English
Such interior changes ensue from long habits of thought by degrees, THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 445 or even if some natures are so constituted that a suddenly acquired conviction or enthusiasm may also be held fast, the Master whose attention was engaged would let time elapse, if only for the sake of testing its persistence, before he took any steps that would illuminate the understanding of the pupil concerning his own identity. Indeed, there would be another motive for delaying that illumination. By the time the habits of thought, the interior growth, manifest to the Master’s observa- tion, which were giving rise to the acquisition of the earlier attributes, were fairly developed, a state of things would have set in bringing the aspirant into new and very important relations with the mighty powers in the background of the world’s affairs, by whose conscious agency the law of Karma is applied to each individual of the human family. The desire to tread the Path of Holiness which is expressed by pro- gress in initiation, must necessarily include, if it is intelligently entertained, a desire to close once for all the account of evil doing in the past which may stand as an impediment in the way. It is practically an appeal to the Lords of Karma that they may hasten the process by which the aspirant is—slowly in the ordinary course of things—expiating the mistakes or misdoings of past lives. As such an appeal might be made in ignorance of all it might mean, we may assume as probable that it would not be fully answered if the account of the past were so heavy a one that it could hardly be disposed of in one life. But the greater likelihood lies in the opposite direction. The aspirant for spiritual progress 446 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL, may, perhaps, have a good deal to answer for as regards Karma engendered in past lives, but still he is not likely to be among the most deeply besmirched of his race. So it is probable that some rearrangement of the programme of his life’s destiny may enable him to go through at once whatever inevitable suffering awaits him, to the end that in the next following incarnation there may be no impediment in the way of his progress. So this is generally the result of a serious attempt to get upon the path of occult development. In one way or another the aspirant finds it unexpectedly thorny. The trouble he encounters may not necessarily seem a direct consequence of his spiritual efforts. More probably it takes the shape of mundane distress or suffering of some kind or another, loss of fortune, friends, or health, as the case may be. And such mis- fortunes then become the automatically established ordeals which constitute the real trials of the aspirant’s steadfastness. The imperfect accounts of initiation as carried out in more primitive ages of the world that have come down to our time, describe artificial ordeals and temptations put in the neophyte’s way, and some- thing of this kind may have actually been arranged for in Ancient Egypt, but even there the natural Karmic tests and trials of perseverance must have been the more important, and at all events it is to their by no means tender mercies that the modern aspirant must look forward to being confided. If the irritation and impatience to which they may give rise have the effect of turning aside his thoughts and anxieties from the path of progress on which he has sought to enter, then THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 447 he will have failed for that life, at all events, in accom- plishing the fifth qualification, and his responsibility will not be unduly aggravated by such disclosures or interior illumination as would bring the sixth into question. The fourth attribute of the probationary path,—the acquisition of the six qualifications constituting the third according to the classification here and generally adopted,—is recognised as a natural sequence of these. It takes the shape of a clearly defined desire for spiritual existence and union with the highest ideals on that plane of thought which the aspirant can set before his mind. And the fifth attribute is rather a stage of pro- gress than a distinct achievement in itself. It 1s described as readiness for initiation and comes on as a consequence of the previous acquirements. Then in the fulness of time the aspirant—no longer to be described by that word alone—is conducted by the Master by whom his earlier progress has been watched over and guided, to a great result. He passes a threshold beyond which he finds himself in a certain sense a member of the great Fraternity of Holiness. It is true that from one point of view he has but then for the first time begun to tread the path of true occult development. Many lives may be spent in the efforts and acquirements which lead to Adeptship. From that level the horizons before him, when he ultimately gains perception of them, will widen in a manner which no one can expect to realise with exactitude beforehand ; but at all events the aspirant who crosses the boundary of the first great initiation has gained something that 448 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. cah never be lost, whatever may happen to him in the future, whatever difficulties he may encounter as he proceeds. He can never in the nature of things slip back to be what he was before the all-important change was wrought in his nature first by his own persistent effort, and at last fixed by his acceptance at the hands of the governing hierarchy of the world. The initiation which thus carries the aspirant once for all across the chasm dividing ordinary humanity from the occult world, is called the ‘‘ Sohan ”’ initiation. The attainment is not a question of psychic character- istics. It is even theoretically possible (though this is an unusual possibility) that it may be taken on the higher planes of consciousness without the incarnate personality remembering or knowing anything about the matter. But at all events it is altogether a question of moral and ethical development and will not be hastened one day, in the absence of such development, by the possession of psychic senses which may be the Karmic fruit of efforts to penetrate the mysteries of Nature, undertaken (perhaps in past lives) from motives quite out of harmony with the lofty altruism of the genuine disciple of the Masters. Psychic faculties grown in this unhealthy way are far more likely to entangle their possessor with evil relationships on the occult planes of existence than to help him on the real upward path. Not even on the attainment of the Sohan initiation does the development of psychic faculties, such as will put the waking incarnate man into possession of those keys of knowledge confided to him at his initiation, THE PROBATIONARY PATH. 449 become the foremost object of his appointed training. His work as regards his own training—though he will now, when actively functioning in the Higher Self, have plenty of other work to do under proper direction, the nature of which cannot easily be comprehended from the point of view of ordinary mundane thinking— will still be primarily concerned with the perfection of his moral attributes. For one thing, now he is on the true path of initiation, he will be required to attain with absolute completeness the characteristics which are but imperfectly realised during the probationary period. The result to be attained, indeed, is now approached in a somewhat different way. In the course of his progress through the various stages of initiation leading up to Adeptship, the disciple is not spoken of aS acquiring such and such attributes, but is called on to cast off various “‘fetters’’ which attach him to the lower levels of existence. In some Eastern books these fetters are enumerated in a definite order, but I do not think the purposes of this explanation would be served by an examination of the series. From the point of view of ordinary life their exact significance in the occult world would probably be misapprehended. The claims of the probationary qualifications we can all analyse and appreciate to the full. Higher knowledge must be required to interpret those of the higher path. But it is none the less interesting to survey the stages of this higher path, which are better understood even in the outer world by those who are in any true sense occult students, than many Theosophists may be aware of. FF 450 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Without suspecting what he is unconsciously dealing with, Prof. Max Miiller mentions the steps of initiation in one of his translations. In a note to Chapter xii. of his ‘‘ Dammapada’’ he writes: “. . . Arhat being the highest degree of the four orders of Ariyas, viz., Srotaapanna, Sakridag4min, Andgamin and Arhat.” Those are the four actual names of the four initiations culminating in Adeptship, the first being a synonym of the ‘‘Sohan ” stage and meaning, I believe, ‘‘ one who has entered on the stream.” Long intervals of time may separate the passage from one of these degrees to the next. Provided the Karma of the past is entirely favourable to rapid progress, and has fully prepared the neophyte before his entrance on the Sohan stage, it is possible that he may attain the second stage in the same life as the first, but although it is manifestly impossible to speak with assurance as to the usual course of events in reference to progress at these altitudes, the exoteric Eastern books relating to initiation declare that seven lives may not unreasonably be spent after the first great initiation has been taken, in the attainment of the second degree, I suspect this statement to be an exaggeration, but on such questions it is obviously impossible to be precise.