All classifications and systemizations of the mystical ascent are in a certain sense artificial and arbitrary. They exist to satisfy the intellect's requirements but by themselves they cannot satisfy the Overself's requirements. Aspiration, faith, determination, sacrifice, or service may, if carried to extreme intensity, upset all such schemes and quickly win its Grace. The aspirant will pass through a succession of levels of spiritual awareness, each higher than the one before. But he will not pass through it mechanically and smoothly. Between the first step on the mystical path and the gaining of its glorious prize, an existence of ups and downs, of terrible darknesses and exhilarating enlightenments, of shameful weakness and satisfying endeavour, awaits him.
Owing to the presence of such unknown factors as Grace and emotional stability, a fixed period cannot be assigned for development and it is not possible to make correct, generalized statements about the time required for its various stages. That is entirely a matter of the individual's situation, character, and the development he has brought over from former births. Also it would be wrong to suppose that during the ascent, these stages always and necessarily follow each other in the prescribed order. This would have to be the case if we were climbing a physical mountain like the Matterhorn or if we were mastering an intellectual profession like law. But here there is, first, an X-factor involved--Grace--and, second, delayed-action tendencies or acquirements from former earth-lives. Therefore, the different stages may sometimes exist side by side.
Some who enter upon this Quest pass swiftly through its early stages but most do not. Most men are destined to pursue the Quest through a long discipleship. Alas! how long is the way, how slow the journey of self-unmasking. On this road one eventually learns that the notion of a quick, abrupt victory is often a deceptive one. Rather will it be found that nature's usual way of slow growth with occasional spurts must be followed.
If this quest is pursued, then the advance of age should bring advance of wisdom to the philosophical student who should grow morally stronger and mentally taller with the years. With continuous perseverance on the quest, his life becomes stabilized and his energies concentrated. His advance will be marked no less by deeper thoughts and steadier emotions, by kindlier words and nobler emotions in the ordinary round of daily life, as by subtler intuitions and serener meditations in the hidden life. He will advance inwardly beyond the common intellectual limitations and find that no book can give him the feeling of rich living presence, the sense of real glorious being, that these intuitions evoke within him. Out of these long years of spiritual travail, he will emerge with chastened mood and deepened conscience; indeed, the measure of his advancement will be tokened by the gradual alteration of his reaction to events, by the serenity which replaces sorrow and the indifference which replaces joy.
How he is to apply this philosophy to particular situations in everyday living--for we live in practical times and a teaching is judged and tested not only by what it claims to do but also by what it actually does--is quite rightly a man's own business and responsibility. He has taken to philosophy not only for the truth it contains but also for the happiness it yields. He desires its intellectual doctrines and delights in its practical results. The philosophic mentality is sufficiently realistic not to waste time on impossible goals. It is sufficiently idealist not to leave out the nobler possibilities of regulating and governing itself for both its spiritual and physical benefit. It is neither foolishly sentimental nor brutally calculating. It understands both what can immediately be done to better its life and what will eventually have to be done. Anyone can sit down and draw up a program for self-reform which will fall to pieces when put to the test of practical experiment, but only a philosopher can sit down and draw up a program based on hard facts yet illumined by the lantern of a true desire to improve his spiritual situation and infused with the imagination to understand and the understanding to imagine the better man that he ought to be. If the philosopher has no time to indulge in impracticable mirage-like plans, he has the capacity to perceive practical possibilities not beyond actual human scope although they may be beyond conventional human vision.
So, the natural question which arises, "What is the meaning, what is the value of philosophy for my life?" may be answered.
-- Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practices Involved > Chapter 2 : The Measure of Progress > # 101
