great and high mountain of attainment, and who points to its illuminated top and says, "I am up there." He says to those around him, "If you will go up there too, you will never be sick, you will never die, you will have immortal life, and everything that you desire will be yours." And in so far as, through faith and inspirational ability, the individual is able to draw down to himself a little of the atmosphere of that high mountain, he obtains results consequent thereupon. But that inspiration can be kept up only so long as the individual is able to maintain a certain vigor of mind, and while surroundings are such as to enable him to have a degree of faith; but when he meets an adverse force of sufficient intensity to overcome the body, he fails and falls before it. The high mountain is before you, our reader, there are many steps, hard struggles, and a difficult pathway to reach its summit. Through esoteric teachings we have endeavored to set forth in the most careful manner the way to that summit. We have endeavored to show that in order to obtain the strength of mind necessary to the undertaking, you must first, by means of the regeneration, lay hold upon the fountain of life, conserving all the seed generated by the body for the use of the nerves and brain-the use of mind. Jesus lived and taught the regeneration. But the conservation of the seed is not by any means sufficient to lift you to the high altitude where you would be. You must live in the mind, and also in the spirit of devotion, that you may gather to yourself the mind that created the world. You must live in the will-the will of self-control. You must live in a high morality-in righteousness always. You must, in short, be a perfect man. Nothing more thoroughly disgraces an esoteric student than to be sick. Upon the surface it is an acknowledgment that, although he may be living the regenerate life, he is not living in the mind, that he has not taken the name Yahveh. He is like a man wishing to build a house who gathers around him all the tools and materials requisite to the building, but who never uses them in the construction of the house. The regeneration is only a method for attaining an object, and that object is to place the mind in touch with the currents of the Mind of the universe; and even this is not sufficient unless one uses the powers thereby obtained in fitting himself for usefulness in this world, for the inheritance of the dominion under the whole heaven. Therefore the work of the aspirant is to live the life of regeneration, by means of which he gathers power to carry that life up through the body into the mind, and at once to begin the work of creating the new earth by first renewing his own body with perfect life and health, and by refusing to live in the dream life. The whole world is in a dream. How few can sit down and think, orderly and consecutively, unless something of great interest forces itself upon them! How often the student finds himself in a negative state, so that, without consent of his will, thoughts of every name and nature come trooping through his intelligence, until his individuality is lost in the mass of the world's thought! It is this class of persons who tell us that they are gaining nothing by the regenerate life. This negative state precludes the retention of the vital fluids in the organism, and opens the system to the disease and death of the world. We know, of course, that the student will not at first be able continually to hold his mind in that clear, luminous condition, even after he has reached such a condition, because, before strength is gained, certain organs of the body would be affected by the strain and would give way under its constant influence. He should, however, hold himself in a positive state enabling him to turn his mind in whatever direction he wills in the attitude of a master surveying the work of the servants upon his estate; and when any organ of the body begins to tire under this influence, then useful work with the hands, wherein the mind is doing and accomplishing, will give rest from the intensity. When this is not practicable, let him read some work conducive to the higher spirituality, quietly musing upon such subjects as he desires to occupy his attention. Again, when it is not possible to do this, the mind can be placed upon the mind of the Spirit and held there passively, restfully; for there is a passive, interior mentality which may be kept always active, in which one may live and never tire. The aspirant should remember that he learns through the senses. The five senses, symbolized by Solomon's Pentagraph, are the source of immortality when they have been perfected and are kept wholly under the guidance and control of a mind and will in perfect harmony with the purpose of the God of the universe. There will be no more death there-in that body"neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." -H. E. Butler, in "Bible Review." Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways, Balking the goal half-won for instant's dole of praise. Stand to your work and be wise, certain of sword and pen; We are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men. Kipling. "Praise may puff up a shallow nature, but it always brings something of humility to a deep one. It is not the flash of scorn but the light of love that reveals us to ourselves and stirs us to our best effort." "When we put ourselves into right relation with God, with truth, and the laws of the universe, all things are working with us and for us. Then, having nothing, we possess all things."-J. F. Clarke. FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT DOROTHY HATCH Fight the good fight with all thy might; Thy joy and crown eternally. WE ARE fighting today, not the great menace of German might, but its inner meaning, the power of materialism. By the cutting down of ideals, and by the substitution of the doctrine of matter, has Germany prepared and selected for herself the position of adversary, and thus has she become the great symbol of materialism against the supreme power of Spirit. What is holding back the German hordes, what is the greatest asset of the defending nations? It is none other than Spirit, the vast, perhaps unformed belief in the power of clean, pure idealism, to save and protect its own. Is it not the great power back of the men who have so gloriously said, "They shall not pass"? The brutal might of matter shall never trespass upon the bounds of our ideals, our belief in our land and the spirit of our people. Is this not the only power to save, this wonderful, inner illumination which held, when no training, no preparedness was at hand? This vast struggle is the birth-throes of the new race. The enormous, seething mass of matter is being transplanted, to give a place for the new, clean race of Spirit, in which the brotherhood of man is an established fact, not a theory. How could it be otherwise, when in every survivor of this struggle, is there born the knowledge that the Spirit within, he doeth the works? According to the predominance of the Spirit is each man preserved. Truly, it is the survival of the fittest, the survival of the true; to each combatant is the struggle the same, the striving of matter to be the real power, and to each shall come the final supreme dominion of Spirit. Each man is chosen; the greatest privilege of life is his to prove to the world and to himself that he is of the Spirit, Substance of the Father, untouched save by the Spirit of himself, eternal, gloriously the Son of God. To the one who fails to know this, or fails to make it known, will come hard experiences. That the world itself is not material, but the outward and visible sign of Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven. Think of the twofold, glorious privilege, O ye who partake of this struggle— the casting of yourself upon the side of God, and the absolute demonstration of supremacy in yourself. Do you think that a man who goes into battle with this knowledge could be injured? Nay, a thousand shall fall at his right hand, but he that hath the mark of the Lord on him is preserved for all time, whole, glorious, eternal. When we have found a few of the faculties of mind and perceived their office and action we have a key that will unlock many mysteries, both in Scripture and out of it. For instance we discern Peter to be Faith, and with this as a guide we can discipline our own faith so that it shall be abiding and not fluctuate as did Peter's. Paul is a tremendous outpicturing of Ambition or Zeal; first, active on the intellectual plane as champion of the law and the prophets, afterwards swift to carry out the doctrine of the Christ consciousness. Studying these characters in their various aspects we perceive how every faculty acts for or against Truth-in a limited or a free way. This is the prime object of the Scriptures: That we may see ourselves outpictured and profit by the view. The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by. -Carlyle. |