Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine

   Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

--Matt. 7:13-14.

   To the general reader these words of Christ Jesus may sound rather ominous,and their terrifying aspect has been used freely by orthodox ministers, still act ingunder the impulse of the Jehovistic regime of fear, in attempting to frighten their congregations into a more religious life. However, as interpreted in the revealing light of the Western Wisdom Teachings, they indicate the verities and beauties of the spiritual Way - the life "more abundant" in which all the latent faculties of the Spirit unfold into a beautiful flowering. True, life lived in accord with the spiritual laws governing man and the universe requires the sacrifice of things appealing to the senses, but it also brings a changing perception which establishes a keener appreciation and enjoyment of the real things of life. Gradually, "a sane mind, a soft heart, and a sound body" work in perfect unison to bring increasing peace and satisfaction.

   Living as he does in the midst of countless sense attractions, modern man may find it easier to follow the line ofleast resistance and cater to the senses. However, the time must come when distaste, ill health, and suffering bring him to a reckoning, and to a desire to know the joys of spiritual living. He begins to forsake the way of the sense life and learns to think, speak, and act in accordance with the Higher Will which governs all.

   When He invited all to enter the strait gate, Christ Jesus was calling to the higher self in man, the part of the human being which ever aims at the stars, ever aspires toward the heights, as symbolized by the sign Sagittarius. Only at temporary periods can the voice of this inner man be stilled, for deep within the coats of materiality, the Ego yearns tor its original home with its Father, God. There is thus ever an inner urge toward a more spiritual way of living.

   As Spirits differentiated within God, we are immortal, passing countless times through the cycle which leads from the heaven worlds into materiality, and from the material world back again into the higher realms. Eventually a new Evolutionary Day comes and some of humanity go forward, while others, not having made the grade, are placed in other environments to take up their retarded work.

   Those who have their faces set toward the Light recognize the mighty power of the Spirit, and admit no defeat on the Path. When once the spiritual self is thoroughly aroused and active, the lower self is doomed. The sense life loses its attractions, and the Path whereon one sacrifices the personality for the eternal glory of God becomes ever brighter and more alluring. Each day of love and service given brings a certain advance toward the Kingdom of "Life," the blessed life of activity and progress in the great Garden of God.

--Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine, September, 1975, page 404