Masonry

MASONRY

The internal perfection

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

M:.M:.

It is called Masonry the study of the sciences and the practice of the virtues; we understand for science; the reasons of why of the rules to done right in some thing, and for virtue; be under the rules of the good live and the constant practice of the good, for love to the good itself, and nothing more.

 

The Masonry is an institution of complex nature, which it does not have religion, for all exist in its bosom, and not to have it, what excludes all of them, without predominance of any; has no homeland, because would not take character from being eminently universal; lacks of race, because survives under all climates; it has no color, because then it would deny the virtue, quality capable of being in any black, yellow or white, poor or rich, big or small human being.

 

Those who affirm that the Masonry is in battle with this or that religion, are persons who ignore what is the Masonic Institution, and judge only for reference or for passion to this one or other cause. If the Masonry was attacking to some belief or religion, there would no be in its bosom individuals who are simultaneously believers and Masons, it would not have intransigent religious and convinced Masons.

 

The Masonry leaves to its members the widest faculty to think and to believe; but it rebels against any fanatical invasion at any form in which appears; since any exaggeration in the ideas or beliefs is a vice that exalts and that is fights without truce, bearing in mind for it “The man is free for everything, but to be a slave”.

The Masonry, altruistic and tolerant institution is simultaneously a school, temple, academy, that to its intellectual works adds the principles that govern in life the eternal teachings of the healthiest morality; that practises the highest virtues trying to do real “Love one another”.

As a school, an institution founded on objective bases of evident truths. In philosophy, does not give preference to any system, because sensualism ruins the spiritual principles; worships the reason, attribute of man, but gives no preference to the pure rationalism that would remove all metaphysical principles that are known and respected as fundamental principles of ideology, we see that their philosophy is eclectic, so all systems have a place with no preference in either, bearing in mind: The truth is one and the roads through which the human spirit can reach beyond are many.

The Masonry has never goner against any religion, sect, ideology, idea, belief or political faction; what it has done in any case is to fight any fanaticism and any superstition; because these vices are the most exalted form of the reason, which perverting the understanding and disturbing the criterion there have been the cause of the loss of the ideas that have led the humanity to the most serious errors; from there the cruelest wars have gone out, as there have been the religious wars, from which was born of the historical fanatics religious, the most repugnant acts that the history remembers with horror and was called “The Inquisition”; in the modern world the fratricidal war in Ireland, between Catholic and Protestant; the peoples of the Middle East to force the imposition of Islam, etc.

The Masonry has suffered patiently and with resignation all the pursuits that its cruelest and fierce enemies have done; it has seen with piety eyes its detractors;excused all those that somehow have scoffed at it; since it understands that it could not be understood by all, and in some cases by its own followers, so when there comes this fortunate epoch in which all the men know what is the Masonry, this day will be on earth the reign of the freedom, and the justice will govern all the nations and in this way the Masonry will have fulfilled its mission and its work, reason so that the Masonry stops being.

The Masonry is not a charitable institution, like many that exist with ends of mutual help; it exercises the charity under all its declarations; since the Masonry believes the humanity not only needs crusts: then, an advice on time; an opportune observation; a suitable reprimand; a scolding without asperity; a correction without shaming or any amendment to the defects or losses are also benefactions that we must use in favor of the brothers and friends. “To share the happy moments and to relieve the sorrow” there are brotherhood duties. “not only of bread the man lives”.

The Masonry worship the virtues, adores the truth, respects the reason, fights for the justice and loves the law, emanations of the Big Architect of the Universe. The Masons consider him like the eternal and existing being and is for that the human being is immortal, and is prepared in this life for eternal and future other one, in identical contrast first with the philosophy of the antiquity and then with the religious doctrines of Occident that circumscribe the human existence to the present life.

Therefore, these two doctrines: that of the unit of the Supreme Being and that of the Immortality of the Soul constitute the philosophy of the Masonry. Hence in the history of the humanity we will always find institutions and associations that were teaching these truths of an allegorical and symbolic way, in spite of developing often in an ambiance in which it was predominating over the intellectual obscurantism and the degradation of the ancient polytheistic religions and I believe to have right to support that these accusations were the excuse or cause, that is to say the predecessors of the Masonic institution, as today it exists.

MASONIC TEMPLE

As the word mason means Bricklayer and everything in the masonry is taught by allegories, the purpose of a bricklayers' society has to be related to the office that it represents. In the Masonic language always takes as an essential objective to construct or to restore a temple. Can be the temple of the nature or the internal temple, in which there must reign the freedom, the equality and the brotherhood and there is tough the virtue and the proper morality of the Order.

The Masonry is the ideal state of the human being; it is the state in which he/she finds and preserves his/her perfection and happiness. This state has been destroyed by the religion, the dogmas and the fanaticism. These have taken the human being primitive freedom, equality and destroyed his brotherhood. The Masonry fights for the return of the mankind to the perfection and original happiness, freedom, equality and natural brotherhood.

MASONIC LEGENDS

The Masonic ritual is full of legends, especially in the top grades, beginning for the Master, in whom there is the legend of Hiram's death. In these legends the allegories are involved to communicate its light between the brothers and to hide it of the profanes.

The difference between allegory and symbol is that this one has a meaning purely conventional, so that it is impossible for the one that is not in the secret to discover it; the allegory, on the other hand, “is a speech or story in which there is a literal and figurative sense, a clear sense and connected one, being the intention of the one that uses the clear sense that of indicating for analogy or comparison, the figurative or secret one”.

The interpretation of the allegory is easy, and that's why someone has said that “the allegory inhabits in a diaphanous palace”. For it all the legends of the Masonry are allegorical and has its importance in its historical truth.

THE SYMBOLS

The initiation is only the beginning of the internal work of the Masonry. Then there comes a process of instruction where the symbolism of the legends is learned.

Everything is a symbol in the Masonry. That of the first three grades is called usually symbolic Masonry, in contrast to other one, which is that of the philosophical grades. The symbol is a sensitive image used to express a secret sense, but analogical. But this symbolic image is only conventional, that is to say, that has only a conventional relation, freely agreed for those that they use it, with the important thing. Therefore it is impossible that the one that is not in the agreement realizes its sense.

It would not be possible that I was giving here the symbolic sense of everything what exists in a lodge and of all the ceremonies that are used. Would be necessary big space for it; especially since the significance of the symbols has diverse senses as the initiated one is penetrating in grades and Masonic knowledge.

As example of the above mentioned I will analyze the triangle that represents the Big Architect of the Universe, or Masonic Trinity, or, the nature with its three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable and animal. The word god begins in many languages with the letter D, letter that in Greek is a triangle. In the middle is the letter G, that means generation.

“This trino god, says Ragón, has three mysteries that symbolize also three sides of the triangle: 1st Everything is formed by the generation. 2nd The destruction follows the generation in all its works. 3rd The regeneration, under other forms, continues the effects of the destruction.

Let's analyze another symbol that is the brute stone, and the polished stone. The brute stone represents the work of the beginners who must work to polish its damages of the profane world, While the polished one is worked as it was done by the workers of the temple of Salomon, to the interior order for the construction of his temple.