It’s Easier to
Walk If One Gets
Free From Unnecessary
Weight
John Garrigues
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The following
article was first published at “Theosophy”
magazine, Los
Angeles, in December 1920, p. 58, with no
indication as to
its author. Original Title: “Traveling
Light”.
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There are still
in the world today uncivilized men who are concerned alone with physical
supremacy.
Not far removed there are others for whom life has
become a sort of contest of wits in which the sharpest carries off the
prize. Still others, thoughtless, play
their way along in enjoyments of the moment. All these beings are travelers on
the Great Journey of evolution, although they travel in unthinking darkness.
But there are those souls for whom life has become a conscious
pilgrimage. The light of certain guidance is ever on their path. By this light
they see a plan and feel a mighty purpose in all the winding ways. The
obstructions they know are of their own making. The rough and stony miles that
hurt their feet were put there by no other. These are not timid, shrinking
souls, bound by a cruel fate to wander far from fire-lit homes. Voluntarily,
the choice was made: firelight was renounced for starlight, - sunlight. The way
was shown in answer to a cry from the heart for that Light which all men need
and most men crave - the Light - our real home towards which we journey - the
Light within, obscured for a time.
Why should this “small old path that stretches far
away” seem so often a path of woe? Could we not feel as we journey along more
of that joy of the road felt by the adventurer who fares forth, shorn of all
obstructing possessions? Or do we weigh
ourselves down with unnecessary things? Are we careful to make a fine selection
as to our needs for the journey, eliminating the useless weight?
It would seem from the heaviness that accompanies most
of us - for “Few pass this way without bitter complaint” - that we are making
our difficulties by reaching up towards the imperishable while attached to the
transitory and perishable. And this is as impossible as to be at once afraid
and fearless; or, to consider the eternal from the standpoint of the non-eternal.
We think of equal-mindedness as an end - a goal - whereas it is a step
immediately before us on the path.
To the one who travels with a heart full of trouble
there is an ache in the glory of the sunset; the dark woods waving above him
echo and prolong his sighs; there is no consolation in the restless waves. But
when one knows the happiness of the heart within, all things contribute.
We might take the phrase of a mighty Traveler and say:
“Henceforth I ask no good-fortune. I myself am good
fortune!”
And although the old smooth prizes are not offered,
and the new only make a greater struggle necessary, we could remember that the
joy of the road is always ours - if we will - the joy of moving along, part of,
and essential to, the glorious scheme of things - the Way, the Truth and the
Light.
000
In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
000
