Gerald Heard, author of Training for a Life of the Spirit and founder of the Trabuco College of Prayer, maps three phases of spiritual evolution: the Novice who purges for catharsis, the Proficient who is enlightened and free, and the Perfect established and integrated in the Vision of God. He writes, “To change the focus of consciousness is difficult and skilful work. It does not happen by accident nor by simply leaving the mind open.” In Pain, Sex, and Time, he outlines three ranks within a monastic society: first, the learners, who serve the senior monks without rule or direction; second, the educated, residents with a general discipline and specialization, alternating solitude with group rituals, gardening, and household duties, especially in the dining hall; third, the Doctor-Proficient who heals by teaching, a Neo-Brahmin and bodhisattva unrestricted by cloistered virtue, the incarnate good will and conscience of mankind, and the answer to the powers that hypnotize and destroy. In Five Ages of Man, he considers the evidence of the Western Esoteric Tradition and suggests five steps of initiation according to life stage, type of ordeal, and the required mode of therapy.
 
Heard gifted the Trabuco College of Prayer to the Ramakrishna Order. According to its publication Monasticism, Ideal and Traditions, “monasticism is a subject of vital interest to every spiritual seeker.” It gives two paths to sannyasa (“renunciation” – non-attachment to the world, desire for God), recognizes four motivations, offers two ideals, including six classes of asceticism. “The Ramakrishna Order is open to all…. They do not have to go through any process of conversion to get into the Order…. Each was free to believe and act as he thought best, keeping two things in view—his own emancipation and service to mankind…. Any group bearing the name of Sri Ramakrishna has to accommodate people of different viewpoints, not only different, maybe even opposite.” Freedom of thought is a right and privilege.

It is not widely known that Swami Vivekananda earned the degree of Master Mason on May 20, 1884. Freemasonry is the successor to the Mystery Schools of the Western Esoteric Tradition. According to its Morals and Dogma, “initiation does not change: we find it again and again, and always the same, through all the ages.” The three ranks of apprentice, fellow-craft, and master give lessons in character transformation and civic duty, reconciles classical philosophy with theology in an exhaustive account of ancient symbolism and religious myth related to astronomy and farming transmitted into Christianity, and reveals the secret of the Knights Templar.

Shankaracharya teaches, “A clear vision of the Reality may be obtained only though our own eyes, when they have been opened by spiritual insight—never through the eyes of some other seer. Through our own eyes we learn what the moon looks like: how could we learn this through the eyes of others?” He shows how the gross body is made of the elements and slave to the senses, desire, and the three conditions of Maya (projecting, veiling, revealing). He describes four mental functions: emotions, identity-making, deliberation, and discrimination. Swami Prabhavananda’s translation states: “In the waking state of consciousness, man finds his fullest activity in the body…. The dream-state belongs pre-eminently to the subtle body…. The mental organ identifies itself with the organs of perception and of action, as well as with the physical body.” This is a false identity. “Through ignorance, man identifies the Atman with the body, taking the perishable for real. Therefore he nourishes this body, and anoints it, and guards it carefully…. When a man becomes illumined by knowledge, there arises within him perfect discrimination which clearly distinguishes the true Being, the Atman, from the external appearances.”

Shankaracharya prescribes concentration and non-attachment. The first steps to see the Reality as-it-is are right thought, right speech, right action, refusal to accept unnecessary gifts, renunciation of worldly ambition, and continuous devotion. A Master’s perception of the universe is a continuous perception of God. Teachers and scriptures only point to the possibility of spiritual awareness. The absolute proof is direct experience of Truth and Freedom. The illumined man is liberated from ignorance and becomes calm and content.

If you throw a sheet over a chair, it takes on the shape of the chair and not something else. The relationship between maya and Brahman is the same; the Absolute Reality shows through the veil that hides It. According to John Dobson, author of Equations of Maya and The Moon is New, the infinite shows through in physics as the electromagnetism of the particles and atoms in the elemental realm, the undivided shows through as gravity which stops the scattering of the material universe, and the unchanging shows through as inertia, the tendency of matter to remain at rest. He further asserts that the infinite shows through in psyche as the quest for Freedom, the undivided shows through in our need for Love, and the unchanging shows through in the desire for Peace.