THE PATH OF DISCIPLESHIP/PART 3

 

THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE.

THE PROBATIONARY PATH.

THE FOUR INITIATIONS.

 

IT is a difficult task, my brothers, that lies before us this morning. In the two preceding lectures I have been dealing with the life of men in the world, and pointing out to you how in this ordinary life men might gradually prepare themselves for the higher stages of evolution; how they might gradually train themselves for swifter progress, for swifter advance. But today we have to go outside the life of man in the ordinary sense of the term - not so far as the outer appearance is concerned, but so far as the reality of the inner life is to be studied. For the stages of human progress that we are now to deal with are distinct and definite stages, which lead men out of the life of the world into the life of the higher regions;  out of the ordinary humanity into a humanity which is divine. And inasmuch, therefore, as it must take us more outside common experience, the task is, as I say, more difficult, both for you who hear it and for myself who speak. For in these higher matters higher faculties must needs be brought into play; and they best will be able to follow this lofty teach­ing who, at least, have tried to some extent that purification of life and building of character to which our last two mornings have been devoted in thought.

I brought you yesterday up to the point at which a man, having tried to improve his life and control his thought, to bring himself into preparation for discipleship, has drawn the attention of some great Teacher, has drawn the attention of a Guru, so that he may now begin the first stages of discipleship. And it is these first stages that we will take in begin­ning this morning. However large the subject, I have to try and run through the whole of the life of discipleship, of chelaship, this morning.

 

The first stages make up what has been called “the probationary path”, that is the stage of probationary as separated from the stage of accepted chelaship. In the probationary path, while we can recognize certain stages, and the acquirement of cer­tain definite qualifications, we do not find them so definitely marked out as are those of what we will call the Path proper - that of chelaship recognized and distinct. In the true Path, the Path where the disciple is not only recognized by his Master, but recognizes his Master, in that Path the four stages are exceedingly distinct, are known by separate names, and are separated by distinct Initiations. On the probationary path the stages are marked, but they are not separated in that distinct way. The stages may be said rather to run side by side than suc­cessively and one after the other. The probationary chela, as we may call one entering on the stages of this path, is not expected to perform perfectly everything he begins to practise. He is expected to attempt, but perfect performance is not demanded from him. It is sufficient if he be in earnest, if his efforts are sustained, if he does not change his mind nor lose sight of his goal. Many allowances, as we say in human affairs, are made for him on the ground of human frailty, human weakness, and the lack of knowledge which still hinders his advance. The trials he meets with, the tests he undergoes, are the trials and tests which are met with in ordinary life, troubles of every kind and form, on which I shall have a word to say presently, but they are not of the nature of those which belong to the distinct and definite Path. The stages of the probationary path, if I remember rightly, were traced some years ago from the well-known Hindu teachings, by a Brahmana,  then in England, and a member of the Theosophical  Society, Mohini Mohun Chatterji of Calcutta; he re­counted what have been called the preliminary steps which men must take and must accomplish, helped to a certain extent by their Teachers, but for the most part unconsciously to themselves - that is, as far as their waking consciousness is concerned; the chela appears to himself to be treading the path alone, and to be dependent on his own strength and energy. I need not say that this is an illusion due to his own blindness and ignorance, for the eyes of his Teacher are on him, although it may not be known to him in his waking consciousness, and help is ever extended to him from the higher planes of being, help that shows itself in his life, although it may not show itself clearly to his waking mind. And now we shall find the qualifications we have dealt with as preparatory in a general sense take to themselves more definite shapes on the probationary path.

 

The first qualification is the outcome of the ex­periences through which he has passed; they awake and train in him VIVEKA, or discrimination. Discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the eternal and the transitory. Until this appears he will be bound to the earth by ignorance, and worldly objects will exercise over him all their seductive glamour. His eyes must be opened, he must pierce through the veil of Maya, at least sufficiently to rate earthly things at their true value, for from Viveka is born the second of the qualifica­tions - VAIRAGYA. I have already pointed out to you that a man must begin to train himself in separation from action as regards its fruit. He must train him­self to do action as a duty without continually look­ing for any sort of personal gain. That training we will suppose has been carried out by a man certainly for life after life, before the demand is made on him which he must answer to a very considerable extent before Initiation is possible, that he shall become definitely indifferent to earthly objects. Indifference to earthly objects, indifference to worldly objects, Vairagya, is the second of the qualifications in the probationary path of chelaship. He has developed Viveka and, as we have seen, this means the dis­crimination between the real and the unreal, between the transitory and the permanent. And as reality and permanency make themselves felt in the man’s mind, it is inevitable that worldly objects shall lose their attraction, and that he shall become definitely indifferent to them. When the real is seen the unreal is so unsatisfactory; when the permanent is recognized, if only for a moment, the transitory seems so little worth striving after; in the probationary path all the objects around us lose their attractive power, and it is no longer an effort for the man to turn away from them; it is no longer by deliberate effort of the will that he does not permit himself to work for fruit. The objects have no longer an attraction in them­selves; the root of desire is gradually perishing, and these objects, as it is said in the Bhagavad Gita, turn away from the abstemious dweller in the body. It is not so much that he deliberately abstains, as that they lose the power to any way satisfy him. The objects of the senses turn away from him, because of that training that we have already dealt with, that he has passed through.

 

Seeing objects then in their transitory character it is quite natural that out of indifference to the objects should also grow, as a matter of course, that which he has long been striving after, namely, indifference to their fruits; for the fruits are themselves but other objects. The fruits themselves share the impermanency and unreality which he recognizes, having seen the real and the permanent.

 

And then the third of the qualifications has to be gained on the probationary path: SHATSAMPATTI, the six-fold group of mental qualities or mental attributes which show themselves within the life of this chela-candidate - as perhaps we may call him. He has long been striving to rule his thoughts in the manner with which we are familiar. He has been practising all those methods which we spoke of yesterday, to gain self-control, to acquire the habit of meditation, and to perform the building of char­acter. These have prepared him now to show forth in the real man - for we are concerned with the real man and not with the illusory appearance - to show forth in the real man, Shama, control of the mind, that definite regulation of thought, that definite understanding of the effects of thought, and of his relation to the world around him, as he affects it for good or for evil by his own thinking. By the recognition of that power that he has either to help or to mar by his own thought the lives of other men, how to hinder or to help the evolution of the race, he becomes a deliberate worker for human progress and for the progress of all evolving beings within the limits of the world to which he belongs. And this regulation of thought - now a definite attitude of the mind - is preparing him, as we shall see, for complete and definite chelaship, where every thought is to be made the instrument of the Master’s work, and where comparatively without effort the mind is to run along the grooves that are traced for it by the will.

 

Out of that regulation of thought, now so largely accomplished, follows inevitably Dama, control of the senses and the body, that which we may call regulation of conduct. Do you notice how when deal­ing with things from the occult standpoint, they are reversed as compared with the standpoint of earth? Worldly men think more of conduct than of thought.  The occultist thinks far more of thought than of conduct. If the thought be right the conduct must inevitably be pure; if the thought be regulated, the conduct must inevitably be well controlled and governed. The outer appearance or action is only the translation of the inner thought which in the world of form takes shape as what we call action; but the form is dependent on the life within, the shape is dependent on the moulding energy which makes it. The Arupa world is the world of causes, the Rupa world is only the world of effects; and therefore if we regulate thought the conduct must be regulated, as it is the natural and inevitable expression of thought.

 

The third mental attribute that marks this attitude of the inner man is Uparati, best translated perhaps as a wide and noble and sustained tolerance - I use that word in the very widest sense that you can give to it - tolerance of all that is round him, a kind or sublime patience which is able to wait, which is able to understand, and, therefore, demands from none more than he can give. This again is the prepara­tion for a very distinct stage on the path of full chelaship. This attitude of the man, the tolerant attitude, is able to make allowances for every one and everything, looks on all men not as they are seen from without but as they are seen from within, sees their aspirations, their desires and their motives, and not only the clumsy mistranslations which appearance often gives in the outer world. He learns tolerance of all different forms of religion, tolerance of all different kinds of custom, tolerance of all the varying traditions of men. He understands that all these are transitory phases which men ultimately outgrow, and he is not so unreasonable as to expect from the child humanity that wideness, that breadth, that sense of dignified patience which is characteristic of humanity in its manhood and not in its early stages. This attitude of the mind must be constantly cultivated by the man who is approaching initiation, and he must gain that tolerance by insight into truth and be able to recognize the underlying truth underneath the veil of misleading appearances.

 

Do you notice how all through it is the dawning of the sense of reality that is the great change that has come over the man in this probationary path? He is no longer deceived by appearances as he was in the early days. As he grows he sees reality and so gradually gets rid of illusion. He is shaking off subjection to appearances, and he is recognizing truth, no matter what may be its illusory form.

 

The next point in his mental attitude is Titiksha, endurance, a patient bearing of all that comes, a total absence of resentment. You will remember how I drew your attention to this as a thing to strive for, how a man was gradually to get rid of the tendency to feel injured, how he was to cultivate love and compassion and forgiveness, and the re­sult of that cultivation of the mind is this mental attitude steady and defined. The inner man thus gets rid of resentment - resentment towards every­thing, towards men, towards circumstances, towards everything that surrounds him in life. Why? Because he sees truth and he knows the Law, and therefore knows that whatever circumstances surround him, they are the outcome of the good Law. He knows that whatever men may do to him they are only the unconscious agents of the Law. He knows that whatever comes to him in life is of his own creating in the past. And so his attitude is the attitude of absence of resentment. He realizes justice, therefore he cannot be angry with anything, for nothing can touch him which he has not deserved; nothing can come in his way which he has not put there in his former lives. Thus we find that no troubles and no joys can turn him aside from his path; he is no longer to be changed in direction by anything that comes in his way. He sees the path and treads it; he sees the goal and he presses towards it. He is no longer following devious and indefinite ways, here, there and everywhere; but firmly, steadily, he follows the path he has chosen. He cannot be attracted away from it by pleasure; he cannot be driven away from it by pain. He cannot be dis­couraged by dulness, by voidness, by emptiness, he cannot be induced to stray from it by offers from any save the one Guru whose Feet he seeks. Incapacity to be turned aside, strong in endurance - ah! there is a quality he needs indeed on this probationary path. For I spoke of the tests and ordeals which will beset his way, and it is well that you should understand why these difficulties should come. The man who has entered on the probationary path intends to accomplish within a very limited number of lives what the man of the world will accomplish in hundreds upon hundreds of lives. He is like the man who, wanting to reach the top of the mountain, refuses to follow the track that winds round and round. He says: “I am going straight up the mountain-side, I am not going to waste my time on this winding beaten track which will take me so long, the slow way on which most of the going is smooth and easy, beaten by the myriads of feet that tread it. I shall go by the shorter route, I shall take the swifter path, I shall go straight up the mountain­side. No matter what the difficulties, I will climb the mountain. No matter what obstacles there may be, I will go; precipices there may be - I will cross them; walls of rocks there may be - I will climb them; obstacles and boulders in my path there may be - I will manage in some way to surmount them or get round them; but up that mountain - side I mean to travel”. What will be the result? He will find a thousand-fold more difficulties surround him on the path. If he gains in time he must pay in trouble for the difficulty of the achievement. The man who enters on the probationary path is the man who chooses the short way to the mountain-top, and calls down on himself the whole of his past Karma, which is largely to be got rid of before he is fitted for initiation. The great Lords of Karma who administer the karmic Law - those mighty Intelligences high above us, greater than our comprehension can understand, greater than our reason can in any way fathom, who have been spoken of as the Recorders of Karma, Those who keep the akashic records in which are written down all the past thoughts and deeds of men - They have, as it were, an account of each individual. They have before Their omniscient eyes the life-record of each man, and that record which lies under Their eyes has to be mostly discharged, ere he passes through the portals of initia­tion. And when he enters on the probationary path, when deliberately of his own set will he puts his feet on that path, the very putting of his feet there is a cry to the great Lords of Karma that They will balance up the account that there is against him, and present him with the karmic debt he is obliged to discharge. Is it then any wonder that difficulties grow round his path? The Karma that would have spread over hundreds of lives will have to be passed through in a few, perhaps in one, and so naturally the path is difficult to tread. Family troubles come round the man, business troubles press upon him, troubles of mind and of body assail him; do you wonder then that I said he needs steadfastness, in order to proceed along the proba­tionary path and not turn back, in order not to be discouraged. It may seem that everything is against him. It may seem to him that his Master has forsaken him. Why, when he is trying his best should the worst befall him? Why, when he is living better than he ever lived before, should all these difficulties and pains assail him? It seems so unjust, it seems so hard, it seems so cruel, that when he is living more nobly than he has ever tried to live before, he finds himself more hardly treated than ever before by Destiny. He must stand the test, he must refuse to allow any sense of injustice to penetrate into his inner life. He must say to himself: “It was my own doing, I challenged my Karma; what wonder then that I am asked to pay it”. And at least he has the encouragement of remembering that the debt once paid is paid for ever, once lived through no more of it can come to disturb him. Every karmic debt he pays is struck from off life’s ledger for evermore. That debt at least is done with. So that if illness strikes him down, he thinks it is well that  that much trouble should be gotten rid of; if pain and anxiety assail him, he thinks it is well; he answers: “It will be behind me in the past and not before me in the future”. And so it is that in the midst of sorrow he is joyful, in the midst of dis­couragement he is hopeful, in the midst of pain he is at ease, for the inner man is content with the Law, he is satisfied with the answer which has come to his demand. If there were no answer, it would mean that his voice had not reached the ears of the Great Ones, it would mean his prayer had fallen back to earth; for this trouble is the answer to his petition. Thus in these struggles, these difficulties, these efforts, he gains the fifth mental attribute and that is:­ Shraddha, faith, or we may call it confidence - confi­dence in his Master and in himself. You can under­stand how that will be the result of such a struggle. You can understand how on the further side of the struggle confidence must come out, as the flower must open under the stimulating influence of sunshine and rain. He has learned confidence in his Guru, for has He not led him through all this thorny path and brought him to the other side where the gateway of initiation begins to open in front of him? And he has learned confidence in himself - not in his lower self whose weakness he has conquered, but in his divine Self whose strength he is beginning to recognize. For he understands that every man is divine, he understands that what his Guru is today, he him­self is going to become in the lives that still stretch out in front of him. And the confidence he feels is in the power of the Master to teach and to guide him, in the wisdom of the Master to lead and to instruct him; and a confidence in himself, most humble yet most  strong, that inasmuch as he is himself divine, he also has the power to accomplish; that however much of effort may be needed, however much of difficulty still remains to conquer, the strength that is in him is one with Brahman, and is enough for every difficulty, enough for every trial.

 

The sixth mental attribute is Samadhana, balance, composure, peace of mind, that equilibrium and steadiness which result from the attainment of the foregoing qualities. With the gaining of this the probationary path is trodden, the chela-candidate stands ready before the gateway, and there appears without further effort the fourth qualification:­ MUMUKSHA, the desire for emancipation, the wish to gain liberation, that which, crowning the long efforts of the candidate, shows him to be an Adhikari, to be ready for initiation. He has been proved and not found wanting: his discrimination is keen, his indifference is no temporary disgust, due to a pass­ing disappointment, his mental and moral character is lofty - he is fit, he is ready for initiation. No more is asked, he stands fit to come face to face with his Master, face to face with the life that he so long has sought.

 

Notice ere we put our hand on the gateway of initiation that every quality of the probationary path is a preparation for what lies in front, is a moral and mental quality. Moral and mental qualities are the qualifications that are demanded - not powers, as they are called, not abnormal psychic development, not the Siddhis. These are not in any sense demanded or required. A man may have gained some of the Siddhis and yet not be fit for initiation; but he must have the moral qualifications. These are demanded with a rigidity that nothing can change - with a rigidity, let me say in passing, that is the result of experience. For the great Gurus in Their vast experience of humanity, have been training it step by step for myriads of years. They know well enough that the qualification for true discipleship must be found in the mind and in the moral character and not in the development of the psychic nature; that has to come in its own place and in its own good time. But to be a recognized disciple, an accepted  chela, the mind and morals must be fitted to meet the gaze of the Guru; such as have been stated are the qualifications He demands, and these His pupils must give Him ere the second birth will be granted by Him who alone can give it. And notice also that these imply knowledge and devotion - the growth of knowledge that the man may see, and the growth of devotion without which the path cannot be trodden. And, therefore, it is written in the Upanishad that knowledge unallied to devotion is not enough, that devotion by itself is not sufficient; it must be knowledge wedded to devotion, for these are the two wings by which the disciple rises.

 

We come to the Path itself. Of the great Initia­tions which mark the stages of the Path after the chela is accepted by his Guru and when the Guru takes upon Himself the guidance and instruction and guardianship of His chela - of these great Initia­tions from time to time a word has been dropped from the lips of some Teacher in the outer world, and we can find hints thrown out here and there, hints which are verified by the experience of those who pass  within the gateway, hints which are permitted to be expanded to some small extent, not for the gratifica­tion of idle curiosity, but for the training of those who would fain prepare themselves for this great step in advance. What can be said about them must obviously be imperfect; that which can be revealed in the world of men of these great mysteries can only be fragmentary information. Many questions will rise in your mind as I take these hints and weave them together into a slight but connected whole. Many questions will rise in your minds the answers to which could not be wisely given. The whole object, as I say, of giving the information is not to gratify curiosity, it is not in order that a man may ask a number of questions and get answers given to them one after another; the hints that are given are meant for men who are in earnest, for those who want to know in order that they may prepare, for those who want to understand in order that they may be able to accomplish. And so from time to time these hints are given, the partial information which is enough for immediate guidance, but not enough to satisfy mere idle and worldly curiosity.

 

Two mighty Teachers stand out in history as having given more information on this subject than any others - each of Them a Teacher of a world-wide religion - world-wide not in the sense of area, but world-wide in their bearing on the souls that are ready for their reception. One of these great Teachers was the Founder of Buddhism, the LORD BUDDHA; and the other of these Teachers was SHRI SHANKARACHARYA, who did for Hinduism what we may say the BUDDHA did for countries beyond its reach in founding His exoteric faith. As regards the Path Their teachings are identical, as the teachings of every such great Initiate must needs be. Each of Them laid down the same stages; each of Them marks the stages by definite initiations which separate each stage from those which precede it and those which follow it. In the teaching itself there is perfect identity, it is only in the phraseology adapting it respectively to one faith or the other that differences arise. Here again, of course, is one of the reasons why men must learn to seek truth under diverse forms and appearances, otherwise they quarrel about the forms instead of realizing the identity that underlies these outer labels that are merely names.

 

Four different stages there are, as I say, and each of them marked by an initiation. Now initiation means this; it means the expansion of consciousness which is brought about by the definite intermediation of the Guru, who acts in place of the one GREAT INITIATOR of humanity and gives the second birth in His Name. This expansion of consciousness is the  note as it were of initiation, for this expansion of consciousness gives what is called “the key of know­ledge”; it opens up to the Initiate new vistas of know­ledge and of power, it places within his hand the key which unlocks the doors of nature. To what end? In order that he may become more serviceable to the world at large; in order that his power for service may be increased; in order that he may join that scanty band of men who are vowed to humanity and  who have renounced the lower self, who seek nothing save the service of the Master and of humanity; who know that the service of the Master and of humanity is one and the same service; who have done with the world and everything that the world can offer; who have dedicated themselves for ever to the service  of the Great Ones to be Their instruments of work,  the channels of Their help and of Their grace. And between each of the great Initiations certain definite things have to be done - changes in the inner man­ - but with a great difference from the changes which have hitherto been considered. When a man is once initiated, what is done has to be done perfectly, no longer imperfectly; every accomplishment is completely achieved, every chain is definitely cast off. No longer the imperfect working out; can’t he pass onwards till perfectly the work of the stage is accomplished. So that there is this definiteness about it, which is nowhere else in life, that each successive stage is finished before the man passes further. No half-work, no incomplete achievement is here accepted. However long it may take, the work must be absolutely finished before another step forward can be taken. Technically that has been called “the casting off of the fetters”, of certain things that still bind the soul. At the end of the Path lies Jivanmukti; to have trodden it is to reach that stage where life is free, so that every fetter must be cast off wholly in order that nothing may bind the living man.

 

The first great Initiation makes the man what is called by SHRI SHANKARACHARYA the Parivrajaka - what is called by the BUDDHA the Srotapatti. The Buddhist word, generally given in its Pali form, means “he who has entered the stream” which separates him from this world. He no longer belongs to this world, though he may live in it; he has here no place, nothing can hold him. Exactly the same idea is conveyed by the word Parivrajaka, a man who wanders about, that is, who has no settled home; not necessarily wandering about in the body, not necessarily no settled home in the body - as it has come to mean in the exoteric sense - but the man who in his inner life is separated from the world, who has in this transitory world no fixed place of abode, to whom in this transitory world one place is not different from any other. He can go here, there and anywhere, where his Master may send him. No place has power to hold him, no place has power to bind him; he has shaken off the fetters of place. And so he is called “the wanderer”. I know of course, as you know, that this stage is taken in quite an exoteric sense today; but I am taking it in the inner sense, in the meaning of the Great Ones who gave it. We know, alas! how much things have changed from the older days; how that which was then a reality in life has now become a matter of words and of outer appearance. But I am anxious that you should know the four stages of the Path as they are spoken of in Hinduism, as some people imagine that they were revealed only by the LORD BUDDHA, whereas He but proclaimed again the ancient narrow Path, that all Initiates of the One Lodge have trodden, are treading, and shall tread.

 

Let me take the reality first. The man who has crossed the stream, as I said, has definitely parted with the world - he wants no more of it except as he can serve it. He asks no more of it except as in it he can do his Guru’s bidding. That is the mark of the first great Initiation - of the man who is re-born. For the most part the re-birth takes place outside the body but in waking consciousness: i.e., the man is initiated generally in his astral body in full con­sciousness, the physical body being left entranced; occasionally a chela is initiated without the waking consciousness being permitted for a time to share in the knowledge. But in either case the act can never be undone; the man can never again be as he was before. The babe, when it is born into the world, may for a time be unconscious of the new world around it, but that babe cannot return into its mother’s womb and be as though no birth had been passed through. So neither can the Initiate who has passed through the second birth ever again be as though he had not been thus born, and share in the life of the outer world as those who have not passed the second birth may share in it. He may delay in his progress, he may be slow in his advance, he may take a longer time than is necessary to throw off the fetters that still bind him; but he can never again be uninitiated, the key can never again pass out of his grasp. He has stepped into the stream; he is separated from the world; he must go forward, however slowly, however many lives he may spend in the doing.

 

A question has been raised as to the number of lives intervening between this step and final libera­tion, the attainment of Jivanmukti. I remember hearing that Svami T. Subba Row, speaking here to some friends about the general idea that seven lives had to be passed in this division of chelaship, made the perfectly true and significant remark: “It may be seven lives or seventy, it may be seven days or seven hours”. That is: the life of the soul is not counted by mortal years or by mortal time; it depends on its energy, on its strength, on its will to succeed. A man may waste his time or spend it to the best advantage, and according to that will be the progress that he will make.

 

But during this stage, which is commenced by the first great Initiation and is closed by the second, there are three different things that a man must get absolutely rid of ere he can pass the second portal. The first of these is the illusion of the personal self. Personality must be destroyed; no longer now controlled, no longer now diminished, no longer kept in check: but destroyed, killed for evermore. The illusion of the separated personal self has to go.  The chela must recognize himself as one with all other selves, for the Self of all is one. He must realize that all around him, man, the animal and plant worlds, the mineral and elemental forms of life, are all one. The illusion of personality must be gotten rid of. See how the extending conscious­ness will help in this; how the recognition of the true Self will make it possible to get rid of the false; how the seeing of the Real will cause the disappear­ance of the unreal; and so the illusion of the personal self is absolutely killed. Why? because his eyes are opened and they pierce through the illusion; thus he becomes free and casts off the fetter called “the delusion of self”.

 

And he must get rid of doubt. That is the second obstacle that will prevent him from going further. But he has to get rid of doubt in a very definite way - he is to get rid of doubt by knowledge. No longer to him are the things of the invisible world to be questions of speculation; no longer to him are the great truths of religion to be philosophic ideas. They are to be realized facts. He must no longer have any question in his mind as to how is this or why? There are certain fundamental truths of life on which no longer possibility of doubt must remain to him. Ere he can go one step further forward, he must be absolutely convinced beyond the possibility of question of the great truth of Re-incarnation; he must know beyond the possibility of question the great truth of Karma; be must know beyond the possibility of question the great truth of the existence of the divine Men, of the Jivanmuktas, who are the Gurus of humanity. On these points no possibility of doubt must remain; that is he must have know­ledge no longer theoretical but real, no longer theoretical but practical, so that no shade of questioning on these can ever again possibly cloud his mind; the only position that is thus secure is where knowledge replaces speculation, and where absolute contact with the reality makes impossible any more the deceptions that are caused by the illusions of the outer world.

 

The last of these three fetters that he has to en­tirely cast off at this stage is superstition. Realize clearly what that means and then you will understand very fully why both SHRI SHANKARACHARYA and the BUDDHA used the names that They respectively gave for this stage of chelaship. Superstition means this, in the technical sense (in which I am, of course, now using the word): it means the reliance on ex­ternal sectarian rites and ceremonies for spiritual help. So far as their external nature is concerned, the man recognizes the truth beneath the form, and if the truth be there the value of the outer shape depends on its adaptation to this world of ignorance and illusion. The man has risen above exoteric forms and ceremonies. But you are familiar with this idea in your everyday life. The Sannyasi is supposed to be a man who is risen above these things, and from whom they are no longer demanded. And why not? Because he is supposed to have touched reality, because he is supposed no longer to have any need of these things which are the rungs of the ladder by which men must climb; they are necessary in the earlier stages - do not forget that fact - this is a case of growth. If you would mount to the top of the house you must mount by the staircase or ladder, and foolish would be the man who said, “I will not climb by the staircase or steps”, unless that man had such power and such knowledge of the laws of nature that he was able to change the polarity of his body and rise by what is called levitation - by the action of the will instead of by the comparatively slow and clumsy method of going up step by step. For such a man the staircase is unnecessary because he can rise upward by his own power, and reach the top of the house without the slow method of climbing. But it does not therefore follow that the staircase is useless; it does not therefore follow that other men can reach the top of the house by refusing to use the staircase. And too many men today, who are unable to raise themselves, refuse to use the staircase, forgetting that until the will is developed the lower forms are necessary if the man is to rise at all.

 

And this brings me to say a word on the “true Sannyasi”. Even five thousand years ago the word was used without the reality. Even five thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, we find Shri Krishna drawing a distinction between the Sannyasi in appearance and the Sannyasi in reality. Do you remember how speaking on this very subject he said: “He that performeth action as duty, independently of the fruit of action, he is a Sannyasi, and he is a Yogi; not he that is without fire and who doeth nothing”. You know the meaning of the technical phrase, “he that is without fire”, that is, he who does not light the sacrificial fires, who does not perform rites and ceremonies; for from the Sannyasi these are not demanded. But, said Shri Krishna, he is not the true Sannyasi who is known only by the absence of rites and ceremonies and by the absence of his actions in the world of men. And if this were true five thousand, years ago, it is far truer, alas! today. If it were true when the great Avatara was treading the plains of India, it is far more true when five thousand years of darkness have elapsed. When we glance over the whole of the Eastern world, if we take India herself with her countless Sannyasis, we see men who are Sannyasis by the cloth and not by the life, men who are Sannyasis by outer appearance and not by inner renunciation. And if we leave Indian soil and tread that say of Ceylon, Burma, China or Japan, there too we find Buddhist monks who are monks by the yellow robe and not by the noble life, in the external appearance and not in the internal truth. And although it is still true that religion is easier to live here than in any other land; although it is still true that the traditions of India make her  very soil sacred and her very atmosphere more spiritual than the atmosphere of other lands; although there are places so holy through the lives that have been led in them that even for the worldly man to go to them quiets the mind and wakes up the aspirations of the soul; although all this is true of India, and therefore she is beloved and sacred ever­more, alas! her children are unworthy of her possibilities, and they have fallen on every side. Looking over the world of men we see no place where the spiritual life is generally led, no nation where this is recognized as supreme. The heart might go well nigh to breaking that knows the possibilities and sees the actualities, that knows what might be and sees what is, that knows the truth and sees, alas! the lie that simulates the truth. And yet despite all, no disciple’s heart need break, for the Masters live for evermore and Their disciples also still tread the world of men; but now their discipleship is shown not in the outer garb but in the inner life, not in the mere cloth that is worn, but in the knowledge, the purity and the devotion which still open the gateway of Initiation.

 

So we come onward to the second stage called by SHRI SHANKARACHARYA the Kutichaka, the man who builds a hut, called by the Buddhists the Sakridagamin, the man who receives birth once more. This stage is one in which no definite fetters are cast off, but certain acquirements are made. Here comes in the place of the Siddhis. After the second Initiation it is necessary that the Siddhis should be developed, because the disciple has reached a stage of his life in which he must be capable of very extended service, in which he must be able to do his Master’s work not only in the world of physical men, but also in the other worlds that surround it and lie outside the physical plane. He must be able not only to speak with the lips but also to speak directly from mind to mind with conscious and deliberate intention. I shall try to show you tomorrow hat the possibilities of service are that lie before him, which react on the physical world, and which, if they were thoroughly accom­plished, as they are not today, would largely change the trend even of the physical life of man. But in order that he may do this part of the work, in order that he may prepare himself for the lofty tasks that lie before him when all knowledge will be open to him, and Nature will have no veil able to blind his eyes, he must at this stage develop his inner faculties and unfold one by one those inner pos­sibilities of the man. It is at this stage that it is necessary, if it has not been done before, that the inner fire should be awakened, it is here that Kundalini must be roused to function in the physical body and in the astral body of the living man. You can read about it in some books, as in the Ananda Lahiri of SHRI SHANKARACHARYA, of the awakening of the living fire, of the leading it from chakram to chakram; as it wakes up it gives the man the power to leave the physical body at will, for as it is led from chakram to chakram it disengages the astral from the physical and sets it free. Then without break of consciousness, without any chasm of blankness separating one world from the other, a man is able to pass out of the physical body into the invisible world, and is able to work there in full consciousness and to bring back all knowledge of the work that he has there accomplished. It is within the second stage that all these powers are developed and evolved, if they have not been evolved earlier, and until they are in full working order, until they are entirely at the command of the chela, until there are no barriers left between the visible and invisible world, he cannot pass on. As those barriers break away by the unfolding of the inner senses and powers of the man, by the gaining of the Siddhis, he becomes ready for the third great step in his progress, ready to pass onwards into the next higher stage of being. You will readily under­stand how easily mischief may be done to unfit men who try to artificially bring about this stage before they are spiritually developed, before the time when they should reach it in orderly evolution. In pub­lished writings there are many hints thrown out, especially in the Tantrika books, which are greedily seized on by those who desire to possess powers, and care little for their moral and mental ability to wield those powers aright. In many of the Tantras there are underlying truths for those who can reach them, but the statements on the surface are often ex­ceedingly misleading from their incompleteness for those who do not know the real facts, and who have no Guru to explain blinds and to fill up gaps. And so people - ignorantly taking these up to practise, with the object of forcing their psychical develop­ment before their mental and moral development has fitted them to do it with safety - very often bring about results indeed, but results which work for evil and not for good. They often ruin their physical health, they often lose their mental balance, they often injure their intellectual faculties, because they are trying to pluck the fruit of the tree of life before it is ripe for the plucking; because with hands unclean and senses unpurified they try to penetrate into the Holy of Holies. Within that fane the atmosphere is such that nothing unclean can live in it; its vibrations are so powerful, that it breaks in pieces everything which is set in a lower key; it shivers all that is impure, all that is not able to adapt itself to that subtle and tremendous motion.

 

When, however, under the training of his Guru - ­for only thus should it even be attempted - when under the training of his Guru the disciple has com­pletely accomplished this stage, then comes the third great Initiation, that which makes the man what SHRI SHANKARACHARYA Called a Hamsa, what is called in the Buddhist literature an Anagamin, the man who receives birth no more, save indeed by his own free will. This stage is one - as the name given by SHRI SHANKARACHARYA implies - in which the man realizes unity, in which he knows that he is one with the SUPREME. The name is given because in his expanding consciousness he had already risen into the region in the universe where that identity is realized, and had experienced “I am It”. With the perfecting of his psychic senses and their correlation with the physical, he is able not only to penetrate the region where consciousness is felt as a unity, but he is also able to bring back the memory of that consciousness into his waking hours, to impress it on his physical brain. Need it be said that the last shred of earthly desire must needs now fall away from him if at this stage any shred still remains. So that in this stage a fetter is cast off which is called Kamaraga, desire, little of earth indeed as there can be in it; but with that realizing of the unity of all, everything that is separate in appear­ance loses its power to deceive for evermore. He has risen far, far above the limitations of separate­ness, and so he stands above not only what here we should call earthly desires, but above the most highly refined, the most spiritual desires which have in them aught for the separated self; even spiritual desires fall away from the man who reaches such a height; he cannot separate himself in thought from others, therefore he cannot have spiritual desires for himself as separate, for himself save as part of the whole. Everything that he gains, he gains for all; everything that he wins, he wins for all. He stands in a region of the Universe whence strength comes down into the world of men, and as he gains it he passes it on, he sheds it on all, he shares it with all. Thus all the world is better for each man who reaches this stage. All he wins is won for humanity, and all that comes into his hands comes only to pass through them into the wider world of men. He is one with BRAHMAN, and therefore one with every manifestation; and he is that in his own consciousness, and not only in hope and aspiration. A strange word is here used to describe the other chain, that he casts off in this stage - the Pali word Patigha, which in English we are obliged to translate as “hatred”, although the English word is absurd in this connection. What it really means is this: that inasmuch as he has become one with all he no longer feels the distinctions between races and families, between all the differentiated objects in the world.  He no longer can either love or hate because of external distinctions. He can no longer love or hate because a person belongs to a different race. He can no longer love or hate because he draws dis­tinctions between men and the things around them. You remember that strange phrase of SHRI KRISHNA, when he speaks of the Sage making no distinction between the illuminated Brahmana and a dog. He has reached unity, he sees BRAHMAN in everything.  Or to take another phrase: he sees SHRI KRISHNA everywhere, and the outer garment of the Lord makes no difference to his purified vision; there­fore he is absolutely without what we are obliged to call “hatred” or “repulsion”. Nothing repels him, nothing drives him back. He is love and compassion to everything, love and compassion to all. He spreads round him as it were an all-em­bracing circle of affection. All that come near him, all that approach him, feel the influence of his divine compassion. And that is why in the days when Brahmanas were really all that their name implies, it was said of the Brahmana that he was “the friend of everything, of every creature”. The heart being one with the Divine was wide enough to enclose within its limits everything that the Divine had made.

 

Having then cast separateness aside for ever, he passes into the final stage of chelaship, Paramahamsa SHRI SHANKARACHARYA calls it, Arhat is the Buddhist term. Here again one feels the terrible modern degradation of sacred names, that lofty condition  having its name used so widely and so carelessly, used so often for mere compliment, for an outer appearance instead of for a living reality. The real meaning of this name is that the man has passed the fourth great Initiation, and stands within the stage that precedes Jivanmukti; in his waking consciousness he can rise to, live in, the Turiya region. He has no need to leave the body to enjoy it. He has no need to leave the body to be conscious in it. His consciousness embraces, has expanded to, that, although at the same time it may be working in the lower brain. And that is one of the great marks of the attainment of that stage. There is no such thing as physical unconsciousness necessary in order that that high region of consciousness may be trodden; for his consciousness has expanded to it, and while he is speaking and talking and living in the world of men, he has all that vast knowledge within his reach and is consciously experiencing it at will. In this stage, he throws off the last five “fetters”, that he may become the Jivanmukta. The first of these is called Ruparaga, desire for “life in form” - no desire for such life can move him. Then, he casts off Aruparaga, desire for “life without form” - no such desire has any power to bind him. And then Mana is cast away, and again we have to use an English word far too gross to express the real, subtle nature of the fetter cast off pride; not thinking even for a passing moment of the greatness of his own achieve­ment, of the dizzy altitude at which he stands, fur he recognizes neither high nor low, neither lofty height nor lowly vale. He sees and feels them all as one. He casts off next the possibility of being ruffled by anything that may occur. Whatever happens, he will remain unshaken. The spheres may clash together, he will remain unmoved. Nothing that can happen to the manifested world can shake the sublime serenity of the man who has risen thus to the realization of the Self of all. What matters a catastrophe - it is but the form that is broken.  What matters the crash of a world - it is but the manifestation that is changing. The eternal, the undying, the ancient and the constant, he lives in That, and there is nothing that can shake his serenity, there is nothing that can mar the perfec­tion of his peace. And then there falls from his limbs the last fetter of all - Avidya - that which makes illusion; the last faint film which prevents the perfect insight and the perfect liberty. While he need be born no more, he may take birth if he will; no compulsion can bring him back to earth, but of his own will he can re-incarnate. He brings within his knowledge everything of our planetary ring. He learns all that this manifestation has to teach; not one lesson is left unlearnt, not one secret remains hidden, not one corner exists into which his eye cannot pierce, not one possibility that he is not able to grasp. At the end of this stage all the lessons have been learnt. All the powers have been achieved. He is omniscient, omnipotent, within this planetary chain. He has accomplished the evolution of humanity; he has trodden the last step that humanity shall have taken when the great Manvantara is accomplished and the work of this universe is achieved. There is nothing that is veiled from him, nothing that is not within himself his consciousness has expanded to take all into him­self. He can enter Nirvana itself at will; and there, there is unity, there, there is all-consciousness, there, there is the fulness of life. He has reached the goal of humanity; only the last gateway is be­fore him, and that swings open at the sound of his footstep. That gateway passed, he becomes the Jivanmukta, according to the Hindu phrase, the Asekha Adept, or He who has no more to learn, according to the Buddhist nomenclature. All is known, all is accomplished. Before Him lie open different paths, any one of which He may choose; before Him spread vast possibilities, any one of which He may stretch forth His hand and take. Out of the limits of this planetary chain, outside the limits of our Cosmos, into regions far beyond even our dimmest apprehending, paths lie open that the Jivanmukta may choose to tread. One path, the most difficult, the hardest of all, though the swiftest, is that which is called the Path of the Great Renunciation. If He chooses that, deliberately looking over the world of men the Jivanmukta refuses to leave it, refuses to go away from it, says that He will remain and take to Himself a body again and again, for the teaching and for the helping of man. Once more SHRI SHANKARACHARYA speaks of Those who wait and function until the work is accomplished. Their own task is over indeed, but They have identified Them­selves with humanity, and until the evolution of humanity is over They will not pass away from the struggling ranks of men. They are free, but remain in a voluntary bondage; they are liberated, but in a liberation that will not complete itself until others are liberated too. They are the great Masters of Com­passion, who live within the reach of men, that humanity may not be an orphan without a father, that the pupils may not be seeking a Guru and find no Guru to instruct. They are Those to whom some of us feel such an intensity of gratitude, because They stay within the sphere of earth though They live in Nirvanic consciousness beyond it, in order that a link may be kept between the higher worlds and the men who are yet unliberated, those to whom the body is still a prison, in whom the life is not yet set free. All are glorious who have reached that lofty level, all are divine who stand where They are standing. Bat perhaps one may dare to say without irreverence, that the dearest to the heart of humanity, the most closely bound to it by the ties of passionate  gratitude for the renunciation made, are Those who might have gone from us but who stay with us, who might have left us orphans but who remain as the  Fathers of men. Such are the great Gurus at whose Feet we bow; such the great Masters who stand behind the Theosophical Society. They sent Their messenger, H. P. Blavatsky, to bring the message to the world which the world had well-nigh forgotten, to point again to the narrow and ancient Path along which some feet are treading now, along which your feet may tread.

 

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THE FUTURE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY