There is a pool of lilies at the top, an Alhambran villa, great rose gardens.... I come to the pool—dip my feet in the still waters and I know from that how chill the night has been. I look at the lilies—how far they have opened—and know the time of day. I pray for a moment under a priestly Pine ... and my heart goes out in the new joy we have found—the joy of knowing that one may be the king of the world and the confirmed Son of God—if he but learn the one lesson—to want nothing.
Pool of lilies in the morning sun. (A little lizard is walking along the arm of the bench. My bare feet are quiet, and he wonders what kind of barkless trees they are. He is here and there. One sees his body move, not the members. The sun puts him to sleep.) ... The pool is still as the waters of sleep. The Sea—I think of her always as the emotional body of the world—the old Sea Mother with diamond-tipped emotions. And then I think of the Master Jesus walking upon the Sea and saying "Peace be still" to the stormy waters.... Each Soul must say that to his emotions. We learn to walk upright upon the earth, then to still the waters, then to have dominion over the birds of the air—and last to be seven times refined in the Fire.... Earth, water, air, fire—the first quaternary.... Yes, we are learning to say "Peace be still" to the stormy waters. We do not know how beautiful they are until they obey.
... Out of the still waters in the pure blue starlight, the lily blooms—the lotus on the still lagoons of the Soul.... Naked as a serpent's head, the sealed bud rises from the water in the night.... Out of the power that follows the peace upon the waters—for the blooms of the spirit lift greatly in the tranquillity of the heart that follows the storm—out of the power of peace upon the waters, the lotus rises and waits like a bride in the dawn-dusk for her Lord Sun to brush back the veils and find her heart.
It is only the beginning of heaven we find here. We weary of the world and turn back to the Father's House. We have plucked the fruits of pain—we have thirsted and hungered again and again.... Out of the darkness we have formed the thought, at last, that there must be quenching waters, and somewhere bread to eat that does not perish.... You can say it in a thousand ways. The Prodigal tells the story. He arises and turns back. Evolution has ceased, involution begins again. He is being folded back to the Father with all the treasures of Egypt. He has ceased to diffuse himself in generation, through which he has become an integral part of every fibre of the world, and begins now to call in and synthesise all his spiritual possessions. The processes of diffusion were in pain—the integration is joy again. Each day of the up-slope his step quickens. The more he knows, the more he believes. The more he sees, the larger his faith—the more his treasures, the more sumptuous his order. "Unto him who hath it shall be given."
Again, it is merely lifting the consciousness from time to eternity, from the cramp of space to the flow of the universe—from pain to play—from desire to radiation.... One ascends and at each steps sees farther. Day by day, the work of the installation of the higher powers goes on. We give up nothing but that which impedes the inflow of godly forces. That which we think we want to-day will look as absurd to-morrow as the hopelessness of a child over a plaything broken.
It's a way of loving every step. Thus we heal from the infinite tears of the changes of matter and dissolution, and lift our love to the Masters and the Immortal Gods. We dare love utterly only that which can contain us. If the Masters loved us with all their power, we would fall in the madness of too much light.... Always, they give us all the love that we can endure.... We give our all to them and expand daily, until we know the passion to break ourselves open in ecstasy, like the king bee under the whirring wings of the queen.
In the human body, the diaphragm is the surface of the waters. If our consciousness is below that, we are in generation. To become regenerated is to lift the balance of consciousness above—to rise like the lotus from the face of stilled waters.... It is a quickened vibration. Simultaneously, one lifts from cerebration to intuition—from the time of matter to the spaciousness of Soul—from the light of the camp-fire in the night, to the full day upon the plain—from the son of man to the Son of God—from the pain of loving with desire to the irresistible creativeness of wanting nothing but to give.
III