Gleanings of a Mystic: A Series of Essays on Practical MysticismHeindel, Max
Religion
Gleanings of a Mystic: A Series of Essays on Practical Mysticism
Heindel, Max
Rosicrucians
Mind is the predominating feature of the other class. In order to
aid it in its efforts toward attainment, mystery schools were early
established wherein the world drama was played to give the aspiring
soul while he was entranced, answers to the questions of the origin
and destiny of humanity. When awakened, he was instructed in the
sacred science of how to climb higher by following the method of
nature—which is God in manifestation—by sowing the seed of action,
meditating upon the experience, and incorporating the essential moral
to make thereby commensurate soul growth; also with this important
feature, that whereas in the ordinary course of things a whole life
is devoted to sowing and a whole post-mortem existence to ruminating
and incorporating the soul substance, this cycle of a thousand years,
more or less, may be reduced to a day, as held by the mystic maxim, “A
day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” To be
explicit, whatever work has been done during a single day, if ruminated
over at night before crossing the neutral point between waking and
sleeping, may thus be incorporated into the consciousness of the spirit
as usable soul power. When that exercise is faithfully performed, the
sins of each day thus reviewed are actually blotted out, and the man
commences each day as if it were a new life, with the added soul power
gained in all the preceding days of his probationary life.
But!—yes, there is a great big _BUT; nature is not to be cheated_;
God is not to be mocked. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.” Let no one think that the mere perfunctory review of the
happenings of a day with perhaps the light-hearted admission of,
“I wish I had not done that,” when reviewing a scene where he did
something palpably wrong, will save him from the wrath to come. When we
pass out of the body into purgatory at death and the panorama of our
past life unfolds in reverse order to show us first the effects and
then the causes which produced them, we feel in intensified measure
the pain we gave others; and unless we perform our exercises in a
similar manner _so that we live each evening our hell_ as merited that
day, acutely sensible of every pang we have inflicted, it will avail
nothing. We must also endeavor to feel in the same intense manner,
gratitude for kindness received from others, and approbation on account
of the good we ourselves have done.
Only thus are we really living the post-mortem existence and advancing
scientifically towards the goal of Initiation. The greatest danger of
the aspirant upon this path is that he may become enmeshed in the snare
of egotism, and his only safeguard is to cultivate the faculties of
faith, devotion, and an all-embracing sympathy. It is difficult, but it
can be done, and when it has been accomplished the man or woman becomes
a wonderful power for good in the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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