🍀 For those WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN - For DISCIPLES 🍀
✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj
CHAPTER 6 - THE 9th RULE
🌻 9. Desire only that which is within you. - The only light that can be shed upon the Path - 1 🌻
315. Originally we had a most beautiful statement of philosophy – the one philosophy that lies behind all religions. When the Gospel story, which was meant as an allegory, was degraded into a pseudo-historical account of the life of a man the religion became incomprehensible.
Consequently all the texts which really refer to this higher side of things have been distorted, and of course, they will not fit in with the truth which lies behind the idea. Because Christianity has forgotten much of its own original teaching, in these days it is customary to deny that it could ever have possessed any esoteric teaching.
The spiritual man has the Gnosis, and therefore understands that all the incidents related therein – the birth, the initiation, the illumination, and the ascension happened not once only in one place, but are steps in the spiritual life of every man as he progresses.
316. Modern orthodoxy still bases its beliefs on the ignorant faith of the undeveloped multitude, and persists in disowning what now remains of its once magnificent heritage, in the shape of a few priceless fragments of the Gnostic teaching. Having lost the higher interpretation it makes a desperate effort to present the lower one in a comprehensible form, but that cannot be done.
Students of Theosophy have the knowledge which enables them to interpret all these strange doctrines, and to see sense and beauty even in the crude utterances of the street preacher, because they understand what he would mean if only he knew a little more about his subject.
317. So what we are to desire is that which is within ourselves all the time; we shall not find it elsewhere. This very same idea was presented to us long ages ago in ancient Egypt. There they centred all their ideas of religion in “the hidden light” and “the hidden work”.
“The hidden light” was the Light that is in every man, and “the hidden work” was that which would enable him to manifest it, to bring it out in himself and then to help its development in others.
That was the cardinal point of their creed – that the Light is there, however much it may be overlaid: and however hopeless it may appear, our work is to withdraw the veils and let the Light shine forth.
318. People often make the mistake of looking for it elsewhere. They say: “We want the Masters to help us; we want the Masters to raise us.”
But I say, with the greatest reverence and respect, the Master cannot do that, the Logos Himself cannot do it. The Master can tell us how we may raise ourselves. The process is exactly analogous to the development of strength in the muscle.
No one can do that for another, but if he has the knowledge he can tell him how to do it for himself, and that is all the help one can have from outside. Another person can tell us that he followed certain rules and exercises and found that they brought good results.
The Master or the advanced pupil can also undoubtedly pour upon us force which makes our work easier, but that is all. It is the same all the way through. If we do not feel within us the power to respond to the beauty and glory of nature, that beauty and glory will pass us by. If we cannot see God within ourselves, it is useless to look for Him outside.
When we have realized ourselves as part of Him, then will the God within respond to the God without, and we shall begin to be really useful in His work, which, after all, is our chief object in life.
Continues...
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17 Jan 2021
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