Les Douze Portes

Les Douze Portes.

Les Douze Portes (leçon 170)

en cours de traduction

Upon reading a description of the Temple built by Solomon, according to a plan given in detail by Jehovah, the materialist would give but little thought to the mystery of the Twelve Gates. To him they are only entrances to a building, but to the Student of Occultism they are duplicates, or correspondences, of the entrances to a living Temple – the human body – as well as to a greater Temple on interior planes – a Universal Temple. Each detail of the Temple holds the key to all the mysteries of the division of life it represents and is. To no one detail does more interest attach than to that of the Twelve Gates.

The Ego enters the first three of the Twelve Gates by means of gross matter, form and lower mind. Through many incarnations in fact up to the period when connection is made with the Soul – Higher mind – the Pilgrim of Days gradually passes through the first three gates of the Universal Temple. By means of instinct atone, the reincarnating Monad makes its way through the three Kingdoms of Nature until its form is ensouled in the third Root Race of Mankind when, as a complete human being, he is prepared to enter the next three gates. With a more refined body, increased brain capacity and a soul, the passing of the next triad of gates fats him for Temple Service. The first period of that service involves the development of the latent qualities of ambition, endurance and devotion.

The third triad of gates is entered only by "the few" of any race – the Prepared – for they are the teachers of the masses, and this must be so until the cycle rolls around in which all of a Redeemed Humanity may enter. This opportunity will be part of the heritage of the Sixth Root Race. "They are of those who have passed through great tribulations", great tests, and won.

The last three gates are only entered by the Perfected – the Masters of the highest degrees of Life – the highly evolved progenitors of the Seventh Root Race. These are the gates through which come and go the Divine Builders of Worlds.

The above is but a rough outline of this vast subject. What you and all humanity are now most greatly concerned with is the last gate of the second triad of gates through which you are now striving to pass. Unfortunately, as it would seem, you have loaded yourselves with much rubbish which must be cast' aside, or changed, before it will be possible for you to get entirely through the gate. You are not yet sure what better be cast aside. You think you may need some of that rubbish on the other ride of the gate and so are confronted with the difficulty of fixing a right valuation upon it. You still have to learn to put a right valuation upon things. You have to learn that it is not necessary to cast away any useful thing, but that it may be necessary for you to transmute the rubbish, to reduce much of it as the chemist reduces gross matter to obtain the particular substance he needs for some definite purpose.

"Without God nothing was made" and it is the God in that rubbish which you must seek and fend, and when you have succeeded, the mass will be so reduced in volume and character that you will find no difficulty in passing through the gate, and once inside you will find yourselves equipped for the necessary service.

These twelve gates have a certain correspondence to the Zodiac and to every yearly cycle. April, May and June correspond to 'the first three gates ; July, August and September to the second three ; October, November and December to the third three ; and January, February and March correspond to the last three. In terms of time you are now about entering the last one of the second triad of gates with the beginning of the month of January. The good resolutions made, as a result of interior recognition of a new beginning, a new impulse given to the life forces, is, figuratively speaking, the soul's ticket of entrance to the gate you are about to enter, the last, so far as a yearly cycle of time is concerned. It is possible that it will open for some of your number upon the floor of the Initiation Chamber of the Great Temple, on each side of which is one of the four Thrones occupied by four of the Masters of the highest Degrees. Each one of those Thrones combines the resident power of the three of the twelve exterior gates.

As the Pilgrim of Days travels toward the Universal Heart – the mathematical point – he finds that all exterior forms of life appear to condense, coalesce and concentrate ; as before indicated, they are reduced to their original elements and Experience has yielded the power for such reduction.

The experiences of the Ego through a whole fine of incarnations in evanescent form have yielded the power by means of which it has passed the Gates of the Temple and won eternal life in form. When any division of humanity has succeeded in passing one of the outer gates there is great rejoicing among those who traverse the tessellated floor of the Great Initiation Chamber.

While the above statements may only be accepted symbolically by the many, there are those who know I speak truly – those who KNOW that the Great Temple exists and who rejoice with the Masters at the opening of every new life cycle which makes for the development of the human race, even if it must open on conditions so indescribably awful as to stagger the imagination of Man. After the whirl-wind cometh the low, sweet Voice which speaks Peace to all creatures ; out of travail cometh New Birth.

(source : Les Enseignements du Temple de Maître Hilarion)