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Above Life's Turmoil · Above Life's Turmoil

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We cannot alter external things, nor shape other people to our liking, nor
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mold the world to our wishes. But we can alter internal things, our
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desires, passions, thoughts. We can shape our liking to other people,
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and we can mold the inner world of our own mind in accordance with wisdom,
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and so reconcile it to the outer world of men and things. The
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turmoil of the world we cannot avoid, but the disturbances of mind we can
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overcome. The duties and difficulties of life claim our attention, but we can
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give rise above all anxiety concerning them. Surrounded by noise, we can yet
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have a quiet mind involved in responsibilities. The heart can be at rest in
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the midst of strife. We can know the abiding peace. The twenty pieces
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which comprise this book, unrelated as some of them are in the letter,
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will be found to be harmonious in the spirit, in that they point the
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reader towards those heights of self knowledge and self conquest, which, rising above
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the turbulence of the world, lift their piques where the heavenly silence reigns.
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James Allen, Chapter one, True Happiness. To maintain an unchangeable sweetness of
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disposition to think only thoughts that are pure and gentle, and to be happy
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under all circumstances. Such blessed conditions, and such beauty of character and life
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should be the aim of all, and particularly so of those who wish to
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lessen the misery of the world. If any one has failed to lift himself
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above ungentleness, impurity, and unhappiness, he is greatly deluded if he imagines
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he can make the world happier by the properation of any theory or theology.
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He who is daily living in harshness, impurity, or unhappiness, is day
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by day adding to the sum of the world's misery. Whereas he who continually
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lives in good will and does not depart from happiness, is day by day
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increasing the sum of the world's happiness, and this independently of any religious beliefs,
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which these may or may not hold. He who has not learned how
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to be gentle, or giving, loving and happy has learned very little great
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though his book learning and profound his acquaintance, which the letter of Scripture may
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be. For it is in the process of becoming gentle, pure and happy,
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that the deep, real and enduring lessons of life are learned unbroken sweetness
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of conduct in the face of all outward antagonism, is the infallible indication of
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a self conquered soul, the witness of wisdom, and the proof of the
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possession of truth. A sweet and happy soul is the ripened fruit of experience
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and wisdom, and it sheds abroad the invisible yet powerful aroma of its influence,
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gladdening the hearts of others and purifying the world. And all who will
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and who have not yet commenced, may begin this day if they will so
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resolve to live sweetly and happily, as becomes the dignity of a true manhood
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or womanhood. Do not say that your surroundings are against you. A man's
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surroundings are never against him. They are there to aid him. And all
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those outward occurrences over which you lose sweetness and peace of mind are the very
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conditions necessary to your development, and it is only by meeting and overcoming them
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that you can learn and grow and ripen. The fault is in yourself.
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Pure happiness is the rightful and healthy cans condition of the soul, and all
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may possess it if they will live purely and unselfish, have good will to
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all that lives, letting unkindness die and greed and wrath, so that your
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lives be made like soft airs passing by. Is this too difficult for you,
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then unrest and happiness will continue to dwell with you. Your belief and
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aspiration and resolve are all that are necessary to make it easy to render it
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in the near future. A thing accomplished, a blessed state realizes despondency,
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irritability, anxiety and complaining, condemning and grumbling. All these are thought cankers,
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mind diseases. They are the indications of a wrong mental condition, and
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those who suffer they are from would do well to remedy their thinking and conduct.
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It is true there is much sin and misery in the world, so
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that all our love and compassion are needed. But our misery is not needed.
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There is already too much of that. Know, it is our cheerfulness
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and happiness that are needed, for there is too little of that. We
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can give nothing better to the world than beauty of life and character. Without
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this, all other things are vain. This is pre eminently excellent. It
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is enduring, real, and not to be overthrown, And it includes all
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joy and blessedness. Cease to dwell pessimistically upon the wrongs around you. Dwell
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no more in complaints about and revolt against the evil in others, and commence
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to live free from all wrong and evil. Yourself, Peace of mind,
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pure religion, and truer form lie this way. If you would have others
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true, be true. If you would have the world emancipated from misery and
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sin, emancipate yourself. If you would have your home and your surroundings happy,
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be happy. You can transform everything around you if you will transform yourself.
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Don't bewail and bemoan. Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against
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the bad, but chant the beauties of the good. And this you will
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naturally and spontaneously do as you realize the good in yourself. Chapter two,
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The Immortal Man. Immortality is here and now, and is not a speculative
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something beyond the grave. It is the lucid state of consciousness, in which
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the sensations of the body, the varying and unrestful states of mind, and
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the circumstances and events of life are seen to be of a fleeting and therefore
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of an illusory character. Immortality does not belong to time, and never will
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be found in time. It belongs to eternity. And just as time is
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here and now, so is it turnity here and now. And a man
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may find that eternity and establish in it if he will overcome the self that
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derives its life from the unsatisfying and perishable things of time. Whilst a man
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remains immersed in sensation, desire, and the passing events of his day by
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day existence, and regards those sensations, desires, in passing events as of
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the essence of himself, he can have no knowledge of immortality. The thing
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which such a man desires, and which he mistakes for immortality, is persistence.
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That is a continuous succession of sensations and events in time, living in,
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loving and clinging to the things which stimulate and minister to his immediate gratification,
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and realizing no state of consciousness above an independent of this, he thirsts
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for its continuance, and strives to banish the thought that he will at last
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have to part from those earthly luxuries and delights to which he has become enslaved,
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and which he regards as being inseparable from himself. Persistence is the anti
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thesis of immortality, and to be absorbed in it is spiritual death. Its
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very nature is change impermanence. It is a continual living and dying. The
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death of the body can never bestow upon a man immortality. Spirits are not
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different from men and live their little, feverish life of broken consciousness and are
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still immersed in change immortality. The mortal man, he who thirst for the
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persistence of his pleasure loving personality, is still mortal after death, and only
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lives another life with a beginning and an end, without memory of the past
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or knowledge of the future. The immortal man is he who has detached himself
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from the thing of time by having ascended into the state of consciousness, which
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is fixed and unvariable and is not affected by passing events and sensations. Human
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life consists of an ever moving process of events, and in this procession the
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mortal man is immersed and he is carried along with it, and being so
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carried along, he has no knowledge of what is behind and before him.
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The immortal man is he who has stepped out of this procession, and he
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stands by, unmoved, and watches it. And from his fixed place he
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sees both the before, the behind, in the middle of the moving thing
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called life. No longer identifying himself with the sensations and fluctuations of the personality
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or with the outward changes which make up the life in time, he has
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become the passionless spectator of his own destiny and of the destinies of the men
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and nations. The mortal man all also is one who is caught in a
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dream, and he neither knows that he was formally awake, nor that he
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will awake again. He is a dreamer without knowledge, nothing more. The
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immortal man is as one who has awakened out of his dream, and he
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knows that his dream was not in enduring reality, but a passing illusion.
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He is a man with knowledge, the knowledge of both states, that of
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persistence and that of immortality, and is in full possession of himself. The
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mortal man lives in the time or world's state of consciousness, which begins and
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ends. The immortal man lives in the cosmic or heaven state of consciousness,
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in which there is neither beginning nor end, but an eternal now. Such
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a man remains poised and steadfast under all changes, and the death of his
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body will not in any way interrupt the eternal consciousness in which he abides.
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Such a one, it is said he shall not taste of death, because
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he has stepped out of the stream of mortality and established himself in the abode
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of truth. Bodies, personalities, nations, and worlds pass away, but
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truth remains, and its glory is undimmed by time. The immortal man,
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then, is he who has conquered himself, who no longer identifies with the
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self seeking forces of the personality, but who has trained himself to direct those
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forces with the hand of a master, and so has brought them into harmony
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with the causal energy and the source of all things. The fret and fever
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of life has ceased. Doubt and fear are cast out, and death is
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not for him who has realized the fathless splendor of that life of truth,
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by adjusting heart and mind to the eternal and unchangeable verities. The overcoming of
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self. Many people have very confused and erroneous ideas concerning the terms the overcoming
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of self, the eradication of desire, and the annihilation of the personality.
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Some, particularly the intellectual, who are prone to theories regarded as a metaphysical
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theory altogether apart from life and conduct, while others conclude that it is the
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crushing out of all life, energy, and action, and the attempt to
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idolize stagnation and death. These errors and confusions, arising as they do in
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the minds of individuals, can only be removed by the individuals themselves, but
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perhaps it might make their removal a little less difficult for those who are seeking
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the truth by presenting the matter in another way. The doctrine of the overcoming
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or annihilation of self is simplicity itself. Indeed, so simple, practical and
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close at hand is it that a child of whose mind has not yet become
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clouded with theories, theological schemes, and speculative philosophies would be far more likely
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to comprehend it than many older people who have lost their hold upon simple and
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beautiful truths by the adoption of complicated theories. The annihilation of self consists in
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weeding out and destroying all those elements in the soul which lead to division,
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strife, suffering, disease, and sorrow. It does not mean the destruction
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of any good and beautiful and peace producing quality. For instance, when a
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man is tempted to irritability or anger, and by a great effort overcomes the
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selfish tendency, casts it from him, and acts from the spirit of patience
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and love. In that moment of self conquest, he practices the annihilation of
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self. Every noble man practices it in part, though he may deny it
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in his own words. And he he who carries out this practice to its
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completion, eradicating every selfish tendency until only the divinely beautiful qualities remain, He
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is said to have annihilated the personality, all the personal elements, and to
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have arrived at truth. The self, which is to be annihilated is composed
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of the following ten worthless and sorrow producing elements lust, hatred, avarice,
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self indulgence, self seeking, vanity, pride, doubt, dark, belief,
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delusion. It is the total abandonment, the complete annihilation of these ten
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elements, for they comprise the body of desire. On the other hand,
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it teaches the cultivation, practice, and preservation of the following ten divine qualities
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purity, patience, humility, self sacrifice, self reliance, fearlessness, knowledge,
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wisdom, compassion, love. These comprise the body of truth and to
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live entirely in them is to be a doer and knower of the truth,
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is to be an embodiment of truth. The combination of the ten elements is
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called self or the personality. The combination of the ten qualities produces what is
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called truth, the impersonal, the abiding, real, and immortal man.
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It will thus be seen that it is not the destruction of any noble,
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true, and enduring quality that is taught, but only the destruction of those
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things that are ignoble, false, and evanescent. Neither is this overcoming of
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self the deprivation of gladness, happiness, and joy, but rather it is
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the constant possession of these things, by living in the joy, begetting qualty.
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It is the abandonment of the lust for enjoyment, but not of enjoyment
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itself, the destruction of the thirst for pleasure, but not of pleasure itself,
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the annihilation of the selfish longing for love and power and possessions themselves.
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It is the preservation of all those things which draw and bind men together in
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unity and concord, and, far from idolizing stagnation and death, urges men
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to the practice of those qualities which lead to the highest noblest and most effective
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and enduring action. He whose actions proceed from some or all of the ten
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elements wastes his energies upon negations, and does not preserve his soul. But
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he whose actions proceed from some or all of the ten qualities, he truly
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and wisely acts, and so preserves his soul. He who lives largely in
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the ten earthly elements, and who is blind and deaf to the spiritual varidities,
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will find no attraction in the doctrine of self surrender, for it will
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appear to him as the complete extinction of his being. But he who is
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endeavoring to live in the ten heavenly qualities will see the glory and beauty of
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the doctrine, and will know it as the foundation of life eternal. He
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will also see that when men apprehend and practice it, industry, commerce,
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government, and every worldly activity will be purified, and action, purpose,
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and intelligence, instead of being destroyed, will be intensified and enlarged, but
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free from strife and pain. Chapter four, The Uses of temptation. The
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soul, in its journey towards perfection, passes through three distinct stages. The
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first is the animal stage, in which the man is content to live in
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the gratification of his senses, unawaken into the knowledge of sin or of his
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divine inheritance, and altogether unconscious of the spiritual possibilities within himself. The second
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is the dual stage, in which the mind is continually oscillating between its animal
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and divine tendencies, having become awakened to the consciousness of both. It is
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during this stage that temptation plays its part in the progress of the soul.
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It is a stage of continual fighting, of falling and rising, of sinning
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and repenting. For the man, still loving and reluctant to leave the gratifications
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in which he has so long lived, yet also aspires to the purity and
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excellence of the spiritual state, and he is continually mortified by an undecided choice
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urged on by the divine life within him. This stage becomes at last one
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of deep anguish and suffering, and then the soul is ushered into the third
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stage, that of knowledge, in which the man rises above both sin and
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temptation and enters into peace. Temptation, like contentment in sin, is not
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a lasting condition, as the majority of people suppose. It is a passing
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phase. An experience through which the soul must pass. But as to whether
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a man will pass through that condition in this present life and realize holiness and
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heavenly rest here and now will depend entirely upon the strength of his intellectual and
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spiritual exertions, and upon the intensity and order with which he searches for truth.
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Temptation, with all its attendant torments, can be overcome here and now,
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but it can only be overcome by knowledge. It is a condition of
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darkness or of semi darkness. The fully enlightened soul is proof against all temptation.
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When a man fully understands the source, nat and meaning of temptation,
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in that hour, he will conquer it and will rest from his long travel.
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But whilst he remains in ignorance, attention to religious observances and much praying
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and reading of scripture will fail to bring him peace. If a man goes
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out to conquer an enemy, knowing nothing of his enemy's strength, tactics,
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or place of ambush, he will not only ignomomously fall, but will speedily
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fall into the hands of an enemy. He who would overcome his enemy,
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the tempter must discover his stronghold and place of concealment, and must also find
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out the unguarded gates in his own fortress where his enemy affects so easily an
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entrance. This necessitates continual meditation, ceaseless watchfulness, and constant and rigid introspection,
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which lays bare before the spiritual eyes of the tempted one the vain and
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selfish motives of his soul. This is the holy warfare of the saints.
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It is the fight upon which every soul enters when it awakens out of its
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long sleep of animal indulgence. Men fail to conquer, and the fight is
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indefinitely prolonged because they labor almost universally under two delusions, first that all temptations
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come from without, and second that they are tempted because of their goodness.
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Whilst demand is held in bondage by these two delusions, he will make no
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progress. When he has shaken them off, he will pass on rapidly from
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victory to victory, and will taste of spiritual joy and rest. Two searching
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truths must take the place of these two delusions, and those truths are first
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that all temptation comes from within, and second that a man is tempted because
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of the evil that is within him. The idea that God, a devil,
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evil spirits, or outward objects are the source of temptation must be dispelled.
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The source and cause of all temptation is in the inward desire that being
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purified or eliminated. Outward objects and extraneous powers are utterly powerless to move the
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soul to sin or to temptation. The outward object is merely the occasion of
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the temptation, never the cause. This is the desire of the one tempted.
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If the cause existed in the object, all men would be tempted alike.
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Temptation could never be overcome, and men would be hopelessly doomed to endless
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torment. But seated as it is in his own desires, he has the
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remedy in his own hands, and can become victorious over all temptation by purifying
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those desires. A man is tempted because there are within him certain desires,
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are states of mind which he has come to regard as unholy. These desires
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may lie asleep for a long time, and the man may think that he
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has gotten rid of them, when suddenly, on the presentation of an outward
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object, the sleeping desire wakes up and thirsts of immediate gratification. And this
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is the state of temptation. The good in man is never tempted. Goodness
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destroys temptation. It is the evil in a man that is aroused and tempted.
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The measure of a man's temptations is the exact register of his own unholiness.
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As a man purifies his heart, temptation ceases. For when a certain
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unlawful desire has been taken out of the heart, the object which formerly appealed
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to it can no longer do so, but becomes dead and powerless, for
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there is nothing left in the heart that can respond to it. The honest
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man cannot be tempted to steal, let the occasion be ever so opportune.
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The man of purified appetites cannot be tempted to gluttony and drunkenness, though the
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viands and wines be the most luscious. He of an enlightened understanding, whose
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mind is calm and the strength of inward virtue, can never be tempted to
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anger, irritability, or revenge. And the wiles and charms of the wanton
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fall upon the purified heart as empty, meaningless shadows. Temptation shows a man
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just where he is sinful and ignorant, and is a means of urging him
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onto higher altitudes of knowledge and purity. Without temptation, the soul cannot grow
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and become strong. There could be no wisdom, no real virtue, and
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though there would be lethargy and death, there could be no peace and no
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fullness of life. When temptation is understood and conquered, perfection is assured,
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and such perfection may become any man's who is willing to cast every selfish and
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impure desire by which he is possessed, into the sacrifice fire of knowledge.
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Let men therefore search diligently for truth, realizing that whilst they are subject to
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temptation, they have not comprehended truth and have much to learn. You,
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who are tempted, know then that ye are tempted of yourselves. For every
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man is tempted when he is drawn away from his own loss, says the
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apostle James, you are tempted because you are clinging to the animal within you
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and are unwilling to let go, because you are living in the false mortal
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self, which is ever devoid of all true knowledge, knowing nothing, seeking
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nothing but its own immediate gratification, Ignorant of every truth and of every divine
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principle. Clinging to that self, you continually suffer the pains of three separate
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torments, the torment of desire, the torment of repletion, and the torment
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of remorse. So flameth trishna, lust and thirst of things. Eager,
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ye cleave to shadows, dote on dreams, a false self in the midst
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ye plant and make a world around which seems blind to the height beyond,
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deaf to the sound of sweet airs breathed from far past Indra's sky, dumb
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to the summons of the true life kept for him who false puts by.
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So grow the strifes and lusts which make Earth's war so grief poor, cheated
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hearts and flow, salt tears so wax, The passions envies anger's hates,
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So years chase blood stained years with wild red feet. In that false self
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lies the germ of every suffering, the blight of every hope, the substance
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of every grief. When you are ready to give it up, when you
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are willing to have laid bare for you, all its selfishness, impurity,
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and ignorance, and to confess its darkness to the uttermost. Then will you
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enter upon the life of self knowledge and self mastery. You will become conscious
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of the God within you, of that divine nature which, seeking no gratification,
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abides in a region of perpetual joy and peace, where suffering cannot come,
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and where temptation can find no foothold. Establishing yourself day by day more
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and more firmly in that inward divinity, the time will at last come when
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you will be able to stay with him whom millions worship, few understand,
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and fewer still follow. The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in
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me, the man of integrity. There are times in the life of every
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man who takes his stand on high moral principles when his faith in and knowledge
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of these principles is tested to the uttermost, and the way in which he
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comes out of the fiery trial decides as to whether he has sufficient strength to
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live as a man of truth and join the company of the free, or
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shall still remain a slave and a hireling to the cruel taskmaster self. Such
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times of trial generally assume the form of a temptation to do a wrong thing
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and continue in comfort and prosperity, or to stand by what is right and
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accept poverty and failure. And so powerful is the trial that to the tempted
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one it plainly appears on the face of things, as though if he chooses
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the wrong his material success will be assured for the remainder of his life,
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but if he does what is right, he will be ruined forever. Frequently
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the man at once quails and gives way before this appalling prospect, which the
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path of righteousness seems to hold out for him. But should he prove sufficiently
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strong to withstand this onslought of temptation than the inward seducer, the spirit of
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self assumes the grab of an angel of light and whispers, Think of your
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wife and children, Think of those who are dependent upon you. Will you
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bring them down to disgrace and starvation? Strong, indeed, and pure must
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be the man who can come triumphant out of such a trial. But he
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who does so enters at once a higher realm of life, where his spiritual
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eyes are open to see beautiful things. And then poverty and ruin, which
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seemed inevitable, do not come, but a more abiding success comes and a
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peaceful heart and a quiet conscience. But he who fails does not obtain the
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promised prosperity, and his heart is restless and his conscience troubled. The right
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doer cannot ultimately fail, the wrongdoer cannot ultimately succeed. For such is the
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law which moves to righteousness, which none at last can turn aside or stray.
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And it is because justice is at the heart of things, because the
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great law is good, that the man of integrity is superior to fear and
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failure and poverty and shame and disgrace. As the poet further says, of
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this law, the heart of its love, the end of it is peace
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and consummation, sweet obey. The man who, fearing the loss of present
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pleasures or material comforts, denies the truth within him, can be injured and
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robbed and degraded and trampled upon, because he first injured, robbed, and
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degraded and trampled upon his own nobler self. But the man of steadfast virtue,
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of unblemished integrity cannot be subject to such conditions, because he has denied
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the craven self within him, and has taken refuge in truth. It is
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not the scourge in the chains which make a man a slave, but the
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fact that he is a slave. Slander, accusation, and malice cannot affect
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the righteous man, nor call from him any bitter response. Nor does he
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need to go about to defend himself and prove his innocence. His innocence and
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integrity alone are a sufficient answer to all that hatred may attempt against him.
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Nor can he ever be subdued by the forces of darkness, having subdued all
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those forces within himself. But he turns all evil things to good account out
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of darkness. He brings light out of hatred, love, out of dishonor,
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Honor and slanders, envies, and misrepresentations only serve to make more bright
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jewel of truth within him, and to glorify his high and holy destiny.
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Let the man of integrity rejoice and be glad when he is severely tried.
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Let him be thankful that he has been given an opportunity of proving his loyalty
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to the noble principles which he has expoused. And let him think, now
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is the hour of holy opportunity. Now is the day of triumph for truth.
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Though I lose the whole world. I will not desert the right,
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so thinking he will return good for evil, and will think compassionately of the
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wrong doer, the slanderer, the backbiter, and the wrong doer. May
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seem to succeed for a time, but the law of justice prevails. The
32:47
man of integrity may seem to fail for a time, but he is invincible,
32:52
and in none of the world's visible or invisible can there be forged a
32:58
weapon that shall prevail against him. Chapter six. Discrimination. There is one
33:05
quality which is pre eminently necessary to spiritual development, the quality of discrimination.
33:12
A man's spiritual progress will be painfully slow and uncertain until their opens with him
33:19
the eye of discrimination. For without this testing proving searching quality, he will
33:25
but grope in the dark, will be unable to distinguish the real from the
33:30
unreal, the shadow from the substance, and will so confuse the false with
33:35
the true as to mistake the inward promptings of his animal nature for those of
33:39
the spirit of truth. A blind man left in a strange place may go
33:45
grope his way in the darkness, but not without much confusion and many painful
33:51
falls and bruisings. Without discrimination, a man is mentally blind, and his
33:58
life is a painful groping in darkness, a confusion in which vice and virtue
34:02
are indistinguishable one from the other, where facts are confounded with truths, opinions
34:09
with principles, and where ideas, events, men, and things appear to
34:15
be out of all relation to each other. A man's mind and life should
34:20
be free from confusion. He should be prepared to meet every mental, material,
34:25
and spiritual difficulty, and should not be inextricably caught, as many are,
34:31
in the meshes of doubt, indecision, and uncertainty when troubles, in
34:37
so called misfortunes, come along. He should be fortified against every emergency that
34:42
can come against him. But such mental preparedness and strength cannot be attained in
34:47
any degree without discrimination, and discrimination can only be developed by bringing into play
34:54
and constantly exercising the analytical faculty. Mind, like muscle, is developed by
35:02
use, and the assiduous exercise of the mind in any given direction will develop
35:08
in that direction mental capacity and power. The merely critical faculty is developed and
35:15
strengthened by continuously comparing and analyzing the ideas and opinions of others. But discrimination
35:23
is something more and greater than criticism. It is a spiritual quality from which
35:29
the cruelty and egotism which so frequently accompany criticism are eliminated, and by virtue
35:37
of which a man sees things as they are and not as he would like
35:40
them to be. Discrimination, being a spiritual quality, can only be developed
35:47
by spiritual methods, namely, by questioning, examining, and analyzing one's own
35:54
ideas, opinions, and conduct. The critical fault finding fact faculty must be
36:00
withdrawn from its merciless application to the opinions and conduct of others, and must
36:07
be applied with undiminished severity to one's self. A man must be prepared to
36:13
question his every opinion, his every thought, in his every line of conduct,
36:19
and rigorously and logically tests them. Only in this way can the discrimination
36:25
which destroys confusion be developed. Before a man can enter upon such mental exercise,
36:32
he must make himself of a teachable spirit. This does not mean that
36:37
he must allow himself to be led by others. It means that he must
36:42
be prepared to yield up any cherished thoughts to which he clings if it will
36:46
not bear the penetrating light of reason. If it shrivels up before the pure
36:52
flames of searching aspirations. The man who says I am right, and who
36:59
refuses to question his position in order to discover whether he is right, will
37:04
continue to follow the line of his passions and prejudices, and will not acquire
37:08
discrimination. The man who humbly asks, am I right, and then proceeds
37:15
to test and prove his position by earnest thought and the love of truth,
37:21
will always be able to discover the true and to distinguish it from the false,
37:27
and he will acquire the priceless possession of discrimination. The man who is
37:31
afraid to think searchingly upon his opinions and to reason critically upon his position will
37:38
have to develop moral courage before he can acquire discrimination. A man must be
37:45
true to himself, fearless with himself, before he can perceive the pure principles
37:51
of truth, before he can receive the all revealing light of truth. The
37:55
more truth is inquired of, the brighter it shine. It cannot suffer under
38:01
examination and analysis. The more error is questioned, the darker it grows.
38:08
It cannot survive the entrance of pure and searching thought. To prove all things
38:15
is to find the good and throw the evil. He who reasons and meditates
38:20
learns to discriminate. He who discriminates discovers the eternally true. Confusion, suffering,
38:28
and spiritual darkness follow the thoughtless harmony, blessedness and the light of truth
38:35
attend upon the thoughtful. Passion and prejudice are blind and cannot discriminate. They
38:42
are still crucifying the Christ and releasing Barabbas. Belief the basis of action.
38:50
Belief is an important word in the teachings of the Wise, and it figures
38:54
prominently in all religions. According to Jesus, a certain kind kind of belief
39:00
is necessary to salvation or regeneration, and Buddha definitely thought that the right belief
39:07
is the first and most essential step in the way of truth, as without
39:12
right belief there cannot be right conduct, and he who has not learned how
39:16
to rightly govern and conduct himself has not comprehended the simplest rudiments of truth.
39:22
Belief, as laid down by the great teachers, is not belief in any
39:28
particular school, philosophy, or religion, but consists of an attitude of mind
39:32
determining the whole course of one's life. Belief in conduct are therefore inseparable,
39:40
for the one determines the other. Belief is the basis of all action,
39:45
and this being so, the belief which dominates the hearts or minds, is
39:50
shown in the life. Every man acts, thinks, lives in exact accordance
39:55
with the belief which is rooted in his innermost being. And such is the
40:00
mathematical nature of the laws which govern mind, that it is absolutely impossible for
40:07
any one to believe in two opposing conditions at the same time. For instance,
40:13
it is impossible to believe in justice and injustice, hatred and love,
40:19
peace and strife, self and truth. Every man believes in one or the
40:23
other of these opposites, never in both, and the daily conduct of every
40:29
man indicates the nature of his belief. The man who believes in justice,
40:34
who regards it as an eternal and indestructible principle, never boils over with righteous
40:39
indignation, does not grow cynical and pessimistic over the inequalities of life, and
40:45
remains calm and untroubled through all trials and difficulties. It is impossible for him
40:51
to act otherwise, for he believes that justice reigns, and that Therefore all
40:57
that is called injustice is fleaading and illusory. The man who is continually getting
41:02
enraged over the injustice of his fellow man who talks about himself being badly treated,
41:09
or who mourns the lack of justice in the world around him, shows
41:14
by his conduct his attitude of mind, that he believes in injustice. However
41:20
he may protest to the contrary. In his inmost heart, he believes that
41:23
confusion and chaos are dominant in the universe, the result being that he dwells
41:30
in misery and unrest, and his conduct is faulty. Again. He who
41:36
believes in love, in its stability and power, practices it under all circumstances,
41:43
never deviates from it, and bestows it alike upon enemies as upon friends.
41:49
He who slanders and condemns, speaks disparagingly of others, or regards them
41:54
with contempt, believes not in love but hatred. All his actions prove it,
42:00
even though with tongue or pen he may eulogize love. The believer in
42:06
peace is known by his peaceful conduct. It is impossible for him to engage
42:10
in strife. If attacked, he does not retaliate, for he has seen
42:15
the majesty of the Angel of Peace, and can no longer pay homage to
42:21
the demon of strife, the stirrer up of strife, the lover of argument.
42:25
He who rushes into self defense upon any or every provocation believes in strife,
42:32
and will have naught to do with peace. Further, he who believes
42:37
in truth renounces himself, that is, he refuses to center his life in
42:44
those passions, desires, and characteristics which crave only their gratification, And by
42:51
thus renouncing he becomes steadfastly fixed in truth and lives a wise, beautiful and
42:57
blameless life. The believer in is known by his daily indulgences, gratifications,
43:04
and vanities, and by the disappointments, sorrows, and mortifications which he continually
43:09
suffers. The believer in truth does not suffer, for he has given up
43:15
that self which is the cause of such suffering. It will be seen by
43:20
the foregoing that every man believes either in permanent and eternal principles directing human life
43:25
towards law and harmony, or in the negation of those principles, with the
43:30
resultant chaos and human affairs, and in his own life belief in the divine
43:37
principles of justice, compassion, love constitutes the right belief laid down by Buddha
43:45
as being the basis of right conduct, and also the belief unto salvation,
43:50
as emphasized in the Christian scriptures. For he who so believes cannot do otherwise
43:55
than build his whole life upon these principles, and so purified his heart and
44:00
perfects his life. Belief in the negation of this divine principle constitutes what is
44:07
called in all religions unbelief, and this unbelief is manifested as a sinful,
44:15
troubled, and imperfect life. Where there is right belief, there is a
44:20
blameless and perfect life. Where there is false belief, there is sin,
44:24
there is sorrow. The mind and life are improperly governed, and there is
44:30
affliction and unrest. By their fruits, ye shall know them. There is
44:36
much to talk about belief in Jesus. But what does belief in Jesus mean.
44:42
It means belief in his words, in the principles he enunciated and lived,
44:46
in his commandments, and in his exemplary life of perfection. He who
44:52
declares belief in Jesus and yet is all the time living in his lusts and
44:57
indulgences, or in the spirit of hatred and condemnation, is self deceived.
45:04
He believes not in Jesus. He believes in his own animal self, as
45:08
a faithful servant delights in carrying out the commands of his master. So he
45:14
who believes in Jesus carries out his commandments, and so is saved from sin.
45:20
The supreme test of belief in Jesus is this, do I keep his
45:23
commandments? And this test is applied by Saint John himself in the following words.
45:30
He is that Saint I know him Jesus and keepeth not his commandments,
45:37
is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whose keepeth
45:43
his word in him? Verily is the word of God perfected. It will
45:47
be found, after a rigid and impartial analysis that belief lies at the root
45:52
of all human conduct, Every thought, every act, every habit is the
45:59
direct outcome of a certain fixed belief, and one's conduct altars only as one's
46:05
belief are modified. What we cling to in that we believe, we practice
46:09
in that we believe. When our belief in a thing ceases, we can
46:15
no longer cling to or practice it. It falls away from us as a
46:19
garment. Outworn men cling to their lusts and lies in vanities because they believe
46:24
in them, believe there is gain and happiness in them. When they transfer
46:30
their belief to the divine qualities of purity and humility, those sins trouble them
46:36
no more. Men are safe from error by belief in the supremacy of truth.
46:40
They are saved from sin by belief in holiness or perfection. They are
46:45
saved from evil by belief in good. For every belief is manifested in the
46:51
life. It is not necessary to inquire as to a man's theological belief,
46:55
for that is of little or no account. For what can it avail a
47:00
man to believe that Jesus died for him, or that Jesus is God,
47:05
or that he is justified by faith if he continues to live in his lower,
47:09
sinful nature. All that is necessary to ask is this, how does
47:15
a man live? How does he conduct himself under trying circumstances. The answer
47:21
to these questions will show whether a man believes in the power of evil or
47:25
in the power of good. He who believes in the power of good lives
47:30
a good, spiritual, or godly life. For Goodness is God, yea
47:37
verily is God himself, and he will soon leave behind him all sins and
47:42
sorrows. Who believes with steadfast and unwavering faith in the Supreme Good Chapter eight,
47:51
The belief that saves. It has been said that a man's whole life
47:55
and character is the outcome of his belief, and also that his belief has
48:00
nothing whatever to do with his life. Both statements are true. The confusion
48:06
and contradiction of these two statements are only apparent and are quickly dispelled when it
48:12
is remembered that there are two entirely distinct kinds of beliefs, namely head belief
48:19
and heart belief. Head or intellectual belief, is not fundamental and causative,
48:25
but it is superficial and consequent, and that it has no power in the
48:30
molding of a man's character. The most superficial observer may easily see. Take
48:37
for instance, half a dozen men from any creed. They not only hold
48:42
the same theological belief, but confess the same articles of faith in every particular,
48:47
and yet their characters are vastly different. One will be just as noble
48:52
as another is ignoble. One will be mild and gentle another course and irascable.
49:00
One will be honest, another dishonest. One will indulge certain habits which
49:05
another will rigidly abjure, and so on, plainly indicating that theological belief is
49:12
not an influential factor in a man's life. A man's theological belief is merely
49:17
his intellectual opinion or view of the universe, God, the Bible, et
49:22
cetera. And behind and underneath this head belief there lies deeply rooted in his
49:29
innermost being, the hidden, silent, secret belief of his heart. And
49:34
it is this belief which molds and makes his whole life. It is this
49:37
which makes those six men who whilest holding the same theology, are yet so
49:44
vastly at variance in their deeds. They differ in the vital belief of the
49:49
heart. What, then, is this heart belief? It is that which
49:53
a man loves and clings to and fosters in his soul. For he thus
49:59
loves and cling to and fosters in his heart because he believes in them,
50:04
and believing in them and loving them, he practices them. Thus is his
50:08
life the effect of his belief. But it has no relation to the particular
50:14
creed which comprises his intellectual belief. One man clings to impure and immoral things
50:21
because he believes in them. Another man does not cling to them because he
50:25
has ceased to believe in them. A man cannot cling to anything unless he
50:30
believes in it. Belief always precedes action. Therefore man's deeds in life are
50:37
the fruits of his belief. The priest and the levite, who passed by
50:40
the injured and helpless man, held no doubt very strongly to the theological doctrines
50:46
of their fathers. That was their intellectual belief. But in their hearts they
50:52
did not believe in mercy, and so live and acted accordingly. The good
50:57
Samaritan may or may not have had anything theological beliefs, nor was it necessary
51:02
that he should have, But in his heart he believed in mercy and acted
51:07
accordingly. Strictly speaking, there are only two beliefs which vitally affect the life,
51:14
and they are belief in good and belief in evil. He who believes
51:19
in all those things that are good will love them and live in them.
51:23
He who believes in those things that are impure and selfish will love them and
51:29
cling to them. The tree is known by its fruits. A man's beliefs
51:34
about God, Jesus, and the Bible are one thing, his life,
51:38
as bound up in his actions, is another. Therefore, a man's theological
51:44
belief is of no consequence but the thoughts which he harbors his attitude of mind
51:50
towards others in his actions. These and these only determine and demonstrate whether the
51:57
belief of a man's heart is fitxed in the false or true thought and action.
52:05
As the fruit to the tree and the water to the spring, so
52:08
is action to thought. It does not come into manifestation suddenly and without a
52:15
cause. It is the result of a long and silent growth, the end
52:20
of a hidden process which has long been gathering force. The fruit of the
52:25
tree and the water gushing from the rock are both the effect of a combination
52:30
of natural processes in air and earth, which have long worked together in secret
52:37
to produce the phenomenon. And the beautiful acts of enlightenment and the dark deeds
52:43
of sin are both the ripened effects of trains of thought which have been harbored
52:49
in the mind. The sudden falling, when greatly tempted into some grievous sin
52:54
by one who was believed, and who probably believed himself to san firm is
53:00
seen neither to be a sudden nor a causeless thing. When the hidden processes
53:07
of thought which led up to it are revealed. The falling was merely the
53:12
end, the outworking, the finished result of what commenced in the mind.
53:16
Probably years before, the man had allowed a wrong thought to enter his mind,
53:23
and a second and a third time he had welcomed it and allowed it
53:28
to nestle in his heart. Gradually he became accustomed to it, and cherished
53:34
and fondled and tended it, And so it grew, until at last it
53:39
attained such strength and force that it attracted to itself the opportunity which enabled it
53:46
to burst forth and ripen into act. As falls the stately building whose foundations
53:53
have been gradually undermined by the action of water, so at last falls the
53:59
strong man who allows corrupt thoughts to creep into his mind and secretly undermine his
54:06
character. When it is seen that all sin and temptation are the natural outcome
54:12
of the thoughts of the individual, the way to overcome sin and temptation becomes
54:16
plain, and its achievement and near possibility, and sooner or later a certain
54:22
reality. For if a man will admit, cherish, and brood upon thoughts
54:28
that are pure and good, those thoughts, just as surely as the impure,
54:34
will grow and gather force, and will at last attract to themselves the
54:38
opportunities which will enable them to ripen into act. There is nothing hidden that
54:45
shall not be revealed, And every thought that is harbored in the mind must,
54:51
by virtue of the impelling force which is inherent in the universe, at
54:55
last blossom into act, good or bad, acording to its nature. The
55:01
divine teacher and the sensualists are both the product of their own thoughts, and
55:07
have become what they are as the result of the seeds of thought which they
55:12
have implanted, are allowed to fall into the garden of the heart, and
55:16
have afterwards watered, tended, and cultivated. Let no man think he can
55:23
overcome sin and temptation by wrestling with opportunity. He can only overcome them by
55:30
purifying his thoughts. And if he will, day by day, in the
55:35
silence of his soul and in the presence of his duties, strenuously overcome all
55:40
erroneous inclination and put in its place thoughts that are true, and that will
55:45
endure the light. Opportunity to do evil will give place to opportunity for accomplishing
55:52
good. For a man can only attract that to him which is in harmony
55:57
with his nature, And no temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is
56:02
that in his heart which is capable of responding to it. Guard well your
56:07
thoughts, reader, for what you really are in your secret thoughts today,
56:13
be it good or evil, you will sooner or later become an actual deed.
56:20
He who unwearyingly guards the portals of his mind against the intrusion of sinful
56:24
thoughts, and occupies himself with loving thoughts, with pure, strong and beautiful
56:30
thoughts, will, when the season of their ripening comes, bring forth the
56:37
fruits of gentle and holy deeds, And no temptation that can come against him
56:43
shall find him unarmed or unprepared. Chapter ten. Your mental attitude as a
56:51
being of thought, your dominant mental attitude, will determine your conditions in life.
56:57
It will also be the gauge of your knowledge and the measure of your
57:00
attainment. The so called limitations of your nature are the boundary lines of your
57:07
thoughts. They are self erected fences, and can be drawn to a narrower
57:13
circle, extended to a wider or be allowed to remain. You are the
57:19
thinker of your thoughts, and as such you are the maker of your self
57:23
and condition. Thought is causal and creative, and appears in your character and
57:30
life in the form of results. There are no accidents in your life.
57:35
Both its harmonies and antagonisms are the responsive echoes of your thoughts. A man
57:43
thinks, and his life appears. If your dominant mental attitude is peaceable and
57:49
lovable, bliss and blessedness will follow you. If it be resistant and hateful,
57:55
trouble and distress will cloud your pathway. Out of ill will will come
58:01
grief and disaster. Out of good will healing and reparation. You imagine your
58:08
circumstances as being separate from yourself, but they are intimately related to your thought
58:15
world. Nothing appears without an adequate cause. Everything that happens is just,
58:22
nothing is faded. Everything is formed as you think. You travel as you
58:29
love, you attract. You are to day where your thoughts have brought you.
58:34
You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. You cannot escape the
58:38
result of your thoughts. But you can endure and learn, can accept and
58:44
be glad. You will always come to the place where your love, your
58:49
most abiding and intense thought, can receive its measure of gratification. If your
58:55
love be base, you will come to a base place. If it be
59:00
beautiful, you will come to a beautiful place. You can alter your thoughts
59:06
and so alter your condition. Strive to perceive the vastness and grandeur of your
59:12
responsibility. You are powerful, not powerless. You are as powerful to obey
59:20
as you are to disobey, as strong to be pure as to be impure,
59:24
as ready for wisdom as for ignorance. You can learn what you will
59:30
can remain as ignorant as you choose. If you love knowledge, you will
59:35
obtain it. If you love wisdom, you will secure it. If you
59:39
love purity, you will realize it. All things await your acceptance, and
59:46
you choose by the thoughts which you will entertain. A man remains ignorant because
59:52
he loves ignorance and chooses ignorant thoughts. A man becomes wise because because he
1:00:00
loves wisdom and chooses wise thoughts. No man is hindered by another. He
1:00:06
is only hindered by himself. No man suffers because of another, He suffers
1:00:13
only because of himself. By the noble gateway of pure thought, you can
1:00:19
enter into the highest heaven. By the ignoble doorway of impure thought, you
1:00:24
can descend into the lowest hell. Your mental attitude towards others will faithfully react
1:00:31
upon yourself and will manifest itself in every relation of your life. Every impure
1:00:38
and selfish thought that you send out comes back to you in your circumstances in
1:00:44
some form of suffering. Every pure and unselfish thought returns to you in some
1:00:51
form of blessedness. Your circumstances are effects of which the cause is inward and
1:00:57
invisible. As the father of your thoughts, you are the maker of your
1:01:01
state and condition. When you know yourself, you will perceive that every event
1:01:08
in your life is weighed in the faultless balance of equity. When you understand
1:01:15
the law within your mind, you will cease to regard yourself as the impotent
1:01:20
and blind tool of circumstances, and will become the strong and seeing master sowing
1:01:27
and reaping. Go into the fields and country lanes in the springtime, and
1:01:32
you will see farmers and gardeners busy sowing seeds in the newly prepared soil.
1:01:38
If you were to ask any one of those gardeners or farmers what kind of
1:01:44
produce he expected from the seed he was sowing, he would doubtless regard you
1:01:49
as foolish, and would tell you that he does not expect at all.
1:01:53
That it is a matter of common knowledge that his produce will be of the
1:01:58
kind which he is sowing, and that he is sowing wheat or barley or
1:02:02
turn ups, as the case may be, in order to reproduce that particular
1:02:07
kind. Every fact in process in nature contains a moral lesson for the wise
1:02:14
man. There is no law in the world of nature around us which is
1:02:19
not to be found operating within the same mathematical certainty in the mind of man
1:02:24
and in human life. All of the parables of Jesus are illustrative of this
1:02:30
truth, and are drawn from the simple facts of nature. There is a
1:02:35
process of seed sowing in the mind and life, of a spiritual sowing,
1:02:39
which leads to a harvest according to the kind of seeds sown. Thoughts,
1:02:45
words, and acts are seeds sown, and by the inviolable law of things,
1:02:51
they produce after their kind. A man who thinks hateful thoughts brings hatred
1:02:57
upon himself. The man who thinks loving thoughts is loved. The man whose
1:03:02
thoughts, words, and acts are sincere is surrounded by sincere friends. The
1:03:09
insincere man is surrounded by insincere friends. The man who sows wrong thoughts and
1:03:15
deeds, and prays that God will bless him is in the position of a
1:03:21
farmer, who, having sown terrors, ask God to bring forth for him
1:03:25
a harvest of wheat. That which ye sow, ye reap see yonder fields.
1:03:34
The cessmum was sessmoon, the corn was corn, The silence and the
1:03:38
darkness knew. So is a man's fate born. He cometh reaper of the
1:03:45
things he sowed. He who would be blessed, let him scatter blessings.
1:03:51
He who would be happy, let him consider the happiness of others. Then
1:03:57
there is another side to this seed sowing. The farmer must scatter all his
1:04:01
seed upon the land and then leave it to the elements. Were he to
1:04:06
covetuously hoard his seed, he would lose both it and his produce, for
1:04:12
his seed would perish. It perishes when he sows it. But in perishing
1:04:17
it brings forth a great abundance. So in life we get by giving,
1:04:24
we grow rich by scattering. The man who says he is in possession of
1:04:29
knowledge which he cannot give out because the world is incapable of receiving it,
1:04:34
either does not possess such knowledge, or if he does, will soon be
1:04:39
deprived of it. If he is not already so deprived, To hoard is
1:04:45
to lose. To exclusively retain is to be dispossessed. Even the man who
1:04:50
would increase his material wealth must be willing to part with invest what little capital
1:04:57
he has, and then wait for the increase. So long as he retains
1:05:01
his hold on his precious money, he will not only remain poor, but
1:05:06
will be growing poorer every day. He will, after all lose the thing
1:05:12
he loves, and will lose it without increase. But if he wisely lets
1:05:17
it go, if like the farmer, he scatters his seeds of gold,
1:05:23
then he can faithfully wait for and reasonably expect the increase. Men are asking
1:05:30
God to give them peace and purity, and righteousness and blessedness, but are
1:05:35
not obtaining these things. And why not because they are not practicing them,
1:05:42
not sowing them, I once heard a preacher pray very earnestly for forgiveness,
1:05:47
and shortly afterwards, in the course of his sermon, he called upon his
1:05:53
congregation to show no mercy to the enemies of the church. Such self delusion
1:05:59
is pitiful, and men have yet to learn that the way to obtain peace
1:06:03
and blessedness is to scatter peaceful and blessed thoughts, words, and deeds.
1:06:11
Men believe that they can sow the seeds of strife, impurity, and unbrotherliness,
1:06:16
and then gather in a rich harvest of peace, purity, and concord
1:06:21
by merely asking for it. What more pathetic sight than to see an irritable
1:06:27
and quarrelsome man praying for peace. Men reap that which they sow, And
1:06:32
any man can reap all blessedness now and at once, if he will put
1:06:38
aside selfishness and so broadcasts the seeds of kindness, gentleness, and love.
1:06:45
If a man is troubled, perplexed, sorrowful, or unhappy, let him
1:06:50
ask what mental seeds have I been sowing? What seeds am I sowing?
1:06:58
What have I done for others? What is my attitude towards others? What
1:07:03
seeds of trouble and sorrow and unhappiness? Have I sown that I should thus
1:07:09
reap these bitter weeds. Let him seek within and find, and having found,
1:07:15
let him abandon all the seeds of self, and so henceforth only the
1:07:20
seeds of truth. Let him learn of the farmer, the simple truths of
1:07:26
wisdom. Chapter twelve, The reign of law. The little party gods have
1:07:32
had their day. The arbitrary gods, creatures of human caprice and ignorance,
1:07:40
are falling into disrepute. Men have quarreled over and defended them, until they
1:07:45
have grown weary of the strife. And now everywhere they are relinquishing and breaking
1:07:50
up these helpless idols of their long worship. The God of revenge, hatred,
1:07:57
and jealousy, who gloats over the down of his enemies. The partial
1:08:01
God who gratifies all of our narrow and selfish desires, The God who saves
1:08:06
only the creatures of his particular special creed, The God of exclusiveness and favoritivism.
1:08:14
Such were the gods miscalled by us, God of our soul's infancy,
1:08:19
God's base, and foolish as ourselves, the fabrications of our selfish self and
1:08:27
we relinquished our petty gods with bitter tears and misgivings, and broke our idols
1:08:31
with bleeding hands. But in so doing we did not lose sight of God.
1:08:38
Nay, we drew nearer to the great, silent heart of Love.
1:08:42
Destroying the idols of self. We begin to comprehend somewhat of the power which
1:08:47
cannot be destroyed, and entered into a wider knowledge of the God of Love,
1:08:53
of peace, of joy, the God in whom revenge and partiality cannot
1:08:59
exist, The God of Light, from whose presence the darkness of fear and
1:09:04
doubt and selfishness cannot choose but flee. We have reached one of those epochs
1:09:11
in the world's progress which witnesses the passing of the false gods, the gods
1:09:16
of human selfishness and human illusion. The new old revelation of one universal,
1:09:24
impersonal truth has again dawned upon the world, and its searching light has carried
1:09:30
consternation to the perishable gods who take shelter under the shadow of self. Men
1:09:35
have lost faith in a God who can be cajoled, who rules arbitrarily and
1:09:42
capriciously, subverting the whole order of things to gratify the wishes of His worshipers,
1:09:47
and are turning with a new light in their eyes and a new joy
1:09:51
in their hearts, to the God of Law. And to him they turn
1:09:58
not for personal happiness and gradas notification, but for knowledge, for understanding,
1:10:03
for wisdom, for liberation from the bondage of self. And thus turning they
1:10:10
do not seek in vain, nor are they sent away empty and discomfited.
1:10:15
They find within themselves the reign of law. That every thought, every impulse,
1:10:20
every act and word brings about a result in exact accordance with its own
1:10:27
nature. That thoughts of love bring about beautiful and blissful conditions, that hateful
1:10:32
thoughts bring about distorted and painful conditions, That thoughts and acts good and evil
1:10:40
are weighed in the faultless balance of the Supreme Law, and receive their equal
1:10:45
measure of blessedness on the one hand and misery on the other. And thus
1:10:50
finding they enter a new path, the path of obedience to the Law.
1:10:56
Entering that path, they no longer accuse, no longer doubt, no longer
1:11:01
fret and despond, for they know that God is right, the universal laws
1:11:06
are right, the cosmos is right, and that they themselves are wrong,
1:11:13
if wrong there is, and that their salvation depends upon themselves, upon their
1:11:17
own efforts, upon their personal acceptance of that which is good and deliberate rejection
1:11:25
of that which is evil. No longer merely hearers, they become doers of
1:11:30
the word, and they acquire knowledge, They receive understanding, They grow in
1:11:35
wisdom, and they enter into the glorious life of liberation from the bondage of
1:11:41
self. The law of the Lord is perfect in enlightening the eyes. Imperfection
1:11:47
lies in man's ignorance, in man's blind folly. Perfection, which is knowledge
1:11:54
of the perfect law, is ready for all who earnestly seek it. It
1:11:59
belongs to the order of things. It is yours and mind now, if
1:12:03
we will only put self seeking on one side and adopt the life of self
1:12:09
obliteration. The knowledge of truth, with its unspeakable joy, its calmness,
1:12:15
and quiet strength, is not for those who persist in clinging to their rights,
1:12:19
defending their interests, and fighting for their opinions, whose works are imbued
1:12:26
with the personal eye, and who build upon the shifting sands of selfishness and
1:12:30
egotism. It is for those who renounce these causes of strife, these sources
1:12:36
of pain and sorrow, and they are indeed children of truth, disciples of
1:12:43
the Master, worshipers of the Most High. The children of Truth are in
1:12:48
the world today. They are thinking, acting, writing, speaking yea,
1:12:55
even prophets are among us, and their influences pervading the whole earth. An
1:13:00
undercurrent of holy joy is gathering force in the world, so that men and
1:13:05
women are moved with new aspirations and hopes. And even those who neither see
1:13:11
nor hear feel within themselves strange yearnings after a better and fuller life. The
1:13:18
law reigns, and it reigns in men's hearts and lives. And they have
1:13:23
come to understand the reign of law who have sought out the tabernacle of the
1:13:28
True God by the fair pathway of unselfishness. God does not alter for men,
1:13:34
for this would mean that the perfect must become imperfect. Man must alter
1:13:40
for God, and this implies that the imperfect must become perfect. The law
1:13:45
cannot be broken for man, otherwise confusion would ensue. Man must obey the
1:13:51
law. This is in accordance with harmony, order justice. There is no
1:13:58
more painful bondage than to be at the mercy of one's inclinations. No greater
1:14:03
liberty than utmost obedience to the law of being. And the law is that
1:14:10
the heart shall be purified, the mind regenerated, and the whole being brought
1:14:15
in subjection to love, till self is dead, and love is all in
1:14:19
all. For the reign of law is the reign of love, and love
1:14:25
waits for all. Rejecting none, love may be claimed and entered into now,
1:14:30
for it is the heritage of all ah, beautiful truth. To know
1:14:36
now that man may accept his divine heritage and enter the Kingdom of heaven all
1:14:44
pitiful error, to know that man rejects it because of love of self.
1:14:49
Obedience to the law means the destruction of sin and self and the realization of
1:14:55
unclouded joy and undying peace. Clinging to one's selfish inclinations means the drawing about
1:15:02
one's soul clouds of pain and sorrow which darken the light of truth, the
1:15:09
shutting out of one's self from all real blessedness. For whatsoever a man sows,
1:15:15
that shall he also reap Verily. The law reigneth, and reigneth forever
1:15:20
and justice and love are its eternal ministers, the supreme justice. The material
1:15:29
universe is maintained and preserved by the equilibrium of its forces. The moral universe
1:15:36
is sustained and protected by the perfect balance of its equivalents. As in the
1:15:43
physical world, nature abhors a vacuum, so in the spiritual world, disharmony
1:15:48
is annulled. Underlying the disturbances and destructions of nature, and behind the mutability
1:15:56
of its forms, there abides the eternal and pert mathematical symmetry. And at
1:16:01
the heart of life, behind all its pain, uncertainty, and unrest,
1:16:08
thereby the eternal harmony, the unbroken peace, and involuble justice. Is there
1:16:15
then no injustice in the universe. There is injustice, and there is not.
1:16:21
It depends upon the kind of life and the state of consciousness from which
1:16:26
a man looks out upon the world and judges. The man who lives in
1:16:30
his passions sees injustice everywhere. The man who has overcome his passions sees the
1:16:38
operations of justice in every department of human life. Injustice is the confused,
1:16:45
feverish dream of passion, real enough to those who are dreaming it. Justice
1:16:50
is the permanent reality in life, gloriously visible to those who have wakened out
1:16:57
of the painful nightmare of self. The divine order cannot be perceived until passion
1:17:03
and self are transcended, the faultless justice cannot be apprehended, and till all
1:17:10
sense of injury and wrong is consumed in the pure flames of all embracing love,
1:17:16
the man who thinks I have been slighted, I have been injured,
1:17:20
I have been insulted, I have been treated unjustly, cannot know what justice
1:17:27
is. Blinded by self, he cannot perceive the pure principles of truth,
1:17:33
and, brooding upon his wrongs, he lives in continual misery. In the
1:17:39
region of passion, there is a ceaseless conflict of forces, causing suffering to
1:17:45
all who are involved in them. There is action and reaction, deed in
1:17:49
consequence, cause and effect. And within and above all is the divine justice
1:17:58
regulating the play of forces when the utmost mathematical accuracy, balancing cause and effect
1:18:03
with the finest precision. But this justice is not perceived, cannot be perceived
1:18:11
by those who are engaged in the conflict. Before this can be done,
1:18:15
the fierce warfare of passion must be left behind. The world of passion is
1:18:21
the abode of schisms, quarrelings, wars, lawsuits, accusations, condemnations,
1:18:29
impurities, weaknesses, follies, hatreds, revenges, and resentments. How can
1:18:35
a man perceive justice or understand truth who is even partly involved in the fierce
1:18:42
play of its blinding elements as well? Expect a man caught in the flames
1:18:47
of a burning building to sit down and reason out the cause of the fire.
1:18:53
In this realm of passion, men see injustice in the actions of others,
1:18:58
because, seeing only in immediate appearances, they regard every act as standing
1:19:02
by itself, undetached from cause and consequence, having no knowledge of cause and
1:19:10
effect. In the moral sphere, men do not see the exacting and balancing
1:19:15
process which is momentarily proceeding, nor do they ever regard their own actions as
1:19:20
unjust, but only the actions of others. A boy beats a defenseless animal,
1:19:27
then a man beats the defenseless boy for his cruelty. Then a stronger
1:19:31
man attacks the man for his cruelty to the boy. Each believes the other
1:19:36
to be unjust and cruel, and himself to be just and humane and doubtless
1:19:43
most of all, would the boy justify his conduct toward the animal as altogether
1:19:46
necessary. Thus does ignorance keep alive hatred and strife. Thus do men blindly
1:19:54
inflict suffering upon themselves, living in passion and resentment, and not finding them
1:20:00
true way in life? Hatred is met with hatred, passion with passion,
1:20:04
strife with strife. The man who kills is himself killed. The thief who
1:20:11
lives by depriving others is himself deprived. The beast that prais on others is
1:20:16
hunted and killed. The accuser is accused, The condemner is condemned. The
1:20:23
denouncer is persecuted by this. The slayer's knife doth stab himself. The unjust
1:20:30
judge has lost his own defender. The false tongue dooms its lie. The
1:20:35
creeping thief and spoiler rob to render. Such is the law. Passion also
1:20:43
has its active and passive sides, fool and fraud, oppressor and slave,
1:20:48
aggressor and retaliator. The charlatan and the superstitious compliment each other and come together
1:20:56
by the operation of the law of justice. Men unconsciously cooperate in the mutual
1:21:02
production of affliction the blindly the blind, and both fall together into the ditch.
1:21:10
Pain, grief, sorrow, and misery are the fruits of which passion
1:21:14
is the flower. Where the passion bound soul sees only injustice. The good
1:21:19
man, who has conquered passion sees cause and effect, sees the supreme justice.
1:21:27
It is impossible for such a man to regard himself as treated unjustly,
1:21:31
because he has ceased to see injustice. He knows that no one can injure
1:21:36
or cheat him. Having ceased to injure or cheat himself, however passionately or
1:21:43
ignorantly men may act towards him, it cannot possibly cause him any pain,
1:21:48
for he knows that whatever comes to him, it may be abuse, and
1:21:51
persecution can only come as the effect of what he himself has formally sent out.
1:22:00
He therefore regards all things as good, rejoices in all things, loves
1:22:04
his enemies, and blesses them that curse him, regarding them as the blind
1:22:10
but beneficent instruments by which he is enabled to pay his moral debts to the
1:22:15
great law. The good man, having put away all resentment, retaliation,
1:22:20
self seeking, and egotism, has arrived at a state of equilibrium and has
1:22:27
thereby become identified with the eternal and universal equilibrium. Having lifted himself above the
1:22:33
blind forces of passion, he understands those forces contemplates them with a calm,
1:22:41
penetrating insight, like the solitary dweller upon a mountain who looks down upon the
1:22:46
conflict of the storms beneath his feet. For him, injustice has ceased,
1:22:53
and he sees ignorance and suffering on the one hand, and enlightenment and bliss
1:22:58
on the other. He sees that not only do the fool and the slave
1:23:01
need his sympathy, but that the fraud and the oppressor are equally in need
1:23:06
of it, and so his compassion is extended towards all. The supreme justice
1:23:13
and the supreme love are one. Cause and effect cannot be avoided, Consequences
1:23:18
cannot be escaped. While a man is given to hatred, resentment, anger,
1:23:25
and condemnation, he is subject to injustice, as the dreamer to his
1:23:29
dream. It cannot do otherwise than see injustice. But he who has overcome
1:23:34
those fiery and binding elements knows that unerring justice presides over all, and in
1:23:41
reality, there is no such thing as injustice in the whole of the Universe,
1:23:47
Chapter fourteen, The Use of Reason. We have heard it said that
1:23:53
reason is a blind guide, and that it draws men away from truth rather
1:23:58
than leads them to it. If this were true, it would be better
1:24:01
to remain or to become unreasonable, and to persuade others to do so.
1:24:09
We have found, however, that the diligent cultivation of the divine faculty of
1:24:13
reason brings about calmness and mental poise, and enables one to meet cheerfully the
1:24:18
problems and difficulties of life. It is true that there is a higher light
1:24:25
than reason, even that of the spirit of truth itself. But without the
1:24:30
aid of reason, truth cannot be apprehended. They who refuse to trim the
1:24:35
lamp of reason will never whilst they so refuse, perceive the light of truth.
1:24:42
For the light of reason is a reflection of that light. Reason is
1:24:46
a purely abstract quality and comes midway between the animal and divine consciousness in man,
1:24:54
and leads, if rightly employed, from the darkness of one to the
1:24:58
light of the other. It is true that reason may be enlisted in the
1:25:01
service of the lower, self seeking nature, but this is only a result
1:25:06
of its partial and imperfect exercise. A fuller development of reason leads away from
1:25:13
the selfish nature and ultimately allies the soul with the highest, the divine.
1:25:19
That spiritual Percival, who, searching for the holy grail of the perfect life,
1:25:25
is again and again left alone and wearying in a land of sand and
1:25:30
thorns, is not so stranded because he has followed reason, but because he
1:25:35
is still clinging to and is reluctant to leave some remnants of his lower nature.
1:25:43
He who will use the light of reason as a torch to search for
1:25:45
truth will not be left at last in comfortless darkness. Come now and let
1:25:50
us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins may be as scarlet,
1:25:56
they shall be as white as snow. Many men and women pass through
1:26:00
untold sufferings and at last die in their sins because they refuse to reason,
1:26:06
because they cling to those dark delusions which even a faint glimmer of light of
1:26:12
reason would dispel. And all must use their reason freely, fully and faithfully.
1:26:17
Who would exchange the scarlet robe of sin and suffering for the white garment
1:26:23
of blamelessness and peace. It is because we have proved and know these truths
1:26:29
that we exhort men to tread the middle road, whose course bright beyond reason
1:26:33
traces and soft, quiet, smooth, for reason leads away from passion and
1:26:40
selflessness into the quiet ways of sweet persuasion and gentle forgiveness. And he will
1:26:45
never be led astray, nor will he follow blind Guides who faithfully adheres to
1:26:51
the apostolic injunction prove all things and hold fast that which is good. They,
1:26:59
therefore, who despise the light of reason, despise the light of truth.
1:27:03
Large numbers of people are possessed of the strange delusion that reason is somehow
1:27:10
intimately connected with the denial of the existence of God. This is probably due
1:27:15
to the fact that those who try to prove that there is no God usually
1:27:19
profess to take their stand upon reason, while those who try to prove the
1:27:25
reverse generally profess to take their stand on faith. Such argumentative combatants, however,
1:27:31
are frequently governed more by prejudice than either faith or reason, their object
1:27:38
being not to find truth but to defend and confirm a preconceived opinion. Reason
1:27:45
is concerned not with ephemeral opinions, but with the established truth of things,
1:27:50
and he who is possessed of The faculty of reason, in its purity and
1:27:56
excellence, can never be enslaved by prejudice, and will put from him all
1:28:00
preconceived opinions as worthless. He will never attempt to prove nor disprove, but
1:28:06
after balancing extremes and bringing together all apparent contradictions, he will carefully and dispassionately
1:28:15
weigh and consider them, and so arrive at truth. Reason is in reality
1:28:20
associated with all that is pure and gentle, moderate, and just. It
1:28:26
is said of a violent man that he is unreasonable, of a kind and
1:28:30
considerate man that he is reasonable, and of an insane man that he has
1:28:34
lost his reason. Thus it is seen that the word is used even to
1:28:40
a great extent unconsciously, though none the less truly in a very comprehensive sense.
1:28:46
And though reason is not actually love and thoughtfulness and gentleness insanity, it
1:28:53
leads to and is intimately connected with these divine qualities, and cannot accept,
1:29:00
for purposes of analysis, be dissociated with them. Reason represents all that is
1:29:05
high and noble in man. It distinguishes him from the brute, which blindly
1:29:11
follows its animal inclinations, and just in the degree that man disobeys the voice
1:29:15
of reason and follows his inclinations, does he become brutish, as Milton says,
1:29:24
reason in man obscured or not obeyed immediately inordinate desires and upstart passions catch
1:29:31
the government from reason and to servitude reduce man till then free. The following
1:29:39
definition of reason from Nuttle's dictionary will give you some idea of the comprehensiveness of
1:29:45
the word. The cause, ground, principle, or motive of anything said
1:29:50
or done, efficient cause, final cause, the faculty of intelligence in man,
1:29:57
especially the faculty by which we arrive at necessary truth. It will thus
1:30:02
be seen that reason is a term, the breath of which is almost sufficient
1:30:06
to embrace even truth itself. And Archbishop Trench tells us in his celebrated work
1:30:14
on the Study of Words, that the terms reason and word are indeed so
1:30:18
essentially one and the same, that the Greek language has one word for them
1:30:23
both. So that the Word of God is the reason of God, and
1:30:28
one of the renderings of lutzas Tao is reason. So that in the Chinese
1:30:32
translation of our New Testament, Saint John's Gospel runs in the beginning, was
1:30:39
the Tao to the undeveloped and uncharitable mind. All words have narrow applications.
1:30:45
But as a man enlarges his sympathies and broadens his intelligence, words become filled
1:30:51
with rich meanings and assume comprehensive proportions. Let us therefore cease from foolish quarrelings
1:30:59
of words, and, like reasonable beings, search for principles and practice those
1:31:05
things which make for unity and peace. Self discipline. A man does not
1:31:12
live until he begins to discipline himself. He merely exists like an animal.
1:31:18
He gratifies his desires and pursues his inclinations just where they may lead him.
1:31:25
He is happy as a beast is happy because he is not conscious of what
1:31:29
he is depriving himself. He suffers as the beast suffers, because he does
1:31:34
not know the way out of suffering. He does not intelligently reflect upon life,
1:31:41
and lives in a series of sensations, longings, and confused memories which
1:31:46
are unrelated to any central idea or principle. A man whose inner life is
1:31:53
so ungoverned and chaotic must necessarily manifest this confusion in the visible conditions of his
1:31:59
life outer life in the world, and though for a time running with the
1:32:03
stream of his desires, he may draw to himself a more or less large
1:32:08
share of the outer necessities and comforts of life. He never achieves any real
1:32:14
success, nor accomplishes any real good, and sooner or later, worldly failure
1:32:19
and disaster are inevitable as the direct result of the inward failure to properly adjust
1:32:26
and regulate those mental forces which make the outer life. Before a man accomplishes
1:32:31
anything of an enduring nature in the world, he must first of all acquire
1:32:36
some measure of success in the management of his own mind. This is as
1:32:42
mathematical a truism as that two and two are four, For out of the
1:32:45
heart are the issues of life. If a man cannot govern the forces within
1:32:50
himself, he cannot hold a firm hand upon the outer activities which form his
1:32:57
visible life. On the other hand, and as a man succeeds in governing
1:33:01
himself, he rises to higher and higher levels of power and usefulness and success
1:33:09
in the world. The only difference between the life of the beast and that
1:33:14
of the undisciplined man is that the man has a wider variety of desires and
1:33:18
experiences a greater intensity of suffering. It may be said of such a man
1:33:24
that he is dead, being truly dead to self control, chastity, fortitude,
1:33:30
and all of the nobler qualities which constitute life. In the consciousness of
1:33:35
such a man, the crucified Christ lies entombed, awaiting that resurrection which shall
1:33:43
revify the mortal sufferer and wake him up to a knowledge of the realities of
1:33:47
his existence. With the practice of self discipline, a man begins to live.
1:33:54
For he then commences to rise above the inward confusion, and to adjust
1:33:58
his conduct to a steadfast center within himself. He ceases to follow where inclination
1:34:04
leads him, reigns in the steed of his desires, and lives in accordance
1:34:11
with the dictates of reason and wisdom. Hitherto his life has been without purpose
1:34:15
or meaning. But now he begins to consciously mold his own destiny. He
1:34:21
is clothed in his right mind. In the process of self discipline, there
1:34:27
are three stages, namely one control, two purification, three relinquishment. A
1:34:38
man begins to discipline himself by controlling those passions which have hitherto controlled him.
1:34:45
He resists temptation and guards himself against all those tendencies to self gratifications, which
1:34:50
are so easy and natural, and which have formerly dominated him. He brings
1:34:57
his appetite into subjection and begins to eat as a reasonable and responsible being,
1:35:02
practicing moderation and thoughtfulness in the selection of his food, with the object of
1:35:09
making his body a pure instrument through which he may live and act as becomes
1:35:14
a man, and no longer degrading that body by pandering to gustatory pleasure.
1:35:19
He puts a check upon his tongue, his temper, and in fact his
1:35:25
every animal desire and tendency. And this he does by referring all acts to
1:35:30
a fixed center within himself. It is a process of living from within outward
1:35:36
instead of as formally, from without inward. He conceives an ideal and enshrining
1:35:44
that ideal in the sacred recesses of his heart. He regulates his conduct in
1:35:48
accordance with its exaction and demands. There is a philosophical hypothesis that at the
1:35:56
heart of every atom and every aggregation of atoms in the universe, there is
1:36:00
a motionless center which is the sustaining source of all the universal activities. Be
1:36:08
this as it may, there is certainly in the heart of every man and
1:36:11
woman a selfless center, without which the outer man could not be, and
1:36:16
the ignoring of which leads to suffering and confusion. The selfless center, which
1:36:23
takes the form in the mind of an ideal of unselfishness and spotless purity,
1:36:29
the attainment of which is desirable, is man's eternal refuge from the storms of
1:36:33
passion and all the conflicting elements of his lower nature. It is the rock
1:36:40
of ages, the christ within, the divine and immortal in all men.
1:36:45
As a man practices self control, he approximates more and more to this inward
1:36:50
reality, and is less and less swayed by passion and grief, pleasure and
1:36:56
pain, and lives a steadfast and virtuous life, manifesting manly strength and fortitude.
1:37:03
The restraining of the passions, however, is merely the initial stage and
1:37:09
self discipline, and is immediately followed by the process of purification. By this,
1:37:15
a man so purifies himself as to take passion out of the heart and
1:37:18
mind altogether, not merely restraining it when it rises within him, but preventing
1:37:25
it from rising altogether. By merely restraining his passions, a man can never
1:37:30
arrive at peace, can never actualize his ideal he must purify those passions.
1:37:38
It is in the purification of his lower nature that a man becomes strong and
1:37:43
godlike, standing firmly upon the ideal center within and rendering all temptations powerless and
1:37:49
ineffectual. This purification is affected by thoughtful care, earnest meditation, and holy
1:37:58
aspiration, and as success is achieved, confusion of mind and life pass away,
1:38:03
and calmness of mind and spiritualized conduct insure true strength and power and usefulness
1:38:12
are born of self purification. For the lower animal forces are not lost,
1:38:17
but are transmuted into intellectual and spiritual energy. The pure life, pure in
1:38:25
thought, indeed, is a life of conservation of energy. The impure life,
1:38:30
even though the impurity should not extend beyond thought, is a life of
1:38:34
dissipation of energy. The pure man is more capable and therefore more fit to
1:38:41
succeed in his plans and to accomplish his purposes than the impure. Where the
1:38:46
impure man fails, the pure man will step in and be victorious, because
1:38:53
he directs his energies with a calmer mind and a greater definiteness and strength of
1:38:58
purpose, with a growth both impurity, all the elements which constitute a strong
1:39:02
and virtuous manhood are developed in an increasing degree of power, and as man
1:39:09
brings his lower nature into subjection and makes his passions do his bidding, just
1:39:15
so much will he mold the outer circumstances of his life and influence others for
1:39:19
good. The third stage of self discipline, that of relinquishment, is a
1:39:26
process of letting the lower desires and all impure and unworthy thoughts drop out of
1:39:31
the mind, and also refusing to give them any admittance, leaving them to
1:39:36
perish. As a man grows purer, he perceives that all evil is powerless
1:39:43
unless it receives his encouragement, and so he ignores it and lets it pass
1:39:47
out of his life. It is by pursuing this aspect of self discipline that
1:39:54
a man enters into and realizes the divine life and manifests those qualities which are
1:40:00
distinctly divine, such as wisdom, patience, non resistance, compassion, and
1:40:06
love. It is here also where a man becomes consciously immortal, rising above
1:40:14
all the fluctuations and uncertainties of life, and living in an intelligent and unchangeable
1:40:19
peace. By self discipline, a man attains to every degree of virtue and
1:40:25
holiness, and finally becomes a purified son of God, realizing his oneness with
1:40:30
the central heart of all things. Without self discipline, a man drifts lower
1:40:36
and lower, approximating more and more nearly to the beast, until at last
1:40:43
he grovels a lost creature in the mirror of his own befolment. By self
1:40:48
discipline, a man rises higher and higher, approximating more and more nearly to
1:40:54
the divine, until at last he stands erect in his divine dignity, a
1:41:00
save soul, glorified by the radiance of his purity. Let a man discipline
1:41:05
himself, and he will live. Let a man cease to discipline himself,
1:41:11
and he will perish. As a tree grows in beauty, health, and
1:41:15
fruitfulness by being carefully pruned and tended, so a man grows in grace and
1:41:20
beauty of life by cutting away all the branches of evil from his mind,
1:41:26
and as he tends and develops the good by constant and unfailing effort. As
1:41:31
a man by practice acquires proficiency in his craft, so the earnest man acquires
1:41:38
proficiency in goodness and wisdom. Men shrink from self discipline because in its early
1:41:44
stages it is painful and repellent, and the yielding to desire is at first
1:41:49
sweet and inviting. But the end of desire is darkness and unrest, whereas
1:41:55
the fruits of discipline are immortality and peace. Chapter sixteen. Resolution. Resolution
1:42:04
is the directing and impelling force in individual progress. Without it, no substantial
1:42:11
work can be accomplished. Not until a man brings resolution to bear upon his
1:42:16
life does he consciously and rapidly develop. For a life without resolution is a
1:42:23
life without aims, and a life without aims is a drifting and unstable thing.
1:42:29
Resolution may of course be linked to downward tendencies, but it is more
1:42:33
usually the companion of noble aims and lofty ideals. And I am dealing with
1:42:39
it in this its highest use in application. When a man makes a resolution,
1:42:45
it means that he is dissatisfied with his condition and is commencing to take
1:42:49
himself in hand, with a view in producing a better piece of workmanship out
1:42:55
of the mental materials of which his character and life are composed. And in
1:43:00
so far as he is true to his resolution, he will succeed in accomplishing
1:43:03
his purpose. The vows of the saintly once are holy resolutions directed towards some
1:43:10
victory over self. And the beautiful achievements of holy men and the glorious conquests
1:43:15
of the divine teachers were rendered possible and actual by the pursuit of unswerving resolution
1:43:24
to arrive at the fixed determination to walk a higher path than hithertofore. Although
1:43:30
it reveals the great difficulties which have to be surmounted, it yet makes possible
1:43:35
the treading of that path and illuminates its dark places with the golden halo of
1:43:41
success. The true resolution is the crisis of long thought, protract its struggle
1:43:47
or fervent but unsatisfied aspiration. It is no light thing, no whimsical impulse
1:43:54
or vague desire, but a solemn and irreficable determination not to rest nor cease
1:44:00
from effort until the high purpose which is held in view is fully accomplished.
1:44:05
Half hearted and premature resolution is no resolution at all, and it is shattered
1:44:12
by the first difficulty. A man should be slow to form a resolution.
1:44:16
He should searchingly examine his position and take into consideration every circumstance and difficulty connected
1:44:25
with his decision, and should be fully prepared to meet them. He should
1:44:29
be sure that he completely understands the nature of his resolution, that his mind
1:44:33
is finally made up, and that he is without fear and doubt in the
1:44:38
matter. With the mind thus prepared, the resolution that is formed will not
1:44:44
be departed from, and by the aid of it a man will in due
1:44:47
time accomplish his strong purpose. Hasty resolutions are futile. The mind must be
1:44:56
fortified to endure immediately the resolution to walk a higher path is made temptation and
1:45:03
trial begin. Men have found that no sooner have they decided to lead a
1:45:08
truer and nobler life than they have been overwhelmed with such a torrent of new
1:45:13
temptations and difficulties as to make their position almost unendurable. And many men,
1:45:18
because of this relinquish their resolution. But these temptations and trials are a necessary
1:45:26
part of the work of regeneration upon which the man has decided, and must
1:45:30
be hailed as friends and met with courage if the resolution is to do its
1:45:34
work. For what is the real nature of a resolution? Is it not
1:45:40
the sudden checking of a particular stream of conduct and the endeavor to open up
1:45:45
an entirely new channel. Think of an engineer who decides to turn the course
1:45:49
of a powerfully running stream or river in another direction. He must first cut
1:45:55
out his new channel, and must take every precaution to avoid failure in the
1:46:00
carrying out of his undertaking. But when he comes to the all important task
1:46:04
of directing the stream into its new channel, then the flowing force, which
1:46:10
for ages has steadily pursued its accustomed course, becomes refractory, and all the
1:46:15
patients and care and skill of the engineer will be required for the successful completion
1:46:20
of the work. It is even so with the man who determines to turn
1:46:26
his course of conduct in another and higher direction. Having prepared his mind,
1:46:31
which is the cutting of a new channel, he then proceeds to the work
1:46:35
of redirecting his mental forces, which have hitherto flowed on uninterruptedly, into the
1:46:43
new course. Immediately this is attempted, the arrested energy begins to assert itself
1:46:49
in the form of powerful temptations and trials hitherto unknown and unencountered. And this
1:46:56
is exactly as it should be. It is the law, and the same
1:47:00
law that is in the water is in the mind. No man can improve
1:47:04
upon the established law of things, but he can learn to understand the law
1:47:10
instead of complaining and wishing things were different. The man who understands all that
1:47:15
is involved in the regeneration of his mind will glory in tribulations, knowing that
1:47:21
only by passing through them can he gain strength, obtain purity of heart,
1:47:27
and arrive at peace. And as the engineer, at last, perhaps after
1:47:32
many mistakes and failures, succeeds in getting the stream to flow on peacefully in
1:47:38
the broader and better channel, and the turbulence of the water is spent,
1:47:43
and all dams can be removed. So the man of resolution at last succeeds
1:47:48
in directing his thoughts and acts into the better and nobler way to which he
1:47:53
aspires, and temptations and trials give place to steadfast strength and settled peace.
1:48:00
He whose life is not in harmony with his conscience, and who is anxious
1:48:05
to remedy his mind in conduct in a particular direction, let him first mature
1:48:11
his purpose by earnest thought and self examination, and having arrived at a final
1:48:16
conclusion, let him frame his resolution, and having done so, let him
1:48:23
not swerve from it. Let him remain true to his decision under all circumstances,
1:48:29
and he cannot fail to achieve his good purpose, for the great law
1:48:32
ever shields and protects him who, no matter how deep his sins or how
1:48:38
great his many failures and mistakes, has deep in his heart resolved upon the
1:48:44
finding of a better way, and every obstacle must at last give way before
1:48:50
matured and unshaken resolution, the glorious conquest. Truth can only be apprehended by
1:48:59
the conquest self. Blessedness can only be arrived at by overcoming the lower nature.
1:49:05
The way of truth is barred by a man's self. The only enemies
1:49:11
that can actually hinder him are his own passions and delusions. And tell a
1:49:16
man realizes this and commences to cleanse his heart, he has not found the
1:49:21
path which leads to knowledge and peace, and till passion is transcended, truth
1:49:28
remains unknown. This is the divine law. A man cannot keep his passions
1:49:34
and have truth as well. Error is not slain until selfishness is dead.
1:49:41
The overcoming of self is no mystical theory, but a very real and practical
1:49:45
thing. It is a process which must be pursued daily and hourly with unswerving
1:49:53
faith and undaunted resolution if any measure of success is to be achieved. The
1:50:00
process is one of orderly growth, having its sequential stages, like the growth
1:50:04
of a tree, and as fruit can only be produced by carefully and patiently
1:50:11
training the tree, even so, the pure and satisfying fruits of holiness can
1:50:15
only be obtained by faithfully and patiently training the mind in the growth of right
1:50:21
thought and conduct. There are five steps in the overcoming of passion, which
1:50:28
includes all bad habits and particular forms of wrongdoing, which I will call one
1:50:35
repression, two endurance, three elimination, four understanding, five victory. When
1:50:49
men fail to overcome their sins, it is because they begin to try at
1:50:54
the wrong end. They want to have the stage of victory without passing through
1:50:59
the previous four stages. They are in the position of a gardener who wants
1:51:03
to produce good fruit without training and attending to his trees. Repression consists in
1:51:11
checking and controlling the wrong act such as an outburst of temper, a hasty
1:51:16
or unkind word, a selfish indulgence, etc. And not allowing it to
1:51:23
take actual form. This is equivalent to the gardener nipping off the useless buds
1:51:29
and branches from his tree. It is a necessary process, but a painful
1:51:34
one. The tree bleeds while undergoing the process, and the gardener knows that
1:51:40
it must not be taxed too severely. The heart also bleeds when it refuses
1:51:45
to return passion for passion, when it ceases to defend and justify itself.
1:51:51
It is the process of mortifying the members of which Saint Paul speaks, But
1:51:59
this repression is only the beginning of self conquest, when it is made an
1:52:03
end in itself, and there is no object of finally purifying the heart.
1:52:09
That is a stage of hypocrisy, a hiding of one's true nature and striving
1:52:15
to appear better in the eyes of others than one really is. In that
1:52:19
case it is an evil, but when adopted as the first stage toward complete
1:52:24
purification, it is good. Its practice leads to the second stage of endurance
1:52:30
or forbearance, in which one silently endures the pain which arises in the mind
1:52:36
when it is brought in contact with certain actions and attitudes of other minds toward
1:52:42
one. As success is attained in this stage, the striver comes to see
1:52:47
that all his pain actually arises in his own weaknesses, and not in the
1:52:53
wrong attitudes of others toward him, these latter being merely the means by which
1:52:59
his sins are brought to the surface and revealed to him. He thus gradually
1:53:04
exonerates all others from blame in his falls and lapses of conduct, and accuses
1:53:11
only himself, and so learns to love those who thus unconsciously reveal to him
1:53:17
his sins and shortcomings. Having passed through these two stages of self crucifixion,
1:53:25
the disciple enters the third, that of elimination, in which the wrong thought
1:53:31
which lay behind the wrong act, is cast from the mind immediately it appears.
1:53:38
At this stage, conscious strength and holy joy begin to take the place
1:53:44
of pain, and the mind, having become more comparatively calm, the striver
1:53:48
is enabled to gain a deeper insight into the complexities of his mind, and
1:53:54
thus to understand the inception, growth, and outworking of sin. This is
1:54:00
the stage of understanding perfection, and understanding leads to the final conquest of self,
1:54:09
a conquest so complete that sin can no more rise in the mind,
1:54:13
even as a thought or impression. For when the knowledge of sin is complete,
1:54:18
when it is known in its totality, from its inception as a seed
1:54:23
in the mind to its ripened outgrowth as act, in consequence, then it
1:54:28
can no more be allowed a place in life, but it is abandoned forever
1:54:33
than the mind is at peace. The wrong acts of others no longer arouse
1:54:41
wrong and pain in the mind of the disciple. He is glad and calm
1:54:45
and wise. He is filled with love, and blessedness abides with him,
1:54:51
and this is victory. Chapter eighteen. Contentment in activity, the confounding of
1:55:00
a positive spiritual virtue or principle with a negative animal vice, is common amongst
1:55:08
writers, even of what is called the Advanced Thoughts school, and much valuable
1:55:13
energy is frequently expended in criticizing and condemning, where a little calm and reasoning
1:55:19
would have revealed a greater light and led to the exercise of a broader charity.
1:55:27
The other day I came across a vicious attack upon the teaching of love,
1:55:32
wherein the writer condemned such teaching as weakly, foolish and hypocritical. Needless
1:55:39
to say that which he was condemning as love was merely weak sentimentality and hypocrisy.
1:55:46
Another writer, in condemning meekness, does not know that what he calls
1:55:51
meekness is only cowardice. While another who attacks chastity as a snare is really
1:56:00
infusing painful and hypocritical restraint with the virtue of chastity. And just lately I
1:56:05
received a long letter from a correspondent who took great pains to show me that
1:56:12
contentment is a vice and is the source of innumerable evils. That which my
1:56:17
correspondent called contentment is of course animal indifference. The spirit of indifference is incompatible
1:56:26
with progress, whereas the spirit of contentment may and does attend the highest form
1:56:32
of activity, the truest advancement and development. Indolence is the twin sister of
1:56:39
indifference, but cheerful and ready action is the friend of contentment. Contentment is
1:56:45
a virtue which becomes lofty and spiritual in its later developments, as the mind
1:56:51
is trained to perceive and the heart to receive the guidance in all things of
1:56:58
a merciful law. To be contented does not mean to forego effort. It
1:57:03
means to free effort from anxiety. It does not mean to be satisfied with
1:57:09
sin and ignorance and folly, but to rest happily in duty done, work
1:57:15
accomplished. A man may be said to be content to lead a groveling life,
1:57:20
to remain in sin and in debt. But such a man's true state
1:57:25
is one of indifference to his duty, his obligations, and the just claims
1:57:30
of his fellow men. He cannot truly be said to possess the virtue of
1:57:34
contentment. He does not experience the pure and abiding joy which is the accompaniment
1:57:41
of active contentment. So far as his true nature is concerned, he is
1:57:45
a sleeping soul, and sooner or later will be awakened by intense suffering,
1:57:50
having passed through which he will find that true contentment is the outcome of honest
1:57:57
effort and true living. There are three things with which a man should be
1:58:01
content, One with whatever happens, Two with his friendships and possessions, Three
1:58:12
with his pure thoughts. Contented with whatever happens, he will escape grief.
1:58:18
With his friends and possessions, he will avoid anxiety and wretchedness. And with
1:58:25
his pure thoughts he will never go back to suffer and grovel in impurities.
1:58:30
There are three things with which a man should not be content. One with
1:58:36
his opinions, two with his character, three with his spiritual condition. Not
1:58:45
content with his opinions, he will continually increase in intelligence. Not content with
1:58:51
his character, he will ceaselessly grow in strength and virtue, and not content
1:58:58
with his spiritual condition, he will every day enter into a larger wisdom and
1:59:03
fuller blessedness. In a word, a man should be contented but not indifferent
1:59:11
to his development as a responsible and spiritual being. The truly contented man works
1:59:18
energetically and faithfully, and accepts all results with an untroubled spirit, trusting it
1:59:25
first that all is well, but afterwards with the growth of enlightenment, knowing
1:59:30
that results exactly correspond with efforts. Whatsoever material possessions come to him, come
1:59:39
not by greed and anxiety and strife, but by right, thought, wise
1:59:45
action, and pure exertion. The temple of brotherhood. Universal brotherhood is the
1:59:51
supreme ideal of humanity, and towards that ideal, the world is slowly but
1:59:57
surely moving to day as never before. Numbers of earnest men and women are
2:00:04
striving to make this ideal tangible, and real fraternities are springing up on every
2:00:10
hand, and press and pulpit the world over are preaching the brotherhood of man.
2:00:17
The unselfish elements in all such efforts cannot fail to have their effect upon
2:00:23
the race, and are with certainty urging it towards the goal of its noblest
2:00:29
aspirations. But the ideal state has not yet manifested through any outward organization,
2:00:36
and societies formed for the purpose of propagating brotherhood are continually being shattered to pieces
2:00:44
by internal dissension. The brotherhood for which humanity size is withheld from actuality by
2:00:50
humanity itself. Nay more, it is frustrated even by men who work zealously
2:00:58
for it is a desirable possibility. And this because the purely spiritual nature of
2:01:03
brotherhood is not perceived, and the principles involved, as well as the individual
2:01:10
course of conduct necessary to perfect unity, are not comprehended. Brotherhood as a
2:01:17
human organization cannot exist so long as any degree of self seeking reigns in the
2:01:24
hearts of men and women who ban themselves together for any purpose. As such
2:01:29
self seeking must eventually rend the seamless coat of loving unity. But although organized
2:01:35
brotherhood has so far largely failed, any man may realize brotherhood in its perfection
2:01:43
and know it in all its beauty and completion, if he will make himself
2:01:47
of a wise, pure and loving spirit, removing from his mind, every
2:01:53
element of strife, and learning to practice those divine qualities without which brothers is
2:02:00
but a mere theory, opinion, or elusive dream. For brotherhood is at
2:02:05
first spiritual, and its outer manifestation in the world must follow as a natural
2:02:11
sequence, as a spiritual reality. It must be discovered by each man for
2:02:17
himself, and in the only place where spiritual realities can be found, within
2:02:23
himself, and it rests with each whether he shall choose or refuse it.
2:02:30
There are four chief tendencies in the human mind which are destructive of brotherhood and
2:02:35
which bar the way to its comprehension, namely, pride, self, love,
2:02:44
hatred, condemnation. Where these are there can be no brotherhood, And
2:02:49
whatsoever heart, these hold sway, discord rules, and brotherhood is not realized.
2:02:57
For these tendencies are in their very names nature dark and selfish, and
2:03:01
always make for disruption and destruction. From these four things precedes that serpent brood
2:03:09
of false actions and conditions, which poison the heart of man and fill the
2:03:14
world with suffering and sorrow. Out of the spirit of pride precede envy,
2:03:19
resentment, and Opinionativeness. Pride envies the position, influence, or goodness of
2:03:27
others. It thinks I am more deserving than this man or this woman.
2:03:31
It also continually finds occasion for resenting the actions of others and says, I
2:03:39
have been snubbed, I have been insulted. And thinking altogether of his own
2:03:44
excellence, it sees no excellence in others. From the spirit of self love
2:03:49
precede egotism, lust for power, and disparagement and contempt. Self love worships
2:03:58
the personality in which it moves. It is lost in the adoration and glorification
2:04:03
of that eye, that self, which has no real existence, but is
2:04:09
a dark dream and a delusion. It desires pre eminence over others and thinks
2:04:15
I am great, I am more important than others. It also disparages others
2:04:23
and bestows upon them contempt, seeing no beauty in them, being lost in
2:04:28
the contemplation of its own beauty. From the spirit of hatred precedes lander,
2:04:34
cruelty, reveling, and anger. It strives to overcome evil by adding evil
2:04:41
to it. It says, this man has spoken of me, ill I
2:04:45
will speak still more ill of him, and thus teach him a lesson.
2:04:50
It mistakes cruelty for kindness and causes its possessor to revile a reproving friend.
2:04:58
It feeds the flame of anger with bitter and rebellious thoughts from the spirit of
2:05:03
condemnation precede accusation, false pity, and false judgment. It feeds itself on
2:05:12
the contemplation of evil and cannot see the good. It has eyes for evil
2:05:16
only, and finds it in almost every thing and every person. It sets
2:05:23
up an arbitrary standard of right and wrong by which to judge others, and
2:05:28
it thinks, this man does not do as I would have him do,
2:05:32
He is therefore evil, and I will denounce him. So blind is the
2:05:38
spirit of condemnation, that, whilst rendering its possessor incapable of judging himself,
2:05:44
it causes him to set up as the judge of all the earth. From
2:05:48
the four tendencies enumerated, no element of brotherliness can proceed. They are deadly
2:05:56
mental poisons, and he who allows them to rankle in his mine cannot apprehend
2:06:01
the peaceful principles on which brotherhood rests. Then there are chiefly four divine qualities
2:06:09
which are productive of brotherhood, which are, as it were, the foundation
2:06:14
stones on which it rests. Namely, humility, self surrender, love,
2:06:23
compassion. Wheresoever these are, their brotherhood is active in whatsoever heart these qualities
2:06:30
are dominant. Their brotherhood is an established reality, for they are in their
2:06:36
very nature unselfish, and are filled with the revealing light of truth. There
2:06:44
is no darkness in them, and where they are, so powerful is their
2:06:47
light that the dark tendencies cannot remain, but are dissolved and dissipated. Out
2:06:55
of these four qualities precede all those angelic actions in conditions which make for unity
2:07:01
and bring gladness to the heart of man and to the world. From the
2:07:06
spirit of humility, precede meekness and peacefulness. From self surrender, compatience,
2:07:15
wisdom and true judgment. From love spring kindness, joy and harmony. And
2:07:20
from compassion precede gentleness and forgiveness. He who has brought himself into harmony with
2:07:29
these four qualities is divinely enlightened. He sees whence the actions of men proceed
2:07:35
and whither they tend, and therefore can no longer live in the exercise of
2:07:41
the dark tendencies. He has realized brotherhood in its completion, as freedom from
2:07:47
malice, from envy, from bitterness, from contention, from condemnation. All
2:07:55
men are his brothers, those who live in the dark tendencies, as well
2:08:00
as those who live in the enlightened qualities. For He knows that when they
2:08:03
have perceived the glory and beauty of the light of truth, the dark tendencies
2:08:09
will be dispelled from their minds. He has but one attitude of mind towards
2:08:13
all, that of good will. Of the four dark tendencies are born ill
2:08:20
will and strife. Of the four divine qualities are born good will and peace.
2:08:28
Living in the four tendencies, a man is a strife producer. Living
2:08:33
in the four qualities, a man is a peacemaker involved in the darkness of
2:08:37
the selfish tendencies. Men believe that they can fight for peace, kill to
2:08:43
make alive, slay injury by injuring, restore love by hatred, unity by
2:08:50
contention, kindness by cruelty, and established brotherhood by erecting their own opinions,
2:08:58
which they themself self's will, in the course of time abandoned as worthless as
2:09:05
objects of universal adoration. The wished for temple of brotherhood will be erected in
2:09:11
the world when its four foundation stones of humility self surrender, love, and
2:09:18
compassion are firmly laid in the hearts of men. For brotherhood consists first of
2:09:24
all in the abandonment of self by the individual, and its after effects is
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unity between man and man. Theories and schemes for propagating brotherhood are many,
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but brotherhood itself is one and unchangeable, and consists in the complete cessation from
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ego and strife, and in practicing good will and peace. For brotherhood is
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a practice and not a theory. Self surrender and good will are its guardian
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angels, and peace is its habitation. Where two are des determined to maintain
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an opposing opinion, the clinging to self and ill will are there, and
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brotherhood is absent. Where two are prepared to sympathize with each other, to
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see no evil in each other, to serve and not to attack each other,
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the love of truth and good will are there, and brotherhood is present
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all strifes, divisions, and wars. And here in the proud, unyielding
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self all peace, unity and concord. And here in the principles which the
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yielding up of self reveals. Brotherhood is only practiced and known by him whose
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heart is at peace with all the world, Chapter twenty, Pleasant Pastures of
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peace. He who aspires to the bettering of himself and humanity should ceaselessly strive
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to arrive at the exercise of that blessed attitude of mind by which he is
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enabled to put himself mentally and sympathetically in the place of others. And so,
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instead of harshly and falsely judging them and thereby making himself unhappy without adding
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to the happiness of those others, he will enter into their experience, will
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understand their particular frame of mind, and will feel for them and sympathize with
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them. One of the great obstacles to the attainment of such an attitude of
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mind is prejudice, and until this is removed, it is impossible to act
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toward others as we would wish others to act toward us. Prejudice is destructive
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of kindness, sympathy, love, and true judgment, and the strength of
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a man's prejudice will be the measure of his harshness and unkindness toward others.
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For prejudice and cruelty are inseparable. There is no rationality in prejudice, and
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immediately it is aroused in a man, he ceases to act as a reasonable
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being and gives way to rashness, anger, and injurious excitement. He does
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not consider his words nor regard the feelings and liberties of those against whom his
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prejudices are directed. He has, for the time being forfeited his manhood and
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has descended to the level of an irrational creature. While a man is determined
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to cling to his preconceived opinions, mistaking them for truth, and refuses to
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consider dispassionately the position of others, he cannot escape hatred nor arrive at blessedness.
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The man who strives after gentleness, who aspires to act unselfishly toward others,
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will put away all his passionate prejudice and petty opinions, and will gradually
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acquire the power of thinking and feeling for us, of understanding their particular state
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of ignorance or knowledge, and thereby entering fully into their hearts and lives,
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sympathizing with them and seeing them as they really are. Such a man will
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not oppose himself to the prejudices of others by introducing his own, but will
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seek to allay prejudice by introducing sympathy and love, striving to bring out all
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that is good in men, encouraging the good by appealing to it, and
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discouraging the evil by ignoring it. He will realize the good in the unselfish
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efforts of others, though their outward methods may be very different from his own,
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and will so rid his heart of hatred, and will fit it with
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love and blessedness. When a man is prone to harshly judge and condemn others,
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he should inquire how far he feels short himself. He should also reconsider
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those periods of sefer when he himself was misjudged and misunderstood, and gathering wisdom
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in love from his own bitter experience, should studiously and self sacrificingly refrain from
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piercing with anguish hearts that are as yet too weak to ignore, too immature
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and uninstructed to understand. Sympathy is not required towards those who are purer and
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more enlightened than one's self, as the purer one lives above the necessity for
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it. In such a case, reverence should be exercised, with a striving
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to lift one's self up to the purer level and so enter into possession of
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the larger life. Nor can a man fully understand one who is wiser than
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himself, And before condemning he should earnestly ask himself whether he is, after
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all better than the man whom he has singled out as the object of his
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bitterness. If he is, let him bestow sympathy. If he is not,
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let him exercise reverence. For thousands of years, the sages have taught
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both by precept and example that evil is only overcome by good. Yet still
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that lesson, for the majority, remains unlearned. It is a lesson profound
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in its simplicity and difficult to learn because men are blinded by the illusions of
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self. Men are still engaged in resenting, condemning, and fighting the evil
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in their own fellow men, thereby increasing the delusion in their own hearts and
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adding to the world some of misery and suffering. When they find out that
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their own resentment must be eradicated and put love in its place, evil will
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perish for lack of sustenance, with burning brain and heart of hate. I
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sought my wronger early life, and all the wretched night and day my dream
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and thought was slay and slay my better self rose uppermost. The beast within
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my bosom lost itself in love peace from afar shone o'er me radiant like a
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star. I slew my wronger with the deed, a deed of love.
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I made him bleed with kindness, and I filled for years his soul with
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tenderness and tears. Dislike, resentment, and condemnation are all forms of hatred,
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and evil cannot cease until these are taken out of the heart. But
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the obliterating of injuries from the mind is merely one of the beginnings. In
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wisdom. There is a still higher and better way, and that way is
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so to purify the heart and enlighten the mind, that far from having to
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forget injury, there will be none to remember. For it is only pride
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and self that can be injured and wounded by the actions and attitudes of others.
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And he who takes pride and self out of his heart can never think
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the thought I have been injured by another, or I have been wronged by
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another. From a purified heart precedes the right comprehension of things, and from
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the right comprehension of things perceivees the life that is peaceful, freed from bitterness,
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and suffering, calm and wise. He who thinks this man has injured
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me has not perceived the truth in life. Fall short of that enlightenment which
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disperses the erroneous idea of evil as a thing to be hatefully resented. He
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who is troubled and disturbed about the sins of others is far from truth.
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He who is troubled and disturbed about his own lithe sins, is very near
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to the gate of wisdom. He in whose heart the flames of resentment burn
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cannot know peace nor understand truth. He who will banish resentment from his heart
2:18:13
will know and understand. He who has taken evil out of his heart cannot
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resent or resist it in others, for he is enlightened as to its origin
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and nature, and knows it as a manifestation of the mistakes of ignorance.
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With the increase of enlightenment, sin becomes impossible. He who sins does not
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understand. He who understands does not sin. The pure man maintains his tenderness
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of his heart toward those who ignorantly imagine they can do him harm. The
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wrong attitude of others toward him does not trouble him. His heart is at
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rest in compassion and love. Blessed is he who has no wrongs to remember,
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no injuries to forget, in whose pure heart no hateful thought about another
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can take root and flourish. Let those who aim at the right life,
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who believe that they love truth, cease to passionately oppose themselves to others,
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and let them strive to calmly and wisely understand them. And in thus acting
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toward others, they will be conquering themselves. And while sympathizing with others,
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their own souls will be fed with the harmony dues of kindness, and their
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hearts will be strengthened and refreshed in the pleasant pastures of peace.