pass, full of noble work and unselfish achievement, of pure thoughts and lofty deeds, ere this realization of the emptiness of all that is phenomenal becomes the
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permanent attitude of the soul. But sooner or later the soul once and for ever breaks with earth and heaven as incompetent to satisfy his needs, and this definite turning away from the transitory, this defi- nite will to reach the eternal, is the gateway to the probationary Path. The soul steps off the highway of evolution to breast the steeper climb up the moun- tain side, resolute to escape from the bondage of earthly and heavenly lives, and to reach the freedom of the upper air.
The work which has to be accomplished by the man who enters on the probationary Path is entirely mental and moral; he has to bring himself up to the point at which he will be fit to ''meet his Master face to face" : but the very words "his Master" need ex- planation. There are certain great Beings belong- ing to our race who have completed Their human evolution, and to whom allusion has already been made as constituting a Brotherhood, and as guiding and forwarding the development of the race. These great Ones, the Masters, voluntarily incarnate in human bodies in order to form the connecting link between human and superhuman beings, and They permit those who fulfil certain conditions to become Their disciples, with the object of hastening their evolution and thus qualifying themselves to enter the great Brotherhood, and to assist in its glorious and beneficent Vvork for man.
The Masters ever watch the race, and mark any who by the practice of virtue, by unselfish labor for human good, by intellectual effort turned to the ser-
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vice of man, by sincere devotion, piety, and purity, draw ahead of the mass of their fellows, and render themselves capable of receiving spiritual assistance beyond that shed down on mankind as a whole. If an individual is to receive special help he must show special receptivity. For the Masters are the distrib- utors of the spiritual energies that help on human evolution, and the use of these for the swifter growth of a single soul is only permitted when that soul shows a capacity for rapid progress and can thus be quickly fitted to become a helper of the race, returning to it the aid that had been afforded to himself. When a man by his ov/n efforts, utilizing to the full all the general help coming to him through religion and philosophy, has struggled on- wards to the front of the advancing human wave, and when he shov/s a loving selfless, helpful nature, then he becomes a special object of attention to the watchful Guardians of the race, and opportunities are put in his way to test his strength and call forth his intuition. In proportion as he successfully uses these he is yet further helped, and glimpses are afforded to him of the true life, until the unsatis- factory and unreal nature of mundane existence presses more and more on the soul, with the result already mentioned — the weariness which makes him long for freedom and brings him to the gateway of the probationary Path.
His entrance on this Path places him in the posi- tion of a disciple or chela, on probation, and some one Master takes him under His care, recognizing
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him as a man who has stepped out of the highway of evolution, and seeks the Teacher who shall guide his steps along the steep and narrow path which leads to liberation. That Teacher is awaiting him at the very entrance of the Path, and even though the neophyte knows not his Teacher, his Teacher knows him, sees his efforts, directs his steps, leads him into the conditions that best subserve his prog- ress, w^atching over him with the tender solicitude of a mother, and with the wisdom born of perfect insight. The road may seem lonely and dark, and the young disciple may fancy himself deserted, but a "friend who sticketh closer than a brother" is ever at hand, and the help withheld from the senses is given to the soul.
There are four definite ''qualifications" that the probationary chela must set himself to acquire, that are by the wisdom of the great Brotherhood laid down as the conditions of full discipleship. They are not asked for in perfection, but they must be striven for and partially possessed ere Initiation is permitted. The first of these is the discrimination between the real and the unreal which has been already dawning on the mind of the pupil, and which drew him to the Path on which he has now entered ; the distinction growls clear and sharply defined in his mind, and gradually frees him to a great extent from the fetters w^hich bind him, for the second qualification, indifference to external things, comes naturally in the wake of discrimina- tion, from the clear perception of their worthless-
the: real and tiiiv unreal 297
ness. He learns that the weariness which took all the savor out of life was due to the disappoint- ments constantly arising from his search for satis- faction in the unreal, when only the real can con- tent the soul ; that all forms are unreal and without stability, changing ever under the impulses of life, and that nothing is real but the one Life that we seek for and love unconsciously under its many veils. This discrimination is much stimulated by the rap- idly changing circumstances into which a disciple is generally thrown, with the viev/ of pressing on him strongly the instability of all external things. The lives of a disciple are generally lives of storm and stress, in order that the qualities which are normally evolved in a long succession of lives in the three worlds may in him be forced into swift growth and quickly brought to perfection. As he alternates rap- idly from joy to sorrow, from peace to storm, from rest to toil, he learns to see in the changes the un- real forms, and to feel through all a steady un- changing life. He grows indifferent to the presence or the absence of things that thus come and go, and more and more he fixes his gaze on the changeless reality that is ever present.
While he is thus gaining in insight and stability he works also at the development of the third quali- fication— the six mental attributes that are de- manded from him ere he may enter on the Path itself. He need not possess them all perfectly, but he must have them all partially present at least ere he will be permitted to pass onward. First he must
298 THIv ANCIENT WISDOM
gain control over his thoughts, the progeny of the restless, unruly mind, hard to curb as the wind.* Steady, daily practice in meditation, in concentra- tion, had begun to reduce this mental rebel to order ere he entered on the probationary Path, and the dis- ciple now works with concentrated energy to com- plete the task, knowing that the great increase in thought power that will accompany his rapid growth will prove a danger both to others and to himself unless the developing force be thoroughly under his control. Better give a child dynamite as a plaything, than place the creative powers of thought in the hands of the selfish and the ambitious. Secondly, the young chela must add outward self-control to inner, and must rule his speech and his actions as rigidly as he rules his thoughts. As the mind obeys the soul, so must the lower nature obey the mind. The usefulness of the disciple in the outer world de- pends as much on the pure and noble example set by his visible Hfe, as his usefulness in the inner world depends on the steadiness and strength of his thoughts. Often is good work marred by careless- ness in this lower part of human activity, and the aspirant is bidden strive towards an ideal perfect in every part, in order that he may not later, when treading the Path, stumble in his own walk and cause the enemy to blaspheme.
As already said, perfection in anything is not de- manded at this stage, but the wise pupil strives towards perfection, knowing that at his best he is
* Bhagavad Gita, vi. 34.
EACH IN HIS PLACE 299
still far away from his ideal. Thirdly, the candidate for full discipleship seeks to build into himself the sublime and far-reaching virtue of tolerance — the quiet acceptance of each man, each form of exist- ence, as it is, without demand that it should be some- thing other, shaped more to his own liking. Begin- ning to realize that the one Life takes on countless limitations, each right in its own place and time, he accepts each limited expression of that Life without wishing to transform it into something else ; he learns to revere the wisdom which planned this world and which guides it, and to view with wide- eyed serenity the imperfect parts as they slowly work out their partial lives. The drunkard, learning his alphabet of the suffering caused by the dominance of the lower nature, is doing as usefully in his own stage as is the saint in his, completing his last lesson in earth's school, and no more can justly be de- manded from either than he is able to perform. One is in the kindergarten stage, learning by object- lessons, while the other is graduating, ready to leave his university; both are right for their age and their place, and should be helped and sympathized with in their place. This is one of the lessons of what is known in occultism as "tolerance." Fourthly must be developed endurance, the endurance that cheer- fully bears all and resents nothing, going straight onwards unswervingly to the goal. Nothing can come to him but by the Law, and he knows the Law is good. He understands that the rocky path- way that leads up the mountain-side straight to the
300 THE ANCIENT WISDOM
siinimit cannot be as easy to his feet as the well- beaten winding highway. He realizes that he is paying in a few short lives all the karmic obligations accumulated during his past, and that the payments must be correspondingly heavy. The very strug- gles into which he is plunged develop in him the fifth attribute, faith — faith in his Master and in himself, a serene strong confidence that is unshakable. He learns to trust in the wisdom, the love, the power of his Master, and he is beginning to realize — not only to say he believes in — the Divinity within his own heart, able to subdue all things to Himself. The last mental requisite, balance, equilibrium, grows up to some extent without conscious efifort dur- ing the striving after the preceding five. The very setting of the will to tread the Path is a sign that the higher nature is opening out, and that the external world is definitely relegated to a lower place. The continuous efiforts to lead the life of discipleship disentangle the soul from any remain- ing ties that may knit it to the world of sense, for the withdrawal of the soul's attention from lower obpects gradually exhausts the attractive power of those objects. They ''turn away from an abstemious dweller in the body,""^ and soon lose all power to disturb this balance. Thus he learns to move amid them undisturbed, neither seeking nor rejecting any. He also learns balance amid mental troubles of every kind, amid alternations of mental joy and mental pain, this balance being further taught by * Bhagavad Gita, ii. 59
RliADY FOR LIBERATION 301
the swift changes already spoken of through which his Hfe is guided by the ever-watchful care of his Master.
These six mental attributes being in some meas- ure attained, the probationary chela needs further but the fourth qualification, the deep intense long- ing for liberation, that yearning of the soul towards union with Deity that is the promise of its own ful- filment. This adds the last touch to his readiness to enter into full discipleship, for, once that longing has definitely asserted itself, it can never again be eradicated, and the soul that has felt it can never again quench his thirst at earthly fountains ; their waters will ever taste flat and vapid when he sips them, so that he will turn away with ever-deepening longing for the true water of life. At this stage he is *'the man ready for Initiation," ready to definitely "enter the stream" that cuts him ofif forever from the interests of earthly life save as he can serve his Master in them and help forward the evolution of the race. Henceforth his life is not to be the life of separateness ; it is to be ofifered up on the altar of humanity, a glad sacrifice of all he is, to be used for the common good.*
During the years spent in evolving the four quali- fications, the probationary chela will have been ad- vancing in many other respects. He will have beer receiving from his Master much teaching, teaching usually imparted during the deep sleep of the body ; the soul, clad in his well-organized astral body, will
* The student will be glad to have the technical names of
302 THE ANCIIiNT WISDOM
have become used to it as a vehicle of consciousness, and will have been drawn to his Master to receive instruction and spiritual illumination. He will fur- ther have been trained in meditation, and this effec- tive practice outside the physical body will have quickened and brought into active exercise many of the higher powers ; during such meditation he will have reached higher regions of being, learning more of the life of the mental plane. He will have been taught to use his increasing powers in human service, and during many of the hours of sleep for the body he will have been working diligently on the astral plane, aiding the souls that have passed on to it by death, comforting the victims of acci- dents, teaching any less instructed than himself, and in countless ways helping those who need it, thus in
these stages in Sanskrit and Pali, so that he may be able to follow them out in more advanced books :
Sanskrist (used by Hindus). Pali (used by Buddhists).
1. Viveka; discrimination be- 1. Manodva- the opening of the
tween the real and ravajjana; doors of the mind;
the unreal. a conviction of the
. ,._ X ,1 impermanence of
2. vairagva; indmerence to the ^j^g earthly.
unreal, the tran- 2. Parikamma; preparation for ac-
sitory. tion; indifference
to the fruits of
Slja>}w; control of action.
thought. 3. Upacharo; attention or con-
Daina; control of duct; divided un-
j conduct. der the same
3. Shatsam / Uparati; tolerance, headings as in
p.\TTi. ]Titiksha; endur- the Hindu, ance. Shraddha; faith. Samadhana; bal-
^"c^" 4. Anuloma; direct order or suc-
i. Mumuksha; desire for libera- cession, its attain-
tion. ment following
on the other three.
Tlie man is then the Afihikari. The man is then the Gotrabhu.
SPECIAL re:incarnation 303
humble fashion aiding the beneficent work of the Masters, and being associated with Their sublime Brotherhood as a co-laborer in a however modest and lowly degree.
Either on the probationary Path or later, the chela is offered the privilege of performing one of those acts of renunciation which mark the swifter ascent of man. He is allowed ''to renounce Devachan," that is, to resign the glorious life in the heavenly places that awaits him on his liberation from the physical world, the life which in his case would mostly be spent in the middle ariipa world, in the company of the Masters, and in all the sublime joys of the purest wisdom and love. If he renounce this fruit of his noble and devoted life, the spiritual forces that would have been expended in his Deva- chan are set free for the general service of the world, and he himself remains in the astral region to await a speedy rebirth upon earth. His Master in this case selects and presides over his reincarnation, guiding him to take birth amid conditions conducive to his usefulness in the world, suitable for his own further progress and for the work required at his hands. He has reached the stage at which every individual interest is subordinated to the divine work, and in which his v/ill is fixed to serve in what- ever place and in whatever way may be required of him. He therefore gladly surrenders himself into the hands he trusts, accepting willingly and joyfully the place in the v/orld in which he can best render service, and perform his share of the glorious work
304 THK ANCIENT WISDOM
of aiding the evolution of humanity. Blessed is the family into which a child is born tenanted by such a soul, a soul that brings with him the benediction of the Master and is ever watched and guided, every possible assistance being given him to bring his lower vehicles quickly under control. Occasionally, but rarely, a chela may reincarnate in a body that has passed through infancy and extreme youth as the tabernacle of a less progressed Ego; when an Ego comes to the earth for a very brief life-period, say for some fifteen or twenty years, he will be leaving his body at the time of dawning manhood, when it has passed through the time of early train- ing and is rapidly becoming an effective vehicle for the soul. If such a body be a very good one, and some chela be awaiting a suitable reincarnation, it will often be watched during its tenancy by the Ego for whom it was originally builded, with the view of utilizing it when he has done with it ; when the life-period of that Ego is completed, and he passes out of the body into Kamaloka on his way to Deva- chan, his cast-off body will be taken possession of by the waiting chela, a new tenant will enter the deserted house, and the apparently dead body will revive. Such cases are unusual, but are not un- knovvU to occultists, and some references to them may be found in occult books.
Whether the incarnation be normal or abnormal, the progress of the soul, of the chela himself, con- tinues, and the period already spoken of is reached vv'hen he is "ready for Initiation" ; through that
the: key of knowlh:dge 305
gateway of Initiation he enters, as a definitely ac- cepted chela, on the Path. This Path consists of four distinct stages, and the entrance into each is guarded by an Initiation. Each Initiation is accom- panied by an expansion of consciousness which gives what is called "the key of knowledge" belong- ing to the stage to which it admits, and this key of knowledge is also a key of power, for truly is knowl- edge power in all the realms of Nature. When the chela has entered the Path he becomes what has been called "the houseless man,"* for he no longer looks on earth as his home, he has no abiding-place here, to him all places are welcome wherein he can serve his Master. While he is on this stage of the Path there are three hindrances to progress, techni- cally called "fetters," which he has to get rid of, and now — as he is rapidly to perfect himself — it is demanded from him that he shall entirely eradicate faults of character, and perform completely the tasks belonging to his condition. The three fetters that he must loose from his limbs ere he can pass the second Initiation are : the illusion of the per- sonal self, doubt, and superstition. The personal self must be felt in consciousness as an illusion, and must lose forever its power to impose itself on the soul as a reality. He must feel himself one with all, all must live and breathe in him and he in all.
* The Hindu calls this stage that of the Parivrajaka, the wanderer; the Buddhist calls it that of the Srotapatti, he who has reached the stream. The chela is thus designated after his first Initiation and before his second. 20
306 THK ANCIENT WISDOM
Doubt must be destroyed, but by knowledge, not by crushing out ; he must know reincarnation and karma and the existence of the Masters as facts; not accepting them as intellectually necessary, but know- ing them as facts in Nature that he has himself verified, so that no doubt on these heads can ever again rise in his mind. Superstition is escaped as the man rises into a knowledge of realities, and of the proper place of rites and ceremonies in the economy of Nature ; he learns to use every means and to be bound by none. When the chela has cast off these fetters — sometimes the task occupies several lives, sometimes it is achieved in part of a single life — he finds the second Initiation open to him, with its new "key of knowledge" and its widened horizon. The chela now sees before him a swiftly shortening span of compulsory life on earth, for when he has reached this stage he must pass through his third and fourth Initiations in his present life or in the next.*
In this stage he has to bring into full working order the inner faculties, those belonging to the subtle bodies, for he needs them for his service in the higher realms of being. If he have developed them previously, this stage may be a very brief one, but he may pass through the gateway of death once more ere he is ready to receive his third Initiation,
* The chela on the second stage of the path is for the Hindu the Kutichaka, the man who builds a hut ; he has reached a place of peace. For the Buddhist he is the Sakridagamin, the man who receives birth but once more.
the: final stages 307
to become "the Swan," the individual who soars into the empyrean, that wondrous Bird of Life whereof so many legends are related.* On this third stage of the Path the chela casts off the fourth and fifth fetters, those of desire and aversion; he sees the One Self in all, and the outer veil can no longer blind him, whether it be fair or foul. He looks on all with an equal eye; that fair bud of tolerance that he cherished on the probationary Path now flowers out into an all-embracing love that wraps everything within its tender embrace. He is "the friend of every creature," the "lover of all that lives" in a world where all things live. As a living embodi- ment of divine love, he passes swiftly onwards to the fourth Initiation, that admits him to the last stage of the Path, where he is "beyond the Individ- ual," the worthy, the venerable. f Here he remains at his will, casting off the last fine fetters that still bind him with threads however fragile, and keep him back from liberation. He throws off all cling- ing to life in form, and then all longing for formless life ; these are chains and he must be chainless ; he may move through the three worlds, but not a shred of theirs must have power to hold him; the splen- dors of the "formless world" must charm him no more than the concrete glories of the worlds of
* The Hindu calls him the Paramahamsa, beyond the "I" ; the Buddhist names him the Arhat, the worthy.
t The Hamsa, he who realizes "I am That," in the Hindu terms ; the Anagaman, the man who receives birth no more, in the Buddhist.
308 THE ANCIENT WISDOM
form.* Then — mightiest of all achievements — he casts off the last fetter of separateness, the "I-mak- ing" facultyf which realizes itself as apart from others, for he dwells ever on the plane of unity in his waking consciousness, on the buddhic plane where the Self of all is known and realized as one. This faculty was born with the soul, is the essence of in- dividuality, and it persists till all that is valuable in it is worked into the Monad, and it can be dropped on the threshold of liberation, leaving its priceless result to the Monad, that sense of individual identity which is so pure and fine that it does not mar the consciousness of oneness. Easily then drops away aught that could respond to ruffling contacts, and the chela stands robed in that glorious vesture of unchanging peace that naught can mar. And the casting away of that same "I-making" faculty has cleared away from the spiritual vision the last clouds that could dim its piercing insight, and in the realization of unity, ignorance^ — the limitation that gives birth to all separateness — falls away, and the man is perfect, is free.
Then has come the ending of the Path, and the ending of the Path is the threshold of Nirvana. Into that marvellous state of consciousness the
* See Chapter IV., on "The Mental Plane."
t Ahamkara, generally given as Mana, pride, since pride is the subtlest manifestation of the "I" as distinct from others.
t Avidya, the first illusion and the last, that which makes the separated worlds — the first of the Nidanas — and that which drops off when liberation is attained.
IT IS FINISHED 309
chela has been wont to pass out of the body while he has been traversing the final stage of the Path ; now, when he crosses the threshold, the nirvanic consciousness becomes his normal consciousness, for Nirvana is the home of the liberated Self.* He has completed man's ascent, he touches the limit of hu- manity; above him there stretch hosts of mighty Beings, but they are superhuman ; the crucifixion in flesh is over, the hour of liberation has struck, and the triumphant "It is finished!" rings from the conquerors lips. See ! he has crossed the threshold, he has vanished into the light nirvanic, another son of earth has conquered death. What mysteries are veiled by that light supernal we know not ; dimly we feel that the Supreme Self is found, that lover and Beloved are one. The long search is over, the thirst of the heart is quenched forever, he has en- tered into the joy of his Lord.
But has earth lost her child, is humanity bereft of her triumphant son ? Nay ! He has come forth from the bosom of the light, and He standeth again on the threshold of Nirvana, Himself seeming the very embodiment of that light, glorious beyond all telling, a manifested Son of God. But now His face is turned to earth, His eyes beam with divinest com- passion on the wandering sons of men. His brethren after the flesh ; He cannot leave them comfortless, scattered as sheep without a shepherd. -Clothed in the majesty of a mighty renunciation, glorious with
* The Jivanmukta, the liberated life, of the Hindu ; the Asekha, he who has no more to learn, of the Buddhist.
310 the: ancient wisdom
the strength of perfect wisdom and *'the power of an endless Hfe," He returns to earth to bless and guide humanity, Master of Wisdom, kingly Teacher, divine Man.
Returning thus to earth, the Master devotes Him- self to the service of humanity with mightier forces at His command than He wielded while He trod the Path of discipleship ; He has dedicated Himself to the helping of man, and He bends all the sublime powers that He holds to the quickening of the evo- lution of the world. He pays to those who are ap- proaching the Path the debt He contracted in the day of His own chelaship, guiding, helping, teach- ing them as He was guided, helped, and taught before.
Such are the stages of man's ascent, from the low- est savagery to the divine manhood. To such goal is humanity climbing, to such glory shall the race attain.