THE SACRED CITY OF SHAMBALLA
In every mythology and legendary religion of the world there is one spot
that is sacred above all others to the great ideal of that religion. To
the Norseman it was Valhalla, the City of the Slain, built of the spears
of heroes, where feasting and warfare was the order of the day. Here the
heroes fought all day and reveled by night. Every day they killed the
wild boar and feasted on it, and the next day it came to life again.
In the Northland they tell that Valhalla was high on the top of the
mountains, and that it was connected to the earth below by Befrost, the
Rainbow Bridge; that up and down this bridge the Gods came, and Odin, the
All-father, came down from Asgard, the City of the Gods, and worked and
labored with mankind.
Among the Greeks, Mount Olympus was held sacred, and here the gods are
said to have lived high on the top of a mountain. The Knights of the
Grail are said to have had their castle among the crags and peaks of
Northern Spain on Mount Salvart. In every religion of the world there is
a sacred spot: Meru of the oriental, and Mount Moriah and Mount Sinai
(upon which the tablets of law were given to man); all those are symbols
of one universal ideal, and as each of these religions claimed among the
clouds a castle and a home, so it is said that all the religions of the
world have their headquarters in Shamballa, the Sacred City in the Gobi
Desert of Mongolia.
Among the oriental peoples there are wonderful legends of this sacred
city, where it is said the Great White Lodge or Brotherhood meets to
carry on the governing of world affairs. As the Assirs of Scandinavia
were twelve in number, as Olympus had twelve gods, so the Great White
Brotherhood is said to have twelve members, which meet in Shamballa and
direct the affairs of men. It is said that this center of universal
religion descended upon the earth when the polar cap, which was the first
part of the earth to crystallize, became solid enough to support life.
Science now knows that not only does the earth have two motions, that of
rotation upon its axis and revolution around the sun, but that it has
nine other motions, according to Flammarion, the French astronomer. One
of these motions is that of the alternation of the poles; in other words,
some day that part of the earth’s surface which is now the North Pole
will become the South Pole. Therefore it is said that the Sacred City
has left its central position and after much wandering is now located in
Mongolia.
Those who are acquainted with the Mohammedan religion will see something
of great interest in the pilgrimage to the Kabba at Mecca, where
thousands go each year to give honor to the Stone of Abraham, the great
aerolight, upon which Mohammed is said to have rested his foot. Old and
young alike, some even carried, wind through desert sands and endure
untold hardships, many coming from great distances, to visit the place
they cherish and love. In India we find the same thing. There are many
sacred places to which pilgrims go, even as the Templars went in our
Christian religion to the Sepulcher of Christ. Few see in this anything
more than an outward symbol, but the true student recognizes the great
esoteric truth contained therein. The spiritual consciousness in man is a
pilgrim on the way to Mecca. As this consciousness passes upward through
the centers and nerves of the body, it is like the pilgrim, climbing the
heights of Sinai, or the Knight of the Grail returning to Mount Salvart.
When the spinal fire of man starts upward in its wanderings, it stops at
many shrines and visits many holy places, for like the Masonic brother
and his Jacob’s Ladder, the way that leads to heaven is upward and
inward. The spinal fire goes through the centers or seed ground of many
great principles, and worships at the shrine of many Divine Essences
within itself, but it is eternally going upward, and finally it reaches
the great desert. Only after pain and suffering and long labor does it
cross that waste of sand. This is the Gethsemane of the higher man, but
finally he crosses the sacred desert, and before him in the heart of the
Lotus rises the Golden City, Shamballa.
[Illustration: The Lotus:
May your consciousness be lifted upward through the Tree of Life within
yourself until in the brain it blossoms forth as the Lotus, that rising
from the darkness of the lower world, lifts its flower to catch the rays
of the Sun.]
[Illustration: FRONTAL SINUS]
In the spreading of the bone between the eyes called the frontal sinus,
is the seat of the divine in man. There, in a peculiar gaseous material,
floats, or rather exists, or is, the fine essence which we know as the
Spirit. This is the Lost City in the Sacred Desert, connected to the
lower world by the Rainbow Bridge, or the Silver Cord, and it is to this
point in himself that the student is striving to rise. This is the Sacred
Pilgrimage of the Soul, in which the individual leaves the lower man and
the world below and climbs upward into the Higher Man or Higher World,
the brain. This is the great pilgrimage to Shamballa, and as that great
city is the center for the direction of our earth, so the corresponding
great city in man is the center for his governmental system.
[Illustration: The Rod That Budded:
The buds in the Rod are the seven centers within yourself, which when you
develop their spiritual powers shine out as centers of fire within your
own being. The ancients have taken flowers to symbolize these centers,
which when they shine out show that the dead stick, cut from the Tree of
Life, has budded.]
When any other thing governs man, he is not attuned to his own higher
self, and it is only when the gods, representing the higher principle,
come down the Rainbow Bridge and labor with him, teaching him the arts
and sciences, that he is truly receiving his divine birthright. In the
Orient the student looks forward with eager longing to the time when he
shall be allowed to worship before the gates of the sacred city; when he
also shall see the Initiates in silent conclave around the circular table
of the zodiac; when the veil of Isis shall be torn away, and the cover
lifted from the Grail Cup.
Let the student remember that all of these things must first happen
within himself before he can find them in the universe without. The
twelve Elder Brothers within himself must first be reached and understood
before those of the universe can be comprehended. If he would find the
great Initiates without, he must first find them within; and if he would
see that Sacred City in the Lotus Blossom, he must first open that Lotus
within himself, which he does, petal by petal, when he purifies and
attunes himself to the higher principles within. The Lotus is the spinal
column once more; its roots, deep in materiality; its blossom, the brain;
and only when he sends upward nourishment and power, can that Lotus
blossom within himself--blossom forth with its many petals, giving out
their spiritual fragrance.
Sometimes you will see in store windows funny little Chinese gods or
oriental Buddhas sitting on the blossom of a lotus. In fact, if you
look carefully, you will find that nearly all of the oriental gods are
so depicted. This means that they have opened within themselves that
Spiritual Consciousness which they call the Shushuma. You have seen the
funny little hats worn by the Hindu gods. They are made to represent a
flower upside down, and once more, like the rod of Aaron that budded, we
see the reference made to the unfolding of consciousness within. When
the lotus blossom has reached maturity, it drops its seed, and from
this seed new plants are produced. It is the same within the spiritual
consciousness, which, when the plant is finished and its work is done, is
released to work and produce other things.
In the Western World the lotus has been changed to the rose. The roses
of the Rosicrucian, the roses of the Masonic degrees, and also those of
the Order of the Garter in England, all stand for the same thing, the
awakening of consciousness and the unfolding into full bloom of the soul
qualities of man. When man awakens and opens this bud within himself,
he finds, like the gold pollen in a flower, this wonderful spiritual
city, Shamballa, in the heart of the lotus. When this pilgrimage of his
spiritual fire is accomplished, he is liberated from the top of the
mountain, as in the ascension of Christ, and the spiritual man, freed
by his pilgrimage from the Wheel of Bondage, rises upward from among
his disciples, the convolutions of the brain, with the great cry of the
Initiate, which has sounded through the Mystery Schools for ages when
the purified student goes onward and upward to become a pillar in the
temple of his God. With that last cry the true mystery of Shamballa, the
sacred city, is understood and he joins the ranks of those who in white
robes of purity, their own soul bodies, gaze down upon the world and see
others liberated in the same way, and who also sound the eternal tocsin,
“consumatum est” (it is finished).
[Illustration]
[Illustration: The Philosopher’s Stone:
This is the true stone of the philosopher, which gives him power over all
created things. This stone is himself. The experiences of his evolution
have cut and polished the rough stone until in the Initiate it reflects
the light of creation from a thousand different facets.]