Dear Friend:
The relation between human living and spiritual living, or between the usual human attitudes in life and the Spiritual Path, is similar to the one between yourself and the image that you see of yourself in a mirror — one is the real you; the other is the inverted reflection of what you are. Through human living we see all things inverted inside the mirror of the earthly life and think that our appreciation of them is the real life.
Approaching the Spiritual Path is truly a reversal of how we usually see ourselves and life and of how we usually undertake all things. It is in this context that we can arrive to an understanding of the Wisdom.
Today it is very easy to fall into the trap that the Wisdom is equivalent to knowledge and that being wise is the same as being knowledgeable. In other words, it is easy to think that because some individuals are very knowledgeable, they are also wise. This is to see things in a reverse way.
The Wisdom is not a sum of fields of knowledge but a quality and energy of the human Soul — a quality and energy which eventually permeate the human mind and, subsequently, the entire form and life of the individual.
The words of one of the Masters of the Wisdom in this respect come to my mind at this point:
“The Mysteries of Life are revealed, not by the reception of information anent them, but by the action of certain processes carried out within the etheric body of the disciple of the Light. These processes enable the disciple to know that which is hidden to the uninitiated.”
How are these processes induced in the etheric body?
The Great Initiates and Masters of the Wisdom reply to this question that there is only one way:
“By the flow of the energy of Love through our being, coupled with a continuous testing of ourselves in the fields of Service until all friction and all fears are eliminated in us.”
The right grasp of these guideposts is what makes of a disciple of the Light an Initiate of the Christ, a Master of the Wisdom, and a Healer in the truest sense.
It is always possible for a person to study and become very knowledgeable in the contemporary descriptions of the Wisdom Teachings, and today this is more easily done than at any other time in history. However, being knowledgeable about the teachings of the Wisdom is never a warranty of a moving forward on the Path of Light and Initiation. On the contrary, most times the knowledge becomes a prison that bars further progress until one retraces the steps and rediscovers the guiding Light of the Soul — during the past 100 years, thousands of well-meaning aspirants to Initiation have gone astray in this way.
There is a surer, shorter and more efficient way to move forward on the Path; yet it is a much more difficult way than sitting in the comfort and security of one’s study room. This other way (should we say, the true Way?) is the way of Love and Sacrifice wrought out continuously in Service until one becomes completely naked of all separative tendencies.
Yes, dear friend, this is a very difficult way. It is seldom trodden because it frightens us in all respects and because it awakens in us the deepest and most buried fears we harbor. However, no one can stand before the Great Initiator, the Lord of Life Himself, until one is totally free of any fear and separative tendencies (which are, in the last analysis, one and the same thing).
Successful disciples of the Light are, therefore, those who place at the center of their self-directed training three goals:
- The development of Perfect Poise.
- The attainment of Complete Perception.
- The unfoldment of Divine Understanding.
The successful disciples approach these goals, not from a theoretical and intellectual perspective, but as those qualities and potencies that a life of active Service demands from them. In other words, disciples succeed in the development of these three qualities and potencies because and as a result of their active engagement in a life of Service. It is not the other way around.
Another way to describe the approach to the three goals is that the disciples do not go first after knowledge so that eventually they will be ready for Service. No, it is the other way around. The disciples develop their capacity to know because and as a result of their activities in the field of Service appointed by their Souls — revealed to their physical awareness by the circumstances of their lives. The disciples develop their capacity to know, above all, because the needs of those being served demand from the Most High more light and more life. It is, therefore, a life of active Service what makes of a disciple a Knower of the processes of the Soul and of the Mysteries of Life.
What are Perfect Poise, Complete Perception and Divine Understanding?
Perfect Poise is a complete freedom from emotional upheavals and from fears of any kind. It is, therefore, a freedom from any emotional reaction in us or emanating from others. Perfect Poise is truly achieved when one can remain calm, balanced and fearless in the midst of all the tests usually brought about by a life of true Service.
Complete Perception is the all-around picture of life, others and oneself that one gradually obtains when functioning as the Observer of one’s presence in the world. Complete Perception is thus the result of practicing detachment and discrimination. Detachment here is not a detachment from the needs and the suffering of others (a very common error today among students of the Wisdom and spiritually oriented individuals) but a detachment from one’s own opinions, views, aspirations, expectations, desires and personal circumstances, even a detachment from one’s own progress on the Path. Again, Complete Perception is achieved only when one is able to serve and, at the same time, to be completely detached, all this while being a true exponent of intelligent love in action.
Divine Understanding is the natural outcome of achieving Perfect Poise and Complete Perception. It is the quality that allows one to hold the mind steadily in the Light of the Soul so that illumination can flow towards those we seek to serve (and not towards oneself as the asking and the flow of illumination is frequently misunderstood).
These three qualities and potencies are the Wisdom itself. As we can see, they do not refer to knowledge at all but to a set of qualities that eventually permeate one’s whole being and life. They refer to a set of Soul qualities and potencies which are the byproduct of a series of lives of active Service.
May the Blessings of the Great Host of Light surround your being and life conditions.
In Light and Love,
