2. The period of pledged discipleship, or the path proper, whose four stages are often spoken of in Oriental books as the four paths of holi ness. At the end of this the pupil obtains adept ship — the level which humanity should reach at the close of the seventh round.
3. What may be called the official period, in which the adept takes a definite part (under the great Cosmic Law) in the government of the world, and holds special office connected therewith, but none of the details of this period can be made known.
The probationary path has five stages but the division between its stages are less de cidedly marked than those of the higher groups, and perfection is not required in anything dur ing thisperiod, only a serious effort toward it. In the first stage the candidate foi adeptship acquires a firm intellectual conviction of the im permanence of mere earthly aims; in the second a perfect indifference to the fruits of his own action; in the third (a) perfect control of mind, (b) of conduct, (c) a generous tolerance, (d) endurance, (e) one-pointedness, (f) confidence in his Master and himself ; in the fourth an in tense desire for union with the highest; and in the fifth he gathers up and strengthens his previous acquisitions for the next great step, which will set his feet upon the path proper as an accepted pupil. During his life on the pro bationary path the pupil will have received much teaching from his Master, usually imparted during the sleep of his physical body, while he himself is clad in his astral body in full con sciousness on the astral plane. He will also have been taught while thus functioning in the astral world to bring help, instruction and com fort to the inhabitants of that world, who hav ing laid aside their physical bodies at the gateway of death have passed beyond the phys ical plane. This phase of occult work is some times called that of the Invisible Helpers and is performed, be it understood, by men still having physical bodies and who have developed this power of functioning consciously outside the same on inner planes. The pupil will fur ther have been trained in mediation, and this effective practice both in waking consciousness and outside the physical body during its sleep will have quickened and brought into active exercise many of the higher powers.
When the pupil has developed the fifth qualification of the probationary path he is ready for initiation upon the part proper, hence forth to serve his Master, whom he now meets face to face, in helping forward the evolution of the race, his life, °to be offered up on the altar of humanity, a glad sacrifice of all he is, to be used for the common good.° This path
consists of four distinct stages and the entrance to each is guarded by an initiation. Ere the second initiation can be passed the pupil must lose the sense that the separated, personal self is a reality, and must feel himself one with all; he must destroy doubt and superstition by knowledge; ere he passes the third he must bring into full working order the inner facul ties, those belonging to the subtler bodies; now he needs to incarnate but once again; ere the fourth is passed he rids himself of desire and aversion and sees the One Self in all. At this stage he needs to return no more. The fourth initiation admits him to the last stage of the path where he throws off all clinging to life in form and all longing for even formless life. Then he casts off the °I-malcing° faculty — pride, irritability and ignorance, and henceforth dwells on the plane of unity. The man is then perfect, is free, the liberated one. He has won Nirvana. °He has completed man's ascent, he touches the limit of humanity; above him there stretches hosts of Mighty Beings, but they are superhuman; the crucifixion in flesh is over, the hour of liberation has struck and the triumphant 'It is Finished' rings from the conqueror's lips, . . . he has vanished into light nirvanic. But being now Master of Compassion as well as Master of Wisdom, he returns from that light to earth, henceforth to devote himself to the service of humanity with mightier forces at his command than he wielded while he trod the path of discipleship, bending all his sublime powers to the quickening of the evolution of the world. Such an one was the Buddha — such the Christ and such the few Great Souls who tread the earth to-day, secluded from its ex ternal strife, yet pouring down upon mankind from the great heights of their sublime advance ment inestimable blessings, guiding by means of their divine powers whole races and nations, but unknown to all but the few earnest souls who come to them through the ancient gateway of Occultism, the portal of which has through out all time stood ajar for the resolute pilgrim.° Before the cycle of time shall close and all manifestation cease, the greater portion of man kind will have reached this high stage of growth. And then shall all be gathered unto Him for the great Cosmic rest only after aeons and ions of time, to emerge again with Him, to be the Architects and Builders of future universes. Such are a few of the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, given forth at this time as Theosophy and Occultism.