The pupil who is able to take this initiation has therefore already outstripped the majority of humanity to the extent of an entire round of all our seven planets, and in doing so has definitely secured himself against the possibility of falling out of the stream in the fifth round. He is consequently sometimes spoken of as “the saved” or “the safe one.” It is from a misunderstanding of this idea that there arises the curious theory of salvation promulgated by a certain section of the Christian community. The “æonian salvation” of which some of its documents speak is not, as has been blasphemously supposed by the ignorant, from eternal torture, but simply from wasting the rest of this æon or dispensation by falling out of its line of progress. This also is the meaning, naturally, of the celebrated clause in the Athanasian Creed, “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith” (See _The Christian Creed_, p. 91). The fetters which he must cast off before he can pass into the next stage are: 1. Sakkâyadiṭṭhi--the delusion of self. 2. Vichikichchhâ--doubt or uncertainty. 3. Sîlabbataparâmâsa--superstition. The first of these is the “I am I” consciousness, which as connected with the _personality_ is nothing but an illusion, and must be got rid of at the very first step of the real upward path. But to cast off this fetter completely means even more than this, for it involves the realization of the fact that the individuality also is in very truth one with the All, that it can therefore never have any interests opposed to those of its brethren, and that it is most truly progressing when it most assists the progress of others. For the very sign and seal of the attainment of the Sotâpatti level is the first entrance of the pupil into the plane next above the mental--that which we usually call the buddhic. It may be--nay, it will be--the merest touch of the lowest sub-plane of that stupendously exalted condition that the pupil can as yet experience, even with his Master’s help; but even that touch is something that can never be forgotten--something that opens a new world before him, and entirely revolutionizes his feelings and conceptions. Then for the first time, by means of the extended consciousness of that plane, he truly realizes the underlying unity of all, not as an intellectual conception merely, but as a definite fact that is patent to his opened eyes; then first he really knows something of the world in which he lives--then first he gets some slight glimpse of what the love and compassion of the great Masters must be.