Of her writings, Blavatsky stated: 'The first and most important was The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of Christianity. It sweeps away many of the difficulties that thoughtful readers of the Bible must contend with in their endeavours to either understand or accept literally the story of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Gospels.'
(8.1.6) Introduction
As already stated, this Fall does not consist in the original investment of the soul with a material body. Such investment – or incarnation – is an integral and indispensable element in the process of the individualization of soul substance, and of its education into humanity. And until perfected, or nearly so, the body is necessary to the soul in turn as nursery, school, house of correction, and chamber of ordeal. It is true that redemption involves deliverance from the need of the body. But redemption itself is from the power of the body; and it is from its fall under the power of the body that the soul requires redemption. For it is this fall which, by involving the alienation of the individual from God, renders necessary a reconciliation or at-one-ment. And inasmuch as this can be effected only through the total renunciation of the exterior or bodily will, and the unreserved acceptance in its place of the interior or divine will, this at-one-ment constitutes the essential element of that Redemption which forms the subject of the present discourse.
(8.4.34) Six stages of initiation - Baptism, Temptation, Passion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension
the “six crowns” of the Man Regenerate, that is, the six acts or stages of initiation, of which three appertain to the lesser and three to the greater Mysteries. These “crowns,” therefore, are Baptism, Temptation, Passion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension. Of all these the ultimate object is that full and complete Redemption which, by its realization of the soul’s supreme felicity, is termed the “Marriage of the Son of God.”
A (8.1.7) The Passion and Crucifixion
Although Redemption, as a whole, is one, the process is manifold, and consists in a series of acts, spiritual and mental. Of this series, the part wherein the individual finally surrenders his own exterior will, with all its exclusively material desires and affections, is designated the Passion. And the particular act whereby this surrender is consummated and demonstrated is called the Crucifixion. This crucifixion means a complete, unreserving surrender, – to the death, if need be, – without opposition, even in desire, on the part of the natural man. Without these steps is no atonement. The man cannot become one with the Spirit within him, until by his “Passion” and “Crucifixion,” he has utterly vanquished the “Old Adam” of his former self.
B (8.1.8) Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension
And these are followed by the Resurrection and Ascension of the true immortal Man and new spiritual Adam, who by his Resurrection proves himself to be – like the Christ – “virgin-born,” – in that he is the offspring, not of the soul and her traffic with Matter and Sense, but of the soul become “immaculate,” and of her spouse, the Spirit. The Ascension with which the Drama terminates, is that of the whole Man, now regenerate, to his own celestial kingdom within himself, where – made one with the Spirit – he takes his seat for ever “at the right hand of the Father.”
The Man, it is true, has risen from the dead. But it is from the condition of deadness in regard to things spiritual, and from among those who, being in that condition, are said to be “dead in trespasses and sins.” In these two respects, namely, as regards his own past self and the world generally, he has “risen from the dead”; and “death,” of this kind, “has no more dominion over him.” And even if he has redeemed also his body and made of it a risen body, this by no means implies the resuscitation of an actual corpse
D (8.1.10) The Great Work is redemption of Spirit from Matter
That which constitutes the Great Work, is, not the resuscitation of the dead body, but the redemption of Spirit from Matter.
E (8.2.11) The Path of Perfection
For perfection is one, and all seekers after it must follow the same road. The reward and the means towards it, are also one. For “the Gift of God is eternal Life.” And it is by means of God, – the Divine Spirit working within him, to build him up in the Divine Image, – he, meanwhile co-operating with the Spirit, – that man achieves Divinity. In the familiar, but rarely understood terms, “Philosopher’s Stone,” “Elixir of Life,” “universal Medicine,” “Holy Grail,” and the like, is implied this supreme object of all quest. For these are but terms to denote pure Spirit, and its essential correlative, a Will absolutely firm and inaccessible alike to weakness from within and assault from without.
F (8.2.12) The attainment in himself of a pure and Divine Spirit is the first object and last achievement
The attainment in himself of a pure and Divine Spirit, is, therefore the first object and last achievement of him who seeks to realize the loftiest ideal of which humanity is capable. Love saves others as well as oneself. And it is love that distinguishes the Christ; – a truth implied, among other ways, in the name and character assigned in mystic legends, to the favourite disciple of the Christs. To Krishna, his Arjun; to Buddha, his Ananda; to Jesus, his John; – all terms identical in meaning, and denoting the feminine and tender moiety of the Divine Nature.
G (8.2.13) “Christ,” is primarily, not a person, but a process
“Christ,” then, is, primarily, not a person, but a process, a doctrine, a system of life and thought, by the observance of which man becomes purified from Matter, and transmuted into Spirit.
H (8.2.14) Interior perfection is the focus, the body is but an instrument
The body is but an instrument, existing for the use and sake of the soul and not for itself. And it is for the soul, and not for itself, that it must be perfected. The aim of all endeavor should be to bring the body into subjection to, and harmony with, the spirit, by refining and subliming it, and so heightening its powers as to make it sensitive and responsive to all the motions of the Spirit.
For, so far from suffering his own vivifying spirit to step aside in order that another may enter, the Christ is one who so develops, purifies, and in every way perfects his spirit, as to assimilate and make it one with the universal Spirit, the God of the Macrocosm, so that the God without and the God within may freely combine and mingle, making the universal the individual, the individual the universal.
J (8.2.16) Becoming Divine by means of inward purification by the life or “blood” of God,
It is not, therefore, in virtue of an extraneous, obsessing spirit that the Christ can be termed a “Medium,” but in virtue of the spirit itself of the man, become Divine by means of that inward purification by the life or “blood” of God, which is the secret of the Christs, and “doubled” by union with the parent Spirit of all, – the “Father” of all spirits.
K (8.2.17) The Christ is, thus, a clear glass through which the divine glory shines
“The words which I speak unto you I speak not of myself. The Father which dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” The Christ is, thus, a clear glass through which the divine glory shines
To attain to the perfection of the Christ, – to polarize, that is, the Divine Spirit without measure, and to become a “Man of Power” and a Medium for the Highest, – though open potentially to all, – is, actually and in the present, open, if to any, but to few. And these are, necessarily, they only who, having passed through many transmigrations and advanced far on their way towards maturity, have sedulously turned their lives to the best account by means of the steadfast development of all the higher faculties and qualities of man; and who, while not declining the experiences of the body, have made the spirit, and not the body, their object and aim.
Aspiring to the redemption in himself of each plane of man’s fourfold nature, the candidate for Christhood submits himself to discipline and training the most severe, at one physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, and rejects as valueless or pernicious whatever would fail to minister to his one end, deeming no task too onerous, no sacrifice too painful, so that he be spiritually advanced thereby.
And how varied soever the means, there is one rule to which he remains constant throughout, the rule, namely, of love. The Christ he seeks is the pathway to God; and to fail, in the least degree in respect of love, would be to put himself back in his journey. The sacrifices, therefore, in the incense of which his soul ascends, are those of his own lower nature to his own higher, and of himself for others.
They who have trod this path of old have been many, and their deeds have formed the theme of mystical legends innumerable. Epitomizing these, we find that the chief qualifications are as follows: – In order to gain “Power and the Resurrection,” a man must, first of all, be a Hierarch. This is to say, he must have attained the magical age of thirty-three years, having been, in the mystic sense of the terms, immaculately conceived, and born of a king’s daughter; baptized with water and with fire; tempted in the wilderness, crucified and buried, having borne five wounds on the cross. He must, moreover, have answered the riddle of the Sphinx. To attain the requisite age, he must have accomplished the Twelve Labors symbolized in those of Heracles, and in the signs of the Zodiac; passed within the Twelve Gates of Holy City of his own regenerate nature; overcome the five Senses; and obtained dominion over the Four Elements. Achieving all that is implied in these terms, “his warfare is accomplished,” he is free of Matter, and will never again have a phenomenal body.
He who shall attain to this perfection must be one who is without fear and without desire, save towards God; who has courage to be absolutely poor and absolutely chaste; to whom it is all one whether he have money or whether he have none, whether he have house and lands or whether he be homeless, whether he have worldly reputation or whether he be an outcast. Against attacks and influences of whatever kind, and coming from whatever quarter without his own soul’s kingdom, he must impregnably steel himself. If misfortune be his, he must make it his fortune; if poverty, he must make it his riches; if loss, his gain; if sickness, his health; if pain, his pleasure. Evil report must be to him good report; and he must be able to rejoice when all men speak ill of him. Even death itself he must account as life. Only when he has attained this equilibrium is he “Free.” Meanwhile he makes Abstinence, Prayer, Meditation, Watchfulness and Self-restraint to be the decades of his Rosary. And knowing that nothing is gained without toil, or won without suffering, he acts ever on the principle that to labor is to pray, to ask is to receive, to knock is to have the door open, and so strives accordingly.
O (8.2.21) To gain power over Death, there must be self-denial and governance.
To gain power over Death, there must be self-denial and governance. Such is the “Excellent Way,” though it be the Via Dolorosa. He only can follow it who accounts the Resurrection worth the Passion, the Kingdom worth the Obedience, the Power worth the Suffering. And he, and he only, does not hesitate, whose time has come.
P (8.2.22) The final victory over the body with its three (true) senses.
The last of the “Twelve Labors of Heracles “ is the conquest of the three-headed dog, Cerberus. For by this is denoted the final victory over the body with its three (true) senses.
Q (8.2.23) The man who seeks to be a Hierarch must not dwell in cities
The man who seeks to be a Hierarch must not dwell in cities. For he must not breathe dead and burnt air, – air, that is, the vitality of which is quenched. He must be a wanderer, a dweller in the plain and the garden and the mountains. He must commune with the starry heavens, and maintain direct contact with the great electric currents of living air and with the unpaved grass and earth of the planet, going barefoot and oft bathing his feet
Of this perfected man the foster-father is always that which, spiritually, is called Egypt – the body or Matter, and, by derivation, the Intellect, or reason of the merely earthly mind – the mystic name of which is always “Joseph.” And he is represented as the adoptive father only of the Man Regenerate, because this last is really the product, not of the mind, but of the soul; not of “Egypt,” but of “Israel;” not of the “man” Intellect, but of the “woman” Intuition, being “begotten” through her, not by any physical process, but by Divine spiritual operation.
S (8.3.28) The Man Regenerate first saves himself, by becoming regenerate
He who would redeem and save others, must first be himself redeemed and saved. The Man Regenerate, therefore, first saves himself, by becoming regenerate. He receives, accordingly, a name expressive of this function. For, of Jesus one of the significations is Liberator. And it is the name, not of a person, but of an Order, the Order of all those who – being regenerate and attaining perfection – find, and are called, “Christ Jesus.” (As see Eph. iii. 15.)
T (8.3.29) Miracles, the lesser Mysteries, (Demeter), and the greater Mysteries, (Aphrodite)
Of the miracles worked by the Regenerate Man, some are on the physical, some on the spiritual plane; for, being himself regenerate in all, he is master of the spirits of all the elements. But while the terms in which the Miracles are described are uniformly derived from the physical plane, the true value and significance of these Miracles are spiritual. That, for example, known as the Raising of Lazarus, is altogether a parable, being constructed on lines rigidly astronomical, and having an application purely spiritual. To a like category belongs also the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. For the “loaves” given to the multitude represent the general doctrine of the lesser Mysteries, whose “grain” is of the Earth, the kingdom of Demeter, and of the outer; and the “fishes” – given after the loaves – denote the greater Mysteries, those of Aphrodite, – fishes symbolizing the element of the sea-born Queen of Love, and her dominion, the inner kingdom of the soul.
By the Crucifixion of the Man Regenerate is denoted no physical or brief exterior act, but the culmination of a prolonged Passion, and its termination in the complete surrender of the soul. And this arrival of the “last hour” of the earthly man, or old Adam, is symbolized by the action of tasting the very dregs and lees of the cup of suffering, – the soul’s experience, that is, of the limitations of existence.
V (8.4.38) Symbolism of Cup, reed, cross, dove, five wounds, two companions
By this cup is represented the chalice of Existence or Incarnation, wherein is contained that Substantial Water, or Soul, which by the “marriage” of the will of the man with the Will of God, becomes the Wine of the holy Sacrament, or Communion with God. The Reed which supports this Cup is the universal rod or Staff which so constantly recurs in Hermetic Scriptures, and is at once the rod of Moses, the wand of the Magician, the sceptre of the King, the reed of the Angel, the rod of Joseph that flowers, and the caduceus of Hermes himself.
W (8.4. 39) Symbolism of Vinegar, Fish and Honeycomb
As the last substance tasted by the Regenerate Man of the Gospels before his death on the cross, is the “vinegar” of the exhausted Chalice of the Passion, so the first food partaken by him after his resurrection is “fish,” to which some add “an honeycomb”. By these is symbolized the commencement of the new life inaugurated by the greater Mysteries. For the fish, as already stated, is the symbol of Water, and therein of the Soul, its Greek name being the monogram of the Christ and the tessera of redemption. And the honey, uniting sweetness of taste with the color of gold, and contained in the six-sided cell on “cup” of the comb, typifying the six acts of the Mysteries, – is the familiar emblem of the Land of Promise “beyond Jordan,” to which only the Man Risen can attain. For, as the River of Egypt denotes the Body, and the Euphrates the Spirit, – the redeemed man being promised the dominion of the whole region contained within these (Genesis xv, 18.)
Between the “Resurrection” and “Ascension” of the Man Regenerate, is an interval which – in accordance with the mystical system of making all dates which relate to the soul’s history coincide with the corresponding solar periods – is termed “Forty Days.” The actual length of the period, however, is dependent upon individual circumstance For that which occurs at the expiration of this cycle is not a quittance of the earth in the physical sense ordinarily supposed, but the complete withdrawal of the man into his own interior and celestial region. The Spirit attains the Sabbath of perfection only by attaining Rest or Quiescence; and to this Sabbath – or Nirvana – the Man Regenerate necessarily attains, sooner or later, after his “Crucifixion” and “Resurrection;” and the attainment of it constitutes his “Ascension.”
But although the true signification of the Gospel narrative of the Ascension is spiritual only, the process of Redemption is not without its physical results; for every faculty is enhanced thereby to the degree ordinarily deemed “miraculous,” rendering the Subject clairvoyant and clairaudient, enabling him to impart health and recall life by the touch or by the will, to project himself in visible form through material obstructions, and to withdraw himself from sight at will. And not only is disease eliminated from and rendered impossible to his system, but his organism becomes so highly refined and vitalized that wounds, however severe, heal by first intention and even instantaneously.
Z (8.4.34) The Divine Marriage
He is then qualified to proceed to the greater Mysteries of which the final scene is the “King’s Chamber.” This, as already said, is placed at the extreme summit of the passages, and beyond the centre of the Pyramid; and its purpose is to symbolize that kingdom of heaven which the Initiate attains by what is called the Divine Marriage, an act which separates him altogether from his life of the past.
(8.4.40-41) Summary of sevenfold process
2- Temptation or Trial: The second scene is the Solemnization, which is celebrated on the “third day,” at the Cana of Galilee already mentioned, in the “banqueting hall” of the Mysteries. The whole narrative is constructed on astronomical lines, and in its exterior sense denotes the ripening of the grape and arrival of the vintage season in the month which follows the “assumption” of the constellation Virgo. For then the Sun, or emblem of the Man Regenerate, transmutes the watery element into wine.
3- Passion or Renunciation: The third and final scene of the “Marriage” belongs to the greater Mysteries. The “Crucifixion” is the last stage of the lesser Mysteries, and closes initiation into them. Immediately on “giving up the ghost,” – or renouncing altogether the lower life, – the Christ “enters into his kingdom;” and “the veil of the Temple is rent from the top to the bottom.” The first three acts – the Baptism or Betrothal, the Temptation or Trial, and the Passion or Renunciation – belong to the Mysteries of the Rational Humanity as distinguished from those of the Spiritual Humanity.
4, 5, 6-The last three acts – the Burial, the Resurrection, and the Ascension – belong to the greater Mysteries of the Soul and Spirit, the Spirit being the central Lord, King, and Adonai of the system, and the “Spouse” of the Bride or Soul. The hour of the “Death” which follows the “Crucifixion” witnesses the passage of this veil; and the exclamation “Consummatum est” – uttered at this “ninth hour” of “the twelve in which man may work” in the process of regeneration – signifies that at length the Kingdom is entered, the King’s Chamber attained, the conflict of the Soul crowned with victory.
7-The seventh and concluding act of the whole process follows the accomplishment of the three stages of the greater Mysteries of the King or Spirit, and is called the “Consummation of the Marriage of the Son of God.” In this act the “King” and “Queen,” “Spirit and Bride,” and are indissolubly united; the Man becomes pure Spirit; and the Human is finally taken up into the Divine.
No comments:
Post a Comment