Light on the path by mabel collins

LIGHT ON THE PATH
A TREATISE WRITTEN FOR THE PERSONAL USE
OF THOSE WHO ARE IGNORANT OF THE EASTERN WISDOM,
AND WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN ITS INFLUENCE
Written down by M.C. (Mabel Collins)
with her notes and comments
(reprinted verbatim from the original texts)

- I -
These rules are written for all disciples: Attend you to them.
Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable of tears. Before the ear can hear, it must
have lost its sensitiveness. Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters it
must have lost the power to wound. Before the soul can stand in the presence of the
Masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.
1. Kill out ambition. (1)
2. Kill out desire of life.
3. Kill out desire of comfort.
4. Work as those work who are ambitious. Respect life as those do who desire it. Be
happy as those are who live for happiness.
Seek in the heart the source of evil and expunge it. It lives fruitfully in the heart of the
devoted disciple as well as in the heart of the man of desire. Only the strong can kill it
out. The weak must wait for its growth, its fruition, its death. And it is a plant that lives
and increases throughout the ages. It flowers when the man has accumulated into
himself innumerable existences. He who will enter upon the path of power must tear
this thing out of his heart. And then the heart will bleed, and the whole life of the man
seem to be utterly dissolved. This ordeal must be endured: it may come at the first step
of the perilous ladder which leads to the path of life: it may not come until the last. But,
O disciple, remember that it has to be endured, and fasten the energies of your soul
upon the task. Live neither in the present nor the future, but in the Eternal. This giant
weed cannot flower there: this blot upon existence is wiped out by the very atmosphere
of eternal thought.
5. Kill all sense of separateness. (2)
6. Kill out desire for sensation.
7. Kill out the hunger for growth.
8. Yet stand alone and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is
conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the eternal, can aid you. Learn from
sensation and observe it, because only so can you commence the science of self-
knowledge, and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as the flower grows,
unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you press forward
to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the Eternal that draws forth your
strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For in the one case you develop in the
luxuriance of purity; in the other your harden by the forcible passion for personal
stature.

9. Desire only that which is within you.
10. Desire only that which is beyond you.
11. Desire only that which is unattainable.
12. For within you is the light of the world- the only light that can be shed upon the
Path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. It is
beyond you; because when you reach it you have lost yourself. It is unattainable,
because if forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame.
13. Desire power ardently.
14. Desire peace fervently.
15. Desire possessions above all.
16. But those possessions must belong to the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore
by all pure souls equally, and thus be the especial property of the whole only when
united. Hunger for such possessions as can be held by the pure soul, that you may
accumulate wealth for that united spirit of life which is your only true self. The peace
you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul
grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons. And that power which the disciple
shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men.
17. Seek out the way. (3)
18. Seek the way by retreating within.
19. Seek the way by advancing boldly without.
20. Seek it not by any one road. To each temperament there is one road which seems the
most desirable. But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation
alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labour, by studious observation of life.
None alone can take the disciple more than one step onward. All steps are necessary to
make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are
surmounted. The virtues of man are steps indeed, necessary - not by any means to be
dispensed with. Yet, though they create a fair atmosphere and a happy future, they are
useless if they stand alone. The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one
who desires to enter the way. Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the truth, and
the life. But he is only so when he grasps his whole individuality firmly, and by the force
of his awakened spiritual will recognizes this individuality as not himself, but that thing
which he has with pain created for his own use, and by means of which he purposes, as
his growth slowly develops his intelligence, to reach to the life beyond individuality.
When he knows that for this his wonderful complex, separated life exists, then, indeed,
and then only, he is upon the way. Seek it by plunging into the mysterious and glorious
depths of your own inmost being. Seek it by testing all experience, by utilizing the
senses in order to understand the growth and meaning of individuality, and the beauty
and obscurity of those other divine fragments which are struggling side by side with

you, and form the race to which you belong. Seek it by study of the laws of being, the
laws of nature, the laws of the supernatural; and seek it by making the profound
obeisance of the soul to the dim star that burns within. Steadily, as you watch and
worship, its light will grow stronger. Then you may know you have found the beginning
of the way. And when you have found the end, its light will suddenly become the infinite
light. (4)
21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm: not till then.
It shall grow, it will shoot up, it will make branches, and leaves and form buds, while the
storm continues, while the battle lasts. But not till the whole personality of the man is
dissolved and melted -- not until it is held by the divine fragment which has created it,
as a mere subject for grave experiment and experience -- not until the whole nature has
yielded and become subject unto its Higher Self, can the bloom open. Then will come a
calm such as comes in a tropical county after the heavy rain, when Nature works so
swiftly that one may see her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed spirit. And in
the deep silence the mysterious event will occur which will prove that the way has been
found. Call it by what name you will, it is a voice that speaks where there is none to
speak -- it is a messenger that comes, a messenger without form or substance; or it is
the flower of the soul that has opened. It cannot be described by any metaphor. But it
can be felt after, looked for, and desired, even amid the raging of the storm. The silence
may last a moment of time or it may last a thousand years. But it will end. Yet you will
carry its strength with you. Again and again the battle must be fought and won. It is only
for an interval that nature can be still. (5)
These written above are the first of the rules which are written on the walls of the Hall
of Learning. Those that ask shall have. Those that desire to read shall read. Those that
desire to learn shall learn.
Peace be with you.

- II -
OUT of the silence that is peace a resonant voice shall arise. And this voice will say: It is
not well; thou hast reaped, now thou must sow. And knowing this voice to be the silence
itself thou wilt obey.
Thou who art now a disciple, able to stand, able to hear, able to see, able to speak; who
hast conquered desire and attained to self knowledge; who hast seen thy soul in its
bloom and recognized it, and heard the voice of the silence, go thou to the Hall of
Learning and read what is written there for Thee. (6)
1. Stand aside in the coming battle, and though thou fightest be not thou the warrior.
2. Look for the warrior and let him fight in Thee.
3. Take his orders for battle, and obey them.
4. Obey him, not as though he were a general, but as though he were thyself, and his
spoken words were the utterance of thy secret desires; for he is thyself, yet infinitely
wiser and stronger than thyself. Look for him, else in the fever and hurry of the fight
thou mayest pass him; and he will not know Thee unless thou knowest him. If thy cry
reach his listening ear then will he fight in Thee and fill the dull void within. And if this
is so, then canst thou go through the fight cool and unwearied, standing aside and
letting him battle for Thee. Then it will be impossible for Thee to strike one blow amiss.
But if thou look not for him, if thou pass him by, then there is no safeguard for Thee Thy
brain will reel, thy heart grow uncertain, and in the dust of the battlefield thy sight and
senses will fail, and thou will not know thy friends from thy enemies.
He is thyself. Yet thou art but finite and liable to error; he is eternal and is sure. He is
eternal truth. When once he has entered Thee and become thy Warrior, he will never
utterly desert Thee; and at the day of the great peace he will become one with Thee
5. Listen to the song of life. (7)
6. Store in you memory the melody you hear.
7. Learn from it the lesson of harmony.
8. You can stand upright now, firm as a rock amid the turmoil, obeying the Warrior who
is thyself and thy king. Unconcerned in the battle save to do his bidding, having no
longer any care as to the result of the battle, for one thing only is important, that the
warrior shall win, and you know he is incapable of defeat- standing thus, cool and
awakened, use the hearing you have acquired by pain and by the destruction of pain.
Only fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are but man. But if you
listen to it, remember it faithfully, so that none which has reached you is lost, and

endeavour to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which surrounds you. In time
you will need no teacher. For as the individual has voice, so has that in which the
individual exists. Life itself has speech and is never silent. And its utterance is not, as
you that are deaf may suppose, a cry: it is a song. Learn from it that you are a part of the
harmony; learn from it to obey the laws of the harmony.
9. Regard earnestly all the life that surrounds you.
10.Learn to look intelligently into the hearts of men. (8)
11.Regard most earnestly your own heart.
12. For through your own heart comes the one light which can illuminate life and make
it clear to your eyes.
Study the hearts of men, that you may know what is that world in which you life and of
which you will to be a part. Regard the constantly changing and moving life which
surrounds you, for it is formed by the hearts of men; and as you learn to understand
their constitution and meaning, you will by degrees be able to read the larger word of
life.
13. Speech comes only with knowledge. Attain to knowledge and you will attain to
speech. (9)
14. Having obtained the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the
outer senses, having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained
knowledge, prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. The path is found:
make yourself ready to tread it.
15. Inquire of the earth, the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold for you. The
development of your inner senses will enable you to do this.
16. Inquire of the Holy Ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you. The conquering
of the desires of the outer senses will give you the right to do this.
17. Inquire of the inmost, the One, of its final secret which it holds for you through the
ages.
The great and difficult victory, the conquering of the desires of the individual soul, is a
work of ages; therefore expect not to obtain its reward until ages of experience have
been accumulated. When the time of learning this seventeenth rule is reached, man is on
the threshold of becoming more than man.
18. The knowledge which is now yours is only yours because your soul has become one
with all pure souls and with the inmost. It is a trust vested in you by the Most High.
Betray it, misuse your knowledge, or neglect it, and it is possible even now for you to fall
from the high estate you attained. Great ones fall back, even from the threshold, unable
to sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable to pass on. Therefore look forward
always with awe and trembling to this moment, and be prepared for the battle.

19. It is written that for him who is on the threshold of divinity no law can be framed, no
guide can exist. Yet to enlighten the disciple, the final struggle may be thus expressed;
Hold fast to that which has neither substance nor existence.
20. Listen only to the voice which is soundless.
21. Look only on that which is invisible alike to the inner and the outer sense.
Peace be with you.

NOTES
(1) AMBITION is the first curse: the great tempter of the man who is rising above his
fellows. It is the simplest form of looking for reward. Men of intelligence and power are
led away from their higher possibilities by it continually. YET it is a necessary teacher.
Its results turn to dust and ashes in the mouth; like death and estrangement it shows
the man at last that to work for self is to work for disappointment. But though this first
rule seems so simple and easy, do not quickly pass it by. For these vices of the ordinary
man pass through a subtle transformation and reappear with changed aspects in the
heart of the disciple. It is easy to say, I will not be ambitious: it is not so easy to say,
When the Master reads my heart He will find it clean utterly. The pure artist who works
for the love of his work is sometimes more firmly planted on the right road than the
occultist, who fancies he has removed his interest from self, but who has in reality only
enlarged the limits of experience and desire, and transferred his interest to the things
which concern his larger span of life. The same principle applies to the other two
seemingly simple rules. Linger over them, and do not let yourself be easily deceived by
your own heart. For now, at the threshold, a mistake can be corrected. But carry it on
with you and it will grow and come to fruition, or else you must suffer bitterly in its
destruction.
(2) Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man. They are
yourself, though in a less degree than your friend or your Master. But if you allow the
idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within you, by so doing
you create Karma, which will bind you to that thing or person till your soul recognizes
that it cannot be isolated. Remember that the sin and shame of the world are your sin
and shame; for you are a part of it; your Karma is inextricably interwoven with the great
Karma. And before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places,
foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from
touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with
horror from it, when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you.
The self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to
abstain, not that yourself shall be kept clean.
(3) These four words seem, perhaps, too slight to stand alone. The disciple may say,
Should I study these thoughts at all did I not seek out the way? Yet do not pass on
hastily. Pause and consider awhile. Is it the way you desire, or is it that there is a dim
perspective in your visions of great heights to be scaled by yourself, of a great future for
you to compass? Be warned. The way is to be sought for its own sake, not with regard to
your feet that shall tread it.
There is a correspondence between this rule and the seventeenth of the second series.
When after ages of struggle and many victories the final battle is won, the final secret
demanded, then you are prepared for a further path. When the final secret of this great
lesson is told, in it is opened the mystery of the new way- a path which leads out of all
human experience, and which is utterly beyond human perception or imagination. At

each of these points it is needful to pause long and consider well. At each of these points
it is necessary to be sure that the way is chosen for its own sake. The way and the truth
come first, then follows the life.
(4) Seek it by testing all experience, and remember that when I say this I do not say,
“Yield to the seductions of senses in order to know it”. Before you have become an
occultist you may do this; but not afterwards. When you have chosen and entered the
Path you cannot yield to these seductions without shame. Yet you can experience them
without horror; can weigh, observe and test them, and wait with the patience of
confidence for the hour when they shall affect you no longer. But do not condemn the
man that yields; stretch out your hand to him as a brother pilgrim whose feet have
become heavy with mire. Remember, O disciple, that great though the gulf may be
between the good man and the sinner, it is greater between the good man and the man
who has attained knowledge; it is immeasurable between the good man and the one on
the threshold of divinity. Therefore be wary lest too soon you fancy yourself a thing
apart from the mass. When you have found the beginning of the way the star of your
soul will show its light; and by that light you will perceive how great is the darkness in
which it burns. Mind, heart, brain, all are obscure and dark until the first great battle has
been won. Be not appalled and terrified by this sight; keep your eyes fixed on the small
light and it will grow. But let the darkness within help you to understand the
helplessness of those who have seen no light, whose souls are in profound gloom. Blame
them not -- shrink not from them, but try to lift a little of the heavy Karma of the world;
give your aid to the few strong hands that hold back the powers of darkness from
obtaining complete victory. Then do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings
indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight.
(5) The opening of the bloom is the glorious moment when perception awakes: with it
come confidence, knowledge, certainty. The pause of the soul is the moment of wonder,
and the next moment of satisfaction, that is the silence.
Know, O disciple, that those who have passed through the silence and felt its peace and
retained its strength, they long that you shall pass through it also. Therefore, in the Hall
of Learning, when he is capable of entering there, the disciple will always find his
Master.
Those that ask shall have. But though the ordinary man ask perpetually, his voice is not
heard. For he asks with his mind only; and the voice of the mind is only heard on that
plane on which the mind acts. Therefore, not until the first twenty-one rules are passed
do I say those that ask shall have.
To read, in the occult senses, is to read with the eyes of the spirit. To ask is to feel the
hunger within -- the yearning of spiritual aspiration. To be able to read means having
obtained the power in a small degree of gratifying that hunger. When the disciple is
ready to learn, then he is accepted, acknowledged, recognised. It must be so, for he has
lit his lamp, and it cannot be hidden. But to learn is impossible until the first great battle
has been won. The mind may recognize truth, but the spirit cannot receive it. Once
having passed through the storm and attained the peace, it is then always possible to
learn, even thought the disciple waver, hesitate and turn aside. The Voice of the Silence
remains within him. And though he leave the Path utterly, yet one day it will resound,

and rend him asunder and separate his passions from his divine possibilities. Then with
pain and desperate cries from the deserted lower self he will return.
Therefore I say, Peace be with you. “My peace I give unto you” can only be said by the
Master to the beloved disciples who are as Himself. There are some even among those
who are ignorant of the Eastern wisdom to whom this can be said, and to whom it can
daily be said with more completeness.
Regard the three truths. They are equal.
(6) To be able to stand is to have confidence; to be able to hear is to have opened the
doors of the soul; to be able to see is to have attained perception; to be able to speak is
to have attained the power of helping others; to have conquered desire is to have
learned how to use and control the self; to have attained to self-knowledge is to have
retreated to the inner fortress from whence the personal man can be viewed with
impartiality; to have seen thy soul in its bloom is to have obtained a momentary glimpse
in thyself of the transfiguration which shall eventually make Thee more than man; to
recognize is to achieve the great task of gazing upon the blazing light without dropping
the eyes and not falling back in terror, as though before some ghastly phantom. This
happens to some, and so when the victory is all but won it is lost. To hear the Voice of
the Silence is to understand that from within comes the only true guidance; to go to the
Hall of Learning is to enter the state in which learning becomes possible. Then will
many words be written there for Thee, and written in fiery letters for Thee easily to
read. For when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also.
7. Look for it and listen to it, first in your own heart. At first you may say, “It is not there;
when I search I find only discord”. Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause
and look deeper again. There is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every human
heart. It may be hidden over and utterly concealed and silenced- but it is there. At the
very base of your nature you will find faith, hope, and love. He that chooses evil refuses
to look within himself, shuts his ears to the melody of his heart, as he blinds his eyes to
the light of his soul. He does this because he finds it easier to live in desires. But
underneath all life is the strong current that cannot be checked; the great waters are
there in reality. Find them, and you will perceive that none, not the most wretched of
creatures, but is a part of it, however he blind himself to the fact and build up for himself
a phantasmal outer form of horror. In that sense it is that I say to you: All those beings
among whom you struggle on are fragments of the Divine. And so deceptive is the
illusion in which you live, that it is hard to guess where you will first detect the sweet
voice in the hearts of others. But know that it is certainly within yourself. Look for it
there, and once having heard it, you will more readily recognize it around you.
8. From an absolutely impersonal point of view, otherwise your sight is coloured.
Therefore impersonality must first be understood.
Intelligence is impartial: no man is your enemy; no man is your friend. All alike are your
teachers. Your enemy becomes a mystery that must be solved, even though it takes
ages: for man must be understood. Your friend becomes a part of yourself, an extension
of yourself, a riddle hard to read. Only one thing is more difficult to know- your own
heart. Not until the bonds of personality are loosed can that profound mystery of self

begin to be seen. Not till you stand aside from it, will it in any way reveal itself to your
understanding. Then, and not till then, can you grasp and guide it. Then, and not till
then, can you use all its powers, and devote them to a worthy service.
9. It is impossible to help others till you have obtained some certainty of your own.
When you have learned the first twenty-one rules and have entered the Hall of Learning
, with your powers developed and sense unchained, then you will find there is a fount
within you from which speech will arise.
After the thirteenth rule I can add no words to what is already written. My peace I give
unto you.
These rules are written only for those to whom I give my peace; those who can read
what I have written with the inner as well as the outer sense.

COMMENTS ON “LIGHT ON THE PATH” by The Author
[taken from H.P.B.'s Lucifer]
Vol. I, September 1887 - February 1888
pages........8 -14 September 1887
pages .....90- 96 October....... 1887
pages... 170- 172 November,1887
pages ...379- 383 January...1888

COMMENTS
- I –
“Before the eyes can see they must be incapable of tears”
It should be very clearly remembered by all readers of this volume that it is a book
which may appear to have some little philosophy in it, but very little sense, to those who
believe it to be written in ordinary English. To the many, who read in this manner it will
be- not caviare so much as olives strong of their salt. Be warned and ready but a little in
this way.
There is another way of reading, which is, indeed, the only one of any use with many
authors. It is reading, not between the lines but within the words. In fact, it is
deciphering a profound cipher. All alchemical works are written in the cipher of which I
speak; it has been used by the great philosophers and poets of all time. It is used
systematically by the adepts in life and knowledge, who, seemingly giving out their
deepest wisdom, hide in the very words which frame it its actual mystery. They cannot
do more. There is a law of nature which insists that a man shall read these mysteries for
himself. By no other method can he obtain them. A man who desires to live must eat his
food himself: this is the simple law of Nature- which applies also to the higher life. A
man who would live and act in it cannot be fed like a babe with a spoon; he must eat for
himself.
I propose to put into new and sometimes plainer language parts of “Light on the Path”;
but whether this effort of mine will really be any interpretation I cannot say. To a deaf
and dumb man, a truth is made no more intelligible if, in order to make it so, some
misguide linguist translates the words in which it is couched into every living or dead
language, and shouts these different phrases in his ear. But for those who are not deaf
and dumb one language is generally easier than the rest; and it is to such as these I
address myself.
The very first aphorisms of “Light on the Path”, included under Number I, have, I know
well, remained sealed as to their inner meaning to many who have otherwise followed
the purpose of the book.
There are four proven and certain truths with regard to the entrance to occultism. The
Gates of Gold bar that threshold; yet there are some who pass those Gates and discover
the sublime and illimitable beyond. In the far spaces of Time all will pass those gates.
But I am one who wishes that Time, the great deluder, were not so over-masterful. To
those who know and love him I have no word to say; but to the others- and there are not
so very few as some may fancy- to whom the passage of Time is as the stroke of a
sledgehammer, and the sense of Space like the bars of an iron cage, I will translate and
retranslate, until they understand fully.

The fourth truths written on the first page of “Light on the Path”, Refer to the trial
initiation of the would-be Occultist. Until he has passed it, he cannot even reach to the
latch of the gate which admits to knowledge. Knowledge is man's greatest inheritance;
why, then, should he not attempt to reach it by every possible road? The laboratory is
not the only ground for experiment; science, we must remember, is derived from sciens,
present participle of scire, “to know” — its origin is similar to that of the word “discern”,
“to ken”. Science does not therefore deal only with matter, no, not even its subtlest and
obscurest forms. Such an idea is born merely of the idle spirit of the age. Science is a
word which covers all forms of knowledge. It is exceedingly interesting to hear what
chemists discover, and to see them finding their way through the densities of matter to
its finer forms; but there are other kinds of knowledge than this, and it is not every one
who restricts his (strictly scientific) desire for knowledge to experiments which are
capable of being tested by the physical senses.
Everyone who is not a dullard, or a man stupefied by some predominant vice, has
guessed, or even perhaps discovered with some certainty, that there are subtle senses
lying within the physical senses; there is nothing at all extraordinary in this; if we took
the trouble to call Nature into the witness box we should find that everything which is
perceptible to the ordinary sight, has something even more important than itself hidden
within it; the microscope has opened a world to us, but within those encasements which
the microscope reveals, lies a mystery which no machinery can probe.
The whole world is animated and lit, down to its most material shapes, by a world
within it. This inner world is called Astral by some people, and it is as good a word as
any other, though it merely means starry; but the stars, as Locke pointed out, are
luminous bodies which give light of themselves. This quality is characteristic of the light
which lies within matter; for those who see it, need no lamp to see it by. The word
“star”, moreover, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon “stir-an”, to steer, to stir, to move, and
undeniably it is the inner life which is master of the outer, just as a man's brain guides
the movements of his lips. So that although Astral is no very excellent word in itself, I
am content to use for my present purposes.
The whole of “Light on the Path” is written in an astral cipher and can therefore only be
deciphered by one who reads astrally. And its teaching is chiefly directed towards the
cultivation and development of the astral life. Until the first step has been taken in this
development, the swift knowledge, which is called intuition with certainty, is impossible
to man. And this positive and certain intuition is the only form of knowledge which
enables a man to work rapidly or reach his true and high estate, within the limit of his
conscious effort. To obtain knowledge by experiment is too tedious a method for those
who aspire to accomplish real work: he who gets it by certain intuition, lays hands on its
various forms with supreme rapidity, by fierce effort of will; as a determined workman
grasps his tools, indifferent to their weight or any other difficulty which may stand in
his way. He does not stay for each to be tested- he uses such as he sees are fittest.
All the rules contained in “Light on the Path”, are written for all disciples, but only for
disciples- those who “take knowledge”. To none else but the student in this school are
its laws of any use or interest.

To all who are interested seriously in Occultism, I say first- take knowledge. To him who
hath shall be given. It is useless to wait for it. The womb of Time will close before you,
and in later days you will remain unborn, without power. I therefore say to those who
have hunger or thirst for knowledge, attend to these Rules.
They are none of my handicraft or invention. They are merely the phrasing of laws in
supernature, the putting into words truths as absolute in their own sphere, as those
laws which govern the conduct of the earth and its atmosphere.
The senses spoken of in these four statements are the astral, or inner senses.
No man desires to see that light which illumines the spaceless soul until pain and
sorrow and despair have driven him away from the life of ordinary humanity. First he
wears out pleasure, then he wears out pain- till, at last, his eyes become incapable of
tears.
This is a truism, although I know perfectly well that it will meet with a vehement, denial
from many who are in sympathy with thoughts which spring from the inner life. To see
with the astral sense of sight is a form of activity which it is difficult for us to understand
immediately. The scientist knows very well what a miracle is achieved by each child that
is born into the world, when it first conquers its eye sight and compels it to obey its
brain. An equal miracle is performed with each sense certainly, but this ordering of sight
is perhaps the most stupendous effort. Yet the child does it almost unconsciously, by
force of the powerful heredity of habit. No one now is aware that he has ever done it at
all; just as we cannot recollect the individual movements which enabled us to walk up a
hill a year ago. This arises from the fact that we move an live and have our being in
matter. Our knowledge of it has become intuitive.
With our astral life it is very much otherwise. For long ages past, man has paid very little
attention to it- so little, that he has practically lost the use of his senses. It is true, that in
every civilization the star arises and man confesses, with more or less of folly and
confusion, that he knows himself to be. But most often he denies it, and in being a
materialist becomes that strange thing, a being which cannot see its own light, a thing of
life which will not live, an astral animal which has eyes, and ears, and speech, and
power, yet will use none of these gifts. This is the case, and the habit of ignorance has
become so confirmed, that now none will see with the inner vision till agony has made
the physical eyes not only unseeing, but without tears- the moisture of life. To be
incapable of tears is to have faced and conquered the simple human nature, and to have
attained an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotions. It does not imply
any hardness of heart, or any indifference. It does not imply the exhaustion of sorrow,
when the suffering soul seems powerless to suffer acutely any longer; it does not mean
the deadness of old age, when emotion is becoming dull because the strings which
vibrate to it are wearing out. None of these conditions are fit for a disciple, and if any
one of them exists in him, it must be overcome before the path can be entered upon.
Hardness of heart belongs to the selfish man, the egotist, to whom the Gate is for ever
closed. Indifference belongs to the fool and the false philosopher; those whose
lukewarmness makes them mere puppets, not strong enough to face the realities of
existence. When pain or sorrow has worn out the keenness of suffering, the result is a
lethargy not unlike that which accompanies old age, as it is usually experienced by men

and women. Such a condition makes the entrance to the path impossible, because the
first step is one of difficulty and needs a strong man full of psychic and physical vigour,
to attempt it.
It is a truth, that, as Edgar Allen Poe said, the eyes are the windows for the soul, the
windows of that haunted palace in which it dwells. This is the very nearest
interpretation into ordinary language of the meaning of the text. If grief, dismay,
disappointment or pleasure, can shake the soul so that it loses its fixed hold on the calm
spirit which inspires it, and the moisture of life breaks forth, drowning knowledge in
sensation, then all is blurred, the windows are darkened, the light is useless. This is as
literal a fact as that if a man, at the edge of a precipice, loses his nerve through some
sudden emotion he will certainly fall. The poise of the body, the balance, must be
preserved, not only in dangerous places, but even on level ground, and with all the
assistance Nature gives us by the law of gravitation. So it is with the soul, it is the link
between the outer body and the starry spirit beyond; the divine spark dwells in the still
place where no convulsion of Nature can shake the air; this is so always. But the soul
may lose its hold on that, its knowledge of it, even though these two are part of one
whole; and it is by emotion, by sensation, that this hold is loosed. To suffer either
pleasure or pain causes a vivid vibration which is, to the consciousness of man, life. Now
this sensibility does not lessen when the disciple enters upon his training; it increases. It
is the first test of his strength; he must suffer, must enjoy or endure, more keenly than
other men, while yet he has taken on him a duty which does not exist for other men, that
of not allowing his suffering to shake him from his fixed purpose. He has, in fact, at the
first step to take himself steadily in hand and put the bit into his own mouth; no one else
can do it for him.
The first four aphorisms of “Light on the Path” refer entirely to astral development. This
development must be accomplished to a certain extent- that is to say, it must be fully
entered upon- before the remainder of the book is really intelligible except to the
intellect; in fact, before it can be read as a practical, not a metaphysical treatise.
In one of the great mystic Brotherhoods, there are four ceremonies, that take place early
in the year, which practically illustrate and elucidate these aphorisms. They are
ceremonies in which only novices take part, for they are simply services of the
threshold. But it will show how serious a thing it is to become a disciple, when it is
understood that these are all ceremonies of sacrifice. The first one is this of which I have
been speaking. The keenest enjoyment, the bitterest pain, the anguish of loss and
despair, are brought to bear on the trembling soul, which has not yet found light in the
darkness, which is helpless as a blind man is, and until these shocks can be endured
without loss of equilibrium the astral senses must remain sealed. This is the merciful
law. The “Medium”, or “spiritualist” who rushes into the psychic world without
preparation, is a lawbreaker, a breaker of the laws of supernature. Those who break
Nature's laws lose their physical health; those who break the laws of the inner life, lose
their psychic health. “Mediums” become mad, suicides, miserable creatures devoid of
moral sense; and often end as unbelievers, doubters even of that which their own eyes
have seen. The disciple is compelled to become his own master before he adventures on
this perilous path, and attempts to face those beings who live and work in the astral
world, and whom we call Masters, because of their great knowledge and their ability to
control not only themselves but the forces around them.

The condition of the soul when it lives for the life of sensation as distinguished from that
of knowledge, is vibratory or oscillating, as distinguished from fixed. That is the nearest
literal representation of the fact; but it is only literal to the intellect, not to the intuition.
For this part of man's consciousness a different vocabulary is needed. The idea of “fixed”
might perhaps be transposed into that of “at home”. In sensation no permanent home
can be found, because change is the law of this vibratory existence. That fact is the first
one which must be learned by the disciple. It is useless to pause and weep for a scene in
a kaleidoscope which has passed.
It is a very well-know fact, one with which Bulwer Lytton dealt with great power, that
an intolerable sadness is the very first experience of the neophyte in Occultism. A sense
of blankness falls upon him which makes the world a waste, and life a vain exertion.
This follows his first serious contemplation of the abstract. In gazing, or even in
attempting to gaze, on the ineffable mystery of his own higher nature, he himself causes
the initial trial to fall on him. The oscillation between pleasure and pain ceases for
perhaps an instant of time; but that is enough to have cut him loose from his fast
moorings in the world of sensation. He has experienced, however briefly, the greater
life; and he goes on with ordinary existence weighted by a sense of unreality, of blank, of
horrid negation. This was the nightmare which visited Bulwer Lytton's neophyte in
“Zanoni”; and even Zanoni himself, who had learned great truths, and been entrusted
with great powers, had not actually passed the threshold where fear and hope, despair
and joy, seem at one moment absolute realities, at the next mere forms of fancy.
This initial trial is often brought on us by life itself. For life, is after all, the great teacher.
We return to study it, after we have acquired power over it, just as the master in
chemistry learns more in the laboratory than his pupil does. There are persons so near
the door of knowledge that life itself prepares them for it, and no individual hand has to
invoke the hideous guardian of the entrance. These must naturally be keen and
powerful organizations, capable of the most vivid pleasure; then pain comes and fills its
great duty. The most intense forms of suffering fall on such a nature, till at last it arouses
from its stupor of consciousness, and by the force of its internal vitality steps over the
threshold into a place of peace. Then the vibration of life loses its power of tyranny. The
sensitive nature must suffer still; but the soul has freed itself and stands aloof, guiding
the life towards its greatness. Those who are the subjects of Time, and go slowly
through all his spaces, live on through a long-drawn series of sensations, and suffer a
constant mingling of pleasure and of pain. They do not dare to take the snake of self in a
steady grasp and conquer it, so becoming divine;; but prefer to go on fretting through
divers experiences, suffering blows from the opposing forces.
When one of these subjects of Time decides to enter on the path of Occultism, it is this
which is his first task. If life has not taught it to him, if he is not strong enough to teach
himself, and if he has power enough to demand the help of a Master, then this fearful
trial, depicted in “Zanoni”, is put upon him. The oscillation in which he lives, is for an
instant stilled; and he has to survive the shock of facing what seems to him at first sight
as the abyss of nothingness. Not till he has learned to dwell in this abyss, and has found
its peace, is it possible for his eyes to have become incapable of tears.

- II -
“Before the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness”
The first four rules of “Light on the Path” are, undoubtedly, curious though the
statement may seem, the most important in the whole book, save one only. Why they
are so important is that they contain the vital law, the very creative essence of the astral
man. And it is only in the astral (or self-illuminated) consciousness that the rules which
follow them have any living meaning. Once attain to the use of the astral senses and it
becomes a matter of course that one commences to use them; and the later rules are but
guidance in their use. When I speak like this I mean, naturally, that the first four rules
are the ones which are of importance and interest to those who read them in print upon
a page. When they are engraved on the man's heart and on his life, unmistakably then
the other rules become not merely interesting, or extraordinary metaphysical
statements, but actual facts in life which have to be grasped and experienced.
The four rules stand written in the great chamber of every actual lodge of a living
Brotherhood. Whether the man is about to sell his soul to the devil, like Faust; whether
he is to be worsted in the battle, like Hamlet;; or whether he is to pass on within the
precincts; in any case these words are for him. The man can choose between virtue and
vice, but not until he is a man; a babe or a wild animal cannot so choose. Thus with the
disciple, he must first become a disciple before he can even see the paths to choose
between. This effort of creating himself as a disciple, the rebirth, he must do for himself
without any teacher. Until the four rules are learned no teacher can be of any use to
him; and that is why “the Masters” are referred to in the way they are. No real Masters,
whether Adepts in power, in love, or in blackness, can affect a man till these four rules
are passed.
Tears as I have said, may be called the moisture of life. The soul must have laid aside the
emotions of humanity, must have secured a balance which cannot be shaken by
misfortune, before its eyes can open the superhuman world.
The voice of the Masters is always in the world; but only those hear it whose ears are no
longer receptive of the sounds which affect the personal life. Laughter no longer
lightens the heart, anger may no longer enrage it, tender words bring it no balm. For
that within, to which the ears are as an outer gateway, is an unshaken place of peace in
itself which no person can disturb.
As the eyes are the windows of the soul, so are the ears its gateways or doors. Through
then comes knowledge of the confusion of the world. The great ones who have
conquered life, who have become more than disciples, stand at peace and undisturbed
amid the vibration and kaleidoscopic movement of humanity. They hold within

themselves a certain knowledge, as well as a perfect peace; and thus they are not roused
or existed by the partial and erroneous fragments of information which brought to their
ears by the changing voices of those around them. When I speak of knowledge, I mean
intuitive knowledge. This certain information can never be obtained by hard work, or by
experiment; for these methods are only applicable to matter, and matter is in itself a
perfectly uncertain substance, continually affected by change. The most absolute and
universal laws of natural and physical life, as understood by the scientist, will pass away
when the life of this universe has passed away, and only its soul is left in the silence.
What then will be the value of the knowledge of its laws acquired by industry and
observation?
I pray that no reader or critic will imagine that by what I have said I intend to depreciate
or disparage acquired knowledge, or the work of scientists. On the contrary, I hold that
scientific men are the pioneers of modern thought. The days of literature and of art,
when poets and sculptors saw the divine light, and put it into their own great language-
these days lie buried in the long past with the ante-Phidian sculptors and the pre-
Homeric poets. The Mysteries no longer rule the world of thought and beauty; human
life is the governing power, not that which lies beyond it. But the scientific workers are
progressing, not so much by their own will as by sheer force of circumstances, towards
the far line which divides things interpretable from things uninterpretable. Every fresh
discovery drives them a step onward. Therefore do I very highly esteem the knowledge
obtained by work and experiment.
But intuitive knowledge is an entirely different thing. It is not acquired in any way, but
is, so to speak, a faculty of the soul; not the animal soul, that which becomes a ghost
after death, when lust or liking or the memory of ill-deeds holds it to the neighbourhood
of human beings, but the divine soul which animates all the external forms of the
individualized being.
This is, of course, a faculty which indwells in that soul, which is inherent. The would-be
disciple has to arouse himself to the consciousness of it by a fierce and resolute and
indomitable effort of will. I use the word indomitable for a special reason. Only he who
is untameable, who cannot be dominated, who knows he has to play the lord over men,
over facts, over all things save his own divinity, can arouse this faculty. “With faith all
things are possible”. The sceptical laugh at faith and pride themselves on its absence
from their own minds. The truth is that faith is a great engine, an enormous power
which, in fact can accomplish all things. For it is the covenant or engagement between
man's divine part and his lesser self.
The use of this engine is quite necessary in order to obtain intuitive knowledge; for
unless a man believes such knowledge exists within himself how can he claim and use
it?
Without it he is more helpless than any driftwood or wreckage on the great tides of the
ocean. They are cast hither and thither indeed; so may a man be by the chances of
fortune. But such adventures are purely external and of very small account. A slave may
be dragged through the streets in chains, and yet retain the quiet soul of a philosopher,
as was well seen in the person of Epictetus. A man may have every worldly prize in his
possession, and stand absolute master of his personal fate, to all appearance, and yet he

knows no peace, no certainty, because he is shaken within himself by every tide of
thought that he touches on. And these changing tides do not merely sweep the man
bodily hither and thither like driftwood on the water; that would be nothing. They enter
into the gateways of his soul, and wash over that soul, and make it blind and blank and
void of all permanent intelligence, so that passing impressions affect it.
To make my meaning plainer I will use an illustration. Take an author at his writing, a
painter at his canvas, a composer listening to the melodies that dawn upon his glad
imagination; let any one of these workers pass his daily hours by a wide window
looking on a busy street. The power of the animating life blinds sight and hearing alike,
and the great traffic of the city goes by like nothing but a passing pageant. But a man
whose mind is empty, whose day is objectless, sitting at that same window, notes the
passers-by and remembers the faces that chance to please or interest him. So it is with
the mind in its relation to eternal truth. If it no longer transmits its fluctuations, its
partial knowledge, its unreliable information to the soul, then in the inner place of
peace, already found when the first rule has been learned- in that inner place there
leaps into flame the light of actual knowledge. Then the ears begin to hear, very dimly,
very faintly at first. And, indeed, so faint and tender are these first indications of the
commencement of true actual life, that they are sometimes pushed aside as mere
fancies, mere imaginings. But before these are capable of becoming more than mere
imaginings, the abyss of nothingness has to be faced in another form. The utter silence
which can only come by closing the ears to all transitory sounds comes as a more
appealing horror than even the formless emptiness of space. Our only mental
conception of blank space is, I think, when reduced to its barest element of thought, that
of black darkness. This is a great physical terror to most persons, and when regarded as
an eternal and unchangeable fact, must mean to the mind the idea of annihilation rather
than anything else. But it is the obliteration of one sense only; and the sound of a voice
may come and bring comfort even in the profoundest darkness. The disciple, having
found his way into this blackness, which is the fearful abyss, must then so shut the gates
of his soul that no comforter can enter there nor any enemy. And it is in making this
second effort that the fact of pain and pleasure being but one sensation becomes
recognizable by those who have before been unable to perceive it. For when the solitude
of silence is reached the soul hungers so fiercely and passionately for some sensation on
which to rest, that a painful one would be as keenly welcomed as a pleasant one. When
this consciousness is reached the courageous man by seizing and retaining it, may
destroy the “sensitiveness” at once. When the ear no longer discriminates between that
which is pleasant or that which is painful, it will no longer be affected by the voices of
others. And then it is safe and possible to open the doors of the soul.
“Sight” is the first effort, and the easiest, because it is accomplished partly by an
intellectual effort. The intellect can conquer the heart, as is well known in ordinary life.
Therefore, this preliminary step still lies within the dominion of matter. But the second
step allows of no such assistance, nor of any material aid whatever. Of course, I mean by
material aid the action of the brain, or emotion, or human soul. In compelling the ears to
listen only to the eternal silence, the being we call man becomes something which is no
longer man. A very superficial survey of the thousand and one influences which are
brought to bear on us by others will show that this must be so. A disciple will fulfil all
the duties of his manhood; but he will fulfil them according to his sense of right, and not

according to that of any person or body of persons. This is a very evident result of
following the creed of knowledge instead of any of the blind creeds.
To obtain the pure silence necessary for the disciple, the heart and emotions, the brain
and its intellectualisms, have to be put aside. Both are but mechanisms, which will
perish with the span of man's life. It is the essence beyond, that which is the motive
power, and makes man live, that is now compelled to rouse itself and act. Now is the
greatest hour of danger. In the first trial men go mad with fear; of this first trial Bulwer
Lytton wrote. No novelist has followed to the second trial, though some of the poets
have. Its subtlety and great danger lies in the fact that in the measure of a man's
strength is the measure of his chance of passing beyond it or coping with it at all. If he
has power enough to awaken that unaccustomed part of himself, the supreme essence,
then has he power to lift the gates of gold, then is he the true alchemist, in possession of
the elixir of life.
It is at this point of experience that the occultist becomes separated from all other men
and enters on to a life which is his own; on to the path of individual accomplishment
instead of mere obedience to the genii which rule our earth. This raising of himself into
an individual power does in reality identify him with the nobler forces of life and make
him one with them. For they stand beyond the powers of this earth and the laws of this
universe. Here lies man's only hope of success in the great effort; to leap right away
from his present standpoint to his next, and at once become an intrinsic part of the
divine power as he has been an intrinsic part of the intellectual power, of the great
nature to which he belongs. He stands always in advance of himself, if such a
contradiction can be understood. It is the men who adhere to this position, who believe
in their innate power of progress, and that of the whole race, who are the Elders
Brothers, the pioneers. Each man has to accomplish the great leap for himself and
without aid; yet it is something of a staff to lean on to know that others have gone on
that road. It is possible that they have been lost in the abyss; no matter, they have had
the courage to enter it. Why I say that it is possible they have been lost in the abyss is
because of this fact, that one who has passed through is unrecognizable until the other
and altogether new condition is attained by both. It is unnecessary to enter upon the
subject of what that condition is at present. I only say this, that in the early state in
which man is entering upon the silence, he loses knowledge of his friends, of his lovers,
of all who have been near and dear to him; and also loses sight of his Teachers and of
those who have preceded him on his way. I explain this because scarce one passes
through without bitter complaint. Could but the mind grasp beforehand that the silence
must be complete, surely this complaint need not arise as a hindrance on the path. Your
teacher, or your predecessor may hold your hand in his, and give you the utmost
sympathy the human heart is capable of. But when the silence and the darkness comes,
you lose all knowledge of him; you are alone and he cannot help you, not because his
power is gone, but because you have invoked your great enemy.
By your great enemy, I mean yourself. If you have the power to face your own soul in the
darkness and silence, you will have conquered the physical or animal self which dwells
in sensation only.
This statement, I fear, will appear involved; but in reality it is quite simple. Man, when
he has reached his fruition, and civilization is at its height, stands between two fires.

Could he but claim his great inheritance, the encumbrance of the mere animal life would
fall away form him without difficulty. But he does not do this, and so the races of men
flower and then droop, and die and decay off the face of the earth, however splendid the
bloom may have been; and it is left to the individual to make this great effort; to refuse
to be terrified by his greater nature, to refuse to be drawn back by his lesser or more
material self. Every individual who accomplishes this is a redeemer of the race. He may
not blazon forth his deeds, he may dwell in secret and silence; but it is a fact that he
forms a link between man and his divine part; between the known and the unknown;
between the stir of the marketplace and the stillness of the snow-capped Himalayas. He
has not to go about among men in order to form this link; in the astral he is that link, and
this fact makes him a being of another order from the rest of mankind. Even so early on
the road towards knowledge, when he has but taken the second step, he finds his
footing more certain, and becomes conscious that he is a recognized part of the whole.
This is one of the contradictions in life which occur so constantly that they afford fuel to
the fiction writer. The Occultist finds them become much more marked as he
endeavours to live the life he has chosen. As he retreats within himself and becomes
self-dependent, he finds himself more definitely becoming part of a great tide of definite
thought and feeling. When he has learning the first lesson, conquered the hunger of the
heart, and refused to live on the love of others, he finds himself more capable of
inspiring love. As he flings life away it comes to him in a new form and with a new
meaning. The world has always been a place with many contradictions in it, to man;
when he becomes a disciple he finds life is describable as a series of paradoxes. This is a
fact in Nature, and the reasons for it is intelligible enough. Man's soul “dwells like a star
apart”, even that of the vilest among us; while his consciousness is under the law of
vibratory and sensuous life. This alone is enough to cause those complications of
character which are the material for the novelist; every man is a mystery, to friend and
enemy alike, and to himself. His motives are often undiscoverable, and he cannot probe
to them or know why he does this or that. The disciple's effort is that of awaking
consciousness in this starry part of himself, where his power and divinity lie sleeping.
As this consciousness becomes awakened, the contradictions in the man himself
become more marked than ever; and so do the paradoxes which he lives through. For, of
course man creates his own life; and “adventures are to the adventurous” is one of those
wise proverbs which are drawn from actual fact, and cover the whole area of human
experience.
Pressure on the divine part of man reacts upon the animal part. As the silent soul
awakes it makes the ordinary life of the man more purposeful, more vital, more real and
responsible. To keep to the two instances already mentioned,: the Occultist who has
withdrawn into his own citadel has found his strength; immediately he becomes aware
of the demands of duty upon him. He does not obtain his strength by his own right, but
because he is a part of the whole; and as soon as he is safe from the vibration of life and
can stand unshaken, the outer world cries out to him to come and labour in it. So with
the heart. When it no longer wishes to take, it is called upon to give abundantly.
“Light on the Path” has been called a book of paradoxes, and very justly; what else could
it be, when it deals with the actual personal experience of the disciple?

To have acquired the astral senses of sight and hearing; or, in other words to have
attained perception and opened the doors of the soul, are gigantic tasks, and may take
the sacrifice of many successive incarnations. And yet, when the will has reached its
strength, the whole miracle may be worked in a second of time. Then is the disciple the
servant of Time no longer.
These two first steps are negative; that is to say they imply retreat from a present
condition of things rather than advance towards another. The two next are active,
implying the advance into another state of being.

- III -
THE DEMAND OF THE NEOPHYTE
“Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters”
Speech is the power of communication; the moment of entrance into active life is
marked by its attainment.
And now, before I go any further, let me explain a little the way in which the rules
written down in “Light on the Path” are arranged. The first seven of those which are
numbered are subdivisions of the two first unnumbered rules, those with which I have
dealt in the two preceding papers. The numbered rules were simply an effort of mine to
make the unnumbered ones more intelligible. “Eight” to “fifteen” of these numbered
rules belong this unnumbered rule which is now my text.
As I have said, these rules are written for all disciples, but for none else; they are not of
interest to any other persons. Therefore I trust no one else will trouble to read these
papers any further. The first two rules, which include the whole of that part of the effort
which necessitates the use of the surgeon's knife. I will enlarge upon further if I am
asked to do so. But the disciple is expected to deal with the snake, his lower self,
unaided; to suppress his human passions and emotions by the force of his own will. He
can only demand assistance of a Master when this is accomplished, or at all events,
partially so. Otherwise the gates and windows of his soul are blurred, and blinded, and
darkened, and no knowledge can come to him. I am not, in these pages, purposing to tell
a man how to deal with his own soul; I am simply giving, to the disciple, knowledge.
That I am not writing, even now, so that all who run may read, is owing to the fact that
supernature prevents this by its own immutable laws.
The four rules which I have written down for those in the West who wish to study them,
are as I have said, written in the ante-chamber of every living Brotherhood; I may add
more, in the antechamber of every living or dead Brotherhood, or Order yet to be
formed. When I speak of a Brotherhood or an Order, I do not mean an arbitrary
constitution made by scholiasts and intellectualists; I mean an actual fact in
supernature, a stage of development towards the absolute God or Good. During this
development the disciple encounters harmony, pure knowledge, pure truth, in different
degrees and, as he enters these degrees, he finds himself becoming part of what might
be roughly described as a layer of human consciousness. He encounters his equals, men
of his own selfless character, and with them his association becomes permanent and
indissoluble, because founded on a vital likeness of nature. To them he becomes pledged
by such vows as need no utterance or framework in ordinary words. This is one aspect
of what I mean by a Brotherhood.

If the first rules are conquered the disciple finds himself standing at the threshold. Then
if his will is sufficiently resolute his power of speech comes; a twofold power. For, as he
advances now, he finds himself entering into a state of blossoming, where every bud
that opens throws out its several rays or petals. If he is to exercise his new gift, he must
use it in its twofold character. He finds in himself the power to speak in the presence of
the Masters; in other words, he has the right to demand contact with the divinest
element of that state of consciousness into which he has entered. But he finds himself
compelled, by the nature of his position, to act in two ways at the same time. He cannot
send his voice up to the heights where sit the gods till he has penetrated to the deep
places where their light shines not at all. He has come within the grip of an iron law. If
he demands to become a neophyte, he at once becomes a servant. Yet his service is
sublime, if only from the character of those who share it. For the masters are also
servants; they serve and claim their reward afterwards. Part of their service is to let
their knowledge touch him; his first act of service is to give some of that knowledge to
those who are not yet fit to stand where he stands. This is no arbitrary decision, made
by any master or teacher or any such person, however divine. It is a law of that life
which the disciple has entered upon.
Therefore was it written in the inner doorway of the Lodges of the old Egyptian
Brotherhood, “The labourer is worthy of his hire”.
“Ask and ye shall have”, sounds like something too easy and simple to be credible. But
the disciple cannot “ask” in the mystic sense in which the word is used in this scripture,
until he has attained the power of helping others.
Why is this? Has the statement too dogmatic a sound?
Is it too dogmatic to say that a man must have foothold before he can spring? The
position is the same. If help is given, if work is done, then there is an actual claim — not
what we call a personal claim of payment, but the claim of co-nature. The divine give,
they demand that you also shall give before you can be of their kin.
This law is discovered as soon as the disciple endeavours to speak. For speech is a gift
which comes only to the disciple of power and knowledge. The spiritualist enters the
psychic-astral world, but he does not find there any certain speech, unless he at once
claims it and continues to do so. If he is interested in “phenomena”, or the mere
circumstance and accident of astral life, then he enters no direct ray of thought or
purpose, he merely exists and amuses himself in the astral life as he has existed and
amused himself in the physical life. Certainly there are one or two simple lessons which
the psychic-astral can teach him, just as there are simple lessons which material and
intellectual life teach him. And these lessons have to be learned; the man who proposes
to enter upon the life of the disciple without having learned the early and simple lessons
must always suffer from his ignorance. They are vital, and have to be studied in a vital
manner; experienced through and through, over and over again, so that each part of the
nature has been penetrated by them.
To return. In claiming the power of speech, as it is called, the Neophyte cries out to the
Great One who stands foremost in the ray of knowledge on which he has entered, to give
him guidance. When he does this, his voice is hurled back by the power he has

approached, and echoes down to the deep recesses of human ignorance. In some
confused and blurred manner the news that there is knowledge and a beneficent power
which teaches, is carried to as many men as will listen to it. No disciple can cross the
threshold without communicating this news, and placing it on record in some fashion or
other.
He stands horror-struck at the imperfect and unprepared manner in which he has done
this, and then comes the desire to do it well, and with the desire thus to help others
comes the power. For it is a pure desire, this which comes upon him; he can gain no
credit, no glory, no personal reward by fulfilling it. And therefore he obtains the power
to fulfil it.
The history of the whole past, so far as we can trace it, shows very plainly that there is
neither credit, glory, nor reward to be gained by this first task which is given to the
Neophyte. Mystics have always been sneered at, and seers disbelieved, those who have
had the added power of intellect have left for posterity their written record, which to
most men appears unmeaning and visionary, even when the authors have the advantage
of speaking from a far-off past. The disciple who undertakes the task, secretly hoping for
fame or success, to appear as a teacher and apostle before the world, fails even before
his task is attempted, and his hidden hypocrisy poisons his own soul, and the souls of
those he touches. He is secretly worshiping himself, and this idolatrous practice must
bring its own reward.
The disciple who has the power of entrance, and is strong enough to pass each barrier,
will, when the divine message comes to his spirit, forget himself utterly in the new
consciousness which falls on him. If this lofty contact can really rouse him, he becomes
as one of the Divine in his desire to give rather than to take, in his wish to help rather
than be helped, in his resolution to feed the hungry rather than take manna from
Heaven himself. His nature is transformed, and the selfishness which prompts men's
actions in ordinary life suddenly deserts him.

- IV -
THE SECLUSION OF THE ADEPT
“Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters,
it must have lost the power to wound”
Those who give a merely passing and superficial attention to the subject of Occultism —
and their name is legion- constantly inquire why, if Adepts in life exist, they do not
appear in the world and show their power. That the chief body of these wise ones
should be understood to dwell beyond the fastnesses of the Himalayas, appears to be a
sufficient proof that they are only figures of straw. Otherwise, why place them so far off?
Unfortunately, Nature has done this and not personal choice or arrangement. There are
certain spots on the earth where the advance of “civilization” is unfelt, and the nineteen
century fever is kept at bay. In these favored places there is always time, always
opportunity, for the realities of life; they are not crowded out by the doings of an
inchoate, money-loving, pleasure seeking society. While there are Adepts upon the
earth, the earth must preserve to them places of seclusion. This is a fact in Nature which
is only an external expression of a profound fact in supernature.
The demand of the Neophyte remains unheard until the voice in which it is uttered has
lost the power to wound. This is because the divine-astral life is a place in which order
reigns, just as it does in natural life. There is, of course, always the centre and the
circumference as there is in nature. Close to the central heart of life, on any plane, there
is knowledge, there order reigns completely; and chaos makes dim and confused the
outer margin of the circle. In fact, life in every form bears a more or less strong
resemblance to a philosophic school. There are always the devotes of knowledge who
forget their own lives in their pursuit of it; there are always the flippant crowd who
come and go. Of such, Epictetus said that it was as easy to teach them philosophy as to
eat custard with a fork. The same state exists in the super-astral life; and the adept has
an even deeper and more profound seclusion there in which to dwell. This place of
retreat is so safe, so sheltered, that no sound which has discord in it can reach His ears.
Why should this be, will be asked at once, if he be a being of such great powers as those
say who believe in his existence? The answer seems very apparent. He serves humanity
and identifies himself with the whole world; he is ready to make vicarious sacrifice for it
at any moment — by living not by dying for it. Why should he not die for it? Because he is
a part of the great whole, and one of the most valuable parts of it. Because he lives under
laws of order which he does not desire to break. His life is not his own, but that of the
forces which work behind him. He is the flower of Humanity, the bloom which contains
the Divine Seed. He is, in his own person, a treasure of the universal nature, which is
guarded and made safe in order that the fruition shall be perfected. It is only at definite

periods of the world's history that he is allowed to go among the herd of men as their
redeemer. But for those who have the power to separate themselves from this herd he is
always at hand. And for those who are strong enough to conquer the vices of the
personal human nature, as set forth in these four rules, he is consciously at hand, easily
recognized, ready to answer.
But this conquering of self implies a destruction of qualities which most men regard as
not only indestructible but desirable. The “power to wound” includes much that man
value, not only in themselves, but in others. The instinct of self-defence and of self-
preservation is part of it; the idea that one has any right or rights, either as citizen, or
man, or individual, the pleasant consciousness of self-respect and of virtue. These are
hard sayings to many; yet they are true. For these words that I am writing now, and
those which I have written on this subject, are not in any sense my own. They are drawn
from the traditions of the lodge of the Great Brotherhood, which was once the secret
splendour of Egypt. The rules written in its ante-chamber were the same as those now
written in the ante-chamber of existing schools. Through all time the wise men have
lived apart from the mass. And even when some temporary purpose or object induces
one of them to come into the midst of human life, his seclusion and safety are preserved
as completely as ever. It is part of his inheritance, part of his position, he has an actual
title to it, and can no more put it aside that the Duke of Westminster can say he does not
choose to be the Duke of Westminster. In the various great cities of the world an adept
lives for a while from time to time, or perhaps only passes through; but all are
occasionally aided by the actual power and presence of one of these men. Here in
London, as in Paris and St Petersburg, there are men high in development. But they are
only known as mystics by those who have the power to recognize; the power given by
the conquering of self. Otherwise how could they exist, even for an hour, in such a
mental and psychic atmosphere as is created by the confusion and disorder of a city?
Unless protected and made safe Their own growth would be interfered with, their work
injured. And the neophyte may meet an adept in the flesh, may live in the same house
with Him, and yet be unable to recognize him, and unable to make his own voice heard
by him. For no nearness in space, no closeness of relations, no daily intimacy, can do
away with the inexorable laws which give the adept his seclusion. No voice penetrates
to his inner hearing till it has become a divine voice, a voice which gives no utterance to
the cries of self. Any lesser appeal would be as useless, as much a waste of energy and
power, as for mere children who are learning their alphabet to be taught it by a
professor of philology. Until a man has become, in heart and spirit, a disciple, he has no
existence for those who are teachers of disciples. And he becomes this by one method
only- the surrender of his personal humanity.
For the voice to have lost the power to wound, a man must have reached that point
where he sees himself only as one of the vast multitudes that live; of the sands washed
hither and thither by the sea of vibratory existence. It is said that every grain of sand in
the ocean bed does, in its turn, get washed up on the shore and lie for a moment in the
sunshine. So with human beings, they are driven hither and thither by a great force, and
each, in his turn, finds the sun rays on him. When a man is able to regard his own life as
part of a whole like this he will no longer struggle in order to obtain anything for
himself. This is the surrender of personal rights. The ordinary man expects, not to take
equal fortunes with the rest of the world, but in some points about which he cares, to
fare better than the others. The disciple does not expect this. Therefore, though he be,

like Epictetus, a chained slave, he has no word to say about it. He knows that the wheel
of life turns ceaselessly. Burnes-Jones has shown it, in his marvelous picture; the wheel
turns, and on it are bound the rich and the poor, the great and the small — each has
moment of good fortune when the wheel brings him uppermost — the King rises and
falls, the poet is fêted and forgotten, the slave is happy and afterwards discarded. Each
in his turn is crushed as the wheel turns on. The disciple knows that this is so, and
though it is his duty to make the utmost of the life that is his, he neither complains of it
nor is elated by it, nor does he complain against the better fortune of others. All alike, as
he well knows, are but learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist and the reformer
who endeavour by sheer force to rearrange circumstances which arise out of the forces
of human nature itself. This is but kicking against the pricks; a waste of life and energy.
In realizing this a man surrenders his imagined individual rights, of whatever sort. That
takes away one keen sting which is common to all ordinary men.
When the disciple has fully recognized that the very thought of individual rights is only
the outcome of the venomous quality in himself, that it is the hiss of the snake of self
which poisons with its sting his own life and the lives of those about him, then he is
ready to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open to all neophytes who are
prepared for it. All weapons of defence and offence are given up; all weapons of mind
and heart, and brain, and spirit. Never again can another man be regarded as a person
who can be criticized or condemned; never again can the neophyte raise his voice in
self-defense or excuse. From that ceremony he returns into the world as helpless, as
unprotected, as a new-born child. That, indeed, is what he is. He has begun to be born
again on to the higher plane of life, that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence the
eyes see intelligently and regard the world with a new insight.
I have said, a little way back, that after parting with the sense of individual rights, the
disciple must part also with the sense of self-respect and of virtue. This may sound a
terrible doctrine, yet all occultists know well that it is not a doctrine, but a fact. He who
thinks himself holier than another, he who has any pride in his own exemption from
vice or folly, he who believes himself wise, or in any way superior to his fellow men, is
incapable of discipleship. A man must become as a little child before he can enter into
the kingdom of heaven.
Virtue and wisdom are sublime things; but if they create pride and a consciousness of
separateness from the rest of humanity in the mind of a man, then they are only the
snake of self reappearing in a finer form. At any moment he may put on his grosser
shape and sting as fiercely as when he inspired the actions of a murderer who kills for
gain or hatred, or a politician who sacrifices the mass for his own or his party's
interests.
In fact, to have lost the power to wound, implies that the snake is not only scotched, but
killed. When it is merely stupefied or lulled to sleep it awakes again and the disciple
uses his knowledge and his power for his own ends, and is a pupil of the many masters
of the black art, for the road to destruction is very broad and easy, and the way can be
found blindfold. That it is the way to destruction is evident, for when a man begins to
live for self he narrows his horizon steadily till at last the fierce driving inwards leaves
him but the space of a pin's head to dwell in. We have all seen this phenomenon occur in

ordinary life. A man who becomes selfish isolates himself, grows less interesting and
less agreeable to others. The sight is an awful one, and people shrink from a very selfish
person at last, as from a best of prey. How much more awful is it when it occurs on the
more advanced plane of life, with the added powers of knowledge, and through the
greater sweep of successive incarnations!
Therefore I say, pause and think well upon the threshold. For if the demand of the
neophyte is made without the complete purification it will not penetrate the seclusion
of the Divine Adept, but will evoke the terrible forces which attend upon the black side
of our human nature.

- V -
“Before the soul can stand in the presence of the masters
its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart”
The word soul, as used here, means the Divine Soul, or “starry Spirit”.
“To be able to stand is to have confidence”; and to have confidence means that the
disciple is sure of himself, that he has surrendered his emotions, his very self, even his
humanity; that he is incapable of fear and unconscious of pain; that his whole
consciousness is centered in the divine life, which is expressed symbolically by the term
“the Masters”; that he has neither eyes, nor ears, nor speech, nor power, save in and for
the divine ray on which his highest sense has touched. Then is he fearless, free from
suffering, free from anxiety or dismay; his soul stands without shrinking or desire of
postponement, in the full blaze of the divine light which penetrates through and through
his being. Then he has come into his inheritance and can claim his kinship with the
teachers of men; he is upright, he has raised his head, he breathes the same air that they
do.
But before it is in any way possible for him to do this, the feet of the soul must be
washed in the blood of the heart.
The sacrifice, or surrender of the heart of man, and its emotions, is the first of the rules;
it involves the “attaining of an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal
emotion”. This is done by the stoic philosopher; he, too, stands aside and looks equably
upon his own sufferings, as well as on those of others.
In the same way that “tears” in the language of Occultists expresses the soul of emotion,
not its material appearance, so blood expresses not that blood which is an essential of
physical life, but the vital creative principle in man's nature, which drives him into
human life in order to experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow. When he has let
the blood flow from the heart he stands before the Masters as a pure spirit which no
longer wishes to incarnate for the sake of emotion and experience. Through great cycles
of time successive incarnations in gross matter may yet be his lot; but he no longer
desires them, the crude wish to live has departed from him. When he takes upon him
man's form in the flesh he does it in the pursuit of a divine object, to accomplish the
work of “the Masters”, and for no other end. He looks neither for pleasure nor pain, asks
for no heaven, and fears no hell; yet he has entered upon a great inheritance, which is
not so much a compensation for these things surrendered, as a state which simply blots
out the memory of them. He lives now not in the world, but with it; his horizon has
extended itself to the width of the whole universe.

KARMA
Consider with me that the individual existence is a rope which stretches from the
infinite to the infinite and has no end and no commencement, neither is it capable of
being broken. This rope is formed of innumerable fine threads, which, lying closely
together, form its thickness. These threads are colourless, are perfect in their qualities
of straightness, strength and levelness. This rope, passing as it does through all places,
suffers strange accidents. Very often a thread is caught and becomes attached, or
perhaps is only violently pulled away from its even way. Then for a great time it is
disordered and it disorders the whole. Sometimes one is stained with dirt or with
colour; and not only does the stain run on further than the spot of contract, but it
discolours other of the threads. And remember that the threads are living- are like
electric wires, more, are like quivering nerves. How far, then, must the stain, the drag
awry, be communicated! But eventually the long strands, the living thread which in
their unbroken continuity form the individual, pass out of the shadow into the shine.
Then the threads are no longer colour less, but golden. Once more they lie together,
level. Once more harmony is established between them; and from that harmony within
the greater harmony is perceived.
This illustration presents but a small portion- a single side of the truth: it is less than a
fragment. Yet, dwell on it; by its aid you may be led to perceive more. What it is
necessary first to understand is, not that the future is arbitrarily formed by any separate
acts of the present, but that the whole of the future is in unbroken continuity with the
present, as the present is with the past. On one plane, from one point of view, the
illustration of the rope is correct.
It is said that a little attention to Occultism produces great Karmic results. That is
because it is impossible to give any attention to Occultism without making a definite
choice between what are familiarly called good and evil. The first step in occultism
brings the student to the tree of knowledge. He must pluck and eat; he must choose. No
longer is he capable of the indecision of ignorance. He goes on, either on the good or on
the evil path. And to step definitely and knowingly even but one step on either path
produces great Karmic results. The mass of men walk waveringly, uncertain as to the
goal they aim at; their standard of life is indefinite; consequently their Karma operates
in a confused manner. But when once the threshold of knowledge is reached, the
confusion beings to lessen, and consequently the karmic results increase enormously,
because all are acting in the same direction on all the different planes: for the Occultist
cannot be half-hearted, nor can he return when he has passed the threshold. These
things are as impossible as that the man should become the child again. The
individuality has approached the state of responsibility by reason of growth; it cannot
recede from it.
He who would escape from the bondage of Karma must raise his individuality out of the
shadow into the shine; must so elevate his existence that these threads do not come in

contact with soiling substances, do not become so attached as to be pulled awry. He
simply lifts himself out of the region in which Karma operates. He does not leave the
existence which he is experiencing because of that. The ground may be rough and dirty,
or full of rich flowers whose pollen stains and of sweet substances that cling and
become attachments- but overhead there is always the free sky. He who desires to be
Karma-less must look to the air for a home; and after that to the ether. He who desires
to form good Karma will meet with many confusions, and in the effort to sow rich seed
for his own harvesting may plant a thousands weeds, and among them the giant. Desire
to sow no seed for your own harvesting; desire only to sow that seed the fruit of which
shall feed the world. You are a part of the world; in giving it food you feed yourself. Yet
in even this thought there lurks a great danger which starts forward and faces the
disciple who has for long thought himself working for good, while in his inmost soul he
has perceived only evil; that is, he has thought himself to be intending great benefit to
the world while all the time he has unconsciously embraced the thought of Karma, and
the great benefit he works for is for himself. A man may refuse to allow himself to think
of reward. But in that very refusal is seen the fact that reward is desired. And it is
useless for the disciple to strive to learn by means of checking himself. The soul must be
unfettered, the desires free. But until they are fixed only on that state wherein there is
neither reward nor punishment, good nor evil, it is in vain that he endeavours. He may
seem to make great progress, but some day he will come face to face with his own soul,
and will recognize that when he came to the tree of knowledge he chose the bitter fruit
and not the sweet; and then the veil will fall utterly, and he will give up his freedom and
become a slave of desire. Therefore be warned, you who are but turning towards the life
of Occultism. Learn now that there is no cure for desire, no cure for the love of reward,
no cure for the misery of longing, save in the fixing of the sight and hearing upon that
which is invisible and soundless. Begin even now to practice it, and so a thousand
serpents will be kept from your path. Live in the eternal.
The operations of the actual laws of Karma are not to be studied until the disciple has
reached the point at which they no longer affect himself. The initiate has a right to
demand the secrets of Nature and to know the rules which govern human life. He
obtains this right by having escaped from the limits of nature and by having freed
himself from the rules which govern human life. He has become a recognized portion of
the divine element, and is no longer affected by that which is temporary. He then
obtains a knowledge of the laws which govern temporary conditions. Therefore you
who desire to understand the laws of Karma, attempt first to free yourself from these
laws; and this can only be done by fixing your attention on that which is unaffected by
those laws.

Light on the path by mabel collins

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Light on the path by mabel collins