English
The conduct to be regulated is that which has to do with the finer problems of life and the subtler temptations. Noblesse oblige. The conduct of an aspirant to initiations which will bring him into conscious relations with beings so exalted as those on the higher levels of the occult hierarchy, should clearly bear some fair correspondence with the character of his aspirations. Here there is no question of rank weeds to be pulled up, but of influences to be brought to bear on the aspirant’s nature of such an order that conduct may not only be negatively but positively in creditable harmony with his ideals. With that idea to explain the arrangement it will seem reasonable enough that regulation of thought is treated as the first, and regulation of conduct as the second of the qualifications. The third has to do with a change of feeling in regard to religious matters which has very different signifi- cance for different people. So many beautiful emotions are often interwoven around religious formulas and creeds, even after these have diverged a good deal from the pure teaching out of which they may have sprung, that the disentanglement of the truth from unfortunate accretions of thought gathered round it, is sometimes in such cases an almost painful process. And yet it must be recognised that the aspirant in search of real knowledge concerning the profound inner 440 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. verities of spiritual science cannot expect to carry to the end of his undertaking the whole burden of the crude popular beliefs which make up the exoteric religion, whatever it may be, in which his devotional instincts have first been nurtured. For the tender- nesses of thought, so to speak, to which that nurture may have given rise, occult teaching in its turn is profoundly tender. Genuine Theosophy is far more interested in tracing the underlying truth through its various disguises in all the great religions of the world than in dissecting their several errors; and back through the symbology that he has been used to, until he reaches the fundamental truth, each student directed by a teacher who correctly gives effect to the spirit in which the Higher Masters of wisdom deal with religious attachments, would be encouraged to choose his course. But it is plain enough that advanced spiritual culture must eventually enable the initiate in occult knowledge to look on all external forms of religious belief with a grand and tolerant impartiality. That Higher Self to which the neophyte in occultism renders an allegiance belongs of its nature to a realm of consciousness far exalted ahove ecclesiastical systems, whether of Europe or Asia. ‘The personality even of the occult student shares that exaltation as he advances in no inconsiderable degree. The acquisition of this sublime sort of tolerance, which is something more than the mere converse of persecution, constitutes the third qualification of the series we are considering. It is that attitude of mind in which a man clings to the essence of spiritual truth, and is no longer in the THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 441 mental fetters of any hard and fast dogma or creed. Of course, there are some among the candidates for occult initiation who have this qualification in pretty complete development to start with. The most intense agnosticism may be compatible with readiness to accept spiritual teaching which approaches us with adequate guarantees, and in such cases the growth of the mind, which is required at the stage of progress we are dealing with, is one which will rather invest the student with a newly developed respect for external religions, for the sake of the inner truths they embody, than oppose itself to a bigotry which, by the hypothesis, has no hold upon his thinking. But for others the old religious forms, phrases and terminology are not only dear for the sake of the spiritual truth they may endeavour to set forth; they are dear for their own sake, for that of innumerable associations bound up with them, and thus for some persons they may be a stumbling-block rather than an aid to progress. No one whose mind is cast in a religious mould can ever have been asked by a truly qualified occult teacher to break away from the religion to which he is naturally attached. But he will purify it for himself as he proceeds, and find himself less and less enslaved to its outer husk, whether of form or doctrine, and the advance he may make in the direction of this manifestly higher view of the subject is the measure of the extent to which he invests himself with the third qualification, which may thus be described as freedom from bigotry—-freedom from any exag- gerated attachment to any one body of doctrinal belief, whether it has its origin in the East or the West. 442 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. The fourth qualification towards which the candidate has to aspire, is that state of mind in which a man feels no resentment in respect of worldly wrong or ill-usage from which he may suffer. On the face of things, this qualification, in perfection, would be a very sublime attribute, and 1 need hardly stop to repeat that as regards the occult candidate attempting a preparatory self-culture, so divine a characteristic in entire perfection would hardly be expected. But, on the other hand, nothing can be more fatally incom- patible with the aspirations of a person aiming at initiation than a tendency of character which would be the opposite of the qualification in question. For one thing it will be obvious that the guardians of humanity, who are themselves, above all things, the exponents of compassion and unselfishness, can hardly be expected to extend a welcome to pupils who, however well qualified in other respects, might be capable of that worst of all selfishness—revenge. Before the powers that accrue to an initiate from the knowledge to which he is admitted, can safely be placed in his hands, it must be reasonably certain that he is not the kind of person to use them as the weapons of mundane anger. From the beginning he must lean towards the frame of mind in which he will not even feel the resent- ment to which he must, at all events, train himself not to give way. And for that matter, an honest development in the direction of the first qualification will go far towards simplifying the acquisition of that under notice. In proportion to the extent to which we really fix our aspirations on the things which concern THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 443 the Higher Self, and dissociate our longings from the common objects of worldly ambition, we shall be less liable to brood over resentful feelings against those who may have come in the way of our attainment thereof. I need not expand the hint into a moral essay, but concentrating the thought instead of enlarg- ing it, may suggest as a conveniently concise description of the fourth qualification—Forbearance. The fifth qualification, like the third, is a character- istic almost instinctive with some natures, extremely difficult of acquisition by others. It has been described as incapability of being turned aside from one’s path by temptation. With persons of constitutionally resolved and steadfast temperament, the motives for entering on the occult path, once appreciated, could never lose their weight. Others of more enthusiastic and impulsive character might be turned aside more easily without having been less sincere at the outset. But for all who have made any decided progress in the acquisition of the tendencies already reviewed, it must, to say the least, be growing probable that faithfulness to the lofty purpose in view will be strengthened into something like a constitutional attribute. It must clearly be assuined to have thus established itself as a predominant feature of the candidate’s interior nature before the preparatory stage of the great process is over. The one word “ Steadfastness’”’ will sufh- ciently denote the phase of character in question. And now we come to the last of the qualifications in the probationary series—confidence in the power of the occult Master to teach the truth; in that of the 444 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. candidate himself to grasp it in all its vast complexity, and to wield the powers knowledge may bring in its train, as others have been able to do this before him. The final qualification thus treated as among the pre- paratory attributes to be acquired by the mere aspirant to initiation, is very significant. How does it come to pass that a “Master’’ appears suddenly on the scene ? Up to this moment all the efforts contemplated are in the nature of self-preparation, and by the whole hypothesis the process is one that the neophyte must undertake for himself, before undertaking which it is not to be expected that he will be in conscious relations with any of the higher teachers. But, as already explained, it is quite certain that at a very early stage of the beginner’s loyal effort to accomplish the interior development which must precede his conscious intro- duction to higher knowledge and fellowship, he will attract the attention of some one among the higher teachers. For a long while he himself may remain entirely unaware of this, but if he fairly well realises the two great inaugural attributes and trains himself with the earlier qualifications, he will make the acquaint- ance of the Master. to whom he naturally gravitates, before the time comes at which the sixth assumes practical importance for him. Of course it must always be remembered that nothing in connexion with such a work as this is done in a hurry. The earlier attributes will not be acquired even in the degree sufficient for the beginner under the sudden impulse of a new emotion.