The Second Degree

       As we stand before the two pillars listening to the beginning of the second lecture, we are poised for a great transition.  We have been learning about all the things that are outside of us and that we must learn to control.  We have reconfirmed and expanded our obligation.  We have been taught about the working tools of the Fellow Craft and are ready to be taught about the work we shall now do.  Before we take that next step it would be good for us to once again use a simple exercise to help us understand how to accomplish that work.

As we sit once again in the same chair in the privacy of a room, relaxed but attentive, feet on the floor, sitting erect, with our hands folded in our lap or on the arms of the chair, we close our eyes.  This is different from the last exercise.  As our eyes close we are cut off visually from all things outside of ourselves.  At this point it is rather easy to see that all those things out there are not a part of what makes each of us truly us.  It would become even more evident if we could close off our other four senses; that of hearing, smell, taste, and touch.  It is not necessary for us to go that far for our experiment.  Stop and notice how different it is not to be connected to things by seeing them.  Now, notice what we have left.  At first it seems like a strange, void place.  After a little while we begin to notice that it is not exactly void.  We can still feel things.  The first thing that we usually feel is our breathing, in and out, slowly or rapidly.  As we pay attention to it our breath will begin to slow and we will become a bit more relaxed.  Now we can notice if we are breathing in our lungs or more deeply in our diaphragm. It is best to breathe deeply and the change only takes a single thought to do so.  Now feel your stomach move in and out instead of your lungs.  Experience this for a short time and continue to relax.

      Can you feel your heart beating?   Can you feel where it is beating?  Can you feel your pulse in several places?  Can you feel your blood coursing through your veins?  Ask yourself who is doing all this feeling.  You have now moved from outside yourself to inside yourself.  You are now in the state of your mind and emotions.  Take notice that all that is now happening is not connected to anything outside of you.  You can think and you can feel.  The term for this is esoteric, from the Greek meaning “inside”.  To prove to yourself that emotions are inside you, think of the last time you were very sad.  Remember where you were, what you were doing, and why it was happening.  You will be amazed to find that the very same emotions that you had at that time are still with you and able to be recalled with no outside help.  You will just react to them.  The problem with emotions is that they have no sense of good/bad and will just let you go along as long as you want to.  Our mind plays a vital part here as it is the controller of our emotions.  Reason is the only that that will control emotions.  We need both to be ourselves but who that someone is must be determined by our balance of emotions and reason.  Emotions give us the jest and reason gives us the security.

      This same movement, from outside to inside, is also taking shape in the second degree.  While we will be a long time learning to subdue our passions (controlling our emotions with reason) and separating who we are from our materialistic selves, we will also be training our minds.  It is surprising how much we think we know and how much we actually know.  The vast difference between these two points is that we assume we know when we actually only know that someone has told us.  We know very few thing of our own knowledge.  Nearly all that we learn in school is what someone else tells us.  This is where experiences come into play.  The things that we experience are things that we learn on our own.                                               Unfortunately, like emotions, to be scammed because we want to believe something without the check with reason to help us be more nearly sure of what is true.  That is also why children do not like to take the word of adults on subjects of interest.  From us it is sound knowledge tested by our experiences but to them it is just hearsay.  They want to know for themselves.

      Grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy are ways to train our minds.  They lead us in ways that will help us learn who we really are and what we want to do with our life.  We use our senses as input to learn and then we use our minds to evaluate what we learn.  Some we keep, some we store away for later, and some we throw out.  That is so that we can begin to make some sense of the world around us and discover our place within it.  

      The first thing you were told in the Fellow Craft charge is, “The internal and the external qualifications of a man are what Freemasonry regards.  As you increase in knowledge you will improve in social intercourse.”  The first degree prepares you for the second and the second degree prepares you for the third.  We will examine the third degree next time.

This article first appeared in the Missouri Freemason Magazine in 2010.