Course XXXV - Teaching 5: The Lower Worlds

The Abyss is the image of the soul descending to the lower, human and intermediate worlds and returning to the superior worlds, to achieve knowledge, since knowledge is the key to freedom.
After his death, Christ remains three days in the sepulcher, which also symbolizes these three worlds. Under the hells, he liberates those who dwell in the limbo and soars to heaven.
In his Divine Comedy, to achieve Supreme Wisdom, Dante has to walk across the hell, crossing the purgatory and soaring to heaven.
A spiritual adept also has to go around the Abyss of passions, to start the journey to the Summit of the Mount and to conquer the prize of the Divine Mother.
Mind, a wonderful treasure for the manifestation of the Divine Life, is obstacle for Divinity in Itself. Then, the Conqueror of the Flame is he who completely controls the mental Substance, the only means to reach the Initiation.
At moments of high inspiration and ecstasy, the disciple glimpses those grand spaces of spiritual freedom; but since he is not self-possessed, he must sink again in life to know it better and to control it.
He must overcome bestiality and instincts, starting slowly his journey toward Liberation.