Elisabeth Haich
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Elisabeth Haich INITIATION AUTHOR'S NOTE It is far from my intentions to want to provide a historical picture of Egypt. A person who is living in any given place has not the faintest idea of the peculiarities of his country, and he does not consider customs, language and religion from an ethnographic point of view. He takes everything as a matter of course. He is a human being and has his joys and sorrows, just like every other human being, anywhere, any place, any time; for that which is truly human is timeless and changeless. My concern here is only with the human, not with ethnography and history. That is why I have, in relating the story which follows here, intentionally used modern terms. I have avoided using Egyptian sounding words to create the illusion of an Egyptian atmosphere. The teachings of the High Priest Ptahhotep are given in modern language so that modern people may understand them. For religious symbols also, I have chosen to use modern terms so that all may understand what these symbols mean. People of today understand us better if we say 'God' than if we were to use the Egyptian term 'Ptah' for the same concept. If we say 'Ptah' everyone immediately thinks, 'Oh yes, Ptah, the Egyptian God'. No! Ptah was not an Egyptian God. On the contrary, the Egyptians called the same God whom we call God, by the name of Ptah. And to take another example, their term for Satan was Seth. The words God and Satan carry meanings for us today which we would not get from the words Ptah or Seth. For people living in our times, these latter terms, Ptah and Seth, are empty, dry and meaningless. The term Logos and the expression creative principle have a meaning for us today which we would not get from the term 'Horus Hawk'. Electricity was just as much electricity thousands of years ago as it is today, and an atom was an atom, simply by a different name. I make these comments here so that my readers may be able to devote their attention to the content of the story which follows here, without being halted unnecessarily by what may appear to be an anachronism merely because of the terms used—as for example when the Egyptian High Priest speaks of a 'chain reaction'! I have intentionally avoided trying to reproduce or imitate the ancient terminology for phenomena we now know under names everyone is accustomed to using. 1 FOREWORD The national rhythm of the Indian people is religion. With every heartbeat the Indian feels himself a step closer to the eternally glorious goal of the realization of God. Whenever he hears the name of God on the lips of someone passing by, his Sharp ear picks up the melody and he starts to sing a paean of praise. Even though he may have neither food nor a roof over his head—for often enough the arch of heaven is his shelter—he still has God in his heart. He knows that in this arena of life he has come uncounted times and gone again, through myriad births, that he has enjoyed all the created world has to offer, and that, as he knows the truth 'Everything here on earth passes away', nothing more can satisfy him. His wish is now to find and reach that source from which the stream of manifestations flows. That is why, from early childhood he prays: 'I meditate on the magnificence of the being that has created this universe. May it illuminate my mind.' The majesty and beauty of nature, reminding him of that being, becomes an object of his adoration. Every holy writing, of whatever religion, which breathes the breath of that being becomes an object of his respect and admiration. And every one who has found that being and speaks about the way to him becomes an object of respect and admiration. I have the great fortune to sit at the feet of an illumined soul: Elisabeth Haich is my teacher, my guru. In her presence the delicate petals of my soul began to unfold. Often a word from her opens my eyes, and sometimes an understanding glance is enough to strengthen me in my conviction. A friendly comment can sometimes drive away all my doubts. Every moment in the presence of my teacher brings me new experiences and hastens my progress. Very often when certain things have bothered me, I have found help in the words of my guru: 'Don't live for the present; don't allow transitory things to influence you. Live in eternity, above time and space, above finite things. Then nothing can influence you.' In the presence of my teacher I enjoy absolute independence of thought, for I have learned that it is wrong to want to apply the thoughts of another person in one's own life. 'I don't want you simply to follow me on the path I am following to reach the goal,' she has told me. 'Go your own way, on the path you select for yourself, corresponding to your own innermost inclinations. Don't accept any statement because I made it. Even if it is true a hundred times over, it still is not your truth, it still is not your experience, and it will not belong to you. Bring truth into being, and then it will belong to you. Regard the lives of those who have achieved truth only as proof that the goal can be reached.' At these words of my teacher's, I was seized by an irresistible drive towards 2 absolute independence, and this urge freed me from the nefarious attitude of expecting help from outside. I don't need a teacher that influences me, but a teacher who teaches me not to allow myself to be influenced. For many years I have had the great privilege of hearing the profoundest truths explained in the simplest words. I have yet to hear anyone else explain the revelations of the Bible as clearly as Elisabeth Haich, and in a manner as applicable to our daily living. I have travelled far, and in all my travels no priest has been able to explain the true meaning of these revelations, even though I have asked hundreds. How, after all, could he if he has not reached 'the kingdom of Heaven within'? How could it be otherwise as long as he has not experienced within himself the truth of the sentence: 'Ye are the light of the world', as long as he does not yet recognize: 'Ye are the living temple of the Holy Spirit'? Hundreds and thousands have attended the weekly lectures and meditation groups led by Elisabeth Haich. It has been the wish of all of us to possess her teachings in book form. Through the experience of each lecture our souls thirsting for truth were enriched to an undreamed of extent. It is a great joy for all of us to know that at last part of this knowledge will now be available in the concentrated form of a book. This book is an introduction to the high art of reaching and achieving the divine in us and of learning to recognize this unknown creature called man. We will discover the great truth: Self development is revealing the perfection which has been in man from the very beginning. Religion is the activation of the divine principle which awaits its manifestation in man. SELVARAJAN YESUDIAN Zurich, April 1962 CONTENTS Author's Note page 7 Foreword 9 Introduction 15 1. Awakening 19 2. Lion and Light 27 3. My Parents are not 'My' Parents 30 4. Sunrise is Different 35 5. I want to get Away 39 3 6. I long for Unity 45 7. The Red Man 47 8. My Future Appears 50 9. Struggles of Love 54 10. First Encounter with Death 57 11. First Visions of the Future 60 12. The Past Awakens 62 13. Second Encounter with Death 66 14. Darkness 70 15. Turning Point 75 16. Struggle for Light 80 17. I take My Vow 92 18. The Horizon Brightens 95 19. Visions 99 20. The Ayur-Vedas 123 21. There was Light 135 22. Past becomes Present 138 23. HE 145 24. Sons of God 152 25. Years of Preparation 160 26. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil 172 27. The Twelve Sets of Twin Characteristics 177 28. The Lions 185 29. Telepathic Exercises 188 30. The Future and Sunrise 192 31. Bo-Ghar and the Staff of Life 204 32. Ptahhotep's Instruction: 210 33. The Form of the Pyramids: Satan 225 34. The Four Faces of God 240 35. The Epochs of the World 258 4 36. Final Preparations 268 37. The Initiation 283 38. As a Priestess 316 39. We will meet Again 321 40. The Lion 330 41. Mist and Re-awakening 337 42. Roo-Kha and the Twelve Pills 346 43. The Young Priest appears 352 44. Ima and Bo-Ghar 355 45. The Challenges are Repeated 359 46. Conclusion 364 ILLUSTRATIONS The Divine Horus, Cairo Museum frontispiece Pharaoh before Amon, Cairo Museum facing page 184 The four faces of Brahma, Angkor-Thom, Bayon, Cambodia 185 Pharaoh Cephren, Cairo Museum 320 INTRODUCTION written by a disciple of the author I am a seeker. I seek an explanation for life on earth. I would like to know what sense there is in the fact that a person is born, grows from a child to an adult through all kinds of difficulties, marries, brings more children into the world, who also grow up to adults through just as many difficulties, also marry, also bring more children into the world, who then with advancing age lose the skills they took so much trouble to learn, and finally die.