This chapter, which we have called the Ascended Man, is in reality a picturing of Jesus Christ, and his three years of ministry, and his ascension brought into material sight and reality.

For many centuries, the Eastern schools published widely, or talked about the spiritual attainment of illumination, and the preceding step to mastery which was spiritual realization.

In order that this chapter may not be cloaked in mystery, or be thought to be an allegory, or allegorical story, we will define in simple language terms of spiritual realization, illumination, mastership, and ascension.

Let us at all times remember that nothing which we teach is contradictory to the teachings of the Master Jesus, or Buddha, or any of the great avatars which have come to earth to try and bring to man the greatness, the glory, and the infinite solar system, which the Creator has accomplished in His Creation; that His subject is Man — His means of expression, Man — His greatest satisfaction, the realization of Man, of Himself.

First, let us take the words, and define them in order of accomplishment.

Illumination

The definition of this word is extremely simple because it is a self-explanatory word, and a self-explanatory condition of the individual. After this individual has accomplished the experience of the first nine degrees of universal initiation, or has reached a point where he has given himself over to the service of God, regardless of his profession, and the service of God’s creatures, regardless in what field — church, religion, or otherwise; when he has reached a place that material things of the world are no longer possessed by him, and that they do not obsess him, then we find that he has accomplished what the Bible has mentioned as giving up the world and all things in it.

Do not be mistaken or misled that this means that you should give away your house, sell your automobile, deny your children or your wife, and put on sackcloth and go out and walk the highways teaching the impoverished Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was not an impoverished being. He wore the very best of clothing, the seamless garment, which were in reality garments woven without seams, and they were very expensive.

If you will read your Bible carefully, unprejudicedly, and the teachings of the ancients wherever you may get hold of them, you will find the great Master not stopping in a town where he was going to preach and living with a beggar, but spending the night with the artisans and middle-class or free men who were not poor.

This does not mean, though, that he had a preference for them, but Jesus did not preach or teach a poor-mouthed religion or teaching. And as I make this statement, I can hear you say to yourself, “but the Master said it was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye.” I say to you, my friend, you are absolutely right, for the eye of a needle was a small arch, an opening, through a great rock, too small and too low for the camel to walk through.

In order that the caravan might pass, it was necessary that as each camel came to that opening, their loads of merchandise and wares of their merchant owner were removed. The camel got on his knees and waddled through, so to speak. And then he was resaddled with his load, and proceeded on to Jerusalem.

This probably is one of the most profound allegories, and yet true stories, of the New Testament. For anyone who is seeking Illumination, it is necessary for him to give up his material load, forget his load of errors of the past, and to humble himself before his teacher or priest, and to pass through certain experiences which he might think not entirely fitting, before he is able again to stand on his feet, and walk in the Way, on the way to Jerusalem.

For the mystical interpretation of Jerusalem, while this is also a realistic thing of the map, is the human vehicle and its spiritual vehicles. And therefore it is necessary that he go into Jerusalem in order to gain greater wisdom, and to really find the Light.

When we use this term “Light” we mean L-I-G-H-T — light, not understanding. For it takes self-discipline and a certain amount of informative instruction in order for the initiate or the seeker of Illumination to be able to know what he is looking for.

You might say, “Yes, yes, so now what? If I gain the Light, what will it do? What will it accomplish? How does light conceivably help me in finding eternal life?”

And I say to you this — all of the great Christed men who had found Illumination and had the real Light, and there are some amongst us today, this Light can be seen in our meditation. You, without knowing it, perhaps have seen these persons who shine, almost in the dark, and in reality they do.

These people, the accomplishers of Illumination in meditation, in their prayers, get answers to their prayers and their questions. They obtain wisdom from the very inner God of their being. Not in some mystical or allegorical or abstract way. Many hear a voice, some see the words actually put in front of them, some hear distinctly, within their own being, the answer. It comes in different forms, but it is all concise, and unmistakably received and known.

These faculties are not a special thing given to just special people. They are earned faculties. They are faculties that we have, but we must acquire them through distinctive desire and the realizing that this first commandment comes first. Then we may have that desire, and we may discipline, and with the help of one who knows, gain these faculties.

These faculties are so great in man that if all books should perish, and if God should permit that all writing and learning be blasted out of existence, yet through the divine sense and abilities given by God to man, man would be able to lay a new foundation of science, and build a new tower of Truth, and perhaps even take off the veil of mystery, which has veiled the great Christian Mysteries for thousands of years.

For Truth is the personality of God —Truth is the gift of God to His most cherished possession, Man.

Man should proceed step by step by step toward the great Light, Christ within him, and without from the outside of him, but he should not be retarded or held back because he does not have money. That commodity that seems so frequently to be the yardstick of how much of the Truth we may learn.

For the soul of man is there for the purpose of directing, controlling, and perfecting the evolution of the physical body and the personality. And also for the elimination of all the traits of character which interfere with a broad and universal comprehension which helps to bring us to what is commonly termed cosmic attunement, but which I wish to call the feeling of God in your being, and knowing that it is there!

This is the acknowledgment of a superior power and personality of creation, and an adoration which we have within our very fiber. But this can only be attained by a shoving aside of the mass mind, the frustrations and confusion of the world around us, then discipline of the will and ego, that we come to really, really, know God.

The great Master Jesus referred to this humility in this way. He referred to the vainglorious indulgence in wealth which satisfies the pride and lower self. It is spoken of also in many places, but I want to put it this way.

The fiery soul, the pure, a clear gold, and tested in the fire of the Holy Spirit of God, is the husband of the noble Sophia — for she is the very tincture of Light. This is attainment of the Holy Marriage with the Holy Spirit.

For man does not lose his personality through rebirth. And this great spiritual marriage of his, when he attains illumination, with the glorious Sophia, with the inner being, and this is what we refer to as realizations which we will talk of later.

But he is reborn, and his consciousness is united with the very consciousness of God, the very center and core of this universe.

It is only in this way that this universal personality, his real personality, is immortalized and preserved for all eternity. This is what the Master Jesus meant when he said, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”

And he meant every word!

He also said, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to meet him.” And that Light cometh to us, only after the obscure night passes, and the very blackness, sometimes, of events take place in our lives. For it seems that man has to be beaten to the very dust from which he rose, with the very feeling which the Master has, when he was on the cross at Golgotha, when he said, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” This sometimes is the condition of man when he gives up the world and receives his salvation, either consciously or unconsciously.

But so much more power is brought into his being and made accessible. So much more control exists, when he goes forth consciously to attain the Christhood which the great Master promised unto us.

This is the first step in the great Solar initiation. After we have become conscious of the vehicle which God has given us, and the tools we have to use.