The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

EASTERN MYSTERIES. 51
111 the initiations in India a lecture was delivered to
the candidate, founded on the following principles. The
first element and cause of all things was water, which
existed amidst primordial darkness. Brahm was the
creator of this globe, and by his spirit invigorates the
seventy-four powers of nature ; but the universe is without
beginning, and without end. 37 He is the being who
was, and is, and is to come ; and his emblem was a perfect
sphere, having neither commencement nor termina-
tion. 38 Endowed with the attributes of omnipotence,
omnipresence, and omniscience.39 And in the Asiatic
Researches 40 we find him designated, "the great God,
the great omnipotent and omniscient ONE ; the greatest
in the world; the Lord," &c., &c., &c.
This divine Being created the waters with a thought,
and placed in them a seed, which soon became an egg,
41
brilliant as the meridian sun. Out of this egg Brahma
with the glory of that man, who passes from his house into the fourth
order, giving exemption from fear to all animated beings, and pronouncing
the mystic words of the Veda." (Sir W. Jones. Works,
vol. iii., p. 230.)
37
Bhagvat Geeta, p. 116.
38 Holwell. Hist. Event. Capt. Seely (Wonders of Elora, p. 73)
says, "there is no idol in front of the great altar in the Templo of
Ekverah, or at Elora ; the umbrella covering rises from a wooden
pedestal out of the convexity of the altar. A Brahmin whom I questioned
on the subject of the altar, exclaimed, in nearly the words of
our own poet, Him first, Him last, Him midst, Him without end.
In alluding to the Almighty, he nearly spoke as above described,
placing his hand on this circular solid mass. He rejected all idea of
assimilating Buddha or Brahma with the Eternal God, who, he said,
was One alone from beginning to end ; and that the circular altar was
his emblem."
39 This Being was identified with LIGHT, for the Brahmins say,
"because the Being who shines with seven rays, assuming the forms
of time and fire, matures productions, is resplendent, illuminates,
and finally destroys the universe, therefore, he who naturally shines
with seven rays is called Light, or the effulgent power." (Cole-
brooke. Asiat. Res., vol. v., p. 350.) Thus Brahm is Light; and
light is the principle of life in every created "
thing. Light and
he who walketh in
darkness are esteemed the world's eternal ways ;
the former path returneth not; i. e., he goeth immediately to bliss;
whilst he who walketh in the latter cometh back again upon tho
earth," or is subjected to further tedious transmigrations. (Bhagvat
Geeta, p. 76.)
10 Vol. viii., p. 325.
41 The egg which contains the rudiments of life, and was hence
esteemed no unimportant symbol of the resurrection, was no other