Past, Present, You (Three)
20 May, 2022
Past, Present, You……..Three
Here is another concept pertaining to the new reality, held by brothers and sisters throughout the ages, which has always been difficult to understand: the rejection of dialectical actions. These enlightened brothers and sisters knew of another mode of action than that of the dialectical human being, a quite different form of idealism, another humanity. They knew only the living, vibrant activity of life in the new reality, an activity which, to human beings of this earth, seems to be a limitless void, with neither purpose nor form.
The many, hermetically, seal themselves off,
And, though having eyes, they blindly go their way.
For them, all roads lead from the cradle to the grave,
Their lot in life is more a curse than a blessing.
All who live in the twentieth century are conscious of experiencing life as a curse. But alas, the more accursed life becomes, the more people seem to cling to it and try to wring from it the blessings they desire. Understandably, though, the results are minimal.
The blessings pass by like ships in the night, because the essence of the Universal Doctrine is not understood and, consequently, one is unable to act in the right way. That is why the sage of 2500 years ago says:
One simple line will tell my teaching;
My acts to it are strictly bound.
Yet, interpreted in many ways by man,
The core in one great tangle is obscured.
And it is true, isn't it, that the one, simple, essential truth, the key to the true life, is so often obscured in a great tangle of pseudo-wisdom and verbosity. But Lao Tzu says:
Yet I who through the labyrinth can find my way,
Will not by erring lights be led astray.
I hold the thread that leads me to the core;
Peacefully I watch where others uselessly make war.
On the world's stage I play no part at all,
To the vain, therefore, do I seem insignificant and small.
And while they strive to gain some part in multiplicity,
Mine is the All; 0 true felicity!
You see, that is the most important thing — to gain the All. This may sound rather strange to western ears, but it means the same as the Christian idea of `sanctification', a term expressing the magical power of a spirit made holy in Christ. The word `holy' is derived from the concept of `becoming whole'. So to gain the All means to become whole, or holy once more. The Universal Doctrine shows the pupil that his microcosm is no longer whole, but badly damaged. Under the curse of this damaged state he strives to gain something for himself from the multiplicity of things, and that is why the curse can never turn into a blessing. That is why he becomes more and more entangled in matter.
When the pupil realises the uselessness of all this activity and gives it up, when he has become convinced that higher expectations can never be realised on the basis of his ego, he will be forging for himself an impenetrable spiritual armour, and he will be able to follow the path, the way, Tao, because the I-delusion within him has been killed. Then the microcosm will be restored to its original condition and the entity concerned will participate in the All.
So we can see how the message of the present-day Rosycross is and has been the message of all times since the Fall; and it is the message of Lao Tzu, proclaimed more than 2500 years ago. This message will go on resounding until the seeker sees clearly the road before him and says to the universal sages:
I wish to live according to your great and wise example,
To know that I am linked with the divine plan of creation.
One last point: the seeker will only see the path, he will only see Tao when he discovers that `he is suffering in the ego', as Lao Tzu puts it; when he discovers that nothing and no one can heal him of this pain, that no one can put out this fire, until he himself says farewell to his I-being. Then, `the great lamp of the All-consciousness' will begin to burn for the pilgrim, and he will be imbued with this divine radiance which, as a consolamentum, will raise him up out of the night of his suffering.
Extract from Introduction - The Sublime Wisdom of Lao Tzu
The Chinese Gnosis - A Commentary on the Tao Te Ching
J van Rijckenborgh and Catharose de Petri