Gathering of the Golden Apples |
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| The Lesson of the
LaborThe whole of this story really signifies the lesson
which is the first that all aspirants have to master, and one which it is impossible to
learn until the tests in Aries and in Taurus have been undergone. Then, on the physical
plane, in the field of the brain and in his walking consciousness, the disciple has to
register contact with the soul and to recognize its qualities. He must no longer be the
visionary mystic, but must add to the mystical achievement the occult knowledge of
reality. This is often forgotten by aspirants. They rest content with aspiration and with
the vision of the heavenly goal. They have wrought out in the crucible of life an
equipment that is characterized by sincerity, good desire, fine character, and they are
conscious of purity of motive, a willingness to fulfil the requirements, and the
satisfaction that they have reached a certain status of development which entitles them to
go on. But one thing still lacks: they have not what might be called "the technique
of the presence"; they have not privilege and prerogative to possess. They believe in
the fact of the soul, in the possibility of perfection, in the path which must be trodden;
but belief has not yet been transmuted into knowledge of the spiritual realm and they know
not how to make their goal! So they, as Hercules did start on the fivefold search. [71]
The first stage of that search is
full of encouragement for them, had they been able to recognize the happening. Like
Hercules, they meet Nereus, the symbol of the higher self, and, later on in the history of
the disciple, he is the symbol of the teaching Master. When contacted, especially in the
early stages of the search, the higher self will manifest as a flash of illumination, and
lo! it is gone; as a sudden realization of truth, so elusive, so fleeting, that at first
the disciple cannot grasp it; as a hint dropped into the consciousness in moments of
one-pointed attention, when the mind is held steady and the emotions temporarily cease to
control.
In the case of a more advanced
disciple who has established contact with his soul and who, therefore, may be supposed to
be ready for instruction from one of the great Teachers of the Race, it will be found that
the Master works just as Nereus did. He cannot always be contacted, and only occasionally
does the disciple come into touch with him. When he does, he need not expect
congratulations upon his wonderful progress, nor will he find a careful elucidation of his
problem, nor a lengthy outline of the work that he should do. The Master will give a hint
and disappear. He will make a suggestion and will say no more. It is for the disciple to
act upon the hint as best he may and to follow up the suggestion should he deem it wise.
Many well-meaning occultists would
lead one to believe that the Masters of the Wisdom take a personal interest in them, that
the overburdened Guides of the Race have no better occupation than to tell them personally
how to live, how to solve their problems and how, in detail, to guide their undertakings.
I would like here to go on record as protesting against any such belittling of the work of
the Great Ones. The reasons that Nereus, the Master, is elusive and gives but a flash of
thought or of momentary attention to the aspirant, are two:
First, the individual aspirant is of
no personal interest to the Master until he has achieved the point in his evolution where
he is so closely in touch with his soul that he becomes a [72] magnetic server in the
world. Then, and then only, will it profit the Master to throw him a thought, and to give
him a hint. Then, as those hints are followed, he may give him more, but, and this is the
point that must be emphasized, only in connection with the work that he has to
do in the field of world service. Aspirants need to remember that they become masters
only by mastering, and that we are taught to be masters and are brought to the position of
membership in the band of world servers through the efforts of our own soul. That soul is
a divine son of God, omniscient and omnipotent. As the immortal twin increases in power
and brilliance, that of the mortal brother decreases.
Second, the physical bodies of the
aspirants are in no condition to stand the greatly heightened vibration of One who has
achieved. The body would be shattered and the brain overstrained if one of the Masters
made constant contact with a disciple before he had even learned to know Nereus as the
symbol of his own higher self. When by our own efforts we are beginning to live as souls,
and when by our own self-initiated endeavor we are learning to serve and be channels of
spiritual energy, then we shall know Nereus more intimately; and then, almost inevitably,
our knowledge of the work that the Great Ones have to do will be so vital and so real that
we will forego our own desire for contact and seek only to lift the burden that They
carry.
At the beginning of his search,
Hercules met Nereus; but he was not impressed and so wandered elsewhere, furiously seeking
the satisfaction of his aspiration. At the close of his search he meets Atlas, bearing the
burden of the world, and so impressed is he with the weight of that responsibility and the
load that Atlas, the great Master, is carrying, that he forgets all about the goal and his
search for the golden apples and endeavors to lift the burden off the shoulders of Atlas.
When aspirants in the religious field and in the Church, in the Theosophical field, in the
Rosicrucian field, and in the many groups to which they gravitate, have learned to forget
themselves in [73] service and to lose sight of their spiritual selfishness by helping
humanity, there will be a much more rapid gathering in of initiates through the portal on
to the Path that leads from darkness to the Light, and from the unreal to the Real. One of
the Great Ones has said that "there are persons, who, without ever having any
external sign of selfishness, are intensely selfish ill their inner spiritual
aspiration." (p. 360, The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett). And later
he holds out before us a stupendous ideal which cuts at the root of spiritual selfishness:
"In our view the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity become tainted with
selfishness if, in the mind of the philanthropist, there lurks the shadow of desire for
self-benefit ...".
Hercules, the disciple, has known the touch of the higher self, but he did not know enough to stay with Nereus. So he turns south, or back into the world. He has had his high moment, when he transcended his brain consciousness and held converse with his soul. But this does not last, and he drops back into the brain consciousness and enters upon another experience. He has to wrestle with Antaeus, the serpent (or giant). But, this time, it is the serpent of astral glamor and not primarily the serpent of desire. It is with the glamors of lower psychism that he has to wrestle, and these seem, in the early stages, inevitably to attract the interest of aspirants. Any teacher who has worked with those who are seeking the Way knows the glamor under which they can so easily fall. According to the temperament of the aspirant so will be the glamor. Some get sidetracked by spiritualistic phenomena. In the endeavor to penetrate within the veil, they become engrossed with the lower side of spiritualism and pass much time in the seance room studying over and over again the same old phenomena of materialization, spirit communication and manifestations. I make here no reference to the truly scientific investigations of those who go deeply into this research, and who are equipped so to do. I refer to the ignorant participation in certain types of seance room work. This intrigues the average man or woman [74] and puts them at the mercy of the equally ignorant medium or the charlatan, for they are unequipped to verify in any way that which they see and hear. The serpent may take the form of the more common aspect of psychic phenomena. The aspirant becomes interested in automatic writing, or he learns to sit and listen to "voices", he becomes astrally clairvoyant or clairaudient, and adds to the confusion of the physical plane and his own particular environment, the still greater confusion of the psychic plane, and so falls into the snares and pitfalls of astralism. He becomes negative, because he is all the time trying to hear or see that which is not physical. Because we share with cats and dogs the capacity to be clairvoyant and clairaudient, in due time we shall surely see or hear, if not in truth, yet through the power of that creative faculty which we all possess, a creative imagination. But in some form or another, the aspirant who has left Nereus will meet the serpent and will have to wrestle with him. As the myth states, for a long time Hercules could not conquer, but when he lifted the serpent high up into the air, he prevailed. There is a great truth underlying this symbolism. The air has always been regarded as the symbol or the element related to the Christ plane, called in the Theosophical terminology and in the east, the buddhic plane. The astral plane is the distorted reflection of the buddhic plane, and it is only when we carry glamor up into the clear light of the Christ soul that we shall see truth as it is, and become invincible. Most solemnly, I would urge upon all aspirants to forego all interest in psychic phenomena, and to shut out as steadily as they can the astral plane until they have developed the power to be intuitive and to interpret their intuitions through the medium of a well-developed, well-stocked, well-trained mind. The next stage of the search of Hercules is equally applicable to humanity as a whole. He fell into the clutches of Busiris, who claimed to be a great teacher. For a long period of [75] time Hercules was kept in bondage. The world today is full of teachers, and like Busiris, they base their teaching upon portentous claims; they claim to be initiates, to be the custodians of truth, and to have a sure and certain way of development which must inevitably enable the aspirant to achieve. They bolster up their position by promises; they build up a strong personality relationship, and by utilizing the sincerity and the aspiration of the seeker after truth, they gather around themselves groups of men and women who innocently and sincerely believe the truth of the claims that they make, and bind them to the altar of sacrifice for a longer or a shorter period of time. The true initiate is known by his life and acts, he is too busy serving the race to find the time to interest people in himself, and he cannot make promises beyond saying to every aspirant: "These are the ancient rules, this is the way that all the saints and Masters of the Wisdom have trod, this is the discipline to which you must subject yourself; and if you will but try and have endurance and patience, the goal will surely be yours." But Hercules freed himself, as do all sincere seekers; and having escaped from the world of psychic and pseudo-spiritual glamor, he began to serve. First he freed himself under the symbol of Prometheus, who signifies God incarnate, releasing him from the torture of the vultures of old. The solar plexus, the stomach and the liver are externalizations, if I might so express it, of the desire nature, and Hercules freed himself from the vultures of desire that had for so long tortured him. He gave up being selfish, and gave up satisfying himself. He had had two bitter lessons in this sign and for this particular cycle was relatively free. Prometheus, the God within, could go forward to the service of the world and to lifting the burden of Atlas. After the sacrifice comes the reward,
and Hercules received his great surprise after freeing both Prometheus and Atlas. Having,
given up his search in order to help the world, Atlas went for him to the garden and
handed to him the golden [76] apples, bringing him in touch with the three beautiful
maidens, the thee aspects of the soul.
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