So it is. The whole course of the typical life of the Pattern
Man is emblematic of the progressive development of the life
begun on earth, completed in heaven (so to use your terms),
born of self-denial, and culminating in spiritual ascension. ln
the Christ-life, as in a story, man may read the tale of the
progress of spirit from incarnation to enfranchisement. Thirty
years and more of angelic preparation fitted the Christ for His
mission: three short years sufficed to discharge so much of it
as man could bear. So man's spirit in its development pro-
gresses through the course covered by the Festivals of the-
Christian Church, from the birth of self-denial to the festival
of the completed life. Born in self-denial, progressing through
self-sacrifice, developed by perpetual struggles with the
adversaries (the antagonistic principles which must be con-
quered in daily life, in self, and in the foes), it dies at length
to the external, and rises on its Easter morn from the grave-
of matter, and lives henceforth, baptized by the outpoured
spirit of Pentecost, a new and risen life, till it ascends to the
place prepared for it by the tendency of its earth life.
This is the Spirit's progress, and it may be said to be a process
of regeneration, shortly typified by crucifixion and resurrection.
The old man dies, the new man rises from his grave. The old
man, with his lusts, is crucified; the new man is raised up to
live a spiritual and holy life. It is regeneration of spirit that
is the culmination of bodily life, and the process is crucifixion
of self, a daily death, as Paul was wont to say. In the life of
spiritual progress, there should be no stagnation, no paralysis.
It should be a growth and a daily adaptation of knowledge;
a mortification of the earthy and sensual, and a corresponding
development of the spiritual and heavenly. In other words,
it is a growth in grace, and in the knowledge of the Christ;
the purest type of human life presented to your imitation.
It is a clearing away of the material, and a development of
the spiritual a purging as by fire, the fire of a consuming
zeal; of a life-long struggle with self, and all that self includes;
of an ever widening grasp of Divine truth.
By no other means can spirit be purified. The furnace is
one of self-sacrifice: the process the same for all. Only in
some souls, wherein the Divine flame burns more brightly, the
process is rapid and concentrated; while in duller natures the
fires smoulder, and vast cycles of purgation are required.
Blessed are they who can crush out the earthy, and welcome
the fiery trial which shall purge away the dross. To such,
progress is rapid and purification sure.
Yes; the struggle is severe, and one hardly knows what to
fight against.
Begin within. The ancients were wise in their description
of the enemies. A spirit has three foes: itself; the external
world around it; and the spiritual foes that beset the upward
path. These are described as the World, the Flesh, and the
Devil.
Begin with self, the Flesh. Conquer it, so that you are no
longer slave to appetite, to passion, to ambition: so that self
can be abnegated, and the spirit can come forth from its
hermit-cell, and live and breathe and act in the free scope
of the universal brotherhood. This is the first step. Self
must be crucified, and from the grave where it lies buried will
rise the enfranchised spirit untrammelled, free from material
clogs.
This done, the soul will have no difficulty in despising the
things which are seen, and in aspiring to the eternal verities.
It will have learned that truth is to be found in them alone;
and, seeing this, it will maintain a deathless struggle with all
external and material forms, as being only adumbrations of
the true, too often deceptive and unsatisfying. Matter will
be regarded as the husk to be stripped off before the kernel
of truth can be got at. Matter will be the deceptive, fleeting
phantasm behind which is veiled the truth on which none but
the purged eye may gaze. Such a soul, so taught, will not
need to be told to avoid the external in all things, and to
penetrate through the husk to the truth that lies below. It
will have learned that the surface-meanings of things are for
the babes in spiritual knowledge, and that beneath an obvious
fact lurks a spiritual symbolic truth. Such a soul will see the
correspondence of matter and spirit, and will recognise in the
external only the rude signs by which is conveyed to the child
so much of spiritual truth as its finite mind can grasp. To it,
in veriest truth, to die has been gain. The life that it leads
is a life of the spirit; for flesh has been conquered, and the
world has ceased to charm.
But in proportion as the spiritual perceptions are quick-
ened, so do the spiritual foes come into more prominent view.
The adversaries, who are the sworn enemies of spiritual pro-
gress and enlightenment, will beset the aspirant's path, and
remain for him a ceaseless cause of conflict throughout his
career of probation. By degrees they will be vanquished by
the faithful soul that presses on, but conflict with them will
never wholly cease during the probation-life, for it is the
means whereby the higher faculties are developed, and the
steps by which entrance is won to the higher spheres of bliss.
This, briefly, is the life of the progressive spirit self - sacri-
fice, whereby self is crucified; self-denial, whereby the world
is vanquished; and spiritual conflict, whereby the adversaries
are beaten back. In it is no stagnation; even no rest; no
finality. It is a daily death, out of which springs the risen
life. It is a constant fight, out of which is won perpetual
progress. It is the quenchless struggle of the light that is
within to shine out more and more into the radiance of the
perfect day. And thus only it is that what you call heaven
is won.
Sic itur ad astra. That is very much the central idea of
Christianity, and also of Buddhism, as well as of the
Occultists. Christ's sayings teem with the notion which
animated his own life. The great difficulty is to carry
out such an abstract system into operation in the world.
Therein is the struggle, as He himself said, to be in the
world, but not of the world. The high ideal is well nigh im-
possible for those who have upon them the care of daily toil.
Hence it is that we have striven to withdraw you, so far as
we can, from the objective side of spirit-intercourse, foreseeing
that it would be hurtful to you. You must strive to rise above
the material, and to leave it behind. Such intercourse is
fitted only for those who can be secluded from the cares of
daily life.
I said long ago that I believed mediumship, if carried
out, to be incompatible with daily work in the world.
The very development of sensitiveness, which grows so
rapidly, is quite enough to unfit the medium for rude
contact with the world: or, at any rate, to encourage in
him moods, and draw round him influences, which
make him unfit for work.
To a great extent it is so: and, therefore, we have with-
drawn the more material side of mediumship from you, and
that should develop the spiritual, in which no such danger
lurks. At any rate, you may trust us to do what is wise. The
danger is when they who guide are unfit for the work. It is
then that risk becomes serious. Be content; your course is
clear. Only remember that now is the hour and power of
darkness. Be patient.
† IMPERATOR.
[Easter Day, 1877.]
