As students of the truth, you should respect various traditions, such as astrology, Tarot, I Ching, and so forth. They have been worked on by a great host of beings throughout history. Some of these paths come from the mysteries of Egypt via such routes as the Masonic teachings, the Kabbalistic and the Pythagorean mysteries, the schools of Alexandria—to name a few—and they have a very long tradition behind them. The many ways of studying mind impression on matter are really a rich fund of spiritual quest, and they exemplify many laws. Perhaps you should treat them like a bank from which you can draw some much-needed riches. I don’t believe that, of themselves, they are sufficient for completing the entire of the religious life, but they could serve as one of the seven masteries needed in order to come into a full teaching capacity.
There is also something to be said for having a wider range of understanding. To complete the spiritual life you will need one particular discipline to take you into depth, and you will also need to see the depth at work, to see the application of depth wisdom in various fields. So when you have established and are well grounded in any one teaching—for the moment, let us say the New Testament of Christianity—and you have absorbed that and become conversant with that, instead of doing what so many have tried in the past, denying all other expressions of God, you should try to see what might be called the forerunners of that particular expression of truth. Rather than condemn all other teachings as the work of the devil, study that which preceded or leads out from your principal discipline. It can happen that a being starts a study of the Tarot cards and from that gets a revelation about New Testament teachings; something that had previously been obscure can suddenly be seen in a new light. Many of these ancient sources can be highly illuminating with respect to your main discipline. Certainly they can lead the mind to greatness, to enlightenment. They are, after all, mind-expanders.
If you study astrology, if you study in depth and fully, you may be led into the study of the movements of the planets, the nature of astral cycles. Gradually your understanding will increase. In Christian scripture it says that Jesus was in the temple conversing with the wise men, and daily he grew in stature. So, too, the Christ principle in you will increase day by day, fed by the inquiring mind, so that you will be led some day, some time, some place, into the full understanding. It is an ongoing process.
These ancient teachings are today generally put under the heading of occult sciences. I believe the word ‘occult’ means ‘hidden’, so it indicates the study of that which is hidden or not known. It doesn’t suggest something that has been hidden by someone; the word is meant to indicate an aspect of your universe that you don’t know about at the moment. Unfortunately it is one of those terms that people tremble before in that it seems to conjure up ideas of witches and black masses and so forth. (Maybe if there hadn’t been masses in the first place there wouldn’t be black masses, and mankind could have been spared in two directions!) However, there is this idea that you ought to be trying to uncover that which is hidden to you. You should be constantly at work, like a squirrel, trying to find the hoard of acorns that have been buried. These things have been collected from the tree of life in the past, and they’ve been buried by the drifting leaves of many days. You have to dig them up again, wash them to get off the dust of the centuries, but within the shell there is knowledge of great merit. Human beings have put a great number of years into these studies, so they are a rather rich field of knowledge.
You will notice that I referred to these types of study as science. Your aim should not be to swallow everything whole but to put it to the test. Don’t be totally credulous and accept any kind of exotic theory going around: test it all, drive the dross out and find the gold. You don’t have to accept the claims of every medium. But accept that there is a medium. First of all, search out the principle, the law by which these various disciplines work.
In my teens I was involved with the Rosicrucian mysteries in which the emphasis was on coming to know for oneself. (It is good advice to battle everything, even if something comes from the chair of the master. If you have doubt, subject what is set forth to question rather than just accepting it.) During the course of that study we were told that there are two paths: the occult and the mystical. The path of the occult seemed very like the scientific discipline in that whatever you were on about was open to challenge. It was said that you have to be able to prove your theories, and you have to be able to give demonstrations in an open lodge.
So, too, with the instructions handed down from masters of previous generations: they have to be proven by the student. This is partly due to the fact that even the mysteries are not free from ego. Pride can be taken in their heritage. In this vein, various figures of greatness are still studied, beings such as Pythagoras, El Greco, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others who have been involved in the continuum of this unfolding teaching.
In addition to this rather scientific path is the mystical path. This is the path of meditation; of withdrawal from outer events to enter into silence and communion on the inner plane, into what is still hidden within. Of course, the mysteries themselves were hidden in the other, overt sense as well, because there was much persecution, particularly during the time of the Inquisition.
Even today in Russia there is a need to be secretive. Yet throughout the changes of history, the mystery schools have gone on. Members teach publicly, as private individuals rather than as representatives of a school so that the understandings are made available to all people who wish to listen, but the actual working schools of the mysteries generally remain secretive. ‘Once bitten, twice shy’; and in every century the mysteries have been bitten, so they generally keep something back from public knowledge, keep something hidden so that the teaching won’t all be destroyed by the winds of politics and the transient desires of mass appeal.
So you have the outer path of the occult sciences and the inner path of mystical work; the study of alchemy (transmuting the atom) and so forth, and the ascent of spirit (the intuitive leap of consciousness). And a Grand Master is one who is a master of both these outer and inner planes of knowledge.
The symbol for the mystical path was a rose and the symbol for the occult was a radiant crown. The symbol used by the Rosicrucians to portray both paths was the ‘rosy cross’; love and a pure, shining intellect.
It is true that such studies from the past can be criticized. You should consider them as not yet perfected. However, also see that they are moving in the direction of wisdom. Put them into the crucible of your own mind and, through the fires of the intellect, refine them until you uncover the philosopher’s stone.
The important thing is that you don’t get addicted to an outer temple other than the temple of the body. That’s the only one you need to preserve! If you don’t put that one on the rack, torture it to death, life will still go on and you will still have opportunity for study, for liberation, and for the work of helping beings compassionately.
The other temples can be given away, and new meeting places can come into being. You may meet circumstances where you will have to learn the lesson of giving up attachment to outer forms of the teaching. Then you might understand that you carry the light within you. Even if you never open your mouth you are teaching—maybe especially if you never open your mouth you are teaching!—by your presence. What you should be on about teaching now, in this time, is awakening for all beings.
Teach love of one another, and respect for the Buddha who is in all beings. You will then find that there is no need to identify with outer rituals.
I might say also that you should have a sense of urgency about the need for group or mass awakening, because unless you have an urgent sense of this it will not happen. Unless you throw yourselves into it with passion, it will not happen. You see, questions produce answers. The greater the question, the greater the awakening. If you don’t raise the question with intensity, there will be no answer.
You are constantly in dialogue. Make it an aware dialogue—or at least more than a meaningless babble—if you want meaningful answers.
Never mind about gurus and gods for the moment. To put it quite simply, as a human being you can do one of two things: go to sleep or open your eyes and look around. And if you look around, that is called questioning.
Now, at this point in history, man is asking what is out in space. I put it to you that you have a choice: will this movement into space be just for the elite American in his mechano-set suit, just to put his footprint on the moon—and go clunk, clunk, clunk throughout the universe? Will it be the universe for the technocrats? Or will it be the universe for a few softies also? Will food be provided for a small percentage of the world’s mouths—those with too much already—or will we look to feeding all beings? Will it be an awakening for a few who have found the socially acceptable path to knowledge or will we insist on universal salvation?