(60) But those who from a hatred for the flesh ungratefully long.to have nothing to do with the marriage union and the eating of reasonable food, are both blockheads and atheists, and exercise an irrational chastity like the other heathen. For ex- ample, the Brahmans neither eat animal flesh nor drink wine. But some of them take food every way, as we do, while others do so only on every third day, as Alexander Polyhistor says in his Indian History. They despise deaths and reckon life of no account. For they are persuaded that there is a regeneration. The gods they worship are Heracles and Pan. And the Indians who are called Holy Men go naked throughout their entire life. They seek for the truth, and predict the future, and reverence a certain pyramid beneath which, they think, lie the bones of a certain god. Neither the Gymnosophists nor the so-called Holy Men have wives. They think sexual relations are unnatural and contrary to law. For this cause they keep themselves chaste. The Holy Women are also virgins. They observe, it seems, the heavenly bodies and from what they indicate foretell future events.

(4) 1. The good Amenta, the gods within which live on shens and tu loaves

(12) Why do ye worship things that have no spirit in them? For they are the work of (men's) hands, And on your shoulders do ye bear them,* And ye have no help from them, But they are a great cause of shame to those who make them, And a misleading of the heart to those who worship them : Worship them not."

(9) These deities are formed into groups of five pairs, each group of five being surrounded by a fivefold circle of radiances, the male Bodhisattvas partaking of the nature of the Divine Fathers, and the female Bodhisattvas partaking of the nature of the Divine Mothers. All these divine conclaves will come to shine upon thee in one complete conclave. They are thine own tutelary deities. Know them to be such.

(12) For there is rio spirit in them, For they aire dumb forms, and a misleading of the he. art. Worship them not :

(23) VI. The Soul of the Demi-Gods As has been said in the preceding chapters of this book, the Soul of the Demi-Gods has as its distinctive and characteristic consciousness the conscious realization of its relationship to the All—to the Universal Life. Its mental and spiritual horizon has expanded until, in its higher stages, it takes in All Life and feels itself identified therewith. All that has come to man of humanity, justice, kindness, sympathy, nobility and Human Brotherhood has come to him filtered through from this higher region of himself. Man feels sympathy for others because of his dawning sense of his relationship to, or Oneness with all the rest. With the coming of the flashes of the Cosmic Consciousness, all narrow feelings of distinction and caste fade away, and he feels the urge of Unity. Not only does he enjoy the thrill of Universal Life, but he also may suffer the World-Pain, at least until a fuller understanding of the latter comes to him.

(18) O nobly-born, the Peaceful Deities emanate from the Voidness of the Dharma-Kdya; recognize them. From the Radiance of the Dharma-Kdya emanate the Wrathful Deities; recognize them.

(20) The characteristic feature of the Plane of Consciousness of the Demi-Gods is that of Oneness with Universal Life—the consciousness of the Life of All-Manifestation. Varying in many degrees and forms, of course, this is the characteristic feature of all experiences of this great plane of conscious activity. On this plane, the individual feels in close touch with all the rest of Creation—a united part of (not apart from) the ALL. The experience of even a slight momentary contact with this plane of being constitutes the common "mystic experience," of which sages, seers, poets, and illumined souls of all ages have sung, and regarding which they have tried to inform us in words inadequate to the task. The study of these mystic reports throw much light on the subject, and is well worth the time and attention of all true students of the Rosicrucian teaching. But the student must always remember that these experiences are not the end of all thought on the subject, nor the final word of Truth. As valuable as is this part of the teaching, it must never be mistaken for the highest peak of the Mountain of Truth.

(20) And make not for yourselves molten or graven gods ; a For they are vanity, And there is no spirit in them ; For they are work of (men's) hands, And all who trust in them, trust in nothing. Serve them not, nor worship them,

(21) The same people, who worship every stick and greasy stone, as the saying is, dreads tufts of tawny wool, and lumps of salt, and torches, and squills, and sulphur, bewitched by sorcerers, in certain impure rites of expiation. But God, the true God, recognises as holy only the character of the righteous man, - as unholy, wrong and wickedness.

(2) Gargya said: 'The Person who is here in space — him, indeed, I worship as Brahma! ' Ajatasatru said: ' Talk not to me about him! I worship him, verily, as the Full, the non-active. He who worships him as such is filled with offspring and cattle. His offspring goes not forth from this earth/

(22) They offer their sacrifices to the dead * And they worship evil spirits,* And they eat over the graves, And all their works are vanity and nothingness.

(2) This, then, is the revelation of their names, so far as we can give it; and we ought to say what we think their Hierarchy is. For I suppose we have sufficiently shewn above, that the purpose of every Hierarchy is an unswerving devotion to the divine imitation of the Divine Likeness, and that every Hierarchical function is set apart for the sacred reception and distribution of an undefiled purification, and Divine Light, and perfecting science. And now I pray that I may speak worthily of the most exalted Minds--how the Hierarchy amongst them is exhibited through the Oracles. One must consider, then, that the Hierarchy is akin, and in every respect like, to the first Beings, who are established after the Godhead, who gave them Being, and who are marshalled, as it were, in Its very vestibule, who surpass every unseen and seen created power. We must then regard them as pure, not as though they had been freed from unholy stains and blemishes, nor yet as though they were unreceptive of earthly fancies, but as far exalted above every stain of remissness and every inferior holiness, as befits the highest degree of purity--established above the most Godlike powers, and clinging unflinchingly to their own self-moved and same-moved rank in their invariable love of God, conscious in no respect whatever of any declivity to a worse condition, but having the unsullied fixity of their own Godlike identity--never liable to fall, and always unmoved; and again, as "contemplative," not contemplators of intellectual symbols as sensible, nor as being led to the Divine Being by the varied texture of holy representations written for meditation, but as being filled with all kinds of immaterial knowledge of higher light, and satiated, as permissible, with the beautifying and original beauty of super-essential and thrice manifested contemplation, and thus, being deemed worthy of the Communion with Jesus, they do not stamp pictorially the deifying similitude in divinely-formed images, but, as being really near to Him, in first participation of the knowledge of His deifying illuminations; nay more, that the imitation of God is given to them in the highest possible degree, and they participate, so far as is allowable to them, in His deifying and philanthropic virtues, in the power of a first manifestation; and, likewise as "perfected," not as being illuminated with an analytic science of sacred variety, but as being filled with a first and pre-eminent deification, as beseems the most exalted science of the works of God, possible in Angels. For, not through other holy Beings, but being ministered from the very Godhead, by the immediate elevation to It, by their power, and rank, surpassing all, they are both established near the All-Holy without any shadow of turning, and are conducted for contemplation to the immaterial and intelligible comeliness, as far as permissible, and are initiated into the scientific methods of the works of God, as being first and around God, being ministered, in the highest degree, from the very source of consecration.

(13) But if one flee from them, through awe and terror being begotten, then, on the Ninth Day, the blood- drinking [deities] of the Vajra Order will come to receive one. Thereupon, the setting-face-to-face is, calling the deceased by name, thus: O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. [He of the blood-drinking Vajra Order named the Bhagavan Vajra-Heruka, dark-blue in colour; with three faces, six hands, and four feet firmly postured; in the first right hand [holding] a dorje, in the middle [one], a skull-bowl, in the last [one], a battle axe; in the first of the left, a bell, in the middle [one] a skull-bowl, in the last [one], a ploughshare: his body embraced by the Mother Vajra-Krotishaurima, her right [hand] clinging to his neck, her left offering to his mouth a red shell [filled with blood], will issue from the eastern quarter of thy brain and come to shine upon thee. Fear it not. Be not terrified. Be not awed. Know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect. As it is thine own tutelary deity, be not terrified. In reality [they are] the Bhagavan Vajra-Sattva, the Father and Mother. Believe in them. Recognizing them, liberation will be obtained at once. By so proclaiming [them], knowing them to be tutelary deities, merging [in them] in at-one-ment, Buddhahood will be obtained.

(2) Gargya said: ' The Person who is yonder in the sun— him, indeed, I worship as Brahma! ' Ajatasatru said: ' Talk not to me about him ' I worship him as the pre-eminent, the head and king of all beings. He who worships him as such becomes pre-eminent, the head and king of all beings/

(29) At that time, Vimalakirti declared to Mahakasyapa: “Virtuous One, those who appear as kings of demons in countless worlds in the ten directions are mostly Bodhisattvas who have realized this inconceivable liberation and who use expedient devices (upaya) to appear as their rulers in order to convert living beings.

(6) Verily, Svetaketu Aruneya went up to an assembly of Pancalas. He went up to Pravahana Jaibali while the latter was having himself waited upon. He, looking up, said unto him, f Young man! ' ' Sir!' he replied. f Yes/ said he. a. ' Know you how people here, on deceasing, separate in different directions? ** ' No/ said he. ' Know you how they come back again to this world? ' c No/ said he. 'Know you why yonder world is not filled up with the many who continually thus go hence? ' ' No/ said he. 1 A parallel account is found in Chand. 5. 3-10. 1 6 < Know you in which oblation that is offered the water be- comes the voice of a person, rises up, and speaks? ' ' No,' said he. ' Know you the access of the path leading to the gods, or of the one leading to the fathers? by doing what, people go to the path of the gods or of the fathers? for we have heard the word of the seer: — Two paths, I've heard — the one that leads to fathers, And one that leads to gods — belong to moitals. By these two, every moving thing here travels, That is between the Father and the Mother.'

(100) And they who worship stones, and grave images of gold and silver and wood 〈and stone〉 and clay, and those who worship impure spirits and demons, and all kinds of idols not according to knowledge, shall get no manner of help from them.

Let us come back to the rulers of whom we spoke, that we might present an explanation of them. For when the seven rulers were cast from their heavens down upon the earth, they created for themselves angels, many demonic angels, to serve them. But these demons taught humankind many errors with magic and potions and idolatry, and shedding of blood, and altars, and temples, and sacrifices, and libations to all the demons of the earth, having as their co-worker fate, who came into being according to the agreement by the gods of injustice and justice. And thus when the world came into being, it wandered astray in distraction throughout all time. For all the people who are on the earth served the demons from the creation until the consummation of the age—both the angels of justice and the people of injustice. Thus the world came to be in distraction and ignorance and stupor. They all erred, until the appearance of the true human. Enough for you to this point. Next we shall consider our world so that we might complete the discussion of its structure and its government in a precise manner. Then it will be clear how belief in hidden things, which have been apparent from the foundation to the consummation of the age, came about.

(18) O nobly-born, whatever fearful and terrifying visions thou mayst see, recognize them to be thine own thought-forms. O nobly-born, if thou recognize not, and be frightened, then all the Peaceful Deities will shine forth in the shape of Maha-Kala; and all the Wrathful Deities will shine [forth] in the form of Dharma-Raja, the Lord of Death; and thine own thought- forms becoming Illusions [or Mdras], thou wilt wander into the Sangsdra.