Maria Sotirakou PhD

““The Door of the Temple Is Knocked Irregularly”

“The door of the Temple is knocked irregularly,” and thus our journey begins.

A journey which, with great reflection and desire, we decided upon “of our own free will and without coercion.”

The metals of the uninitiated world weighed heavily upon us.

Daily malevolent behaviors, pervasive vanity, self-serving friendships, the absence of morality and humanity led us to seek the Pure, the Right, the True.

To seek the Light.

For we believe that there exists the LIGHT, “that which contains all, toward which all tends.”

“The LIGHT that awakens human minds, the LIGHT of Love, which unites and harmonizes all Creation,” as our Ritual says.

This Harmony and Beauty that exist around us are surely the result of Wisdom emanating from the Eternal Light!

The desire to seek this Light compelled us to persevere.

For us, the “base impulses” and “licentious pleasures” were left behind. Before us lay only our own solitary and alluring path toward spiritual perfection, toward the eternal LIGHT.

The starting point of the journey… an initial awakening “shock,” our stay in the Dark Chamber.

A faint and gentle candlelight spreads throughout the space, creating a mystical atmosphere and a state of sobriety that represents chaos and Erebus—that is, the absolute darkness symbolizing ignorance and the chaos that characterized the uninitiated world before Creation and the LIGHT.

Within this mystical atmosphere, the initiate enters contemplation, introspection, and decision-making, which lead her from the chaos of uninitiated life into Order, and from darkness into LIGHT.

While reading the inscriptions, an inner dialogue begins. A brief process of self-examination and self-criticism that leads to the repositioning of the “ego” upon new foundations.

The Dark Chamber, or Chamber of Reflection, is a symbolic womb where each of us is reborn and enters a new realm of life.

We stood before the inscription V.I.T.R.I.O.L., unknown to us.

Yet the innate tendency toward knowledge and spiritual improvement—this very tendency that led us to the Door of the Temple—guided us to seek its meaning:
Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem,
that is: “Visit the interior of the earth, and by purification you shall discover the hidden stone.”

Skull—death. In order to advance spiritually, on the path toward the LIGHT, our old self must die—the self burdened with the metals of the uninitiated world.

There is no new life unless death comes first.

The Chamber of Reflection is our spiritual womb.

With a new “entity,” we knocked upon the Door of the Temple.

And we entered the Temple “as free and of good morals.” We felt that we had been “reborn.”

Our time, our thoughts, our emotions, our dreams acquired new meaning. They began to evolve beyond and above the habits of everyday life within the uninitiated world.

Freedom and Virtue, Love and Empathy, Harmony of Mind and Beauty of Soul began to guide us toward spiritual ascent and personal eudaimonia.

And we heard the first instruction for our journey:
“…to study Nature, to observe phenomena, to descend into the depths of our Consciousness, and above all to harmonize with the Universal Rhythm…”

Nature—the Harmony of perfection. Its laws, revealed to us through its phenomena, eternally ensure Balance, Order, and the harmonious functioning of the “Cosmos”—the grandeur of complete Knowledge.

The Wisdom of the Whole in the One.

We seek “the rays of Light by observing phenomena.” That is, we seek the perfection of material and spiritual processes and the laws that govern them.

As part of Nature—and indeed, as scientists claim, its most perfected part—we are obliged, by understanding the Wisdom of Universal Creation, to seek it also within ourselves, “descending into the depths of our Consciousness.”

The grandeur of eternal cosmic Harmony—the perfect macrocosm, ordered in Wisdom—leads us to our inner journey.

“As above, so below,” said Hermes Trismegistus.

Thus, the grandeur of Order and Wisdom of the macrocosm also exists within us.

“The polishing of our personal stone,” so that we may feel our inner LIGHT. A difficult part of our journey—the ground is rough, the obstacles tempting—but at the end, the rays of Light shine forth.

The LIGHT—the One, the Unique, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Immeasurable—manifesting physical and spiritual forces in the worlds in various ways, now here and now there, as Engels said.

And the journey within the Temple begins at the Column of the North—from coldness, from the long nights of the North, from ignorance, from the darkness of unknowing.

We learned the steps that would lead us to the East—to the LIGHT!

And there we discovered and recognized the existence of others who share the same principles, duties, and rights as we do. They are our Sisters, those who provide “assistance and support in every circumstance.”

Here a profound inner need is fulfilled—the need for Coexistence and Belonging—and together we are fellow travelers on the path of Truth.

There are three things we must not carry with us on this journey:

First, extreme egocentrism—the illusion that we need nothing and no one; the false belief that we know and have conquered everything.

Second, low self-esteem—the lack of faith in ourselves, often the result of behavior toward us within our family environment.

Extreme egocentrism and low self-esteem are negative traits of a vulnerable personality. They are powerful obstacles to the creation of free will and harmonious social integration.

The third is being influenced by superstitions, prejudices, and irrational beliefs that act negatively upon the mind and the soul—serious obstacles to the expansion of our cognitive horizons.

The weapons of the mind and the heart that we must use are:

KNOWLEDGE, the weapon against superstitions, prejudices, and irrational beliefs that may have “blinded” us when we reached the Column of the North, the darkness of ignorance.

COURAGE, that is, moral and psychological strength to confront both the weaknesses of our inner self and the difficulties and adversities of life, as well as the pettiness of our fellow human beings.

SELF-CONFIDENCE, that is, faith in ourselves, in our abilities and beliefs.

EMPATHY, that is, emotional identification with the psychological state of our fellow human being. Only then do we understand the position of our life companion, and only then does the phrase gain meaning:
“What you hate, do not do to another,” which we heard during our first Initiation.

The mitigation of negative traits and the strengthening of positive ones shape our Masonic value principles: equality, brotherhood, humility, solidarity, acceptance, and respect for the value and intrinsic worth of every being.

These values “are the LIGHT that guides our path in life.”

They are the power of the final moment that conquers the fear of death. No one wins the battle against death, but one may win the battle against the fear of death.

The journey toward the East, toward the LIGHT, made us strong, courageous, free, compassionate, virtuous, and wise.

It brought us close to sensing the presence of the Great Architect of the Universe.