Spiritual evolution may be understood, or at least perceived, from a study of physical and mental evolution. From the crude to the perfect is the law; if this perfection of species, or of phases, could be attained without pain, it were well. Pain comes from lack of wisdom to realize that out of the lower the higher inevitably springs, as the butterfly springs from the cocoon; as the flower springs from the seed; "as above so below" is a translation of an old Sinto saying, which also bids us "trust in Kami and keep clean."
Again it is said "to him who overcometh, will I give the inheritance." Overcoming may be variously interpreted. In the past, it has been presented to the initiate, as sacrifice. If so it be, then is it because of lack of that wisdom which knows that there is no sacrifice in exchanging the physical for the spiritual—the ephemeral for the abiding.
Says the ancient manuscripts:
"The body is purified by water, the mind by truth, the soul by knowledge and austerity, the reason by wisdom."
But as the groping, undeveloped soul struggles for consciousness, it reaches out for the gratification of mental desires. The soul is moved by desire for perfect happiness. The mind seeks to satisfy this craving for happiness in increased activities; in accumulation; in so-called pleasure, i.e. always looking outside—thinking outside, living in the outside—the maya. But the soul has but one answer to this quest for happiness. It is love, because only love and wisdom give immortality—which is self-preservation in the true sense.
It is written in the Shruti: "Brahman is wisdom and bliss."
No higher text can be given the disciple.
Wisdom comes from reflection upon the results of Experience, in the search for happiness.
When the mind has sounded the depths of its resources, and the urge forward can not be appeased, when the voice of the inner self—the soul, cannot be silenced; the disciple pauses to ask the way. He wants to know what it is all about, and why it is that all he has so striven and struggled for fails to satisfy. He wants to know how to avoid pain; and how to find the most direct road to that satisfaction which endures; and which is not synonymous with the so-called "pleasures" of the senses.
When this stage of development has been reached, the disciple is ready for another phase of Experience which shall extend his consciousness into those areas of knowledge, in which the Real is distinguishable from the Illusory.