In realizing this a man surrenders his imagined individual rights, of whatever sort.  That takes away one keen sting which is common to all ordinary men.

When the disciple has fully recognised that the very thought of individual rights is only the outcome of the venomous quality in himself, that it is the hiss of the snake of self which poisons with its sting his own life and the lives of those about him, then he is ready to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open to all neophytes who are prepared for it.  All weapons of defense and offense are given up; all weapons of mind and heart, and brain, and spirit.  Never again can another man be regarded as a person who can be criticized or condemned; never again can the neophyte raise his voice in self-defense or excuse.  From that ceremony he returns into the world as helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born child.  That, indeed, is what he is.  He has begun to be born again on to the higher plane of life, that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence the eyes see intelligently and regard the world with a new insight.

I have said, a little way back, that after parting with the sense of individual rights, the disciple must part also with the sense of self-respect and of virtue.  This may sound a terrible doctrine, yet all occultists know well that it is not a doctrine, but a fact.  He who thinks himself holier than another, he who has any pride in his own exemption from vice or folly, he who believes himself wise, or in any way superior to his fellow men, is incapable of discipleship.  A man must become as a little child before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Virtue and wisdom are sublime things; but if they create pride and a consciousness of separateness from the rest of humanity in the mind of a man, then they are only the snakes of self re-appearing in a finer form.  At any moment he may put on his grosser shape and sting as fiercely as when he inspired the actions of a murderer who kills for gain or hatred, or a politician who sacrifices the mass for his own or his party’s interests.

In fact, to have lost the power to wound, implies that the snake is not only scotched, but killed.  When it is merely stupefied or lulled to sleep it awakes again and the disciple uses his knowledge and his power for his own ends, and is a pupil of the many masters of the black art, for the road to destruction is very broad and easy, and the way can be found blindfold.  That it is the way to destruction is evident, for when a man begins to live for self he narrows his horizon steadily till at last the fierce driving inwards leaves him but the space of [a] pin’s-head to dwell in.  We have all seen this phenomenon occur in ordinary life.  A man who becomes selfish isolates himself, grows less interesting and less agreeable to others.  The sight is an awful one, and people shrink from a very selfish person at last, as from a beast of prey.  How much more awful is it when it occurs on the more advanced plane of life, with the added powers of knowledge, and through the greater sweep of successive incarnations!