True personal growth

There are no rose-gardens upon the way in which to loiter about, nor fawning slaves to fan one with golden rods of ostrich plumes. 

The Ineffable Light will not stream out upon you every time you may think you have turned up the wick.

Nor will you find yourself sailing about in an astral body, to the delight of yourself and the astonishment of the rest of the world, simply because you are making the effort to find wisdom.

He who is bound in any way -- he who is narrow in his thoughts -- finds it doubly difficult to pass onward. 

You may equally as well gain wisdom and light in a church as by sitting upon a post while your nails grow through your hands. 

It is not by going to extremes or growing fanatical in any direction that the life will be realized.

Be temperate in all things, most of all in the condemnation of other men. 

It is unwise to be intemperate or drunken with wine. 

It is equally unwise to be drunken with temperance. 

Men would gain the powers; or the way of working wonders. 

Do you know, O man, what the powers of the Mystic are? 

Do you know that for each gift of this kind he gives a part of himself? 

That it is only with mental anguish, earthly sorrow, and almost his heart's blood, these gifts are gained? 

Is it true, think you, my brother, that he who truly possesses them desires to sell them at a dollar a peep, or any other price? 

He who would trade upon these things finds himself farther from his goal than when he was born.

There are gifts and powers. 

Nor just such as you have created in your imagination, perhaps. 

Harken to one of these powers: 

He who has passed onward to a certain point, finds that the hearts of men lie spread before him as open book, and from there onward the motives of men are clear. 

In other words he can read the hearts of men. 

But not selfishly; should he but once use this knowledge selfishly, the book is closed -- and he reads no more. 

Think you, my brothers, he would permit himself to sell a page out of this book?

WQJ

And while this was written some time ago, as can be seen by the language it is still valid today.

The steps to increasing our consciousness are the same now as they have ever been.