Sometimes you will see in store windows funny little Chinese gods or oriental Buddhas sitting on the blossom of a lotus. In fact, if you look carefully, you will find that nearly all of the oriental gods are so depicted. This means that they have opened within themselves that Spiritual Consciousness which they call the Shushuma. You have seen the funny little hats worn by the Hindu gods. They are made to represent a flower upside down, and once more, like the rod of Aaron that budded, we see the reference made to the unfolding of consciousness within. When the lotus blossom has reached maturity, it drops its seed, and from this seed new plants are produced. It is the same within the spiritual consciousness, which, when the plant is finished and its work is done, is released to work and produce other things. In the Western World the lotus has been changed to the rose. The roses of the Rosicrucian, the roses of the Masonic degrees, and also those of the Order of the Garter in England, all stand for the same thing, the awakening of consciousness and the unfolding into full bloom of the soul qualities of man. When man awakens and opens this bud within himself, he finds, like the gold pollen in a flower, this wonderful spiritual city, Shamballa, in the heart of the lotus. When this pilgrimage of his spiritual fire is accomplished, he is liberated from the top of the mountain, as in the ascension of Christ, and the spiritual man, freed by his pilgrimage from the Wheel of Bondage, rises upward from among his disciples, the convolutions of the brain, with the great cry of the Initiate, which has sounded through the Mystery Schools for ages when the purified student goes onward and upward to become a pillar in the temple of his God. With that last cry the true mystery of Shamballa, the sacred city, is understood and he joins the ranks of those who in white robes of purity, their own soul bodies, gaze down upon the world and see others liberated in the same way, and who also sound the eternal tocsin, “consumatum est” (it is finished). [Illustration] [Illustration: The Philosopher’s Stone: This is the true stone of the philosopher, which gives him power over all created things. This stone is himself. The experiences of his evolution have cut and polished the rough stone until in the Initiate it reflects the light of creation from a thousand different facets.] CHAPTER III. THE MYSTERY OF THE ALCHEMIST