English
Correctly apprehended, the distinction is a just one, though there is a flavour of absurdity in applying the term “unreal” to the earthly personality —so very solid and definite a manifestation while it lasts—which is irritating to people who endeavour to use language with nicety. Anyhow it can be seen that the personality is impermanent as an aggregate of characteristics, though of course it is all the while infused with and animated by the permanent Higher Self. If the conception is found embarrassing it may be approached by dwelling first of all on the obvious truth that the physical body in which the personality is expressed is impermanent as far as that is concerned. A very little effort of imagination on the part of anyone in any sensible degree qualified to deal seriously with occult teaching will enable him to feel that he might still be himself in another incarnation with a new body and a different worldly environment. ‘The experience 432 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. of those who have progressed a little way on the path and are enabled to recover recollections of former lives will give us the assurance that in looking back on these such persons feel that their earlier incarnations were undoubtedly themselves, in spite of the wide differ- ences of bodily condition and environment they may have represented. From the stage of mental growth in which each bodily manifestation of the permanent self is appreciated as a temporary phase of being, no long step has to be made to the realisation of the subtle truth that some conditions of consciousness attached to the personality are transitory and impermanent, as well as the outward shape and appearance of the body. With that conception fairly grasped the student has got a good way on towards the acquisition of the first attribute of the probationary path. To acquire it in sufficient completeness for that step of his progress he need only apply it to the practicalities of life. That is to say, he has only (!) to appreciate the real insigni- ficance of those objects of pursuit in life which relate to the impermanent personality as compared with those which tend towards the growth and invigoration of the Higher Self—the real being whose progress, once achieved, is never lost in the course of future evolution. No doubt the complete appreciation of this great truth would make the incarnate man so sublime a philosopher that it seems almost extravagant to claim the attribute from the aspirant just setting out on the path of spiritual progress. But throughout this exposition the reader may bear one important reservation in mind. There will come a time in the course of the disciple’s progress THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 433 when the qualifications under consideration must be realised in his consciousness with absolute perfection ; but in the beginning this is hardly expected as a preli- minary preparation ‘For acceptance. That which is required is a sound appreciation of the ideal condition of feeling aimed at, an honest endeavour to realise it as nearly as possible, and a fair approximation to success. Total indifference to the usual objects of worldly ambition and desire seems hardly possible for a person actually living in the world, and as yet unconscious in his waking state of the higher spiritual world beyond. On the other hand, we can see that complete absorption in objects of worldly ambition and desire is on the face of things incompatible with even the first beginnings of aspiration in the direction of occult progress. No one to whom the thirst for ease and luxury, for wealth, or for the applause or consideration of competitors in the worldly race, is the mainspring of activity in this existence, is even planted with his foot on the first rung of the occult ladder, even if a certain intellectual appreciation of esoteric teaching as probably true may colour his thinking in leisure moments. From the very outset of any serious anxiety to ascend in the scale of creation, and approximate towards communion with those who represent its altitudes, there must come about a considerable loosening of the old ties to worldly objects. These may not fade away into entire insig- nificance, but they begin to be coloured by a sickly ‘aspect of instability, and gradually the interior con- sciousness that conditions of existence relating to planes of Nature quite divorced from all physical necessities EE 434 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL, or enjoyments are the only objects worth energetic endeavour, will take hold of the mind. The change may be worked out by different aspirants with very different degrees of completeness, but it must set in, for the neophyte even, or for him the slow course of unhastened evolution will roll on through the ages, passing him through an all but interminable succession of lives, each at the best but a very little better than its predecessor, many of them involving bitter retro- gression, as measured on the scale of worldly welfare, most of them gloomily vindicating the pessimist philosophy, that would indeed be justified by human experience if consciousness on the physical plane of life, with all the penalties of that condition in constant operation, were the only kind to which the human family had access. While loftier motives are the allure- ment to occult endeavour, this thought should be its spur. The path may be hard to travel, but in the sufferings it can hardly fail to entail in the long run, the only alternative road—-that which carries us through the tedious course of secular evolution—is a good deal more deterrent to the imagination. And what is the next attribute to be incorporated with the character of the occult student ? He is aiming, be it remembered, at communion with those who have achieved a level of individual exaltation, which would enable them, if they thought fit, to enjoy an existence of beatitude which cannot be comprehended by persons on a far inferior level of spiritual development, but is supremely attractive for those by whom it can be approached. In foregoing this and remaining attached THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 435 by Incarnation to the plane of physical life, they are governed by no motive referring in any way to them- selves. They are solely prompted by the desire to do good to others irrespective of any possible advantage ensuing to themselves. In a minor degree, therefore, the aspirant who proposes to follow in their footsteps must cultivate the habit of mind which they exemplify in perfection. He has, that is to say, to aim at spiritual exaltation not for the sake of its beatitude, but for that of its opportunities, in order that he may put himself in a position to join in the work of elevating the condition of humanity en masse. As in the case of the characteristics concerned with rendering allegi- ance to the Higher Self, it would be extravagant to contend that the mere aspirant must definitely attain the moral condition in which the efforts he makes in the path of spiritual progress are wholly prompted by desire to benefit others, and completely exempt from even that lofty kind of spiritual ambition that impels him to seek the beatitudes of the spiritual planes of being ; but there must be even in his case a recognition of the nobler motive, and an application of it to the immediate problem of existence. He must wean him- self from the notion that the attainment of spiritual beatitude for himself is the object of endeavour. In doing right he must not allow the idea that he will ultimately be rewarded, in some way, on another plane of existence for so doing, to take hold of his imagina- tion. Perhaps a good many right-thinking people may habitually do right without paying much attention to the idea of any consequent reward. ‘They do the right 438 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. of circumstance that might eddy round him. The control and regulation of thought is an enormous task on which the energies of the occult student will be bent, in many various ways, for a long time, but he must make a beginning on it from the outset of his self- preparation. In doing this he is beginning in a very subtle way that training of the will which is an all- important process as he advances further. Thought is under the control of the will to an extent that exoteric psychology does not always recognise, and there are manifold reasons why the aspirant to initiation must be able to hold his thoughts fairly well in hand before he is in a position to claim admittance to a fellowship in which thought is apt to be as manifest to those around, as the colour of the clothes a man might wear would be manifest to ordinary observation. And independently of this, regulation of thought in the aspirant is regarded from the occult point of view as the prelude to the second qualification of the series before us—regulation of conduct. Taken thus, the first and second qualifications will perhaps seem to some readers presented in the wrong order. It may look like putting the cart before the horse to postpone the reform of one’s action till after the reform of one’s thinking on the subject. And as applied to the grosser vices of common life—if these were the matters the occultist had to regulate, self-restraint in action would certainly have to be accomplished before any one could talk seriously about regulating thought in such a way as to eliminate from his nature the desires that would have to be self-restrained. But the student THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 439 who has already rendered allegiance to his Higher Self and attained devotion to right, even in a degree that may be far from perfection in either respect, need hardly be thought of as a person under the dominion of the grosser vices.