Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

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192 Mystic Masonry.
the lower to the higher, and the whole process we
have been considering consists symbolically, in
"placing the square within the triangle :" that is, of
so purifying the whole lower nature as to make it
at-one with the higher. The mind that functions
through the physical brain, governed by the senses
and appetites, and that first gives man self-consciousness,
now moves one plane higher.
Passion no
longer rules the man and blinds him to universal
laws and higher principles. The Higher Self in
man, called his "God," or Christos, was formerly
"crucified between two thieves ;" namely, the
Higher and Lower Manas. Hence the saying,
"when I would do good, evil is present with me."
As the body is crucified (a symbol of death and suffering),
the Christos says to one of the thieves
"This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." This
refers to the Higher Manas, now freed from the
lower nature. The other "thief," or the brain
mind, is left to perish with the physical body of
Christos on the Cross of Time.
It may thus be seen
how the battle-ground of man's lower nature with
the higher is the mind, and that self-conquest and
the higher evolution are synonymous. The process
of this evolution can be expressed in mathematics
and terms of exact science. Hence the old saying