9.  Regard earnestly all the life that surrounds you.

10.  Learn to look intelligently into the hearts of men.

11.  Regard most earnestly your own heart.

12.  For through your own heart comes the one light which can illuminate life and make it clear to your eyes.

Study the hearts of men, that you may know what is that world in which you live and of which you will to be a part.  Regard the constantly changing and moving life which surrounds you, for it is formed by the hearts of men; and as you learn to understand their constitution and meaning, you will by degrees be able to read the larger word of life.

13.  Speech comes only with knowledge.  Attain to knowledge and you will attain to speech.

14.  Having obtained the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the outer senses, having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge, prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality.  The path is found:  make yourself ready to tread it.

15.  Inquire of the earth, the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold for you.  The development of your inner senses will enable you to do this.

16.  Inquire of the holy ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you.  The conquering of the desires of the outer senses will give you the right to do this.

17.  Inquire of the inmost, the one, of its final secret which it holds for you through the ages.

The great and difficult victory, the conquering of the desires of the individual soul, is a work of ages; therefore expect not to obtain its reward until ages of experience have been accumulated.  When the time of learning this seventeenth rule is reached, man is on the threshold of becoming more than man.

18.  The knowledge which is now yours is only yours because your soul has become one with all pure souls and with the inmost.  It is a trust vested in you by the Most High.  Betray it, misuse your knowledge, or neglect it, and it is possible even now for you to fall from the high estate you have attained.  Great ones fall back, even from the threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable to pass on.  Therefore look forward always with awe and trembling to this moment, and be prepared for the battle.

19.  It is written that for him who is on the threshold of divinity no law can be framed, no guide can exist.  Yet to enlighten the disciple, the final struggle may be thus expressed: 

Hold fast to that which has neither substance nor existence.

20.  Listen only to the voice which is soundless.

21.  Look only on that which is invisible alike to the inner and the outer sense.

Peace be with you.

NOTES