CONSCIOUSNESS AND MASONRY

Freemasonry is the architechture which enables and encourages self exploration.  There are superstructures of academic research, applications and New Age hoodoo. For some it is a mystical experience, enlightening, philosophically fullfilling.  It is a ripe medium for sophistry for which it pays a handsome price in terms of gaps in credibility.  Think of the number of people actually practicing religion with little comparitive understanding and you have a window into the practice of masonry for some members.  Some are completely satisfied being part of an event without needing to understand. Hard as it is to fathom, this is a challenge penetrating the ethos of freemasonry. Each generation brings about renewal and reinvention that generally preserves the ancient landmarks as was the acception offered to the old lodges.  Nietzsche reminded us, it is good to express a thing twice right at the onset and so to give it a right foot and also a left foot. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around. What is the other expression?  Freemasonry is the escape. It does not create a world of misery, then offer itself as path to salvation. It accepts what is and imagines what could be.  He also felt art is the proper task of life. So think of masonry in it's truest artistic form. If the frustrations of the experience of masonry have not revealed answers, it is because the nature of insight and therefore the nature of freemasonry is to perform the oracles work- to answer with a question; one that if the acolyte is sinceren in pursuit of enlightenment, requires contemplation. Those who come to masonry hoping it is a shortcut to nirvana; hope springs eternal but answers require fullness. So live life as an artist and be cautious about such things. After all, I hate it when I think someone an idiot only to find out I'm wrong.