The So-Called Dangers of Initiation

It is a lofty truth on the one hand and a shocking phrase on the other when human beings are told: You must sacrifice your personality. — I will use an example to illustrate how this can be something very lofty in one instance and something clichéd in another. Imagine you ask a person who has ten cents in their pocket to sacrifice those ten cents for some cause. They will make this sacrifice easily. On the other hand, if you ask someone who happens to have twenty thousand marks on them — perhaps their entire fortune — to sacrifice what they have, that is a completely different matter. Asking someone who has not yet worked on themselves, who has not yet elevated their personality, who cannot yet be called a personality, to renounce their personality is quite different from asking someone who has worked on it for a long time to make it as capable as possible. One sacrifices a genius at the altar of human development, the other a fool. It is not a matter of sacrificing, but of what one sacrifices. In order to be able to restrain a personality for the sake of humanity, one must first develop that personality. So sometimes it is just a phrase to speak of the sacrifice of personality, and sometimes it is a great and significant truth. Therefore, it is of no use if theosophical books call for the sacrifice of personality without at the same time demanding that personality be made as strong and comprehensive as possible.