From ancient times, the Esoteric Knowledge has been concealed in the form of Symbols so that those who are not prepared for it would not accidentally discover it.

The great Master Jesus said “Seek and you shall find; Knock and it shall be opened unto you” [Mat. 7:7] and this gives us another explanation for the necessity of the Mysteries.

The Mysteries are needed because if this Knowledge is received without effort or without struggle, then people do not value it as much. When we fight for something, when we struggle for a long time to achieve a goal, then we appreciate it much more. If we are given something for free, without wanting it or trying to find it, without any care for its value, then we may easily forget it or we may even reject it.

In the book The Reconciliation of Science and Religion, Eliphas Levi says:

“God is he who triumphs over evil through the test of his children, and he who permits pain, because he possesses the eternal remedy in himself…”

Why do we suffer? Because we do not seek the true resolution to our pain. If we honestly sought the root causes of our unhappiness, and we really longed for it, letting nothing get in the way: then we would find something and that would lead us to something else and, if we kept searching without giving up, then eventually we would end our suffering.

[Read about the Buddhist explanation for the cause of suffering]

To stop suffering requires internal adjustments. It requires personal changes. This is why all the Masters of all Authentic Religions have always brought the message of the need for Radical Change or Transformation. Later, the Religious Form may take the symbol of “needing to change (to annihilate or kill the causes of our pain and suffering)” and interpret it as only a need for external change, to eliminate someone or something on the outside. This is how Religious Forms degenerate into empty shells of the Authentic Teachings. The symbols survive, but their meaning is lost…

So the Eternal Values of the Authentic Teachings reemerge in a new Religious Form and the Mysteries Schools continue their work. Those who really want to know the Esoteric Knowledge, must search for it on their own and, sometimes, for a long time. The application of the Esoteric Knowledge changes us into different beings.

Right now, we are not human beings in the true sense of the term: we are more like intellectual animals. We allow our Personal Desires, our Unconscious Impulses and our Animal Passions to supersede our Ethics and what we know is right. And we use our God-given abilities for selfish purposes and not for the benefit of others. To become different beings we must develop and transform ourselves through the application of ‘Eternal Values’ (which are the principles found in Esoteric Knowledge), the Science of the Ancients.

But this path is not for everyone, because it requires a willingness to make the sacrifices necessary to acquire the knowledge as well as the efforts necessary in order to apply it. Peter Ouspensky gives us his explanation of this in Lecture 1 of his Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution, where he says:

“…Why cannot all people develop and become different beings? The answer is very simple. Because they do not want it. Because they do not know about it and will not understand without a long preparation what it means, even if they are told. The chief idea is that in order to become a different being man must want it very much and for a very long time. A passing desire or a vague desire based on dissatisfaction with external conditions will not create a sufficient impulse.

The evolution of man depends on his understanding of what he may get and what he must give for it. If man does not want it, or if he does not want it strongly enough, and does not make necessary efforts, he will never develop. So there is no injustice in this. Why should man have what he does not want? If man were forced to become a different being when he is satisfied with what he is, then this would be injustice…”

Ouspensky is saying that it is an injustice for a person to develop who does not want to do so, or (in other words) for God to force us to do something for Him that we do not want to do for ourselves. So we must want this change, we must want to develop and we must search for the way to do this until we find it. And then the work of applying it begins!

– = Read the FIRST PART =-