La Iniciación · Año III, Nº 24 · April 1944

1the ills from which human beings suffer at any point of the great human home: the Earth.

2But, to be able to go anywhere, to be able to express any thought, to be able to realise any work, one must be free.

3And to realise works like those I am commenting on, which are of an internal and intimate nature, one must be internally and intimately free.

4What does the Initiate understand by liberty?

5He understands that liberty which no one can give us, grant, amplify, nor yet diminish, curtail or suppress.

6The liberty to understand without passion and to feel without negative modality.

7The liberty to love all our fellows infinitely, and to escape from everything others say, write or feel that tends to form separatenesses, whether in our family, professional, ideal, national or generally human circle.

8Does the rose cease to be fragrant when, near it, the cat empties the bird's nest?

9Do we feel obliged to steal because a neighbour or a compatriot has fallen into theft?

10No — is it not so?

11Well then, neither are we obliged to adopt the sentiments or attitudes of anyone — relative, friend, associate or whatever other position relative to us — that would signify a limitation of our amplest sense of universal love, of collective affection, of social, family or individual sentiment.

12And if the perfume of the rose is exhaled continuously, without interruptions or faintings, along the whole of its flowering existence, leaving at its death perfume in potency — seeds of many other roses — it is because she loses neither time, nor energies, nor intimate qualities in discussing, disputing or battling.

13Silently, enamoured of her own beauty, which she constructs as a reflection of a General Law of Beauty and of Life, she grows in colour, in form and in perfume.

14The Initiate understands liberty thus: he does not let the hatreds, the rancours, the gossip, the envies that may float or circulate in the ambience penetrate him and, like the rose, he nourishes himself, in the silence of his meditation and his action, only on the constructive juices of knowledge and the solar rays of the Ideal, transforming in his individual life those elements — all constructive — into an affection and an irradiation of union that attracts others, silently, as flowers attract children and grown-ups by their colour, perfume and active symbolism.

15And, to obtain that liberty, he asks it of no one, criticises no one in their ways of thinking or proceeding, because he has realised that his principal executioner, guardian or jailer is his own imperfection, which creates in him jealousies, hatreds, envies, intolerances, etc… So he works silently to "liberate himself" and, for that, he does not even need to "cut" any thread with anything or anyone; for if he cut it, the "rest" of the thread would drag · 5

Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.