Nirvana - An Occult Experience

Nirvana — An Occult Experience by George Arundale
CHAPTER I

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THE FIRST GLIMPSE

“Magnificent
The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious as ere I had beheld. In front
The sea lay laughing at a distance; near
The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
Green-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn,—
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And laborers going forth to till the fields.

“Ah! need I say, dear Friend, that to the brim
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit. On I walked,
In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.”

WORDSWORTH,
(The Prelude, Bk. IV)

My first remembrance is of seeing the Master K.H.¹ looking as I had never seen Him before. Radiant He is always, supremely radiant, but ...

¹ Those who have undergone occult training are aware how supremely magnificent as a Teacher is this Great Master. He is, of course, a high Official in the world's education department, and apprentices from all departments have the honor to come under His inspiring guidance. I myself have had this honor, and although I do not belong to the education department, I still have the inestimable privilege of His gracious guidance. It was a great joy to me to enter the new pathway under the benevolent watchfulnes, of this gracious Friend, to Whom I owe so much; and it was a great joy, too, to make the entry with the help of the Master's representative in the outer world, our wonderful elder brother Bishop Leadbeater. Only those who have had C.W.L. as teacher can possibly know all that a teacher can really be. The evil-minded and the ignorant traduce him, as it is their habit to traduce others of his great line; but future generations shall rise up and call him blessed, while today there are many who count it their greatest joy to stand by his side as his persecutors yelp at his heels.

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now He was more than radiant, and I cannot find a word down here to describe Him in the glory in which I perceived Him with the first flash of Nirvanic consciousness. Majestic and radiant are poor words — “blinding” perhaps expresses it better, for just for a moment I was overwhelmed. I almost wanted to veil my face from sight of Him, and yet I could not keep my eyes from Him, so unfathomably splendid did He appear — only less glorious than the King ¹ as I afterwards realised, though at the time no greater glory could I conceive.

¹ The Supreme Ruler of this world, the veritable King, within Whose consciousness all things live and move and have their being. Some there are in the world who have seen Him, but who can only gaze upon Him as He veils His glory before their feeble eyes. He is indeed the Lightning, in the Light of which Nirvana is but shadow. And as the first glimpse comes of Nirvana, there comes with it the memory of an audience of the King — the marvellous stillness, then the blinding Presence, and then the power to see.

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I summon up my courage. I feel as if He were saying to me: “Welcome to a new kingdom which you must learn to conquer.” In His power my consciousness unfolds, and I step as it were across a threshold into Nirvana. Words and phrases, however beautiful, however majestic, almost desecrate as they strive to describe conditions there. Even the faint touch of first experience of this lofty level dwarfs into insignificance all other experiences of all other planes, save only the entry into the presence of the One Initiator. I remember my first glimpse of the Buddhic plane on the occasion of admission to the ranks of the Great White Brotherhood. I recall to this day my marvelling at the vision of the Master in His Buddhic vehicle; and well do I remember in the days that followed, the wondrous sense of unity with all things, with the trees and flowers, feeling with them all, growing with them and in them, suffering and rejoicing in and with them. I remember, too, the casting off of the friend of ages — the causal body, and I remember a vivid rending contrast between the moment before and the moment after the glimpse into the new kingdom. I remember how it was as if from out the sunshine I had suddenly entered a dark ...

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tunnel with a seemingly unending vista of blackness stretching infinitely far into a limitless beyond. Was there light at the end? I could see none. Must this blackness last for ever? Well, be it as it may, I must enter this tunnel, for I can do no other, to quote the words of Luther. Darkness enfolds me, blackness permeates me. Shall I never again know light? Yet I look forward and press onward. And at last the tunnel ends, the blackness vanishes, and I step into a light more glorious by far than the light I left. I had to let go the light I knew in order that I might enter into a light more real. It seems to be ever thus. That which we are ready to let go, to lose, we find unto life eternal. In the occultist there must be a spirit of daring, of adventure, of eagerness to risk. He must be willing to let the lesser go before he has grasped the greater. And in the interspace there is a momentary loneliness which must be borne happily and joyfully, for it is in loneliness that is born the power to strive, the strength to sustain and to protect. Those who cannot endure loneliness are not yet ready to be moulded into leaders of men.

But today the Master seems to me as One Whom I have never known before, robed ...

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in the glories of a Kingdom I am entering as a little child. The new consciousness enfolds me, and in a moment my world is full of new, strange, glorious values. All is different, supremely different, though the same. A new Divinity is open to my eyes, and unfolds to my gaze a new meaning, a new purpose. It is the Buddhic unity transcended, glorified — a more marvellous unity; in some wonderful way it is merged in a state vaster and more tremendous. There is something even more true than the truth in the unity I have so far known, something more real. It seems impossible, and yet it is so.

What is the nature of that of which even Buddhic glory is but a limitation? I must use words, and words seem a terrible anti-climax. I can only say it is the Glory of a Light Transcendent, a world of Light which is the image of God’s own Eternity. Face to face do I seen! to be with an “unspotted mirror” of His Power and with an image of His Goodness. And the mirror, the image, is an endless ocean of Light, in which I once again become (though in one sense I already have been) merged by an apotheosis of at-one-ments on plane after plane below. It is another baptism, another immersion into the Waters ...

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of the Real. At every stage of growth a baptism, to be succeeded by a confirmation, to be followed some day by an ordination, a consecration to, because an identification, whether complete or not, with the Higher Self. Brotherhood in the outer world; unity in the Buddhic world; light transcendent in Nirvana. And if on the threshold I am transported by its glory, how shall it be when I begin to ascend to the summit? Description falters even before this first lifting of the veil. Thought and feeling distort and narrow infinitely. At best one can but suggest and hint. The rest is a matter of individual incommunicable experience.

This Light Transcendent is even nearer to the Real than the Buddhic Unity which hitherto had seemed the most stupendous fact in all the world. Light the beginning; Light the path; Light the future. God said: “Let there be Light,” and there was and is Light indescribable. Beautiful as is the light in the world, it is but the faint and feeble image of the Light Triumphant — the adjective somehow seems appropriate — of these regions of the Real. It is the Sun-Light of the Sun ere it descends into the forms in which we know it. It is Light purified of form. It is Light which ...

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is the Life of form. It is an ever-present “intimation of immortality,” a Future within the Now, and thus Eternal. It is an — I do not say “the” — apotheosis and essence of the light we know. All the glory of the most wonderful dawn (and one feels nothing can be more wonderful than a perfect Eastern dawn), is brought to glorious fruition and splendid perfection in that eternal noon-day which is Nirvana. The glory of the Buddhic plane is but the dawning of a Nirvanic Day.

Yet, as I write these words, I remember knowing, as I stood awe-struck upon the threshold of Nirvana, that beyond even that, to me, supreme unfoldment lay unfathomable, immeasurable splendors, to which Nirvana itself — the noon-day of the Buddhic dawning — is but as a dawn, a promise, a shadow I could sense this. I had to sense it to preserve my balance. I must hold fast to proportion even in these stupendous regions. That Unity could be transcended I knew, for was not the Light-Glory before my eyes? But there is more even than Light-Glory. Some day in the far-off future I shall know a Glory that is even mote than the Glory of Light.

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I call this Light of Nirvana the noon-day of the Buddhic dawn. But it is only noon-day because fot the time being it represents the utmost capacity of my consciousness. Some years ago the Light of Buddhi was the noon. Today it is but dawn, glorious though it be. And there will come a time when the Light of Nirvana will be but dawn because I shall know another noon. It is because I live for the moment in the Eternal that I can thus preserve my balance. I can perceive no ultimate noon-day, even though I can perceive no other noon-day than Nirvana. I look back upon glorious dawns, and upon glorious noon-days. I see before me other noon-days before which this Nitvanic noon-day itself must pale into a dawn. Is there no limit to growth? None that I can perceive. And if I talk of dawns and noon-days, are there also evenings, even-tides, glorious evenings, evenings no less wonderful than the dawns, with light as beautiful as the light of dawn, as the light of noon-time? I think there are. There are no nights, perhaps; at least no blackness. But there comes from time to time a stillness, a hush, which is the Silence of a consummation. There comes the hush, the silence, the stillness, just before a birth into a new region of Light, ...

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just before a new dawn. It is not that the noon-day light has lessened, but that a light more glorious still is beginning to shed its refulgence upon a lesser light, so that it is as if a noon-time had turned to evening by reason of contrast with the greater glory to be. And in that evening, in that hush which is the shadow of a greater glory, the neophyte gathers up reverently the powers he has gained, to use them in the conquest of the new kingdom of Light about to appear above the horizon.

God is Light, Light is God. Man is Light. All is Light. A new meaning to the ancient Egyptian exhortations: "Look for the Light!" "Follow the Light!" Perceive and learn to be at one with the Light of God in all things. I look upon the world. I see the world in terms of Light. God-Light in manifestation in man-light, in rock-light, in tree-light, in creature-light. All is light — blinding glory at the center, translated into color-light, into sound-light, into form-light, into substance-light as it descends into ever-increasing manifestation. At the circumference light as we know it in the manifested universe, light expressed in innumerable ways. At the center that glory which is beyond all form, all color, all substance. Yet the circumference is but ...

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the center externalised, so there is the blinding glory everywhere — the God-Ljght — the blazing seed of futurity in each individual thing in every kingdom.¹ The light-seed unfolds its essence, its being, and becomes a world, a universe.

In each kingdom of Nature, seven great pathways of Light, potential in each kingdom in the beginning, unfolding into glorious fruition at the close. I see the diamond, the ruby, the emerald, the sapphire — kings of the mineral kingdom — superb in the perfection of their colors. Yet at the bottom these glories exist, imprisoned, slowly being released through the evolutionary process, until they stand free and splendid as the kingdom’s jewels.

May I quote here a beautiful passage from Ruskin’s The Ethics of the Dust in which he describes the glorious pathway of evolution in the mineral kingdom, the Light in prison becoming the Light free, thence to enter into higher tabernacles to tread pathways no less glorious and virtually identical in process?

“A pure or holy state of anything is that in which all its parts are helpful or consistent. The highest and ...

¹ Compare, in this connection, that very interesting book Colour-Music: The Art of Light, by A. B. Klein. (Crosby Lockwood & Son, London.) - 10 -

first law of the universe, and the other name of life, is therefore, ‘help’. The other name of death is ‘separation’. Government and cooperation are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death.

“Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could take of the nature and power of consistence, will be that of the possible changes in the dust we tread on.

“Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse; but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay) mixed with soot, a little sand, and water: All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally each other’s nature and power: competing and fighting for place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole. Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations possible.

“Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit, with help of congealing fire, to be made into finest procelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings’ palaces. But such artificial consistence is not its best. Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only white, but clear; not only clear, but hard; not only clear and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire.

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Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand. It also becomes, first a white earth; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever. We call it then an opal.

“In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first; but, instead of being discouraged, tries harder and harder; and comes out clear at last; and the hardest thing in the world: and for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.

“Last of all, the water purifies or unites itself; contented enough if it only reach the form of a dew-drop: but, if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it crystallises into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have, by political economy of cooperation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow.

“... I have asked you to hear that, children, because, from all that we have seen in the work and play of these past days, I would have you gain at least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming trouble — the unquestionable degradation — of the elements of the physical earth, must passively wait the appointed time of their repose, or their restoration. It can only be brought about for them by the agency of external law. But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms; — if, indeed there is an eternal difference between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us — it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope; not merely ...

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by our desire, but our labor, for the time when the Dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of God. The human clay, now trampled and despised, will not be — cannot be — knit into strength and light by accidents or ordinances of unassisted fate. By human cruelty and iniquity it has been afflicted; — by human mercy and justice it must be raised: and, in all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of creation, or of revelation, you may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required — and content that He should indeed require no more of you — than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.

In every kingdom it is the same. The free time after time realizing its imprisonment because it has conquered its kingdom, and bursting its bonds afresh that a still mightier and more splendid freedom may be achieved. The flower of every kingdom an unfolded color-glory, sound-glory, substance-glory, form-glory, passing thence to win a nobler freedom. Of course, the word “imprisonment” is hardly accurate, for there is probably little, if any, sense of imprisonment until the prison-doors ate about to be opened that the soul may enter into a bondage less restricted. Fortunately for us, we generally see our prisons only as we leave them. Until then a prison is an opportunity. Let us beware of so missing our opportunities that bondage takes their ...

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place, and a veritable prison-house closes in upon us.

Another image in my consciousness is of a Light-nucleus, imprisoned lightning, charged with the spirit of Divinity, as a Sun below the horizon of the world, or of a kingdom of Nature, or of an individual member of a kingdom of Nature, as the evolutionary process in each case begins. All is darkness and silently still. Life sleeps on the bosom of the Infinite. Higher and higher ascends the nucleus of Light, radiating ever upwards and outwards. Life stirs into activity, the world awakes. The dawn is at hand. A faint light glows, the rose of Light, as tenderness softly touching the eyes of the sleeping world. From out the dawn in its tenderness comes the dawn in its iridescent vigor — a wonderful aurora of color — a veritable spectrum of Light. And then all colors bend before their Lord and Master, merging themselves in Him. The Sun has risen and passes onwards to the glory of a perfect day. The perfect Dawn is the Light which is Buddhi, but Nirvana is the Light which is the Day; not yet the Eternal Noon-tide, but a partial consummation of the dawn.

Thus my image in terms of Color-Light. But it comes to me in terms of Sound-Light.

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First, the soft note expressing the Divine essence, the key-note or basic tone of the individuality whatever it may be — the note which gives the individuality. Then the mystic chord, swelling as it were out of the single sound, the nature chord of the individuality. And so on into an equally veritable spectrum of sound, an aurora of music, a great and majestic symphony declaring in terms of music the new goal to be achieved. A hush of soundless silence in which the glorious musicof an achievement is marvellously merged, so that the very silence has become more vibrant, the Voice of the Silence has gained articulateness. In the hush, sound stirs once more to greater ends, and as time passes unfolds from archetypal note to mystic chord, from mystic chord to magic symphony, and then again that silence in which the symphony is blended, which it has enriched. Can you not hear your own growth in terms of color, in terms of music? Can you not hear the faint beginnings, can you not pre-sense the mighty ends? I have heard the beginnings of Nirvana in terms of sound, in terms of color; and I seem to hear as if far away in deep distance the symphony of the achiewement of Nirvana, as I can dimly perceive the apotheosis of that Light which even ...

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at the outset is so hopelessly indescribable. Is there not a note which sounds the beginning of the Birth into the Mysteries of the Real? Is there not a symphony which marks its fruition, a symphony gathering up into a silence and issuing forth therefrom as the note of a new endeavor, the note of the Baptism? Is there not the note and symphony of the Transfiguration, the note and symphony of a Crucifixion-Resurrection, of an Ascension, and of consecrations yet beyond? And so with Light. Lose yourselves, my readers, now and then at least in these reachings into the Real, bathe yourselves in these true imaginings. So do you gain a glimpse and an understanding of the Eternal, and of the inevitable glory beyond those contrasts which seem in time so dark and dreary but which thus serve to teach us of the sunshine everlasting.

Out of sleep and dream I am awake, though to regions beyond I may still be dreaming. But the dream is true, for it is the vision of the final conquest of the kingdom of man and the standing upon the threshold of the kingdoms of the superman. Let me try to put my visions otherwise. I look upon the world, and I see our Lord the Sun expressed in myriad suns. Each monad I perceive to be a Sun in miniature.

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The Sun Divine throws off spark-suns charged with all His attributes. The process of evolution begins, and these sparks burst into color, or rather gradually. unfold in terms of color; rainbows with sun-hearts, or nuclei or centers. God’s Light thus imprisoned in form begins its long pathway of transcending form, thus acquiring self-consciousness. Every atom of light is an atom of unconscious Divinity, slowly but surely fulfilling the will of the Sun that it shall become unfolded into self-conscious Divinity. Every atom is a Sun unconscious, and shall become a Sun self-conscious. And the Sun-Light, which is the Light that is free, shines upon the Sun-Light, which is the Light imprisoned; Light the wanderer in the darkness, until the Light within and the Light without blend into a perfect whole, earth-light kissing Heaven-Light and becoming Sun-Light.

Bathed in the Lightning-standing-still which is Nirvana, I perceive the imprisoned lightnings in all things. I perceive the Light which is dull — the savage; the Light which is bright — the man evolved; the Light which is glory — the Superman, the Master. I see color everywhere in process of transmutation, of glorification, of transcendence. There is no ...

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blackness anywhere in the sense of a negation of Light. God said: “Let there be Light.” And there was and is light everywhere. “His Light shineth even in our darkness.”

And as before I might express my vision in terms of sound, of music, in terms of gloriously growing forms. For, as time passes, I begin to perceive that while my first impression found instant expression in the word “Light,” and specially in the phrase “Lightning-standing-still,” I now know that this Light conception is but a quality of Nirvana, an aspect, a facet of the diamond sphere. In truth, Nirvana is an essence of things and a flower of things. It is an Alpha and an Omega. I am gradually, though only very, very slowly, beginning to look for Nirvana in all things. I cannot say that I have found Nirvana in all things, but r think I have reached the point of at least knowing that Nirvana is there. I know, though I do not yet perceive. I may, perhaps, best describe to you this knowledge in terms of Light, or it may be in terms of Sound, or in terms of Form. But Nirvana is beyond all these. Nirvana is a Mode of Being, a Mode that transcends Light and Sound and Form, though shadowed at least in all that ...

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we can know down here of the most glorious Light, Sound and Form. Have you tried to transcend the farthest limits of your consciousness? Have you ever striven to rise, first measurably and then almost immeasurably, above and beyond yourself? Have you ever tried to know your bondage and then to burst the bonds? Have you ever recognized your limitations, your many weaknesses, and have you then ever known yourself as having triumphed over them, so that you have become unrecognizable to yourself as well as to others? Thus do you reach after Nirvana, however long may be the road on which you have to travel. Light — yes; Sound — yes; even Form from out of the Formless — yes. But Nirvana is a mightly Spiritual Essence of all these things, and you approach it by learning to transcend yourself, to be an alchemist transmuting marvellously the lower into the higher. Awake! Arise! Know that Nirvana is your very being, and therefore realise yourself.

Everywhere in God’s workshop of the world, Master-Painters, Master-Singers, Master-Sculptors, Master-Builders at work. Sun-Light the common material. Sun-Light fashioned into forms — color-forms, ...

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sound-forms, forms of every kind; but all Sun-Light. And we are apprentices to these Masters of Crafts, and fashion after them in our childish ways. Yet we, too, are some day to become Master-Craftsmen, Masters of the Light in the future as we are children of the Light today. From darkness our Masters of the Light lead us to the Light, from the darkness and color-divisions of unconscious divinity into the pure white radiance of Divine Self-Consciousness. But as I hold Nirvanic consciousness in the valleys of my being, as I remember the summits while living on the plains, I can for the time being transcend time. There is, as long as the Nirvanic consciousness holds, no becoming, no dawning, no color — only a perfect Radiance, beginningless and endless. It is thus that Nirvana is Bliss, and I know now why some Great Ones enfold Themselves in it to the end of the Age. It is a supreme consummation, and opens out a Pathway of stupendous glory.

I realise, too that here is no selfishness, there could be none, of course, in entering Nirvana and exploring it to the end, if end there be. To abide in Nirvana, not to go forth therefrom, is a form of service to the ...

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world, for to enter Nirvana is to make a channel between the world and Nirvana so that the world is one step nearer to the Nirvanic dawn, and in some indescribable way the world is drawn into Nirvana, or should I rather say becomes more “Nirvanic,” because a Son of the world abides therein.

I look upon races, upon nations, upon peoples, upon faiths, upon communities — as colors in the universal spectrum, and yet each a spectrum in itself. I must study these colors, that I may the more purposefully serve. I see Australia. I see our Australian Section — the Sun-nucleus of the Australian continent. I see the color-scheme of things everywhere. I see that color matters infinitely, in the little things as well as in the big. For everywhere is a message as well as an individual growth. There is a message in the color of the clothes we wear, in the color of our furniture, of our objects of daily use, in our music and drama and painting; yes, and even in our magazine, Advance! Australia. Does its blue printing speak its message truly? Does not black printing convey less of God’s message than color printing?

I know the power of Light, and therefore the power of color. The Nirvanic Light is ...

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power, not cold power, but blazing power, at least as I sensed it. And even the word “power” is a limitation, for I know now in a measure that I can begin to understand the meaning of the three great attributes of God-Light — Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence. I see each color emerging from its archetype, descending into darkness, ascending into Light. At first faint, dim, crude, changing from shade to shade. The swinging of the pendulum of growth between. the colors of darkness and the colors of Light. Gradually, slowly, the fiercer hues of the colors of discord and of hatred mellow into the splendid shades of Love.

I know the Universes to be color-schemes. One universe a rose scheme, another a yellow scheme, a third a blue scheme, and so on. What is our color-scheme? Rose? Perhaps, and yet its heart is the blinding, glorious Light containing within itself all light-rates within the mighty octave of its Being.

And now, in the light of further experience, I can begin to interpret races, peoples, nations, faiths, communities, in terms other than of Light, of color. I hear them all building their respective symphonies) resolving — slowly I am afraid — their inevitable discords ...

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into equally inevitable harmonies. And these various music-strivings go to the building of the great world Symphony, the basic note and chord of which is present in variations in every subdivision of the world whether large or small. I have written of our Universe as possibly a Rose Universe. Is our earth a yellow sub-division of the general rose scheme? What is the Note of our Universe, and what is the earth’s variant thereof? This is a most fascinating theme for study, but as I am at present only in the region of speculation, guessing, imagining, it seems hardly profitable to pursue the investigation further. The point is that entry into Nirvana is an approach to the basic things of Being, those things which are omnipresent and, from one point of view, changeless. Nirvana is omnipresent. Nirvana is present in color, in sound, in form, in substance. Nirvana is the essence of them all; or should I not rather say a form of the essence of them all, a fundamental mode of the root of their being?

I am living in a Light-Eternity. I descend into a Color-Time. Time is the breaking up of Light-Eternal into color; and there is the Light of the past, the Light of the present, ...

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the Light of the present, the Light of the future. Yet all within an Eternal Now.

The world seems new with a new sacredness. The Power of the Light is in all things. Through our very physical senses we touch the Light which is Divinity. It lies about us, and in us. As we have variations round a music--note or music-theme or motif, so is the world an almost infinite number of variations upon the theme of the Universal Light. It is a Symphony of Light. It is also a Symphony of Sound, and no less a Symphony of Silence. It is a Symphony of Colour and of Form. And there are those who, hearing the Archetypal Symphony, seek to mellow the harsh notes and cruder colours and forms of ignorance so that the world orchestra, composed of all mani-fested life as the musicians, may, under the baton, the mighty Rod of Power of the world�s Supreme Conductor, make a music glorious — the archetype one with the actual.

The process of evolution is a process of the individualization of Light on the way to re-universalization on the plane of self-consciousness. Music is Light. Fire is Light. The Arts and the Sciences are Light in evolution growing under the laws of Light. The Scriptures tell us of the Light. There is a great ...

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Gospel of the Light, whence comes every faith, and to proclaim which comes every Saviour. Light is right; darkness is wrong. We grow towards the Light as do the trees and flowers.

I see our Lord the Sun in each of us. Is the heart the sun of our body-world? Does the blood reflect His rays? Are not all things Light-terms, Light-formulae?

What is Nirvana? The Light Divine. I am touching, perhaps only for a moment, its lowest reaches, its densest layers. All I have written is but of the Light Divine in its lowest Nirvanic aspect. I cannot conceive down here even this Glory, but it leaves in me as I return to earth a new perception of Reality. I have taken a step nearer to the Real. There is a greater comradeship in the world than I had thought — a deeper identity, a more glorious origin, a more glorious way, and a more glorious goal. Round me everywhere and at all times are God's Sunshine Messen-gers. Every color speaks His Word and His Voice. Every form breathes His purpose. I, dust in the Sunshine, yet am part of it, and looking upward to the Sun I see the sign of my own Divinity, and the embodied promise of my ultimate achievement. As is our Lord the Sun so shall we all be, for He has willed it so.

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Light is language, thought, vesture and vehicle. A flash of light conveys for us down here a whole philosophy. The whole of this pitifully feeble amount of Nirvanic experience was doubtless within a single flash of Nirvanic Light penetrating my being, or rather perhaps stirring at last from age-long dormancy within me.

Light is the Will of the Sun, the Wisdom of the Sun, the Love of the Sun. It is written in books that Nirvana is bliss. Even from that outermost region, at the frontiers, I know Nirvana to be infinitely more. Just one glimpse and all things seem to be made new, within me and without me. I remain, yet am wholly changed, and everything round me seems to be undergoing a process of re-valuation. Even now, everything means far more than before. Every object, in every kingdom, seems in one way far more a shadow of Reality than a reality, for I perceive how feeble and inadequate must be all reflections of the Light. I did not know before that they were so feeble. And yet, equally true is it that every object is far more real, far less of a shadow of Reality, than I had thought. I see the prison-opportunity of form, and I perceive the shadows. I see the unfolding splendor of ...

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the Light-Eternal, and I perceive the Real. All other worlds are shadow-worlds compared with this Nirvanic world. And yet they are more real worlds because of this Nirvanic world, for I now perceive the seal of God�s purpose set upon all things, and I must reverence all things in far deeper measure than before.

Philosophers talk of pure Being. I seem to be able to sense what pure Being must be, not because I have contacted it, but because I have contacted that which is less short of pure Being than all other consciousness-states I have so far experienced. At present, speaking as a child in this new kingdom, Nirvana to me is pure Life, Life which is Light. Not that color has faded into this Light. Color remains, but the spectrum of Nirvana is a glorification indescribable of the color-spectra of the planes below. It is more Light than color. Indeed, only as I grow a little accustomed to the Light, and my sensitiveness increases, beginning to adapt itself to its new environment, do I begin to perceive that with-in Nirvanic Light are marvellous manifest-ations of color apotheoses, of colour relation-ships, schemes and interactions. For the moment, the sense of evolution is lost in the ...

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the blinding glory of the Light. As I become more at home in a Home one never thinks to own until one enters at its doors, I shall realize, as I do not yet realize, that the eternal truth remains true, and becomes more true; that to enter the Sun-Light, which is another way of saying to love God, there is only one road — the service of that Light which lighteth every man.

Thus, with a new power which I shall learn to use, do I seem to enter upon a deeper service. We are children of the Sun, sparks of this glorious Sun-Light. I look up into the sky and I see my King. Sun-worshippers worship more truly, perhaps, than they know. I, infinitesimal, ignorant and feeble, yes, even I, am a servant of the Sun. As He shines upon the whole universe, so must I shine upon my world. I must be sunshine, even as He is sunshine. It is sometimes said that we cannot see God. I think I can see Him in part, and know something of His sublimity, as I look upon the Sun. Even with my physical eyes, I know something of His glory, and the whole world around me is His glory in manifestation. But looking upon Him from the Nirvanic world, I know far, far more. Another veil is lifted, and a fuller Glory shines upon me.

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No words can express my new sense of Him. It is, and must be, a mystery beyond words, beyond feeling, beyond even thought. Indeed, I must not even make the attempt; it is little short of blasphemy. But in the First Epistle General of St. John, beginning at the fifth verse of the first chapter, it is written:

�This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.�

And again in the second chapter of the same Epistle, beginning at the ninth verse:

�He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.�

A simple message, but profoundly true. �In Him is no darkness at all, neither shadow of turning.� Upon us all shines His Light per-petual. May we ever dwell in the Light through the service of our brethren.

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