The Path
article copyright 2024, Stanton Stevens

A path leads from one place to another. We are all on the path through the human kingdom, generally with very little idea of where we came from or where we are going. It is not pointless wandering, even when seems that way. Human life has great variety - a journey through the human kingdom has joy, sorrow, suffering, romance, hate, passion, boredom, satisfaction, horror, achievement, defeat, triumph, virtue, murder, helplessness, power, glory, beauty, and much more. At the end of that journey we leave the human experience of these things behind us gladly. All of it changes us and plays a role in the great purpose of life: the evolution of consciousness. 
The three questions of the sphinx: Whence? How? Whither? - the first and last questions are about the path. Whence means "from where", whither means "to where". The answer to How? can be found in Esoterics, I won't try to answer it here. 

Whence? - The long road through the human kingdom is only a portion of the path that we have been on for billions of years. We are indestructible units of consciousness and were not newly created as humans. To get here, our consciousness has progressed through three prior kingdoms of nature, acquiring abilities along the way. These are the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Each kingdom has a special contribution to the evolution of consciousness - mineral: passive, vegetable: subjective, and animal: objective consciousness of our worlds. The jump to the human kingdom was achieved with the acquisition of self-consciousness. If you want to know what happened before these four evolutionary kingdoms, you will need to study Esoterics!

Whither? - We are only at the beginning of this multi-billion-year journey. Our "graduation" from the human kingdom involves another jump in consciousness - to collective consciousness. It is said the human kingdom is the hardest of all the natural kingdoms, because we have to be isolated individuals here, lonely and struggling to make sense of it all. And we struggle with the baggage of our individual identities - egoism, pride, undeveloped minds, blindness to the actual unity behind us all. These are obstacles that we will need to overcome to advance to the next kingdom. We are promised by those who have achieved this transition that it is all worth it. No human experience compares with the magnificence, bliss, and freedom of the next kingdom. And there are many more kingdoms beyond that for us to explore, each more impressive and beautiful than the last. Evil has no power in kingdoms higher than human, and the beings there exercise great power in harmony with the plan of evolution. They are beyond our capacity to imagine, but esoterics tries to convey their magnificence. 

Some of us are approaching a wonderful and dangerous part of the path: our efforts to understand have paid off, our minds have developed, and we finally find some pieces of the puzzle. One piece is reincarnation, we can start to make sense of our existence with this knowledge, and knowledge of karma. We find out that not only can we know some things, but we are starting to lift the veil that hides the whole picture. We have moved beyond the common knowledge consensus of public opinion, daring to think for ourselves. Then comes the danger of thinking that we are superior and thereby separating ourselves from the unity of humanity. In the worst case, we see most others as ignorant pawns that we can manipulate. But those who see things this way are the ignorant ones, because all progress can be measured by our recognition of unity. Disregard the love in your heart, fail to recognize the divine in everyone and therefore exclude them from your love, and you end up excluding yourself.  

Henry T. Laurency, the great Swedish Esoterician of the last century, says, "Very intelligent people who begin studying esoterics find it very easy quickly to be important and superior, and in so doing demonstrate that they are in fact unripe for esoterics. Because esoterics presupposes a realization of one's own limitation and makes criticism of other individuals impossible." 

The paths through the last part of the human kingdom are as many as there are people. There is a longstanding Hindu classification into three main practices, or yogas, depending on the type of individual. These are, first, Bhakti yoga, the path of devotion. This is the broadest path, and devotion to a true teacher, or their own soul/divine aspect, helps keep the person on the path. The second is Karma yoga, learning through action and its consequences. This is a practical path, one learns through taking action, and not through passivity. The third is Jnana yoga, the pursuit of knowledge, ultimately the knowledge of unity with all. The three approaches are not exclusive to each other. 

The few who appreciate esoterics are mainly those introduced to the knowledge in a previous life. These people are often desperate to see through the poor explanations offered by religion, philosophy, and science; they know deep down that there is something better. Fortunately, they can grasp esoterics relatively easily in this new lifetime with only hints and reminders. 

It is a long road but take comfort in the fact that we are all on it together. I offer what information I can in my articles and talks, and recommend the esoteric writings of Laurency, Alice A. Bailey, and Theosophy. I wish you, my traveling companion, the unquenchable desire to know the truth and to know yourself. Seek and you will find, and sooner will you complete the human journey, and be free from its births and deaths.