OUR whole life, in this present form of existence is compounded of pleasure and pain, and we cannot conceive of any state in which we shall retain consciousness without their aid; they not only constitute our life here, but they actually are the Golden Gates which admit us to the life beyound. Through them is the pathway that leads to infinite power, absolute knowledge, perfected love.

PART I

PROLOGUE

Some part of what I have seen myself on the battlefield of 1914-1915 I will set forth as plainly as possible; for it deeply concerns my theme, and bears on it.

To students of Light on the Path (1885) Mabel Collins wrote a small treatise first published in 1905 called A Cry from Afar.  This small book expands on the nature of the inner human struggle that lies before the neophyte that is so poetically described in the classic Light on the Path.   

The story of Sensa, as told with marvelous and mystic art in The Idyll of the White Lotus contains within itself three narratives, separate yet inseparable, united in their very nature and essence, as are the three leaflets of the trefoil clover.

The following essay is an effort towards the freeing of our consciousness from the limitation in which it habitually dwells, and which exists only by means of certain illusions that are common to all men. To encounter illusions which are universal and which are practically unanimously accepted, is a task of great difficulty; it has, therefore seemed both excusable and necessary to relate, as…

Once, as I sat alone writing, a mysterious Visitor entered my study, unannounced, and stood beside me. I forgot to ask who he was or why he entered so unceremoniously, for he began to tell me of the Gates of Gold. He spoke from knowledge, and from the fire of his speech I caught faith. I have written down his words; but, alas, I cannot hope that the fire shall burn so brightly in my writing as…

Behold I stood alone, one among many, an isolated individual in the midst of a united crowd. And I was alone, because, among all the men my brethren who knew, I alone was the man who both knew and taught. I taught the believers at the gate, and was driven to do this by the power that dwelleth in the sanctuary. I had no escape, for in that deep darkness of the most sacred shrine, I beheld the…