DISCIPLESHIP AND ITS ENDThere is a curious
and ancient Atlantean chant which is no longer used but in those far off times was chanted
by the initiate who took the third initiation - the consummating initiation of that
period. It goes as follows. The translation of the symbols in which it was written
necessitates the loss of rhythm and potency.
"I stand between the Heavens and Earth! I vision God; I see the forms God took. I
hate them both. Naught do [679] they mean to me, for one I cannot reach, and for the lower
of the two I have no longer any love.
"Torn I am. Space and its Life I cannot know, and so I want it not. Time and its
myriad forms, I know too well. Pendant I hang betwixt the two, desiring neither.
"God from high Heaven speaks. There is a change. I hear with ear attentive, and,
listening, turn my head. That which I visioned, yet visioning could not reach, is nearer
to my heart. Old longings come again, yet die. Old chains of glamor snap. Forward I rush.
"Myriads of voices speak and halt me in my tracks. The thunder of the sounds of
earth shuts out the voice of God. I turn me on my forward path, and vision once again the
long held joys of earth, and flesh and kin. I lose the vision of eternal things. The voice
of God dies out.
"Torn again am I, but only for a little time. Backward and forward shifts my
little self, e'en as a bird soars into heaven and settles back again upon the tree. Yet
God, in His high place, outlasts the little bird. Thus do I know that God will victor be
and later hold my mind and me in thrall.
"Hark to the joyous paean that I chant; the work is done. My ear is deaf to all
the calls of earth, except to that small voice of all the hidden souls within the outer
forms, for they are as myself; with them I am at-one.
"God's voice rings clear, and in its tones and overtones the little voices of the
little forms dim and fade out. I dwell within a world of unity. I know all souls are one.
"Swept am I by the universal Life and as I sweep upon my onward way - the way of
God - I see all lesser energies die out. I am the One; I, God. I am the form in which all
forms are merged. I am the soul in which all souls are fused. I am the Life, and in that
Life, all little lives remain."
These words, chanted in the ancient formulas on peculiar and selected notes, were most
potent and brought definite results in certain ancient ceremonies that have long since
died out. [680]