Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser MysteriesBesant, Annie
Religion
Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries
Besant, Annie
Christianity -- Miscellanea; Mysticism; Theosophy
The first of these attributes--they are all mental and moral--is
_Discrimination_; this means that the aspirant must begin to separate in
his mind the Eternal from the Temporary, the Real from the Unreal, the
True from the False, the Heavenly from the Earthly. "The things which
are seen are temporal," says the Apostle; "but the things which are not
seen are eternal."[192] Men are constantly living under the glamour of
the seen, and are blinded by it to the unseen. The aspirant must learn
to discriminate between them, so that what is unreal to the world may
become real to him, and that which is real to the world may to him
become unreal, for thus only is it possible to "walk by faith, not by
sight."[193] And thus also must a man become one of those of whom the
Apostle says that they "are of full age, even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."[194] Next,
this sense of unreality must breed in him _Disgust_ with the unreal and
the fleeting, the mere husks of life, unfit to satisfy hunger, save the
hunger of swine.[195] This stage is described in the emphatic language
of Jesus: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple."[196] Truly a "hard saying," and yet out
of this hatred will spring a deeper, truer, love, and the stage may not
be escaped on the way to the Strait Gate. Then the aspirant must learn
_Control of thoughts_, and this will lead to _Control of actions_, the
thought being, to the inner eye, the same as the action: "Whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her, _hath committed adultery_ with her
already in his heart."[197] He must acquire _Endurance_, for they who
aspire to tread "the Way of the Cross" will have to brave long and
bitter sufferings, and they must be able to endure, "as seeing Him who
is invisible."[198] He must add to these _Tolerance_, if he would be the
child of Him who "maketh His sun to rise on the evil, and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,"[199] the disciple of
Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he
did not follow with them.[200] Further, he must acquire the _Faith_ to
which nothing is impossible,[201] and the _Balance_ which is described
by the Apostle.[202] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are
above,"[203] and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union
with God.[204] When a man has wrought these qualities into his character
he is regarded as fit for Initiation, and the Guardians of the Mysteries
will open for him the Strait Gate. Thus, but thus only, he becomes the
prepared candidate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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