Path of Initiation 04 Art of the Initiate

Real spiritual development is a creative process that develops the consciousness and prepares the soul to express the divinity of the Being.

Lecture quote:

"In the genuine Gnostic tradition-in ancient Egypt, Greece, Mexico, wherever you find the ancient Gnostic tradition-you always find that the highest ideal is beauty. Beauty in Hebrew is Tiphereth, and is found on the Tree of Life (Kabbalah); beauty is related with the Human Soul. This sphere on the Tree of Life (Tiphereth) corresponds directly to our Human Soul, to our human consciousness, and is that which gives us real value, gives us the capacity to be alive. It is the essence, the very nature of our soul. It is with beauty that the soul is developed - by the influence, by the effect, by the development and cultivation of beauty. So, this is the great art: the Great Work. The greatest art is the cultivation of the beauty of the Human Soul - of Tiphereth."

This is a lecture from the free online course Path of Initiation

Course Description:

Genuine spiritual initiation is not bestowed in the physical world, but in the worlds of the soul, when the soul has earned a new level of Being. The development of the soul is a conscious work, acheived through psychological transformations, and is marked by exact steps that cannot be avoided or skipped.

Telesis [τέλεσις] is a Greek term that means "progress that is intelligently planned and directed." It means "the attainment of a desired end, by the application of intelligent effort." This is the work of the soul to become an Initiate, whose goal is to achieve the completion of religion, which comes from the Latin religare, which means to reunite the earthly with the heavenly: to become one with God.

"Initiation is something very intimate to the Soul. The "I" does not receive initiations. Therefore, those who say, "I have so many initiations," "I have such-and-such degrees," are liars and fakes, because the "I" does not receive initiations or degrees. There are nine Initiations of Minor Mysteries and five important Initiations of Major Mysteries. The Soul is the one who receives the initiations. This is a very intimate matter; something that one must not go about speaking of, nor something that must be told to anyone. Indeed, all the initiations and degrees that many schools of the physical world confer have no value whatsoever in the superior worlds, because the masters of the White Lodge only recognize the legitimate initiations of the Soul as genuine. These are completely internal." - Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony