7rcTIX1xP

Lesson II: More Light on the Path.255
10. Desire only that which is beyond you.
11. Desire only that which is unattainable.
12. For within you is the light of the world, the only light that can be shed upon the
Path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.
It is beyond you; because, when you reach it, you have lost yourself. It is unattainable,
because it forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame.
These four precepts form another of the many paradoxes contained in the
wonderful little manual upon which we are commenting. To those who have
not found its key, these four precepts seem strangely contradictory and “wild.”
To be told to desire a thing that is within you—and yet beyond you—and
which is unattainable, seems ridiculous to the average man on the street. But,
when one has the key, the teachings seem very plain and beautiful. The four
precepts refer to the unfoldment of Spiritual Consciousness—Illumination—
which we attempted to faintly describe in our first series of lessons (The
Fourteen Lessons). This is the first great attainment before us on the path.
It means everything to the occultist at this stage of the journey, for it takes
him from the plane of mere “belief” or intellectual acquiescence, on to the
plane where he knows that he is. It does not endow him permanently with
universal knowledge, but it gives him that consciousness of real spiritual
existence, compared to which every other experience and knowledge sinks
into nothing. It brings one face-to-face (perhaps only for a moment) with
the Real Self, and the great Reality of which that Self is but a part. This state
of consciousness is the great prize which is awaiting the efforts of the race to
free itself, and it is a reward worth many lives of unfoldment to attain.
“Desire only that which is within you”—for the Spirit is the only reality,
and it is within each of us. As the text says: “For within you is the light of
the world, the only light that can be shed upon the Path. If you are unable
to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.” Why do not
these anxious seekers after truth, take this advice and look within themselves
for that which they seek, instead of running hither and thither, after teachers,