These conditions mark out the attributes he is to acquire, and while he is labouring to create these, he is sometimes said to be treading the Probationary Path, the Path which leads up to the "Strait Gate," beyond which is the "Narrow Way," or the "Path of Holiness," the "Way of the Cross." He is not expected to develop these attributes perfectly, but he must have made some progress in all of them, ere the Christ can be born in him. He must prepare a pure home for that Divine Child who is to develop within him.
The first of these attributes--they are all mental and moral--is _Discrimination_; this means that the aspirant must begin to separate in his mind the Eternal from the Temporary, the Real from the Unreal, the True from the False, the Heavenly from the Earthly. "The things which are seen are temporal," says the Apostle; "but the things which are not seen are eternal."[192] Men are constantly living under the glamour of the seen, and are blinded by it to the unseen. The aspirant must learn to discriminate between them, so that what is unreal to the world may become real to him, and that which is real to the world may to him become unreal, for thus only is it possible to "walk by faith, not by sight."[193] And thus also must a man become one of those of whom the Apostle says that they "are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."[194] Next, this sense of unreality must breed in him _Disgust_ with the unreal and the fleeting, the mere husks of life, unfit to satisfy hunger, save the hunger of swine.[195] This stage is described in the emphatic language of Jesus: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."[196] Truly a "hard saying," and yet out of this hatred will spring a deeper, truer, love, and the stage may not be escaped on the way to the Strait Gate. Then the aspirant must learn _Control of thoughts_, and this will lead to _Control of actions_, the thought being, to the inner eye, the same as the action: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, _hath committed adultery_ with her already in his heart."[197] He must acquire _Endurance_, for they who aspire to tread "the Way of the Cross" will have to brave long and bitter sufferings, and they must be able to endure, "as seeing Him who is invisible."[198] He must add to these _Tolerance_, if he would be the child of Him who "maketh His sun to rise on the evil, and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,"[199] the disciple of Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he did not follow with them.[200] Further, he must acquire the _Faith_ to which nothing is impossible,[201] and the _Balance_ which is described by the Apostle.[202] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are above,"[203] and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union with God.[204] When a man has wrought these qualities into his character he is regarded as fit for Initiation, and the Guardians of the Mysteries will open for him the Strait Gate. Thus, but thus only, he becomes the prepared candidate.