Staircase
If you miss the first buttonhole, you will not succeed
in buttoning up your coat.
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe
The most important and most
difficult stage of the Way to pass is the Staircase,
also called the path of Access, which
leads to the level of man 4.
Anyone who seeks to climb
this must make this effort the principal aim of his life. From now on, esoteric
work must become the axis of his existence round which the inner and outer circumstance of his life revolve.
This categorical demand
must not frighten us. At the same time, we must realize that the tests begin
from the first step of the staircase.
To cross the first Threshold, man must undergo the first
test successfully without looking back: he must be ablaze with the ardent
desire to overcome the entanglement of life in the wilderness so that he can throw
himself into the unknown in a search for a new, reasonable and real life.
This desire for
transformation, if it has enough vigour and intensity, will fill the
interval between the notes DO and SI
which is the first Threshold, and the seeker will stand with a firm footing on
the first step of the Staircase.
The four notes which form
the Staircase is linked by a deep
interdependence, since their resonance draws its strength from the initial
impulse of Desire. This means that if
this initial Desire does not unite
all man’s existence in obedience, if it does not dominate his whole being, it
better for him to stop in time and not cross the Threshold. We repeat: the Way
is a path of no return. This is the real reason fro this test of Desire. This Desire must have the strength of thirst, says the Tradition.
Next, having reached the
first step, man must undergo the test of Faith.
To Believe
is not enough; one must have faith. The test takes the form of a need for man
to surmount his fear of “abandonment” to Faith.
[…]
On the second step, a test
of strength awaits those who have committed themselves on the Staircase.
[…]
On the third step, the test
is of Discernment and Skill.
[…]
On the fourth step one must
confront the test of Love, of true life-giving
love, a consuming fire quite different from what now smoulders under the
ashes…having past this test, man has nothing within him but pure Love, which contains the elements
of transfigured Desire; of Faith, Strength and Discernment.
…the test at the fourth
step is decisive. Until then man can drag along the defects of the past, and
usually does so: lying, weakness, self-pity, inner compromise. Generally, he
has the time, the opportunity and the possibility to rid himself of them before
committing himself to the fourth step; but because of the weight of this past
he wastes time, and lets many of the opportunities which present themselves
escape him. On the fourth step the balance sheet must be drawn up and accounts
settled. Man, poor and naked, is accepted at the second threshold, but only on
condition that he is consistent and pure. The essential is that he be
consistent, meaning that he contains within himself true Love. Everything false
within him will be burnt by the flames of this blazing sword…
It is to be noted that all
the tests happen together, and on all the steps of the Staircase. But they are distributed unequally according to the
particularities of our Personalities, all of them being driven by the force of Desire.
Boris
Mouravieff, Gnosis Vol. I 1961/1989 Praxis press
The Staircase symbolizes
the period of Gestation, and the crossing of the second threshold represents
the second birth, the birth of the individuality.
Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis Vol. I 1961/1989 Praxis press
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the
mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe