by: IPB Janez Veliki 33°
The Most Illustrious Brethren Sovereign Grand Commander of the AASR for Slovenia, the Most Illustration Brethren Grand Commanders of the Zeniths, the Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Regular Grand Lodge of Slovenia, Most Worshipful Grand Masters of the other Grand Lodges in amity, dear guests, most honourable brethen,
Welcome to Ljubljana, welcome to Slovenia. I am glad that you have taken your time to participate and honour our Order. We’ve gathered in a large number and with many of our dear guest from abroad. This is our way of showing the strength of our Order and Masonry in Slovenia and in Europe and its positive influence it has on our societies.
In today’s noisy, loud and glitzy world the social recognition is attributed to those that show off and brag. It appears as if that the most successful are those that constantly seek attention, not the ones with something meaningful to say. We freemasons work in accordance with our long and glorious tradition, in a silent manner, away from the prying eyes of the public, knowing that
this is the only way to preserve ancient secrets. With our silence we tell what cannot be told with words.
Freemasonary, as we are witnessing it here today at this conference, is a world-builder, a social architecture on the grand style. With its fellowships established in every nation under heaven, its activities never ceasing night or day, its message uttered in nearly all the languages of the race benign, one of the most constructive of all forces in the world. When its work is finished, which will not be until the end is ended, it will have proved itself a builder of an unseen cathedral more noble, more enduring, than any ever made of stone.
Today I was asked to talk about symbolism of the first degree. In a history so rich and with meanings of symbolism so powerful, I do not imagine that I can add a lot of significant findings. I am and I always be just a humble Entered Apprentice, seeking light and wisdom, never knowing entirely or completely or imagining that I can do so. I will always cherish the opportunity, the chance for being part of the fraternity so noble and enduring as the humanistic values it represents. In this, I am very much like Wagner from Goethe’s Faust, when we discuss the importance of the historic teachings:
Pardon me, but it’s a great delight
When, moved by the spirit of the ages,
we have sight Of how a wiser man has thought,
and how Widely at last we’ve spread his
word about.
Or in the words of the one or the great freemasonic thinkers
A part of a builder’s profession Is digging in ruins of old,
And his findings, in rapid succession, equip him with merits untold,
For the builder who never uncover the work of the centuries past
Is the builder who never discovers construction most certain to Last
So you will excuse me today for speaking about something so common as white and light. But for an Entered Apprentice like me, who will never master the symbolism(s) in its entirety, white is a great challenge. How to think about it not just rationally, but also emotionally, in my heart, is a difficult task.
White is for an Entered Apprentice the first step towards wisdom. I would even claim that the white is the colour of the first degree. White symbols and white symbolism that each of us has received upon our initiation (white apron, white gloves, black and white tracing board, etc.) indicate that white is a symbol of beginnings, innocence and in terms of wisdom, even ignorance. For
Entered Apperentices that sit in the darkness of the west, white is a symbol of life. With initiation ritual each and every one of us was brought from the darkness to light given a chance to start a new, different, more noble than ever before Masonic life. Like a child, stumbling on his or her first steps, so are Entered Apprentices of the First Degree unsure of their steps. But as the time passes, these steps become surer, longer, more self-confident, towards the Light of the East.
White is in our cultural circle symbol of innocence and purity. Apron of the Entered Apprentice is white, traditionally made of sheep skin. White for purity, sheep of innocence. I wear it with enormous pride as a reminder to the builders of the Salomon temple. Gloves that we wear are also white. In our grand Lodge, a pair of white gloves for a neophite, another pair for the lady which is closest to his heart. White gloves speak to the newly initiated that freemasons works should be clean and spotless. In various languages we have words for dealing with hands: handling in English, Handlung in German, rokovanje in Slovenia- the works that we do with hands. But not just any hands, but primarily with pure hands. Because both white apron and white gloves are illusions to purity, purification. Pure hands are therefore a symbol of pure actions, that are just and justifiable and pertain to the freemason.
Tapis or tiles that we see, were black and white are being exchange, symbolise good and evil, light and darkness, day and night, freedom and oppression, freedom of expression vs dogmas. They signal to us that the world is not made entirely of good (or bad for the matter), that after evil there is always good. It reminds of us brotherly love of the others, less happy and fortunate.
It was until Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery that white was considered as the elementary colour of light and that we get other colours by adding something to the white light. Newton demonstrates that this is not the case by letting rays of white light first pass through one prism should be adding more colours than just the fundamental three that were coming out of the first prism. What Newton discovered is that prism only separates different colours that are contained in white. White ray is therefore nothing else but a combination of different colours in exact same proportions. With this Newton demonstrated that the white contains three basic colours, that in the white there is actually a rainbow of colours. White is therefore something that connects. White connects differences into unity. Like our ancient fraternity.
When Newton died in 1727, our Brother and the greatest poet of English Enlightenment Alexander Pope wrote in his epitaph:
Nature and Nature’s Law Lay hid in night;
God said, Let Newton be! And all was light
Light is therefore the one that enlightens. And the white Lights is, if we follow another brilliant mind of Leonardo da Vinci, a light that actually enables all the other colours. Without white we don’t see the other colours. White enables, because it contains all the other colours. White painting canvas is there so that other colours can shine on it. The walls are white to enable paintings or other elements to stand out. Our work, dear Brethren, that we learn in the meditative tranquility of white, is to enable.
Namely, we Freemasons we have a duty. Duty that precedes selfish gain. Duty in serving the others the general good. Just like white.
Duty is one of the great laws of freemasonry. Most of the people think that duty means doing only what is necessary in a given situation. But for us freemasons of the AASR, duty is a positive value, not as a burden. Immanuel Kant differentiated between concepts “out of duty” and “in accordance with the duty”. Acts in accordance with the never lead to general good. On the
other hand acts “out of duty” aim at common creation of greater good. This is what we freemasons do.
When a freemason crosses over from square to compass, his duty becomes not only obeying the others, but also internally nourishing interest for issues of humanity, wider community, state and the world. His duty is widened in terms of contribution to the solutions of those issues. He needs to learn how to give orders while first learning how to carry them out.
My dear brethren, welcome again to Ljubljana, to Slovenia and to this beautiful lodge. I couldn’t be happier that we are meeting again.
