SEVEN STEPS TO ATTAINMENT

Issued by the Supreme Council of the

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER, A.M.O.R.C,

MJ-116-861
 SEVEN STEPS TO ATTAINMENT

By Ralph M. Lewis, F. R. C.

Issued by the Supreme Council of the

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER, A.M.O.R.C.
There is an ultimate end of life, from the physical point of view.
This is apparent to everyone--to the highly civilized man, to the
barbarian, and even to the aborigine. This end of life, this termi­
nation of our physical existence is the cessation of those attributes
and those functions which we associate with living, or with those
things which we say are animate. We, each of us, are moving continu­
ally in the direction of this physical end of life, this transition
from living. We are moving in this direction through no power of our
own, nor is it the result of a volition of ours. The nature of this
life force, with which things are animated, and the cause of it, we
leave to the research scientist, to the biologist, to the biochemist,
and to the physiologist, and the probable reason for our physical
existence, we leave to the abstractions of the philosopher.

However, if it be granted that man has will and may make certain
choices, what are the fundamental choices of his will? What choice
should man make? A fundamental choice cannot include death, for death
is inevitable. It comes to all, whether they choose it or not.
Furthermore, the fundamental choices of man cannot include life, be­
cause if we are able to choose to live we are already living, by virtue
of the fact that we can make the choice, and so it amounts to no
choice. Therefore, we are really only free to choose how to use our
existence here. In other words, having consciousness as we do, of
what shall we be conscious?

Now, there are those whose choice consists in striving for health
alone. But to make health your principal end or choice is really a
negative attainment. It results merely in the removal of distress and
suffering. Good health gives more substance to life, provides more
. . ,• '

longevity, but, after all, that is like reinforcing the walls of a

building and continuing to add buttresses and other supports. One
does not reinforce the walls of an empty house, or one in which nothing
will be placed, or which has no definite purpose. Striving just for
health so as to insure longevity is like that. Then, there are those
who principally seek to attain wealth. They believe that to be in­
dicative of their choice; however, cupidity or the love of possessions
is nothing else but a desire, and desires are an inescapable quality
of life itself. Desire is not a choice, it is a compulsion as in­
separable from life as moisture is from water.
Of what then should our voluntary attainment in life consist?
What should be our fundamental choice? Jn.genera l , the answer must be
n rr W t f i r r i r> v ii n l , -r ^ -11 1 -

to choose complete and perfect happiness, Theologians, mystics, and

philosophers, for centuries, have contended that man is a triune being
namely, that he consists of body, mind, and soul. Therefore, the only
perfect happiness which there can be, ’the only happiness which can be
complete is that happiness.which embraces all'three of these aspects
of man’s nature. There are. seven steps to this.perfect, happiness in
life, seven steps by which it is attained. Prom time immemorial,
seven has been referred to frequently as the necessary number of steps
which man must take for attainment in life. Since seven has been
principally selected by the ancients, as the number, it must obviously
have some mystical significance or importance. For example, Herodotus,
the ancient Greek historian, relates that the Tower of Babel, built by
the ancient Babylonians, had seven tiers up which the votaries ascend­
ed to reach the Temple of Enlil, the God of Air, upon the top. The
first Egyptian pyramid, having sloping sides and built by Pharaoh
Snefru, 2900 B. C,, consisted of seven stories. Each was a separate
little structure placed upon the other, and each succeeding one was
slightly smaller than the one before it, so the whole was terraced and
then the sides were filled in to create the slope.

The early Gnostics, who sought salvation through knowledge alone,

also venerated the number seven. To them, seven represented the four
points of the square added to the three points of the triangle. They
symbolized this by drawing the square with the triangle resting upon
it, with point upward. The three points of the triangle to them de­
picted the three natures of man, as body, mind, and soul. The four
points of the square represented the fundamental expressions or mani­
festations of nature— fire, water, earth, and air.

Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher and scientist, founder of the

school of mysticism in Cretona, Italy, also held that the heptad, or
numeral seven, was worthy of veneration. He further declared it to
be the most perfect of all numerals, possibly because he found that
in the cyclical phenomena of nature, things recurred often in periods
of seven. As applied to man, Pythagoras divided life into ten periods
of seven years each. Further, the Rosicrucian mystics of the Middle
Ages divided the functioning of will and the kinds of understanding
into seven each.

The Substance of Man

The first of these seven steps to the attainment of happiness is

the understanding of substance--our substance and the substance of
other things. Every man, each of us, is conscious that he is. This
self-consciousness is the starting point for all else which we con­
ceive to exist. Things exist to us only because first we exist to
ourselves. Things are said to have a place in time and to exist in
space, because they revolve about us. We say that a thing is there
only because it is not of us, or doesn't seem to be within us. Again,
we say that something is past because it is not in our immediate
perception, a part of our immediate present consciousness. Take man­
kind away and you thereby remove proof of all of the things which exist
to him, because he is the means by which they have existence. So con­
sciousness, we must admit, is one of the great substances in the
universe.

Reality, of all the myriad things of which we are aware, law and
form, are mirrored within the depths of consciousness. Yet, conscious­
ness itself is formless. There is no one thing which represents it.
There is nothing that we can single out, point out, and say "that is
consciousness." Consciousness, in fact, never realizes itself as only
being a single substance, as having a specific limited nature. We are
always aware of self in a grosser substance which we call body. In
other words, when we are aware of self, we are also aware tha¥ self
exists in another substance or vehicle. Now, this body, in which
consciousness is resident, has an affinity, that is, a relationship to
other things. In other words, we find in other things a similarity to
our own body, a certain dependence upon common conditions and a
certain similar functioning as well. We, each of us, know that most
certainly we have not conceived all of the images which are reflected
in our consciousness, of which we are aware. Furthermore, we are
quite aware that we did not conceive and create our own consciousness,
our own self-consciousness. So we must conclude that the human con­
sciousness must be part of a greater substance, of a stream or flow of
something of its own kind which transcends it.

We can then say that we have two great parallels existing in the
universe. One is matter or being; and the other is consciousness. We
must ask ourselves, can one exist without the other? Can there be
consciousness without matter in the universe, or can there be matter
without consciousness? And did one originate the other? Has matter
come out of consciousness, or has consciousness come out of matter?
Or have they both had a common creator or source? If so, what is it
like? It is apparent to us that the primary being, the primary source,
if you will, must be more than those energies or those forces of which
matter consists. It must be, for example, more than merely electric­
ity, magnetism, and light. We have said that it is only through
consciousness that such things have existence. Something without a
mind to realize it, whether it is a human mind or otherwise, just
couldn’t be. Furthermore, since consciousness is no one thing in
itself, consciousness must have something to mirror, something which
it can reflect or consciousness is not. Consequently, we may reason
that the primary source of all is neither merely consciousness, nor
could it be just those forces and energies which we associate with
matter and material things. It is, in fact, the unity of both. For
every state of being, or for that which has motion, there must be a
state of knowing, a state of consciousness.

That which has being, and which also knows, is mind. Therefore,
the first substance, from which all things spring, is absolute mind.
If that is so, we mortals, therefore, cannot rightly conceive God as
being limited or constricted to any form. God could not be of a form
made of a material nature alone. Furthermore, God is not conscious of
Himself in any particular form, because His consciousness corresponds
to no one form. From this conclusion, we cannot rightly conceive that
matter is entirely nonspiritual, that it is devoid of all spiritual
essence. We cannot believe, as so many theologians have expounded in
the past, that matter is base and corrupt, and that it should be de­
spised or deprecated, that matter has fallen away from a higher state.
We must hold that for every divine expression as matter in the universe,
there is a corresponding divine consciousness of it--an idea for each
form. Therefore, God, as mind, as a primary substance exists in all
things that we experience. God is in that which is the grossest and
most material of all things, as well as in that which is said to be
spiritual consciousness.
Page 4
How Free Are Men?

The second step to this attainment in life, this perfect and com­
plete happiness, is liberation. Liberation concerns the problem of
freedom. Because we choose each moment of the day, because we select
this and we select that, are we actually free? Is it not quite
possible that in making our numerous choices, we are being subtly
influenced by conditions or things of which we are not awai’e? An
absolute fx^-eedom in nature would be the greatest disaster which we
could imagine. It would mean chaos. The order which we perceive in
nature is dependent on its own necessity. Things cannot escape their
order. Everything is compelled to conform to its changes, to its
motion, of which it is a part. As we look about us, things in nature
seem to deviate. They seem to be at great variance with each other.
There are things which seem so far apart in their function and form
that it is almost impossible, superficially, to imagine any connection
between them, and, yet, at their bottom all things are equal, because
everything in nature conforms to certain basic, common laws. Is it
not reasonable that things which must be equal to each other in essence
are therefore not free? One mystic has said that liberty and equality
contradict each other, and yet men are constantly prating about the
liberty and equality which they are simultaneously seeking. A complete
freedom would, in fact, create inequality, for that which is free will
not obviously be restrained by any standards. It will not be com­
pelled to be equal to any other thing. Conversely, a true equality,
where things are actually equal to each other, does not permit of
anything such as liberty. A true equality would not permit anything
to deviate from that which is equal.

The question often arises, where men think separately or collec­

tively, was nature determined as it is? In other words, was it prede­
termined? Was everything conceived as we know and experience it? If
all was predetermined in advance, then obviously nothing is free in
nature, for nothing can escape that which it is and which it was de­
termined to be. There are those who do not believe that all things
were determined in advance. They prefer to conceive that the Cosmic
had no beginning and everything that is was and still remains of God.
From this point of view also, there could be no freedom in nature,
because this really is advancing the theory of necessity. All things
at their bottom are of God; therefore, by necessity, they must follow
that order of God; consequently, they cannot deviate from it and there­
fore they are not free.

Much, however, is made of man's volition, his self-determination--

the fact that man can say aye of some things, and nay about others,
and that he does so at all times. But we say that man also, like the
other things in nature, cannot escape making these choices. These
choices are but the very necessity of his own being, and do not rep­
resent him to be of free will. We either conform to the positive
aspect of our nature and thereby are healthier and more harmonious,
and possibly live longer, or we choose the negative and do not conform
to our nature, and thus we experience not only suffering but an un­
timely death.
 Man is continually acted upon by his emotions, by his instincts,
by psychic urges and by the forces and powers of the physical world,
Man cannot escape these urges. He cannot put himself apart from them,
and, therefore, he is compelled to have preferences as he reacts to
these urges. These preferences are kinds of responses which he has
from these influences of his being. These preferences are choices and
the choices are an integral part of our nature, just as eating, breath­
ing, and drinking are a necessary part of our physical nature. We,
each of us, actually choose what pleases our natures. We cannot
escape doing so. Therefore, the will is not free. Though we must
choose, and are compelled to Fy "the necessity oT~our own natures,
there are preferred choices which we can and should make. We should
always choose according to the best quality of our nature, in accord­
ance with the better part of ourselves. Such choice approaches the
nature of God. The nearer we are to our whole self, the integrated
nature of our being, the closer we are to the Absolute, to God.

The third step to this attainment in life, the perfect happiness,

is^self-discipline. In his functioning, man has three parts to his
being. The first, as we have said, is soul. It is the highest of
these three parts, because it is the more complex; that is, it is the
most all-embracing. It contains more of the essence of all things,
and it is the most unlimited. The second part of man's being is the
mind, or the rational, the conscious part. And the third part is that
corporeal substance, the body, the grosser Divine manifestation.

In man these three parts have a ratio or an order of one, two, and
three. At all times the direction, the command must come from the soul
as number One, to the mind as number Two, and finally to the body as
number Three. There are certain desires which arise at times in life,
which cause us to disturb and disrupt this ratio, and the disruption
results in suffering and just the opposite of the happiness which we •
should attain.

Gautama Buddha, centuries before Christ, was the first to work

out a practical system of self-discipline. In fact, Buddha was the
first to give to the world a system of what may be termed practical
psychology. The essence of this system is expressed in the four great
truths of Buddhism. To summarize these truths, all existence provides
some kind of suffering and all of the suffering which we experience is
caused by insatiable desires, says Buddha, desires which cannot ever
be completely satisfied or quieted. Suffering will cease only when we
learn to suppress these insatiable desires; in other words, when we
have learned to keep the elements of our triune nature obedient to
their relationship of one, two, and three.

The fourth step toward this attainment, this fundamental choice

which we should make in life, is morality. Of all of the steps which
we must take, this one is perhaps the most obscure. The step of mo­
rality concerns the problem of the reality of good and evil. Is good
real? And is there a real evil? Has there been established a Divine
standard, a fixed and definite good, like a Divine dogma or creed which
all men should and must recognize, and has it as much reality as our­
selves? If there has, then men would be either just obliged to accept
that one good of a Divine nature, or reject it entirely. But the fact
remains, and human experience confirms it, that men are continually
striving for divergent goods. One group of men is striving for what
they hold to be good, and other groups of men are striving just as
sincerely for goods which conflict with the former. If men in their
hearts want good, why must they be misled by its content? Why must
they be going in different directions? It doesn't seem that a com­
passionate Divine Intelligence or God would so intentionally confuse
men who sought good. But if the good has been divinely established,
if it is a fixed, definite good, and if God is the creator of all
things, then from whence comes evil? What is its source? So, if there
is a positive good and God is the creator of it and all else, obviously
then, evil cannot have any positive content; evil cannot be real; evil
can be only a negative state, the absence of good.
Let us presume that good has a definite existence, that there is
a fixed, Divine standard. The question arises, then, why should men
aspire to that good? Frankly, why should men be good? Contrary to
opinion, no men are truly unselfish— even those who do great works of
charity; those who are benevolent; or those who serve others than them­
selves are doing so because it brings satisfaction to their extended
self-consciousness. There are those whose consciousness of self has
so extended that self includes many other people and things besides
their immediate being. It brings them satisfaction, therefore, to do
for those things or those persons which they have included as a part
of themselves. If men are to seek good, therefore, the good must
satisfy some element of their nature, of their self, or they willnot
aspire to it.

Spiritual good, as held out to us by theology, by religion,

promises a reward of salvation and of immortality. However, this
spiritual good can only be appreciated by those who desire immortality.
Obviously, if one does not desire immortality, he will not then seek
the spiritual good which offers it as a reward. Men are not equal.
Each has some part of his nature dominating at all times. Some men
are more physical; some men are more intellectual; and some men are
more spiritual. Each experiences a good according to which nature
dominates. Each nature has its own goods, its own rewards, and we must
first realize one and then the other. That is how we climb upward in
self. The greatest rewards of the body are health and vigor. These
are the goods which come from obeying the physical part of ourselves.
There are also goods, or rawards, of an intellectual'nature. The
exercise of our reason, the developing of the various faculties of our
minds bring their good; as, for example, self-respect, confidence, and
poise. Until we experience the spiritual self, until we permit the
soul, the highest part 0f our nature, to dominate, we cannot know that
its goods are best, and we cannot be compelled to seek them. Thus we
must climb from one good to another good.
Knowledge vs. Understanding
_This brings us to the next step in attainment, and that is under-
standing. Without understanding, man is nothing more than a wanderer
m the dark. Meister Eckhart, the great German, medieval mystic, said
that understanding ’means seeing things clearly and in their proper
light. Now, we know that perception is to perceive, to see, to hear,
and to feel things. On the other hand, apperception goes beyond just
mere perception. It is to give meaning to those things which finally
arise in our minds, to give them proper classification and compre­
hension. The receptor faculties which we have--that is, sight, touch,
smell, etc.--are like the esophagus and the mouth; they are but intake
channels for the reception of numerous impressions from without. Con­
versely, the reason and the various faculties of mind function not
unlike the stomach, in that they digest what has been received.

No knowledge is so useless as that which has not been digested;

namely, as that for which there is no corresponding personal idea or
conclusion which we have arrived at. Our minds are cluttered with
terms, with phrases which we have inherited or which we have heard over
the radio or read in newspapers. They are merely words to most of us,
which have no use to our understanding, because they are not words
which we have adapted or fitted to original ideas of our own. We may
say that knowledge is that of which we are conscious. Understanding,
on the other hand, is the nature and purpose of that which we have
come to know. Wisdom is acquiring experience in the application of
understanding. Wisdom is knowing when and how to use that which we
understand. Every minute of our conscious existence brings us knowl­
edge, the realization of something. However, it is only meditation and
cogitation upon that which we know which brings us understanding. Also
it is only the indulgence of the use of understanding which brings us
wisdom. In understanding, it is often said, there is power. It is
because in the understanding mind the ideas are properly arranged; they
have been properly labelled, and classified. They can be used like me­
chanical parts to repair, to rebuild, or to meet the demands of emer­
gencies.

The sixth step to attainment is application. Marcus Aurelius,

Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, made a very effective statement,
in reference to application in life. He said that figs are considered
fairer and riper when they have begun to shrink. He also said that
grapes are thought best when they have grown to such proportions and
weight that they bend the vine. So, too, the beauty and ripeness of
old age is to be found in the maximum development and application of
the powers of mind and the attributes of soul. Death can never sur­
prise the individual who has used his powers fully and intelligently.
He cannot be like the actor upon whom the curtain descends before he
has finished his play, because one who has used his powers fully is
ever prepared for the eventuality of death. Such a person who has
lived fully has no regrets. There is nothing to smart his conscious­
ness when death comes. The exertion of mind and the exertion of body,
and the extensive employment of consciousness admittedly is fatiguing;
yet, one who avoids exertion because it is fatiguing, never comes to
experience the intense stimulation which follows rest and rejuvenation.
The joy of rejuvenation, the consciousness of renewed power and
strength, comes only to those who have first exerted themselves.

Life is to live. Let us not deceive ourselves. The whole purport

and purpose of life is in its utilization. It has no other value,
except as a medium by which something can be accomplished. To restrain
our natural functions, to harbor them, or attempt to negate them is a
restriction of life. It is in opposition to the very nature of life.
Each of our natures (and we have said the natures of man are triune—
that is, three in number), is productive of some good. That being so,
then the greatest evil, the most diabolical sin which man can commit
is to avoid exerting those powers of his nature with which he has been
endowed. If it is conceded that one must sleep and one must eat for
the maintenance of health, then also one must think, one must reason
and mentally conceive daily. If we do not, we revert to the status ‘of
the lower animals. Man is distinguished from the lower living things
only by the use of all his powers. There are other living things which
can walk and can talk, and can mimic many of our objective activities,
but we possess powers of our triune nature, which either they do not
possess or which they.are not capable of using; and if we do not use
them, then we have depreciated ourselves, we have wilfully submitted
ourselves to degradation.

The Motion of Mind

The seventh and the last step to the attainment of perfect and
complete happiness, which should be our principal choice in life, is
aspiration. It is an observable phenomenon in nature that things are
constantly changing. The seasons have their changes and there are
various other things the qualities of which we can perceive are going
through a transition. This change is an internal, as well as an ex­
ternal motion of things. It is not just the change of movement in
space, but a change within the essence of things. This principle of
change or motion was known long before the ancient Greeks taught it.
It was known and understood long before it was expounded in the phi­
losophy of Heraclitus. It was privately taught in the ancient mystery
schools of Egypt, particularly in the secret school of ancient Memphis,
the City of the White Wall, as it was once called. This doctrine of
motion and change was symbolised in this mystery school by a musical
instrument known as the sistrum. This instrument was Y shaped in
formation. Horizontally placed across the open end of the Y were seven
rods. They were affixed loosely to the Y-like handle, so that they
could be shaken like a rattle. The priests and the hierophants in
these mystery school temples shook this sistrum during certain rituals
and ceremonies, to emphasize the Cosmic or Universal motion which they
proclaimed, even at that early date, as the cause of all being, of all
form.

Since there is unity in the universe, we know from observation

that things evolve out of each other, or are evolved and generated out
of certain common sources. Man's body, for example, we know is due to
the evolution and motion of a combination of two factors--matter and
Vital Life Force. “ But what shall we say is the movement, the motion,
the change that comes from man, man the complex being, man the body,
the mind, and the soul? What is its product? Certainly mind and the
spiritual quality must be productive of something. We can say that
man is only fully consistent with the Cosmic law of motion when he
aspires, when he has conceived an ideal toward which he can spiral
upward, when he seeks to transcend his own environment and the world
as he knows it. One who cannot, or who will not, in some small degree,
Page 9
visualize improvements in the welfare of mankind, that will bring
understanding, happiness, or greater power to his family or his
immediate society, is really inert as a human. He is at rest, and
consequently he is opposed to the Cosmic lav; of motion. Aspiration
exercises or draws upon the special functions of man’s mind. It
compels use of one’s intuitive faculties. It stimulates the imagina­
tion. It is aspiration which keeps man's mind lofty. It helps it to
transcend the ordinary'. It keeps mind the rightful master of the
body.

In conclusion, it may be said that happiness, being not a thing

but rather a state, is attained by the unity of the foregoing steps;
namely, happiness is an aura which emanates from the combining of the
understanding of substance, liberation, self-discipline, morality, un­
derstanding, application, and aspiration.

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MJ-116-861