Rosicrucian Writings Online

Passed to Higher Initiation
Charles Dana Dean,
Grand Master for North America
 
[From The Rosicrucian Digest September 1933]
 
 
OUR VERY good Frater, friend, and companion has just left our garden of flowers and wended his way down the path that leads over the hills to the distant horizon in answer to a call to enter the sacred temple on the mountain top and find there the higher initiation which he hoped might come to him at some time. The flowers in the garden all seem to bow their heads for they will miss his gentle touch, his loving understanding, and sympathetic appreciation. He loved to be a worker in this garden of human hearts and his love was for every flower alike. He was a gentle gardener, and his first consideration was to see that each growing thing had its water of life and its sunshine. He knew naught of time or conditions, but could hear only the restless music of the impatient swaying of the growing plants as they tried to resist the power of the winds or yielded to them. In the midst of this great garden that he loved was the temple in which he worshipped, and here he found opportunity daily to meditate and to pray and to lift up his soul and consciousness in appreciation and thankfulness; but the garden outside was the joy of his life for here were his close friends and here were the expressions of life in all of their colors and adornment.
 
Charles Dana Dean was born in this life to fulfill the mission which occupied so many years of his earthly efforts. His mind was peculiarly inclined to the sciences and to the mastership of that knowledge which would lead to the creation of things that brought joy and happiness, comfort and convenience to man's needs. Yet he was a true philosopher in every cell of his physical constitution, and in every throb of his thinking body there was a profound comprehension of life's higher mysteries, and the unveiled and unknown laws of God and the Cosmic. He was well-beloved indeed by men in his employ, or under his direction who labored carefully and diligently to carry out his scientific instructions. And yet with the same patience and the same helpful manner he has directed the thoughts of thousands of human beings in their search for the greater light, and for the illumination that rises above all material affairs.
 
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in the year 1878, he was soon associated with various scientific laboratories in the East where his valuable knowledge and patience could be used to good advantage. Becoming associated early in life with the Bell Telephone Company, he rose in its ranks as a skilled engineer, and expert in the planning and construction of remote controls, amplification of sound, the adaptation of the telephone to radio, and the development of television. It seemed but natural that his footsteps should have been led early in life to the threshold of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood and that in this organization--the only fraternal or cultural society to which he belonged--he would find such wisdom and such practical information, as well as such spiritual light as would help him in his scientific progress as well as in his spiritual unfoldment.
 
Early in his association with the Rosicrucians of California there arose the golden opportunity for him to display his devotion, defend his chosen spiritual field of guidance, and prove himself worthy of the honor and love that came rapidly to him. In all times and in all circumstances he never faltered in his devotion, and never was silent when he might speak a word in defense. He became Grand Master of the largest lodge in California in San Francisco, and later defended the Order against the malicious attacks of enemies of the organization. His tireless efforts in behalf of the members, his devotion to research work, his spiritual illumination, and the great love in his heart soon placed him in the position of Grand Master of all of the Grand Lodges for North America, a position which he held up to the time of his transition.
 
Overwork, the ceaseless expenditure of seemingly unlimited energy, the refusal to rest and discontinue some of his many activities, finally told on his physical body, and brought him face to face with the great problem of measuring one's years of future activity. Even when those in the great national corporation which he served for thirty-five years expressed in their kindest and most loving manner their serious regard for his health and advised him to take a long vacation under their protection and help, he hesitated. Great problems still had to be solved in connection with the redevelopment and reestablishment of many great principles still held in the heart of the telephone company for this district, and to these problems he continued to give his deepest thought, the while trying to find a little rest in his garden of flowers among the multitude of members with whom he came in contact, and when the great voice of the Cosmic whispered through its chosen channels and advised him that the end of his present activities was close at hand, there was but one prayer on his lips and one petition to God--that he might be spared to live through one more of the great annual Conventions held here in this State and Valley. The nurses in the hospital to which he was finally taken in order to force him into rest and relaxation, and everyone who came in contact with him, urged him to become peaceful, but he proceeded along his chosen path and still wandered among the smiling flowers and spoke of nothing else, even in the last partially unconscious hours, but of the Convention, the great work that was to be accomplished by members and delegates, and the far-reaching effects of its decisions. All who saw him during these last days of the Convention realized that only the will of God, and the great determination on the part of our beloved Grand Master united to permit life to remain in his body until the last of the delegates and members were starting on their way homeward, having declared the Convention duties completed and the great work accomplished.
 
In his conscious moments he urged that his condition and his absence should bring no note of sadness into the activities of the Convention. He urged that his wife, always his companion in all of the Rosicrucian activities and ever an important worker at each Convention, should continue her duties even on this occasion despite his loneliness at times in the little chamber room of the hospital surrounded by trees and flowers. She was unable to bear the separation, however, and toward the end of the Convention week she devised ways and means of being close to him as were the wives of the Supreme Officers who kept vigil with her. And so it came about that on the closing night of the Convention we offered prayers of thankfulness to God that our beloved Grand Master was still with us, still moving about amid the flowers of his happy, sunlit, fragrant garden.
 
Then came Monday midnight, July 24, when the angels of the Cosmic hovered closely and softened the lights in his room and bid the flowers nod their heads, and we who heard and understood the signs gathered at his bedside and there in the presence of the women who had kept the watch, and with others standing in the shadows of the trees under the starry heavens, came the call, and our beloved Grand Master at four minutes past the midnight hour stepped through the open gateway of his garden out onto the path and ascended the mountain.
 
A fitting memorial will be erected to his memory in Rosicrucian Park where amid living flowers, symbolical of the flowers of human life which he loved, will rest his ashes, but a greater memorial and a greater monument to his beautiful life and character has been erected in the hearts and minds of everyone who knew him, and in this loving memory will remain and rest forever the power of his influence, and the greatness of his goodness. Some day our beloved Grand Master will serve us again even more richly than he has in the past, and in the meantime his Light moving onward and forward will be the starry beacon to guide us on our individual journeys through life.
   
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