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MYTHOLOGY
phant while John stands for Intellect Repentent. Being but different faculties' or aspects of the soul-substance, they are described as related to each other. Hence is John the cousin of Jesus. John's mission is described as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and the purport of his cry, to exhort humanity to repent and to straighten the path for the coming of the Lord (Mark, i. 3 and 4). This is characteristic of the mind that has begun, in seriousness, to reflect on his destiny. When the lower self is tired of the pursuit of worldly pleasures and has reached the end of its tether, it begins to reflect on its destiny, and realises that neither friends, nor riches, nor position, nor physical prowess, nor anything. else can come to its rescue or relieve it of the impending gloom of death and extinction which stare it in the face. It then cries out in the anguish of its loneliness in the midst of the world, and, becoming disgusted with the pleasures and joys of the mortals which had hitherto diverted its attention from its real nature, gradually learns that the source of all bliss, blessedness and immortality is none other than its own true self. This is the stage which is likened to the voice of one crying in the wilderness, saying, 'Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Now, because the activity of the intellect is exhausted with the purification of the body alone, which can be accomplished by means of water, and since the will, rather than the intellect, is the real cause of progress, the baptism of John is necessarily that of water. The intellectual self is of the
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