– Do two paths exist? – the dis­ciple asked again, though he sus­pec­ted that par­al­lels do con­verge a little, espe­cially if one looks far enough, into infin­ity. He awaited the answer, and kept on wait­ing.

– Every idea or teach­ing can be pre­served and pro­claimed in two ways. Fan­at­ics would com­pel them­selves and oth­ers by force and restric­tion to fol­low the doc­trine strictly, for they believe that they them­selves are its cre­at­ors, cus­todi­ans and spokes­men.

– Famil­i­ar… – the dis­ciple put in, though he was cer­tainly not think­ing of his mas­ter, but of the faults that are present in the world and inev­it­ably arise. Every being is fal­lible…

– The tech­niques they employ may range from instilling guilt, through sup­press­ing free thought and per­son­al opin­ion, to brain­wash­ing, manip­u­la­tion and the exer­cise of spir­itu­al ter­ror. In the short term these are extremely effect­ive tools, but in the medi­um term they lead to burnout, and in the long term to utter dis­il­lu­sion­ment and com­plete inner divi­sion.

– And the other meth­od? – the dis­ciple enquired help­fully, not that his teach­er needed remind­ing of any­thing.

– The other meth­od… well, oth­ers know that the Truth exists, and that from time to time it does mani­fest itself. They are well aware that they are not the cre­at­ors but the seers, wor­ship­pers and ser­vants of the teach­ing of the high­er real­ity. And this role was pos­sible for oth­ers in the past, and will be pos­sible in the future too. This is an enlightened meth­od, recept­ive to the attain­ments of other people, reli­gions and tra­di­tions. In the short term it may seem less effect­ive, but in the longer term it proves its worth.

– That seems more inspir­ing to me… – the dis­ciple said again.

– Here, how­ever, arises the danger of spir­itu­al infi­del­ity, when, through too broad an out­look, one breaks away from his roots and for­gets what he owes to tra­di­tion. Both meth­ods, then, have their own dif­fi­culties. You can expect the safest growth if you are faith­ful to tra­di­tion and deeply rooted in it, yet at the same time pro­gress­ive enough in spir­it to look boldly around you.

– It is as if you were speak­ing of the roots and the spread­ing crown of the tree of spir­itu­al­ity!

– Good! Two dir­ec­tions exist: the hori­zont­al and the ver­tic­al. On the hori­zont­al plane you can gath­er ever more inform­a­tion and impres­sions, while on the ver­tic­al plane you can delve into the depths of a thing. These two approaches pulse accord­ing to one's age and the spir­it of the times. Today free­dom of inform­a­tion is a given, but the long­ing for depth is lack­ing – most people remain on the sur­face.

– I would like to delve deep­er…

– Strive! To be informed is good, to go deep is bet­ter still. There exists a deep­er know­ledge, the endur­ing wis­dom, the philo­sophia per­en­nis, that com­mon, uni­ver­sal ground of man­kind's intel­lect and con­scious­ness which is reflec­ted in each tra­di­tion in a dif­fer­ent hue, like the uni­ver­sal white light-radi­ance refrac­ted by the prism into a seven-col­oured veil. By unit­ing the rays you will have more strength, more wis­dom, more love…

But wis­dom is not yet the final word in the spir­itu­al sci­ences. Bey­ond it there exists the endur­ing love, the amor per­en­nis, which far tran­scends human capa­cit­ies and reaches up to the heav­ens. The refrac­ted rays of love are sexu­al, erot­ic, phil­an­throp­ic, spir­itu­al and divine love – the last of these is the all-encom­passing embrace of the Supreme. Of this I can say no more; you must know what I mean. Let this divine love, the amor sanc­tus, be the final and most import­ant goal of your search! And if, for the sake of this search, you man­age to unite your intel­lec­tu­al fac­ulties with the power of the heart, the res­ult is an extraordin­ary com­bin­a­tion. Do not be con­tent with a few the­or­et­ic­al con­vic­tions; strive to come to exper­i­ence a liv­ing faith, to live out a liv­ing rela­tion­ship with the tran­scend­ent! Search out and find the liv­ing divine con­nec­tion!