I believe it to be absolutely true that even the slightest attention
seriously paid to the instructions now emanating from the Indian Adepts
will generate results within the spiritual principles of those who
render it--causes capable of producing appreciable consequences in a
future state of existence. Any one who has sufficiently examined the
doctrine of Devachan will readily follow the idea, for the nature of the
spiritual existence which in the ordinary course of things must succeed
each physical life, provides for the very considerable expansion of any
aspirations towards real knowledge that may be set going on earth. I
will recur to this point directly, when I have made clearer the general
drift of the argument I am trying to unfold. At the one end of the scale
of possibilities connected with occult study lies the supreme
development of Adeptship; an achievement which means that the person
reaching it has so violently stimulated his spiritual growth within a
short period, as to have anticipated processes on which Nature, in her
own deliberate way, would have spent a great procession of ages. At the
other end of the scale lies the small result to which I have just
alluded--a result which may rather be said to establish a tendency in
the direction of spiritual achievement than to embody such achievement.
But between these two widely different results there is no hard and fast
line that can be drawn at any place to make a distinct separation in the
character of the consequences ensuing from devotion to occult pursuits.
As the darkness of blackest night gives way by imperceptible degrees to
the illumination of the brightest sunrise, so the spiritual consequences
of emerging from the apathy either of pure materialism or of dull
acquiescence in unreasonable dogmas, brighten by imperceptible degrees
from the faintest traces of Devachanic improvement into the full blaze
of the highest perfection human nature can attain. Without assuming
that the course of Nature which prescribes for each human Ego successive
physical lives and successive periods of spiritual refreshment--without
supposing that this course is altered by such moderate devotion to
occult study as is compatible with the ordinary conditions of European
life, it will nevertheless be seen how vast the consequences may
ultimately be of impressing on that career of evolution a distinct
tendency in the direction of supreme enlightenment, of that result which
is described as the union of the individual soul with universal spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account