Freemasonry and the Eternal East - Essay Example

What then are these symbols These are the symbols of the Fraternity which reveal the inner most spiritualities of life. In the true tradition of how Masonic idealism, along with the profounder aspects of the notions of a Fraternity this essay will discuss the journey of the Freemason to find reality,to find God as Manly P. states "Infinity mocks our puny efforts to imprison it in definition and dogma. Our most splendid realizations are only adumbrations of the Light. In his endeavours, man is but a mollusc seeking to encompass the ocean.

Yet man may not cease his struggle to find God. There is a yearning in his soul that will not let him rest, an urge that compels him to attempt the impossible, to attain the unattainable." Manly .P goes on to state the relationship of the freemason with his soul which is heaven bound and takes the freemason to a new realm of peace and happiness. For him a mason is a true mason due to his true, pure and well prepared heart which makes room for the fraternity of builders. Once he is ready he will begin his journey to the East to search for what is lost-what he is meant to find.

The eternal paradox is that freemasonry is not a philosophy of life after death.It is a philosophy of spiritual growth and spiritual healing.It is the paradox of this philosophy is that you can walk for miles and miles and wind up finding happiness at your own door.Many writers refer to freemasonry " spiritual ethics" of mankind and thus it is more than a religion.(Manly P.)As the Mason graduates from an average to a Master Mason this coming of age and blossoming from a student to a teacher as assumes the position of a "the sun (as a ) a great reflector of light, who radiates through his organism, purified by ages of preparation, the glorious power which is the light of the Lodge"(Manly P)The Master Mason has the great snake Hydra, passing through it and this will illuminate him with the rising sun towards the "immortal" East which is his end and beginning .

At this end the True Master seeks many beginnings and many ends to fraternity's as his students now make his own journeys and embark upon new destinations of the self.At this moment of loneliness the Master Mason is in the moments of the finding of himself as Manly P. notes "The temple is finished and in my faithful Master is found the missing stone." This is a moment of transformation. A kind of a spiritual death and rebirth when mind and the heart of the Master Mason who has come so far will be in perfect harmony as he looks towards the eternal East the wisdom and light of which he has sought through out this journey.

Freemasonry points towards the soul of the man reaching its highest understanding, the coherence and wholesomeness that comes forth from an eternal centre, and comes full circle in his search for the beauty of completeness, inner peace and in essence God.But then we come to the final query.Is this a philosophy of a life after deathWhat and where does death stand here.If we speak of death as the transformation and the journey of the Freemason during his walk to the