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Somehow I identified it with joining the church and being baptized. Contrary to the teachings of my church which at that time I did not understand, to me, baptism was the main thing. I wanted to be baptized. But they told me I was too young, and too small to go down into the deep water. This was a great disappointment. But I saw a ray of hope.
Such singleness of religious purpose is paralleled nowhere else except in the work and teachings of Jesus and his apostles. The ever-present evidence of the divine authority back of the spiritual teachings of the Old Testament as a whole is that they ring true to life and meet its needs. By their fruits we know them. It is the demonstration of the laboratory.
Francis, before his death, became so intolerant that he ordered the massacre of three thousand defenseless peasants who dwelt on the slopes of the Alps, and whose only offense was adherence to the simple teachings of the Waldensians.
It is well that every one should learn the wisdom of "Gnani Yoga," that he may realize the wonderful truths underlying life the science of Being. And, most assuredly every one should know something of Bhakti Yogi, that he may understand the great teachings regarding the Love underlying all life. We have written a work on "Hatha Yoga," and a course on "Raja Yoga" which is now in book form.
Yet whatever effect these teachings might have produced, if unaided by further doctrinal elaboration, was enhanced myriadfold by the elaboration which they received at the hands of Paul. Philosophic Stoics and Epicureans had arrived at the conception of the brotherhood of men, and the Greek hymn of Kleanthes had exhibited a deep spiritual sense of the fatherhood of God.
But what was he? Of the Bible the two women knew very little. My mother, despite her Northern origin, had had an Italian Catholic education as well as Lucia. In this, for valid reasons, the Bible is forbidden. They did not speak much of the life of Jesus as an historical person, nor of his adventures, nor of his teachings.
And again the last mentioned teacher states: "the entire universe is a bagatelle illustration of your own creative power, which you are now exhibiting for your own inspection." "By their fruits shall you know them," is a safe rule to apply to all teachings.
The Christian Mysteries comprised this as well as the other fundamental occult doctrines, and the Early Church held such teachings in its Inner Circle. And, in its essence, the doctrine of Re-birth is the only one that is in full accord with the Christian conception of ultimate justice and "fairness."
The law of Karma affirms the relationship between cause and effect, and teaches that "as a man sows, so shall he also reap" and consequently, the better our thoughts and actions now, the greater our advancement in the next life. It is in the teachings of the divine Krishna that we find the original source of the greater part of modern Theosophy.
The average student of the New Testament passes over the event of Jesus in the Wilderness, with little or no emotion, regarding it as a mere incident in His early career. Not so with the mystic or occultist, who knows, from the teachings of his order, that in the Wilderness Jesus was subjected to a severe occult test, designed to develop His power, and test His endurance.
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