Chapter XXI (part 4)

This sensation of light and of unlimited joy is experienced at the moment of the expansion of consciousness (the unfoldment of the mystical lotus of the Hindu yogi), at the moment of the sensation of infinity, and it yields also the sensation of darkness and of unlimited horror. What does this mean? Now shall we reconcile the sensation of light with the sensation of darkness, the sensation of joy with that of horror? Can these exist simultaneously? Do they occur simultaneously? They do so occur, and must be exactly thus. Mystical literature gives us examples of it. The simultaneous sensations of light and darkness, joy and horror, symbolize as it were the strange duality and contradiction of human life. It may happen to a man of dual nature, who following one side of his nature has been led far into "spirit," and on the other side is deeply immersed in "matter," i.e., in illusion, in unreality—to one who believes too much in the reality of the unreal. Generally speaking the sensation of light, of life, of consciousness penetrating all, of happiness, gives a new world. But the same world to the unprepared mind will give the sensation of infinite darkness and horror. In this case the sensation of horror will arise from the loss of everything real , from the disappearance of this world. In order not to experience the horror of the new world, it is necessary to know it beforehand, either emotionally—by faith or love—or intellectually, by reason . And in order not to experience horror from the loss of the old world, it is necessary to have renounced it voluntarily either through faith or reason. One must renounce all the beautiful, bright world in which we are living; one must admit that it is ghostly, phantasmal, unreal, p. 260 deceitful, illusory, mayavic . One must reconcile oneself to this unreality, not be afraid of it, but rejoice at it. One must give up everything. One must become POOR IN SPIRIT, i.e., make oneself poor by the effort of one's spirit. This most profound philosophical truth is expressed in the beautiful evangelical symbol: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven . These words become clear in the sense of a renouncement of the material world only. "Poor in spirit" does not mean poor materially, in the worldly meaning of the word, and still less does it signify poverty of spirit . Spiritual poverty is the renouncement of matter; such "poverty" is his when a man has no earth under his feet, no sky above his head. Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head . This is the poverty of the man who is entirely alone , because father, mother, other men, even the nearest here on earth he begins to regard differently, not as he regarded them before; and renounces them because he discerns the true substances that he is striving toward; just as, renouncing the phenomenal illusions of the world, he approaches the truly real. The moment of transition—that terrible moment of the loss of the old and the unfoldment of the new —has been represented in innumerable allegories in ancient literature. To make this transition easy was the purpose of the mysteries . In India, in Egypt, in Greece, special preparatory rituals existed, sometimes merely symbolical, sometimes real, which actually brought a soul to the very portals of the new world, and opened these portals at the moment of initiation . But no outward rituals and ceremonies could take the place of self-initiation. The great work must have been going on inside the soul and mind of man. ______ But how can logic help a man to pass to the consciousness of a new and higher world? p. 261 We have seen that MATHEMATICS has already found the path into that higher order of things.