“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.“ Buddha
I believe that we, as flawed rough ashlars, tend to judge other’s character by a yardstick with which we’ve come to understand and evaluate ourselves. We know, subconsciously, that we are far from perfect and that we not only see the defective reflection of our own shortcomings in others but also tend to give benefit to the darker aspects of human nature rather than divine human potential within us all.
The Master of the Symbolic Lodge understands that he is to reverse this trend and in order to do so he must become a practical philosopher and student of nature. The Master of the Symbolic Lodge is fascinated by nature and his fellow man. He seeks daily to improve his moral nature through the study of natural laws, his own nature and furthermore seeks to merge with that divine spark of God that is within him. He seeks to find this divinely inspired place through the foundation of the nine great lights in Masonry: veneration, charity, generosity, heroism, honor, patriotism, justice, toleration and truth.
Each and every day, if we are to progress from the rough ashlars to the more perfect then we must ensure that we are utilizing the faculties of our senses, our reason and our intuition in order to measure and conclude correctly what actions the wise man would take. We must also learn to rethink our yardstick of values so that we can correctly judge, help and reflect upon our fellow man and the society that we live in.
In today’s busy, always-faster world, we seem to be losing our ability to concentrate and our attention spans are getting smaller and our creative thinking abilities waning. We need to find time to “stop the world from spinning” and examine those important details…concentrate on the intricacies of those things that are right under our nose. Those things that are far more spectacular than any email, blog post, phone call or facebook post. But in order to see the magic we must first slow it down to see it clearly. We must make the effort to slow down the world, to shut out the noise that camouflage the beauty of nature that surrounds and engulfs.
I have found that life, for most, is often a series of pain, stress and chaos, but the moment we stop fighting against the catastrophe of being alive, beauty and music emerge from the madness. We begin to see God’s hand in all things and the natural illumination of the nine great lights of Masonry clearly shows us the path to becoming a true Master of the Symbolic Lodge.
I wish you well my brothers in all your masonic work.
About the author of this essay:
Larry Roberts 32° VM KSA and Portland Valley Treasurer. He is a member of Modesto Lodge 206, Esoterika Lodge 227.