In this Article
- How can one discern between love and hate in ambiguous situations?
- What are the spiritual implications of navigating love-hate emotions?
- How does understanding the love-hate spectrum enhance life choices?
- What is the Via Lucis and how does it oppose the Via Obscura?
- How can unconditional love transform our spiritual journey?
Overcoming Darkness Through Love: The Path of Light
by William Wilson Quinn.
Given that love and hatred are the extreme poles of an axis, we must acknowledge that a wide space exists along this axis where these opposite emotions begin to merge and even overlap, not unlike brackish water formed by the confluence where the fresh waters of large rivers meet the saltwater of the sea. As KH (teacher and guru, the Adept Koot Hoomi) writes,
Yes; Love and Hatred are the only immortal feelings; but the gradations of tones along the seven by seven scales of the whole key-board of life, are numberless.
It is seldom if ever that one is faced with a choice between pure or absolute love, and pure or absolute hatred. As KH points out, “the gradations of tones” along the length of the active axis in between the polar extremes of love and hatred are “numberless.”
Such choices, then, are almost always more subtle than stark, and often more ambiguous than clear. Where circumstances are ambiguous, it may not always be easy to discern selfless intent from selfish intent when confronted with life choices. In short, wayfarers and probationers may have “mixed emotions” when confronting such issues in their daily lives.
The principal challenge for the wayfarer treading the higher spiritual path, therefore, is to be able to discern accurately among ambiguous love-hate emotions when making significant life choices, and similarly to avoid developing an indifference or apathy that ignores love.
For the wayfarer who is fortunate enough to have achieved a state of genuine free will, these choices are effectively made with and for him or her by the omniscience of that synthesis with universal or cosmic will. Free will occurs only where the wayfarer has been able to sufficiently synchronize his or her individual will operating through the Inner Person (ātmā-buddhi-manas) to the universal or cosmic will.
However, where that higher state has not yet been fully achieved, and the choices to be made lie within this brackish maze or “the gradations of tones” between the poles of love and hatred, the consequences of making the correct––or incorrect––choice are profound.
Committing oneself completely and consistently to the way of universal love, for example, in the life choices one makes within this axis of love and hatred, is to love well and thereby to receive its rewards.
The Via Obscura – The Path of Darkness
In their writings a fair amount of attention is paid by the Adepts Moyra and KH, and by Helena P. Blavatsky, to the via obscura, the path of darkness where fear and hatred and lust for power flourish as methods, if not goals. At one point KH refers to “... the two kinds of the initiates––the adepts and the sorcerers,” also referring to the latter as “Brethren of the Shadow.”
Among the varying groups worldwide whose members practice these “dark arts” is a discrete order of Himalayan cenobites known as dugpas, with whom Morya and KH and those of their Order were most familiar. Further, we learn from KH that these brethren of the Shadow also have “rules” in their orders, and train neophytes in their insidious methods of operation which include seduction and extortion, among others, in order to gain complete control of their victims.
Rather than seeking to exert control over oneself for the benefit of others, as do the Adepts and their chelas, the sorcerers seek to exert control and power over others for their own selfish ends, following the “left hand” or pole of polarity among whose elements are selfishness and evil, and where hatred is utilized as an emotion of destructive force.
As HPB (Helena P. Blavatsky) noted, “Very luckily few outside the high practitioners of the Left Path and of the Adepts of the Right... understand the ‘black’ [magic] evocations... [and that] sorcerers hate all those who are not with them, arguing that, therefore, they are against them.” The consequences of choosing this path of darkness are ultimately isolation and annihilation.
The Via Lucis – The Path of Light
In fact, it should not be surprising that Morya, KH, and HPB make reference to this via obscura throughout their writings, even while expressly promoting the via lucis, the “path of light” for those whose goal is further spiritual advancement. This is so because, first, the via obscura represents the polar opposite of the chosen paths of these Adepts. It thus provides a stark counterpoint for choosing between these two paths, under the precept that things are largely defined by their opposites.
But second, and more importantly, probationers and even newly accepted chelas remain at risk, for example, by becoming intoxicated with new powers they may have developed or by succumbing to selfish urges of a swollen personal ego, and possibly sliding backwards into that other path.
There are no guarantees when the wayfarer’s spiritual quest reaches these levels, even under the watchful eye of the guru, since we are each the navigator on our own journey, and each our “own absolute lawgiver, the dispenser of glory or gloom” to ourselves.
The temptations are both strong and dangerous and, as Morya once wrote to his chela Ramaswami Iyer, even “An accepted chela does not become free from temptation, probations, and trials.”
The Emotion of Hatred and The Emotion of Love
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the sphere of the via obscura harbors the emotion of hatred, while the sphere of the via lucis harbors the emotion of love, and that each is the polar opposite of the other. For the wayfarer on the higher spiritual path it is also crucial to distinguish, in any discussion of love, differences in that emotion which can be more clearly understood by early Greek terms.
The Greeks developed several separate terms under the rubric of love, but for our purposes we need focus only on two. These are érōs––from which the English word “erotic” derives––having mostly to do with a personal and specific love, and agápe, having mostly to do with an impersonal and unconditional love, as the Adepts and their chelas have for humanity as a whole.
Accordingly, it is only that love, agápe, of which we speak in this discussion. This is the love needed to tread the higher spiritual path, as noted by KH when he wrote that he was “... not only taught, but desirous to subordinate every preference for individuals to a love for the human race.”
This is the love of all beings and compassion for their suffering. It is the Buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva whose adherents practice metta, translated from the Pāli as “loving kindness,” and for whom “Compassion is no attribute. It is the LAW OF LAWS––eternal Harmony Ālaya’s SELF; a shoreless universal essence, the light of everlasting Right, and fitness of all things, the law of love eternal.”
The Ominous Shadow of the Via Obscura
At this point in humanity’s cycle of duration, the ominous shadow of the via obscura appears to be steadily advancing upon our globe in numerous forms, including political autocracy, injustice, aggression, disinformation, and extreme natural disasters from climate change. For this reason, a continuous effort must be made to promote its opposite––the via lucis–– as an antidote to the despair and suffering that follow in the wake of these dark forces.
Those who consider themselves to be wayfarers on the higher spiritual path must then respond without equivocation by following the religion of the heart and choosing love as their path, and so radiating love since, as HPB ably notes, “Hatred is never quenched by hatred; hatred ceases by showing love; this is an old rule.” And this “old rule,” as HPB says, is the key to equilibrizing and neutralizing the effects of hatred and darkness so apparent in the world’s affairs and conditions.
Choosing A Path and Following It
One cannot travel the two opposite paths simultaneously: one must choose a path and follow it until a final point of synthesis is reached. These dark forces can only be neutralized by radiating universal and unconditional love up to that mystic point of coincidence of darkness and light, of hatred and love, when the wayfarer at last escapes the limitations and constraints of the pairs of opposites, of contraries, and finally of all conditions, and ascends to the ineffable state of synthesis and unconditioned oneness beyond them.
But this “escape” does not mean that this wayfarer ceases to be involved with the needs of humanity. In fact, just the reverse is true, since where the wayfarer has followed the path of the bodhisattva, his or her new and sole objective is to relieve the suffering of humanity by helping to lead it to spiritual enlightenment.
But until that ineffable state is reached, a sustained effort by the wayfarer on the path of light consciously to radiate and project loving kindness, the “immortal feeling,” to all people, to all sentient beings, is necessary to offset the pall of global angst, fear and suffering. Just as our mentors the Adepts do, it should become part of the wayfarer’s duty to project and broadcast through all available media the hope and consolation that inheres in the path of love and light.
By example, he or she should be a constant reminder to others that the reality of love is the breathtaking and shimmering beauty of prismatic emanations radiating from the ātmā and buddhi. This radiance includes the calm and spiritually luminous brilliance that “embraces all in oneness,” the welcome solace of warmth that simulates the rays of the sun which nurture and bless everything they touch, unconditionally and indiscriminately.
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Article Source:
BOOK:The Higher Spiritual Path
The Higher Spiritual Path
by William Wilson Quinn.
The Higher Spiritual Path details how those on the higher spiritual path must address and master its requirements. This book is as practical as it is philosophical -- or theosophical -- since it is based on the specifics of “sacred science,” or spiritual science, an inextricable component of the perennial philosophy.
Many of the requirements of the higher spiritual path are based on the truths of this ancient spiritual science, formulated over millennia by jivanmukti, or liberated beings, who serve as the teachers of those currently engaged in treading this hieratic path. The goals of ascending this path are the loftiest; the hierarchical order of its spiritual teachers is the holiest; and the totality of its evolutionary and compassionate purpose is the most sacred.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
William Wilson Quinn is the author of three books as well as more than 60 articles published throughout his careers on comparative religion, spirituality, and metaphysics, as well as articles on American Indian history, culture, and law published in a wide assortment of national academic journals and law reviews.
He has been both a lecturer for the Theosophical Society and a guest lecturer at several universities, and has appeared on the faculty of numerous seminars and workshops in all these subject areas. Upon his retirement in 2012, Mr. Quinn has continued to be active in writing and lecturing on various aspects of the philosophia perennis, both nationally and internationally.
Article Recap
The article "Discerning Love-Hate Emotions" delves into the complex spectrum of emotions between love and hatred, illustrating the importance of understanding these gradations for making spiritually aligned decisions. It discusses the Via Lucis as a path of light contrasting the darker Via Obscura, and emphasizes the transformative power of unconditional love in overcoming challenges and guiding wayfarers toward spiritual enlightenment.
