Latest / Classic Non-Fiction Book Collection / The Way of Peace - James Allen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The power of meditation. Spiritual meditation is the pathway to divinity.
- 0:07Speaker 1: It is a mystic ladder which reaches from earth to heaven,
- 0:10Speaker 1: from error to truth, from pain to peace. Every saint
- 0:14Speaker 1: has climbed it, every sinner must sooner or later come
- 0:17Speaker 1: to it, And every weary pilgrim that turns his back
- 0:21Speaker 1: upon self and the world and sets his face resolutely
- 0:24Speaker 1: toward the Father's home must plant his feet upon its
- 0:27Speaker 1: golden rounds. Without its aid, you cannot grow into the
- 0:31Speaker 1: divine state, the divine likeness, the divine peace, and the
- 0:36Speaker 1: fateless glories and unpolluting joys of truth will remain hidden
- 0:39Speaker 1: from you. Meditation is the intense dwelling in thought upon
- 0:45Speaker 1: an idea or theme, with the object of thoroughly comprehending it.
- 0:50Speaker 1: And whatsoever you constantly meditate upon, you all not only
- 0:54Speaker 1: come to understand, but will grow more and more into
- 0:57Speaker 1: its likeness, for it will become incorporated into your very being,
- 1:01Speaker 1: will become in fact your very self. If therefore, you
- 1:07Speaker 1: constantly dwell upon that which is selfish and debasing, you
- 1:10Speaker 1: will ultimately become selfish and debased. If you ceaselessly think
- 1:15Speaker 1: upon that which is pure and unselfish, You will surely
- 1:18Speaker 1: become pure and unselfish. Tell me what that is upon
- 1:23Speaker 1: which you most frequently and intensely think, that to which
- 1:27Speaker 1: in your silent hours your soul most naturally turns, And
- 1:31Speaker 1: I will tell you to what place of pain or
- 1:33Speaker 1: peace you are traveling, and whether you are growing into
- 1:36Speaker 1: the likeness of the divine or the beast. Deal there
- 1:39Speaker 1: is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of
- 1:43Speaker 1: that quality upon which one most constantly thinks. Let therefore
- 1:49Speaker 1: the object of your meditation be above and not below,
- 1:52Speaker 1: so that every time you revert to it and thought,
- 1:55Speaker 1: you will be lifted up. Let it be pure and
- 1:58Speaker 1: unmixed with any selfish element. So shall your heart become
- 2:02Speaker 1: purified and drawn nearer to truth, and not defiled and
- 2:07Speaker 1: dragged more hopelessly into error. Meditation, in the spiritual sense
- 2:13Speaker 1: in which I am now using it, is the secret
- 2:15Speaker 1: of all growth in spiritual life and knowledge. Every prophet, sage,
- 2:20Speaker 1: and savior became such by the power of meditation. Buddha
- 2:25Speaker 1: meditated upon the truth until he could say I am
- 2:29Speaker 1: the Truth. Jesus brewed upon the diviner mannace until at
- 2:33Speaker 1: last he could declare I and my father are one.
- 2:38Speaker 1: Meditation centered upon divine realities is the very essence and
- 2:42Speaker 1: soul of prayer. It is the silent reaching of the
- 2:46Speaker 1: soul toward the eternal mere Petitionary prayer, without meditation is
- 2:51Speaker 1: a body without a soul, and is powerless to lift
- 2:55Speaker 1: the mind and heart above sin and affliction. If you
- 2:59Speaker 1: are daily praying for wisdom, for peace, for loftier purity,
- 3:04Speaker 1: and a fuller realization of truth, and that for which
- 3:07Speaker 1: you pray is still far from you, it means that
- 3:10Speaker 1: you are praying for one thing while living out in
- 3:12Speaker 1: thought and act another. If you will cease from such waywardness,
- 3:18Speaker 1: taking your mind off those things, the selfish clinging to
- 3:22Speaker 1: which debars you from the possession of the stainless realities
- 3:24Speaker 1: for which you pray. If you will no longer ask
- 3:27Speaker 1: God to grant you that which you do not deserve,
- 3:31Speaker 1: or to bestow upon you that love and compassion which
- 3:34Speaker 1: you refuse to bestow upon others, but will commence to
- 3:37Speaker 1: think and act in the spirit of truth, you will
- 3:41Speaker 1: day by day be growing into those realities, so that
- 3:44Speaker 1: ultimately you will become one with them. He who would
- 3:48Speaker 1: secure any worldly advantage must be willing to work vigorously
- 3:52Speaker 1: for it, and he would be foolish indeed, who waiting
- 3:55Speaker 1: with folded arms expected it to come to him for
- 3:58Speaker 1: the mere asking. Do not, then, vainly imagine that you
- 4:02Speaker 1: can obtain the heavenly possessions without making an effort. Only
- 4:06Speaker 1: when you commence to work earnestly in the kingdom of
- 4:08Speaker 1: truth will you be allowed to bytake of the bread
- 4:11Speaker 1: of life. And when you have, by patient and uncomplaining effort,
- 4:17Speaker 1: own the spiritual wages for which you ask, they will
- 4:20Speaker 1: not be withheld from you. If you really seek truth,
- 4:24Speaker 1: and not merely your own gratification, if you love it
- 4:27Speaker 1: above all worldly pleasures, and gains more even than happiness itself,
- 4:34Speaker 1: you will be willing to make the effort necessary for
- 4:36Speaker 1: its achievement. If you would be freed from sin and sorrow,
- 4:41Speaker 1: if you would taste of that spotless purity for which
- 4:43Speaker 1: you sigh and pray, if you would realize wisdom and knowledge,
- 4:47Speaker 1: and would enter into the possession of profound and abiding peace.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Come now and enter the path of meditation, and let
- 4:55Speaker 1: the supreme object of your meditations be true. At the outset,
- 5:01Speaker 1: meditation must be distinguished from idle reverie. There is nothing
- 5:05Speaker 1: dreamy and unpractical about it. It is a process of
- 5:09Speaker 1: searching an uncompromising thought which allows nothing to remain but
- 5:12Speaker 1: the simple and naked truth. Thus meditating you will no
- 5:17Speaker 1: longer stribe to build yourself up in your prejudices, but
- 5:21Speaker 1: forgetting self. You will remember only that you are seeking
- 5:24Speaker 1: the truth. And so you will remove one by one
- 5:29Speaker 1: the errors which you have built around yourself in the past,
- 5:32Speaker 1: and will patiently wait for the revelation of truth, which
- 5:35Speaker 1: will come to you. When your errors have been sufficiently removed.
- 5:39Speaker 1: In the silent humility of your heart, you will realize
- 5:42Speaker 1: that there is an inmost center in us all where
- 5:46Speaker 1: truth abides in fullness, and around wall upon wall, the
- 5:51Speaker 1: gross flesh hems it. In this perfect, clear perception which
- 5:56Speaker 1: is truth, a baffling and perverting carnal mesh blinds it
- 6:01Speaker 1: and makes all error. And to know rather consists in
- 6:05Speaker 1: opening out a way, whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
- 6:10Speaker 1: than in affecting entry for a light supposed to be without,
- 6:15Speaker 1: select some portion of the day in which to meditate,
- 6:18Speaker 1: and keep that period sacred to your purpose. The best
- 6:21Speaker 1: time is the very early morning, when the Spirit of
- 6:24Speaker 1: reposes upon everything. All natural conditions will then be in
- 6:28Speaker 1: your favor. The passions after the long, bodily fast of
- 6:32Speaker 1: the night will be subdued, the excitements and worries of
- 6:35Speaker 1: the previous day will have died away, and the mind,
- 6:40Speaker 1: strong and yet RESTful, will be receptive to spiritual instruction. Indeed,
- 6:46Speaker 1: one of the first efforts you will be called upon
- 6:48Speaker 1: to make will be to shake off lethargy and indulgence,
- 6:52Speaker 1: And if you refuse, you will be unable to advance,
- 6:55Speaker 1: For the demands of the spirit are imperative. To be
- 6:59Speaker 1: spiritually awakened is also to be mentally and physically awakened.
- 7:04Speaker 1: The sluggard and the self indulgent can have no knowledge
- 7:07Speaker 1: of truth. He who possessed of health and strength, wastes
- 7:12Speaker 1: the calm, precious hours of a silent morning in drowsing indulgence,
- 7:16Speaker 1: is totally unfit to climb the heavenly heights. He whose
- 7:20Speaker 1: awakening consciousness has become alive towards lofty possibilities, who is
- 7:25Speaker 1: beginning to shake off the darkness of ignorance in which
- 7:27Speaker 1: the world is envolopd rises before the stars have ceased
- 7:31Speaker 1: their vigil and, grappling with the darkness within his soul,
- 7:36Speaker 1: strives by holy aspiration to perceive the light of truth.
- 7:40Speaker 1: While the unawakened world dreams on the heights by great
- 7:45Speaker 1: men reached and kept, and were not attained by sudden flight.
- 7:49Speaker 1: But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in
- 7:53Speaker 1: the night. No saint, no holy man, no teacher of truth,
- 8:00Speaker 1: ever lived who did not rise early in the morning.
- 8:03Speaker 1: Jesus habitually rose early and climbed the solitary mountains to
- 8:07Speaker 1: engage in holy communion. Buddha always rose an hour before
- 8:11Speaker 1: sunrise and engaged in meditation, and all of his disciples
- 8:15Speaker 1: were enjoined to do the same. If you have to
- 8:19Speaker 1: commence your daily duties at a very early hour, and
- 8:23Speaker 1: are thus debarred from giving the early morning to systematic meditation,
- 8:27Speaker 1: try to give an hour at night. And should this,
- 8:31Speaker 1: by the length and laboriousness of your daily task, be
- 8:33Speaker 1: denied you you need not despair, for you may turn
- 8:37Speaker 1: your thoughts upward in holy meditation in the intervals of
- 8:40Speaker 1: your work, or in those few out minutes which you
- 8:44Speaker 1: now waste in aimelessness. And should your work be of
- 8:47Speaker 1: that kind which becomes by practice automatic. You may meditate
- 8:51Speaker 1: while engaged upon it. That eminent Christian saint and philosopher
- 8:56Speaker 1: Jacob Boehmy realized his vast knowledge of divine things whilst
- 9:01Speaker 1: working long hours as a shoemaker. In every life there
- 9:05Speaker 1: is time to think, and the busiest, the most laborious,
- 9:09Speaker 1: is not shut out from aspiration and meditation. Spiritual meditation
- 9:15Speaker 1: and self discipline are inseparable. You will therefore commence to
- 9:20Speaker 1: meditate upon yourself so as to try and understand yourself.
- 9:24Speaker 1: For remember, the great object you will have in view
- 9:28Speaker 1: will be the complete removal of all your errors, in
- 9:31Speaker 1: order that you may realize truth. You will begin to
- 9:35Speaker 1: question your motives, thoughts, and acts, comparing them with your
- 9:40Speaker 1: ideal and endeavoring to look upon them with a calm
- 9:43Speaker 1: and impartial eye. In this manner, you will be continually
- 9:49Speaker 1: gaining more of that mental and spiritual equilibrium without which
- 9:53Speaker 1: men are but helpless draws upon the ocean of life.
- 9:57Speaker 1: If you are given to hatred or anger, you will
- 9:59Speaker 1: me meditate upon gentleness and forgiveness so as to become
- 10:03Speaker 1: acutely alive to a sense of your harsh and foolish conduct.
- 10:08Speaker 1: You will then begin to dwell in thoughts of love,
- 10:10Speaker 1: of gentleness, of a bounding forgiveness. And as you overcome
- 10:14Speaker 1: the lower by the higher, there will gradually silently steal
- 10:19Speaker 1: into your heart a knowledge of the divine law of love,
- 10:22Speaker 1: with an understanding of its bearing upon all the intricacies
- 10:25Speaker 1: of life and conduct. And in applying this knowledge to
- 10:30Speaker 1: your every thought, word an act, you will grow more
- 10:35Speaker 1: and more gentle, more and more loving, more and more divine.
- 10:40Speaker 1: And thus, with every error, every selfish desire, every human weakness,
- 10:46Speaker 1: by the power of meditation, as it overcome, and as
- 10:49Speaker 1: each sin, each error is thrust out, a fuller and
- 10:53Speaker 1: clearer measure of the light of truth illumines the perlicrim's soul. Thus,
- 10:59Speaker 1: meditating you will be ceaselessly fortifying yourself against your only
- 11:03Speaker 1: real enemy, your selfish, perishable self, and will be establishing
- 11:08Speaker 1: yourself more and more firmly in the divine and imperishable
- 11:12Speaker 1: self that is inseparable from truth. The direct outcome of
- 11:17Speaker 1: your meditations will be a calm spiritual strength, which will
- 11:21Speaker 1: be your stay and resting place in the struggle of life.
- 11:26Speaker 1: Great is the overcoming power of holy thought, and the
- 11:29Speaker 1: strength and knowledge gained in the hour of silent meditation
- 11:32Speaker 1: will enrich the soul with saving remembrance in the hour
- 11:36Speaker 1: of strife, of sorrow or of temptation. As by the
- 11:41Speaker 1: power of meditation you grow in wisdom, you will relinquish
- 11:45Speaker 1: more and more your selfish desires, which are fickle, impermanent,
- 11:51Speaker 1: and productive of sorrow and pain, and will take your
- 11:54Speaker 1: stand with increasing steadfastness and trust upon unchangeable principles, and
- 12:00Speaker 1: will realize heavenly rest. The use of meditation is the
- 12:05Speaker 1: acquirement of a knowledge of eternal principles, and the power
- 12:09Speaker 1: which results for meditation is the ability to rest upon
- 12:12Speaker 1: and trust those principles, and so become one with the eternal.
- 12:18Speaker 1: The end of meditation is therefore direct knowledge of truth
- 12:23Speaker 1: God and the realization of divine and profound peace. Let
- 12:29Speaker 1: your meditations take their rise from the ethical ground which
- 12:32Speaker 1: now occupy. Remember that you are to grow into truth
- 12:36Speaker 1: by steady perseverance. If you are an orthodox Christian, meditate
- 12:41Speaker 1: ceaselessly upon the spotless purity and divine excellence of the
- 12:45Speaker 1: character of Jesus, and apply his every precept to your
- 12:48Speaker 1: inner life and outward conduct, as to approximate more and
- 12:53Speaker 1: more toward his perfection. Do not be as those religious
- 12:57Speaker 1: ones who, refusing to meditate upon the law of truth
- 13:01Speaker 1: and to put into practice the precepts given to them
- 13:04Speaker 1: by their master, are content to formerly worship, to cling
- 13:08Speaker 1: to their particular creeds, and to continue in the ceaseless
- 13:11Speaker 1: round of sin and suffering. Strive to rise by the
- 13:16Speaker 1: power of meditation, above all selfish clinging to partial gods
- 13:20Speaker 1: or party creeds, above dead formalities and lifeless ignorance. Thus
- 13:26Speaker 1: walking the highway of wisdom, with mind fixed upon the
- 13:29Speaker 1: spotless truth, you shall know no halting place short of
- 13:33Speaker 1: the realization of truth. He who earnestly meditates first perceives
- 13:38Speaker 1: the truth as it were afar off, and then realizes
- 13:43Speaker 1: it by daily practice. It is only the doer of
- 13:47Speaker 1: the word of truth that can know the doctrine of truth.
- 13:51Speaker 1: For though by pure thought the truth is perceived, it
- 13:54Speaker 1: is only actualized by practice, said the divine Goathalma the Buddha.
- 14:01Speaker 1: He who gives himself up to vanity and does not
- 14:04Speaker 1: give himself up to meditation forgetting the real aim of
- 14:07Speaker 1: life and grasping a pleasure, will in time envy him
- 14:12Speaker 1: who has exerted himself in meditation, and he instructed his
- 14:16Speaker 1: disciples in the following five great meditations. The first meditation
- 14:22Speaker 1: is the meditation of love, in which you so adjust
- 14:25Speaker 1: your heart that you long for the weal and welfare
- 14:28Speaker 1: of all beings, including the happiness of your enemies. The
- 14:33Speaker 1: second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you
- 14:37Speaker 1: think of all beings in distress, vividly representing in your
- 14:41Speaker 1: imagination his sorrows and anxieties, as to arouse a deep
- 14:45Speaker 1: compassion for them in your soul. The third meditation is
- 14:49Speaker 1: the meditation of joy, in which you think of the
- 14:52Speaker 1: prosperity of others and rejoice with their rejoicings. The fourth
- 14:58Speaker 1: meditation is the meditation of him purity, in which you
- 15:01Speaker 1: consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of sin
- 15:05Speaker 1: and diseases, how trivial often the pleasure of the moment,
- 15:10Speaker 1: and how fatal its consequences. The fifth meditation is the
- 15:15Speaker 1: meditation and serenity, in which you rise above love and hate,
- 15:19Speaker 1: tyranny and oppression, wealth and want, and regard your own
- 15:24Speaker 1: fate with impartial calmness and perfect tranquility. By engaging in
- 15:30Speaker 1: these meditations, the disciples of the Buddha arrived at a
- 15:33Speaker 1: knowledge of the truth. But whether you engage in these
- 15:36Speaker 1: particular meditations or not matters little, so long as your
- 15:40Speaker 1: object is truth, so long as you hunger and thirst
- 15:44Speaker 1: for that righteousness which is a holy heart and a
- 15:47Speaker 1: blameless life. In your meditations, therefore, let your heart grow
- 15:54Speaker 1: and expand with ever broadening love, until freed from all
- 15:59Speaker 1: hatred and passion and condemnation, it embraces the whole universe
- 16:04Speaker 1: with thoughtful tenderness. As the flower opens its petals to
- 16:09Speaker 1: receive the morning light, so open your soul more and
- 16:13Speaker 1: more to the glorious light of truth. Soar upward upon
- 16:17Speaker 1: the wings of aspiration. Be fearers and believe in the
- 16:21Speaker 1: loftiest possibilities. Believe that a life of absolute meekness is possible.
- 16:27Speaker 1: Believe that a life of stainless purity is possible. Believe
- 16:31Speaker 1: that a life of perfect holiness is possible. Believe that
- 16:35Speaker 1: the realization of the highest truth is possible. He who
- 16:40Speaker 1: so believes climbs rapidly the heavenly hills, whilst the unbelievers
- 16:46Speaker 1: continue to grow darkly and painfully in the fog bound valleys.
- 16:51Speaker 1: So believing, so aspiring, so meditating. Divinely sweet and beautiful
- 16:57Speaker 1: will be your spiritual experiences. Glorious The revelations that will
- 17:01Speaker 1: enrapture your inward vision as you realize the divine love,
- 17:07Speaker 1: the divine justice, the divine purity, the perfect law of
- 17:12Speaker 1: good or God great will be your bliss and deep
- 17:15Speaker 1: your peace. Old things will pass away, and all things
- 17:19Speaker 1: will become new. The veil of the material universe, so
- 17:24Speaker 1: dense and impenetrable to the eye of error, so thin
- 17:28Speaker 1: and gauzy to the eye of truth, will be lifted,
- 17:31Speaker 1: and the spiritual universe will be revealed. Time will cease,
- 17:36Speaker 1: and you will live only in eternity. Change in mortality
- 17:40Speaker 1: will no longer cause your anxiety and sorrow, for you
- 17:44Speaker 1: will become established in the unchangeable and will dwell in
- 17:48Speaker 1: the very heart of immortality. Star of wisdom, star that
- 17:57Speaker 1: of the birth of Vishnum, both of Krishna, Buddha Jesus
- 18:02Speaker 1: told the wise ones heavenward, looking waiting, watching for thy
- 18:07Speaker 1: gleaming in the darkness of the night time, in the
- 18:11Speaker 1: starless gloom of midnight, shining herald of the coming of
- 18:15Speaker 1: the Kingdom of the Righteous. Toller of the mystic story
- 18:19Speaker 1: of the lowly birth of Godhead, in the stable of
- 18:22Speaker 1: the passions, in the maner of the mind soul, silent
- 18:27Speaker 1: singer of the secret of compassion, deep and holy to
- 18:31Speaker 1: the heart with sorrow burdened to the soul with waiting,
- 18:34Speaker 1: weary star of all surpassing brightness, Thou again dost deck
- 18:40Speaker 1: the midnight. Thou again dost cheer the wise ones watching
- 18:45Speaker 1: in the creedle darkness, weary of the endless battle with
- 18:49Speaker 1: the grinding blades of error, tired of lifeless useless idols,
- 18:54Speaker 1: of the dead forms of religions, spent with watching for
- 18:58Speaker 1: Thy shining, Thou hast ended their despairing. Thou hast lightened
- 19:03Speaker 1: of their pathway. Thou hast brought again the old truth
- 19:07Speaker 1: to the hearts of all thy watchers. To the souls
- 19:10Speaker 1: of them that love thee, Thou dost speak of joy
- 19:13Speaker 1: and gladness, of the peace that comes of sorrow. Blest
- 19:18Speaker 1: are they that can see thee weary wanderers in the
- 19:21Speaker 1: night time. Blest they who feel the throbbing in their bosoms,
- 19:26Speaker 1: feel the pulsing of a deep love stirred within them
- 19:29Speaker 1: by the great power of Thy shining. Let us learn
- 19:33Speaker 1: thy lesson truly, learn it faithfully and humbly, learn it meekly, wisely, gladly.
- 19:41Speaker 1: Ancient star of holy Vishnal light of Krishna, Buddha, Jesus,
- 19:48Speaker 1: the two masters Self and Truth upon the battlefield of
- 19:54Speaker 1: the human soul. Two masters are ever contending for the
- 19:57Speaker 1: crown of supremacy, for the kingship and dominion of the heart.
- 20:01Speaker 1: The master of Self, called also the Prince of this world,
- 20:06Speaker 1: and the master of Truth called also the Father God.
- 20:10Speaker 1: The master's Self is that rebellious one whose weapons are passion, pride, avarice, vanity,
- 20:17Speaker 1: self will, implements of darkness. The master Truth is that
- 20:22Speaker 1: meek and lowly one, whose weapons are gentleness, patience, purity, sacrifice, humility, love,
- 20:31Speaker 1: instruments of light. In every soul the battle is waged,
- 20:36Speaker 1: and as a soldier cannot engage at once in two
- 20:38Speaker 1: opposing armies, so every heart is enlisted either in the
- 20:42Speaker 1: ranks of self or of truth. There is no half
- 20:46Speaker 1: and half course. There is self and there is truth.
- 20:50Speaker 1: Where self is truth is not where truth is self
- 20:55Speaker 1: is not. Thus spake Buddha, the Teacher of Truth, and Jesus,
- 21:01Speaker 1: the manifested Christ, declare that no man can serve two masters,
- 21:06Speaker 1: for he will either hate the one and love the other,
- 21:09Speaker 1: or else he will hold to the one and despise
- 21:12Speaker 1: the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Truth is
- 21:17Speaker 1: so simple, so absolutely undeviating and uncompromising, that it admits
- 21:22Speaker 1: of no complexity, no turning, no qualification. Self is ingenious,
- 21:28Speaker 1: croaked and governed by subtle and snaky desire, admits of
- 21:33Speaker 1: endless turnings and qualifications. And the delude worshipers of self
- 21:38Speaker 1: may me imagine that they can gratify every worldly desire
- 21:41Speaker 1: and at the same time possess the truth. But the
- 21:45Speaker 1: lovers of truth worship truth with the sacrifice of self,
- 21:49Speaker 1: and ceaselessly guide themselves against weilthiness and self seeking. Do
- 21:54Speaker 1: you seek to no one realize truth, then you must
- 21:57Speaker 1: be prepared to sacrifice, to renown to the utmost, For truth,
- 22:02Speaker 1: in all its glory, can only be perceived and known
- 22:05Speaker 1: when the last vestige of self has disappeared. The eternal
- 22:09Speaker 1: Christ declared that he who would be his disciple must
- 22:12Speaker 1: deny himself daily. Are you willing to deny yourself, to
- 22:17Speaker 1: give up your lusts, your prejudices, your opinions, If so,
- 22:23Speaker 1: you may enter the narrow way of truth and find
- 22:25Speaker 1: that peace from which the world is shut out. The
- 22:29Speaker 1: absolute denial, the utter extinction of self, is the perfect
- 22:33Speaker 1: state of truth, and all religions and philosophies are but
- 22:37Speaker 1: so many aids to this supreme attainment. Self is the
- 22:41Speaker 1: denial of truth. Truth is the denial of self. As
- 22:45Speaker 1: you let self die, you will be reborn in truth.
- 22:49Speaker 1: As you cling to self, truth will be hidden from you.
- 22:53Speaker 1: Whilst you cling to self, your path will be beset
- 22:56Speaker 1: with difficulties and repeated pains. Sorrows and disappointments will be
- 23:01Speaker 1: your lot. There are no difficulties in truth, and coming
- 23:06Speaker 1: to truth, you will be freed from all sorrow and disappointment.
- 23:11Speaker 1: Truth in itself is not hidden and dark. It is
- 23:14Speaker 1: always revealed, and is perfectly transparent, but the blind and
- 23:19Speaker 1: wayward self cannot perceive it. The light of day is
- 23:23Speaker 1: not hidden except to the blind, and the light of
- 23:26Speaker 1: truth is not hidden except to those who are blinded
- 23:29Speaker 1: by self. Truth is the one reality in the universe,
- 23:33Speaker 1: the inward harmony, the perfect justice, the eternal love. Nowhing
- 23:39Speaker 1: can be added to it nor taken from it. It
- 23:42Speaker 1: does not depend upon any man, but all men depend
- 23:46Speaker 1: upon it. You cannot perceive the beauty of truth while
- 23:50Speaker 1: you are looking out through the eyes of self. If
- 23:53Speaker 1: you are vain, you will color everything with your own vanities.
- 23:58Speaker 1: If lustful, your heart and mind will be so clouded
- 24:02Speaker 1: with the smoke and flames of passion that everything will
- 24:05Speaker 1: appear distorted through them. If proud and opiniative, you will
- 24:09Speaker 1: see nothing in the whole universe except the magnitude and
- 24:12Speaker 1: importance of your own opinions. There is one quality which
- 24:17Speaker 1: preeminently distinguishes the man of truth from the man of self,
- 24:22Speaker 1: and that is humility. To be not only free from vanity, stubbornness,
- 24:27Speaker 1: and egotism, but to regard one's own opinions as of
- 24:31Speaker 1: no value. This, indeed, is true humility. He who is
- 24:37Speaker 1: immersed himself regards his own opinions as truth and the
- 24:40Speaker 1: opinions of other men as error. But that humble truth lover,
- 24:45Speaker 1: who has learned to distinguish between opinion and truth, regards
- 24:49Speaker 1: all men with the eye of charity, that does not
- 24:52Speaker 1: seek to defend his opinions against theirs, but sacrifices those
- 24:56Speaker 1: opinions that he may love them more, that he may
- 24:59Speaker 1: mena affess the spirit of truth, for truth, in its
- 25:03Speaker 1: very nature is ineffable and can only be lived. He
- 25:07Speaker 1: who has most of charity has most of truth. Men
- 25:12Speaker 1: engage in heated controversies and foolishly imagine that they are
- 25:16Speaker 1: defending the truth, when in reality they are merely defending
- 25:20Speaker 1: their own petty interests and perishable opinions. The follower of
- 25:25Speaker 1: self takes up arms against others, the follower of truth
- 25:29Speaker 1: takes up arms against himself. Truth, being unchangeable and eternal,
- 25:35Speaker 1: is independent of your opinion and of mine. We may
- 25:39Speaker 1: enter into it, or we may stay outside. But both
- 25:42Speaker 1: our defense and our attack are superlifus, and are hurled
- 25:46Speaker 1: back upon ourselves. Men enslaved by self, passionate, proud, and condemnatory,
- 25:55Speaker 1: believe their particular creed or religion to be the truth,
- 25:58Speaker 1: and all other religions to be error, and they proselytize
- 26:02Speaker 1: with passionate ardor there is but one religion, the religion
- 26:06Speaker 1: of truth. There is but one error, the error of self.
- 26:12Speaker 1: Truth is not a formal belief. It is an unselfish,
- 26:16Speaker 1: holy and aspiring heart. And he who has truth is
- 26:20Speaker 1: at peace withal and cherishes all the thoughts of love.
- 26:26Speaker 1: You may easily know whether you are a child of
- 26:28Speaker 1: truth or a worshiper of self, if you will silently
- 26:32Speaker 1: examine your mind, heart, and conduct. Do you harbor thoughts
- 26:36Speaker 1: of suspicion, enmity, envy, lust, pride? Or do you strenuously
- 26:43Speaker 1: fight against these? If the former you are chained to self,
- 26:48Speaker 1: no matter what religion you may profess. If the latter
- 26:52Speaker 1: you are a candidate for truth, even though outwardly you
- 26:56Speaker 1: may profess no religion. Are you passionate, self willed, ever
- 27:02Speaker 1: seeking to gain your own ends, self indulgent, and self centered?
- 27:08Speaker 1: Or are you gentle, mild, unselfish? Quit of every form
- 27:13Speaker 1: of self indulgence, and are ever ready to give up
- 27:15Speaker 1: your own If the former self is your master, If
- 27:21Speaker 1: the latter truth is the object of your affection, due
- 27:25Speaker 1: strive for riches? Do you fight with passion for your party,
- 27:30Speaker 1: due lust for power and leadership? Are you given to
- 27:34Speaker 1: ostentation and self praise? Or have you given up the
- 27:37Speaker 1: love of riches? Have you relinquished or strife? Are you
- 27:42Speaker 1: content to take the lowest place and to be passed
- 27:44Speaker 1: by unnoticed? And have you ceased to talk about yourself
- 27:48Speaker 1: and regard yourself with self complacent pride. If the former,
- 27:53Speaker 1: even though you may imagine you worship God, the God
- 27:56Speaker 1: of your heart is self. If the latter, even though
- 28:00Speaker 1: you may withhold your lips from worship, you are dwelling
- 28:04Speaker 1: with the most high. The signs by which the truth
- 28:08Speaker 1: Lover is known are unmistakable. Here the Holy Krishna declare
- 28:12Speaker 1: them in Sir Edward Arnold's beautiful rendering of the Bargabite Gida. Fearlessness,
- 28:20Speaker 1: singleness of soul, the will always destriy for wisdom, open
- 28:26Speaker 1: hand and governed appetites and piety, and love of lonely study, humbleness, uprightness,
- 28:35Speaker 1: heed to injure, nought which lives, truthfulness, slowness, unto wrath,
- 28:40Speaker 1: a mind that lightly leteth go what others. Prize and equanimity,
- 28:45Speaker 1: and charity which spite no man's faults, and tenderness towards
- 28:50Speaker 1: all that suffer. Are contented heart flooded by no desires,
- 28:56Speaker 1: a bearing mild, modest and grave, with manhood nobly mixed
- 29:02Speaker 1: with patience, fortitude and purity, an unrevengeful spirit, never given
- 29:07Speaker 1: to rate itself too high. Such be the signs of
- 29:11Speaker 1: Indian Prince of him whose feet are set on that
- 29:15Speaker 1: fair path which leads to heavenly birth. When men lost
- 29:21Speaker 1: in the devious ways of error and self have forgotten
- 29:24Speaker 1: the heavenly birth, the state of holiness and truth, they
- 29:28Speaker 1: set up artificial standards by which to judge one another,
- 29:32Speaker 1: and make acceptance of and adherence to their own particular
- 29:37Speaker 1: theology the test of truth. And so men are divided
- 29:41Speaker 1: one against another, and there is ceaseless enmity and strife,
- 29:46Speaker 1: an unending sorrow and suffering. Reader, do you seek to
- 29:50Speaker 1: realize the birth into truth? There is only one way.
- 29:55Speaker 1: Let self die all those lusts, appetites, desires, opinions, limited conceptions,
- 30:03Speaker 1: and prejudices to which you have hitherto so tenaciously calm,
- 30:08Speaker 1: Let them fall from you. Let them no longer hold
- 30:11Speaker 1: you in bondage, and truth will be yours. Cease to
- 30:15Speaker 1: look upon your own religion as superior to all others,
- 30:18Speaker 1: and strive humbly to learn the supreme lesson of charity.
- 30:23Speaker 1: No longer cling to the idea so productive of strife
- 30:26Speaker 1: and sorrow, that the Savior whom you worship is the
- 30:30Speaker 1: only savior, and that the Savior whom your brother worships
- 30:33Speaker 1: with equal sincerity and ardor is an impostor. But seek
- 30:38Speaker 1: diligently the path of holiness, and then you will realize
- 30:42Speaker 1: that every holy man is a savior of mankind. The
- 30:46Speaker 1: giving up of self is not merely the renunciation of
- 30:49Speaker 1: outward things. It consists of the renunciation of the inward sin,
- 30:53Speaker 1: the inward error. Not by giving up vain clothing, Not
- 30:58Speaker 1: by relinquishing riches, not by abstaining from certain foods, not
- 31:03Speaker 1: by speaking smooth words. Not by merely doing these things
- 31:07Speaker 1: is the truth found. But by giving up the spirit
- 31:11Speaker 1: of vanity, by relinquishing the desire of her riches, by
- 31:15Speaker 1: abstaining from the lust of self indulgence, by giving up
- 31:19Speaker 1: all hatred, strife, condemnation, and self seeking, and becoming gentle
- 31:26Speaker 1: and pure at heart. By doing these things is the
- 31:29Speaker 1: truth found. To do the former and not to do
- 31:33Speaker 1: the latter is pharicism and hypocrisy, whereas the latter includes
- 31:38Speaker 1: the former. You may renounce the outward world and isolate
- 31:43Speaker 1: yourself in a cave or in the depths of a forest,
- 31:46Speaker 1: but you will take all your selfishness with you, And
- 31:49Speaker 1: unless you renounce that great indeed will be your wretchedness
- 31:53Speaker 1: and deep your delusion. You may remain just where you are,
- 31:57Speaker 1: performing all your duties, and yet announce the world the
- 32:01Speaker 1: inward enemy. To be in the world and yet not
- 32:05Speaker 1: of the world is the highest perfection, the most blessed
- 32:08Speaker 1: peace is to achieve the greatest victory. The renunciation of
- 32:13Speaker 1: self is the way of truth. Therefore, and to the path,
- 32:19Speaker 1: there is no grief like hate, no pain like passion,
- 32:23Speaker 1: no deceit like sense. And to the path far hath
- 32:28Speaker 1: he gone whose foot treads down one's fond offense. As
- 32:33Speaker 1: you succeed in overcoming self, you will begin to see
- 32:36Speaker 1: things in their right relations. He who is swayed by
- 32:39Speaker 1: any passion, prejudice, like or dislike, adjusts everything to that
- 32:45Speaker 1: particular bias and sees only his own delusions. He who
- 32:50Speaker 1: is absolutely free from all passion, prejudice, preference, and partiality,
- 32:55Speaker 1: sees himself as he is, sees others as they are,
- 33:00Speaker 1: sees all things in their proper proportions and right relations.
- 33:04Speaker 1: Having nothing to attack, nothing to defend, nothing to conceal,
- 33:10Speaker 1: and no interest to God, he is at peace. He
- 33:14Speaker 1: has realized the profound simplicity of truth. For this unbiased, tranquil,
- 33:19Speaker 1: blessed state of mind and heart is the state of truth.
- 33:24Speaker 1: He who attains to it dwells with the angels, and
- 33:27Speaker 1: sits at the footstool of the Supreme, knowing the great Law,
- 33:32Speaker 1: knowing the origin of sorrow, knowing the secret of suffering,
- 33:37Speaker 1: knowing the way of emancipation in truth. How can such
- 33:40Speaker 1: a one engage in strife and condemnation? For though he
- 33:44Speaker 1: knows that the blind, self seeking world, surrounded with the
- 33:48Speaker 1: clouds of its own illusions and enveloped in the darkness
- 33:51Speaker 1: of error and self, cannot perceive the steadfast light of truth,
- 33:56Speaker 1: and is utterly incapable of comprehending the profound, simplestay of
- 34:00Speaker 1: the heart that has died or is dying to self.
- 34:04Speaker 1: Yet he also knows that when the suffering ages have
- 34:06Speaker 1: piled up mountains of sorrow, the crushed and burdened soul
- 34:10Speaker 1: of the world will fly to its final refuge, and
- 34:13Speaker 1: that when the ages are completed, every prodigal will come
- 34:17Speaker 1: back to the fold of truth. And so he dwells
- 34:20Speaker 1: in good will toward all, and regards all with that
- 34:24Speaker 1: tender compassion which a father bestows upon his wayward children.
- 34:29Speaker 1: Men cannot understand truth because they cling to self because
- 34:33Speaker 1: they believe in and love self, because they believe self
- 34:37Speaker 1: to be the only reality, whereas it is the one delusion.
- 34:41Speaker 1: When you cease to believe in and love self, you
- 34:44Speaker 1: will desert it and will fly to truth and will
- 34:47Speaker 1: find the eternal reality. When men are intoxicated with the
- 34:52Speaker 1: wines of luxury and pleasure and vanity, the thirst of
- 34:56Speaker 1: life grows and deepens within them, and they delude themselves
- 35:00Speaker 1: with dreams of fleshy immortality. But when they come to
- 35:03Speaker 1: reap the harvest of their own sowing and pain and
- 35:06Speaker 1: sorrow supervene, then, crushed and humiliated, relinquishing self and all
- 35:13Speaker 1: the intoxications of self, they come with aching hearts to
- 35:17Speaker 1: the wine immortality, the immortality that destroys all delusions, the
- 35:23Speaker 1: spiritual immortality. In truth, men pass from evil to good,
- 35:28Speaker 1: from self to truth through the dark gate of sorrow,
- 35:32Speaker 1: For sorrow and self are inseparable. Only in the peace
- 35:36Speaker 1: and bliss of truth is all sorrow vanquished. If you
- 35:40Speaker 1: suffer disappointment because your cherished plans have been thwarted, or
- 35:44Speaker 1: because someone has not come up to your anticipations, it
- 35:47Speaker 1: is because you are clinging to self. If you suffer
- 35:51Speaker 1: remorse for your conduct, it is because you have given
- 35:54Speaker 1: way to self. If you are overwhelmed with chagrin and
- 35:57Speaker 1: regret because of the attitude of someone else to wards,
- 36:01Speaker 1: it is because you have been cherishing self. If you
- 36:05Speaker 1: are wounded on account of what has been done to
- 36:07Speaker 1: you or said of you, it is because you are
- 36:09Speaker 1: walking in the painful way of self. All suffering is
- 36:13Speaker 1: of self. All suffering ends in truth. When you have
- 36:19Speaker 1: entered into and realized truth, you will no longer suffer disappointment,
- 36:24Speaker 1: remorse and regret, and sorrow will flee from you. Self
- 36:29Speaker 1: is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
- 36:32Speaker 1: Truth is the only angel that can bid the gates unrolled,
- 36:36Speaker 1: And when he comes to call the arise and follow fast.
- 36:40Speaker 1: His way may lie through darkness, but it leads to
- 36:43Speaker 1: light at last. The will of the world is of
- 36:47Speaker 1: its own making. Sorrow purifies and deepens the soul, and
- 36:52Speaker 1: the extremity of sorrow is the prelude to truth. Have
- 36:55Speaker 1: you suffered much? Have you sorrowed deeply? Have you pondered
- 37:00Speaker 1: seriously upon the problem of life? If so, you are
- 37:04Speaker 1: prepared to wage war against self and to become a
- 37:07Speaker 1: disciple of truth. The intellectual who does not see the
- 37:12Speaker 1: necessity for giving up self. Frame endless theories about the
- 37:15Speaker 1: universe and call them truth. But do thou pursue that
- 37:20Speaker 1: direct line of conduct, which is the practice of righteousness.
- 37:23Speaker 1: Thou wilt realize the truth which has no place in theory,
- 37:27Speaker 1: and which never changes. Cultivate your heart, order it continually
- 37:33Speaker 1: with unselfish love and deep felt pity, and strive to
- 37:38Speaker 1: shut out from it all thoughts and feelings which are
- 37:40Speaker 1: not in accordance with love. Return good for evil, love
- 37:45Speaker 1: for hatred, gentleness for ill treatment, and remain silent when attacked.
- 37:52Speaker 1: So shall you transmute all your selfish desires into the
- 37:55Speaker 1: pure God of love, and self will disappear in truth.
- 38:00Speaker 1: So you will walk blamelessly among men, yoked with the
- 38:03Speaker 1: easy yoke of lowliness, and clothed with the divine garment
- 38:07Speaker 1: of humility. And thou, in the heart of the Master
- 38:13Speaker 1: of ruth, across self stread desert. Why wilt thou be
- 38:17Speaker 1: driving athirst for the quickening waders of truth, when here,
- 38:22Speaker 1: by the path of thy searching and sinning blows life's
- 38:26Speaker 1: gladsome stream lies, Love's aways his green Come turn thou
- 38:31Speaker 1: and rest know the end and beginning, the sort and
- 38:35Speaker 1: the search are the seer and the seine. Thy Master
- 38:40Speaker 1: sits not in the unapproached mountains, nor dwells in the
- 38:44Speaker 1: mirage which floats on the air. Nor shalt thou discover
- 38:48Speaker 1: his magical fountains and pathways of sand that encircle despair
- 38:53Speaker 1: in Selfwood's dark desert. Cease weey seeking the odorous tracts
- 38:57Speaker 1: of the feet of thy King, And if thou wouldst
- 39:00Speaker 1: hear the sweet sound of his speaking, be deaf to
- 39:04Speaker 1: all voices that emptily sing. Flee the vanishing places, renounce
- 39:10Speaker 1: all thou hast, leave all that thou lovest, and naked,
- 39:14Speaker 1: and bare thy self with the shrine of the inmost caste,
- 39:19Speaker 1: the highest, the holiest, the changeless, is there within in
- 39:25Speaker 1: the heart of the silence. He dwelleth leave sorrow and sin,
- 39:29Speaker 1: Leave thy wandering soul, come bathe in his joy, whilst
- 39:34Speaker 1: he whispering, telleth thy soul what it seeketh, and wander
- 39:39Speaker 1: no more. Then cease, weary, brother, thy struggling and striving,
- 39:46Speaker 1: find peace in the heart of the Master of Ruth.
- 39:50Speaker 1: Across self stark desert, Cease weely, driving come drink at
- 39:55Speaker 1: the beautiful waters of truth, the acquirement of spiritual The
- 40:02Speaker 1: world is filled with men and women seeking pleasure, excitement, novelty,
- 40:08Speaker 1: seeking ever to be moved to laughter or tears, not
- 40:11Speaker 1: seeking strength, stability, and power, but courting weakness, and eagerly
- 40:17Speaker 1: engaged in dispersing what power they have. Men and women
- 40:22Speaker 1: of real power and influence are few because few are
- 40:24Speaker 1: prepared to make the sacrifice necessary to the acquirement of power,
- 40:29Speaker 1: and fewer still are ready to patiently build up character.
- 40:33Speaker 1: To be swayed by your fluctuating thoughts and impulses is
- 40:37Speaker 1: to be weak and powerless. To rightly control and direct
- 40:40Speaker 1: those forces is to be strong and powerful. Men of
- 40:45Speaker 1: strong animal passions have much of the ferocity of the beast,
- 40:49Speaker 1: but this is not power. The elements of power are there,
- 40:53Speaker 1: but it is only when this ferocity is tamed and
- 40:55Speaker 1: subdued by the higher intelligence that real power begins. And
- 41:00Speaker 1: men can only grow in power by awakening themselves to
- 41:04Speaker 1: higher and even higher states of intelligence and consciousness. The
- 41:09Speaker 1: difference between a man of weakness and one of power
- 41:12Speaker 1: lies not in the strength of the personal will, For
- 41:15Speaker 1: the stubborn man is usually weak and foolish, but in
- 41:18Speaker 1: that focus of consciousness which represents their states of knowledge.
- 41:24Speaker 1: The pleasure seekers, the lovers of excitement, the hunters after novelty,
- 41:28Speaker 1: and the victims of impulse and hysterical emotion lack that
- 41:32Speaker 1: knowledge of principles which gives balance, stability, and influence. A
- 41:37Speaker 1: man commences to develop power when checking his impulses and
- 41:41Speaker 1: selfish inclinations. He falls back upon the higher and calmer
- 41:46Speaker 1: consciousness within him and begins to steady himself upon a principle.
- 41:52Speaker 1: The realization of unchanging principles and consciousness is at once
- 41:56Speaker 1: the source and secret of the highest power. When after
- 42:00Speaker 1: much searching and suffering and sacrificing, the light of an
- 42:05Speaker 1: eternal principle dawns upon the soul, a divine calm ensures
- 42:10Speaker 1: and joy unspeakable gladdens the heart. He who has realized
- 42:14Speaker 1: such a principle ceases to wander and remains poised and
- 42:18Speaker 1: self possessed. He ceases to be Passion's slave and becomes
- 42:23Speaker 1: a master builder in the temple of destiny. The man
- 42:28Speaker 1: that is governed by self and not by a principle
- 42:31Speaker 1: changes his front when his selfish comforts are threatened deeply
- 42:36Speaker 1: intent upon defending and guarding his own interests, He regards
- 42:40Speaker 1: all means as lawful that will subserve that end. He
- 42:43Speaker 1: is continually scheming as to how he may protect himself
- 42:47Speaker 1: against his enemies, being too self centered to perceive that
- 42:50Speaker 1: he is his own enemy. Such a man's work crumbles away,
- 42:56Speaker 1: for it is divorced from truth and power. All effort
- 43:00Speaker 1: that has grounded upon self perishes. Only that work endures
- 43:05Speaker 1: that is built upon an indestructible principle. The man that
- 43:09Speaker 1: stands upon a principle is the same calm, dauntless, self
- 43:14Speaker 1: possessed man under all circumstances. When the hour of trial
- 43:18Speaker 1: comes and he has to decide between his personal comforts
- 43:22Speaker 1: and truth, he gives up his comforts and remains firm.
- 43:27Speaker 1: Even the prospect of torture and death cannot alter or
- 43:30Speaker 1: deter him. The man of self regards the loss of
- 43:34Speaker 1: his wealth, his comforts, or his life as the greatest
- 43:38Speaker 1: calamities which can befall him. The man of principle looks
- 43:43Speaker 1: upon these incidences as comparatively insignificant, and not to be
- 43:47Speaker 1: weighed with loss of character, loss of truth. To desert
- 43:52Speaker 1: truth is to him the only happening which can really
- 43:56Speaker 1: be called a calamity. It is the hour of crime
- 44:00Speaker 1: which decides who are the minions of darkness and who
- 44:03Speaker 1: the children of light. It is the epic of threatening, disaster, ruin,
- 44:09Speaker 1: and persecution, which divides the sheep from the goats, and
- 44:14Speaker 1: reveals to the reverential gaze of succeeding ages the men
- 44:18Speaker 1: and women of power. It is easy for a man,
- 44:24Speaker 1: so long as he is left in the enjoyment of
- 44:26Speaker 1: his possessions, to persuade himself that he believes in and
- 44:30Speaker 1: adheres to the principles of peace, brotherhood, and universal love.
- 44:36Speaker 1: But if when his enjoyments are threatened, or he imagines
- 44:40Speaker 1: they are threatened, he begins to climb loudly for war.
- 44:44Speaker 1: He shows that he believes in and stands upon not peace, brotherhood,
- 44:49Speaker 1: and love, but strife, selfishness, and hatred. He who does
- 44:56Speaker 1: not desert his principles when threatened with the loss of
- 44:59Speaker 1: every earth thing, even to the loss of reputation and life,
- 45:04Speaker 1: is the man of power. Is the man whose every
- 45:07Speaker 1: word and work endures, is the man whom the afterworld honors, reveres,
- 45:13Speaker 1: and worships. Rather than desert that principle of divine love
- 45:18Speaker 1: on which he rested and in which all his trust
- 45:21Speaker 1: was placed. Jesus endured the utmost extremity of agony and deprivation,
- 45:27Speaker 1: and today the world prostrates itself at his pierced feet
- 45:30Speaker 1: in rapt adoration. There is no way to the acquirement
- 45:34Speaker 1: of spiritual power except by that inward illumination and enlightenment,
- 45:39Speaker 1: which is the realization of spiritual principles. And those principles
- 45:45Speaker 1: can only be realized by constant practice and application. Take
- 45:50Speaker 1: the principle of divine love and quietly and diligently meditate
- 45:54Speaker 1: upon it, with the object of arriving at a thorough
- 45:57Speaker 1: understanding of it. Bring it so arching light to bear
- 46:01Speaker 1: upon all your habits, your actions, your speech and intercourse
- 46:05Speaker 1: with others, your every secret thought and desire. As you
- 46:09Speaker 1: persevere in this course, the divine love will become more
- 46:13Speaker 1: and more perfectly revealed to you, and your own shortcomings
- 46:17Speaker 1: will stand out in more and more vivid contrast, spurring
- 46:21Speaker 1: you on to renewed endeavor. And, having once caught a
- 46:25Speaker 1: glimpse of the incomparable majesty of that imperishable principle, you
- 46:30Speaker 1: will never again rest in your weaknesses, your selfishness, your imperfection,
- 46:36Speaker 1: but will pursue that love until you have relinquished every
- 46:39Speaker 1: discordant element and have brought yourself into perfect harmony with it.
- 46:44Speaker 1: And that state of inward harmony is spiritual power. Take
- 46:49Speaker 1: also other spiritual principles, such as purity and compassion, and
- 46:54Speaker 1: apply them in the same way, and so exacting is truth.
- 47:00Speaker 1: You'll be able to make no stay, no resting place
- 47:03Speaker 1: until the inmost garment of your soul is bereft of
- 47:06Speaker 1: every stain, and your heart is becoming capable of any
- 47:10Speaker 1: heart condemnatory and pitiless impulse. Only in so far as
- 47:16Speaker 1: you understand, realize, and rely upon these principles where you
- 47:21Speaker 1: acquire spiritual power, and that power will be manifested in
- 47:26Speaker 1: and through you in the form of increasing dispassion, patience,
- 47:30Speaker 1: and equanimity. Dispassion argues superior self control. Sublime patience is
- 47:37Speaker 1: the very hallmark of divine knowledge. And to retain an
- 47:41Speaker 1: unbroken calm amid all the duties and distractions of life
- 47:45Speaker 1: marks off the man of power. It is easy in
- 47:49Speaker 1: the world to live after the world's opinions. It is
- 47:52Speaker 1: easy and solos you to live after our own. But
- 47:56Speaker 1: the great man is he who, in the midst of
- 47:58Speaker 1: the crowd keeps with per fixed sweetness the independence of solitude.
- 48:04Speaker 1: Some mystics hold that perfection in dispassion is the source
- 48:08Speaker 1: of that power by which miracles so called are performed.
- 48:13Speaker 1: And truly, he who has gained such perfect control of
- 48:16Speaker 1: all these interior forces, that no shock, however great, can
- 48:21Speaker 1: for one moment unbalance him, must be capable of guiding
- 48:25Speaker 1: and directing those forces with a master hand. To grow
- 48:30Speaker 1: in self control, in patience, in equanimity is to grow
- 48:35Speaker 1: in strength and power. And you can only thus grow
- 48:38Speaker 1: by focusing your consciousness upon a principle. As a child,
- 48:43Speaker 1: after making many in vigorous attempts to walk unaided, at
- 48:47Speaker 1: last succeeds after numerous falls in accomplishing this. So you
- 48:53Speaker 1: must enter the way of power by first attempting to
- 48:56Speaker 1: stand alone, break away from the tyranny of custossdom, condition, conventionality,
- 49:03Speaker 1: and the opinions of others, Until you succeed in walking
- 49:06Speaker 1: lonely and erect among men. Rely upon your own judgment,
- 49:12Speaker 1: Be true to your own conscious follow the light that
- 49:16Speaker 1: is within you. All outward lights are so many willow
- 49:20Speaker 1: the wisps there will be those who tell you that
- 49:23Speaker 1: you are foolish, that your judgment is faulty, that your
- 49:26Speaker 1: conscious is all awry, and that the light within you
- 49:30Speaker 1: is darkness. But heed them not. If what they say
- 49:33Speaker 1: is true, the sooner you, as a search for wisdom
- 49:37Speaker 1: find it out, the better, and you can only make
- 49:40Speaker 1: the discovery by bringing your powers to the test. Therefore,
- 49:46Speaker 1: pursue your course bravely. Your conscious is at least your own,
- 49:50Speaker 1: and to follow it is to be a man. To
- 49:53Speaker 1: follow the conscious of another is to be a slave.
- 49:56Speaker 1: You will have many falls, or suffer many wounds, will
- 50:01Speaker 1: endure many buffetings for a time. But press on in faith,
- 50:05Speaker 1: believing that sure and certain victory lies ahead. Search for
- 50:11Speaker 1: a rock a principle, and having found it, cling to it,
- 50:16Speaker 1: get it under your feet, and stand erect upon it,
- 50:19Speaker 1: until at last, immovably fixed upon it, you succeed in
- 50:23Speaker 1: defying the fury of the waves and storms of selfishness.
- 50:27Speaker 1: For selfishness in any in every form is dissipation, weakness, death.
- 50:34Speaker 1: Unselfishness in its spiritual aspect is conservation power life. As
- 50:42Speaker 1: you grow in spiritual life and become established upon principles,
- 50:46Speaker 1: you will become as beautiful and as unchangeable as those principles,
- 50:50Speaker 1: and will taste of the sweetness of their immortal essence,
- 50:54Speaker 1: and will realize the eternal and indestructible nature of the
- 50:57Speaker 1: God within No harmful shaft can reach the righteous man,
- 51:05Speaker 1: standing erect amid the storms of hate, defying hurt and
- 51:09Speaker 1: injury and ban, surrounded by the trembling slaves of fate,
- 51:15Speaker 1: majestic in the strength of silent power, serene, he stands,
- 51:20Speaker 1: nor changes not, nor turns, patient and firm in suffering
- 51:26Speaker 1: starkest hour, time bends to him, and death and doom.
- 51:30Speaker 1: He spurns Wrath's luid lightnings round him play and holds
- 51:37Speaker 1: deep thunders roll about his head. Yet heeds he not
- 51:41Speaker 1: for him, they cannot slay. Who stands whence earth and
- 51:45Speaker 1: time and space are fled sheltered by deathless love? What
- 51:51Speaker 1: fear hath he armored in changeless truth? What can he
- 51:56Speaker 1: know of loss and gain? Knowing eternity? He moves not
- 52:01Speaker 1: Whilst the shadows come and go. Call him immortal, call
- 52:06Speaker 1: him truth and light and splendor of prophetic majesty. Who
- 52:11Speaker 1: biddeth thus amid the powers of night, Clothed with the
- 52:15Speaker 1: glory of divinity, the realization of selfless love. It is
- 52:21Speaker 1: said that Michelangelo saw in every rough block of stone
- 52:24Speaker 1: a thing of beauty, awaiting the master hand to bring
- 52:27Speaker 1: it into reality. Even so within each that reposes the
- 52:33Speaker 1: divine image, awaiting the master hand of faith and the
- 52:36Speaker 1: chisel of patience to bring it into manifestation. And that
- 52:42Speaker 1: divine image is revealed and realized as stainless, selfless love.
- 52:49Speaker 1: Hidden deep in every human heart, though frequently covered up
- 52:53Speaker 1: with a massive heart and almost impenetrable accretions, is the
- 52:57Speaker 1: spirit of divine love, whose whole and spotless essence is
- 53:02Speaker 1: undying and eternal. It is the truth in man. It
- 53:07Speaker 1: is that which belongs to the Supreme, that which is
- 53:10Speaker 1: real and immortal. All else changes and passes away. This
- 53:15Speaker 1: alone is permanent and imperishable. And to realize this love
- 53:20Speaker 1: by ceaseless diligence in the practice of the highest righteousness,
- 53:25Speaker 1: to live in it and to become fully conscious in it,
- 53:29Speaker 1: is to enter into immortality here and now, is to
- 53:33Speaker 1: become one with Truth, one with God, one with the
- 53:37Speaker 1: central heart of all things, and to know our own
- 53:40Speaker 1: divine and eternal nature. To reach this love, to understand
- 53:46Speaker 1: and experience it. One must work with great persistency and
- 53:50Speaker 1: diligence upon his heart and mind. Must ever renew his
- 53:54Speaker 1: patience and keep strong his faith, for there will be
- 53:58Speaker 1: much to remove, much to accomplish, before the divine image
- 54:03Speaker 1: is revealed in all its glorious beauty. He who strives
- 54:08Speaker 1: to reach and to accomplish the divine will be tried
- 54:11Speaker 1: to the very utmost. And this is absolutely necessary, for
- 54:15Speaker 1: how else could one acquire that sublime patience, without which
- 54:20Speaker 1: there was no real wisdom, no divinity. Ever and anon
- 54:26Speaker 1: as he proceeds, all his work will seem futile, and
- 54:30Speaker 1: his efforts appear to be thrown away. Every now and
- 54:35Speaker 1: then a hasty touch will mar his image, And perhaps,
- 54:39Speaker 1: when he imagines his work is almost completed, he will
- 54:43Speaker 1: find what he imagined to be the beautiful form of
- 54:45Speaker 1: divine love utterly destroyed, and he must begin again, with
- 54:50Speaker 1: his past, bitter experience to guide and help him. But
- 54:55Speaker 1: he who has resolutely set himself to realize the highest
- 55:00Speaker 1: recognizes no such thing as defeat. All failures are apparent,
- 55:05Speaker 1: not real. Every slip, every four, every return to selfishness,
- 55:12Speaker 1: is a lesson learned and experience gained from which a
- 55:16Speaker 1: golden grain of wisdom is extracted, helping this driver toward
- 55:21Speaker 1: the accomplishment of his lofty object. To recognize that other
- 55:27Speaker 1: vices we can frame a ladder if we will but
- 55:31Speaker 1: tread beneath our feet. Each deed of shame is to
- 55:36Speaker 1: enter the way that leads unmistakably toward the divine and
- 55:40Speaker 1: the failings of one who thus recognizes as so many
- 55:43Speaker 1: dead selves upon which he rises as upon stepping stones
- 55:48Speaker 1: to higher things. Once come to regard your failings, your sorrows,
- 55:54Speaker 1: and sufferings, as so many voices, telling you plainly where
- 55:59Speaker 1: you are weak and fold, where you fall below the
- 56:02Speaker 1: true and the divine, you will then begin to ceaselessly
- 56:06Speaker 1: watch yourself, and every slip, every pang of pain will
- 56:10Speaker 1: show you where you are to set to work, and
- 56:13Speaker 1: what you have to remove out of your heart in
- 56:15Speaker 1: order to bring it nearer to the likeness of the Divine,
- 56:19Speaker 1: nearer to the perfect love. And as you proceed day
- 56:24Speaker 1: by day detaching yourself more and more from the inward selfishness,
- 56:29Speaker 1: the love that is selfless will gradually become revealed to you.
- 56:34Speaker 1: And when you are growing patient and calm, when your petulances, tempers,
- 56:40Speaker 1: and irritabilities are passing away from you, and the more
- 56:43Speaker 1: powerful lusts and prejudices cease to dominate and enslave you.
- 56:48Speaker 1: Then you will know that the divine is awakening within you,
- 56:52Speaker 1: that you are drawing near to the eternal heart, that
- 56:55Speaker 1: you are not far from that selfless love, the possession
- 56:59Speaker 1: of which is peace and immortality. Divine love is distinguished
- 57:05Speaker 1: from human loves in the supremely important particular. It is
- 57:10Speaker 1: free from partiality. Human loves cling to a particular object
- 57:15Speaker 1: to the exclusion of all else, and when that object
- 57:18Speaker 1: is removed, great and deep is the resultant suffering of
- 57:22Speaker 1: the one who loves. Divine love embraces the whole universe,
- 57:28Speaker 1: and without clinging to any part, yet contains within itself
- 57:33Speaker 1: the whole, and he who comes to it by gradually
- 57:37Speaker 1: purifying and broadening his human loves until all the selfish
- 57:41Speaker 1: and impure elements are burnt out of them, ceases from suffering.
- 57:47Speaker 1: It is because human loves are narrow and confined and
- 57:51Speaker 1: mingled with selfishness, that they cause suffering. No suffering can
- 57:56Speaker 1: result from that love, which is so absolutely pure that
- 58:00Speaker 1: it seeks nothing for itself. Nevertheless, human loves are absolutely
- 58:06Speaker 1: necessary steps toward the divine, and no soul is prepared
- 58:10Speaker 1: to partake of divine love until it has become capable
- 58:14Speaker 1: of the deepest and most intense human love. It is
- 58:19Speaker 1: only by passing through human loves and human sufferings that
- 58:23Speaker 1: divine love is reached and realized. All human loves are perishable,
- 58:29Speaker 1: like the forms to which they cling, But there is
- 58:32Speaker 1: a love that is imperishable that does not cling to appearances.
- 58:38Speaker 1: All human loves are counterbalance by human hates, but there
- 58:43Speaker 1: is a love that admits of no opposite or reaction,
- 58:46Speaker 1: divine and free from all taintive self, that sheds its
- 58:50Speaker 1: fragrance on all alike. Human loves are reflections of the
- 58:55Speaker 1: divine love, and draw the soul nearer to the reality,
- 59:00Speaker 1: the love that knows neither sorrow nor change. It is
- 59:04Speaker 1: well that the mother, clinging with passionate tenderness to the little,
- 59:08Speaker 1: helpless form of flesh that lies in her bosom, should
- 59:11Speaker 1: be overwhelmed with the dark waters of sorrow which she
- 59:14Speaker 1: sees it laid in the cold earth. It is well
- 59:17Speaker 1: that her tears should flow and her heart ache, for
- 59:21Speaker 1: only thus can she be reminded of the evanescent nature
- 59:24Speaker 1: of the joys and objects of sense, and be drawn
- 59:28Speaker 1: nearer to the eternal and imperishable reality. It is well
- 59:36Speaker 1: that lover, brother, sister, husband, wife should suffer deep anguish
- 59:43Speaker 1: and be enveloped in gloom when the visible object of
- 59:46Speaker 1: their affections is torn from them, so that they may
- 59:49Speaker 1: learn to turn their affections toward the invisible source of all,
- 59:54Speaker 1: where alone abiding satisfaction is to be found. The proud,
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: the ambitious, the self seeking should suffer defeat, humiliation, and misfortune,
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: that they should pass through the scorching fires of affliction.
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: For only thus can the wayward soul be brought to
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: reflect upon the enigma of life. Only thus can the
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: heart be softened and purified and prepared to receive the truth.
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: When the sting of anguish penetrates the heart of human love,
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: when gloom and loneliness and desertion cloud the soul of
- 1:00:36Speaker 1: friendship and trust, then it is that the human heart
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: turns toward the sheltering love of the eternal and finds
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: rest in its silent peace. And whoever comes to this
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: love is not turned away comfortless, is not pierced with anguish,
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: nor surrounded with gloom and is never deserted in the
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: dark hour of trial. The glory of divine love can
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: only be revealed in the heart that is chastened by sorrow,
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: and the image of the heavenly state can only be
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: perceived and realized when the lifeless, formless accretions of ignorance
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: and self are hewn away. Only that love that seeks
- 1:01:20Speaker 1: no personal gratification or reward, that does not make distinctions
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: and at least behind no heartaches, can be called divine.
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: Men clinging to self and to the comfortless shadows of
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: evil are in the habit of thinking of divine love
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: as something belonging to a God who is out of reach,
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: as something outside themselves and that must forever remain outside. Surely,
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: the love of God is ever beyond the reach of self.
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: But when the heart and mind are emptied of self,
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: then the selfless love, the supreme love, the love that
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: is of God or Good, becomes an inward and abiding reality.
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: And this inward realization of holy love is none other
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: than the love of Christ that is so much talked
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: about and so little comprehended, the love that not only
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: saves this soul from sin, but lifts it also above
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: the power of temptation. But how may one attain to
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: the sublime realization? The answer which truth has always given
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: and will ever give to this question is empty thyself,
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: and I will feel thee divine love cannot be known
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: until self is dead. For self is the denial of love.
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: And how can that which is known be also denied?
- 1:02:51Speaker 1: Not until a stone of self is rolled away from
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: the sepulcher of the soul, does the immortal Christ, the
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: pure spirit of Love, hitherto crucified, dead and buried, cast
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: off the bands of ignorance, and come forth in all
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: its majesty of his resurrection. You believe that the Christ
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: of Nazareth was put to death and rose again. I
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: do not say that you err in this belief. But
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: if you refuse to believe that the gentle spirit of
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: Love is crucified daily upon the dark cross of your
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: selfish desires, then I say you err in this unbelief,
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: and have not yet perceived even afar off the love
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: of Christ. You say that you have tasted of salvation
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: in the love of Christ. Are you saved from your temper,
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: your irritability, your vanity, your personal dislikes, your judgment, and
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: condemnation of others. If not from what are you saved?
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: And wherein hath he realized the transforming love of Christ.
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: He who has realized the love that is divine has
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: become a new man and has ceased to be swayed
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: and dominated by the old elements of self. He is
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: known for his patience, his purity, his self control, his
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: deep charity of heart, and his unalterable sweetness. Divine or
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: selfless love is not a mere sentiment or emotion. It
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: is a state of knowledge which destroys the domination of
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: evil and the belief in evil, and lifts the soul
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: into the joyful realization of the supreme good, to the
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: divinely wise. Knowledge and love are one and inseparable. It
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: is toward the complete realization of this divine love that
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: the whole world is moving. It was for this purpose
- 1:04:58Speaker 1: that the universe came into existence, and every grasping and happiness,
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: every reaching out of the soul toward objects, ideas, and ideals,
- 1:05:09Speaker 1: is an effort to realize it. But the world does
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: not realize its love at present, because it is grasping
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: at the fleeting shadow and ignoring in its blindness the substance,
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: and so suffering and sorrow continue and must continue until
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: the world, taught by its self inflicted pains, discovers the
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: love that is selfless, the wisdom that is calm and
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: full of peace. And this love, this wisdom, this peace,
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: this tranquil state of mind and heart, may be attained to,
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: may be realized by all who are willing and ready
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: to yield up self, and who are prepared to humbly
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: enter into a comprehension of all that the giving up
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: of self involves. There is no arbitrary power in the universe,
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: and the strongest chains of fate by which men are
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: bound are self forged. Men are chained to that which
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: causes suffering because they desire to be so, because they
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: love their chains, because they think their little, dark prison
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: of self is sweet and beautiful, and they are afraid
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: that if they desert that prison, they will lose all
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: that is real and worth having. Ye suffer from yourselves,
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: none else compels, None other holds that ye shall live
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: and die. And the indwelling power which forges the chains
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: and built around itself, the dark and narrow prison, can
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: break away when it desires and wills to do so.
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: And the soul does will to do so when it
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: is discovered the worthlessness of its own prison, when long
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: suffering has prepared it for the reception of the boundless
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: light and love. As the shadow follows the form and
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: the smoke comes after the fire, so effect follows cause,
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: and suffering and bliss follow the thoughts and deeds of men.
- 1:07:19Speaker 1: There is no effect in the world around us, but
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: has its hidden or revealed cause, and that cause is
- 1:07:26Speaker 1: in accordance with absolute justice. Men reap a harvest of
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: suffering because in the near or distant past they have
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: sown the seeds of evil. They reaper harvest of bliss,
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: also as a result of their own sowing of the
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: seeds of good. Let a man meditate upon this, let
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: him strive to understand it, and he will then begin
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: to sow only seeds of good, and will burn up
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: the tears and weeds which he has formerly grown in
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: the garden of his heart. The world does not understand
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: the love that is selfless, because it is engrossed in
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: the pursuit of its own pleasures and cramped within the
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: narrow limits of perishable interests, mistaking in its ignorance those
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: pleasures and interests for real and abiding things. Caught in
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: the flames of fleshy lusts and burning with anguish, it
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: sees not the pure and the peaceful beauty of truth,
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: feeding upon the swinish husks of error and self delusion.
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: It is shut out from the mansion of all seeing love,
- 1:08:40Speaker 1: not having this love, not understanding it. Men institute innumerable
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: reforms which involve no inward sacrifice, and each imagines that
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: his reform is going to write the world forever, while
- 1:08:54Speaker 1: he himself continues to propagate evil by engaging it in
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: his own heart. That only can be called reform which
- 1:09:04Speaker 1: tends to reform the human heart. For all evil has
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: its rise there. And not until the world, ceasing from
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: selfishness and party strife, has learnt the lesson of divine
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: love will it realize the golden age of universal blessedness.
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: Let the rich cease to despise the poor, and the
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: poor to condemn the rich. Let the greedy learn to give,
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: and the lustful how to grow pure. Let the partisan
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: cease from strife, and the uncharitable begin to forgive. Let
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: the envious endeavor to rejoice with others, and the slanderers
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: grow ashamed. Of their conduct. Let men and women take
- 1:09:50Speaker 1: this course and lull. The golden age is at hand.
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: He therefore, who purifies his own heart, is the world's
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: greatest benefactor. Yet, though the world is and will be
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: for many ages to come shut out from that age
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: of gold, which is the realization of selfless love, you,
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: if you are willing, may enter into it now by
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: rising above your selfish self, if you will pass from prejudice, hatred,
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: and condemnation to gentle and forgiving love. Where hatred, dislike,
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: and condemnation are selfless love does not abide. It resides
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: only in the heart that has ceased from all condemnation.
- 1:10:46Speaker 1: You say, how can I love the drunkard, the hypocrite,
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: the sneak, the murderer. I am compelled to dislike and
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: condemn such men. It is true that you cannot love
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: such men emotionally. But when you say that you must
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: perforce dislike and condemn them, you show that you are
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: not acquainted with that great over ruling love. For it
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: is possible to attain to such a state of interior
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: enlightenment as will enable you to perceive the train of
- 1:11:18Speaker 1: causes by which these men have become as they are
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: to enter into their intense sufferings and to know the
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: certainty of their ultimate purification. Possessed of such knowledge, it
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: will be utterly impossible for you any longer to dislike
- 1:11:38Speaker 1: or condemn them, and you will always think of them
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: with perfect calmness and deep compassion. If you love people
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: and speak of them with praise, until they in some
- 1:11:50Speaker 1: way thwart you or do something of which you disapprove,
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: and then you dislike them and speak of them with dispraise,
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: you are not governed by that love which is of God.
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: If in your heart you are continually arraigning, condemning others,
- 1:12:08Speaker 1: selfless love is hidden from you. He who knows that
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: love is the heart of all things, and has realized
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: that all sufficing power of that love has no room
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: in his heart for condemnation. Men not knowing this love
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: constitute themselves judge and executioner of their fellows, forgetting that
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: there is the eternal judge and executioner. And in so
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: far as men deviate from them in their own views,
- 1:12:39Speaker 1: in their particular reforms and methods, they brand themselves as fanatical, unbalanced,
- 1:12:46Speaker 1: lacking judgment, sincerity, and honesty. In so far as others
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: approximate to their own standard, do they look upon them
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: as being everything that is admirable. Such are the men
- 1:13:01Speaker 1: who are centered in self. But he whose heart is
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: centered in the Supreme Love, does not brand or classify men,
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: does not seek to convert men to his own views,
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: not to convince them of the superiority of his own methods.
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: Knowing the law of love, he lives it and maintains
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: the same calm attitude of mind and sweetness of heart
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: toward all the debased and virtuous, the foolish and the wise,
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: the learned and the unlearned, the selfish and the unselfish,
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: receive alike the benediction of His tranquil thought. You can
- 1:13:43Speaker 1: only attain to this supreme knowledge, this divine love, by
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: unremitting endeavor in self discipline, and by gaining victory after
- 1:13:53Speaker 1: victory over yourself. Only the pure in heart see God.
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: And when your heart is sufficiently purified, you will enter
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: into the new birth, and the love that does not die,
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: nor change, nor end in pain and sorrow will be
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: awakened within you, and you will be at peace. He
- 1:14:16Speaker 1: who strives for the attainment of divine love is ever
- 1:14:20Speaker 1: seeking to overcome the spirit of condemnation, For where there
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: is pure spiritual knowledge, condemnation cannot exist. And only in
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: the heart that has become incapable of condemnation is love
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: perfected and fully realized. The Christian condemns the atheist. The
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: atheist satirizes the Christian. The Catholic and Protestant are ceaselessly
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: engaged in wordy warfare, and the spirit of strife and
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: hatred rules where peace and love should be. He that
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: hateth his brother is a murderer, a crucifier of the
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: divine spirit of love. And until you can regard men
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: of all religions and of no religion with the same
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: impartial spirit, with all freedom from dislike, and with perfect equanimity,
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: you have yet to strive for that love which bestows
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: upon its possessor freedom and salvation. The realization of divine knowledge,
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: selfless love utterly destroys the spirit of condemnation, disperses all evil,
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: and lifts the consciousness to that height of pure vision,
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: where love, goodness, justice are seen to be universal, supreme,
- 1:15:46Speaker 1: all conquering, indestructible. Train your mind and strong, impartial and
- 1:15:54Speaker 1: gentle thought. Train your heart in purity and compassion. Then
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: your tongue to silence and to true and stainless speech.
- 1:16:05Speaker 1: So shall you enter the way of holiness and peace,
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: and shall ultimately realize the immortal love. So, living without
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: seeking to convert, you will convince, without arguing, you will teach,
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: not cherishing ambition, the wise will find you out. And
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: without striving to gain men's opinions, you will subdue their hearts.
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: For lovers all conquering, all powerful, and the thoughts and
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: deeds and words of love can never perish. To know
- 1:16:42Speaker 1: that love is universal, supreme, all sufficing, to be freed
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: from the trammels of evil, to be quit of the
- 1:16:51Speaker 1: inward unrest, To know that all men are striving to
- 1:16:56Speaker 1: realize the truth, each in his own way, to be satisfied, sorrowless, serene.
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: This is peace, This is gladness, This is immortality, This
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: is divinity. This is the realization of selfless love. I
- 1:17:19Speaker 1: stood upon the shore and saw the rocks resist the
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: onslaught of the mighty sea. And when I thought how
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: all the countless shocks they had withstood through an eternity,
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: I said, to where away the solid main. The ceaseless
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: efforts of the waves are vain. But when I thought,
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: how they the rocks had rent, And saw the sand
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: and shingles at my feet, poor passive remnants of resistance spent,
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: tumbled and tossed where they the waters meet. Then saw
- 1:17:53Speaker 1: I ancient landmarks neath the waves. I knew the waters
- 1:17:59Speaker 1: held the stones their slaves. I saw the mighty work
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: the waters, wrought by patient softness and unceasing flow. How
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: they the proudest chronometery brought unto their feet, and massy
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: hills laid low, How the soft drops the atamine wall
- 1:18:20Speaker 1: conquered at last and brought it to its fall. And
- 1:18:24Speaker 1: then I knew that hard resisting sin should yield at
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: last to Love's soft, ceaseless roll, coming and going ever
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: flowing upon the proud rocks of the human soul, That
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: all resistance should be spent and passed, and every heart
- 1:18:44Speaker 1: yield unto it at last entering into the infinite. From
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: the beginning of time, man, in spite of his bodily
- 1:18:55Speaker 1: appetites and desires, in the midst of all his clinging
- 1:18:58Speaker 1: to earthly and impermanent, has ever been intuitively conscious of
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: the limited, transient and illusionary nature of his material existence,
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: and an insane and silent moments, has tried to reach
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: out into a comprehension of the infinite, and has turned
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: with tearful aspiration toward the RESTful reality of the eternal heart.
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: While vainly imagining that the pleasures of earth are real
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: and satisfying, pain and sorrow continually remind him of their
- 1:19:30Speaker 1: unreal and unsatisfying nature. Ever striving to believe that complete
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: satisfaction is to be found in material things, he is
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: conscious of an inward and persistent revolt against this belief,
- 1:19:44Speaker 1: which revolt is at once a refusion of his essential
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: mortality and an inherent and imperishable proof that only in
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: the immortal, the eternal, the infinite can he find abiding
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: satisfaction and unbroken peace. And here is the common ground
- 1:20:03Speaker 1: of faith, Here is the root and spring of all religion.
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: Here the soul of brotherhood and the heart of love.
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: That man is essentially and spiritually divine and eternal, and
- 1:20:15Speaker 1: that immersed in mortality and troubled with unrest, he is
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: ever striving to enter into a consciousness of his real nature.
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: The spirit of man is inseparable from the infinite, and
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: can be satisfied with nothing short of the infinite and
- 1:20:33Speaker 1: the burden of pain will continue to weigh upon a
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: man's heart, and the shadows of sorrow to darken his pathway,
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: until ceasing from his wanderings in the dream world of matter,
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: he comes back to his home in the reality of
- 1:20:47Speaker 1: the eternal. As the smallest drop of water detached from
- 1:20:51Speaker 1: the ocean contains all the qualities of the ocean, so
- 1:20:55Speaker 1: a man detached in consciousness from the infinite contains within
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: him its likeness. And as the drop of water must,
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: by the law of its nature, ultimately find its way
- 1:21:07Speaker 1: back to the ocean and lose itself in its silent depths,
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: so must man, by the unfailing law of his nature,
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: at last return to his source and lose himself in
- 1:21:19Speaker 1: the great ocean of the infinite. To become one with
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: the infinite is the goal of man. To enter into
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: perfect harmony with the eternal law is wisdom, love and peace.
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: But this divine state is and must ever be, incomprehensible
- 1:21:38Speaker 1: to the merely personal. Personality. Separateness selfishness are one and
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: the same and other antithesis of wisdom and divinity. By
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: the unqualified surrender of the personality, separateness and selfishness cease,
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: and man enters into the possession of his divine heritage
- 1:21:59Speaker 1: of immortality and infinity. Such surrender of the personality is
- 1:22:05Speaker 1: regarded by the worldly and selfish mind as the most
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: grievous of all calamities, the most irreparable loss. Yet it
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: is the one supreme and incomparable blessing, the only real
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: and lasting gain. The mind, unenlightened upon the inner laws
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: of being and upon the nature and destiny of its
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: own life, clings to transient appearances, things which have in
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: them know enduring substantiality, and so clinging perishes for the
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: time being. Amid the shattered wreckage of his own illusions.
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: Men cling to and gratify the flesh as though were
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: going to last for ever, And though they try to
- 1:22:48Speaker 1: forget the nearness an inevitability of his dissolution, the dread
- 1:22:52Speaker 1: of death and the loss of all that they cling
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: to clouds their happiest hours, and the chilling shadow of
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: their own selfishness follows them like a remorseless specter. And
- 1:23:04Speaker 1: with the accumulation of temporal comforts and luxuries, the divinity
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: within men is drugged, and they sink deeper and deeper
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: into materiality, into the perishable life of his senses, and
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: where there is sufficient intellect, theories concerning the immortality of
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: the flesh come to be regarded as infallible truths. When
- 1:23:26Speaker 1: a man's soul is clouded with selfishness in any or
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: every form, he loses the power of spiritual discrimination, and
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: confuses the temporal with the eternal, the perishable with the permanent,
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: mortality with immortality, and error with truth. It is thus
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: that the world has come to be filled with theories
- 1:23:50Speaker 1: and speculations, having no foundation in human experience. Every body
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: of flesh contains within itself from the arrow of birth,
- 1:23:59Speaker 1: the elements of its own destruction, and by the unalterable
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: law of its own nature, must pass away. The perishable
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: in the universe can never become permanent. The permanent can
- 1:24:12Speaker 1: never pass away. The mortal can never become immortal. The
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: immortal can never die. The temporal cannot become eternal, nor
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: the eternal become temporal. Appearance can never become reality, nor
- 1:24:28Speaker 1: reality fade into appearance. Error can never become truth, nor
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: can truth become error. Man cannot immortalize the flesh, but
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: by overcoming the flesh, by relinquishing all its inclinations, he
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: can enter into the region of immortality. God alone hath immortality,
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: and only by realizing that God's state of consciousness does
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: man enter into immortality. All nature, in its myriad forms
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: of life, is changeable, impermanent, unenduring. Only the informing principle
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: of nature endurers. Nature is many and is marked by separation.
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: The informing principle is one, and is marked by unity.
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: By overcoming the senses and the selfishness within which is
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: the overcoming of nature, man emerges from the cristness of
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: the personal and illusory and wings himself into the glorious
- 1:25:30Speaker 1: light of the impersonal, the region of universal truth, art
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: of which all perishable forms come. Let men therefore practice
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: self denial. Let them conquer the animal inclinations. Let them
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: refuse to be enslaved by luxury and pleasure. Let them
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: practice virtue and grow daily into higher and even higher virtue,
- 1:25:56Speaker 1: until at last they grow unto the divine and enter
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: in to both the practice and comprehension of humility, meekness, forgiveness, compassion,
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: and love, which practice and comprehension constitute divinity. Good will
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: gives insight, and only he who has so conquered his personality,
- 1:26:20Speaker 1: that he has but one attitude of mind, that of
- 1:26:23Speaker 1: good will toward all creatures, is possessed of divine insight,
- 1:26:29Speaker 1: and is capable of distinguishing the true from the false.
- 1:26:34Speaker 1: The supremely good man is therefore the wise man, the
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: divine man, the enlightened seer, the gnawer of the eternal.
- 1:26:45Speaker 1: Where you find unbroken gentleness, enduring patience, sublime lowliness, graciousness
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: of speech, self control, self forgetfulness, and deep and abounding sympathy,
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: look there for the highest wisdom. Seek the company of
- 1:27:02Speaker 1: such a one, For he has realized the divine, He
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: lives with the eternal. He is become one with the infinite.
- 1:27:11Speaker 1: Believe not him that is impatient, given to anger, boastful,
- 1:27:16Speaker 1: who clings to pleasure and refuses to announce his selfish gratifications,
- 1:27:21Speaker 1: and who practices not good will and far reaching compassion.
- 1:27:25Speaker 1: For such a one hath not wisdom. Vain is all
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: his knowledge, and his works and words will perish, for
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: they are grounded on that which passes away. Let a
- 1:27:36Speaker 1: man abandon self, let him overcome the world, let him
- 1:27:40Speaker 1: deny the personal. By this pathway only can he enter
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: into the heart of the infinite. The world, the body,
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: the personality are mirages upon the desert of time, transitory
- 1:27:53Speaker 1: dreams in the dark night of spiritual slumber. And those
- 1:27:57Speaker 1: who have crossed the desert, those who are spiritually awakened,
- 1:28:01Speaker 1: have alone comprehended the universal reality, where all appearances are dispersed,
- 1:28:06Speaker 1: and dreaming and delusion are destroyed. There is one great
- 1:28:11Speaker 1: law which exacts unconditional obedience, one unifying principle, which is
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: the basis of all diversity, one eternal truth, wherein all
- 1:28:22Speaker 1: the problems of earth pass away like shadows. To realize
- 1:28:26Speaker 1: this law, this unity, this truth is to enter into
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: the infinite is to become one with the eternal. To
- 1:28:37Speaker 1: center one's life in the great Law of Love is
- 1:28:40Speaker 1: to enter inter reest harmony, peace, To refrain from all
- 1:28:45Speaker 1: participation in evil and discord, to cease from all resistance
- 1:28:49Speaker 1: to evil and from the omission of that which is good,
- 1:28:53Speaker 1: and to fall back upon unswerving obedience to the holy
- 1:28:56Speaker 1: calm within. Is to enter into the inmost harder things,
- 1:29:01Speaker 1: is to attain to a living, conscious experience of that
- 1:29:04Speaker 1: eternal and infinite principle, which must ever remain a hidden mystery.
- 1:29:08Speaker 1: To the merely perspective intellect. Until this principle is realized,
- 1:29:14Speaker 1: the soul is not established in peace. He who so
- 1:29:17Speaker 1: realizes is truly wise, not wise with the wisdom of
- 1:29:21Speaker 1: the learned, but with the simplicity of a blameless heart
- 1:29:25Speaker 1: and of a divine manhood. To enter into a realization
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: of the infinite and eternal is to rise superior to
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: time and the world and the body which compromise the
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: kingdom of darkness, and is to become established in immortality,
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: heaven and the spirit which make up the empire of light.
- 1:29:50Speaker 1: Entering into the infinite is not a mere theory or sentiment.
- 1:29:54Speaker 1: It is a vital experience which is the result of
- 1:29:56Speaker 1: a siduous practice in inward purification. When the body is
- 1:30:02Speaker 1: no longer believed to be even remotely the real man,
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: when all appetites and desires are thoroughly subdued and purified,
- 1:30:11Speaker 1: then the emotions are rested and calm, And when the
- 1:30:14Speaker 1: oscillation of the intellect ceases and perfect poise is secured. Then,
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: and not until then, does consciousness become one with the infinite.
- 1:30:25Speaker 1: Not until then is childlike wisdom and profound peace secured.
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: Men grow weary and gray over the dark problems of
- 1:30:35Speaker 1: life and finally pass away and leave them unsolved because
- 1:30:40Speaker 1: they cannot see their way out of the darkness of
- 1:30:42Speaker 1: a personality. Being too much engrossed in its limitations. Seeking
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: to save his personal life, man forfeits the greater impersonal
- 1:30:53Speaker 1: life in truth, clinging to the perishable. He is shut
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: out from a knowledge of the eternal. By the surrender
- 1:31:03Speaker 1: of self, all difficulties are overcome, and there is no
- 1:31:07Speaker 1: error in the universe. But the fire of inward sacrifice
- 1:31:11Speaker 1: will burn it up like a shaft. No problem, however great,
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: but will disappear like a shadow under the searching light
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: of self abnegation. Problems exist only in our own self
- 1:31:26Speaker 1: created illusions, and they vanish away when self is yielded up.
- 1:31:31Speaker 1: Self and error are synonymous. Error is involved in the
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: darkness of unfathomable complexity, but eternal simplicity is the glory
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: of truth. Love of self shuts men out from truth
- 1:31:47Speaker 1: by seeking their own personal happiness. They lose the deeper, purer,
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: and more abiding bliss. Says Carlyle, there is in man
- 1:31:58Speaker 1: a higher than love of happiness. He can do without happiness,
- 1:32:02Speaker 1: and instead thereof fine blessedness love, not pleasure, love God.
- 1:32:10Speaker 1: This is the eternal yea, wherein all contradiction is solved,
- 1:32:14Speaker 1: wherein whoso walks and works it is well with him.
- 1:32:19Speaker 1: He who has yielded up that self, that personality that
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: men most love, and to which they cling with such
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: fierce tenacity, has left behind him all perplexity, and has
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: entered into a simplicity so profoundly simple as to be
- 1:32:36Speaker 1: looked upon by the world involved as it is, in
- 1:32:38Speaker 1: a network of error, as foolishness. Yet such a one
- 1:32:43Speaker 1: has realized the highest wisdom and is at rest in
- 1:32:46Speaker 1: the infinite. He accomplishes without striving, and all problems melt
- 1:32:53Speaker 1: before him, for he has entered the region of reality
- 1:32:57Speaker 1: that deals not with changing effect, but with the unchanging
- 1:33:01Speaker 1: principle of things. He is enlightened with a wisdom which
- 1:33:06Speaker 1: is superior to radiesce nation, as reason is to animality.
- 1:33:11Speaker 1: Having yielded up his lusts, his errors, his opinions and prejudices,
- 1:33:16Speaker 1: he has entered into a possession of the knowledge of God,
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: having slain the selfish desire for heaven and along with it,
- 1:33:24Speaker 1: the ignorant fear of hell, having relinquished even the love
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: of life, itself. He has gained supreme bliss and life eternal,
- 1:33:34Speaker 1: the life which bridges life and death, and knows its
- 1:33:37Speaker 1: own immortality. Having yielded up all without reservation, he has
- 1:33:43Speaker 1: gained all, and rests in peace on the bosom of
- 1:33:47Speaker 1: the infinite. Only he who has become so free from
- 1:33:52Speaker 1: self as to be equally content to be annihilated as
- 1:33:55Speaker 1: to live, or to live as to be annihilated, is
- 1:33:59Speaker 1: fit to enter into the infinite. Only he, who, ceasing
- 1:34:04Speaker 1: to trust his perishable self, has learned to trust in
- 1:34:07Speaker 1: the boundless measure of the great law, the supreme Good,
- 1:34:12Speaker 1: is prepared to partake of undying bliss. For such a
- 1:34:18Speaker 1: one there is no more regret, nor disappointment, nor remorse.
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: For where all selfishness has ceased, these sufferings cannot be.
- 1:34:28Speaker 1: And whatever happens to him, he knows that it is
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: for his own good. And he is content, being no
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: longer the servant of self, but the servant of the Supreme.
- 1:34:39Speaker 1: He is no longer affected by the changes of earth.
- 1:34:42Speaker 1: And when he hears of wars and rumors of wars,
- 1:34:45Speaker 1: his peace is not disturbed. And where men grow angry
- 1:34:49Speaker 1: and cynical and quarrelsome. He bestows compassion and love, though
- 1:34:55Speaker 1: appearances may contradict it. He knows that the world is progressing,
- 1:35:00Speaker 1: and that through its laughing and its weeping, through its
- 1:35:04Speaker 1: living and its keeping, through its follies and its labors,
- 1:35:09Speaker 1: weaving in and out of sight to the end, from
- 1:35:12Speaker 1: the beginning, through all virtue and all sinning, reeled from
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: God's great spool of progress, runs the golden thread of light.
- 1:35:23Speaker 1: When a fierce storm is raging, none are angered about it,
- 1:35:27Speaker 1: because they know it will quickly pass away. And when
- 1:35:30Speaker 1: the storms of contention are devastating the world, the wise man,
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: looking with the eye of truth and pity, knows that
- 1:35:38Speaker 1: it will pass away, and that out of the wreckage
- 1:35:41Speaker 1: of broken hearts which it leaves behind, the immortal Temple
- 1:35:45Speaker 1: of Wisdom will be built sublimely patient, infinitely compassionate, deep, silent,
- 1:35:54Speaker 1: and pure. His very presence is a benediction, And when
- 1:35:58Speaker 1: he speaks, men ponder his words in their hearts, and
- 1:36:02Speaker 1: by them rise to higher levels of attainment, such as
- 1:36:07Speaker 1: he who has entered into the infinite, who, by the
- 1:36:11Speaker 1: power of utmost sacrifice, has solved the sacred mystery of life,
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: questioning life and destiny and truth. I sought the dark
- 1:36:24Speaker 1: and laprithine Sphinx, who spake to me this strange and
- 1:36:28Speaker 1: wondrous thing. Concealment only lies in blinded eyes, and God
- 1:36:35Speaker 1: alone can see the form of God. I sought to
- 1:36:39Speaker 1: solve this hidden mystery vainly by parts of blindness and
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: of pain. But when I found the way of love
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: and peace, concealment ceased, and I was blind no more
- 1:36:51Speaker 1: then sair i God een with the eyes of God, Saints,
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: sages and saviors. The law or service. The spirit of love,
- 1:37:06Speaker 1: which is manifested as a perfect and rounded life, is
- 1:37:09Speaker 1: the crown of being and the supreme end of knowledge
- 1:37:13Speaker 1: upon this earth. The measure of the man's truth is
- 1:37:16Speaker 1: the measure of his love, and truth is far removed
- 1:37:20Speaker 1: from him whose life is not governed by love. The
- 1:37:24Speaker 1: intolerant and condemnatory, even though they profess the highest religion,
- 1:37:29Speaker 1: have the smallest measure of truth. While those who exercise
- 1:37:32Speaker 1: patience and who listen calmly and dispassionately to all sides
- 1:37:37Speaker 1: and both arrive themselves at and incline others, too, thoughtful
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: and unbiased conclusions upon all problems and issues, have truth
- 1:37:46Speaker 1: in fullest measure. The final test of wisdom is this,
- 1:37:51Speaker 1: how does a man live? What spirit does he manifest?
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: How does he act under trial and temptation? Many men
- 1:38:01Speaker 1: boast of being in possession of truth, who are continually
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: swayed by grief, disappointment, and passion, and who sink under
- 1:38:09Speaker 1: the first little trial that comes along. Truth is nothing
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: if not unchangeable. And in so far as a man
- 1:38:17Speaker 1: takes his stand upon truth, does he become steadfast in virtue?
- 1:38:22Speaker 1: Does he write superior to his passions and emotions and
- 1:38:25Speaker 1: changeable personality. Men formulate perishable dogmas and call them truth.
- 1:38:33Speaker 1: Truth cannot be formulated. It is ineffable, and ever beyond
- 1:38:37Speaker 1: the reach of intellect. It can only be experienced by practice.
- 1:38:43Speaker 1: It can only be manifested as a stainless heart and
- 1:38:46Speaker 1: a perfect life. Who, then, in the midst of the
- 1:38:51Speaker 1: ceaseless pandemonium of schools and creeds and parties, has the truth?
- 1:38:56Speaker 1: He who lives it, he who practices it, He who,
- 1:39:02Speaker 1: having risen above that panemonium by overcoming himself, no longer
- 1:39:07Speaker 1: engages in it, but sits apart, quiet, subdued, calm, and
- 1:39:14Speaker 1: self possessed, freed from all strife, all bias, all condemnation,
- 1:39:21Speaker 1: and bestows upon all the glad and unselfish love of
- 1:39:25Speaker 1: the Divinity within him. He who is patient, calm, gentle,
- 1:39:32Speaker 1: and forgiving under all circumstances manifest the truth. Truth will
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: never be proved by wordy arguments and learned treaties. For
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: if men do not perceive the truth in infinite patience,
- 1:39:45Speaker 1: undying forgiveness, and all embracing compassion, no words can ever
- 1:39:50Speaker 1: prove it to them. It is an easy matter for
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: the passionate to be calm and patient when they are
- 1:39:56Speaker 1: alone or are in the midst of calmness. It is
- 1:40:00Speaker 1: equally easy for the uncharitable to be gentle and kind
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: when they are dealt kindly with. But he who retains
- 1:40:09Speaker 1: his patience and calmness under all trial, who remains sublimely
- 1:40:13Speaker 1: meek and gentle under the most trying circumstances, he and
- 1:40:19Speaker 1: he alone, is possessed of the spotless truth. And this
- 1:40:24Speaker 1: is so because such lofty virtues belong to the divine
- 1:40:28Speaker 1: and can only be manifested by one who is attained
- 1:40:31Speaker 1: to the highest wisdom, who has relinquished his passionate and
- 1:40:35Speaker 1: self seeking nature, who has realized the supreme and unchangeable law,
- 1:40:41Speaker 1: and has brought himself into harmony with it. Let men
- 1:40:45Speaker 1: therefore cease from vain and passionate arguments about truth, and
- 1:40:50Speaker 1: let them think and say and do those things which
- 1:40:54Speaker 1: make for harmony, peace, love, and good will. Let and
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: practice hard virtue, and search humbly and diligently for the
- 1:41:04Speaker 1: truth which frees the soul from all error and sin,
- 1:41:09Speaker 1: from all that plights the human heart, and that darkens,
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: as with unending night, the pathway of the wandering souls
- 1:41:17Speaker 1: of earth. There is one great, all embracing law which
- 1:41:22Speaker 1: is the foundation and cause of the universe, the Law
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: of Love. It has been called by many names, in
- 1:41:30Speaker 1: various countries and of various times. But behind all its names,
- 1:41:35Speaker 1: the same unalterable law may be discovered by the eye
- 1:41:39Speaker 1: of truth. Names, religions, personalities pass away, but the law
- 1:41:46Speaker 1: of Love remains. To become possessed of a knowledge of
- 1:41:50Speaker 1: this law, to enter into conscious harmony with it, is
- 1:41:54Speaker 1: to become immortal, invincible, indestructible. It is because of the
- 1:42:01Speaker 1: effort of the soul to realize this law that men
- 1:42:04Speaker 1: come again and again to live, to suffer, and to die.
- 1:42:10Speaker 1: And when realized suffering ceases, personality is dispersed, and the
- 1:42:16Speaker 1: fleshy life and death are destroyed, for consciousness becomes one
- 1:42:21Speaker 1: with the eternal. The law is absolutely impersonal, and its
- 1:42:27Speaker 1: highest manifested expression is that of service. When the purified
- 1:42:33Speaker 1: heart has realized truth, it is then called upon to
- 1:42:36Speaker 1: make the last, the greatest and wholliest sacrifice, the sacrifice
- 1:42:42Speaker 1: of the well earned enjoyment of truth. It is by
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: virtue of this sacrifice that the divinely emancipated soul comes
- 1:42:51Speaker 1: to dwell among men, clothed with a body of flesh,
- 1:42:55Speaker 1: content to dwell among the lowest and the least, and
- 1:42:58Speaker 1: to be esteemed the servant of all mankind. That sublime
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: humility which is manifested by the world's saviors is the
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: seal of Godhead. And he who has annihilated the personality
- 1:43:11Speaker 1: and has become a living, visible manifestation of the impersonal, eternal,
- 1:43:18Speaker 1: boundless spirit of love is alone singled out as worthy
- 1:43:22Speaker 1: to receive the unstinted worship of prosterity. He only who
- 1:43:28Speaker 1: succeeds in humbling himself with that divine humility, which is
- 1:43:31Speaker 1: not only the extinction of self, but is also the
- 1:43:35Speaker 1: pouring out upon all. The spirit of unselfish love is
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: exalted above measure and given spiritual dominion in the hearts
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: of mankind. All the great spiritual teachers have denied themselves
- 1:43:49Speaker 1: personal luxuries, comforts, and rewards, have abdured temporal power, and
- 1:43:56Speaker 1: have lived and taught the limitless and impersonal truth. Compare
- 1:44:01Speaker 1: their lives in teachings, and you will find the same simplicity,
- 1:44:05Speaker 1: the same self sacrifice, the same humility, love, and peace,
- 1:44:12Speaker 1: both lived and preached by them. They taught the same
- 1:44:16Speaker 1: eternal principles, the realization of which destroys all evil. Those
- 1:44:22Speaker 1: who have been held and worshiped as savors of mankind
- 1:44:25Speaker 1: are manifestations of the great impersonal Law, and being such,
- 1:44:31Speaker 1: were free from passion and prejudice, and having no opinions
- 1:44:35Speaker 1: and no special letter of doctrine to preach and defend.
- 1:44:39Speaker 1: They never sought to convert and proselytize, living in the
- 1:44:45Speaker 1: highest goodness, the supreme perfection. Their sole object was to
- 1:44:50Speaker 1: uplift mankind by manifesting that goodness in thought, word, and deed.
- 1:44:58Speaker 1: They stand between men the personal and God the impersonal,
- 1:45:04Speaker 1: and serve as exemplary types for the salvation of self
- 1:45:08Speaker 1: enslaved mankind. Men who are immersed in self, and who
- 1:45:13Speaker 1: cannot comprehend the goodness that is absolutely impersonal, deny divinity
- 1:45:18Speaker 1: to all saviors except their own, and thus introduce personal
- 1:45:23Speaker 1: hatred and doctrinal controversy, And while defending their own particular
- 1:45:30Speaker 1: views with passion, look upon each other as being heathens
- 1:45:34Speaker 1: or infidels, and so render null and void as far
- 1:45:39Speaker 1: as their lives are concerned. The unselfish beauty and wholly
- 1:45:43Speaker 1: grandeur of the lives and teachings of their own masters.
- 1:45:48Speaker 1: Truth cannot be limited. It can never be the special
- 1:45:51Speaker 1: prerogative of any man, school, or nation. And when personality
- 1:45:57Speaker 1: steps in, truth is lost. The glory alike of the Saint,
- 1:46:02Speaker 1: the Sage, and the Savior, is this that he has
- 1:46:06Speaker 1: realized the most profound lowliness, the most sublime unselfishness, and
- 1:46:14Speaker 1: having giving up all even his own personality, all his
- 1:46:18Speaker 1: works are wholly and enduring, for they are freed from
- 1:46:22Speaker 1: every taint of self. He gives, yet never thinks of receiving.
- 1:46:28Speaker 1: He works without regretting the past or anticipating the future,
- 1:46:33Speaker 1: and never looks for reward. When the farmer has tilled
- 1:46:38Speaker 1: and dressed his land and put in the seed. He
- 1:46:41Speaker 1: knows that he has done all that he can possibly do,
- 1:46:44Speaker 1: and that now he must trust to the elements and
- 1:46:47Speaker 1: wait patiently for the course of time to bring about
- 1:46:50Speaker 1: the harvest, and no amount of expectancy on his part
- 1:46:55Speaker 1: will affect the result. Even so, he who is realized
- 1:47:00Speaker 1: truth goes forth as a soorer of the seeds of goodness, purity, love,
- 1:47:06Speaker 1: and peace, without expectancy, and never looking for results, knowing
- 1:47:12Speaker 1: that there is the great overruling law, which brings about
- 1:47:16Speaker 1: its own harvest in due time, and which is alike
- 1:47:21Speaker 1: the source of preservation and destruction. Men, not understanding the
- 1:47:28Speaker 1: divine simplicity of a profoundly unselfish heart, look upon their
- 1:47:33Speaker 1: particular Savior as the manifestation of a special miracle, as
- 1:47:38Speaker 1: being something entirely apart and distinct from the nature of things,
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: as of being in his ethical excellence eternally unapproachable by
- 1:47:48Speaker 1: the whole of mankind. This attitude of unbelief, for such
- 1:47:53Speaker 1: it is in the divine perfectibility of man, paralyzes effort
- 1:47:59Speaker 1: and binds the soul of men as with strong ropes
- 1:48:02Speaker 1: to sin and suffering. Jesus grew in wisdom and was perfected.
- 1:48:07Speaker 1: By suffering. What Jesus was, he became such. What Buddha was,
- 1:48:14Speaker 1: he became such, And every holy man became such by
- 1:48:20Speaker 1: unremitting perseverance in self sacrifice. Once recognized this, once realized
- 1:48:27Speaker 1: that by watchful effort and hopeful perseverance, you can rise
- 1:48:31Speaker 1: above your lower nature, and great and glorious will be
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: the vistas of attainment that will open up before you.
- 1:48:41Speaker 1: Buddha vowed that he would not relax his efforts until
- 1:48:44Speaker 1: he arrived at the state of perfection, and he accomplished
- 1:48:48Speaker 1: his purpose. What the saints, sages, and saviors have accomplished,
- 1:48:55Speaker 1: you likewise may accomplish if you will only tread the
- 1:48:59Speaker 1: way which if they trod and pointed out the way
- 1:49:03Speaker 1: of self sacrifice of self denying servers. Truth is very simple.
- 1:49:11Speaker 1: It says, give up self, come unto me, away from
- 1:49:16Speaker 1: all that defiles, and I will give you rest. All
- 1:49:20Speaker 1: the mountains of commentary that have been piled upon it
- 1:49:24Speaker 1: cannot hide it from the heart that is earnestly seeking
- 1:49:27Speaker 1: for righteousness. It does not require learning. It can be
- 1:49:32Speaker 1: known in spite of learning, disguise under many forms by
- 1:49:37Speaker 1: erring self seeking man. The beautiful simplicity and clear transparency
- 1:49:43Speaker 1: of truth remains unaltered and undimmed, and the unselfish heart
- 1:49:49Speaker 1: enters into and partakes of its shining radiance. Not by
- 1:49:54Speaker 1: weaving complex theories, not by building up speculative philosophies, is
- 1:49:59Speaker 1: truth realize. But by weaving the web of inward purity,
- 1:50:04Speaker 1: by building up the temple of a stainless life, is
- 1:50:07Speaker 1: truth realized. He who enters upon his holy way begins
- 1:50:13Speaker 1: by restraining his passions. This is virtue and is the
- 1:50:17Speaker 1: beginning of saintship, and saintship is the beginning of holiness.
- 1:50:23Speaker 1: The entirely worldly man gratifies all his desires and practices
- 1:50:29Speaker 1: no more restraint than the law of the land in
- 1:50:32Speaker 1: which he lives demands. The virtuous man restrains his passions.
- 1:50:39Speaker 1: The saint attacks the enemy of truth in its stronghold
- 1:50:42Speaker 1: within his own heart, and restrains all selfish and impure thoughts.
- 1:50:49Speaker 1: While the holy man is he who is free from
- 1:50:52Speaker 1: passion and all impure thought, and to whom goodness and
- 1:50:57Speaker 1: purity have become as natural as scent and color are
- 1:51:01Speaker 1: to the flower. The holy man is divinely wise. He
- 1:51:07Speaker 1: alone knows truth in its fullness and has entered into
- 1:51:11Speaker 1: abiding rest and peace. For him, evil has ceased, it
- 1:51:16Speaker 1: has disappeared in the universal light of the awe. Good
- 1:51:21Speaker 1: holiness is the badge of wisdom, said Krishna to Prince Ajuna. Humbleness,
- 1:51:31Speaker 1: truthfulness and harmlessness, patience and honor, reverence for the wise, purity, constancy,
- 1:51:42Speaker 1: control of self, contempt of sense, delights, self sacrifice, perception
- 1:51:50Speaker 1: of the certitude of ill in birth, death, age, disease,
- 1:51:56Speaker 1: suffering and sin, and ever tranquil heart in fortune's good
- 1:52:02Speaker 1: and fortune's evil. Endeavors resolute to reach perception of the
- 1:52:08Speaker 1: utmost soul and grace, to understand what gain it was
- 1:52:12Speaker 1: so to attain. This is true wisdom, Prince, and what
- 1:52:18Speaker 1: is otherwise is ignorance. Whoever fights ceaselessly against his own
- 1:52:25Speaker 1: selfishness and strives to supplant it with all embracing love
- 1:52:30Speaker 1: is a saint. Whether he live in a cottage or
- 1:52:34Speaker 1: in the midst of riches and influence, or whether he
- 1:52:37Speaker 1: preaches or remains obscure to the worldling who is beginning
- 1:52:43Speaker 1: to aspire toward higher things. The saint, such as a
- 1:52:48Speaker 1: sweet Saint Francis of Assisi or conquering Saint Anthony is
- 1:52:53Speaker 1: a glorious and inspiring spectacle to the Saint. An equally
- 1:52:58Speaker 1: enrapturing sight is that of a sage, sitting serene and holy,
- 1:53:03Speaker 1: the conqueror of sin and sorrow, nor more tormented by
- 1:53:08Speaker 1: regret and remorse, and whom even temptation can never reach.
- 1:53:14Speaker 1: And yet even the sage is drawn on by a
- 1:53:16Speaker 1: still more glorious vision, that of the Savior actively manifesting
- 1:53:22Speaker 1: his knowledge in selfless works, and rendering his divinity more
- 1:53:27Speaker 1: potent for good by sinking himself into the throbbing, sorrowing,
- 1:53:32Speaker 1: aspiring heart of mankind. And this only is true service
- 1:53:39Speaker 1: to forget oneself in love towards all, to lose one's
- 1:53:44Speaker 1: self in working for the whole. O, thou vain and
- 1:53:49Speaker 1: foolish man, who thinkest that thy many works can save
- 1:53:52Speaker 1: thee who chain to all error, talkest loudly of thyself,
- 1:53:59Speaker 1: thy work and thy many sacrifices, and magnifest thine own importance.
- 1:54:06Speaker 1: Know this that though thy fame fill the whole earth,
- 1:54:11Speaker 1: all thy work shall come to dust, and thou thyself
- 1:54:14Speaker 1: be reckoned lower than the least. In the Kingdom of truth.
- 1:54:19Speaker 1: Only the work that is impersonal can live. The works
- 1:54:23Speaker 1: of self are both powerless and perishable. Where duties, however
- 1:54:28Speaker 1: so humble, are done without self interest and with joyful sacrifice,
- 1:54:34Speaker 1: there is true service and enduring work. Where deeds, however
- 1:54:40Speaker 1: brilliant and apparently successful, are done from love of self,
- 1:54:45Speaker 1: there is ignorance of the law of service, and the
- 1:54:48Speaker 1: work perishes. It is given to the world to learn
- 1:54:54Speaker 1: one great and divine lesson, the lesson of absolute unselfishness.
- 1:55:00Speaker 1: The saints, sages, and saviors of all time are they
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: who have submitted themselves to this task and have learnt
- 1:55:09Speaker 1: and lived it. All the scriptures of the world are
- 1:55:13Speaker 1: framed to teach this one lesson. All the great teachers
- 1:55:17Speaker 1: reiterated it is too simple for the world, which scorning it,
- 1:55:24Speaker 1: stumbles along in the complex ways of selfishness. A pure
- 1:55:30Speaker 1: heart is the end of all religion and the beginning
- 1:55:33Speaker 1: of divinity. To search for this righteousness is to walk
- 1:55:38Speaker 1: the way of truth and peace. And he who enters
- 1:55:41Speaker 1: this way will soon perceive that immortality which is independent
- 1:55:47Speaker 1: of birth and death, and will realize that in the
- 1:55:51Speaker 1: divine economy of the universe, the humblest effort is not
- 1:55:55Speaker 1: lost the divinity of Krishna Agathalma or at Jesus is
- 1:56:04Speaker 1: the crowning glory of self abnegation, the end of the
- 1:56:08Speaker 1: soul's pilgrimage in matter and mortality. And the world will
- 1:56:13Speaker 1: not have finished its long journey until every soul has
- 1:56:17Speaker 1: become as these and has entered into the blissful realization
- 1:56:22Speaker 1: of its own divinity. Great glory crowns the heights of
- 1:56:27Speaker 1: hope by arduous struggle, one bright honor rounds the hoary
- 1:56:33Speaker 1: head of that mighty works hath done. Fair riches come
- 1:56:39Speaker 1: to him who strives in ways of golden gain, and
- 1:56:44Speaker 1: fame enshrines his name, who works with genius glowing brain.
- 1:56:50Speaker 1: But greater glory waits for him who, in the bloodless strife,
- 1:56:55Speaker 1: gainst self and wrong, adopts in love the sacrificial life.
- 1:57:03Speaker 1: And brighter honor rounds the brow of him who mid
- 1:57:07Speaker 1: the scorns of blind idolators of self, accepts the crown
- 1:57:11Speaker 1: of thorns, and fairer purer riches come to him who
- 1:57:17Speaker 1: greatly strives to walk in ways of love and truth
- 1:57:21Speaker 1: to sweeten human lives. And he who serveth well mankind
- 1:57:26Speaker 1: exchanges fleeting fame for light, eternal joy and peace, and
- 1:57:32Speaker 1: robes of heavenly flame. End of chapter six, the realization
- 1:57:42Speaker 1: of perfect peace. In the external universe, there is ceaseless turmoil, change,
- 1:57:48Speaker 1: and unrest. At the heart of all things, there is
- 1:57:51Speaker 1: undisturbed repose in this deep silence. Dwelleth the eternal man
- 1:57:56Speaker 1: partakes of this duality, and both the surface change and
- 1:58:00Speaker 1: quietude and the deep seated eternal bode of peace are
- 1:58:03Speaker 1: contained within him. As there are silent depths in the
- 1:58:07Speaker 1: ocean which the fierce's storm cannot reach, so there are silent,
- 1:58:11Speaker 1: holy depths in the heart of man which the storms
- 1:58:13Speaker 1: of sin and sorrow can never disturb. To reach this
- 1:58:17Speaker 1: silence and to live consciously in it is peace. Discord
- 1:58:21Speaker 1: is rife in the outward world, but unbroken harmony holds
- 1:58:25Speaker 1: sway at the heart of the universe. The human soul,
- 1:58:29Speaker 1: torn by discordant passion and grief, reaches blindly toward the
- 1:58:32Speaker 1: harmony of the sinless state. And to reach this state
- 1:58:36Speaker 1: and to live consciously in it is peace. Hatred servers
- 1:58:40Speaker 1: human lives, foster's persecution, and hurls nations into ruthless war.
- 1:58:46Speaker 1: Yet men, though they do not understand why retain some
- 1:58:50Speaker 1: measure of faith in the overshadowing of a perfect love?
- 1:58:54Speaker 1: And to reach this love and to live consciously in
- 1:58:56Speaker 1: it is peace? And this inward pace, peace, this silence,
- 1:59:02Speaker 1: this harmony, this love is the kingdom of Heaven, which
- 1:59:07Speaker 1: is so difficult to reach because few are willing to
- 1:59:09Speaker 1: give up themselves and to become as little children. Heaven's
- 1:59:15Speaker 1: gate is very narrow and minute. It cannot be perceived
- 1:59:18Speaker 1: by foolish men blinded by vain illusions of the world e'en.
- 1:59:22Speaker 1: The clear sighted, who discern the way and seek to enter,
- 1:59:27Speaker 1: find the portal bard and hard to be unlocked. Its
- 1:59:31Speaker 1: massive bolts are pride and passion, avarice and lust. Men
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: cry peace, peace where there is no peace, but on
- 1:59:42Speaker 1: the contrary discord, disquietude, and strife. Apart from that wisdom
- 1:59:47Speaker 1: which is inseparable from self renunciation, there can be no
- 1:59:51Speaker 1: real and abiding peace. The peace which results from social comfort, passing, gratification,
- 1:59:58Speaker 1: or worldly victory is transitive in its nature and is
- 2:00:01Speaker 1: burnt up in the heat of fury trial. Only the
- 2:00:05Speaker 1: peace of Heaven endures through all trial, and only the
- 2:00:09Speaker 1: selfless heart can know the peace of Heaven. Holiness alone
- 2:00:14Speaker 1: is undying peace. Self control leads to it, and the
- 2:00:18Speaker 1: ever increasing light of wisdom guides the pilgrim on his way.
- 2:00:22Speaker 1: It is partaken of in a measure as soon as
- 2:00:25Speaker 1: the path of virtue is entered upon, but it is
- 2:00:27Speaker 1: only realized in its fullness when self disappears in the
- 2:00:31Speaker 1: consummation of a stainless life. This is peace, to conquer
- 2:00:36Speaker 1: love of self and lust of life, to tear deep
- 2:00:39Speaker 1: rooted passion from the heart, to steal the inward strife.
- 2:00:43Speaker 1: If o reader, you would realize the light that never fades,
- 2:00:48Speaker 1: the joy that never ends, and the tranquility that cannot
- 2:00:51Speaker 1: be disturbed. If you would leave behind forever your sins,
- 2:00:55Speaker 1: your sorrows, your anxieties and perplexities. If I say you
- 2:01:00Speaker 1: would partake of this salvation, this supremely glorious life, then
- 2:01:05Speaker 1: conquer yourself, bring every thought, every impulse, every desire into
- 2:01:11Speaker 1: perfect obedience to the divine power resident within you. There
- 2:01:16Speaker 1: is no other way to peace but this, And if
- 2:01:18Speaker 1: you refuse to walk it, your much praying and your
- 2:01:21Speaker 1: strict adherence to ritual will be fruitless and unavailing, And
- 2:01:25Speaker 1: neither gods nor angels can help you. Only to him
- 2:01:29Speaker 1: that overcometh is given the white stone of the regenerate life,
- 2:01:34Speaker 1: on which is written the new and ineffable name. Come
- 2:01:38Speaker 1: away for a while from external things, from the pleasures
- 2:01:42Speaker 1: of the senses, from the arguments of the intellect, from
- 2:01:46Speaker 1: the noise and the excitements of the world, and withdraw
- 2:01:49Speaker 1: yourself into the inmost chamber of your heart. And there,
- 2:01:53Speaker 1: free from the sacrilegious intrusion of all your selfish desires,
- 2:01:57Speaker 1: you will find a deep silence, a whole calm, a
- 2:02:01Speaker 1: blissful repose. And if you will rest there a while,
- 2:02:04Speaker 1: in that holy place and will meditate there, the faultless
- 2:02:08Speaker 1: eye of truth will open within you, and you will
- 2:02:11Speaker 1: see things as they really are. This holy place within
- 2:02:15Speaker 1: you is your real and eternal self. It is the
- 2:02:17Speaker 1: divine within you. And only when you identify yourself with
- 2:02:21Speaker 1: it can you be said to be closed in your
- 2:02:23Speaker 1: right mind. It is the abode of peace, the temple
- 2:02:27Speaker 1: of wisdom, the dwelling place of immortality. Apart from this
- 2:02:31Speaker 1: inward resting place, this amount of vision, there can be
- 2:02:35Speaker 1: no true peace, no knowledge of the divine. And if
- 2:02:38Speaker 1: you can remain there for one minute, one hour, or
- 2:02:41Speaker 1: one day, it is possible for you to remain there always.
- 2:02:46Speaker 1: All your sins and sorrows, your fears and anxieties are
- 2:02:50Speaker 1: your own, and you can cling to them, or you
- 2:02:52Speaker 1: can give them up of your own accord. You cling
- 2:02:56Speaker 1: to your unrest of your own accord, you can come
- 2:02:59Speaker 1: to a peace. No one else can give up sin
- 2:03:03Speaker 1: for you. You must give it up yourself. The greatest
- 2:03:07Speaker 1: teacher can do no more than walk the way of
- 2:03:09Speaker 1: truth for himself and point it out to you. You
- 2:03:13Speaker 1: must walk it for yourself. You can obtain freedom and
- 2:03:17Speaker 1: peace alone by your own efforts, by yielding up that
- 2:03:20Speaker 1: which binds the soul and which is destructive of peace.
- 2:03:25Speaker 1: The angels of divine peace and joy are always at hand,
- 2:03:28Speaker 1: and if you do not see them and hear them,
- 2:03:31Speaker 1: and dwell with them, it is because you shut yourself
- 2:03:34Speaker 1: out from them and prefer the company of the spirits
- 2:03:36Speaker 1: of evil within you. You are what you will to be,
- 2:03:40Speaker 1: what you wish to be, what you prefer to be.
- 2:03:44Speaker 1: You can commence to purify yourself, and by so doing
- 2:03:47Speaker 1: can arrive at peace, or you can refuse to purify
- 2:03:50Speaker 1: yourself and so remain with suffering. Step aside, then come
- 2:03:56Speaker 1: out of the threat and fever of life. Away from
- 2:03:59Speaker 1: the scotch heat of self, and enter the inward resting place,
- 2:04:03Speaker 1: where the cooling ears of peace will calm, renew and restore. You.
- 2:04:09Speaker 1: Come out of the storms of sin and anguish. Why
- 2:04:12Speaker 1: be troubled and tempest to tossed When the haven of
- 2:04:15Speaker 1: peace of God is yours, Give up all self seeking,
- 2:04:21Speaker 1: give up self and lo the peace of God is yours.
- 2:04:26Speaker 1: Subdue the animal within you, conquer every selfish uprising, every
- 2:04:31Speaker 1: discordant voice, transmute the base mettals of your selfish nature
- 2:04:35Speaker 1: into the unallowed gold of love, and you shall realize
- 2:04:39Speaker 1: the life of perfect peace, Thus subduing, thus conquering, thus transmuting.
- 2:04:47Speaker 1: You will, o reader, while living in the flesh, cross
- 2:04:51Speaker 1: the dark waters of mortality, and will reach that shore
- 2:04:55Speaker 1: upon which the storms of sorrow never beat, and where
- 2:04:58Speaker 1: sin and suffering and dark unst certainty cannot come. Standing
- 2:05:03Speaker 1: upon that shore, holy, compassionate, awakened and self possessed and
- 2:05:08Speaker 1: glad with unending gladness, you will realize that never the
- 2:05:13Speaker 1: spirit was born, the spirit will cease to be. Never,
- 2:05:17Speaker 1: never was time, It was not end and beginning. Are
- 2:05:20Speaker 1: dreams birthless and deathless. And changeless, remaineth the spirit forever
- 2:05:27Speaker 1: death hath not touched it at all, dead though the
- 2:05:30Speaker 1: house of it seems. You will then know the meaning
- 2:05:34Speaker 1: of sin, of sorrow, of suffering, and that the end
- 2:05:38Speaker 1: thereof is wisdom, will know the cause and the issue
- 2:05:41Speaker 1: of existence. And with this realization you will enter into rest.
- 2:05:46Speaker 1: For this is the bliss of immortality. This is the
- 2:05:49Speaker 1: unchangeable gladness, This the untrammeled knowledge, undefiled wisdom, and undying love. This,
- 2:05:57Speaker 1: and this only is the realization of perfect peace. O
- 2:06:04Speaker 1: thou who wouldst teach men of truth? Hast thou passed
- 2:06:07Speaker 1: through the desert of doubt? Art thou purged by the
- 2:06:10Speaker 1: fires of sorrow, hath ruth the fiends of opinion cast
- 2:06:15Speaker 1: out of thy human heart? Is thy soul so fair
- 2:06:19Speaker 1: that no false thought can ever harbor there? O thou
- 2:06:23Speaker 1: who wouldst teach men of love? Hast thou passed through
- 2:06:26Speaker 1: the place of despair? Hast thou wept through the dark
- 2:06:30Speaker 1: knight of grief? Does it move thy human heart to
- 2:06:33Speaker 1: pitying gentleness, looking on wrong and hate and ceaseless stress?
- 2:06:39Speaker 1: O thou who wouldst teach men of peace? Hast thou
- 2:06:42Speaker 1: crossed the wide ocean of strife. Hast thou found on
- 2:06:45Speaker 1: the shores of the Silence. Release from all the wild
- 2:06:48Speaker 1: unrest of life, from thy human heart. Hath all striving gone,
- 2:06:53Speaker 1: leaving but truth and love and peace alone