Course XXXV - Teaching 6: Vel and Aphel

In the Grotto of Trials, the Book of All Times is kept; no mortal has ever read it.
This book cannot be damaged by water or burnt by fire, and the time cannot delete its characters.
Four Knights –with flaming swords, winged helmets, silver cuirasses and hard shields– watch over the entrance to the Grotto.
But IHS, the Son of the Flame, has entered there.
The Wayfarer will not come back for long to glimpse the fire of the Divine Mother.
At the intersection of the passage Abhayagiri, in the mountains of Sumeru, an iron gate stands up. Three terrible wild beasts watch over its entrance.
A person reluctant to be devoured by them, must put is belt on with the Sacred Cord, to take off his shoes and to break the Cane of Hazel.
Then he shall play, for him, the bell of Vihara; and the gate shall open at the touch of the Pilgrim’s hand.
And the fourth day the Wayfarer was at the side of the forked way.
One is called Vel, and the other Aphel.
The former rapidly climbs the slope, watched by a Golden Eagle to the Summit of the Mount.
The latter, studded with sharp motley little stones, descends to the edge of the Abyss, and later also ascends slowly, in spiral, the slope to the summit.
It is indispensable to choose between one Path and another.