CHAPTER 9.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Levi
Salome’s lessons. The man and the woman. Philosophy of human moods. The triune God. The Septonate. The God Tao.
Salome taught the lesson of the day. She said, All times are not alike. Today the words of man may have the greatest power; tomorrow women teaches best.
2 In all the ways of life the man and woman should walk hand in hand; the one without the other is but half; each has a work to do.
3 But all things teach; each has a time and season for its own. The sun, the moon have lessons of their own for men; but each one teaches at the appointed time.
4 The lessons of the sun fall down on human hearts like withered leaves upon a stream, if given in the season of the moon; and so with lessons of the moon and all the stars.
5 Today one walks in gloom, downhearted and oppressed; tomorrow that same one is filled with joy.
6 Today the heavens seem full of blessedness and hope; tomorrow hope has fled, and every plan and purpose comes to naught.
7 Today one wants to curse the very ground on which he treads; tomorrow he is full of love and praise.
8 Today one hates and scorns and envies and is jealous of the child he loves; tomorrow he has risen above his carnal self, and breathes forth gladness and good will.
9 A thousand times men wonder why these heights and depths, these light hearts and these sad, are found in every life.
10 They do not know that there are teachers everywhere, each busy with a God-appointed task, and driving home to human hearts the truth.
11 But this is true, and every one receives the lessons that he needs.
12 And Mary said, Today I am in exaltation great; my thoughts and all my life seem lifted up; why am I thus inspired?
13 Salome replied, This is a day of exaltation; day of worship and of praise; a day when, in a measure, we may comprehend our Father-God.
14 Then let us study God, the One, the Three, the Seven.
15 Before the worlds were formed all things were One; just Spirit, Universal Breath.
16 And Spirit breathed, and that which was not manifest became the Fire and Thought of heaven, the Father-God, the Mother-God.
17 And when the Fire and Thought of heaven in union breathed, their son, their only son, was born. This son is Love whom men have called the Christ.
18 Men call the Thought of heaven the Holy Breath.
19 And when the Triune God breathed forth, lo, seven Spirits stood before the throne. These are the Elohim, creative spirits of the universe.
20 And these are they who said, Let us make man; and in their image man was made.
21 In early ages of the world the dwellers in the farther East said, Tao is the name of Universal Breath; and in the ancient books we read,
22 No manifesting form has Tao Great, and yet he made and keeps the heavens and earth.
23 No passion has our Tao Great, and yet he causes sun and moon and all the stars to rise and set.
24 No name has Tao Great, and yet he makes all things to grow; he brings in season both the seed time and the harvest time.
25 And Tao Great was One; the One became the Two; the Two became the Three, the Three evolved the Seven, which filled the universe with manifests.
26 And Tao Great gives unto all, the evil and the good, the rain, the dew, the sunshine and the flowers; from his rich stores he feeds them all.
27 And in the same old book we read of man: He has a spirit knit to Tao Great; a soul which lives within the seven Breaths of Tao Great; a body of desires that springs up from the soil of flesh.
28 Now spirit loves the pure, the good, the true; the body of desires extols the selfish self; the soul becomes the battle ground between the two.
29 And blessed is the man whose spirit is triumphant and whose lower self is purified; whose soul is cleansed, becoming fit to be the council chamber of the manifests of Tao Great.
30 Thus closed the lesson of Salome.