He told them that the real work of His followers was the sowing of the seed of the Truth, without regard to immediate results. He told them that the real fruition would not come for many centuries--yea, not until the passing of over two thousand years or more. He told them that the passage of the centuries would be like the preparing of the soil for the great work of the Truth, and that afar in the distance would be the real fruit season. He taught them regarding the Second Coming of Christ, when the real Truth of His teachings should become apparent to mankind and the true Life of the Spirit should be lived by the race. He taught them that their work was to keep alight the Flame of the Spirit and to pass it on to worthy followers. This and many other things He told them, before He passed on. And the mystics teach that He still lives in the world, diffused among all the living souls on earth, striving ever to lead them to a recognition of the Real Self--the Spirit Within. He is with us ever as an Abiding Spirit, a Comforter, a Helper, an Elder Brother. He is not gone from us! He is here with us now and forever, in Actual Spirit Communion! The Lord hath indeed Risen--Risen from Mortal Form to Immortal Spiritual Existence! THE NINTH LESSON. THE INNER TEACHINGS. The first and main phase of the Inner Teachings of Mystic Christianity is that connected with the Mystery of the Life of Jesus. The outer teachings give but an imperfect view of the real life and nature of the Master, and theologians have built up an edifice of dogmatic theory around the same. The Mystery of the Life of Jesus forms the subject of some important Inner Teachings of the Mystic Fraternities and Occult Brotherhoods, and is considered by them to be the foundation of the other teachings. And so we shall consider this phase of the subject at this point. In the first place we must remember that the soul of Jesus was different from the souls of other men. His was a "virgin birth"--not in the commonly accepted sense of the term, but in the occult sense as explained in the second lesson of this series. His soul was fresh from the hand of the Creator--His spirit had not been compelled to work through repeated incarnations, pressing forward for expression through humble and ignoble forms. It was free from taint, and as pure as the Fountain from which is flowed. It was a virgin soul in every sense of the term. This being so, it follows that it was not bound by the Karma of previous incarnations--as is the case with the ordinary soul. It had no entangling ties--it had no seeds of desire and action planted in previous lives, which were pressing forward toward expression in His life. He was a Free Spirit--an Unbound Soul. And therefore He was not only unbound by any Karma of His own, but was also free (by nature) from the Karma of the race or of the world.