ier: "Among thousands of men scarce one
striveth for perfection; of the successful strivers scarce one knoweth
me in essence."[52] For the Initiates are few in each generation, the
flower of humanity; but no gloomy sentence of everlasting woe is
pronounced in this statement on the vast majority of the human race.
The saved are, as Proclus taught,[53] those who escape from the circle
of generation, within which humanity is bound.

In this connection we may recall the story of the young man who came to
Jesus, and, addressing Him as "Good Master," asked how he might win
eternal life--the well-recognised liberation from rebirth by knowledge
of God.[54] His first answer was the regular exoteric precept: "Keep the
commandments." But when the young man answered: "All these things have I
kept from my youth up;" then, to that conscience free from all knowledge
of transgression, came the answer of the true Teacher: "If thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me." "If thou wilt be
perfect," be a member of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience must be
embraced. And then to His own disciples Jesus explains that a rich man
can hardly enter the Kingdom of Heaven, such entrance being more
difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; with men
such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.[55] Only
God in man can pass that barrier.

This text has been variously explained away, it being obviously
impossible to take it in its surface meaning, that a rich man cannot
enter a post-mortem state of happiness. Into that state the rich man may
enter as well as the poor, and the universal practice of Christians
shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches imperil their
happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven
be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that
knowledge of God which is Eternal Life[56] cannot be gained till
everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything
has been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which
henceforth may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give
up his inner wealth as well, so far as he holds it as his own against
the world; until he is stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway.
Such has ever been a condition of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience,
chastity," has bee