IN THE . . . OUTER COURT UC-NRLF B 3 TMb 311 ANNIE BESANT iRARY ^ERSrY OF aiFOi;NiA tlv IN THE OUTER COURT. IN THE OUTER COURT BY ANNIE BESANT FIFTH REPRINT The Theosophlcal Publishing Society London 1915 T (p CONTENTS. Purification 9 Thought Control 45 The Building of Character 81 Spiritual Alchemy 119 On the Threshold ,....157 The above are the verbatim reports of five Lectures given in the Blavatsky Lodge, London, at the Headquarters of the European Section of the Theosophical Society, during August, 1895. 900 PURIFICATION LECTURE I. Purification. If it were possible to place ourselves in thought at a centre in space from which we might see the course of evolution, from which we might study the history of our chain of worlds rather as they might be seen in imagination, in picture, than in the appearance that they present as physical, astral and mental, I think that thus looking outwards on these evolving groups, this evolving humanity, we might figure the whole in a picture. I see a great mountain standing in space, with a road that winds round the mountain, round and round until the summit is reached. And the turns on this road round the mountain are seven in number, and on each turn I see seven stations where pilgrims stay for a while, and within these stations they have to Climb round and round.* As we trace the road *The pilgrimage of humanity during its present cycle of evolu- tion consists in passing seven times round a chain of seven globes ; on each globe a stay is made of many millions of years, and of these stays there are forty-nine — seven globes each dwelt on seven times. 10 /// the Outer Court. upwards along this spiral track we see how it ends at the summit of the mountain — that it leads to a mighty Temple, a Temple as of white marble, radiant, which stands there shining out against the ethereal blue. That Temple is the goal of the pilgrimage, and they who are in it have finished their course — finished it so far as that mountain is concerned — and remain there only for the help of those who still are climbing. If we look more closely at tlie Temple, if we try to see how that Temple is built, we shall see in the midst of it a Holy of Holies, and round about the centre are Courts, four in number, ringing the Holy of Holies as concentric circles, and these are all within the Temple ; a wall divides each Court from its neighbours, and to pass from Court to Court the wayfarer must go through a gateway, and there is but one in each encircling wall. So all who would reach the centre must pass through these four gate- ways, one by one. And outside the Temple there is yet another enclosure — the Outer Court — and that Court has in it many more than are seen within the Temple itself. Looking at the Temple and the Courts and the mountain road that winds below, we see this picture of human evolution, and the track along which the race is treading, and the Temple that is its goal. And along that road Purification. 1 1 round the mountain stands a vast mass of human beings, climbing indeed, but cUmbing so slowly, rising step after step ; sometimes it seems as though for every step forward there is a step backward, and though the trend of the v/hole mass is upwards it mounts so slowly that the pace is scarcely perceptible. And this asonian evolution of the race, climbing ever upwards, seems so slow and weary and painful that one wonders how the pilgrims have the heart to climb so long. And tracing it round and round the mountain millions of years pass in the tracing, and millions of years in following a pilgrim, and while he treads it for these millions of years an endless succession of lives seems to pass, all spent in climbing upwards — we weary even in watching these vast multitudes who climb so slowly, who tread round after round as they mount this spiral pathway. Watching them we ask our- selves : Why is it that they climb so slowly ? How is it that these millions of men take so long a journey ? Why are they ever striving upwards to this Temple that stands at the top ? Looking at them, it seems that they travel so slowly because they see not their goal, and understand not the direction in which they are travelling. And as we watch one or another on the pathway, we see that they are always straying 12 /// the Outer Court. aside, attracted hither and thither, and with no purpose in their going ; they walk not straight onwards as though intent on business, but wander hither and thither, hke children running after a blossom here, and chasing a butterfly there. So that all the time seems to be wasted, and but little progress is made when the night falls upon them and the day's march is over. Looking at them, it does not seem as though even progress in intellect, slow as that also is, made the pace very much more rapid. When we look at those whose intellect is scarcely developed, they seem after each day of life to sink to sleep almost on the place they occupied the day before ; and when we glance over those who are more highly evolved so far as intellect is concerned, they too are travelling very, very slowly, and seem to make small progress in each day of life. And looking thus at them, our hearts grow weary with the climbing, and we wonder that they do not raise their eyes and understand the direction in which their path is taking them. Now that Outer Court that some of the climbers in front are reaching, that Outer Court of the Temple, seems not only to be gained by the path that winds round and round the hill so often ; for as we look at it, we see that from many points in this spiral pathway the Outer Court may be Purification. 13 reached, and that there are briefer ways that wind not round the hill but go straight up its side, paths that may be climbed if a traveller's heart be brave and if his limbs be strong. And trying to see how men find their way more swiftly than their fellows to the Outer Court, we seem to gather that the first step is taken off this long spiral road, the first step is taken straight in the direction of this Outer Court that men can reach from so many points in the long roadway, when some Soul v/ho has been travelling round and round, for millen- niums perhaps, recognises for the first time a purpose in the journey, and catches for a moment a gleam from the Temple on the summit. For that White Temple sends rays of light over the mountain side, and now and then a traveller raises his eyes from the flowers and the pebbles and the butterflies upon the path, and the gleam seems to catch his glance and he looks upward at the Temple, and for a moment he sees it ; and after that first momentary glimpse he is never again quite as he was before. For, though but for a moment, he has recognised a goal and an ending; for a moment he has seen the summit towards which he is climbing, and the pathway, steep, but so much shorter, that leads directly up the hill-side beyond which the Temple gleams. And in that moment of 14 In the Outer Court. recognising the goal that hes in front, in that moment of understanding, if it be but for an instant, that instead of climbing round and round full seven times and making so many little circles on the upward path — for the path winds upon itself as well as round the hill, and each spiral round the mountain side has seven turns within itself and they too take long in the treading — when tlie Soul has caught these glimpses of its goal and of the directer pathway that leads towards it, then it understands for that moment that the pathway has a name and that the name is " Service," and that those who enter on that shorter pathway must enter it through a gate on which " Service of Man " is shining in golden letters ; it understands that before it can reach even the Outer Court of the Temple it must pass through that gateway and realise that life is meant for service and not for self- seeking, and that the only way to climb upwards more swiftly is to climb for the sake of those who are lagging, in order that from the Temple more effective help may be sent down to the climbers than otherwise would be possible. As I said, it is only the flash of a moment, only a glimpse that comes and that vanishes again ; for the eye has only been caught by one of these rays of light that come down from the mountain. And there are so Purification. 15 many attractive objects scattered along this winding path that the Soul's glance is easily again drawn towards them ; but inasmuch as once it has seen the light, there is the possibility of seeing it again more easily, and when once the goal of achievement and the duty and power of service has had even this passing imaginative realisation in the Soul, then there remains a desire to tread that shorter pathway, and to find a way straight up the hill to the Outer Court of the Temple. After that first vision, gleams come from time to time, and on day after day of this long climbing the gleam returns to the Soul, and each glimpse perhaps is brighter than the last, and we see that these Souls who have just for a moment recognised that there is a goal and purpose in life, begin to climb with more steadfastness than their fellows ; although they are still winding their way round the hill, we see that they begin to practise more steadily what we recognise as virtues, and that they give them- selves more persistently to what we recognise as religion, which is trying to tell them how they may chmb, and how the Temple may finally be won. So that these Souls who have caught a gleam of this possible ending, and feel some drawing towards the path that leads thereunto, become marked out a little from their fellows by their diligence and 1 6 In the Outer Court. heedfulness, and they go to the front of this endless multitude that is climbing along the road ; they travel more swiftly, because there is more purpose in their travelling, because they are taking a direction which they begin to understand, and they begin, though very imprerfectly, to walk with a definite aim, and to try to live with a definite purpose. And although they scarcely yet recognise what that purpose in the end will be — it is rather a dim intuition than a definite understanding of the way — still they are no longer roaming aimlessly from side to side, sometimes a little upwards and sometimes a little downwards ; they are now climbing steadily up the winding pathway, and each day of life sees them climb a little faster, until they are distinctly ahead of the multitudes in spirituality of life, in the practice of virtue, and in the growing desire to be of service to their fellow- men. They are in this way travelling more swiftly towards the summit, though still on the winding road, and they are beginning to try to train themselves in definite ways ; they are beginning also to try to help their neighbours, that they too may climb with them, and as they are making their way a little more swiftly forward they are always reaching out helpmg hands to those around them, and trying to take them with them upwards more Purification. 1 7 swiftly along the path. And presently, with those they are thus loving and serving, they are met by a form that is beautiful, though at first somewhat stern in aspect, which speaks to them and tells them something of a shorter way ; we know that the form which comes to meet them is Knowledge, and that Knowledge is beginning to whisper to them something of the conditions of a swifter progress ; the Religion that has been helping them in the practice of virtue is, as it were, the sister of this Knowledge, and the Service of Man is sister to it also, and the three together begin to take charge of the Soul, until at last a brighter dawning comes, and a fuller recognition, and you hear this Soul beginning to make definite to itself the purpose of its climbing, and not only to dream of a future, but to make that dream more definite in its purpose, and you find it recognising service as the law of life. Now, with deliberate intention, a promise to help in the progress of the race breathes softly forth from the lips of the Soul ; and that is the first vow the Soul makes, to give itself sometime to the service of the race — a vow not yet of full purpose, but still with the promise of purpose hidden within it. It has been written in a Scripture that one of the great Ones who trod the shorter road, one of the great Ones who climbed the steeper B 1 8 In the Outer Court, path, and Who chmbed it so swiftly that He kit behind Him all His race and stood alone in the forefront, the firstfruits, the promise of humanity ; it is said of Him, Who in later ages was known as the Buddha, that " He perfected His vow, Kalpa after Kalpa " ; for the achievement that was to crown His life had to begin with the promise of service, and it is that vow of the Soul which links it to the great Ones that have gone before, that makes as it were the link that draws it to the probationary path, the path that leads it into and across the Outer Court, up to the very gateway of the Temple itself. At last, after many lives of striving, many lives of working, growing purer and nobler and wiser, life after life, the Soul makes a distinct and clear speaking forth of a will that now has grown strong ; and when that will announces itself as a clear and definite purpose, no longer the whisper that aspires, but the word that commands, then that resolute will strikes at the gateway which leads to the Outer Court of the Temple, and strikes with a knocking which none may deny — for it has in it the strength of the Soul that is determined to achieve, and that has learned enough to under- stand the vastness of the task that it undertakes. For that Soul that now is standing at the outer gateway of this Court, knows what it is striving to Purificatton. 19 accomplish, realises the vastness of the difficulty that lies in front. For it means nothing less than this, that it is going to come out of its race — that race which is to be climbing round and round and round for endless millenniums, still passing from globe to globe, round that which we know as the chain, passing round and round that chain in weariful succession ; this brave Soul that now is knocking at the outer gateway means to climb that same mountain in but a few human lives, means to take step by step, breasting the hill at its steepest, the path that will lead it right upwards into the very Holy of Holies ; and it m.eans to do within a space of tim_e that is to be counted by but a few lives, that which the race will take myriads of lives to accomphsh — a task so mighty that the brain might almost reel at its difficulty ; a task so great that of the Soul that undertakes it one would almost say that it had begun to realise its own divinity, and the omnipotence which lies enshrined within itself. For to do in a few lives from this point of the cycle that the race has reached, what the race as a whole is going to do, not only in the races that lie in front, but in the rounds that also lie in the future — to do that is surely a task worthy of a God, and the accomplishment means that the divine power is perfecting itself within the human form. 20 In the Outer Court. So the Soul knocks at the gateway, and the door swings open to let it through, and it passes into the Outer Court. Through that Court it has to go, traversing it step by step until it reaches the first of the gateways that lead into the Temple itself — the first of those four gateways, every one of which is one of the great Initiations, beyond the first of which no Soul may tread that has not embraced the Eternal for evermore, and that has not given up its interest in the mere transitory things that lie around. For when once a Soul has passed through the gateway of the Temple, it goeth out no more ; once it passes through that gateway into one of the inner Courts that lie beyond it and that lead to the Holy of Holies, it goes out never again. It has chosen its lot for all the millenniums to come ; it is in the place which none leaves when once he has entered it. Within the Temple itself the first great Initiation lies. But the Soul whose progress we are tracing is as yet only going to prepare itself in this Outer Court of the Temple, in order that in lives to come it may be able to ascend the seven steps to the first gateway, and await permission to pass over the threshold into the Temple itself. What then shall be its work in the Outer Court ? Hovv shall it lead its lives therein, in order that it may become worthy to Purification. 2 1 knock at the Temple gate ? That is the subject that Hes in front of us — the subject I am going to try to put before you, if I may speak but to one or two to whom the speaking may appeal. For well I know, brothers and sisters mine, in depicting this Outer Court, that I may say much that may seem unattractive, much that may seem even repellent. Hard enough is it to find the way to the Outer Court ; difficult enough is it to practise religion and all the virtues wiiich m.ake the human Soul fit even to knock at the gateway of this outer stage, this Outer Court around the Temple, and they who enter into that Court have made great progress in their past ; it may be, it will be, tliat to some the life that is led therein may scarce seem attractive — to some who have not yet definitely recognised the aim and the end of life. For, mind you, none are in the Outer Court save those who have definitely vowed themselves to service, those who have given everything, and who have asked for nothing in return save the privilege of serving, who have definitely recognised the transitory nature of earthly things, who have definitely embraced the task which they desire to achieve, who have turned their backs on the flowery paths which ^o round the mountain, and are resolutely determined to climb straight upwards, no matter 22 In the Outer Court, what the cost, no matter what the strain as day after day of life swiftly succeed each other. There is to be struggle, and much of struggle, in this Outer Court, for much has to be done therein in brief space of tim^e. The divisions of this woris: that I have made are arbitrar}^ They are not steps, as it were, across the Court, for each of these divisions has to be taken at one and tlie same time and is always being worked at ; it is a simultaneous training, and is not divided into stages as I have had to divide it for cleai-- ness of explanation. I have called these divisions " Purification," and " Thought Control," and the " Building of Character," and " Spiritual Alchemy," and " On the Threshold." These divisions do not mean that each is to be taken separately, because all these things have to be done at one and the same time, and the Soul that is spending its lives in the Outer Court is busy with all this work in all the lives that it spends there ; it is these tasks that it must partially, at least, have learned to accomplish, ere it dare stand at the Temple gate itself. And if I take them now one by one, it is in order that we may understand them the better ; but we must also understand throughout my sketching of these steps, that it is not perfect accomplishment of any one of them that the Soul must have achieved ere Purification. 23 it may reach the gateway of the first Initiation ; but only that it must have partially accomplished, only that it must be striving with something of success, only that it must understand its work and be doing it with diligence ; when the work is perfectly accomplished, it will be in the Holy of Holies itself. Purification then is to be part of its work, self- purification, the purification of the lower nature, until every part of it vibrates perfectly in harmony with the higher, until everything is pure that belongs to the temporary part of man, to that which we call the personality, that which has not in it the permanent individual, but is only the assemblage of qualities and characteristics which that individual gathers round it in the course of each of its many lives — all the outer qualities and attributes round the Soul, all these garments in which it clothes itself, and which it carries wath it often life after life, all that which it takes up as it comes back to incarnation, all that which it builds during incarna- tion, all that which the permanent individuality gathers round itself during earth-life and out of which it extracts the essence in order to transfuse it into its own growing and eternal Self. A phrase that very well symbolises the position of the Soul at this moment, when it has deliberately entered this Outer Court and sees the work stretching in front 24 In the Outer Court. of it, a phrase that very well describes its attitude has been used lately by Mr. Sinnett. It is the phrase of " allegiance to ihe Higher Self," a useful expression, if it be understood. It means the dehberate decision that all that is temporary and that belongs to the lower personality shall be cast aside ; that each life that has to be lived in this lower world shall be devoted to the single purpose of gathering together material which is useful, which then shall be handed on to the Higher One who lives and grows out of that which the lower gathers ; that the lower self — realising that it is essentially one with the greater that is above it, that its only work in the world is to come here as the temporaiy active agency which gathers together that of which its permanent Self has need — determines that the whole of its life down here shall be spent in that service, and that the life's purpose is merely the gathering of material which then shall be taken back to the Higher, who is really the essence of itself, and who shall thus be enabled to build up the ever-growing individuality which is higher than the personality of a life. The " allegiance to the Higher Self " means the recognition of this service by the lower, the living of the lower no longer for itself but for the purpose of serving that which endures ; so that all the life in the Outer Court is PiirificoJion. 25 to be this life of definite allegiance to the Higher, and all the work that is done in the Outer Court is to be work that is done for the sake of that greater One, who is now realised as the true Self that is to endure throughout the ages, and that is to be built ever into fuller and fuller life by this deliberate, loyal service of the messenger that it sends into the outer world. In this work that which is sometimes spoken of in the great Scriptures of the world as the preliminary step for the successful searching after the Soul, is one that I am imagining as now lying behind the Soul. You may remember to have read in one of the greatest of the Upanishads, that if a man would find the Soul the first thing to do is to " cease from evil ways " ; but that I am presuming the Soul has done ere yet it has entered into the Outer Court. For those who enter it are no longer subject to the commonest temptations of earth-life ; they have grown beyond those, and when they come into the incarnation which is to see them within the Outer Court, they Vv'ill at least have turned from evil ways and will have ceased from walking therein with pleasure. If ever they are found in such ways at all it v/ill be by a sudden slip immediately retrieved, and they will have been born into the world with a conscience which refuses to let them go wrong 26 /// the Outer Court. when the right is seen before it. And though the conscience might have sometimes bkmdered in its choice — though the conscience (not yet perfect in its experience) might sometimes have chosen wrongly ere entering within this Outer Court, and even after having entered, still it vrould be keenly desirous to choose rightly. The lower self would not deliberately go against this voice, for any one who deliberately goes against the voice of con- science has not entered into this Outer Court at all, nor is ready to enter it ; the Souls that have entered therein have at least chosen to strive after the right, and they would fain obey this voice that bids them choose it, and not deliberately disobey ; they would come into this world with that much of their climbing behind them, and with a deliberate will to do the highest that they see. They now will have to deal with subtler temptations, those in the Outer Court ; not with the grosser temptations of the outside world, but with the subtler and keener temptations that come to the Soul when it has to live so swiftly through its lives, when it has to climb so rapidly up the mountain side. For indeed it has no time to waste in paltering with temptations, in slowly building virtue ; it must climb onwards and upwards ever, now it has once come within the limits of even the Outer Court of the Temple. And Purification. 27 it will find intellectual difficulties all round it and intellectual temptations — temptations to intellectual ambition, temptations to intellectual pride, tempta- tions to be proud of that which it has gathered, and to hold firmly for its own sake to that which it has achieved. iVnd not only will it feel this strong grip of ambition, this grasping of the nature of pride, that would keep for itself and would build up a wall between itself and those who are below it, but it will also have a desire for knowledge, a desire for knowledge for itself, a desire for knowledge that it may gain and hold rather as against the world than for it. And this temptation veils itself as love of knowledge for its own sake, and love of truth for its ov/n sake, and oftentimes the Soul finds, as its eyesight grows keener and clearer, that this supposed aspu'ing love is often only the desire to be separated from its fellows, to have what they do not share and to enjoy what it does not give to them. This separateness is one of the great dangers of the growing Soul, the pride in separate- ness and the desire to be separated— the desire to grow and to learn and to achieve in order that it may possess ; this is one of the temptations that will touch it even when it has passed through the gateway of the Outer Court. For the Soul will see knowledge within its grasp, and will desire to hold 28 In the Outer Court. it ; will see power within its grasp and will desire to have it ; desire, not only for the sake of service, but also partly because these make itself the greater, and it is inclined to build this wall about itself so that it may keep for self that which it has achieved ; presently it begins to understand that if it would ever traverse the Outer Court and reach the gate- way that is shining ahead of it, it must get rid of all this intellectual ambition, and all this intellectual pride, and all this desire for knowledge which it will hold for itself, and everything that makes it separate from its brother Souls ; then it will begin to purify its intellectual nature, it will begin to scrutinise the motives which impel it to effort and the motives which move Tt to action, and it will begin carefully to look at itself in the light that shines from the Temple, and that is ever coming through the Temple windows and illuminating this Outer Court with rays of spiritual Life ; light in which every shadow seems to be darker, and the very things that look bright in the lower world are seen after all to be shadows and not to be rays of light at all. Then the Soul will realise that this desire-nature which it has brought with it, and which mixes itself with the intellectual, that this desire-nature has to be purified from every touch of the personal self ; it will deliberately begin this Purificatio-H. 29 work of purification, it will deliberately and consciously and steadfastly set itself to work to purge out of itself everything which strives to take for the personality, and everything which makes it in any sense separate from those that are below it as well as from Those that are above. For this the Soul learns — and it is one of the lessons of the Outer Court — that there is only one way which these doors swing open, the doors that shut it out of the Temple, and that is by the breaking down of the walls that separate it from its fellows that are below. Then the walls that separate it from those that are in front disappear, absorbed as it were by their own action ; for that gate that has to be passed through is a gate that will only open to him who desires passage, as he breaks down the walls of his own nature and is willing to share with all that which he achieves. Thus he begins this work of purifying the desire- nature, and he takes this lower self in hand to purge out of it everything which is personal. ' How shall he purify himself ? He does not want to destroy ; for tnat which he has gathered together is experience, and experience has been built into faculty and transmuted into power, and he now needs all these powers that he has been gathering during the climb that lies below him, and it will not 30 In the Outer -Courts do to destroy all that he has gathered; he waiits to take these powers on with him, but to take ft:iem purified instead of foul. How then shall he purify them ? It would be so much easier to destroy ; it would need so much less patience to kill some of these qualities that he has ; he feels as if he could strike at them and slay them, and so be rid of them. But it is not thus that he can enter into the Temple ; for he must lake there as his sacrifice that has to be offered on the very threshold of the Temple, everything that he has gathered in his past, that he has turned into power and faculty ; he must not go in thither empty-handed, he must take with him all that he has gathered in his lower life. So that he dares not destroy ; he must perform the harder work of purification ; he must keep the essence of all the qualities, while he strikes away from them everything that is personal. All the lessons he has learnt of virtue and of vice, all these are the experiences that in the pilgrimage behind him he has gathered ; he must take the essence of every quality with him, for these are the results of all his climbing ; but he must take tliem as pure gold to the altar, and no dross must be mingled with the gold. Let us take one or two of these qualities in order to see clearly what purification means ; for if we Purification, 3 1 understand it as to one or two qualities, then at our leisure we can work it out for the rest, and the lesson is all -important as to how the purification is to be worked. Let me take first a mighty force which is in every human being, which he develops in the low stages of his growth, which he carries on with him as he evolves, and which it is now his work to purify. Let us take the quality that in its lowest stage we know as anger, as wrath, as that tremendous power that the man develops, by which he fights his way through the world, by which he struggles, and by v/hich he oftentimes overcomes all opposition : that tremendous energy of the Soul rushing out through the lower nature and breaking a man's way for him through difficulties in the earlier stages of his growth ere yet he has learned to guide and to control it ; an undisciplined energy, destructive because it is undisciplined ; a tremendous force, valuable because it is force, although destructive in its workings as we see it in the lower world. The man ere yet he has entered into the Outer Court has somewhat changed that energy of the Soul ; he has changed it into a virtue, a very real virtue, and he has had this virtue long as his possession in the outside world ; then it went by the names (when it had reached the stage of virtue) 3^ In the Outer Court. of noble indic^nnlion, of passion against injustice, of hatred of all that was wrong, and that was base, and that was vile, and that was cruel, and it did good service in the outer world under these many forms of destructive energy. For this man, ere yet he came into the Outer Court, had been working for the world, and had been practising this virtue ; and when he saw the cruelty that was done upon the weak his passion broke forth against it, and when an injustice w^as wrought by a tyrant then he rose up against it in indignation ; he had learned, as he practised this virtue, to purify it from much of the dross ; for the anger that he had in his earlier lives was anger for himself — he was wrathful when he was injured, he struck back when some one struck at him ; but he had long ago conquered that mere brute wrath in the lower nature which guards itself by destructive energy against a wrong, and pays back evil with evil and hate with hate. Before he entered the Outer Court he had passed beyond that earlier stage, and had learned to some extent to transform that energy of anger in him ; he had purified it to a great extent from the personal element, and he had learned to be angry less because he himself was injured, than because some one else was wronged ; he had learned to be indignant less Purification. J3 because he suffered, than because some one else was put to pain ; and when he saw some cruel creature trampling on a helpless one, he sprang forward to rescue that helpless creature and struck at the wrong-doer and cast him to one side ; in that way he had used the higher anger to conquer the lower, in that way he had used the nobler passion to slay the more animal passion of his lower life, and he had learned in these lives that now lie far behind him, to get rid so far of the grosser qualities of the passion ; he had learned to be no longer angry for himself, but angry only for those whom he desired to help. For he was a man, remember, who had long recognised service as duty, and one of his ways of service was by striking down oppressors and by casting aside those who were inflicting suffering ; this anger of his blazed up hotly against all forms of wrong, and he worked for the weaker, and perchance did- hero's work in the world. But within that calmer atmosphere of the Court of the Temple, illuminated by the rays of absolute compassion shining forth from the Holy of Holies, there is no place for anger of any sort, even though the anger be purged from personal antagonism. For the aspirant has now to learn that those who do the wrong are also his brothers, and that they suffer more in their wrong-doine than do c 34 In the Outer Court. their fellow-men by the injury that they may inflict ; he has to learn that this noble indignation of his, and this passion of his against the wrong, and this fire that blazed forth to consume a tyranny that touched not himself, that that is not the characteristic of the Soul that is striving onwards towards the Divine ; for the Divine Life loves all the children that It sends into the world, no matter what may be their position, nor how low the grade of their evolution. For the Love of the Divine that emanated all has nothing outside Itself. The Life that is Divine is the core of everything that exists, and there is God present in the heart of the evil- doer as well as in the heart of the saint. Within the Outer Court the Divine must be recognised, no matter how thick are the veils that hide it, for there the eyes of the Spirit are to be opened, and there is to be no veil between it and the Self of other men ; therefore this noble indignation is to be purified until it is purged of everything that is of anger, and is changed into an energy that leaves nothing outside its helpful range ; until this great energy of the Soul become an energy that is absolutely pure, that goes out to help the tyrant as well as the slave, and that embraces within its limit the one who is trampling as well as the one who is trampled ; for the Saviours of men choose Purification. 35 not whom They will serve — Their service is a service that knows no limitations, and They that are the servants of all hate none within the Universe. That which once was anger has to become by purification, protection for the weak, impersonal opposition to strong evil-doing, perfect justice to all. And so again as he does with anger he must do with love, with love that began showing itself forth in him in its lowest and poorest form as the Soul was beginning to grow, that showed itself forth, perhaps, in forms that were foul and in forms that were vile, that only knew the goings outward to another, and that in its self-gratification troubled not much as to what happened even to that which it loved ; as the Soul has been growing upwards, love has changed its character, has become nobler, less selfish, less personal, until it has attached itself to the higher elements in the beloved instead of to the outer casing, and the love that was sensual has become morahsed and purified. It must be made still purer when the candidate has come within the Outer Court of the Temple ; he m.ust carry in with him love, but it is love that must have begun to lose its exclusiveness ; it is love which must keep its fire ever burning more v/armly, but the warmth must spread out further and farther 36 In the Outer Court. and be purified from everything of lower nature ; and that means that the love shall be a love that in going out to others shall always seek to serve them rather than to serve itself, shall always seek how much it may give to them rather than how much it may take from them, and so a love that will be becoming gradually Divine in its essence, going out according to the measure of the need rather than according to the richness of the return. As the Soul is thus striving after purification, it will have certain tests that it will apply to all this process through which it is passing itself, and when it is at work using its energy in order to accomplish some service to man it will bring to that service the Ithuriel spear of the absence of personality, and v/ill see what starts up in answer to the touch of the spear. If it hnd that when it is doing service, when its energy is going out to achieve something that it realises as good, if in testing that action and its motive it find that the " I " is subtly mingled with the energy ; if it find that it looks less for the success of the working than for tlie success of the operator ; if it find that when it fails in its own working but sees that work accomplished by another, there is something of disappointment mingling in the cup of its delight at seeing the work achieved ; then it knows that the personality is still Purification. 37 lingering in it, that if it were what it ought to be, it would care only for the triumph of the service, and not for having itself contributed to the triumph. And if it find that in personal failure there is still a sting of disappointment ; if it find that from the failure of its own outgoing energy there comes back to it something of depression, something of dis- couragement, something which clouds for a moment its peace and its serenity, then it reahses that in that sting and in that cloud there is still a part of the personality that needs to be destroyed, and it sets to work to get rid also of that weakness, and to clear away that cloud from the eyes of the Soul. And if it find, when it is measuring and testing the nature of its love, that there is there also a little chill, a little feeling of disappointment, when that which it has loved remains indifferent to its giving, though it has served nobly and loved greatly ; if it find that the outward flowing of its love is inclined to shrink backward and to check its course, because those to whom it gives the love answer not back with love in return ; then, again, this Soul — that is so stern to itself whilst so compassionate to all other Souls — knows that in this also there is a subtle lingering of the personality, and that it is still work- ing for something for itself, and is not finding its highest joy in the mere glory of the giving. Then, 38 In the Outer Court. again, it sets to work, this Soul that is in the Outer Court of the Temple, to purify away that lingering part of the personality, until the love flows out, never asking whether aught comes back to it, never waiting to see if answer is there ; for it knows in truth that the need for love is greatest where answer of love there is none, and it knows that those Souls have the greatest need to receive who themselves at present give nothing to the love that helps. In this way the Soul deliberately labours for growth ; deliberately it works at itself, purifying always the lower nature with unceasing effort and with untiring demand ; for ever it is comparing itself not with those who are below it but with Those who are above it, ever it is raising its eyes towards Those who have achieved, and not looking downwards towards those who are still only climb- ing upwards towards the Outer Court. And it can never for a moment rest, it can never be content, until it sees itself ever coming nearer to its goal, until there is less opposition within itself to the passing through it of the light of the Holy Ones who have become Divine. Within this Outer Court the temptations of men are by their virtues, not by their vices ; subtle temptations assail their nature that appear like Purification. 39 angels of light ; and ever the temptation comes to these Souls ihat are passing onwards through that which is greatest in them, by that which is noblest in them ; it is their virtues which are taken, and, using the advantage of their lack of knowledge, these are turned into temptations ; for they have grown beyond the point where vice could touch or tempt them, and it is only by using the mask of virtue that illusion may avail to lead them astray. That is why they learn to be so hard upon them- selves, that is why they are so ceaseless in the de- mands that they make upon themselves ; they know full well by their own slipping, and by the slipping of their comrades, that those virtues that in the lower world are difficult of achievement are the very things that become easy to those within the Outer Court, and that these are then, as it were, stolen by the enemy, in order that he may turn them into temptations by which also they may be made to falter on the Path. Therefore it is that they learn that the onl}' safety for them is in living with- in the light of the Higher Self ; therefore it is that they realise that they dare not stand at the Gate of the Temple until that Light shines out radiantly within them, and therefore they are ever striving to make themselves absolutely translucent. For how shall they dare to pass into a Light to which every- 40 /;/ tJie Outer Court. thing that is light here is but as shadow ; how shall they dare to pass into a Light at which no impure eyes can look for the dazzling quality of its rays, making all that we call virtue seem imperfect of achievement, and all that we call beauty but as ugliness and as flatness ; how shall they dare to go within the Temple, where the Eyes of the Master shall rest upon them, and they shall stand, the Soul naked, in His presence ; how shall they dare to stand there, if within the heart there be still one stain of imperfection, and if when He looks into the heart there be found there one soil to offend the purity of His gaze ? Therefore is it that in this Outer Court things that are painful in the world outside become as joy, and the suffering that purifies is the most welcome of friends ; therefore is it that the pattern of all Yogis, He Who is said to be Himself the Great Yogi, the Master and the Patron of all ; therefore is it that He stands ever in the burning-ground, and that flames play ever round His presence and con- sume everything that they touch. For in the hearts of those who are in the Outer Court there are still hidden places into which the light has not yet pierced, and the final purification ere they enter into the Temple comes from these living flames of the Lord Himself, and they burn up all tJiat lurks Purification. 4 1 unseen in the hidden chambers of the heart of him who is to be a disciple. He has given himself to his Lord and he keeps nothing back ; in that mighty burning-ground, which stands before the gateway of the Temple, is the blazing fire through which all must pass ere yet the Temple Gate can open for them ; it is beyond the fire and in it that the figure of the Great Yogi is seen, from Whom those flames come forth, taking their purifying power from the glory of His Feet. It is from Him, the Great Guru, that comes this final purification of the disciple, and then he enters within the gate- way that shuts him out for ever from all the in- terests of the lower world, save that of service ; which separates him from all human desires save as he works for the redemption of Humanity; there remains nothing on earth which is able to attract him, because he has seen the Face of his Lord and before that all other lights grow^ dim. THOUGHT CONTROL, LECTURE II Thought Control. Perhaps in the subject or rather the section of the subject that I have to deal with to-night there will be almost more of difference than in any other part of it, between the view that would be taken, say, by a thoughtful well-balanced virtuou3 man in the world and the view which is taken by the Occultist. I shall want, as it were, to lead you step by step from, the beginning, and to show you how this change of standpoint occurs ; for it is perhaps especially in regard to the mind, the position that the mind holds towards the man, the place that it has in his developing nature, the functions that it performs and the way in which it performs them — it is on these matters that so much of difference will arise according to the position of the thinker, according to the view that he takes of the world at large and of the part which he there is called upon to play. Let us for a moment, in order to realise 45 46 In the Outer Court. just where we are in this matter, let us for a moment try to think how a good and just and intellectual man — that is a man who is distinctly not careless nor frivolous nor worldly in the ordi- nary sense of the terms — let us consider how such a person, sober in his judgment and balanced in his thinking, would regard this question of mental self-control. A good man, a man who has de- liberately set before himself an ideal of virtue which he strives to realise, a view of duty which he endeavours to discharge, such a man in the course of the forming of this ideal and the marking out of this line of duty, will recognise that what we call the lower nature is a thing to be mastered, to be controlled. On that no question will arise at all. The passions and the appetites of the body, the lower emotions which hurry people away without reflection and without thought, all that side of the man's nature v/hich is played upon from without so that he acts without consideration, as it would be said, without reflection and without thought — our virtuous man \\ ill most certainly say that this is to be dominated and to be kept under control. He will speak of that as the lower nature, and he will seek to reduce it to obedience to the higher. If we examine carefully the position of such a man, we shall find that what we mean in ordinary parlance Thought Control. 47 by a self-controlled man is a man who exercises this mental control over the lower nature, so that the mind controls the desires ; when we say " self -con- trolled " it is the man that is thought of as the self who is controlling. More than that ; if we look at him a little more closely we shall see that what we call the strong will, what we call the formed character, a character which acts along certain definite lines of conduct, a will which, under very difficult circumstances, is still able to guide the nature of which it forms a part along a clear and definite line, we shall find that we mean by such a person that he is one in whom the mind has been largely developed, so that when he comes to act and to decide upon an action he is not determined in his action by the external circumstances, he is not ■ determined in his action by the various attractions that may surround him outside, he is not deter- mined in his action by the answer of the animal nature to those attractions ; he is determined, we shall find, by a mass of experiences recorded in what is called his memory, remembrance of past occurrences, comparison of the results which flowed from these occurrences ; the mind has worked upon all of these, has, as it w^ere, arranged them and com- pared them the one with the other, and has drawn from them a definite result by an intellectual and 48 In the Outer Court. logical effort. This result remains in the mind as a rule of conduct, and when the man is under cir- cumstances that are disturbing, circumstances that would overcome what is called a weak will, circum- stances that would perhaps lead astray just an average person, this stronger and more developed mind — having laid down a rule of conduct at which it has arrived in a moment of calm, in moments when the desire-nature is not actively at work, in moments when it is not surrounded by temptations — this mind guides its conduct by this rule of con- duct which has thus been ascertained and laid down, and docs not permit itself to be turned out of its course by the attractions or by the impulses of the moment. In dealing with such a person you can often forecast what he will do ; you know the principles upon which his conduct is based ; you know the lines of thought which dominate his mmd ; and you feel pretty sure — looking at this character, which is definite and formed and strong — you feel pretty sure that no matter what may be the outside temptations, that man will fulfil in the moment of strife the ideal which he conceived in the moments of calm and of reflection. And in speaking of a self-controlled man this is what we generally mean ; he is a man who has reached this stage of development, which is by no means a low TJioiight Control. 49 stage you will observe, in which he has deliberately set himself to work to conquer and to rein in and to manage this lower nature, so that when it is most stimulated into action from without, the Soul shall be able to hold its own against the inrushing of temptation, and the man shall act on a noble stan- dard, no matter what may be the temptations that surround him to act basely, or in accordance with the temptings of the lower nature. So far then we have taken what may well be called a virtuous man, this man of high character, of clear thought, of sound judgment, who is by no means driven hither and thither by circumstances, nor by impulses, as is the normal unregulated or ill- regulated nature. But there is another stage to which this man may come, He may come into con- tact with a great philosophy of life which explains to him something more of the workings of the mind ; he may come, for instance, into contact with the great Theosophical teachings, whether as ex- pounded in ancient or modern books, whether he gains them from India, from Egypt, from Greece, or from modern Europe. And in that philosophy he may learn a new view of the Universe, and it may largely modify his own position. Suppose that such a man should come into the Theosophical Society and should accept its main 50 In the Outer Court. teachings, he will then begin to realise, far more than he did before he studied things from a Thco- sophical standpoint, the enormous influence of his thoughts. He will begin to understand that when his mind is working, it is exercising that creative power which will be so familiar probably to most of you ; that the mind is actually making definite existences or entities, that in this creative action of the mind it is constantly sending out into the world around active entities that work for good or for evil, and that work often upon the minds and upon the lives of people with whom the creator of these entities does not come into personal contact. He will begin to understand that it is by no means necessary in this affecting of the minds of others that he should put his thought either into spoken or into written words. Nor is it necessary that his thought should show itself in action, so that his ex- ample may become potent for good or for evil. He realises that he may be an exceedingly obscure per- son as the world counts obscurity ; that he may be quite out of sight of the public ; that he may only influence an exceedingly small circle of his friends and relatives who come into personal contact with himself ; but he will see that although he does not come into contact with i:)eople personally, although he does not reach them b} written or spoken words, Thought Control. 5 1 he has a power which transcends either the force of example or the forces of speech or of tongue, and that sitting alone and isolated from men, so far as the physical world is concerned, he may be exer- cising a force potent for good or for evil ; he may be purifying or fouling the minds of his genera- tion ; he may be contributing to, helping, or hinder- ing the progress of the world ; he may be raising his race a Kttle higher or depressing it a little lower ; and quite apart from everything that ordi- nary people recognise as the force of precept or of example, he may be influencing the mind of his timx by these subtle energies of thought, by these active forms that go into the world of men, that work the more forcibly in that they are invisible, and exercise the wider influence just because they are so subtle that they are unrecognised by the masses whom they affect. In this way, as he grows in his knowledge, thought will for him take on a new complexion, and he will realise how mighty is the responsibility of thought, that is, how great is the responsibility which is upon his own shoulders, simply as exercis- ing these faculties of the mind. He will realise that his responsibility extends much farther than he can see ; that he is responsible in a very real way oft'en for the crimes that happen in the society 52 In the Outer Court. to which he belongs, as well as for the deeds of heroism that may also happen in that society. He will grasp that great principle that it by no means follows that the man who does an act is wholly and solely responsible for the act which he performs ; but that every act is a coming into manifestation, a veritable incarnation, of ideas, and that every one who takes part in the generation of the ideas takes part in the responsibility for the action. Under- standing that, and taking this wider view of life, he would begin to be very careful about his thoughts, he would begin to realise that he must control his thoughts, and this goes beyond the view which was taken by our man of the world ; further, as he understands that he must control his thoughts and is responsible for his thoughts, as he begins to realise that not only is he responsible for these thoughts, and therefore must have some choice as to the kind of thoughts that he generates, he also fnids if he studies a little further that the kind of thoughts that he attracts to himself from the outer world will be very largely determined by the nature of the thoughts that he himself generates. So that he is not only a magnet sending out lines of thought-force over the area of his magnetic field, but he is also a magnet attracting towards himself the substances which answer to the maijnetic force Thought Control, 5 3 that he sends out ; whether then his mind be full of good thoughts or of base thoughts will very largely depend upon the lines along which his own mental force is exercised, and he will begin to understand that in generating a good thought he is not only discharging his supreme duty to his fellows, but that— as ever happens when man is in harmony with the Divine Law — he himself is gain- ing by that which he gives ; in each case in which he gives to the world a noble thought, he has set up in himself an attractive centre to which other noble thoughts will come of their own accord, drawn, as it were, by magnetic affinity, so that his own mind will be helped and strengthened by these thoughts that flow into it from without. He recognises also with pain and shame that when he sends out into the world a foul thought he has ■inade in his own consciousness a similar centre, which will attract the baser thoughts in the atmos- phere, and so increase his own tendencies towards evil as the others increase his tendencies towards good. And as he learns to understand this mental brotherhood which binds all men together, you will realise that he will change his mental attitude, that he will feel this responsibility of giving out and of taking in, that he will recognise these ties that stretch out in every direction from him and also 54 i>i the Outer Court, stretch out from every direction towards him, that he in his daily hfe will begin to deal more with thought than he will with action, and to understand that in that region of the invisible there are generated all the forces which come down into the psychic and the physical life. But there is a step further when he comes within the Outer Court. He is now a candidate — as you will remember from what we said last week — he is now a candidate to enter on that steeper and shorter Path leading upwards, nay, he is on the probationary stage of that Path itself. Something more then will come to him than this recognition, that we have seen belongs to the man who is begin- ning to understand something of the nature of the life around him. And this candidate, who has stepped across the threshold of the Outer Court, finds that he recognises something that is behind the mind, something which is greater than the mind, something to which the mind bears a relation which has an analogy to tlie relation which is borne to the mind itself by the lower desire-nature ; that just as in the course of growth a man recognises the mind above the desires, so when he has stepped across the threshold, and even before he takes that step — for it is the recognition of this fact which leads to the gateway and partly opens that gatev^-ay to him Thought Control. 55 • — he realises that this mind which seemed so great, this mind which seemed so mighty, which seemed to him in the days that He but a Httle way behind to be the ruler of the world and its monarch, that mind of which it was said by a thinker that " there is nothing great in the Universe but man, and there is nothing great in man but mind," that all this comes from a view that is taken from below with a sight that is blinded, and that when the sight begins to clear itself it is seen that there is some- thing greater in this Universe than this mind which seemed to be the greatest thing in man — something which is sublimer, something which is vaster, some- thing which only shines out for a moment, and then again is veiled. He recognises dimly, poorly, not yet by knowledge but by hearsay, that he has caught a glimpse of the Soul, that to him a ray of light has come downwards into the mind from something that is above it, emd yet that he dimly seems to feel in some strange sense is itself, is identical with it. So that at first there will be a confusion and a groping in the darkness, between this which seems to be himself although he had thought he himself was mind, and yet which seems so much greater than the mind. So that it seems to be himself, and yet greater than he, and he knows not at first whence this gleam may come, 56 In the Outer Court. and whether the hope that it raised in him is a dream and nothing more. But before we can deal with the facts clearly at all, we must try to see what we mean by these words " Mind " and " Soul," what we mean when we speak of " Consciousness " ; for these words, if we are to understand, must not for us be counters to play with, but real coins that represent some- thing that we have of mental wealth, of ideas. So let us take these words for a moment and see what is meant by them, or at least what I will mean by them in using them, so that what I say will be clear, whether you agree with the definitions or not. I define the Soul as that which individualises the Universal Spirit, which focuses the Universal Light into a single point ; which is, as it were, a receptacle into which is poured the Spirit ; so that that which in Itself is universal, poured into this receptacle appears as separate, identical in its essence always but separated now in its manifestation ; the pur- pose of this separation being that an individual may develop and grow ; that there may be an individualised life potent on every plane in the Universe ; that it may know on the physical and on the psychical planes as it knows on the spiritual, and have no break in consciousness of any kind ; that it may make for itself the vehicles that it needs Thought Control 57 for acquiring consciousness beyond its own plane, and then may gradually purify them one by one until they no longer act as blinds or as hindrances, but as pure and translucent media through which all knowledge on every plane may come. But in using the word or image " receptacle " I may mis- lead you ; and here is the difficulty with all expres- sions fitted for intellectual thinking; that if one takes an image which on one point is applicable we find it on another misleading. For this process of individualisation is by no means the making of a receptacle and the pouring of something into it, so that at once that which is poured into it takes definite outline and shape, moulded into the shape of the vessel. What happens is more analogous to the way in which some great system, some Solar System say, is formed ; if you throw your imagina- tion backwards in time, you might imagine space in which nothing is visible ; and you might then imagine that in that space — where there seemed to be emptiness, but where there is really all fulness, only fulness invisible to the eye — that in that space there comes a slight mist, too delicate almost to be called a mist at all, and yet that is the nearest word that would explain this beginning of aggregation ; and then as you watch it, the mist grows denser and denser, and denser and denser as the time goes on, 58 In the Otiter Court. aggregating more and more closely together and becoming more separated from the space around it ; till that which seemed but the faintest of shadows begins to take to itself a shape, becoming more and more definite as it proceeds, until if you were watching this building of the worlds, you would see the nebula become denser and denser, and separating itself off more definitely in space, until a system was formed with a central sun and planets all around it. And so it seems, however blunderingly put, is this coming of Spirit into individualisation ; it is like the faint appearance of a shadow in the universal void which is the fullest of all fulnesses, and then this shadow becomes a mist, and then it takes to itself clearer and clearer form, becoming more and more definite as evolution proceeds, until there is an individual, a Soul, where at first there was only the faintest shadow of a growing mist : such is the process (in picture) of this forming of the individual consciousness. And if you can take that thought of it for the moment, you will perchance realise how it is that the Soul is formed in the long course of evolution, and that this Soul is not a thing complete at first, plunging down like a diver into the ocean of matter, but is slowly, slowly builded, or densified, if I may still use the image, until out of the Universal it becomes Thought Control. 59 the individual, and an individual that is ever grow- ing as its evolution proceeds. That Soul lasts, as we know, from life to hfe through endless years, through countless centuries. It is the growing individual, and its consciousness is the conscious- ness of all that lies behind it in the process of its growth. The Soul is that entity, growing mighty to-day in some of the Sons of Men ; it has behind it a storied past ever present to this consciousness which has grown so wide during its treading of the long path over which it has travelled ; it has this vast consciousness, taking all its lives into itself and realising all its past. And then as each new birth comes, and new experience has to be gathered, this Soul which has been growing through the ages casts cut into new vestures a part of itself, to gather for it new experience ; and this part of itself which is flowing outwards on to the lower planes that there it may increase the knowledge out of which the Soul is to grow still greater, this part of itself flowing outwards is what we call the Mind in man ; it is the part of the Soul that is working in the brain, confined in the brain, sorely fettered by the brain, with what is literally the burden of the flesh upon it, making its consciousness dimmer, for it cannot pierce through this thicker veil of matter ; all that greatness that we know as the Mind is only this 6o In the Outer Court. struggling part of the Soul, working in this brain for purposes of the Soul's growth. And as it works in it, it shows out the powers of the Soul, for it is the Soul itself, although clothed in this limita- tion of matter, and as much of the Soul as can manifest through that brain is the mind of the person that we know, and sometimes much will manifest and sometimes little, according to the state of evolution which has been reached. But what the man in the Outer Court understands is that it is this Soul which is himself, and that the mind is only its passing manifestation. And then he begins to understand that just as the body and the desire-nature are to be subject to the mind, which is part of the Soul in prison, so that mind itself is to be subject to the great Soul of which it is only the projected representative of the moment ; that it is only an instrument, only an organ of the Soul, manifested for the sake of the work it performs, and for that which it has to gather and to draw back into the Soul, which is itself. Realising that, then, what will be the position of our candidate ? The mind learns ; as this mind comes into contact with the outer world, it gathers together facts, it arranges them, it tabulates them, it forms its judgments on them, and carries on all the rest of its intellectual processes ; the result of Thought Control. 6 1 this activity passes upwards, passes along this expansion of the Soul upwards into the Soul itself — or rather inwards ; it is this which the Soul takes with it into Devachan, and there works upon it all to change it into wisdom. For wisdom is very- different from learning. Learning is all that mass of facts, and of judgments on the facts, and of conclusions drawn therefrom ; wisdom is the extracted essence of the whole, that v/hich the Soul has gathered out of all these experiences, and it is, as you are aware, its work in Devachan to turn these experiences into wisdom. But our candidate, who knows all this, will realise that it is this Soul which is " I " ; the Soul which has come through all these past lives and has been building itself in the coming, that is the " I " that is himself, so far as he yet can see. And then he begins to under- stand why it is said that at the very outset he has to distinguish between the " I " that endures and this mind which is only a passing manifestation of the " I ". Mind is the Soul's manifestation in the world of matter, it is manifested there in order that it may work for the purposes of the Soul ; and then he may begin to realise why it is that when the pupil sends out to the Master his first cry for teaching, when having found his way into the Outer Court, he cries : " O Teacher, what shall I do to 62 In the Outer Court. reach to wisdom ? O Wise One, what, to gain perfection ? " — those words that sound strange at first come from the Hps of the Wise One : " Search for the Paths. But, O Lanoo, be of clean heart before thou startest on thy journey. Before thou takest thy first step, learn to discern the real from the false, the ever-fleeting from the everlasting." * And then the Teacher goes on to explain the difference between leaining and wisdom — what is ignorance, what is knowledge, and what is the wisdom that succeeds them both. And the dis- tinction is drawn between the mind — the mind that is " Hke a mirror ; it gathers dust while it reflects " ; the mind that needs the " breezes of Soul-wisdom to brush away the dust of our illusions." And on those words the candidate, if he be wise, reflects. What is this difference between the real and the fleeting, and why is it connected with the mani- festation of the mind 1 What is this difference between the mirror that reflects and the Soul that needs to dust the mirror if illusion is to be gotten rid of } For what part can it be which this mind plays, which seems so mighty a function in man that it stood as the man himself in the lower world ? What is its function after all if the first step upon the Path is to distinguish wliat is illusoiy * VoikC of I he SilettiC (Lotus Leaf Edition), pp. 34, 35. Thought Control 63 from what is real, and the mind in some subtle fashion is connected with the making of the illu- sion ? And there are other words which he remembers he has heard as coming also from the lips of these Masters of Wisdom. He remembers a strange word that came which spoke of the Rajah of the senses, ruler and king of the lower nature, but no friend of the disciple ; he remembers that — in those very words where this Rajah of the senses is spoken of, at the outset of the teaching — he remembers that he was bidden to seek out that Rajah of the senses so as to understand him, for he is " the Thought- Producer, he who awakes illu- sion " ; and the disciple is told that the " mind is the great slayer of the Real. Let the disciple slay the slayer.^' * Here then we seem to be on the track of some thought that will be illuminative to the candidate who is to seek out the Rajah of the senses ; that Rajah, or king, of the senses is the thought-producer, and he who produces thought is he who awakes illusion, it is he who slays the Real. For in the Spirit-World there is Reality; as the process of differentiation proceeds, illusion is pro- duced, and it is this mind, this growing mind, that makes the illusion. It is this growing mind that has endless images and pictures, that has the image- * Vcice of the Silence^ p, 13. 64 In the Outer Court. making faculty which we speak of as imagination, that has the reasoning faculty which builds on the airy picture that it has made — it is this which is the real creator of illusion, it is this which slays the Real, so faj as the disciple is concerned, and his first work as disciple will be to slay the slayer. For unless he can get rid of this illusive power of the mind, he will never be able to penetrate beyond the Outer Court. And then listening still to the Teacher, he hears a voice which bids him seek to blend his Mind and Soul.* His work then will be to make some change in this lower mind which shall make it capable of blending with the higher, some destruction of its illusory power which shall enable it to know its own parent from whom it comes, that the Father and the Son may once more become one. And then he hears a teaching which in mystic language says to U^rfn that he must destroy the lunar body, that he must cleanse the mind-body ; t and studying that, and striving to understand what it means, he learns from many an allegory and from many a symbol, now becoming familiar to him in his lessons, he learns that what is called the lunar body is that body which belongs to K^ma or Desire, that which is spoken of as the astral man ; * Ibid., p. 36. iJbid, p. 22. Thought Control. 65 and he learns that that is to be destroyed, and that the mind-body is to be cleansed. " Cleanse thy mind-body," the Teacher tells him, for only by cleansing away the dust of illusion will it be possible for that mind-body to re-enter itself, will it be possible for it to be blended with its Soul. And now he begins to understand the work that lies before him in the Outer Court with regard to this mind. He begins to realise that he himself, this living Soul that has been climbing through the centuries, has been putting out this force of itself in order to create an instrument for its own use, a sen-ant which is to be controlled ; that instead of the mind being master, the mind is to be an obedient slave, instrument in the hand that holds it, servant to him who sent it forth ; and as that grows upon him, the nature of his task unfolds itself before him and he begins to train his mind. And in seeking to do this at first he will have to begin with very simple matters ; he will find that this mind is always running about from one thing to another, hard to control and difficult to curb, as Arjuna found it five thousand years ago, restless and uneasy, turbulent and difficult to restrain ; and he will begin at first by training it, as you would train a steed that you are breaking in for your riding, to go definitely along the road that you E 66 In the Outer Court. choose, not leaping over hedge and ditch, and racing across country in every direction, but going along the road that is chosen by the rider, along that and along no other. And so this candidate of ours in his daily life — for he has to work out all this in the life of the world — will gradually, as he works, train his mind in thinking consecutively and think- ing definitely, and he will not permit himself to be led astray by all the manifold temptations around him, to the scattering of thought in every diiection. He will refuse to scatter thought ; he will insist that it shall pursue a definite path ; he will decline to take all his knowledge in scraps, as though he had no power of following a sustained argument ; he will put aside the endless temptations that surround him in this superficial age and time ; he will read by choice and by deliberate motive — for it is here that the thought of the candidate is trained — he will read with deliberate motive sustained argu- ments, long Unes of argument which train the mind in going along one definite line for a considerable period, and he will not permit it to leap from one thing to another rapidly, thus intensifying the rest- lessness which is an obstacle in his path, and which will block his way utterly until it is overcome. And thus daily, and month by month, and year by year, he will work at his mind, training it in Thought Control by these consecutive habits of thought, and he will learn to choose that of which he thinks ; he will no longer allow thoughts to come and go ; he will no longer permit a thought to grip him and hold him ; he will no longer let a thought come into the mind and fix itself there and decline to be evicted ; he will be master within his own house. He may have troubles in his daily life ; it matters not ; they will help him in this training of the mind. And when these troubles are very pressing, when these anxieties are very trying, when he finds himself inclined to look forwards and to worry over the troubles that are coming to him a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months hence, he will say : " No ; no such anxiety shall remain within my mind ; no such thought shall have shelter within my mind ; within this mind nothing stays that is not there by my choice and my invitation, and that which comes uninvited shall be turned outside the Hmits of my mind." People lie awake at night, filled with anxious thoughts, people are half killing themselves not by their troubles, but by the worries that those troubles cause within the mind ; all that kind of thing will be put an end to by the candidate, for he will refuse to permit any action which is not by his own consent, and he will shut and lock the doors of the mind against all these thoughts that 6S In the Outer Court. press in thither uninvited ; this will be a definite training, a difficult and a long training, for the thoughts break in and he has to turn them out. And over and over and over again he must do it, and there is no way in which it can be done save by taking such a thought, whenever it comes in, and as often as it comes in, and deliberately declining to give it harbourage. You will say, " How ? " Probably at first most easily by giving the mind something else to think about ; later on by simply refusing to admit it. But until the candidate has grown strong enough thus to shut and lock the doors of his mind and remain therein undisturbed, he may do wisely to substitute one thought for another, and always to substitute some high thought which deals with the permanent for the thought he wants to get rid of, which deals with the transitory. For then it will serve the double purpose, not only of getting rid of the transitory thought, but also of habituating the mind to rest in the eternal, and to gain that sense of proportion, that sense that the present is passing, and therefore is not worth troubling about ; on the side of the permanent, it will strengthen that dwelling of the mind in the eternal, which is the secret of all peace in this world, or in any other. And as he trains his mind in this way, and as ThongJit Control. 69 gradually he gains power over it, and is able to make it think of the thing that he chooses and to refrain from thinking of that which he does not choose, he will take a further step more difficult than either of these, and he will withdraw himself from the mind and think not in the mind at all ; not because he is going to become unconscious, but because he is seeking a deeper consciousness ; not because the hfe in him is dulling or becoming lethargic, but because it has become so vivid that the brain is no longer able to contain it ; and with this growth of the inner life, with this increase of the life-energy that flows from the Soul, he will slowly find that it is possible to reach a stage where " thought " will no longer be the thought of the mind, but the consciousness in the Soul ; long ere he will find that consciousness and realise it, as it were unbrokenly, he will have to pass through the stage of blankness, of emptiness, of void — one of the most trying stages, perchance, of this life of our candidate in the Outer Court ; and then he will dimly begin to understand the meaning which is breathed in the words of the Teacher : " Restrain by thy Divine thy lower self ; restrain by the Eternal the Divine."* The Divine Self is this Soul which is to restrain the lower mind ; but then * Vci:e of the Silence y p. 47. 70 /;/ the Outer Court, beyond the Soul is the Eternal, and, in some future that lies within the Temple, that Eternal is to restrain the Divine in him, even as the Divine restrains the lower self. And then he gradually and slowly learns that he is to be master of every- thing that is around him, with which mind-thought is connected in any way ; that he will come to one of the stages in this Outer Court where subtle temptations will be flocking around him, tempta- tions that do not touch the lower nature, but that dare to raise themselves against the higher, and that strive to use the mind for the destruction of the disciple, having failed to use the desire-nature or the grosser temptations of the body. And then come those subtle temptations that ensnare the inner man, those thronging crowds of temptations that come round him as he is rising upwards along his difficult path, temptations of the thought-world thronging round him from every side ; he must have gained utter control over the mental images he himself has created ere he will be able to hold his own unshaken, serene, unruffled, amid all these hosts of hurrying thoughts that are now coming to him, vitalised and strengthened no longer by the feeble minds of men in the lower world, but with a tremendous impulse which has in it something of the nature of the forces of the spiritual plane — from Thought Control. 71 the dark side and not from the white, from those who would fain slay the Soul, and not from those who would help it. And in the Outer Court he finds himself face to face with these, and they rush on him with the energy that comes from those mighty forces for evil ; and if he have not learned and have not trained himself to be master within the limits of tlie mind against the puny attacks that meet him in the outer world, how then shall he hold his own against these hosts of ]\Iara, the Evil One ? How shall he cross that fourth stage in the Outer Court, round which these enemies of the Soul are clustering, and which refuse that any shall go through who is not absolutely at peace ? And then there comes this strength which grows out of the fixity of the mind, the mind which now has grown so strong that it can -fix itself on what it will, and stay there unshaken, no matter what whirlwind may be going on around ; a fixity so great, so steady, that nothing that is without can avail to shake it at all, which has grown so strong that it does not need effort any longer, that it does not need to slay any more, for it has gone beyond the stage where such effort is necessary ; the stronger the Soul, the less of effort in its working ; the mightier the power, the less it feels assaults that come to it from without. 72 In the Outer Court. Then that great stage of the mind is reached when, instead of being slain, thoughts fall dead of themselves when they reach the shrine ; no longer need the mind slay, no longer need itself be slain ; it has become cleansed, pure and obedient. And the result of that which is the beginning of the blending of the Mind and of the Soul is that the moment anything alien strikes against it, it falls dead of its own impulsion ; there is no longer need to strike, for all that needs to be struck at falls dead by the throwing back of its own blow ; and this is that fixity of the mind of which it is written that the lamp is placed in a steady spot where no wind can cause it to flicker. It is in that place of rest where the will is beginning to be realised ; it is there that there is absolute peace ; it is a spot under the shadow of the Temple walls ; and it is of that that it is written in an ancient Scripture that when a man is free from desire, when he is free from grief, it is then in the tranquillity of the senses that he beholds the majesty of the Soul ; * then he sees indeed for the first time, no longer by broken gleam, by ray that comes and goes, but in this absolute peace and serenity where there is no desire and no ruffling of grief ; there the majesty of the Soul shines out unbroken, and the mind • Kathopanishad, ii. , 20. Thought Control. 73 now a mirror which is polished, reflects it back as it really is. For this mind, that in the early days was a dust-covered mirror, this mind, that was as the lake ruffled by the winds that blow from every side, has become as the polished mirror that reflects perfectly ; it has become as the lake which gives back everything in mountain and in sky, the trees to the trees, the stars to the stars, and which has every shade of colour in the heavens, throwing them back again to the heavens whence they come. But how ? There is a moment of danger ere this, of which the warning voice has spoken ; there is a moment when this spot is almost reached where the lamp will no longer flicker, when the mind and the Soul join for a moment in a last struggle, when the mind becomes as a mad elephant that rages in the jungle ; how then shall it be tamed ? It is the last struggle of the mind ; it is the final effort of the lower to assert itself against the higher, feeling the bonds that are upon it — that rising up of the lower nature of which every book of Initiation has spoken. For it has been written in every book that speaks of the Hidden Wisdom that, as the candidate approaches the gateway, ere he passes into the Temple, all the powers of Nature rise up against him to drag him 74 Ifi ihe Outer Court, down ; every power that is in the world comes out against him ; it is the last struggle to be passed through ere the conquest is complete. On higher planes yet there is a struggle of which this is the reflection ; on planes so high that we cannot image them, whereto the greatest of the great have found their way ; and that is symbolised in the last struggle of the Buddha beneath the Sacred Tree ; there where came to Him the last illumination that made Him Buddha, all the hosts gathered round for the last struggle to see if still His passage could be Iblocked ; and though on infinitely lower planes, there is that crucial struggle also in the life that is now the life of the disciple, and that is now coming near the gateway of the Temple. How shall he conquer in the struggle '^. How shall he on his probationary pathway tread in the footsteps of those who have gone before .^ And still from the words of the Teacher there comes the help, still from His lips a hint which shall guide us : " It needs," we hear spoken in the silence, " it needs points to draw it towards the Diamond Soul."* What is the Diamond Soul .^ It is the Soul that has accomplished its union with the true Self ; it is the Soul without spot or flaw in any part, translucent — as the diamond is translucent — to the * Voice of the Silence, p. 35. Thought Control. 75 Light of the LOGOS, which it focuses for men; the mighty Name that just now I spoke, as I might speak other Names that really mean the same although in other tongues, is that of a Soul high above all others to whom belongs this title of the Diamond Soul, through which the Light of the Logos Itself shines down to men, shines down undimmed, so pure is the Diamond, so spotless, so absolutely flawless is that Soul. It is the Soul to which we look at the moments of our highest aspira- tion ; and that which we need to draw us upwards towards It, is only one glimpse of Its beauty, is only one touch from Its fire ; for the Soul grows upwards towards its own as the flower grows towards the light, and the points that draw it upwards are these radiant outshinings from the Diamond Soul, which pour down on that which is Itself, although so weak and hesitating, and draw it upwards with Divine strength to union with Itself. And as the disciple begins to understand, there grows upon him what is meant by the Diamond Soul ; he realises that in himself also that Diamond Soul is to be re-inccurnate — " Look inwards ! Thou art Buddha!" — that this mind of his, like this body of his, is but an instrument for Its service, and is only useful and precious as it makes music worthy to reach the higher. And then by devotion these jt In the Outer Court. strings of the mind are tuned, are utterly subdued to the Soul ; the Soul tunes them by the power of devotion, and then it becomes an instrument of music fit for the Master's touch ; then it becomes an instrument of music from which all melodies in heaven and in eartli may sound ; and at last the disciple stands before the gateway and realises that what has happened is this : that he himself has found Himself; that the Soul that is Himself is looking upwards to One yet higher with whom it is now going to blend and to become one ; the further union takes place only within the Temple ; standing at the gateway he has only united Himself eternal to his self that was perishable — Himself the Soul to himself that was mind. And then he begins the worship which means identification with the highest ; then he learns that in his daily life the Soul can always be worshipping, no matter what the mind may do, and in what the body may be active ; he realises at last that the life of the disciple is absolutely unbroken worship of the Highest, con- templation that never ceases of the Diamond Soul, contemplation of the Supreme which knows no break ; that" while the Soul is ever thus busied in the Court of the Temple, the body and the mind will be at work for the humanity that needs them, in the Outer Court, and beyond it in the world ; Thought Control. 77 that this body can be ever active working for men, that this mind may be ever busy working for men ; they are instruments while the man is hving, they are his messengers and his workers while himself is worshipping. And then he realises what it means that " in heaven their Angels always behold the face of the Father," for the vision of the Father- Soul is an unbroken vision, no cloud of earth may dim it, no work on earth may mar it ; ever the Soul is beholding, while the mind and the body are labouring, and when that is achieved the threshold is being crossed, and from the Outer Court the Soul is entering into the Temple of its Lord. BUILDING OF CHARACTER LECTURE III. Building of Character. In beginning this third lecture of the course, I want as a preHminary step to repeat the warning that I gave you in the first lecture, with regard to the qualifications with which I am dealing, and the line of thought and of action which will be followed by those who are in the position that I have called " In the Outer Court." You will remember that I said to you that the position of an aspirant who had reached that Court was very different from the position even of the good and virtuous and religious man, who had not thoroughly seen the goal which was before him, who had not thoroughly reahsed the magnitude of his task. And I want again to remind you that in the whole of this, in which I am sketching the qualifications of those who come into the Court, I am dealing with everything from this standpoint of a deliberate self-training towards an aim that is definitely recognised ; and more than that, that I by no means mean in speaking of these F Si 82 In the Outer Court. qualifications that they are completely achieved while the aspirant still remains in the Outer Court of the Temple. He begins, as it were, the making of the character, he realises to some extent what he ought to be, and he strives more or less effectively to become that which he aspires to achieve. It is not that the defmite purification, or the complete control of the thoughts, or the perfect building of the character, or the entire transmutation of the lower into the higher — it is not that all these must be accomplished ere he can stand on the threshold of the Temple ; he is really employed whilst in the Outer Court in drawing as it were the foundations of his buildings, in sketching out carefully and fairly fully the outlines of that edifice which he hopes to carry to perfection. The working out of all these lines, the building on this foundation, the raising of the walls higher and higher, the placing of the crowning stone finally upon the work — that is done rather within the Temple than without it, after the eyes have been opened, not while they are still partially blinded and the aspirant is in the Outer Court. But what I do want you to under- stand is that the plan is sketched, that the plan is recognised ; that nothing less than this — very much more may come in the course of the ages — that nothing less than this is the goal that the candidate The Building of Character. 83 sets before himself for the reaching; so that however great may seem the aspirations, however magnificent may seem the outhne which is to be filled in, that outline is to be definitely recognised hi the Outer Court, although not to be filled in in detail, and however lowly may be the achievements of the present they are none the less the definite foundations on which the glorious achievements of the future are to be based. And I say this thus explicitly, although it be a repetition, because it was suggested to me that in making so wide a scope for the Outer Court, in tracing so vast an outline, it might come on some of my hearers with a sense of discouragement if not of despair ; so that it is well that all should understand that while the beginnings are traced they may still be only the beginnings, and that after the threshold is crossed, there are still many lives in front in which these beginnings may be carried to fulfilment, and this plan of the architect serves as basis for the finished edifice. Taking then that as a thing to be under- stood, let me remind you of the building of the character, which is to be a distinct and a positive building which this candidate in the Outer Court will set before himself ; we have seen already that he is to have been in past lives a virtuous and a religious man, that is, that he will have already 84 in the Outer Court. realised that nothinf^ of absolute vice must have its place In him, that nothing of evil must be permitted to remain ; that if any seed of vice remain, it must at once be flung without, that if any tendencies towards positive evil are still there, they must be completely and entirely rooted out. Here in this Court there can be at least no com- promise with evil, here there can be at least no paltering with that which is not right and pure and good. While there may still be failures in the achievement of the right, there is most definitely no contented remaining in tlie wrong ; that has had the back of the aspirant definitely turned upon it, and all the grosser part of the nature will already have been eliminated, all the rougher part of the inner struggle will have been finished. Into the Court of the Temple utterly unhewn stones cannot be brought for the building ; the hewing must have been going on during many previous lives, much work must have been done upon the characters before they become fit to be built at all even in the Outer Court of such a Temple. And this rough-hewing of the character is supposed to lie behind us ; we are dealing with the building of the positive virtues, and virtues of an exceedingly high and noble type ; virtues which are not those simply that are recognised as necessary in the world, The Building of Character. 85 but far rather those which the aspirant desires to achieve in order that he may become one of the Helpers and the Saviours of the world, those characteristics that go to make up one of the world's Redeemers, one of the pioneers of the first-fruits of mankind. The first thing perhaps that will strike us, in this building of character by one who is in the Outer Court, is its exceedingly deliberate nature. It is not a thing of fits and starts, it is not a casual building and leaving off, it is not an effort in this direction one day and in another direction to-morrow, it is not a running about seeking for aims, it is not a turning about looking for a purpose ; the whole of this at least is definitely done, the purpose is recognised and the aim is known. And the building is a dehberate building, as by one who knows that he has time, and that nothing in Nature can be lost ; a dehberate building which begins v/it'h the materials ready to hand, which begins with the character as it is recognised to exist, which looks, as we shall see, quietly at all its strength and at all its weaknesses, and sets to work to improve the one and to remedy the other ; a deliberate building towards a definite aim, a carving in permanent material of a statue of which the mould has already been made. S6 In the Outer Court. And so the first thing that will be noticed in these candidates in the Outer Court is this definiteness of purpose and this deliberateness of action. The man knows that he will carry everything on that he makes ; that from life to life he will take with him the treasures that he has accumulated ; that if he finds a deficiency and only partly fills it up, still it is filled up to that extent, that part of the work is done ; that if he makes for himself a power, that power is his for evermore, a part of the Soul never to be taken away from it, woven into the texture of the individual, not again ever to be separated from him. And he builds with this deliberate purpose which has its root in knowledge, recognising the Law that underlies every aspect of Nature. Realising that that Law is changeless, knowing that he may trust it with uttermost and completest faith, he calls upon the Law and knows that the Law will answer, he appeals to the Law and is confident that the Law will judge. Tliere is in him then no trace of wavering, no shadow of doubting ; he gives out that which must needs bring to him his harvest, and every seed that he sows, he sows with this absolute certainty that the seed will bear fruit after its kind, that that and none other will come back to him in future days. So there is naught of hurry in his work, naught of impatience in his The Btiildifig of Character. 87 labour; if the fruit be not ripe, he can wait for the gathering; if the seeds be not ready, he can wait for the growing. He knows that this Law to which he has given himself is at once changeless and good ; that the Law will bring all in its appointed time, and that the appointed time is best for him and for the world. And so, as I said, he starts with his available material, content with it because it is what the Law brings him from his past ; content with it because it is that with which he has to work, that and nothing else ; and whether full or scanty, whether poor and small or rich and great, he takes it and begins to work with it, know- ing that however scanty it be there is no limit to the wealth to which it may be increased, and knowing that however small it may bulk to-day, there is no limit to the vastness to which it may grow in the years which lie in front. He knows that he fjiust succeed ; not a question of possibility but of certitude, not a question of chance but of definite reality. The Law must give back the equivalent of that which he gives, and even if he give but little, that little will come back to him, and from that he will build in the future, adding always something to the store, standing a little higher with each achievement, with each new accomplishment. 88 In the Outer Court. Already we know something of the way in which he will build ; we know that he will begin with right thought ; and we studied last week this control of the thoughts, which is necessary in order that the right may be chosen, and the wrong may be rejected ; working steadily at that thought control and knowing its conditions, understanding the laws by which thoughts are generated and by which thoughts act in the world and react upon their generator, he is now in a condition definitely to choose right thought for the building of his character. And this stage of right thinking will be one of the early steps that he will take while he is traversing the Outer Court. First of all because his right thinking affects others — and all those who are thus candidates for tlie Temple have their primary motive in the service of others — so that, in the choosing of his thought, in the selection of the thoughts that he either generates or permits to come within his consciousness, his first motive for such choice will be the effect that these thoughts will have upon others, not in the first place the effect they will have upon himself ; far above and be}'ond all else he is qualifying for service, and therefore as he chooses the thoughts to which he will bend his energy, he calculates their action on the outer world — how far they will work for helping, how far The Building of Character. 89 they will work for strengthening, how far they will work for purifying; and into the great stream of thoughts that he knows must go out from his con- sciousness, understanding how that stream is working, he will send the thoughts that are useful to others, with the deliberate purpose of this serving, with the deliberate object of this helping of the world. And next he will consider the nature of the thoughts as they affect himself, as they react upon him to make his character, a thing that in a few moments we shall see is of the most vital importance, for liere indeed is the instrument by which the character will be built ; and not only as they react upon his character, but also as, in making that character, they turn it into a magnet for other thoughts, so that he, acting as a focus for high and noble thoughts — not now, we may hope, for thoughts that are actively injurious — will deliberately make his consciousness a magnet for everything that is good, so that all that is evil may die as it strikes against him, as we saw last week, and all that is good may flow into his consciousness to gain there fresh nourishment, to gain there fresh strength and fresh energy ; that the good thoughts of others coming to him may go out vrith new life-nnpulse given to them, and that he 90 In the Outer Court. may act not only as a source of help by the thoughts he generates, but as a channel of helping by the thoughts that he receives, that he revivifies, and that he transmits. And these will go to the making of character, so thatiat the beginning of the building this right thinking will be one dominant influence in his mind, and he will constantly be watching his thoughts, scrutinising them with the most jealous care, in order that into this sanctuary of the con- sciousness nothing may come which will offend, for unless this be guarded all else is left open to the enemy. It is the very citadel of the castle ; at the same time it is the gateway through which every- thing enters in. And then he will learn in this building of character — perhaps he has already learned — to guard his speech ; for right speech, to begin with, must be true, scrupulously and accurately true, not with the commonplace truthfulness of the world, though that be not a thing to be despised, but of that scrupulous and strict truthfulness which is necessary above all to the student of Occultism — truth of observation, truth of recording, truth of thinking, truth of speaking, truth of acting ; for where there is not this seeking after truth and this strenuous determination to become true, there is no possibility of Occultism which is aught but a The Building of Character, 91 danger, there is no possibility of anything but fall, deep and terrible, in proportion to the height to which the student may have climbed. For this quality of truth in the Occultist is at once his guide and his shield ; his guide, in that it gives him the insight which enables him to choose the true road from the false, the right-hand path from the left ; and his shield, in that only as he is covered with this shield of truth, can all the delusions and the glamours of the planes through which he passes fall harmless. For it is in the practice of truth in thought, in speech, and in act, that there gradually wakes up that spiritual insight which pierces through every veil of illusion, and against which there can be in Nature no possibility of setting up a successful deception. Everywhere veils are spread, everywhere in the world of illusion this deceitfulness of appearances is to be found, until the spiritual insight can pierce through the whole of them with unchanging and direct vision. There is no such thing as the development of spiritual insight, save as truth is followed in the character, as truth is cultivated in the intellect, as truth is developed in the conscience ; without this nothing but failure, without this nothing but inevitable blunder and mistake. The speech first of all, then, will be true, and 92 In tJie Outer Court, next it will be gentle. For truth and gentleness are not in opposition, as too often we are inclined to think, and speech loses nothing of its truth by being perfect in its gentleness and perfect also in its courtesy and its compassion. The more true it is the more gentle it needs must be, for at the very heart of all things is truth and also compassion ; therefore the speech that reflects the innermost essence of the Universe can neither causelessly wound any living being, nor be false with the slightest shadow of suspicion. True and gentle then the speech must be, true and gentle and courteous ; that is said to be the austerity of speech, the true penance and sacrifice of speech which is offered up by every aspirant. And then out of the right speaking and the right thinking, inevitably must flow right acting ; that, as an outcome, must be the result of this flowing forth from the source. For action is only the manifestation of that which is within, and where the thought is pure, where the speech is true and right, there the action must inevitably be noble ; out of such sweet source the water can only be sweet in the flowing, out of the heart and the brain that have been purified necessarily the action must be right and good. And that is the three-fold cord by which the aspirant is bound alike to humanity and to his Master ; the The Building of Cho. racier. 93 three-fold cord which, in some great reHgions, stands as type of this perfect self-control ; self- control in thought, in speech, and in action — that is the triple cord which binds the man to service that is perfect in its character, which binds the disciple to the Feet of his Master ; the three-fold cord which may not easily be broken. When all this is realised, and the beginning of it attempted, this candidate of ours will begin a very definite method of practice in his building of the character, and first he will form what is called an " Ideal ". Let us have clearly in the mind what we mean when we use the word " Ideal." The mind working within itself builds an internal image, which is made as the mind grows in strength out of much that it draws from the outer world ; but although it draws the materials from the outer world, the idea is the result of the internal action of the mind upon the materials. An idea is at its highest an abstract thing, and if we realise how the abstract idea is formed in the mere brain-consciousness, we shall then have a very clear view of what is meant by an ideal ; a little enlargement of the idea will give us exactly what we require. Let me take the ancient illustration, an abstract idea of a triangle. The idea of a triangle may be gained at first by the brain- consciousness working in the child through a study 94 -^^ ^^^^ Outer Court. of many forms which he is told are triangles. He will notice that they are of many different shapes, that they are made up of lines which go in very different directions. He will find — when he looks at them separately and with this brain-consciousness of the child — he will find them exceedingly different, so that looking at them at first he will see them as many figures, and will not recognise certain underlying unities which give them all the same name. But as he goes onward in his thinking he will gradually learn that there are certain definite conceptions which underlie this one conception of the triangle ; that it always has three lines and no more ; that it always has three angles and no more ; that these three angles put together have always a certain definite value, and that the three lines, called the sides of the triangle, bear certain relations to each other, and so on. All these different conceptions he will gain as he studies, and the mind, working upon the whole of these, extracts from them what is called an abstract idea of a triangle, which has no particular size, and no particular shape, and no particular angles taken separately. And this abstract idea is made up by the working of the mind on all the many concrete forms, so far as the brain-consciousness is concerned. What greater idea this may be the reflection of, I The Building of Character. 95 am not now considering ; but it is thus that in the brain what is called an abstract idea is built, which has neither colour nor shape nor any special characteristic of any one form, and which unites within itself that which makes the many forms of it a unity. And so when we build an ideal it is an idea of this abstract kind, it is the work of the image-building faculty of the mind, which draws out the essence of all the different ideas that it has gained of great virtues — of that which is beautiful, of that which is true, of that which is harmonious, of that which is compassionate, of that which is in every sense satisfying to the aspirations of the mind, of the heart. From all these different ideas, as they have been seen limited in manifestation, the essence is extracted, and then the mind constructs and throws outwards a vast heroic figure in which everything is carried to perfection ; in which everything touches its highest and most complete expression ; in which we no longer deal with the things that are true, but with truth ; no longer with the things which are beautiful, but with beauty ; no longer with the things that are strong, but with strength ; no longer with the things that are tender, but with tenderness ; no longer with the beings who are loving, but with love ; and this perfect figure — mighty and harmonious in all its proportions, g6 In the Outer Court. grander than anything we have seen, only not grander than that which in rare moments of inspira- tion the Spirit has cast downwards into the mind — that ideal of perfection it is which the aspirant makes for himself as perfect as he is able to conceive it, knowing all the time that his most perfect dreaming is but the faintest shadow of the reality whence this reflection has come. For in the world of the Real, there exists in living light that which down here he sees, as it were, in faint reflection of colour, hanging high in the heavens over the snowy mountains of human aspiration ; it is still only the shadow of the Reahty whence it has been reflected, all that the human soul may image of the perfect, of the sublime, of the ultimate All that we seek. This ideal he forms is still imperfect, for it must needs be so ! But, however imperfect it may be, none the less for him it is the ideal according to which his character is to be built. But why make an ideal 1 Those of you who have gone so far with me in the working of thought will know why an ideal is necessary. Let me take two sentences, one from a great Hindu scripture and the other from a Christian, to show you how Initiates speak of the same facts, no matter in what tongue they talk, no matter to what civilisation their words may be addressed. It is written in one of the most The Building of Chamcter. 97 mystical of the Upanlshads, the Chhdndogya : " Man is a creature of reflection : what he reflects upon, that he becomes ; therefore reflect upon Brahman."* And many thousand years afterwards another great Teacher, one of the builders of Christianity, wrote exactly the same thought put into other words : " But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." t Beholding as in a glass : for the mind is a mirror and images are cast upon it and are reflected, and the Soul that in the mirror of the mind beholds the glory of the Lord is changed into that same image from glory to glory. So that whether you take the Hindu speaker or the Christian, whether you read the scripture of the Indian or the scripture of the Western Sage, still the sam.e teaching of the Brotherhood comes out to you — that you must have the ideal before you in order that you may reflect it, and that that on which the mind is constantly dwelling will inevitably be that which the man shall become. And how shall the building towards the ideal be made ? For that is the question that we must now consider. By contemplation : definitely, with full purpose, choosing his time and not permitting him- * op. cit.t III. xiv. I. t2 Cor. iii. l8. G 9? In the Outer Court. self to be shaken from it, this aspirant who is discipHning his own character will contemplate day by day the ideal that he has builded. He will fix his mind upon it, and constantly reflect it in his consciousness. Day by day he will go over its outline, day by day he will dwell upon it in thought, and, as he contemplates, inevitably within him will rise up that reverenre and that awe which are worship, the great transforming power by which the man becomes that which he adores, and this contemplation will essentially be the contemplation of reverence and of aspiration. And as he contemplates, the rays of the Divine Ideal will shine down upon him, and the aspiration upwards will open the windows of the Soul to receive them ; so that they shall illuminate him from within, and then cast a light without, the ideal shining ever above and within him, and marking out the path along which his feet must tread. And in order that he may thus contemplate, he must train himself in concentration ; the mind is not to be scattered, as our minds so often are. We have to learn to fix it, and to fix it steadily, and this is a thing that we should be working at continually, working at in all the common things of life, doing one thing at a time until the mind answers obediently to the impulse, and doing it witli the con- The Btnlding of Character. 99 centrated energy which bends the whole mind towards a single point. No matter that many things that you have to do are trivial ; it is the way of doing them, and not the things that are done, that makes the training v/hich results in discipleship — not the particular kind of work that you have to do in the w^orld, but the way that you do it, the mind that you bring to it, the forces with which you execute it, the training that you gain from it. And it matters not what the life may be, that life will serve for the purpose of the training ; for however trivial may be the particular work in which you are engaged at the moment, you can use it as a training-ground for the mind, and by your concentration you may be making your mind one-pointed, no matter what for the moment may be the point to which it is directed. For remember, when once you have gained the faculty, then you can choose the object ; when once the mind is definitely in your hand, so that you can turn it hither and thither as you will, then you can choose for yourself the end to which it shall be directed. But you may just as well practise and gain the control in little things as in great ; in fact, very much better, because the little things are around us every day, whereas the great things come but seldom. When the great thing comes, 100 In the Outer Court. the whole mind arouses itself to meet it ; when the great thing comes, the whole atten- tion is fixed upon it ; when the great thing comes, every energy is called to play upon it, so that you may bear yourself well when the mighty task is to be accomplished. But the real value of the Soul is tested more in the little things where there is nothing to arouse attention, nothing in any sense to gain applause, where the man is deliberately working for the end that he has chosen, and is using everything around him in order that he may discipline himself. That self-discipline is the key of the whole. Guide your life by some plan ; make to yourself certain rules into which your life shall flow ; and when you have made them, keep to them, and alter them only as deliberately as at first you formed them. Take so simple a thing — for the body has to be brought under control — take so simple a thing as a definite rule of rising in the morning ; fix the time that you feel is best for your work, for your place in your household, and when you have fixed it, keep to it. Do not permit the body at the moment to choose its own time, but train it in that mstant and automatic obedience which makes it a useful servant of the mind. And if you find after practising for some time that you have chosen badly, then change ; do not be rigid The Building of Character TOT because you are striving to strengthen your will ; be ready to change what does not work well ; but change it at your own time and with perfect deliberation ; do not change it because on the impulse of the moment passion or bodily desire or emotion may be ruling ; do not change it at the demand of the lower nature that has to be disciplined, but change it if you iind that you have badly chosen. For never in ruling your own life must you make your rule a hindrance to those around you, or choose ways of self-discipline that aggravate or interrupt others instead of simply training yourself. The next stage, when all this has been clearly recognised as the way in which the character is to be builded, will be to study the character itself ; for you are to work with knowledge and not blindly. You will perhaps, if you are wise, in judging }'0ur character, take some of the things that great men have put before you as outlining a character which will lead you to the Gate of the Temple. You might take, for instance, such a tracing as is given in the sixteenth discourse in the BJiagavad Gitd by Shri Krishna to Arjuna, where he is telling Arjuna what should be the qualities which build up the divine character. You might take that as showing you the qualities at which you should aim in build- 102 In the Outer Court, ing yourself, and as marking out for you that which you desire gradually to evolve. And if you take it as it is sketched in the sixteenth discourse, you find a list of qualities, every one of which might well serve as part of your constant thought and endeavour, remembering that the character is built first by the contemplation of the virtue, and then by the working out of that virtue which has become part of the thought into the speech and the action of daily life. And the list runs — however great it is, we have time enough before us to fill it in — " Fearlessness, Purity of Heart, Steadfastness in the Yoga of Wisdom, Almsgiving, Self-restraint and Sacrifice, and Study of the Shastras, Austerity and Straightforwardness, Harmlessness, Truth, Absence of Wrath, Renunciation, Peacefulness, Absence of Calumny, Compassion to Living Beings, Uncovetousness, Mildness, Modesty, Absence of Fickleness, Boldness, Forgiveness, Fortitude, Up- rightness, Amity, Absence of Pride — these become his who is born with the divine qualities." Not are his at once, but become his, and are made in the building of the character. And you will find, if you read these at your leisure and with care, that you can group them together under very definite heads, and that each of these may be practised, at first of course very imperfectly but still steadily, and day The Building of Character. 103 by day — with never a feeling of discouragement at the lack of achievement, but only with joy in recognition of the goal, and knowing that each step is a step towards an end which shall be achieved. And notice how through them run the golden threads of unselfishness, of love, of harmless- ness ; see how courage and strength and endurance find also their place, so that you get an exquisite balance of character, a character that is at once strong and tender, that is at once self-reliant and compassionate, that is at once a helper of the weak and in itself strong and unmoved, that is full of devotion and full of harmlessness, that is full of self-discipline and therefore of harmony. Let us suppose you accept that to some extent as an ideal for the guidance of daily thinking, and you begin to work it out ; let us consider a point that is often found in connection with this effort, which is often found in summing up many virtues together, and which is much misunderstood ; pausing a moment upon it, let us see how the building of character towards this virtue will be carried on. It is a name which is strange in English ears : it is indifference ; and sometimes it is worked out in detail as indifference to pleasure and pain, indifference to cold and heat, indifference to blame and applause, indifference to desire 104. /« the Outer Court. and aversion, and so on ; what does it really mean ? First of all, it means that sense of proportion which must come into the life of one who has gained a glimpse of the Real amid the fleeting, of the permanent amid the transitory ; for when once the greatness of the goal has been recognised, when once the numberless lives have been realised, when once the aspirant has understood all the length of time that lies in front of him, all the vastness of the task that he is going to achieve, all the grandeur of the possibilities that lie still unveiled before him ; when he has caught some glimpse of the Real, then all the things of one fleeting life must take their place in proportion to the whole. And when a trouble comes, that trouble will no longer bulk so largely as it did when one life was all that he realised, for he will begin to understand that he has been through many troubles before, and has come out the stronger and the more peaceful for the passage. And when joy comes, he will know that he has been through many joys before, and has learned their lessons also, and has found amid other things that they are transitory ; and so when a joy comes or a pain, he will take it, not failing to feel it, feeling it really far more keenly than the ordinary man of the world can feel, but feeling it in Thi Building of Character. 105 its true place and at its true worth, and giving it only its real value in the great scheme of life. So that as he grows in this indifference, it is not that he becomes less capable of feeling, for he is ever becoming more sensitive to every thrill of the world within and of the world without — inasmuch as he has become more harmonious with the All, he must become more responsive to every shade of harmony that is therein — but that none of these may avail to shake him, that none of these may avail to change him, that none of these may touch his serenity, that none of these may cast a shadow on his calm. For he himself is rooted where storms are not, he himself is grounded where changes have no place, and while he may feel, he can never be altered by them ; they take their right place in life, they bear their proper proportion to the whole span of existence of the Soul. That indifference, tjiat true and real indifference which means strength, how shall that develop ? First, by this daily thinking on what it means, and working it out bit by bit until you thoroughly understand it, and working out detail after detail, so that you know exactly what you mean by it. And then when you go out into the world of men, by practising it in your daily life ; practising, not by hardening yourself but by making yourself respon- I06 In the Outer Court. sive, not by makin,^ round yourself a shell that throws everything off, but by making yourself answer to everything that comes from without ; at the same time keeping an inner balance which refuses to vary while the change is felt right through. A hard and a difhcult lesson, but a lesson that has so much in it of hope and of joy and of keener and more vivid life, that if that were all it were worth while to practise it. For, as the Soul feels itself growing too strong to be shaken, and yet feels every thrill that comes from without, it has a sense of wider life, it has a sense of fuller harmony, it has a sense of ever-increasing con- sciousness, of ever-growing oneness with that of which it is part. And as the feeling of isolation gradually melts away there flows into it the joy ^^■hich dwells at the heart of things, and even that which to the ordinary man is painful loses to the disciple its quality of pain ; for he feels it, as it were, as part of the Universal Life, as a syllable which is spoken out of this vast language of Manifestation, and he can learn its meaning without any agony at his own heart, for the peace which grows out of this widening knowledge far overbears to him, and changes as it were his attitude towards everything in the outer world which men know as pain and loss. Thus thinking and thus practising, you will find Tlie Building of Character. loy this sense grow within you, this sense of calm and of strength and of serenity, so that you will feel as though you were in a place of peace, no matter what the storm in the outer world, and you will see and feel the storm and yet not be shaken by it. This peace is the first-fruits of the Spiritual Life, which shows itself first in this sense of peace and then in that of joy, and makes the life of the disciple a growth which is ever upwards and inwards to the heart which is Love. And out of this there grows the sense of self-control, that the Self within is stronger than the changes without, and while it is wilhng to respond, it refuses to be altered by the contacts from without. And then from the self- control and from the indifference there comes that power of hating none, on which so much stress is laid in all the building of character laid down for the aspirant who would become the disciple. Nothing is to be hated, everything is to be brought within the circle of Love, no matter how outwardly repulsive, no matter how outwardly antagonistic, no matter how outwardly repugnant ; the heart of all is Life and Love, and therefore this aspirant who is learning his lessons can shut nothing out from the circle of compassion ; everything is taken within it according to its own power of feeling, and he is the friend of every living thing, the lover of all that lives and feels. io8 /;/ the Outer Court, And as he is thus buildmg these stones into his character he becomes fearless; fearless, because hating nothing there is nothing that has power to harm. Injury from without is but the reaction of aggression from within ; because we are the enemies of others they in their turn are our enemies, and because we go out into the world as injurers, therefore living things injure us in turn. We, who ought to be the lovers of all living things, go out as destroyers, as tyrants, as haters, grasping the world for tyranny and not for education, as though man^s work here were not to educate his younger brethren and lead them upwards by all tenderness and all compassion ; we go out and we tyrannise over others, whether they be human or brute, so long as they are weaker than ourselves ; and by their weakness we too often measure our tyranny, and by their helplessness too often the burden that we lay upon them. And then we wonder that living things fly from us — that as we go out into the world we are met with dread from the weak, and with hatred from the strong ; and we know not in our blindness that all the hatred from the outer world is the reflection of the evil that is in ourselves, and that to the heart of love there is nothing that is hateful, and therefore nothing that can injure. The ma.i that has love can walk unharmed through The Building of Character. 109 the jungle, can walk untouched through the cave of the carnivorous brute, or take in his hands the serpent ; for there is nothing that has message of hate to the heart that has in it only love, and the love that radiates to the world around us, that draws all things in to serve and not to injure, draws all things in to love and not to hate. And so at the feet of the Yogi the tiger will roll in friendship, and so to the feet of the saint the wildest will bring their young for shelter and for helping, and all living things will come to the man who loves, for they are all the offspring of the Divine, and the Divine is Love, and when that is made perfect in man it draws all things inwards to itself. So then we learn gradually and slowly to walk fearlessly in the world, fearlessly even though things may still injure ; for we know if we are hurt that we are only paying the debt of an evil past, and that for every debt that is paid there is less against us, as it were, in the account book of Nature. And fearless too, because we learn to know, and fear springs from doubt as well as from hatred ; the man who knows has passed beyond doubt, and walks with foot unfearing where it may tread, for it treads on solid ground alone, and there are no pitfalls in its way. And out of this grows a firm and unshaken will, a will that is based on knowledge, and a will no In the Outer Court. that grows confident through love. And as the aspirant is crossing the Court of the Outer Temple, his step becomes firmer, and his course becomes more direct, unshaken in its purpose and growing in its strength ; his character begins to show itself out in definite outline, clear, distinct, and firm, the Soul growing onwards to maturity. And then comes the absence of desire, the gradual getting rid of all those desires that tie us to the lower world, the gradual working out of all those longings which in the lives that lie behind us we found had no satisfaction for the Soul, the gradual casting aside of all the fetters that tie us down to earth, the gradual elimination of the personal desire, and the self-identification with the whole. For this one who is growing is not going to be tied to rebirth by any bonds that belong to the earth ; men come back to the earth because they are held there, tied by these links of desire that bind them to the wheel of births and of deaths ; but this man we are studying is going to be free ; this man who is going to be free must break these links of desire for himself; there is only one thing that will bind him, only one thing that will draw him back to birth, and that is the love of his fellows, the desire of service. He is not bound to the wheel, for he is free, but he may come back Tlie Building of Character. Ill and turn the wheel once more for the sake of those who still are bound upon it, and whom he will stand beside until the bonds of all Souls are broken. In his freeing he breaks the bonds of compulsion, and so he learns a perfect unselfishness, learns that what is good for all is that which he is seeking, and that what serves the All is that which alone he desires to achieve. And then he learns self-reliance ; this one who is growmg towards the Light, learns to be strong in order that he may help, learns to rely upon the Self which is the Self of all, with which he is growing to identify himself. There is a thing that he has to face, upon which I must say a word, for it is perchance one of the hardest of his trials while he is working in this Outer Court. When he entered that Court, knowing and seeing the mighty joy beyond, he turned his back on much that makes life glad to his fellows ; but there is a time that comes sometimes, there is a time that now and then descends upon the Soul, when, as it were, he has sprung outwards into a void where no hand seems to grasp his own, and where there is darkness around him, and nothing on which his feet may rest. There are times which come in these stages of the Soul's growth when there is nothing left on earth which can satisfy, tliere is nothing left on earth which can fill, when 112 In the Outer Court. the friendships of old have lost some of their touch, and the delights of earth have lost all their savour, when the hands in front, though they are holding us, are not yet felt, when the rock beneath our feet, though our feet are planted upon it, is not yet understood as changeless and immovable, when by the veil of illusion the Soul is covered thickly, and it thinks itself forsaken and knows nothing of help that it can find. It is the void into v/hich every aspirant in turn has plunged ; it is the void that every disciple has crossed. When it yawns before the Soul, the Soul draws back ; when it opens up dark and seemingly bottomless, he who stands upon the brink shrinks back in fear ; and yet he need not fear. Plunge onwards into the void, and you shall find it full ! Spring forward into the darkness, and you shall find a rock beneath your feet ! Let go the hands that hold you back, and mightier Hands in front will clasp your own and draw you onwards, and they are Hands that will never leave you. The earthly grasp will sometimes loosen, the friend's hand will unclasp your own and leave it empty, but the Friends who are on the other side never let go, no matter how the world may change. Go out then boldly into the darkness and into the lonehness, and you shall find the loneliness is the uttermost of delusions, and the darkness is a liglvt The Building of Character. 113 which none may lose again in hfe. That trial, once faced, is found again to be a great delusion ; and the disciple who dares to plunge finds himself on the other side. Thus the building of character goes on, and will go on for lives to come, nobler and nobler as each life is ended, mightier and mightier as each step is taken. These foundations which we have been laying are only the foundations of the building I have hinted at, and if the achievement seem mighty, it is because always in the mind of the architect the building is complete, and even when the ground plan is a-sketching, his imagination sees the com- pleted edifice, and he knows whereto he builds. And the end ? Ah ! — the ending of that building of character our tongues not yet can sketch ! No paint-brush which is dipped only in earth's dull colours can limn anything of the beauty of that perfect ideal towards which we hope to, nay, towards which we know we shall, eventually rise. Have you ever caught a glimpse of it in silent moments t Have you ever seen a reflection of it when the earth was still and when the heaven was calm.^ Have you ever had a glimpse of those Divine Faces that live and move — Those that were men and now are more than men, superhuman m I'heir grandeur ; man as he shall be though not as 114 In the Outer Court. he is, save in the innermost Courts of the Temple ? If you have ever caught a ghmpse in your stillest moments, then you need no words of mine to tell you ; you know of the compassion which at first seems the whole of the being, so radiant in its perfection, so glorious in its divinity ; the tender- ness which is so mighty that it can stoop to the lowest as well as transcend the highest, which recognises the feeblest effort, as well as the mightiest achievement ; nay, which is tenderer to the feeble than to the mighty, because the feeble most needs the helping of the s}'mpathy which never changes ; the love which only seems not to be divine because it is so absolutely human, and in \N'hich we reahse that man and God are one. And then beyond the tenderness, the strength — the strength that nothing can change, the strength which has in it the quality of the foundations of the Universe, on which all worlds might build, and }'et it would not shake, strength so infinite joined with com- passion so boundless. How can these qualities be in one Being and harmonise with such absolute perfection ? And then the radiance of the joy — the joy that has conquered, the joy that would have all others share its beatitude, the radiant sunshine that knows no shadow, the glory of the conquest which tells that all shall win, the joy in the eyes The Building of Character. 115 that see beyond the sorrow, and that even in looking at pain know that the end is peace. Tenderness and strength and joy and uttermost peace — peace without a ruffle, serenity that naught can touch : such is the ghmpse which you may have caught of the Divine, such is the ghmpse of the ideal that one day we shall become. And if we dare to raise our eyes so high, it is because Their Feet still tread the earth where our feet are treading. They have risen high above us ; none the less stand They beside Their brothers, and if they transcend us it is not that They have left us, although on every side They are beyond us ; for all humanity dwells in the heart of the Master, and where humanity is, we, its children, may dare to realise we dwell SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY, LECTURE TV. Spiritual Alchemy. Now during the last three lectures we have been considering the stages, carried on as we saw simultaneously, by which the aspirant for entrance into the Temple is gradually purifying himself, is bringing his thoughts under control, is building up his character, or perhaps I should be more accurate in saying, is building its foundations. These are the three stages that we have considered, and we have seen that any one who has thus entered the Outer Court and has set before himself the great task for achievement, will take up these different efforts not so much one after the other, as one beside the other, and will gradually try to bring his Vv'hole nature under control, and to direct it towards the achievement of the object which he has set himself to attain. Let us suppose then, taking these successively, as we are obliged to do for clearness' sake, let us IIQ 120 In the Outer Court. suppose that our candidate now turns to the con- sideration of another part of his great task. I have described this part of it as Spiritual Alchemy ; and I had in mind, in the use of that phrase, a process of change, a process of transmutation, the allusion of course being to that work of the alchemist whereby he changed the baser metal into the nobler, whereby he changed, say, the copper into the gold. And I have in my thought a process which goes on in the world around us, to some extent I should imagine in the mind and in the life of every thoughtful and religious person, but which with our candidate becomes, as I have so often repeated, a self-conscious and deliberate process, so that he recognises his method and his end and turns him- self deliberately to the achievement of that which he desires. Now this process of spiritual alchemy spoken of, may be regarded, I think, in the most general sense of the term, as a transmutation of forces. Each man has in himself life and energy and vigour, power of will and so on ; these are the forces with which he is to work, these are the energies by which his object is to be attained. By a process which may fairly be described as alchemical he transmutes these forces from lower ends to higher, he transmutes them from gross energies to energies that are refined and spiritual Alchemy. I2I spiritualised It is not only that he changes their object, nor is the change of object the point to which my own mind is directed in this phrase ; it is rather that he changes and purifies them without as it were altering their essential nature, just as the alchemist, taking this grosser matter, really passed it through a process of purification ; not the mere purging away of dross, but a purification that went much farther, that took the very metal itself, that reduced it into a finer and rarer state, and then, as it were, recombined it into a nobler and sublimer type. So that you may imagine the spiritual alchemist as taking all these forces of his nature, recognising them as forces, and therefore as useful and necessary, but deliberately changing, purifying, and refining them. We are concerned with the method of refining, with the way in which this work may be carried out. The object of this spiritual alchemy is not only this transmutation of the forces, though that is its essential part, but there is a subsidiary side to it which one cannot leave out of account. Souls are bound to earth-life, to the wheel of births and of deaths, by desires ; they are held there by ignorance, they are fettered by their longings after material enjoyments, after separated and isolated joys as it were. Continually engaged in actions, 122 In the Outer Court. these actions bind the Soul, whether they be in themselves good or bad, whether they be in them- selves helpful or michievous ; none the less as actions they have this characteristic — that action in the ordinary man springs from desire, and that this desire is the binding and the fettering force. Actions must continue to be accomphshed as long as man remains in the world ; actions are needful to be done else manifestation v/ould no longer be. As a man grows nobler and wiser and stronger, his action becomes an ever more and more important factor in the world's progress. And supposing the greatest should abstain from action, then the progress of the race must necessarily be delayed, its evolution must inevitably be retarded. How then shall it be possible that action shall be accomplished and yet the Soul be free ? How is it possible that action shall be rendered, and yet the Soul shall not thereby be bound and fettered ? Here again we shall find a case of spiritual alchemy, whereby the greatest may be the most active in service and yet his service shall touch him not as a liberated Soul, and you have exemplified what seems a paradox — a service which is perfect freedom. Now the phrase " spiritual alchemy " taken as a means to such freedom is only a way of alluding to the fundamental Law of Sacrifice, that spiritual Alchemy. 123 great Law which in the manifested universe lies at the root of all and is constantly expressing itself, whose forms are so various that it is easy to mistake them, whose action is so complicated that it is easy to blunder. Easiest of all, perhaps, to blunder in expression ; for you are dealing with a many-sided truth that is seen in many aspects by the minds of men ; that above all has in fact a double aspect as it is contemplated from above or from below ; that is a Lav/ which permeates the universe, to which every atom may be said to be subject, and which is, in the fullest sense of the term, the expression of the Divine Life in manifestation. In touching such a Law at all there are endless opportunities for blundering — blundering on the part of the speaker in expression, blundering on the part of the hearers in grasping the thought which is imperfectly given ; so that in dealing with this, one is apt to be one- sided according to the view which at the moment is most before the mind ; according as the aspect, we may say, expresses itself on the side of Matter, or expresses itself on the side of Spirit ; according as we take a standpoint without — looking inwards, or a standpoint within — looking outwards. In dealing with a mighty subject where no one word expresses the thought, and where the grasping of the thought itself is difficult to those so undeveloped as our- 124 ^^' ^^^^ Outer Court. selves, it is, as I say, most difficult for speaker and for hearer alike to avoid misconception, to avoid laying too much stress on one side or the other, and so losing that even balance from which truth alone can be perfectly expressed. And with regard to the Law of Sacrifice, this perhaps is especially the case. Let us take it first in its lower aspect, an aspect which must not be overlooked — for it has for us many lessons — but that which is distinctly the lower aspect of it in all the worlds. Let us take it as we find it expressed in manifested Nature, as impressed on the Kosmos, working in the physical, the astral, the mental worlds, and so on ; including a certain relationship between all living things, including a certain relationship not only between living things as we all know them down here, but including other living beings in the worlds which surround us ; and let us stop on this lower aspect for a moment ere we venture to rise towards the higher, for here also we shall find a most useful lesson, a most luminous suggestion for our helping in this process of the Outer Court. Regarding sacrifice in the lower worlds, it may present itself to us not unfitly as a process of mutual service or exchange, a continual turning of the wheel of life, in which each living being takes and Spiritual Alchemy, 125 gives, in which he cannot avoid the taking, in which he ought not to refuse the giving. So that you will see sacrifice, if you look at it for a moment in what I have called its lower aspect, as a continual turning of the wheel of life, in which all things take con- scious or unconscious part, and the more highly they are developed the more conscious will be their co-operation. This view of sacrifice has been put clearly, perhaps more clearly almost than anywhere else, in The Lord's Song, one of the Indian Scriptures, where this wheel of life is dealt with, and where you find sacrifice and action connected in a way which it is well to realise. Says the great Teacher : — The world is bound by all action, by action with sacrifice for object; with such object, free from attach- ment, O son of Kunti, perform thou action. And then, going backwards into the past in order to make this cycle which is sacrifice by mutual service complete, the Teacher says that : — Having in ancient times emanated mankind by sacrificej the Lord of Emanation said: "By this shall ye propagate ; be this to you the Kamaduk (that is, the milk of desire) : with this nourish ye the Gods, and may the Gods nourish you ; thus nourishing one another, ye shall reap the supremest good. For, nourished by sacrifice, the Gods shall bestow on you the enjoyment 126 In tJie Outer Court. you desire." A thief verily is he, who enjoyeth what is given by Them, without returning the gift. . . From food creatures become ; from rain is the production of food ; rain proceedelh from sacrifice ; sacrifice arises out of action. Know tb.ou from Brahma action groweth and Brahma from the Imperishable cometh. Therefore Brahman, the all-permeating, is ever present in sacrifice. He who on earth doth not follow the wheel thus revolving, sinful of life, and rejoicing in the senses, he, O son of Pritha, liveth in vain.* Now you have there this wheel of life which lies at the root of sacrifice in all religions, and the purer and the nobler the religion, the purer and nobler will be the idea of sacrifice which pervades it. Notice how thoroughly there is carried out this alchemical idea, the changing always of one into the other ; the food changes into beings, but in order that food might be, the rain had been changed into food ; in order that the rain might fall, sacrifice had been offered to the Gods. Then the Gods nourish. You will find this turning of the wheel everywhere prominent in these ancient religions. The Brahman, for instance, will cast into the fire his sacrifice, for, it is said, fire, Agni, is the mouth of the Gods ; and the throwing of that sacrifice into the fire in ancient days, accompanied, as it was, with Mantras made by men who knew what they were * Bhagavad (Jiia, iii., 9-16. spiritual Alchemy, 127 making, and made the Mantra as words of power over the lower forces in Nature, that sacrifice thus performed regulated many of these forces in Nature, which working upon the earth bring forth food for men. Although the action was in itself a symbol, that which it symbolised was real, and the force that went forth from the lips of the purified teacher and the man of power was real also. The symbol was meant to teach the people about this wheel of hfe, to make them understand that action is essentially sacrifice, and that all action should be of the nature of sacrifice ; that is, that action should be done as duty, that it should be done because it is right and with no other object, that it should be done in order that man may be in harmony with law, that it should be done because that is his answer to the law, his part of the common task. So that under this teaching sacrifice was the bond of union, the golden thread that linked together all beings in this manifested universe ; and as the root of sacrifice was action, as action came from the manifesting God, and as He was that which manifested, so it was said that Brahman permeated every sacrifice, and all action that was done could thus be done as duty in the world, not with desire for individual fruit, not with desire for personal gam, not with wish to obtain something 128 In the Outer Court, fc