The seven principles of man / By Annie Besant.

  • Annie Besant
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The seven principles of man / By Annie Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/96 page 57
    candidate is allowed, at the moment of the initia- tion, to behold his future self. Thus we read in the Persian Desatir of the ‘Resplendent One’; in the Greek philosopher-initiates of the Augoeides—the self-shining ‘blessed vision resident in the pure light’; in Porphyry, that Plotinus was united to his ‘god’ six times during his life-time, and so on” (/sis Unveiled, Vol. I1., pp. 114, 115). This trinity made into unity, again, is the ‘‘Christ”’ of all mystics. When, in the final initiation, the can- didate has been outstretched on the floor or altarstone and has thus typified the crucifixion of the flesh, or lower nature, and when from this ‘“‘death” he has “risen again” as the triumphant conqueror over sin and death, he then, in the supreme moment, sees before him the glorious presence and becomes “‘one with Christ,” is himself the Christ. henceforth he may live in the body, but it has become his obedient instrument; he is united with ,his true Self, the Higher Hgo made one with Atma-Buddhi, and through the personality he inhabits he wields his full powers as an immortal spiritual intelligence. While he was still struggling in the toils of the lower nature, Christ, the Spiritual Ego, was daily crucified in him; but in the full Adept Christ has arisen triumphant, lord of himself and of Nature. The long pilgrimage of the Higher Manas is over, the cycle of necessity is trodden, the wheel of rebirth ceases to turn, the Son of Man has been made perfect by suffering. So long as this point has not been reached, “‘the Christ” is the object of aspiration. The Ray is ever struggling to return to its source, the Lower Manas ever aspiring to rebecome one with the Higher.
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