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These he is now in a position to carry on on higher planes of Nature independently of the physical body and physical existence altogether. The physical con- sciousness, in the case I am imagining, will reflect his progress; he will know while he is awake all that he has been doing on loftier regions ; he will be realising, so far as that is possible, within the physical brain, an infinitude of new states of consciousness on the Devachanic plane and others to which he has now free access. Free access in spite of that renunciation of which I speak, because once re-established on the physical plane of life he can pass into the Devachanic state of consciousness and pass out of it again in obedience to the call of duty elsewhere. Now let us turn to a consideration of the first steps which have to be taken practically by the occult student seeking for the first time to emerge from the normal evolution of ordinary humanity, and put himself in touch with these glorious possibilities. 426 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. CHAPTER XV. THE PROBATIONARY PATH. At the first blush of the matter students of modern occult literature, assuming them to have grasped and accepted its broad and grand ideas, are sometimes impressed with the belief that the next thing to do is to get introduced somehow to an occult fraternity and be initiated in some inaugural mysteries, or be con- fronted with some imposing ordeals at once. The door is open to all who knock—according to the familiar aphorism. The Kingdom of Heaven must be taken by storm, as the thought is expressed in another symbolical phrase, which people in want of intelligible guidance sometimes find to be very irritating. Where is the portal to be knocked at ? Where is the breach to be stormed ? The true answer may legitimately be distilled from all that has gone before, but the time has now come for putting it in plain and straightforward language, though in truth no such explanation can be compre- hended until students thoroughly grasp the whole preliminary view of human progress opened up to the mind by Theosophical teaching. It is not possible for’an aspirant who contemplates” effective progress on the path that leads to the higher initiations to get on more than a few stages on his way THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 427 during the life in which he first addresses himself to the great undertaking. This is the foremost reason why it is premature for the candidate to expect to be put, from the very beginning of his effort, in direct personal relations with the Masters from whom he wishes to obtain guidance. The task before him, in the first instance, is the development of his own char- acter along the lines that lead in the direction of the remote perfection aimed at. Eager beginners may find the prospect discouraging, but there is no short cut to the acquisition of the interior characteristics which constitute the only recognised claim to participation in the wisdom and power of the Adepts of the White Law. A fundamental mistake is made by anyone who imagines that the all-important qualifications have to do with the cultivation of psychic faculties. The custodians of the knowledge of which the occult student is in search, are engaged in the magnificent task of stimulating and promoting the sfiritual growth of humanity, not its mere capacity to handle the finer forces of Nature without regard to the ultimate purpose to which they are to be applied. The disciples they are in search of are such persons as may be qualified not merely to exercise power on the superior planes of Nature, but to join in the great unselfish work of raising humanity to a loftier level of thought and feeling than that on which the majority of mankind still move. Fagerness to penetrate the fascinating mysteries of the superphysical world, however well fortified by courage and strength, is no adequate qualification for the true occult initiation. The attributes which must belong 428 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. to the accepted pupil, not to speak of the person fit to be presented by his own Master to the occult hier- archy, and thus to be received into the community of those who have definitely entered on the path, must be such as promise to render him in process of time a co-worker with those whose duty it is in the scheme of the world’s government, to foster and provide for the moral growth of all mankind. ‘The impatience that would set a neophyte in antagonism with—as he might imagine it—this too exclusive programine would have no effect whatever in helping him to get on faster. Some of the powers and faculties, the charm of which may have inflamed his imagination, may have been acquired by some persons in whose possession he may see them, by irregular methods ill-calculated to promote real ulterior growth, but they will only be conferred by Hierophants of the great White Brotherhood in the wake of those moral attributes on the part of a candidate which can alone afford those who are already Masters in the school of supreme benevolence no less than in that of wisdom, the assurance that he will not nususe the power and enlarged senses of perception, of which he is in search. Where would be the motive for endowing the public at large with information enabling anyone who desires to do so, with whatever motive, to enter into personal relations with the Higher Masters ? The fact that there is a path which the spiritual student may tread is made abundantly obvious for everyone who has com- mon intelligence to apply to the matter by the recent revival of oecult literature. The teaching, which in THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 429 the course of that revival has been explicitly com- municated to the world at large by Adept Masters— for the first time in coherent, intelligible language— will show new candidates for occult progress the prin- ciples on which such progress is alone possible. If they do the preliminary work of self-preparation Karma must infallibly, in their next lives at furthest, give them an opportunity of taking the next steps under the direct help of the Master to whom, in the very act of that self-preparation, they will have made an uncon- scious appeal. He may not have been cognisable in the first instance by thein, but they will assuredly, by the occult reactions of their endeavour, have made themselves perceptible to him. And now let us examine more closely into the nature of that self-preparation that would operate in the way described. There is no mystery or secret about the matter. The interior moral change required as a qualification for actual initiation, whether Eastern or Western neophytes are in question, is analysed as it were by accepted custom into its component attributes, and the acquisition of these, constitute so many stages in what may be called probationary pupilage. On a hardly accurate principle they have been described by some writers as though they constituted early stages of initiation, and they are thus sometimes reckoned in with the true stages of initiation leading up to Adept- ship. But though the attainment of these attributes may invest the aura of an aspirant with some definite characteristics that an Adept would recognise, there are inconveniences in treating them as though they 430 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. were SO many examinations passed in a regular order. In the beginning, they may be achieved in varying degrees of perfection. In fact it is hardly expected that they will all be realised completely while the aspirant is still outside definite degrees of initiation. In the aggregate, if fully realised, they would constitute an ideal character which would at once qualify their possessor for high initiation. That which is alone necessary for the beginner is that he should manifest an honest, healthy tendency in the direction of the various achievements specified, or at all events if some of the qualifications to be described are fairly well defined in his character an imperfect attainment of others will suffice for the immediate object in view. With this comforting assurance in the foreground to guard the aspirant from the discouragement he might feel if he supposed that from the outset occult authorities claimed a complete realisation in his consciousness of principles that seemed at the first glance compatible only with an almost superhuman degree of moral exaltation, we may pass on to a review of the attributes towards which his efforts must be directed. English phrases may be conveniently employed to describe these attributes, without necessarily falling back on such as would accurately translate the Sanscrit or Pali terms used in the East. The idea is the all- important essence of the phrase, whatever language is used to convey it. And the foremost attribute towards which the occult aspirant must endeavour to train his interior growth is one which seems to me best defined by the phrase rendering Allegiance to the Higher Self. THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 431 To begin with, the aspirant must appreciate the significance, in its bearing on himself, of the occult teaching which shows us how the imperishable element in our consciousness is that ‘‘ Higher Self ’’ which grows and develops as it manifests in physical life through successive incarnations. Each descent into incarnation gives rise to the temporary aggregation round the Higher Self of emotions, desires, characteristics of various kinds which make up the personality or physical mask of the immortal soul—the earthly man as known to other earthly men. These do not constitute the permanent or true being—the “real’’ being, as some writers call it in contradistinction to the “ unreal ”’ personality.