The path of divine knowledge has both beginning and end. In rare cases, a pilgrim may be very advanced due to efforts in previous incarnations. In such case he may attain divine knowledge instantaneously as a gift bestowed upon him through the grace of a master. In most cases, though, the pilgrim has to travel the path by stages, attaining this knowledge gradually.

The understanding of God which the average person attains through belief or reasoning is so far removed from true understanding that it cannot be called inner knowledge.

Such true knowledge (gnosis) does not consist in the construction or perception of an ideology. It is the product of ripening experience that attains increasing degrees of clarity. It consists in man's consciousness becoming more real and participating increasingly in the truth, until there is nothing more to become, and nothing more to assimilate.

The devotional rituals followed in religions do not lead the seeker to the true inner journey, for in greater part they are mechanical observances barren of the redeeming experience of divine love. Nevertheless, regardless of how rudimentary these types of belief and devotional observances may be, they do contain in latent form the future inner knowledge.

As the aspirant struggles through the obscuring fog of mental and emotional tension his consciousness becomes more one-pointed, forming a spearhead that eventually pierces through the curtain to the inner path of divine knowledge. Even the early glimpses of this knowledge which the pilgrim gets are a great advance over understanding that rests solely upon faith or reason.

As the aspirant advances towards the path he undergoes a significant change of direction that might be compared to a somersault. He is now more concerned with the inner realities of life than with their outward expression. As the emphasis shifts from the external to the internal aspects of life, the deepening of consciousness is greatly accelerated. Now consciousness is no longer committed primarily to external incidents or routines, but is directed towards the deeper and truer aspects of being that demand greater integrity of thought and feeling.

Caught up within this deeper awareness of the self is a concurrent deepening of perception into the workings of the world. A refocusing of consciousness occurs which is far-reaching. All the avenues through which the individual conducts his search are radically transformed by the sincerity and concentrated purpose of his effort. The increasing depths of his internal understanding suffuse every aspect of life, giving it new form and meaning and causing him to hasten his exploration with the greatest exhilaration.

Poise of mind born of the pilgrim's new understanding automatically and unwittingly brings about a readjustment of material surroundings, and he finds himself at peace with the world. Conservatism, intolerance, pride and selfishness are shed, and everything takes on new meaning and purpose.

Sinner and saint appear to be waves on the surface of the same ocean, differing only in magnitude, each the natural outcome of forces in the universe rooted in time and causation. The saint is seen to have no pride of position and the sinner no stigma of eternal degradation. Nobody is utterly lost and nobody need despair.

The "internalizing" which is the real basis of entering upon the path should not be confused with the purely intellectual discovery that there can be an inner life. Nor should the gradual and natural shift from participation in external events to a focusing on inner development be confused with the limited intellectual detachment some persons achieve. Since such detachment is only intellectual, it brings freedom only in the realm of limited intellect and is usually characterized by a sort of dryness of being.

The intellectually detached often try to shape the present in the light of knowledge of history, as well as through their insight into the possibilities of the unborn future. At best, such a purely intellectual perspective inevitably remains partial, sketchy, incomplete, and in a sense even erroneous. Further, the intellectually detached are almost never in vital communication with the elements which so largely shape the course of the present. Therefore their beliefs, even if transformed into effort, rarely produce marked results. The limited intellect is not competent to grasp qualities which are beginningless and endless.

Intellectual perspective is workable and even indispensable for planned action. Yet in the absence of the illuminating wisdom of heart and the clear intuition of spirit, intellectual perspective gives only relative truth bearing the ineradicable stamp of uncertainty.

So-called intellectually planned action is really the product of weighty subconscious forces which have not yet risen to the threshold of consciousness of the planner. Thus, planning often leads to many results entirely unanticipated in the so-called planning. In other words, "planning" turns out to be planning mostly in name only, containing only sufficient conscious participation by the planners to satisfy their need to feel that they have a real share in the whole game.

Intellectual perspective, intellectual planning and intellectual detachment therefore should be carefully separated from the robust exploration of the inner self and the internalizing of the facts of existence that characterize the individual who has set foot on the path.

Although the unfurling realization of divine knowledge is often figuratively described as "traversing the path," this analogy should not be taken too literally. There is no ready-made road in the spiritual realm. Spiritual progress is not a matter of moving along a line already laid down and unalterably defined. Rather, it is a creative process of spiritual involution of consciousness, and this process is better described as a "spiritual journey" than as the traversing of a path.

The journey is comparable in fact to a flight through the air, and not to a journey upon the earth, because it is truly a pathless journey. It is a dynamic movement within the consciousness of the aspirant that creates its own path and leaves no trace behind it.

The metaphor of "the path" is helpful to the aspirant in the early stages of his development because it gives him the sense of new phases of consciousness to be experienced. This anticipation is stimulated further by accounts of others who have completed the spiritual journey. This makes the pilgrim's ascent easier than if it depended solely upon his own unguided efforts to visualize the probable path.

While trying to understand the path as described by the masters, the aspirant must also make use of his own imaginative faculty, but within the constructive bounds defined in the master's spiritual guidance. Actual spiritual experience is as far removed from uncontrolled imaginative expectation as reality is from chaotic dreams. Though the imagination of the pilgrim is inevitably determined by past experience, it must offer no resistance to the directional suggestions of the master.

In fact, increasing surrender to the guidance of the master involves drastic curtailment of deceptive imagination — the roots of which are deeply embedded in the mental and emotional past of the pilgrim. With the gradual transmutation of the aspirant's imaginative faculty into divine consciousness, the veil of ignorance becomes steadily less opaque. In the end, all imagination comes to a standstill and is replaced by the true everlasting realization of God as the sole reality. Thus "the journey," like everything else in duality, is also an imaginative one, but it leads ultimately to final and enduring knowledge unclouded by any kind of imagination or transitory fantasy.

As the aspirant progresses on the spiritual path, a fundamental modification in the structure of his sanskaras begins to occur. Whereas, before, the expression of one sanskara in the world of form resulted in the inevitable creation of fresh sanskaras, this self-perpetuating process now begins to draw to a close. As the aspirant's assertive lower self begins to be removed, the tension of the existing impressions can be released or expressed without the creation of fresh sanskaras.

At first slowly, but with gradually increasing speed, the old sanskaras are spent with less and less attendant creation of fresh sanskaras. With final cessation of formation of fresh sanskaras, all past impressions naturally unwind to the finish and then, free of all impressions, the soul stands fully Self-conscious forever.