Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00311)

"The spirit of man," answered Heliodorus, "having once awakened to 
its divine self consciousness, is divine, and God never sleeps; only 
the animal sleeps and becomes unconscious of the presence of the 
divine spirit." 
"But why," asked Pancho, "do men not know and realize that there is 
the spirit of God residing within themselves?" 
"Because," replied Heliodorus, "they are not following the will of 
God; but their own will, which is an obstacle to the light of the 
true understanding. The gods in whom mankind believe exist only in 
the realm of their imagination; their will worships the devil of 
Self." 
"One of old, representing personified eternal truth, is reported to 
have said, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows me, will find 
eternal life.' He does not say, 'Go to the Mysterious Brotherhood and 
learn what kind of a description they give about the light;' 
but 'follow the Light itself, and seeing the Light, you will see the 
Truth; for the Light itself is the Truth.' These words the truth 
still speaks in every human heart, and to every one who will listen; 
for the truth has not died, although its light is not seen by every 
one." 
"I see," said Pancho; "this light comes to every one according to his 
own moral merits." 
"Woe to the man," exclaimed Heliodorus, "who would obtain only that 
which he merits! Show me the man who has deserved to live, or who has 
caused the sun to shine upon him by his own merits. Man being nothing 
can do nothing to merit anything. All that is in his nature is a gift 
of nature; all his spiritual possessions are a gift of the grace and 
mercy of God." 
Wonderful were the things which he saw at the laboratory of his 
friend, and which we cannot describe; neither would we expect to be 
believed if we were to describe them. The alchemical experiments 
performed by Heliodorus had nothing in common with chemistry, for 
while the latter merely decomposes and recomposes the external forms 
in which the principle of matter is manifesting itself. Alchemy deals 
with that principles itself, causing it to produce corporeal forms 
out of the ..able Chaos, and using for that purpose the magic fire of 
the spirit, the powerful Fohat of which physical science does not 
know. 
Pancho remained at the house of his friend. He studied the Bible and 
the works of Theophrastus Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme - not merely by 
means of his rational intellect, but by entering into the spirit in 
which these books were written; and the deeper he entered into that 
spirit, the more did his mind become clear of metaphysical phantasma; 
and the cobwebs which the African sun could not remove from Pancho's 
brain, became removed by the light that began to dawn at the very 
centre of his own soul. 
Formerly Pancho had worshipped at the shrine of the speculating 
intellect, seeking to acquire wisdom by his own power. He had always 
been proud of accepting nothing on faith, and rejecting everything 
that he could not grasp with his intellect; forgetting that no one 
can examine a thing unless he believes that it exists. Now he saw 
that eternal truth is far too high and exalted to be conceived by the 
carnal mind; and that the true Faith, spiritual perception, is the 
corner-stone which the builders reject; but which after all is the 
corner-stone without which their temple of knowledge will fall to 
pieces before it is ready to receive the roof. 
Now he began to sacrifice his own wisdom upon the altar of the divine 
spirit, making the intellect his servant instead of obeying him as 
his master, and as he continued to do so the long desired light of 
the inner world at last broke suddenly through the clouds, and he 
found himself in a realm of joy, of which words can give no 
description. Then it was that, in consequence of his interior 
unfolding, the secrets of Alchemy became revealed to him - not 
because he was curious to know them, but because they were necessary 
concomitants of the higher state of existence into which he had 
entered. 
While at this stage Pancho discovered himself the truth of what 
Heliodorus had told him, namely, that the attainment of divine wisdom 
does not depend on man's willing and running, but that it comes to 
man by its own grace, if he is ready to receive it; for the wisdom of 
God would not be divine, and could not be wisdom if it were not free, 
or if it were subject to the laws of nature or the whims and desires 
of man. Being the Law itself, it cannot be subject to laws; it is 
merely its manifestations that can be obstructed by disobedience to 
the law. 
As this truth became clear to Pancho's mind, there came over him a 
realization of his own nothingness, and he was now fully convinced o 
the uselessness of all his struggles and the impossibility to 
accomplish by his own power, without the aid of that eternal, 
omnipresent, self-existent, and independent power, which is itself 
the light and the truth; which is neither a product of nature nor of 
the mind; but which uses nature and the mind as instruments to reveal 
itself to the spirit of man. 
Where was now the value of all his learning and erudition concerning 
the secrets of God? All his previously-acquired knowledge and 
philosophy now appeared to him useless and foolish. Oh, how little 
did the great Pancho suddenly become as the self-conceit of his 
imaginary wisdom departed and a sense of deep humiliation, amounting 
to annihilation, took possession of his mind! Oh, how did the 
vainglory of all worldly wisdom sink suddenly into nothingness when 
he began to perceive that which he had formerly speculated about, 
when he saw that man is nothing and God is All, and that even the 
wisest of men can have not other wisdom than the wisdom of God 
revealed in and through them! 
He now know that it is impossible for man by merely intellectual 
efforts to bore a hole through the curtain that veils the sanctuary 
of Isis, so that he may peep through it and gratify his curiosity; 
but that he must first go through the slow process of attaining 
spirituality before the mysteries of the spirit can be revealed to 
him by the spirit itself. 
It would require the writing of another volume if we were to attempt 
to report all the important subjects that were discussed by 
Heliodorus and Pancho, or to follow the processes of the unfoldment 
of the inner life of the latter. It may be sufficient to state that 
as Pancho's self-will and imagination became, as it were, nailed upon 
a cross and entirely helpless and inactive, and subject to the 
universal law of the spirit the thing called "Pancho" died. Not that 
his form decayed or was buried in the grave, but the animal 
elementals, together with all the scribes and pharisees, doctors, 
philosophers, scientists and theologians, semi-intellectual and 
intellectual beings that formerly had held high carnival in his soul 
and prevented him from obtaining the true knowledge of the spirit 
died and vanished, and the spirit of light and truth and joy entered 
into a glorious resurrection in him. As he entered this new life, he 
entered into a new phase of existence, and each day some new blossom 
on the tree of knowledge opened before his eyes, disclosing still 
more wonders of nature, each more beautiful than the rest. He now 
wondered how he could have been blind so long, wandering about in a 
fool's paradise of dreams and speculation, and keeping his eyes 
closed to the light of the truth; how he had run after treasures that 
did not exist, and refused to recognize the greatest treasure of all 
that was already in his possession. 
Then it was that Pancho fully realized that men have not life of 
their own, and he saw how far more important it is that they should 
come to life by the power of the truth than to speculate about what 
would become after death of those that had never lived; for he knew 
that no man truly lives if the truth is not alive in him, and that 
even man's consciousness was merely imaginary, as it is not he 
himself who is conscious, but nature that has become conscious in 
him; while his true consciousness belongs to quite another plane of 
existence, as is expressed by the words of the Bible, which says: "We 
live, but our consciousness is in heaven." 
This great discovery was accompanied by another, namely, that of the 
nature of divine love, such as can only be acquired by obedience to 
the law. He now saw that love, like any other spiritual principle, is 
an eternal, self-existent power, manifesting itself in nature and 
man, but being independent of either. He saw that true love asks for 
nothing and has no selfish desire; never wishing to take, but always 
giving itself without growing less by the giving. He now knew for 
certain that without the recognition of this universal principle 
divine wisdom could not be attained, and that there was no salvation 
for man except through woman, that is to say, through the divine 
marriage of the soul with that pure and spiritual element, which 
exalts and raises man out of the dark realm of matter and sensuality -
the Celestial Virgin, whose beauty and grace is nowhere more 
manifest than in terrestrial woman, the glory and crown of creation. 
But the third mystery that was revealed to Pancho when he began to 
realise the existence of his own divine self seemed to him the 
greatest of all. He found that this "self" was as unlimited as space, 
and that its consciousness pervaded the world; capable of creating 
images of its own in the souls of his friends; and in these images it 
could live, and love, and think - just as it had been represented to 
him in his vision when he entered the house of Heliodorus. Thus he 
saw men and women living unconsciously and even consciously within 
each other, feeling and thinking and acting one in the form of the 
other, while nevertheless each one remained one individual whole. He 
then not merely believed, but knew that God in Humanity is only one, 
although humanity is divided by its external expression in 
terrestrial forms. When this fact of the unity of all mankind became 
clear to him, he understood the secret of the Mysterious Brotherhood 
without any further explanation. 
One evening - it was Christmas time, and the nights were getting 
cold - Pancho went to a theatre to see one of Shakespeare's plays. It 
was late at night when he returned, and on his way home he was 
thinking of how necessary it is to employ fiction for the purpose of 
representing the truth; but that there were many who could only see 
the fiction and never perceived the truth. 
While walking towards his residence, he noticed a crowd of people 
that had collected in one of the alleys. Thinking that an accident 
had happened he stopped, and as there was a policeman just emerging 
from the crowd, he asked him what was the matter. 
"Nothing of any importance," said the officer; "only what happens 
every day. A drunken prostitute killed herself by jumping out of a 
window. I am going to fetch a cart to take her away." 
So saying the policeman went away and Pancho approached the crowd. 
Indeed, lying insensible in the gutter, there was the body of a young 
woman dressed in rose coloured silk, her arms and shoulders bare. Her 
face was covered with blood, and from her clothes there arose an 
odour of brandy. The crowd stood staring at her, none of them 
rendering any aid. Some indulged in jokes. 
"Served her right," said one wretch; "these girls never know when to 
stop drinking." 
Pancho elbowed his way through the crowd, and kneeling down by the 
side of the girl, he examined her by the light of a street-lantern in 
the distance. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood from 
her face; he turned her head towards the light and recognized 
Conchita. 
Thereupon Pancho said - nothing. He merely took off his overcoat and 
wrapped it around the half-nude form of the woman. He wiped the 
clotted blood from her hair and examined her pulse, which he found 
still beating. There was still hope for her life, if life under such 
circumstances could be desirable. 
A carriage arrived. He lifted her in, and holding her in his arms he 
drove to the hospital, where he engaged a room, and as she still 
continued unconscious, he left her in charge of the attendants and 
went away. 
As he went on his way through the now silent streets to the house of 
his friend, he thought of all the misfortunes which his desire to 
gratify his curiosity had brought upon him and Conchita. However, he 
did not waste his time with vain regrets by dwelling within the ruins 
of the past, but remaining within the present, he looked towards the 
future. 
He knew that the beautiful form whose life was now ruined was only 
one of the images produced by the power of the eternal Light upon the 
screen of nature, and that the Power which had produced Conchita, and 
which was her real life, was not lost, but would manifest itself 
again in due time either upon this or another earth. He knew that the 
soul lives and passes from life to life in its external 
manifestations, as the butterfly passes from flower to flower, 
gathering honey from all and leaving the useless parts to their own 
fate. He knew that there is no evil which does not afford an 
experience which is good; and the greater the evil, the greater the 
lesson that it will teach. Thus the infinite love of God turns 
everything to the best end. 
Before his mental vision appeared the history of the world. It was a 
confused medley of blossoms, and flowers, and golden fruits, 
corruption and putrefaction; blue laughing eyes becoming glazed in 
death; sweet strains of music and joyful songs mixing with the roar 
of battle guns and cries of despair. Out of this flood arose a face 
pale from suffering but dignified and determined - the figure of 
terrestrial Man. He had been leading a blissful life, devoid of 
thought and free from sorrow, within the womb of universal Nature, 
his mother, but the snake of desire had entered his dwelling and 
taught him to think and reflect. Then came the longing of love and 
the pain of hate; the grief of separation and the prangs of a broken 
heart. Now a crown of thorns rested upon his brow, and his body was 
covered with self inflicted wounds; but within him shone the eternal 
light of love and truth like a clear and transparent fountain, and 
divine love at last became victorious over the desire, and the light 
conquered the darkness. Then became the Son of Man transfigured and 
glorified in the Son of God, the CHRIST, and Redeemer of mankind and 
entered into a state of bliss, above and beyond all thought, a realm 
of pure knowledge, adoration, and joy. 
Everybody at Vienna knows the excellent hospital of Professor A - 
There the rich and the poor are taken in care in case of need and 
treated according to the best methods known to the art of surgery. 
Isolated stands the house in a park, where the air is purified by an 
abundance of trees. Broad galleries are attached at the house the 
patients' rooms. they may easily be moved from the to the open air 
without disturbing the a place where the cross is surrounded by roses 
where suffering is rendered endurable by such means as offer 
There for some days in an unconscious . The examination showed a 
fracture of the 
Accompanied with a severe . When her consciousness returned, she 
began to talk . She was in a state of high fever, and during her 
delirium she spoke incoherently in Spanish, a language of which the 
nurse understood very little, hardly enough to make out that she was 
talking about a woman called Juana, and whom she described as having 
been hanged to the limb of a tree. 
During all this time Pancho made frequent visits to the hospital. He 
engaged a room in the neighbourhood, so as to be immediately informed 
if any change were to occur. At last he received a message, saying 
that Conchita's reason had returned, and that she knew of his 
presence. It was added that she wished to see him immediately. 
He went to the hospital, where he was met by the physician. 
"The return of the normal consciousness," said the physician, "is 
often observed in such cases just before the approach of death. It 
seems like the flickering of a flame that makes one more effort to 
burn before it is extinguished for ever." 
The senses of the dying are often very acute. It seems that their 
sphere of perception and consciousness expands as the prison-house of 
flesh opens its door to let out the emancipated soul. Such must have 
been the case with Conchita; for although the conversation between 
Pancho and the physician was carried with a low voice, and at from 
the room, which would have the patient, nevertheless they suddenly 
heard her call in a faint voice, "O Pancho! My Pancho, come 
Pancho knew that voice well. He had heard the same call from the when 
he left San Francisco, and had head it plainly in a dream. He opened 
the door and entered and found his wife upon a 
with joy, and holding one of the which he had left for her on the 
previous day. 
"Oh, my husband!" she exclaimed, forth her hand, "I know that you 
would come at Oh, how happy I am to see you!" 
"Are you suffering, child!" asked Pancho. 
"How can you speak about suffering when I am with you!" answered the 
dying woman "I have suffered much; but now I am very happy. I never 
was so glad before! So glad!" she repeated. "Oh that this moment of 
joy would last for ever! I know it will last! I have waited for it so 
long!" 
Then she drew Pancho towards her, and, regardless of her broken 
collarbone, with one last effort she put her arm around his neck, 
just as in times of old when they had lived so happy together and 
before Pancho had met. Mr Pufler, the Her voice grew still faint, and 
seh whispered to him, 
"Now, my beloved one, we must part no more; we shall be separated no 
longer. Do you know, dearest one, that I can now realize what is 
Love! It is God Himself. It is divine, infinite, and eternal. It is 
not dark in heaven as we supposed it was, for I am floating in an 
ocean of living light, su isingly beautiful and beyond human 
conception! Our true love was not made for this world, which is far 
too little to hold it. It was made for eternity. It is far too great, 
too unbounded to be contained within a mortal form!" 
Then after a pause, during which she looked deep into Pancho's eyes, 
she continued - 
"I have been sick, very sick; but now I am well. Kiss me once more, 
and let us be united for ever!" 
Pancho kissed her upon the lips, and as he did so the arms that were 
fastened around his neck loosened their hold and dropped back upon 
the pillow. He arose and looked at her face. A blissful smile rested 
upon her countenance, like the last rays of the departing sun. He 
knew that he had kissed a corpse. 
"She is dead!" said the nurse; "let us pray!" 
"She lives!" answered Pancho; "let us rejoice! If there is anything 
permanent and immortal, it is surely divine self-conscious love, 
manifested in a pure woman's heart!" 
What would be the use of continuing this story? What does it matter 
what became of Pancho? He has served us as a dummy, to hang upon him 
the events of our story. Now we shall need him no longer. There is 
nothing immortal but God. 
But for the gratification of the curious, who wish to know still 
more, we will say that the body of Conchita was buried, while her 
spirit went to the Kingdom of joy, and soon after her death, Pancho 
received a letter from Mr. Malaban, which contained the following: 
"There is nothing higher than truth! - Everyone is well except Madame 
Corneille. The Hierophant has returned after a successful hunt for 
the subterranean hole, through which he went and visited Kakodumbola, 
the city of the Adepts. After him went Mr. Green, who has now been 
initiated by Krashibashi and become an Adept. Mrs. Honeycomb has run 
away with a black magician. I hope that your are still loyal to Urur 
and faithful to Captain Bumpkins. Many strange things have happened 
here recently. What will interest you most is, that the Talking Image 
was found one day in its old place in the shrine; but where it has 
been so long, and how it happended to return - this we are not 
permitted to tell." 
Next I will type type the final chapter of the book, afther I 
received some feed back to this one first.

Brigitte