(6) Come hither, come hither! the brilliant oblations say to him, and carry the sacrificer on the rays of the sun, while they utter pleasant speech and praise him, saying: 'This is thy holy Brahma-world (Svarga), gained by thy good works.'

(8) This being so, O Tat, what comes from God hath been and will be ours; but that which is dependent on ourselves, let this press onward and have no delay, for 'tis not God, 'tis we who are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good. Thou see'st, son, how many are the bodies through which we have to pass, how many are the choirs of daimones, how vast the system of the star-courses [through which our Path doth lie], to hasten to the One and Only God. For to the Good there is no other shore; It hath no bounds; It is without an end; and for Itself It is without beginning, too, though unto us it seemeth to have one - the Gnosis.

(7) Come Ye, then, to my best (regulations. Come to my men, and my laws ), my very own, O Mazda! and let them see through the Righteous Order and (Thy) Good Mind (which Thou wilt bestow in Thy drawing near) how I am heard before the rich giver (in the assembly of Thy worshippers). Yea, (come Ye); and let the manifold offerings of worship be manifest among us . (Arouse Ye, and help our zeal !)

(6) Such longing upon longing came upon me To be above, that at each step thereafter For flight I felt in me the pinions growing. When underneath us was the stairway all Run o'er, and we were on the highest step, Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes, And said: "The temporal fire and the eternal, Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come Where of myself no farther I discern. By intellect and art I here have brought thee; Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth; Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou. Behold the sun, that shines upon thy forehead; Behold the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubs Which of itself alone this land produces. Until rejoicing come the beauteous eyes Which weeping caused me to come unto thee, Thou canst sit down, and thou canst walk among them. Expect no more or word or sign from me; Free and upright and sound is thy free-will, And error were it not to do its bidding; Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre!"

(7) downwards, for the glory of its light was hidden in it, and the spheres and all regions u from the First Commandment downwards [have not known it]. Haste thee, therefore, clothe thyself with this vesture and come unto us. For we draw nigh unto thee, to clothe thee by command of the First Mystery with thy two vestures [other] which existed for thee from the beginning with the First Mystery until the time appointed by the Ineffable is completed. Come, therefore, to us quickly, that we may put them on thee, until thou hast fulfilled the total ministry of the perfection of the First Mystery which is appointed by the Ineffable. Come, therefore, to us quickly, in order that we may clothe thee with them, according to the command of the First Mystery. For yet a little while, a very little while, and thou shalt come unto us and leave the world. Come, therefore, quickly, that thou mayest receive thy whole glory, that is the glory of the First Mystery.'

(160) It becometh you to hasten unto the Light, and to the Rays of the Father, from whom was sent unto you a Soul (Psyche) endued with much mind (Nous).

(7) Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say that it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for those that will take the upward path, who will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves of all that we have put on in our descent:- so, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before, and the entry in nakedness- until, passing, on the upward way, all that is other than the God, each in the solitude of himself shall behold that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure, that from Which all things depend, for Which all look and live and act and know, the Source of Life and of Intellection and of Being.

And one that shall know this vision- with what passion of love shall he not be seized, with what pang of desire, what longing to be molten into one with This, what wondering delight! If he that has never seen this Being must hunger for It as for all his welfare, he that has known must love and reverence It as the very Beauty; he will be flooded with awe and gladness, stricken by a salutary terror; he loves with a veritable love, with sharp desire; all other loves than this he must despise, and disdain all that once seemed fair.

This, indeed, is the mood even of those who, having witnessed the manifestation of Gods or Supernals, can never again feel the old delight in the comeliness of material forms: what then are we to think of one that contemplates Absolute Beauty in Its essential integrity, no accumulation of flesh and matter, no dweller on earth or in the heavens- so perfect Its purity- far above all such things in that they are non-essential, composite, not primal but descending from This?

Beholding this Being- the Choragos of all Existence, the Self-Intent that ever gives forth and never takes- resting, rapt, in the vision and possession of so lofty a loveliness, growing to Its likeness, what Beauty can the soul yet lack? For This, the Beauty supreme, the absolute, and the primal, fashions Its lovers to Beauty and makes them also worthy of love.

And for This, the sternest and the uttermost combat is set before the Souls; all our labour is for This, lest we be left without part in this noblest vision, which to attain is to be blessed in the blissful sight, which to fail of is to fail utterly.

For not he that has failed of the joy that is in colour or in visible forms, not he that has failed of power or of honours or of kingdom has failed, but only he that has failed of only This, for Whose winning he should renounce kingdoms and command over earth and ocean and sky, if only, spurning the world of sense from beneath his feet, and straining to This, he may see.

(43) When, through intense pride, [we are] wandering in the Sangsara, Along the bright light-path of the Wisdom of Equality, May the Bhagavan Ratna-Sambhava lead us, May the Mother, She-of-the-Buddha-Eye, be our rear-guard, May we be saved from the fearful narrow passage-way of the Bardo, May we be placed in the state of the perfect Buddhahood.

(4) More of the mount by us was now encompassed, And far more spent the circuit of the sun, Than had the mind preoccupied imagined, When he, who ever watchful in advance Was going on, began: "Lift up thy head, 'Tis no more time to go thus meditating. Lo there an Angel who is making haste To come towards us; lo, returning is From service of the day the sixth handmaiden. With reverence thine acts and looks adorn, So that he may delight to speed us upward; Think that this day will never dawn again." I was familiar with his admonition Ever to lose no time; so on this theme He could not unto me speak covertly. Towards us came the being beautiful Vested in white, and in his countenance Such as appears the tremulous morning star. His arms he opened, and opened then his wings; "Come," said he, "near at hand here are the steps, And easy from henceforth is the ascent." At this announcement few are they who come! O human creatures, born to soar aloft, Why fall ye thus before a little wind?

(8) But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of the inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts, apart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane?

He that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away for ever from the material beauty that once made his joy. When he perceives those shapes of grace that show in body, let him not pursue: he must know them for copies, vestiges, shadows, and hasten away towards That they tell of. For if anyone follow what is like a beautiful shape playing over water- is there not a myth telling in symbol of such a dupe, how he sank into the depths of the current and was swept away to nothingness? So too, one that is held by material beauty and will not break free shall be precipitated, not in body but in Soul, down to the dark depths loathed of the Intellective-Being, where, blind even in the Lower-World, he shall have commerce only with shadows, there as here.

"Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland": this is the soundest counsel. But what is this flight? How are we to gain the open sea? For Odysseus is surely a parable to us when he commands the flight from the sorceries of Circe or Calypso- not content to linger for all the pleasure offered to his eyes and all the delight of sense filling his days.

The Fatherland to us is There whence we have come, and There is The Father.

What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which few turn to use.

(5) That this may be the pleasure of God’s Love, such is our prayer for you, devoted ones. In other words, may He, when ye have served your time, and have put off the world’s restraint, and freed yourselves from deathly bonds, restore you pure and holy to the nature of your higher self, that is of the Divine! XII

(30) Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil.

(43) When, through intense propensities, [we are] wandering in the Sangsdra, Along the bright light-path of the Simultaneously-born Wisdom, May the Knowledge-Holders lead us, May the bands of the Mothers, the DdkinTs, be our rear-guard, May we be saved from the fearful narrow passage-way of the Bardo, May we be placed in the state of the perfect Buddhahood. May the ethereal elements not rise up as enemies; May it come that we shall see the Realm of the Blue Buddha. May the watery elements not rise up as enemies; May it come that we shall see the Realm of the White Buddha. May the earthy elements not rise up as enemies; May it come that we shall see the Realm of the Yellow Buddha. May the fiery elements not rise up as enemies; May is come that we shall see the Realm of the Red Buddha. May the airy elements not rise up as enemies; May it come that we shall see the Realm of the Green Buddha. May the elements of the rainbow colours not rise up as enemies; May it come that all the Realms of the Buddhas will be seen. May it come that all the Sounds [in the Bardo] will be known as one's own sounds; May it come that all the Radiances will be known as one's own radiances; May it come that the Tri-Kaya will be realized in the Bardo.

(9) These forty-two perfectly endowed deities, issuing from within thy heart, being the product of thine own pure love, will come to shine. Know them.

(13) Welcome, O Goldfinch! Come joyously. Be eager to act, and come as the fire. When you have burnt up your attachments the light of God will manifest itself more and more. Since your heart knows the secrets of God, remain faithful. When you have perfected yourself you will no longer exist. But God will remain.

(11) [Those of, and] above, the mystic mantraydnic devotees of ordinary [psychic development], who have meditated upon the visualization and perfection processes and practiced the essences [or essence mantras], need not wander down this far on the Chonyid Bardo. As soon as they cease to breathe, they will be led into the pure paradise realms by the Heroes and Heroines and the Knowledge-Holders. As a sign of this, the sky will be cloudless; they will merge into rainbow radiance; there will be sun- showers, sweet scent of incense [in the air], music in the skies, radiances; bone-reliques and images [from their funeral-pyre].

(6) Be not fond of that dull bluish-yellow light from the human [world]. That is the path of thine accumulated propensities of violent egotism come to receive thee. If thou art attracted by it, thou wilt be born in the human world and have to suffer birth, age, sickness, and death; and thou wilt have no chance of getting out of the quagmire of worldly existence. That is an interruption to obstruct thy path of liberation. Therefore, look not upon it, and abandon egotism, abandon propensities; be not attracted towards it; be not weak. Act so as to trust in that bright dazzling light. Put thine earnest thought, one- pointedly, upon the Bhagavan Ratna-Sambhava; and pray thus: Alas! when wandering in the Sangsara because of the power of violent egotism, on the radiant light-path of the Wisdom of Equality, May [I] be led by the Bhagavan Ratna-Sambhava; May the Divine Mother, She-of-the-Buddha-Eye, be [my] rear-guard; May [I] be led safely across the fearful ambush of the Bardo; And may [I] be placed in the state of the All-Perfect Buddhahood.' By praying thus, with deep humility and faith, thou wilt merge into the heart of the Bhagavan Ratna- Sambhava, the Divine Father-Mother, in halo of rainbow light, and attain Buddhahood in the Sambhoga-Kaya, in the Southern Realm Endowed with Glory.

(2) Be ye then not carried off by the fierce flood, but using the shore-current , ye who can, make for Salvation's port, and, harboring there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand and lead you unto Gnosis' gates. Where shines clear Light, of every darkness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, but sober all they gaze with their hearts' eyes on Him who willeth to be seen. No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but [only] mind and heart. But first thou must tear off from thee the cloak which thou dost wear - the web of ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's chain, the carapace of darkness, the living death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou carriest with thee, the robber in thy house, who through the things he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things he hateth, bears thee malice.

(9) In this choiring, the soul looks upon the wellspring of Life, wellspring also of Intellect, beginning of Being, fount of Good, root of Soul. It is not that these are poured out from the Supreme lessening it as if it were a thing of mass. At that the emanants would be perishable; but they are eternal; they spring from an eternal principle, which produces them not by its fragmentation but in virtue of its intact identity: therefore they too hold firm; so long as the sun shines, so long there will be light.

We have not been cut away; we are not separate, what though the body-nature has closed about us to press us to itself; we breathe and hold our ground because the Supreme does not give and pass but gives on for ever, so long as it remains what it is.

Our being is the fuller for our turning Thither; this is our prosperity; to hold aloof is loneliness and lessening. Here is the soul's peace, outside of evil, refuge taken in the place clean of wrong; here it has its Act, its true knowing; here it is immune. Here is living, the true; that of to-day, all living apart from Him, is but a shadow, a mimicry. Life in the Supreme is the native activity of Intellect; in virtue of that converse it brings forth gods, brings forth beauty, brings forth righteousness, brings forth all moral good; for of all these the soul is pregnant when it has been filled with God. This state is its first and its final, because from God it comes, its good lies There, and, once turned to God again, it is what it was. Life here, with the things of earth, is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of the wing.

That our good is There is shown by the very love inborn with the soul; hence the constant linking of the Love-God with the Psyches in story and picture; the soul, other than God but sprung of Him, must needs love. So long as it is There, it holds the heavenly love; here its love is the baser; There the soul is Aphrodite of the heavens; here, turned harlot, Aphrodite of the public ways: yet the soul is always an Aphrodite. This is the intention of the myth which tells of Aphrodite's birth and Eros born with her.

The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to human birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.

But one day coming to hate her shame, she puts away the evil of earth, once more seeks the father, and finds her peace.

Those to whom all this experience is strange may understand by way of our earthly longings and the joy we have in winning to what we most desire- remembering always that here what we love is perishable, hurtful, that our loving is of mimicries and turns awry because all was a mistake, our good was not here, this was not what we sought; There only is our veritable love and There we may hold it and be with it, possess it in its verity no longer submerged in alien flesh. Any that have seen know what I have in mind: the soul takes another life as it approaches God; thus restored it feels that the dispenser of true life is There to see, that now we have nothing to look for but, far otherwise, that we must put aside all else and rest in This alone, This become, This alone, all the earthly environment done away, in haste to be free, impatient of any bond holding us to the baser, so that with our being entire we may cling about This, no part in us remaining but through it we have touch with God.

Thus we have all the vision that may be of Him and of ourselves; but it is of a self-wrought to splendour, brimmed with the Intellectual light, become that very light, pure, buoyant, unburdened, raised to Godhood or, better, knowing its Godhood, all aflame then- but crushed out once more if it should take up the discarded burden.

(43) is [as follows]: O ye Conquerors and your Sons, abiding in the Ten Directions, O ye ocean-like Congregation of the All-Good Conquerors, the Peaceful and the Wrathful, O ye Gurus and Devas, and ye DakinTs, the Faithful Ones, Hearken now out of [your] great love and compassions: Obeisance, O ye assemblage of Gurus and DakinTs; Out of your great love, lead us along the Path.