Spiritual text 7

Mysteries of the soul week 7: Handling the seven golden keys

Spiritual text: The Voice of Silence III:1-25

 

‘Padhyaya, the choice is made, I thirst for Wisdom. Now hast thou rent the veil before the secret Path and taught the greater Yâna. Thy servant here is ready for thy guidance.’

‘Tis well, Śrâvaka. Prepare thyself, for thou wilt have to travel on alone. The Teacher can but point the way. The Path is one for all, the means to reach the goal must vary with the Pilgrims. Which wilt thou choose, O thou of dauntless heart? The Samtan of “eye Doctrine,” four-fold Dhyâna, or thread thy way through Pâramitâs, six in number, noble gates of virtue leading to Bodhi and to Prajñâ, seventh step of Wisdom?

The rugged Path of four-fold Dhyâna winds on uphill. Thrice great is he who climbs the lofty top.
The Pâramitâ heights are crossed by a still steeper path. Thou has to fight thy way through portals seven, seven strongholds held by cruel crafty Powers – passions incarnate.

Be of good cheer, Disciple; bear in mind the golden rule. Once thou hast passed the gate Srotâpatti, “he who the stream hath entered”; once thy foot hath pressed the bed of the Nirvânic stream in this or any future life, thou hast but seven other births before thee,

O thou of adamantine Will. Look on. What see’st thou before thine eye, O aspirant to god-like Wisdom? “The cloak of darkness is upon the deep of matter; within its folds I struggle. Beneath my gaze it deepens, Lord; it is dispelled beneath the waving of thy hand. A shadow moveth, creeping like the stretching serpent coils. . . . It grows, swells out and disappears in darkness.”

It is the shadow of thyself outside the Path, cast on the darkness of thy sins. “Yea, Lord; I see the path; its foot in mire, its summits lost in glorious light Nirvânic. And now I see the ever narrowing Portals on the hard and thorny way to Jñâna.”

Thou seest well, Lanoo. These Portals lead the aspirant across the waters on “to the other shore”. Each Portal hath a golden key that openeth its gate; and these keys are:

1. dâna, the key of charity and love immortal.
2. shîla, the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action.
3. kshânti, patience sweet, that nought can ruffle.
4. virâg’, indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived.
5. vîrya, the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal truth, out of the mire of lies terrestrial.
6. dhyâna, whose golden gate once opened leads the Naljor toward the realm of Sat eternal and its ceaseless contemplation.
7. prajñâ, the key which makes of man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyânis.

Such to the Portals are the golden keys.

Before thou canst approach the last, O weaver of thy freedom, thou hast to master these Pâramitâs of perfection — the virtues transcendental six and ten in number — along the weary Path.

For, O Disciple! Before thou wert made fit to meet thy Teacher face to face, thy master light to light, what wert thou told? Before thou canst approach the foremost gate thou hast to learn to part thy body from thy mind, to dissipate the shadow, and to live in the eternal. For this, thou hast to live and breathe in all, as all that thou perceivest breathes in thee; to feel thyself abiding in all things, all things in self.

Thou shalt not let thy senses make a playground of thy mind. Thou shalt not separate thy being from BEING and the rest, but merge the Ocean in the drop, the drop within the Ocean.

So shalt thou be in full accord with all that lives; bear love to men as though they were thy brother-pupils, disciples of one Teacher, the sons of one sweet mother.