50: Discipleship or Chelaship.  ...The ancient mysteries were but a school of spiritual training and perfection in true wisdom; that the preliminary qualification was the purification of the heart from all sensual passions and false preconceptions; that, while the hand of the Master might lead the neophyte through the dangers of the stage where, like the infant, he could not walk alone he was obliged, in the higher paths, to learn to guide and guard himself, as the adult man has to do in ordinary life; that the ultimate goal was the expansion of the self into infinite existence and potentialities; and, lastly, that, however the initial forms and ceremonies may have differed in appearance, an identical aim was in view.--The Theosophist, Vol. IX, p. 246.
The pure heart and clean mind alone permit one to attain salvation.  This was his doctrine.  So, likewise, is it taught in the Aryan Mahabharata (Sec. CXCIX. Vana Parva) which says:  "Those high souled persons that do not commit sins in word, deed, heart and soul, are said to undergo ascetic austerities, and not that they suffer their bodies to be wasted by fasts and penances.  He that hath no feeling of kindness for relatives cannot be free from sin, even if his body be pure.  That hard-heartedness of his is the enemy of his asceticism.  Asceticism, again, is not mere abstinence from the pleasures of the world.  He that is always pure and decked with virtues, he that practices kindness all his life, is a Muni, even though he lead a domestic life."—The Theosophist, Vol. XIII, p. 259.