In order to escape the last and tenth scourge which Jehovah was to inflict upon resistant Pharaoh and his people, it was required of the Israelites that they take the blood of the sacrifice and "strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses." The promise was that when the Lord would pass through to smite the Egyptians, He would pass over all doors so marked and not "suffer the destroyer" to enter such homes.
It was by the blood of the lamb that the Israelites left Egypt. By tuning in to cosmic forces that flowed from the celestial lamb, Aries, they possessed qualifications for going forward, for leaving an old condition (Egypt) and entering a new one (Canaan). In a yet larger sense, it is by this same blood of the Lamb, the spirit of the Cosmic Christ, that humanity is enabled to pass over from its fallen state of darkened consciousness (Egypt) into the Holy Land of the redeemed.
The near way was through the Philistine country; but in that way lay temptation, greater perhaps than the newly emancipated people could safely encounter. So, in the perfect wisdom of divine guidance, they were led a longer but a safer route through the wilderness; and at its edge they encamped for some time. By their aspiration to live according to higher law, the Israelites drew this measure of protection to themselves. The honest, earnest seeker after a righteous life asks for safety rather than haste, virtue rather than convenience, perfection rather than temporary advantage.
The pilgrim host moved toward the Promised Land under the guidance of a cloud by day and a fire by night. In these symbols our attention is again called to the two principles by whose conjoined powers man emerges from bondage into freedom. The ideal of polarity between the forces of head and heart, reason and intuition, will and imagination, was first impressed on the Akashic Records by the Cherubim, the Lords of Cancer, in the dawning of the Second Day of Creation, as a goal for man-in-the-making — the goal of complete realization in the fullness of time. Moses, who was drawn out of the waters (Pisces) to serve in fire (Aries), taught this to his disciples (Israelites, those who see God). This ideal also constituted the highest teaching given by Christ Jesus to the Immortal Twelve on the evening they met in an upper chamber (elevated consciousness) to partake of the bread (feminine, water) and wine (masculine, fire).
The two guiding pillars are also apt symbols of the conscious invisible helper. During the day, while man is engaged in the objective world of affairs, there is guidance but it is in the nature of a cloud that screens inner worlds and their inhabitants from direct perception. During the night, when outer senses are at rest while the inner faculties are awake and conscious, the latter are in the light and guidance is truly by a pillar of fire. The night time of Earth is the daytime of the awakened and illumined soul. These truths have been taught in the Mystery Schools all through the ages. "When we dead awaken" they will become common knowledge and, later, the common experience of all mankind.
Pharaoh had word that all was not well with the departed Israelites. He heard that they had fled and imagined they were "entangled in the land" and that "the wilderness hath shut them in." Because of this sign of weakness on their part, he repented their release. "Why have we done this," asked he, "that we have let Israel go from serving us?" So the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea beside Pi-hahiroth (place of sea-weed), before Baal-zephon (place of darkness).
The Israelites were encamped beside seaweed and in darkness, and pursued by their oppressors because they showed signs of weakness. It is doubt, uncertainty, confusion of thought and purpose that open the door to inimical influences and endanger progress on the path. Fear is, of all things, the greatest deterrent to spiritual advancement, as it is to success in material pursuits.
The experiences of the Israelites at this point was typical of those met by every aspirant on the way to a higher life. The process of detachment from accustomed ways of living, from thoughts and interests and habits that have become deeply rooted during the course of years and lives and ages, but which are not consistent with the highest advancement, is extremely difficult. Repeatedly, under severe strain and weariness, an aspirant rebels against hardships and clamors for a return to the more comfortable conditions that have been left behind. In such moments there is perhaps no recognition of the fact that whatever comfort and satisfaction the old ways of life yielded in the past, those same seemingly desirable conditions can never be recovered once the spirit has awakened to a higher and a nobler state of being. To go back would be to increase the trials of transition. For the aspirant there is but one way and that way is forward. Meanwhile, his experience is like that of the Israelites in the wilderness. They had neither the fleshpots of Egypt nor the milk and honey of Canaan. They had just seaweed and darkness and desert.
This stage is familiar to every disciple. He feels himself to be neither here nor there. His renunciation of worldly interests places him out of harmony with mass thought and outlook; his spiritual consciousness is not sufficiently strong and clear to penetrate to the depthless wells whose content is sweet and whose powers would lift him completely above the hurt and criticism, misunderstanding and misinterpretation leveled at him by associates; and even by friends and family that are closest to his personal life. But the disciple is never left alone. In his hour of crying need comes a response from on high. Moses, the leader, the light, the higher self, said unto his people, pilgrims on the spiritual way, "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . . The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." (Exodus 14:13,14)
— Corinne Heline
