Gleanings of a Mystic
by Max Heindel (Part 3)
(Online Edition)
VII. The Unpardonable
Sin and Lost Souls
Some of our students have been exercised about the unpardonable sin, and as
this subject has a certain connection with the subject of marriage, one being
a sacrilege and the other a sacrament, it might be well to elucidate the
matter from a different point of view than has been formerly taken in our
literature.
First let us see what is meant by a sacrament, and why the rites of
baptism, communion, marriage, and extreme unction are properly so called; then
we shall be in a position to understand what sacrilege is and why it is
unpardonable.
The Rosicrucians teach, only with more detail, the same doctrine that
Paul preached in the 15th Chapter of 1st Corinthians, starting at the
thirty-fifth verse, that in addition to the body of flesh and blood we have a
soul body, soma psuchicon (mistranslated "natural" body) and a
spiritual body; that each of these bodies is grown from a different
seed atom and that there are three stages of unfoldment for
Adam, or man. The first Adam was taken from the ground and was without
sentient life. Soul was added to the second Adam; thus he had life
within, a leaven laboring to elevate the clod to God. When the potential of
the soul extracted from the physical body has been raised to the spiritual,
the last Adam will become a life giving spirit, capable of
transmitting the life impulse to others directly as flame from one candle can
be communicated to many without diminishing the magnitude of the original
light.
In the meantime the germ for our early body had to be properly placed in
fruitful soil to grow a suitable vehicle, and generative organs were
provided from the beginning to accomplish this purpose. It is stated in
Genesis 1:27 that Elohim created them male and female. The
Hebrew words are "sacre va n'cabah." These are names of the sex
organs. Literally translated, sacr means "bearer of the germ."
Thus marriage is a sacr-ament, for it opens the way for transmission
of a physical seed atom from the father to the mother, and tends to preserve
the race against the ravages of death. Baptism as a Sacrament
signifies the germinal urge of the soul for the higher life. Holy Communion,
in which we partake of bread (made from the seed of chaste plants),
and of wine (the cup symbolizing the passionless seed-pod), points
to the age to come, an age wherein it will be unnecessary to transmit
the seed through a father and mother , but where we may feed directly upon
cosmic life and thus conquer death. Finally, extreme unction is the
sacrament which marks the loosening of the silver cord, and the
extraction of the sacred germ, freeing it until it shall again be planted in
another n'cabah, or mother.
As the seed and ovum are the root and basis of racial development, it is
easy to see that no sin can be more serious than that which abuses the
creative function, for by that sacr-ilege we stunt future
generations and transgress against the Holy Spirit, Jehovah, who is warder of
the creative lunar forces. His angels herald births, as in the cases of
Isaac, John the Baptist, and Jesus. When he wanted to reward his most
faithful follower, he promised to make his seed as numerous as the sands on the
seashore. He also meted out a most terrible punishment to the Sodomites
who committed sacr-ilege by misdirecting the seed. He even visits
the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations,
for under his regime Law reigns supreme. Man has not yet evolved to
the point where he can respond to love. He requires from his enemies
an eye for an eye, and with the same measure that he metes, it is meted unto
him.
Though this seems very cruel to us who are each day evolving more and
more the faculties of love and mercy, we must remember that this retributive
justice relates purely to the physical body, which is under the laws of Nature
just as much as any other chemical composition in the universe. When abuses
have weakened it, it is incapable of fulfilling its mission and meeting our
demands in any respect, just as is the case with any other machinery which we
have made from materials around us. There are no miracles such as would be
required to generate a sound and healthy body from parents who have
transgressed the laws of nature by their abuses; therefore that sin cannot be
remitted and must be expiated; but when time and care have restored the
necessary strength and vigor, the body will again perform its functions in a
normal and healthy manner.
Thus we understand that under the law there is no mercy, for mercy is
dictated by love. Therefore, it was perfectly in consonance with cosmic order
when Christ, the Lord of Love, said that all things would be forgiven
to men which they did against Him, as love is the reigning feature in
His kingdom; but whatsoever was done contrary to the law of Jehovah
must meet its full retribution. We cannot be sufficiently thankful for the
wonderful religion which He gave us, particularly if we compare it with
those under which less evolved peoples are now struggling. Take the
Buddhists, for instance; grand and beautiful though their leader was, he saw
only sorrow, a constant struggle against the law of nature. He
aimed to teach his followers to transcend that condition by perfect obedience
such as that whereby we have conquered the laws of electricity and other
forces in nature. The Buddhist sees nothing but the cold and merciless law; on
the other hand, we of the Western World have before our eyes from the cradle
to the grave a beautiful picture of One who said, "Come unto me all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
But it may be asked, "What about lost souls, are they a figment
of the imagination also?" To this question may be answered, "yes", although
it needs some qualification. We shall best understand the case if we go back
into the history of mankind and view the experiences of some who have
transgressed , for they will furnish us an example of what may happen. In order
to establish the point properly we shall reiterate a few of the Rosicrucian
teachings regarding the genesis of the earth and of man upon it. Three great
stages of unfoldment have preceded the present Earth Period. The
Father is the highest Initiate of the Saturn Period, inhabiting
particularly the Spiritual Sun. The Son, the cosmic Christ, is the
highest initiate of the Sun period, inhabiting the Central Sun and guiding the
planets in their orbits by a ray from Himself, which becomes the indwelling
spirit of each planet when it has been sufficiently ripened to contain such a
great Intelligence. Jehovah, the Holy Spirit, is the highest
Initiate of the Moon Period and dwelling in the physical, visible sun. He is
regent of the various moons thrown off by the different planets for the
purpose of giving beings who have fallen behind in the march of evolution more
rigid discipline under a firmer law, to awaken them and spur them on in the
proper direction if possible.
When we look into space, we perceive that some planets have a number of
moons and others have none; but as there are laggards in any large company,
and as moons are required to aid these stragglers to retrieve their lost estate
if possible, we may be sure that these planets which have no moons now have
had them in the past. Those Great Beings of whom the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
speaks as "Lords of Venus" and "Lords of Mercury" were, in fact, stragglers
from those two planets. In the dim distant past they inhabited moons which
encircled their respective planets, and were successful in retrieving their
loss in a large measure under the discipline given them there. Later they
received the opportunity to serve the humanity of our earth, and by that
service to secure a return to the home planet whence they had been exiled.
They were lost under the law, but redeemed by love;
and thus we may infer that opportunities for service will also bring to other
beings, who may become "lost," the opportunity to retrieve the past.
Since it may puzzle the student as to what becomes of the moons upon
which such beings dwell for a time, we may say that the solar system is to be
regarded as the body of the Great Spirit whom we call God, and as any growth
caused by an abnormal process pains us when it occurs in our body, so also
such crystallizations as moons are sources of discomfort to that Great Being.
Furthermore, as our own systems endeavor to eliminate such abnormalities
as growths, so also the universe endeavors to expel moons which have served
their purpose. While the beings who have been exiled to a moon are there,
the Planetary Spirit of the primary planet by his care for these beings, hold
the moon in its orbit, and we speak of his love for them as the Law of
Attraction; but when they have returned to the parent planet, the Planetary
Spirit has no further interest in their cinder-like habitation. Then slowly
the orbit of the vacated moon widens, it commences to disintegrate, and it
is finally expelled into interstellar space. The asteroids are remnants of
moons which once encircled Venus and Mercury. There are also other seeming
moons and lunar fragments in our solar system, but the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception does not
concern itself with them as they are outside the pale of evolution.
VIII. The Immaculate
Conception
The periodical ebb and flow of the material and spiritual forces which
invest the earth are the invisible causes of the physical, moral, and mental
activities upon our globe.
According to the hermetic axiom, "As above so below," a similar activity
must take place in man, who is but a minor edition of Mother Nature.
The animals have twenty-eight pairs of spinal nerves and are now in their
Moon stage, perfectly attuned to the twenty-eight days in which the moon
passes around the zodiac. In their wild state the group spirit regulates
their mating. Therefore there is no overflow with them. Man, on the other
hand, is in a transition stage; he is too far progressed for the lunar
vibrations for he has thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves. But he is not yet
attuned to the solar month of thirty-one days, and he mates at all times of
the year; hence the periodical flow in woman, which under proper conditions is
utilized to form part of the body of a child more perfect than its parents.
Similarly, the periodical flow in mankind becomes the sinew and backbone
of racial advancement; and the periodical flow of the earth's spiritual
forces, which occurs at Christmas, results in the birth of Saviors who from
time to time give renewed impetus to the spiritual advancement of the human
race.
There are two parts to our Bible, the Old and the New Testaments. After
briefly reciting how the world came into being, the former tells the story of
the "Fall" In view of what has been written in our literature we understand
the Fall to have been occasioned by man's impulsive and ignorant use of the
sex forces at times when the interplanetary rays were inimical to conception
of the purest and best vehicles. Thus man became gradually imprisoned in a
dense body crystallized by sinful passion and consequently an imperfect
vehicle, subject to pain and death.
Then commenced the pilgrimage through matter, and for millennia we have
been living in this hard and flinty shell of body, which obscures the light of
heaven from the spirit within. The spirit is like a diamond in its rough coat,
and the celestial lapidaries, the Recording Angels, are constantly endeavoring
to remove the coating so that the spirit may shine through the vehicle which it
ensouls.
When the lapidary holds a diamond to the grindstone, the diamond emits a
screech like a cry of pain as the opaque covering is removed; but gradually by
many successive applications to the grindstone the rough diamond may become
a gem of transcendent beauty and purity. Similarly, the celestial beings in
charge of our evolution hold us closely to the grindstone of experience. Pain
and suffering result, which awaken the spirit sleeping within. The man hitherto
content with material pursuits, indulgent of sense and sex, becomes imbued
with a divine discontent which impels him to seek the higher life.
The gratification of that aspiration, however, is not usually
accomplished without a severe struggle upon the part of the lower nature. It
was while wrestling thus that Paul exclaimed with all the anguish of a
devout aspiring heart: "Oh wretched man that I am * * * * The good that I
would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do * * * * I delight
in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members
warring against the law of my mind and bringing it into captivity to the law of
sin which is in my members." (Rom. 7:19-24)
When the flower is crushed, its scent is liberated and fills the
surroundings with grateful fragrance, delighting all who are fortunate enough
to be near. Crushing blows of fate may overwhelm a man or woman who has
reached the stage of efflorescence; they will but serve to bring out the
sweetness of the nature and enhance the beauty of the soul till it shines
with an effulgence that marks the wearer as with a halo. Then he is upon
the path of Initiation. He is taught how unbridled use of sex regardless of
the stellar rays has imprisoned him in the body, how it fetters him, and how by
the proper use of that same force in harmony with the stars he may
gradually improve and etherealize his body and finally attain liberation
from concrete existence.
A shipwright cannot build a staunch oak ship from spruce lumber; "men do
not gather grapes of thorns;" like always begets like, and an incoming ego of
a passionate nature is drawn to parents of like nature, where its body is
conceived upon the impulse of the moment in a gust of passion.
The soul who has tasted the cup of sorrow incident to the abuse of the
creative force and has drunk to the dregs the bitterness thereof, will
gradually seek parents of less and less passionate natures, until at length it
attains to Initiation.
Having been taught in the process of Initiation the influence of the
stellar rays upon parturition, the next body provided will be generated by
Initiate parents without passion, under the constellation most favorable to
the work which the ego contemplates. Therefore the Gospels (which are
formulas of Initiation) commence with the account of the immaculate conception
and end with the crucifixion, both wonderful ideas to which we must some
time attain, for each of us is a Christ-in-the-making, and will sometime
pass through both the mystic birth and the mystic death adumbrated in the
Gospels. By knowledge we may hasten the day, intelligently co-operating
instead of as now often stupidly frustrating through ignorance the ends of
spiritual development.
In connection with the immaculate conception misunderstandings prevail at
every point; the perpetual virginity of the mother even after the birth to
other children; the lowly station of Joseph, the supposed foster-father,
etc. We will briefly view them in the light of facts as revealed in the
Memory of Nature:
In some parts of Europe people of the higher classes are addressed as
"wellborn," or even as "highwellborn," meaning that they are the offspring of
cultured parents in high station. Such people usually look down with scorn
upon those in modest positions. We have nothing against the expression
"wellborn;" we would that every child were well born, born to parents of
high moral standing no matter what their station in life. There is a
virginity of soul that is independent of the state of the body, a purity of
mind which will carry its possessor through the act of generation without
the taint of passion and enable the mother to carry the unborn child under
her heart in sexless love.
Previous to the time of Christ that would have been impossible. In the
earlier stages of man's career upon earth quantity was desirable and quality a
minor consideration, hence the command was given to "go forth, be fruitful,
and multiply." Besides, it was necessary that man should temporarily forget
his spiritual nature and concentrate his energies upon material
conditions. Indulgence of the sex passion furthers that object, and the desire
nature was given full sway. Polygamy flourished, and the larger the number
of their children, the more a man and a woman were honored, while barrenness
was looked upon as the greatest possible affliction.
In other directions the desire nature was being curbed by God-given laws,
and obedience to divine commands was enforced by swift punishment of the
transgressor, such as war, pestilence or famine. Rewards for dutiful
observance of the mandates of the law were not wanting either; the
"righteous" man's children, his cattle and crops were numerous; he was
victorious over his enemies and the cup of his happiness was full.
Later when the earth had been sufficiently peopled after the Atlantean
Flood, polygamy became gradually more and more obsolete, with the result
that the quality of the bodies improved, and at the time of Christ the desire
nature had become so far amenable to control in the case of the more advanced
among humanity that the act of generation could be performed without passion,
out of pure love, so that the child could be immaculately conceived.
Such were the parents of Jesus. Joseph is said to have been a carpenter,
but he was not a worker in wood. He was a "builder" in a higher sense. God is
the Grand Architect of the universe. Under Him are many builders of
varying degrees of spiritual splendor, down even to those whom we know as
Freemasons. All are engaged in building a temple without sound of hammer,
and Joseph was no exception.
It is sometimes asked why Initiates are always men. They are not; in the
lower degrees there are many women, but when an Initiate is able to choose
his sex he usually takes the positive masculine body, as the life which
brought him to Initiation has spiritualized his vital body and made it
positive under all conditions, so that he has then an instrument of the
highest efficiency.
There are times, however, when the exigencies of a case require a female
body, such as, for instance, providing a body of the highest type to receive an
ego of superlatively high degree. Then a high Initiate may take a female body
and go through the experience of maternity again, after perhaps having
eschewed it for several lives, as was the case with the beautiful character we
know as Mary of Bethlehem.
In conclusion, then, let us remember the points brought out, that we are
all Christs-in-the-making; that sometime we must cultivate characters so
spotless that we may be worthy to inhabit bodies that are immaculately
conceived; and the sooner we commence to purify our minds of passionate
thoughts, the sooner we shall attain. In the final analysis it only depends
upon the earnestness of our purpose, the strength of our wills. Conditions
are such now that we can live pure lives whether married or single, and
cold, sister-and-brother relationships are not necessary either.
Is the life of absolute purity beyond some of us yet? Be not
discouraged; Rome was not built in a day. Keep on aspiring though you fail
again and again, for the only real failure consists in ceasing to try.
So may God strengthen your aspirations to purity.
IX. The Coming Christ
We have previously seen how infant humanity in Atlantis lived in unity
under direct guidance of divine leaders, and how they were eventually
brought out of the water into a clear atmosphere where the separateness of
each individual from all others became obvious at once.
"God is Light" — the Light which became life in man. It was dim and
achromatically diffused in the misty atmosphere of early Atlantis, as colorless
as the air on a densely foggy day in the present age, hence the unity of all
beings who lived in that light. But when man rose above the waters, when he
emerged into the air where the godly manifestation, Light, was refracted in
multitudinous hues, this variously colored light was differently absorbed by
each. Thus diversity was inaugurated, when mankind went through the mighty
arch of the rainbow with its variegated and beautiful colors. That bow may
therefore be considered an entrance gate to "the promised land," the world
as now constituted. Here the light of God is no longer an insipid single
tint as in early Atlantis. The present dazzling play of color tells us
that the watchword of the present age is segregation, and therefore
so long as we remain in the present condition under the law of alternating
cycles, where summer and winter, ebb and flow, succeed each other in unbroken
sequence, so long as God's bow stands in the sky, an emblem of diversity, it
is yet the day of the kingdoms of men, and the kingdom of God is held in
abeyance.
Nevertheless, as surely as the Edenic conditions upon the fire girt
islands of ancient Lemuria ended in separation into sexes, each expressing one
element of the creative fire, and making the union of man and woman as
necessary to the generation of a body as is the union of hydrogen and oxygen to
the production of water; and as surely as emergence from the watery
atmosphere of Atlantis into the airy environment of Aryana, the world
of today, promoted further segregation into separate nations and individuals,
who war and prey upon one another (because the sharply differentiated forms
which they behold blind them to the inalienable unity of each soul with all
others); just as certainly will this world condition give place to a "new
heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
In early Atlantis we lived in the deepest basins of the earth where the
mist was densest; we breathed by means of gills and would have been unable to
live in an atmosphere such as we have now. In the course of time desire to
explore beyond caused the invention of airships, which were propelled by the
expansive force of sprouting grain. The "ark" story is a perverted
remembrance of that fact. Those ships actually did founder upon mountain
tops where the atmosphere was too rare to sustain them. Today our ships
float upon the element in which the Atlantean ships were at one time
immersed. We have now contrived various means of propulsion able to carry us
over the highlands of the earth which we occupy at present, and are commencing
to reach out into the atmosphere to conquer that element as we have subjected
the waters; and as surely as our Atlantean ancestors made a highway of the
watery element which they breathed and then rose above it to live in a
new element, just as certainly shall we conquer the air and then rise
above it into the newly discovered element which we call ether.
Thus each age has its own peculiar conditions and laws; the beings who
evolve have a physiological constitution suited to the environment of that
age, but are dominated by the nature forces then prevailing until they learn to
conform to them. Then these forces become most valuable servants, as for
instance, steam and electricity, which we have partially harnessed. The law of
gravity still holds us in its powerful grip, although by mechanical means we
are trying to escape into the new element. We shall at a not distant time
attain to mastery of the air, but as the ships of the Atlanteans foundered
upon the mountains of the earth because their buoyancy was insufficient to
enable them to rise higher in the light mist of those altitudes, and because
respiration was difficult, so also will the increasing rarity of our present
atmosphere prevent us from entering the "new heaven and the new earth," which
are to be the scene of the New Dispensation.
Before we can reach that state, physiological as well as moral and
spiritual changes must take place. The Greek text of the new New Testament
does not leave us in doubt as to this, though lack of knowledge of the mystery
teachings prevented the translators from bringing it out in the English
version. Did we but believe the Bible even as we have it, we should be
spared many delusions and much uneasiness concerning the time of this.
Whole sects have disposed of their belongings in anticipation of the advent of
Christ or even as God, have married, raised families, and died, leaving their
sons, who were supposed to be Christs, to fight for the kingdom. A temporal
government was forced to banish one of these militant "Christs" to an island
of the Mediterranean, and another to an Asiatic city where he is now under
military supervision. Nor is there any sign that the future will lack similar
claimants; rather, the sacrilegious imposture is spreading.
We may rest assured that the divine leaders of evolution made no
mistake when they gave the Christian Religion to the Western World — the most
advanced teaching to the most precocious among mankind. It may therefore
be regarded as a detriment when an organization undertakes to graft an Eastern
religion (which is excellent for the people to whom it was divinely given)
upon our people. The imported Eastern breathing exercises have certainly sent
may people to insane asylums.
If we believe Christ's words: "My kingdom is not of this world,"
(kosmos, the Greek word used for "world" meaning "order of things"
rather than our planet, the earth, which is called gaea), we shall know
better than to look for Christ today.
"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." any more than the
gill-breathing creature of early Atlantean times was fit to live under the
natural conditions prevailing in the present age where "the kingdom of men"
exists. Paul, in discussing the resurrection, does not say as in the English
translation, "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." — I
Cor. 15:44. He affirms that there is a "soma psuchicon," a soul body,
and tells in the preceding verses how this is generated from a "seed" in
the same way as explained in the Rosicrucian teachings. The Bible affirms that
our bodies are corruptible. (It also teaches that one organ, the heart, is an
exception. This has reference to the seed atom in the heart. — Ps. 22:26)
Therefore our bodies must be changed before Christ can come.
When preparations were made 2000 years ago, for the embodiment of the
Savior of the world, Galilee was the Mecca for roving spirits. Thither
flocked people from Asia, Africa, Greece, Italy, and all other parts of the
world of that day. Conditions there were exceptionally congenial and
attractive so that, as declared by various scholars who have investigated the
matter, Galilee was as cosmopolitan as Rome itself. It was, in fact, the
"melting pot' of that day. Among others, Joseph and Mary, the parents of
Jesus, had emigrated from Judea to Nazareth in Galilee before the advent of
their firstborn.
In America, the Mecca of nations today, the various races of humanity are of course
represented. Here is the "melting pot" in which they are being amalgamated. It
has been ascertained that there is a difference in children belonging to the
same family. The skulls of younger children born in America are more
nearly oval than the heads of their older brothers and sisters born abroad.
From this fact and from others which need not be mentioned here, it is
evident that a new race is being born on the American continent; and reasoning
from the known fact that the Christ came from the most cosmopolitan part of the
civilized world of 2000 years ago.
But we may be sure that though impostors deceive for a time, they are
found out sooner or later, and their plans come to naught. Meanwhile,
progression continues to bring us nearer the Aquarian Age, and a Teacher
is coming to give the Christian Religion impetus in a new direction.
Reference: Gleanings of a Mystic, by Max Heindel (1865-1919)
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