A Commentary on Mabel Collins' Light on the Path, by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

Light on the Path

Introduction

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, an Englishwoman named Mabel Collins was inspired to record teachings on the beginnings of the spiritual quest in a small book called Light On The Path. She did not consider herself the author but only the transmitter. Therefore she insisted that the title page say: “Written down by M. C.” In the following commentary we will be carefully analyzing her inspired transcription, for those who would make the Great journey must know both the path and how to travel upon it.

Miss Collins writes of discipleship and the qualities of a worthy disciple. The Master of such a disciple is the disciple’s own divine Self which draws its existence from the Supreme Self: God. Some time after writing Light on the Path Mabel Collins came into the orbit of those that claimed to be disciples of hidden Masters, both physical and disembodied. They even told her that her book had really been psychically dictated to her by one of their Masters. Innocently she accepted this and was put on probation to eventually become a disciple of the “Masters.” This probation lasted less than twenty-four hours, for she realized that she was being led away from the Path, that God and the Soul alone are anyone’s Masters. She severed her connections with those “disciples” and went her way in her former freedom. It is good to keep this in mind when reading Light on the Path.

---

I. These rules are written for all disciples: Attend you to them.

Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable of tears. Before the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness. Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters it must have lost the power to wound. Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.

• These rules are written for all disciples.

What is a disciple? The Greek word mathetes which is translated “disciple” in English means “one who is learning.” Many study and many experience, but few learn. A disciple is one who does. A disciple is also one who is undergoing discipline–that is, he is not living by his whim, but according to the guidelines set forth by the wise of all ages. They are rules–a word base on the Latin regula, from which we get the word “regulate” which means to control, to rule something–in this case our own lower nature, mind, and intellect. So the path of the disciples is the path of discipline. It is also the path of obedience in the sense of free acquiescence to the counsels of the wise, but it is not the fearful slavishness usually demanded by the forces of the world–religious, economic, political, or otherwise.

The path of spiritual discipleship is rigorous and requires an equally rigorous preparation. Let us begin a prudent accounting of all the “costs” of discipleship.

Discipline. We do not much like that. Everyone talks about wanting to learn from Masters, but the only people that are allowed within the orbit of the Masters are disciples. And they are disciples on the Masters’ terms, not their own. Disciples are those who actively follow a regimen of self-purification to clarify their minds and thus make themselves capable of receiving higher knowledge. They must prepare themselves so that when they are given wisdom they will both recognize it and be able to apply it.

Disciples are not spiritual weekenders–or as one friend of mine called them: “Sunday evening metaphysicians.” Nor are the rules we are about to consider written for them, but for true disciples–those who intend to devote their life to the search for higher consciousness.

Saying that “these rules are written for all disciples” means that there are absolutely no exceptions to them. We are always looking for shortcuts or the easy way, but such things do not exist in this realm of highest truth. Secular education abounds with those who want to be squeaked by somehow, to be passed though they do not deserve it. (These are the kind that in high school and college always asked the teacher first thing: “Do you grade on the curve?” Remember them?) But that cannot be in the school of divine discipleship. What is “written” is written for all.

• Attend you to them.

The will is the most important factor in the makeup of any evolving entity. It is the supreme power wielded by the evolving individual.

“Free will” is freely spoken of, but a truly free will is rare indeed, and not to be had for the mere wishing or talking. The basic requisite of the disciple is the freeing and empowering of his will. This is done through discipline and obedience that are not imposed upon the disciple but freely and willingly taken up, that are acts of will rather than surrendering of will. To be truly freeing, discipline and obedience can spring solely from one motivation: the attainment of divine consciousness. Therefore they cannot be engaged in from either fear of pain and punishment or hope of reward. Nor should they be taken up because of having become intellectually convinced or emotionally cajoled by any external force–­including ego, emotions, intellects, or desires. The disciple must come to know and understand the rules. From that moment on the following of those rules must be a spontaneous response arising from his own Self­–from nowhere else, and from nothing else whatsoever.

The real spiritual Masters leave their pupils free to follow wisdom or not. Neither with words nor with silence do they seek to influence them. For true freedom–the freedom of the spirit–this is a requisite. That is why in the closing section of the Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna: “Now I have taught you that wisdom which is the secret of secrets. Ponder it carefully. Then act as you think best” (Bhagavad Gita 18:63).

• Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable of tears.

Tears are expressions of intense and uncontrolled emotional reaction to something. They occur when people are happy, sad, frustrated, or overwhelmed by some experience. They can result from experiencing great beauty or great repulsion. So what is really being talked about here is being overcome by egoic reactions, which are symbolized by tears. The Master is not ordering us to become emotionless, but to always be masters of our emotions, to never let ourselves be carried away by them. Otherwise our minds will be confused and our intelligence clouded. As Krishna warns in the Gita: “Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; forget experience, you lose discrimination; lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose” (Bhagavad Gita 2:63).

We are not to become emotionless zombies. There are those who read about how the world is “unreal” and we must be “detached.” Trying to realize this ideal they become emotionally unresponsive and dead. I have known people who would not show affection to their own spouses or children because they feared “negative attachment.” This rule is not advocating that unnatural fanaticism. It is not advocating the eradication of love, compassion, mercy, generosity, and such like, but the eradication of selfishness and its emotional tempests–either from pleasure or displeasure. We cannot possibly maintain the life of the disciple until we have become actually incapable of this egoic type of response. Now that is a very high ideal–a rather bitter ideal, actually, since most of us like to indulge our egoic emotions, considering that to do so gives us “character.” Therefore we are in the grip of this egoic response.

There is also a higher meaning to being “incapable of tears.” We must become incapable of being hurt or grieved by anything upon this earth–of reacting to external objects (which include a lot that we consider internal) with sorrow, disappointment, disgust, frustration, or grief. In other words, the negativity of this world must not move us to respond in kind. Especially we must never feel helpless and frustrated by the nightmares shown us in the dream-theater we mistakenly call “the real world.” In other words, we must become unmoved by the false appearances of material existence–not from emotional deadness but from knowledge of their unreality.

We must become incapable of being swept away by seemingly positive reactions to earthly phenomena, as well, for human beings often shed “tears of joy” as well as sorrow. In short, we must become unmoved by the ever-shifting scenes of this earthly dream-existence, and become anchored in the peace and joy of the Spirit.

There is another aspect to this. Tears distort the vision and blind the eyes. Tears come between the eye, the organ of perception, and whatever should be perceived. So we are being warned that unless we have entered this “tearless” state there is a chance that as we pursue the divine vision our inner eye may have its vision blotted out or distorted by the intervention of these “tears” between us and that which is true.

There is an ancient story of a prince who upon becoming king was visited by a sage who gave him a ring upon which were engraved the words: “Even This Must Pass Away.” Throughout his life, when he would be about to be overcome by elation, desire, anger, or sadness, and thus “lose himself,” his eyes would light upon those words and he would immediately regain the right perspective and remain calm. Then, at the moment of his death he was fearless as he gazed upon the assurance that: “Even This Must Pass Away.”

• Before the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness.

We are not to become deaf–our inner ear must be able to hear, but it should hear only one thing: the voice of the spirit. But to become sensitive to the voice of higher consciousness we must become insensitive to extraneous things, to stop being responsive to material life and the resultant material consciousness. That is, we must perfectly–that is, intelligently–disregard it.

This is especially true in the matter of social consciousness or “peer pressure.” There are people who would go to lingering death rather than transgress social rules or be thought ill of by those around them. People are far more afraid of looking bad than they are of actually being bad. Especially in modern times other people’s eyes are the mirrors that determine how we come to see ourselves. For this reason Sri Ramakrishna often told His disciples that those who were subject to fear and shame could never know God.

Those who are “in step with the times” are naturally out of step with eternity. Those who are influenced by every worldly wind and tide are beyond the sphere of divine communication. Those who are always fully “up” on all the latest fashion, verbal jargon, events, fads, trends, and interests are the high priests and priestesses of world-worship.

Contemporary religion is poisoned with this sensitivity and reflexive responsiveness to any earthly absurdity. Some years back we used to get a monthly newsletter from a spiritual group in Texas. One day a tiny item appeared in our local newspaper about women in the East deciding that they wanted to be called “Ms.” Within the week the newsletter came filled with Ms. here and Ms. there. It was obvious they had completely retyped the copy to accommodate such nonsense without even waiting to see if it would catch on. The secular masters (mistresses in this case, I suppose) had whistled, and like well-trained dogs they had come to heel. Being aliens to the world of spirit, this material earth is the only world such persons know or care about, so they bend into conformity at every wind that blows over it. The Beloved Disciple had it right when he wrote: “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them” (I John 4:5).

Our ears must be attuned only to the voice of wisdom. Only then are we really free. We can have no standards other than those of spiritual life if we would succeed in the life of the spirit. This includes being unresponsive to our own lower nature and responsive only to our higher, divine Self. It also includes our refusal to be controlled by supposed duties or obligations originating in the world and the ego and instead looking upon the things of the spirit alone as mandatory.

Many people use their supposed obligations and worldly responsibilities to neglect or altogether abandon spiritual life. Yet in an instant they throw over those earthly ties to fulfill personal and material desires or ambitions. This is especially true in family life. These individuals pretend to be morally enslaved to children, spouse, or parents–especially if those relatives do not like their spiritual activities. They make quite a production of how they cannot be so heartless as to upset them or spoil their relationship by doing something objectionable, or how afraid they are of their displeasure and censure. But if you can spend some time with them you will find them snapping orders at these very people, and constantly hurting them with complete callousness. Still, when spiritual life comes up they begin to figuratively limp around and whine as though they were under the total domination of those they use as an excuse. And woe to those who indicate that such “obligations” are not legitimate reasons to slack off, for they will be denounced as heartless monsters who want them to hurt their loved ones or break up their familial harmony. It is also true that there are those who refuse to fulfill their legitimate obligations under the cloak of “spirituality.” This is perhaps even more despicable.

There are also those that play a double game of deception and irresponsibility. They neglect their duties to their families and livelihood under the pretense that they are devoting their time to spiritual life. Then they neglect their spiritual duties under the pretense that they are having to fulfill their obligations to their families–a neat trick that often succeeds in bamboozling both sides, each thinking that the other is the cause of their neglect, while both are being shirked.

The disciple must avoid all these excuses and pitfalls.

• Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters it must have lost the power to wound.

The voice–which is much more than just words, being also thought and will–must lose the power to injure either ourselves or others through misapplication, falsehood, evil-speaking, slander, insult, cruelty, or harshness, or the desire to injure verbally. It also includes trying to manipulate other people. The very capacity for negative speaking must be eliminated.

• Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.

“Stand” means to be established in a definite position, to be bold and firm. Therefore the blood of the heart has to be shed. The heart must be opened and its blood poured out just as Saint Mary Magdalene poured the sweet perfume on the head of Jesus (Matthew 26:6, 7).

You can bleed from other places and survive, but if you pierce open the heart and it bleeds, you are on the way to death. So we are being exhorted to purify ourselves through the martyrdom of the ego. Just as the Mayans cut out the heart of victims and offered them in sacrifice, so we must cut out the ego and right away strike at the very thing that has been keeping us running away from God throughout so many lives. We must cut out our own heart, so to speak. We must shed our own blood. But when we do so we shall not die but live, for we shall discover that the ego is not our “heart” after all, but that our true heart is our immortal spirit. We will find our life is not in the “blood” of egotism, but in God. So our seeming suicide will really be our resurrection.

False identity has so gripped us that only by such drastic means will we be freed. “When the ‘I’ shall die, then shall I know who am I.” Sad to say, many people start out in spiritual life and then quit when it becomes a little bit inconvenient, troublesome, embarrassing, uncomfortable, or difficult. But disciples must be otherwise.

To this end we must give our heart’s blood, to unreservedly pour out the very essence of our life which, as already said, will then be seen to not have been our life at all, for we shall then come to know God as our life. What a joyous prospect!

This is the first posting of a serialized commentary on Mabel Collins' Light on the Path. Further postings of Swami Nirmalananda's commentary will be found on the Atma Jyoti Blog. Subscribe to the Blog's email list in the field at the bottom of the page to have these postings sent to you as they are published.

George Bernard Shaw and The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God

There are few original thinkers at any time on this earth. George Bernard Shaw was one of the most original thinkers and writers of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, he is known almost entirely through the motion pictures and television dramatizations made from some of his plays. Although his plays were insightful and often humorous, his real work consisted of the extremely lengthy introductions to those plays in their printed forms. There we find a brilliance of thought and expression that completely eclipses the plays themselves. Shaw was undoubtedly the greatest English-speaking philosopher of his time, and remains so today.

The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written in 1932, was as bold as it was devastating. It is a ruthless unmasking of people’s “gods”–none of which have anything to do with God. When reading it, please keep in mind that the people the black girl encounters are not meant to be satires of the Divine, but satirical exposés of the foolish ideas that are current about God. In the same way, the Conjurer is not a depiction of Jesus, but a depiction of the childish way in which Jesus is presented by Christianity. It is this illusion that speaks to the black girl, not the true Jesus. The same is true of Shaw’s presentation of the popular idea of Mohammed. Reading between the lines we see that Shaw is an uncompromising supernaturalist, more than merely discontent with the prevailing ideas in religion. Again, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God is not a mockery of religion but of the ignorance that substitutes itself for authentic religion.

As is obvious from many parts of this fable, Shaw was outraged at the abuse of Africans by Europeans, and certainly considered all humans to be of equal dignity and value. The inclusion, then, of certain disrespectful epithets applied to Africans was to point out European racism as well as to show that Africans sometimes absorbed it to a degree and even applied such expressions to themselves. His intention was thoroughly positive, as was Jerome Kern’s when in 1927 he wrote the opening words of Showboat: “N------rs all work on the Mississippi; n------rs all work while the white folks play.” He wanted the audience to be shocked and to protest so he could reply: “Why do you object to the word when you do not object to the treatment that goes along with it?”

This short story by Shaw is so full of insight that we have added it in full to our website. Read The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God by George Bernard Shaw here.

If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Atma Jyoti Blog: and have helpful spiritual articles such as the following sent to you whenever they are published:

• Steps in Superconsciousness
• Five Key Thoughts on Effective Spiritual Life
• Spiritual Evolution and Theology
• The Two Essential Pillars of Yoga
• Yoga: Conscious Evolution
• Vegetarians Less Likely to Develop Cancer
• The Five Basic Mind Waves In-Depth

To subscribe to the blog, fill in your email address in the field at right. You will be taken to a verification page on the FeedBurner site (the people who manage the email list), and will then be sent a confirmation email (important!) in which you will click a confirm link before the subscription is complete. This is necessary to prevent online spam.

Do you have a friend who will enjoy the Atma Jyoti Newsletter? Send it to them using this link.