METHODS OF ATTAINMENT: THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION
Oriental philosophies recognize four important methods of yoga.
Yoga is the word which signifies "uniting with God." From what has gone
before in these pages, the reader will understand that unity with God means
to us, the uncovering of the god-nature within or above, the human
personality; it means the attainment and retainment in _fullness_ of cosmic
consciousness. We do not believe that any one retains full and complete
realization of cosmic consciousness and remains in the physical body. The
numerous instances to which we allude in former chapters, are at best, but
temporary flights into that state, which is the goal of the soul's
pilgrimage, and the only means of escape from the "ceaseless round of
births and deaths" which so weighed upon the heart of Gautama.
The paths of yoga then, are the methods by which the mind, in the personal
self, is made to perceive the reality of the higher Self, and its relation
to the Supreme Intelligence--The Absolute.
The various methods or paths are pointed out, but no one, nor all of these
paths guarantees illumination as a _reward_ for diligence. That which is in
the _heart_ of the disciple is the key that unlocks the door.
These paths are called:
_Karma Yoga; Raja Yoga; Gnani Yoga; Bhakti Yoga_.
_Karma Yoga_ is the path of cheerful submission to the conditions in which
the disciple finds himself, believing that those conditions are his because
of his needs, and in order that he may fulfill that which he has attracted
to himself. The admonition "whatever thy hand finds to do that doest thou
with all thy heart," sums up the lessons of the path of Karma Yoga. The
urge to achieve: to do; to accomplish; to strive and attain, actuates those
who have, whether with conscious intent, or because of a vague "inward
urge," devoted their lives to taking an active part in the material or
intellectual achievements of the race.
There are those who are blindly following (as far as their mental
operations are concerned), the path of Karma Yoga; that is, they work
without knowing why they work; they work because they are compelled to do
so, as slaves of the law; these will work their way out of that necessity
of fulfillment, in the course of time, even though they blindly follow the
urge; but, if they could be made to work as masters of the conditions under
which they labor, instead of as slaves to environment, they would find
themselves at the end of that path. Karma Yoga would have been
accomplished.
"Work as those work who are ambitious" but be not thou enslaved by the
delusion of personal ambition--this is the password to liberation from
Karma Yoga.
_Raja Yoga_ is the way of the strongly individualized _will_. "_Knowledge
is power_" is the hope which encourages the disciple on the path of Raja
Yoga. He seeks to master the personal self by meditation, by concentration
of will; by self discipline and sacrifice. When the ego gains complete
control over the mental faculties, so that the mind may be directed as the
individual will suggests, the student has mastered the path of Raja Yoga.
If his mastery is complete, he finds himself regarding his body as the
instrument of the Self, and the body and its functions are under the
guidance of the ego; the mind is the lever with which this Self raises the
consciousness from the lower to the higher vibrations. The student who has
mastered Raja Yoga can induce the trance state; control his dreams as well
as his waking thoughts; he may learn to practice magic in its higher
aspects, but unless he is extremely careful this power will tempt him to
use his knowledge for selfish or unworthy purposes.
Let the student of Raja Yoga bear in mind the one great and high purpose of
his efforts, which should be: the realization of his spiritual nature, and
the development of his individual self, so that it finally merges into the
spiritual Self, thus gaining immortality "in the flesh."
Does this "flesh" mean the physical body? Not necessarily, because this
that we see and name "the physical body" is not the real body, any more
than the clothing that covers it, is the person, although frequently we
recognize acquaintances _by their clothing_. Immortality in the flesh
means cessation from further incarnations, the last and present personality
including all others in consciousness, until we can say, "I, manifesting in
the physical, as so-and-so, am now and forever immortal, remembering other
manifestations which were not sufficiently complete, but which added to the
sum of my consciousness until now I _know myself a deathless being_."
To those who seek the path of Raja Yoga, we recommend meditation upon
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, of which there are several translations, differing
slightly as to interpretation. We have selected some of the most important,
from the translations by Johnston. They are designed to make clear the
difference between the self of personality, and the Self, or _atman_ which
manifests in personality:
"The personal self seeks to feast upon life, through a failure to perceive
the distinction between the personal self and the spiritual man. All
personal experience really exists for the sake of another: namely, the
spiritual man. By perfectly concentrated meditation on experience for the
sake of the Self, comes a knowledge of the spiritual man."
The wise person seeks experience in order that he may attain to the
standard of the spiritual man; doing all things for the lessons that they
teach; working "as those work who are ambitious," and yet having no
personal ambition. Looking on all life, and at the self of personality and
knowing the illusion of the self he is raising the personal self to the
spiritual plane; but always he has the handicap of the desires of the lower
self, the personal, which "seeks to feast on life," because it is born of
the external, and its inherent appetites are for the satisfaction and
pleasures of that physical self.
We do not say to look upon the body with its needs and its desires, as an
enemy to be overcome; or that its allurements are dangerous although
pleasurable. No. We say to the student, "control the desires of the body.
Make them do the bidding of the Self, because it is only by so doing that
you can gain the immortal heights of god-hood, looking down upon the
fleeting dream of personality, with its so-called pleasures, as a bad
nightmare compared to the joys that await the immortals."
Therefore, concentrate upon experience for the sake of the Self that you
are, and learn the lesson of your experience, throwing aside the experience
itself, as you would cast aside the skin of an orange from which the juice
had been extracted. Don't fill the areas of your mortal mind with
rubbish--with memories of "benefits forgot;" or loves unrequited; or
friendships broken; or misspent hours; or unhallowed words and acts.
Cull from each day's experience all that helps to develop the spiritual
man--all that will stand the test of immortality--kind words and deeds;
principle maintained; a wrong forgiven; a service cheerfully extended; a
tolerance and generosity for the mistakes of others as well as for your
own. These seem small things to the personal self--the ambitious, the
gloating, the sense-desiring self of the personality; we scarcely take them
into account, but to the Self that is seeking immortality, these are the
grains of wheat from the load of chaff; the diamond in the carbon; the
wings upon which the spirit soars to realms of bliss.
_Meditate upon this sutra._
"By perfectly concentrated meditation upon the heart, the interior being,
comes the knowledge of consciousness."
The heart is the guide of the inner nature, as the head is of the outer.
Love, the Most High God, is not born in the head, but in the heart. The
heart travails in pain through sorrow and loss and compassion and pity and
loneliness and aspiration and sensitiveness; and lo! there is born from
this pain, the spiritual Self, which embraces the lesser consciousness,
enfolding all your consciousness in the softness and bliss of pure,
Seraphic Love--the heritage of your immortality.
_Meditate long and wisely upon this sutra._
"Through perfectly concentrated meditation on the light in the head, come
the visions of the Masters who have attained; or through the divining power
of intuition he knows all things."
There is a point in the head, anatomically named "the pineal gland"; this
is frequently alluded to as the seat of the soul, but the soul is not
confined within the body, therefore, it is in the nature of a key between
the sense-conscious self and the spiritually conscious Self; it is like a
central receiving station, and may be "called up," and aroused to
consciousness by meditation. Realizing and focusing the light of the
spiritual nature upon this part of the head, opens up those unexplored
areas of consciousness in which the masters dwell, and the student knows by
intuition, which is a higher aspect of reason, many things which were
heretofore incomprehensible to the merely sense-conscious man.
The spiritual Self is not a being unlike and wholly foreign to our concept
of the perfect mortal-man; all the powers of discernment which we find in
mortal consciousness are accentuated, intensified, refined; all grossness,
all imperfections and embarrassments removed; pleasure sensitized to
ecstasy; love glorified to worship. "Shapeliness, beauty, force, the temper
of the diamond; these are the endowments of that body."
The spiritual body is shapely, strong, beautiful, imperishable, as the
diamond, with all its brilliancy. No vapory, uncertain, or _unreal being_,
but the Real, with the husk of sense-consciousness dropped off, and only
the kernels of truth buried in the chaff of Experience, retained from the
experiences of the personal self.
"When the spiritual man is perfectly disentangled from the psychic body,
he attains to mastery over all things and to a knowledge of all."
The spiritual Self, the cosmic conscious Self, must not be confounded with
the psychic body, which is formed from the emotions--passions; fears;
hatreds; ambitions; resentments; envy; regrets. Know thyself as a being
superior to all baser emotions, and the mastery over them is complete. They
are not destroyed, but converted into love--the everlasting Source of Life.
"There should be complete overcoming of allurement or pride in the
invitations of the different regions of life, lest attachment to things
evil arise once more."
It is said that the disciples, seeking the paths of Yoga, reach three
degrees or stages of development; first, those who are just entering the
path; second, those who are in the realm of allurements, subject to
temptations; third, those who have won the victory over the senses and the
external life--_maya_; fourth, those who are firmly entrenched behind the
bulwark of certainty; the spiritual being realized: cosmic consciousness
attained and retained.
"By absence of all self indulgence at this point, also, the seeds of
bondage of sorrow are destroyed, and pure spiritual being is attained."
Self-abnegation and self-sacrifice have ever been the way of spiritual
development; but we are prone to misunderstand and mistake the true
interpretation of this admonition; men shut themselves in monasteries and
women become nuns and recluses _as a penance_, in order to purchase, as it
were, absolution (at-one-ness with The Absolute, which knows not sin); this
is not the point intended here. Spiritual consciousness can not be bought;
the desires of the personal self may be _sublimated_ into divine force and
power, through recognizing the desires of the self as baubles which attract
and fill the eye, until we fail to see the glories of that which awaits us.
"Thereafter, the whole personal being bends toward illumination, full of
the spirit of Eternal Life."
Here again, we have assurance that the spiritually-conscious man, the
"luminous body" is not a being apart from the self that we know our inner
nature to be, but rather it _is_ the inner Self even as we in our ignorance
and our lack of initiation, know it, raised to a higher realm of
consciousness; our desires refined, spiritualized, made pure, and our
faculties strengthened and immortalized. We do not withdraw from experience
but we draw from Experience the _lesson_--the hidden wisdom of the
initiate.
_Meditate upon these sutras._
"He who, after he has attained, is wholly free from self, is set in a cloud
of holiness which is called Illumination. This is the true spiritual
consciousness."
This aphorism is self-explanatory. He who attains illumination, and
afterward lives and acts from the inner consciousness--the _spiritual man_,
is free from the desires of the sense-conscious life, with its consequent
disappointments; he sees everything from the spiritual, rather than the
mental point of view, and understands the phrase "and behold, all was
good."
"_Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil._"
The one who has attained cosmic consciousness, acting always from the Self,
and not from personal desires, is set free from karma; he has fulfilled the
cycle; he makes no more bondage for himself; he is free and is already
immortal.
"When that condition of consciousness is reached, which is far-reaching,
and not confined to the body, which is outside the body and not conditioned
by it, then the veil which conceals the light is worn away."
The acquisition of spiritual consciousness, Illumination, endows the mortal
mind also, with a degree of power sufficient to penetrate the veil of
illusion--the _maya_; the disciple then sees for the first time, all things
in their true light. The separation between the personal self, and the
spiritual being that we are, is so fine as to be like a cob-web veil, and
yet how few penetrate it. The suddenness with which this awakening (for it
is like awakening from a dream of the senses), comes, startles and
surprises us, and then we become astonished at the transparency of the
bonds that bound us to the limitations of the mortal, when we might have
soared to realms of light.
"By perfectly concentrated meditation on the correlation of the body with
the ether, and by thinking of it as light as thistle-down, will come the
power to traverse the ether."
The Zens say that the way of the gods is through the air and afterwards in
the ether. This means that we must evolve from the physical to the psychic,
and thence to the etheric or spiritual body. This is the way of the many.
It is only the few who attain to perfect spiritual consciousness while
manifesting in the physical, but these do not have to undergo "the second
death" which is the dropping off of the psychic body, and assuming the
spiritual body. They attain to immortality _in the flesh_, (i.e., in the
present personality).
"Thereupon will come the manifestation of the atomic and other powers,
which are the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force."
The body here referred to, it must be borne in mind, is the etheric or
spiritual body, which possesses the power to disintegrate matter; the power
to annihilate time and space; so that he may look backward into remote
antiquity and forward into boundless futurity; or as the commentator says,
"he can touch the moon with the tip of his finger"; the power of levitation
and limitless extension; the power of command; the power of creative will.
These are the endowments of the spiritual body with which the disciple is
seeking to establish his identity--that he may overcome the second death
and become immortal _in consciousness_, here and now.
Of this spiritual, or etheric body it is said, "Fire burns it not; water
wets it not; the sword cleaves it not; dry winds parch it not. It is
unassailable."
_Meditate upon this sutra._
"For him who discerns between the mind and the spiritual man (the Self)
there comes perfect fruition of the longing after the real being."
When the disciple has once grasped the fact that he _is_ a soul, and
_possesses_ a mind and a physical covering, he has entered on the way of
Illumination, and must inevitably reach the goal; then shall he find
"perfect fruition of the longing" after the perfect Self, and its
completement in union with the love that he craves. "Have you, in lonely
darkness longed for companionship and consolation? You shall have angels
and archangels for your friends and all the immortal hosts of the Dawn."
Such are the Yoga sutras, or aphorisms, as enunciated by Patanjali.
If the aspiring one were to give up a whole lifetime to their practice,
gaining at last the consciousness of immortal life and love, what a small
price to pay.
_Raja Yoga_ with its methods and exercises, is the path of knowledge,
through application; concentration; meditation.
The practice of Raja Yoga will lead the student to the path of Gnani Yoga;
and to the realization that Bhakti Yoga, the way of love and service will
be included, not as an arduous task; not as a study, or as a means to an
end, but because of the love of it.
_Gnani Yoga_ comes as complementary to practice of the sutras because
knowledge applied for the purpose of spiritual attainment brings _wisdom_.
_Gnani Yoga_, then, is the path of wisdom. The follower of Gnani Yoga seeks
the occult or hidden wisdom, and always has before him the idea of whether
this or that be of the Self, the _atman_, or of the self, the personal,
gradually eliminating from his desires all that does not answer the test of
its reality in spiritual consciousness; he welcomes experiences of all
kinds, as so many lessons from which he extracts the fine grain of truth,
and throws aside the husks; he accepts nothing blindly or in faith, but
"proves all things holding fast to that which is good"; not that he lacks
faith, but because the very nature of his inquiry is to discover the
interior nature and its relation to God.
There are many in the world of to-day who feel the urge toward the path of
Gnani Yoga, because of the conviction that is forcing itself upon every
truly enlightened mind, that civilization with all its wonderful
achievements, does not promise happiness, or solve the question of the
soul's urge. In short, the educated, and the well conditioned, if he be a
thinker, and not submerged in _maya_, lost in the personal self, inevitably
finds himself searching for the _real_ in all this labyrinth of mind
creations and sea of emotions, and then as a rule, he seeks the path of
Gnani Yoga, because his intellect must be satisfied, even though his heart
calls. The mystic, the teacher, and the philosopher are following the path
of Gnani; so is the true occultist, but many who deal in so-called
occultism are employing _knowledge_ only, entirely missing the higher
quality--_wisdom_.
_Bhakti Yoga_, the path of self-surrender; the thorny way through the
emotions; the "blood of the heart," is the short cut to Illumination, if
such a thing could be. But there is no "short cut"; nor yet a long road.
Some one has said there are as many ways to God as there are souls. And
yet, all persons who are on the upward climb, are demonstrating some one of
these four paths, or a combination of the paths. It is, however, a
significant fact that we do not hear anything of the great intellectual
attainments of the three great masters--Krishna, Buddha and Jesus, but only
of their great compassion; their wonderful love for mankind, and all living
things.
St. Paul, who was probably an educated man, as he held a position of
prominence among those in authority, previous to his conversion, laid
particular stress upon the love-nature as the way of illumination.
And Jesus repeatedly said "Love is the fulfilling of the law." What is the
law? The law of evolution and involution; of generation and regeneration;
when the time should come, that Love was to reign on the planet earth as it
does in the heavens above the earth, then should the kingdom of which he
foretold "be at hand," and in conclusion of this _to-be_, Jesus promised
that the law would be fulfilled when Love should come.
So Swami Vivekananda in his exposition of Vedanta declares:
"Love is higher than work, than yoga; than knowledge. Day and night think
of God in the midst of all your activities. The daily necessary thoughts
can all be thought through God. Eat to Him, drink to Him, sleep to Him, see
Him in all. Let us open ourselves to the one Divine Actor, and let Him act
and do nothing ourselves. Complete self-surrender is the only way. Put out
self, lose it; forget it."
Let us substitute for the words "God," and "Him," the one word Love, and
see what it is that we are told to do.
Love of doing good frees us from work, even though we labor from early dawn
until the night falls; so, too, if we have some loved one for whom we
strive, we can endure every hardship with equanimity, as far as our own
comfort is concerned. Few human beings in the world to-day are so enmeshed
in the personal self as to work merely for the gratification of selfish
instincts. The hard-working man, whether laborer or banker, must have some
one else for whom he struggles and strives; otherwise, he descends to a
level below that of the brute.
This is the reason for the family; the lodge; the community; the nation;
there must be some motive other than the preservation of the personal self,
in order to develop the higher quality of love which embraces the world,
until the spirit of a Christ takes possession of the human and he would
gladly offer himself a sacrifice to the world, if by so doing he could
eliminate all the pain from the world.
How natural it is to feel, when we see a loved one suffering, that we would
gladly take upon ourselves that pain; the heart fills with love until it
aches with the burden of it; this love enlarged, expanded and impersonal in
its application is the same love with which we are told to love God, and to
"do all for Him." Do all for love of all the other hearts in the Universe
that feel as we feel when their loved ones suffer--that is the way to love
God--it is the only way we know. We only know divine love through human
love: human love is divine when it is unselfish and eternal--not fed upon
carnality, but anchored in spiritual complement.
The story of Abou Ben Adhem ("may his tribe increase") tells us how we may
know who loves the Lord. The angel wrote the names of those who loved the
Lord most faithfully and fully, and coming to Abou Ben Adhem asked if he
should write his name, and received the reply that he could not say whether
he deeply loved the Lord, but he was quite certain that the angel could
"write me as one who loves his fellow-men." And, lo! when the list was made
and the names of all who loved the Lord recorded, Abou Ben Adhem's name
headed the list.
The Vedanta philosophy teaches non-attachment and Vivekananda himself says:
"To love any one personally is bondage. Love all alike then all desires
fall off."
To love only the personal self of any one binds us to the sorrow of loss
and of separation and disappointment; but to love any one spiritually is to
establish a bond which can never be broken; which insures reunion, and
defies time and space.
We can not love all alike, though we can love all humanity impersonally.
All desires that have their root in the sense-conscious plane of
expression, will fall off when the heart is anchored in spiritual love; but
let it be understood that spiritual love is not opposed to human love; we
do not grow into spiritual love by denying the human, but by plussing the
human.
Spiritual consciousness is all that is good and pure and noble, and
satisfying in the mortal and infinitely more. It is the love of personal
self _plus_ the _Self_--the _atman_.
Love is never unrequited. It is never wasted; never foolish. Love is its
own self-justification; if it be real love, and not vanity, or self
admiration, misnamed, give it freely, and don't ask for a return; don't ask
whither it leads; only ask if it is real--if the love you feel is for the
object of your love, or if it is for yourself--for you to possess and to
minister to your pleasure; ask whether it is from the senses or from the
heart.
The way of the _Bhakti yoga_, is the way of love and service, because
service to our fellow beings, is the inevitable complement of love. Where
we truly love, we gladly serve. It has been said: "The chela treads a
hair-line." That is to say, the initiate must be prepared to meet defeat at
every turn. Not defeat of his object of attainment, but the personal defeat
that so many seek in the delusion that the world's ideal of success is the
real success.
In conclusion we can only repeat what has been told and retold many times
by all inspired ones, of whatever creed and race; namely, think and act
always from the _inner Self_, cheerfully taking the consequences of your
choice. Let not the opinions of the illusory world of the senses balk and
thwart you. Let not the "worldly-wise" swerve you from your ideal and your
faith in the final goal of your earthly pilgrimage--the attainment of
spiritual consciousness _in your present personality_; this is the meaning
of immortality in the flesh Doubt not this.
Make love your ideal; your guide; your final goal; look for the inner Self
of all whom you meet. "Learn to look into the _hearts_ of men," says the
injunction in Light on the Path; dismiss from your mind all the
accumulation of traditional concepts and prejudices that are not grounded
in love, and above all _falter not_, nor doubt--no matter what seeming
hardships you encounter in your earthly pilgrimage; they are but the
Indian-clubs of your soul's gymnasium--Experience. "Meet with Triumph and
Disaster, and treat these _two impostors_ just the same."
Triumph and Disaster as seen with the eyes of sense-consciousness are both
illusions; but don't for this reason cease your work. The phrase "you must
work out your own salvation" is true. So also, you must be willing to do
your part in working out the salvation of the world; salvation means simply
the realization of the spiritual Being that you are--the attainment of that
state of Illumination which guarantees immortality.
Experience teaches one important lesson: Our sense-conscious life is filled
with symbolic language if we have the inner eye of discernment. An
unescapable truth is symbolized in our daily life by the evidence that we
get nothing for nothing. Everything has its price.
Immortality godhood, will not be handed to you on a silver salver; neither
can any one withhold it from you, if you desire it above all things. And,
altho' it has its price, yet _you can not buy it_. A seeming paradox, but
the Initiate will see it all clearly enough when the time comes.
"He who would scale the Heights of Understanding
From whence the soul looks out forever free
Must falter not; nor fail; all truth demanding
Though he bear the cross and know Gethsemane."
* * * * *
The discouraged student says to himself: "If Truth demands such sorrow and
sacrifice as this, I will not serve her. It is a false god that would so
try his devotees."
Have you not said it?
The toll you pay is not to the Divine Self within, but to the "keepers of
the threshold," that guard the entrance to the dwelling place of the
Illuminati.
Earthly lodges and brotherhoods are symbols of the higher initiations.
There is a common mistake in the idea that the invisible states of
consciousness are chaotic, or radically different from the visible.
"As below, so above, and as above so below" is an aphorism constantly held
before the eyes of the would-be initiate. Each of whom, must interpret and
know it for himself.
If the student finds the Raja Yoga sutras difficult of comprehension or of
practice let him meditate upon the following mantrams:
I know myself to be above the false concepts which assail the personal self
that I _appear_ to be. I am united with the All-seeing All-knowing
Consciousness.
I abide in the consciousness of the Indestructibility and Omniscience of
Being. I rest secure and content in the integrity of Cosmic Law which shall
lead my soul unto its own, guaranteeing immortal love.
I unite myself with that Power that makes for righteousness. Therefore
nothing shall dismay or defeat me, because I am at-one with the limitless
areas of spiritual consciousness.
My mind is the dynamic center through which my soul manifests the Love
which illumines the world. Only good can come to the world through me.
Much that is called Mental Science, New Thought and Christian Science has
for its aim and ideal, avoidance of all that does not make for personal
well-being, and worldly success. Avoid this ideal; distrust this motive. Be
ever willing to sacrifice the personal self to the Real Self, _if need be_.
If the ideal is truly the desire for _illumination_, and not for
self-gratification, the mind will soon learn to distinguish between the
lesser and the greater. Have you longed for perfect, satisfying _human_
love?
You shall have it plussed a thousand fold in immortal spiritual union with
_your_ god.
SUMMARY.
In the foregoing chapters we have set forth only a few of the facts and
instances which the inquirer will find, if he but seek, of the reality of a
supra-conscious faculty, no less actual, than are the faculties of the
sense-conscious human, which type forms the average of the race.
This faculty, or rather we should say _these faculties_--because they find
expression in many ways, through avenues correlative to the physical
senses--prove the existence of a realm of consciousness, far above the
planes of the mortal or sense-conscious man, and transcending the region
known as the astral and psychic areas of consciousness.
All who have reported their experiences in contacting this illimitable
region unite in the essential points of experience, namely:
The experience is indescribable.
It confers an unshakable conviction of immortality.
It discloses the fact that we are now living in this supra-conscious realm;
that it is not something which we acquire after death; it _is_ not _to be_.
This realm is characterized by a beautiful, wonderful radiant iridescent
light.
"_O green fire of life, pulse of the world, O love."_
It fills the heart with a great and all-embracing love, establishing a
realization of the silent Brotherhood of the Cosmos, demolishing all
barriers of race and color and class and condition.
Illumination is inclusive. It knows no separation.
It announces the fact that every person is right from his point of view.
"That nothing walks with aimless feet; that no one life shall be destroyed;
or cast as rubbish on the void; when God hath made the pile complete."
That Life and Love and Joy unutterable are the reward of the seeker; and
that there is no one and only path.
All systems; all creeds; all methods that are formulated and upheld by
altruism are righteous, and that the Real is the spiritual--the external is
a dream from which the world is awakening to the consciousness of the
spiritual man--the _atman_--the Self that is ageless; birthless;
deathless--divine. On all sides are evidences that the race is entering
upon this new consciousness.
So many are weary with the strife and struggle and noise of the
sense-conscious life.
The illusions of possessions which break in our hands as we grasp them; of
empty titles of so-called "honor," builded upon prowess in war; the
feverish race after wealth--cold as the marble palaces which it builds to
shut in its worshippers--all these things are becoming skeleton-like and
no longer deceive those who are even remotely discerning the new birth.
The new heraldry will have for its badge of royalty "Love and Service to my
Fellow Beings," displacing the "Dieu et mon Droit" of the ancient ideal.
The Dawn is here. Are you awake?
"--In the heart of To-day is the word of To-morrow.
The Builders of Joy are the Children of Sorrow."
Jesus The Last Great Initiate
By EDOUARD SCHURE
Mr. Schure in this volume, has done much to strengthen the belief that
Jesus was an Essene, in whom a Messianic consciousness was awakened by
special initiation.
A remarkable full account is given of his experiences among the Essenes and
how his early life, (about which the Bible is so reticent) was spent
studying with the advanced Occult masters.
The problem of how Jesus became the Messiah, he holds to be not capable of
solution without the aid of intuition and esoteric tradition.
The life of the great Teacher as pictured by the writer is one to be
dreamed over and capable of imparting both knowledge and stimulus to that
inner life which is in so many undeveloped and even unsuspected.
Bound Silk Cloth.
Price $0.80 Postpaid.
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Krishna and Orpheus
The Great Initiates of the East and West
By EDOUARD SCHURE
The lives and teachings of these two great Masters who preceeded Jesus are
very much like the latter's. You cannot help noting the remarkable
resemblance they bear to each other.
Krishna's Virgin Birth, His Youth, Initiation, The Doctrine of the
Initiates, Triumph and Death, are all told in a fashion that shows that
Mr. Schure has devoted much time to thought and research work. The mighty
religious of India, Egypt and Greece are passed in rapid review and the
author declares that while from the outside they present nothing but chaos,
the root idea of their founders and prophets presents a key to them all.
Bound in Silk Cloth.
Price $0.80 Postpaid.