Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold by Mabel Collins

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The present edition of LIGHT ON THE PATH
is a verbatim reprint of the 1888 edition
(George Redway, London) in which later edition
the NOTES by the Author first appear. The
COMMENTS, which are not in the 1888 edition,
are here taken directly from _Lucifer_, Volume I,
1887-8, where they were first published.

Also in this volume we reprint verbatim the
original edition (1887) of THROUGH THE
GATES OF GOLD by the same Author, together
with a commentary by William Q. Judge taken
from his magazine, _The Path_, March, 1887.

*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.

_with Notes by the Author_

*LIGHT ON THE PATH*

LIGHT ON THE PATH

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.

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 unto 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 out all sense of separateness.

6. Kill out desire for sensation.

7. Kill out the hunger for growth.

8. Yet stand alone and isolated, because
nothing that is imbodied, 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 you 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 it
for ever 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.

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 labor, 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, recognises
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.

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 country 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.

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 who
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 recognised it, and heard the voice of the
silence, go thou to the Hall of Learning and
read what is written there for thee.

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 meet 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 wilt 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.

6. Store in your 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 endeavor 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 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.

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 live 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.

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 have 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

_Note on Rule 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
aspect 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.

_Note on Rule 5_.--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
recognises 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.

_Note on Rule 17._--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 17th of the 2nd 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.

_Note on Rule 20_.--Seek it by testing all
experience, and remember that when I say this
I do not say, Yield to the seductions of sense
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.

_Note on Rule 21._--The opening of the
bloom is the glorious moment when perception
awakes: with it comes 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 asks 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 past do I
say those that ask shall have.

To read, in the occult sense, 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 recognise 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 though 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 even some amongst 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.

PART II

_Note on Sect. II_--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 recognise
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.

_Note on Rule 5_.--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 recognise it around you.

_Note on Rule 10._--From an absolutely impersonal
point of view, otherwise your sight is
colored. 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 take 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.

_Note on Rule 13._--It is impossible to help
others till you have obtained some certainty
of your own. When you have learned the first
21 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 13th rule I can add no words to
what is already written.

My peace I give unto you. [Greek: D]

These notes 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.

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