the utmost of the life that is his,
he neither complains of it nor is elated by it,
nor does he complain against the better fortune
of others. All alike, as he well knows, are but
learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist
and the reformer who endeavor by sheer force
to re-arrange circumstances which arise out of
the forces of human nature itself. This is but
kicking against the pricks; a waste of life
and energy.

In realizing this a man surrenders his
imagined individual rights, of whatever sort.
That takes away one keen sting which is
common to all ordinary men.

When the disciple has fully recognised that
the very thought of individual rights is only
the outcome of the venomous quality in himself,
that it is the hiss of the snake of self
which poisons with its sting his own life and
the lives of those about him, then he is ready
to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open
to all neophytes who are prepared for it. All
weapons of defense and offense are given up;
all weapons of mind and heart, and brain, and
spirit. Never again can another man be regarded
as a person who can be criticized or
condemned; never again can the neophyte
raise his voice in self-defense or excuse. From
that ceremony he returns into the world as
helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born child.
That, indeed, is what he is. He has begun to
be born again on to the higher plane of life,
that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence
the eyes see intelligently and regard the world
with a new insight.

I have said, a little way back, that after
parting with the sense of individual rights, the
disciple must part also with the sense of self-respect
and of virtue. This may sound a terrible
doctrine, yet all occultists know well that it
is not a doctrine, but a fact. He who thinks
himself holier than another, he who has any
pride in his own exemption from vice or folly,
he who believes himself wise, or in any way
superior to his fellow men, is incapable of
discipleship. A man must become as a little
child before he can enter into the kingdom of
heaven.

Virtue and wisdom are sublime things; but
if they create pride and a consciousness of
separateness from the rest of humanity in the
mind of a man, then they are only the snakes
of self re-appearing in a finer form. At any
moment he may put on his grosser shape and
sting as fiercely as when he inspired the actions
of a murderer who kills for gain or hatred,
or a politician w