Latest / Non-Fiction Library / Above Life's Turmoil - James Allen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: We cannot alter external things, nor shape other people to
- 0:04Speaker 1: our liking, nor mold the world to our wishes. But
- 0:08Speaker 1: we can alter internal things, our desires, passions, thoughts. We
- 0:15Speaker 1: can shape our liking to other people, and we can
- 0:19Speaker 1: mold the inner world of our own mind in accordance
- 0:22Speaker 1: with wisdom, and so reconcile it to the outer world
- 0:26Speaker 1: of men and things. The turmoil of the world we
- 0:30Speaker 1: cannot avoid, but the disturbances of mind we can overcome.
- 0:35Speaker 1: The duties and difficulties of life claim our attention, but
- 0:40Speaker 1: we can give rise above all anxiety concerning them. Surrounded
- 0:44Speaker 1: by noise, we can yet have a quiet mind involved
- 0:48Speaker 1: in responsibilities. The heart can be at rest in the
- 0:52Speaker 1: midst of strife. We can know the abiding peace. The
- 0:58Speaker 1: twenty pieces which comprise this book, unrelated as some of
- 1:02Speaker 1: them are in the letter, will be found to be
- 1:04Speaker 1: harmonious in the spirit, in that they point the reader
- 1:08Speaker 1: towards those heights of self knowledge and self conquest, which,
- 1:13Speaker 1: rising above the turbulence of the world, lift their piques
- 1:17Speaker 1: where the heavenly silence reigns. James Allen, Chapter one, True Happiness.
- 1:26Speaker 1: To maintain an unchangeable sweetness of disposition to think only
- 1:31Speaker 1: thoughts that are pure and gentle, and to be happy
- 1:34Speaker 1: under all circumstances. Such blessed conditions, and such beauty of
- 1:40Speaker 1: character and life should be the aim of all, and
- 1:43Speaker 1: particularly so of those who wish to lessen the misery
- 1:46Speaker 1: of the world. If any one has failed to lift
- 1:49Speaker 1: himself above ungentleness, impurity, and unhappiness, he is greatly deluded
- 1:56Speaker 1: if he imagines he can make the world happier by
- 1:59Speaker 1: the properation of any theory or theology. He who is
- 2:03Speaker 1: daily living in harshness, impurity, or unhappiness, is day by
- 2:09Speaker 1: day adding to the sum of the world's misery. Whereas
- 2:13Speaker 1: he who continually lives in good will and does not
- 2:16Speaker 1: depart from happiness, is day by day increasing the sum
- 2:20Speaker 1: of the world's happiness, and this independently of any religious beliefs,
- 2:26Speaker 1: which these may or may not hold. He who has
- 2:29Speaker 1: not learned how to be gentle, or giving, loving and
- 2:32Speaker 1: happy has learned very little great though his book learning
- 2:37Speaker 1: and profound his acquaintance, which the letter of Scripture may be.
- 2:41Speaker 1: For it is in the process of becoming gentle, pure
- 2:44Speaker 1: and happy, that the deep, real and enduring lessons of
- 2:48Speaker 1: life are learned unbroken sweetness of conduct in the face
- 2:53Speaker 1: of all outward antagonism, is the infallible indication of a
- 2:57Speaker 1: self conquered soul, the witness of wisdom, and the proof
- 3:02Speaker 1: of the possession of truth. A sweet and happy soul
- 3:05Speaker 1: is the ripened fruit of experience and wisdom, and it
- 3:09Speaker 1: sheds abroad the invisible yet powerful aroma of its influence,
- 3:14Speaker 1: gladdening the hearts of others and purifying the world. And
- 3:19Speaker 1: all who will and who have not yet commenced, may
- 3:22Speaker 1: begin this day if they will so resolve to live
- 3:26Speaker 1: sweetly and happily, as becomes the dignity of a true
- 3:30Speaker 1: manhood or womanhood. Do not say that your surroundings are
- 3:34Speaker 1: against you. A man's surroundings are never against him. They
- 3:38Speaker 1: are there to aid him. And all those outward occurrences
- 3:42Speaker 1: over which you lose sweetness and peace of mind are
- 3:45Speaker 1: the very conditions necessary to your development, and it is
- 3:49Speaker 1: only by meeting and overcoming them that you can learn
- 3:53Speaker 1: and grow and ripen. The fault is in yourself. Pure
- 3:57Speaker 1: happiness is the rightful and healthy cans condition of the soul,
- 4:01Speaker 1: and all may possess it if they will live purely
- 4:04Speaker 1: and unselfish, have good will to all that lives, letting
- 4:09Speaker 1: unkindness die and greed and wrath, so that your lives
- 4:14Speaker 1: be made like soft airs passing by. Is this too
- 4:18Speaker 1: difficult for you, then unrest and happiness will continue to
- 4:23Speaker 1: dwell with you. Your belief and aspiration and resolve are
- 4:27Speaker 1: all that are necessary to make it easy to render
- 4:30Speaker 1: it in the near future. A thing accomplished, a blessed
- 4:33Speaker 1: state realizes despondency, irritability, anxiety and complaining, condemning and grumbling.
- 4:42Speaker 1: All these are thought cankers, mind diseases. They are the
- 4:46Speaker 1: indications of a wrong mental condition, and those who suffer
- 4:50Speaker 1: they are from would do well to remedy their thinking
- 4:53Speaker 1: and conduct. It is true there is much sin and
- 4:56Speaker 1: misery in the world, so that all our love and
- 4:59Speaker 1: compassion are needed. But our misery is not needed. There
- 5:03Speaker 1: is already too much of that. Know, it is our
- 5:07Speaker 1: cheerfulness and happiness that are needed, for there is too
- 5:10Speaker 1: little of that. We can give nothing better to the
- 5:14Speaker 1: world than beauty of life and character. Without this, all
- 5:18Speaker 1: other things are vain. This is pre eminently excellent. It
- 5:22Speaker 1: is enduring, real, and not to be overthrown, And it
- 5:26Speaker 1: includes all joy and blessedness. Cease to dwell pessimistically upon
- 5:31Speaker 1: the wrongs around you. Dwell no more in complaints about
- 5:35Speaker 1: and revolt against the evil in others, and commence to
- 5:40Speaker 1: live free from all wrong and evil. Yourself, Peace of mind,
- 5:44Speaker 1: pure religion, and truer form lie this way. If you
- 5:48Speaker 1: would have others true, be true. If you would have
- 5:52Speaker 1: the world emancipated from misery and sin, emancipate yourself. If
- 5:57Speaker 1: you would have your home and your surroundings happy, be happy.
- 6:02Speaker 1: You can transform everything around you if you will transform yourself.
- 6:08Speaker 1: Don't bewail and bemoan. Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor
- 6:12Speaker 1: bark against the bad, but chant the beauties of the good.
- 6:17Speaker 1: And this you will naturally and spontaneously do as you
- 6:21Speaker 1: realize the good in yourself. Chapter two, The Immortal Man.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Immortality is here and now, and is not a speculative
- 6:31Speaker 1: something beyond the grave. It is the lucid state of consciousness,
- 6:36Speaker 1: in which the sensations of the body, the varying and
- 6:39Speaker 1: unrestful states of mind, and the circumstances and events of
- 6:43Speaker 1: life are seen to be of a fleeting and therefore
- 6:47Speaker 1: of an illusory character. Immortality does not belong to time,
- 6:52Speaker 1: and never will be found in time. It belongs to eternity.
- 6:56Speaker 1: And just as time is here and now, so is
- 6:59Speaker 1: it turnity here and now. And a man may find
- 7:02Speaker 1: that eternity and establish in it if he will overcome
- 7:06Speaker 1: the self that derives its life from the unsatisfying and
- 7:10Speaker 1: perishable things of time. Whilst a man remains immersed in sensation, desire,
- 7:17Speaker 1: and the passing events of his day by day existence,
- 7:21Speaker 1: and regards those sensations, desires, in passing events as of
- 7:26Speaker 1: the essence of himself, he can have no knowledge of immortality.
- 7:31Speaker 1: The thing which such a man desires, and which he
- 7:34Speaker 1: mistakes for immortality, is persistence. That is a continuous succession
- 7:40Speaker 1: of sensations and events in time, living in, loving and
- 7:45Speaker 1: clinging to the things which stimulate and minister to his
- 7:49Speaker 1: immediate gratification, and realizing no state of consciousness above an
- 7:54Speaker 1: independent of this, he thirsts for its continuance, and strives
- 7:59Speaker 1: to banish the thought that he will at last have
- 8:03Speaker 1: to part from those earthly luxuries and delights to which
- 8:06Speaker 1: he has become enslaved, and which he regards as being
- 8:09Speaker 1: inseparable from himself. Persistence is the anti thesis of immortality,
- 8:16Speaker 1: and to be absorbed in it is spiritual death. Its
- 8:20Speaker 1: very nature is change impermanence. It is a continual living
- 8:24Speaker 1: and dying. The death of the body can never bestow
- 8:28Speaker 1: upon a man immortality. Spirits are not different from men
- 8:33Speaker 1: and live their little, feverish life of broken consciousness and
- 8:37Speaker 1: are still immersed in change immortality. The mortal man, he
- 8:42Speaker 1: who thirst for the persistence of his pleasure loving personality,
- 8:47Speaker 1: is still mortal after death, and only lives another life
- 8:50Speaker 1: with a beginning and an end, without memory of the
- 8:53Speaker 1: past or knowledge of the future. The immortal man is
- 8:57Speaker 1: he who has detached himself from the thing of time
- 9:01Speaker 1: by having ascended into the state of consciousness, which is
- 9:04Speaker 1: fixed and unvariable and is not affected by passing events
- 9:08Speaker 1: and sensations. Human life consists of an ever moving process
- 9:13Speaker 1: of events, and in this procession the mortal man is
- 9:16Speaker 1: immersed and he is carried along with it, and being
- 9:20Speaker 1: so carried along, he has no knowledge of what is
- 9:23Speaker 1: behind and before him. The immortal man is he who
- 9:26Speaker 1: has stepped out of this procession, and he stands by, unmoved,
- 9:31Speaker 1: and watches it. And from his fixed place he sees
- 9:35Speaker 1: both the before, the behind, in the middle of the
- 9:38Speaker 1: moving thing called life. No longer identifying himself with the
- 9:43Speaker 1: sensations and fluctuations of the personality or with the outward
- 9:48Speaker 1: changes which make up the life in time, he has
- 9:51Speaker 1: become the passionless spectator of his own destiny and of
- 9:55Speaker 1: the destinies of the men and nations. The mortal man
- 9:59Speaker 1: all also is one who is caught in a dream,
- 10:02Speaker 1: and he neither knows that he was formally awake, nor
- 10:05Speaker 1: that he will awake again. He is a dreamer without knowledge,
- 10:09Speaker 1: nothing more. The immortal man is as one who has
- 10:13Speaker 1: awakened out of his dream, and he knows that his
- 10:16Speaker 1: dream was not in enduring reality, but a passing illusion.
- 10:20Speaker 1: He is a man with knowledge, the knowledge of both states,
- 10:25Speaker 1: that of persistence and that of immortality, and is in
- 10:29Speaker 1: full possession of himself. The mortal man lives in the
- 10:33Speaker 1: time or world's state of consciousness, which begins and ends.
- 10:37Speaker 1: The immortal man lives in the cosmic or heaven state
- 10:41Speaker 1: of consciousness, in which there is neither beginning nor end,
- 10:45Speaker 1: but an eternal now. Such a man remains poised and
- 10:49Speaker 1: steadfast under all changes, and the death of his body
- 10:54Speaker 1: will not in any way interrupt the eternal consciousness in
- 10:57Speaker 1: which he abides. Such a one, it is said he
- 11:02Speaker 1: shall not taste of death, because he has stepped out
- 11:05Speaker 1: of the stream of mortality and established himself in the
- 11:09Speaker 1: abode of truth. Bodies, personalities, nations, and worlds pass away,
- 11:15Speaker 1: but truth remains, and its glory is undimmed by time.
- 11:20Speaker 1: The immortal man, then, is he who has conquered himself,
- 11:24Speaker 1: who no longer identifies with the self seeking forces of
- 11:27Speaker 1: the personality, but who has trained himself to direct those
- 11:31Speaker 1: forces with the hand of a master, and so has
- 11:35Speaker 1: brought them into harmony with the causal energy and the
- 11:38Speaker 1: source of all things. The fret and fever of life
- 11:42Speaker 1: has ceased. Doubt and fear are cast out, and death
- 11:46Speaker 1: is not for him who has realized the fathless splendor
- 11:49Speaker 1: of that life of truth, by adjusting heart and mind
- 11:53Speaker 1: to the eternal and unchangeable verities. The overcoming of self.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Many people have very confused and erroneous ideas concerning the
- 12:04Speaker 1: terms the overcoming of self, the eradication of desire, and
- 12:09Speaker 1: the annihilation of the personality. Some, particularly the intellectual, who
- 12:15Speaker 1: are prone to theories regarded as a metaphysical theory altogether
- 12:19Speaker 1: apart from life and conduct, while others conclude that it
- 12:23Speaker 1: is the crushing out of all life, energy, and action,
- 12:26Speaker 1: and the attempt to idolize stagnation and death. These errors
- 12:31Speaker 1: and confusions, arising as they do in the minds of individuals,
- 12:35Speaker 1: can only be removed by the individuals themselves, but perhaps
- 12:40Speaker 1: it might make their removal a little less difficult for
- 12:43Speaker 1: those who are seeking the truth by presenting the matter
- 12:46Speaker 1: in another way. The doctrine of the overcoming or annihilation
- 12:51Speaker 1: of self is simplicity itself. Indeed, so simple, practical and
- 12:57Speaker 1: close at hand is it that a child of whose
- 13:01Speaker 1: mind has not yet become clouded with theories, theological schemes,
- 13:05Speaker 1: and speculative philosophies would be far more likely to comprehend
- 13:09Speaker 1: it than many older people who have lost their hold
- 13:12Speaker 1: upon simple and beautiful truths by the adoption of complicated theories.
- 13:18Speaker 1: The annihilation of self consists in weeding out and destroying
- 13:22Speaker 1: all those elements in the soul which lead to division, strife, suffering, disease,
- 13:28Speaker 1: and sorrow. It does not mean the destruction of any
- 13:31Speaker 1: good and beautiful and peace producing quality. For instance, when
- 13:36Speaker 1: a man is tempted to irritability or anger, and by
- 13:40Speaker 1: a great effort overcomes the selfish tendency, casts it from him,
- 13:45Speaker 1: and acts from the spirit of patience and love. In
- 13:48Speaker 1: that moment of self conquest, he practices the annihilation of self.
- 13:54Speaker 1: Every noble man practices it in part, though he may
- 13:57Speaker 1: deny it in his own words. And he who carries
- 14:00Speaker 1: out this practice to its completion, eradicating every selfish tendency
- 14:05Speaker 1: until only the divinely beautiful qualities remain, He is said
- 14:10Speaker 1: to have annihilated the personality, all the personal elements, and
- 14:14Speaker 1: to have arrived at truth. The self, which is to
- 14:18Speaker 1: be annihilated is composed of the following ten worthless and
- 14:22Speaker 1: sorrow producing elements lust, hatred, avarice, self indulgence, self seeking, vanity, pride, doubt, dark, belief, delusion.
- 14:40Speaker 1: It is the total abandonment, the complete annihilation of these
- 14:44Speaker 1: ten elements, for they comprise the body of desire. On
- 14:48Speaker 1: the other hand, it teaches the cultivation, practice, and preservation
- 14:53Speaker 1: of the following ten divine qualities purity, patience, humility, self sacrifice,
- 15:02Speaker 1: self reliance, fearlessness, knowledge, wisdom, compassion, love. These comprise the
- 15:13Speaker 1: body of truth and to live entirely in them is
- 15:16Speaker 1: to be a doer and knower of the truth, is
- 15:19Speaker 1: to be an embodiment of truth. The combination of the
- 15:23Speaker 1: ten elements is called self or the personality. The combination
- 15:27Speaker 1: of the ten qualities produces what is called truth, the impersonal,
- 15:32Speaker 1: the abiding, real, and immortal man. It will thus be
- 15:36Speaker 1: seen that it is not the destruction of any noble, true,
- 15:40Speaker 1: and enduring quality that is taught, but only the destruction
- 15:44Speaker 1: of those things that are ignoble, false, and evanescent. Neither
- 15:48Speaker 1: is this overcoming of self the deprivation of gladness, happiness,
- 15:53Speaker 1: and joy, but rather it is the constant possession of
- 15:57Speaker 1: these things, by living in the joy, begetting qualty. It
- 16:01Speaker 1: is the abandonment of the lust for enjoyment, but not
- 16:05Speaker 1: of enjoyment itself, the destruction of the thirst for pleasure,
- 16:09Speaker 1: but not of pleasure itself, the annihilation of the selfish
- 16:14Speaker 1: longing for love and power and possessions themselves. It is
- 16:18Speaker 1: the preservation of all those things which draw and bind
- 16:22Speaker 1: men together in unity and concord, and, far from idolizing
- 16:26Speaker 1: stagnation and death, urges men to the practice of those
- 16:30Speaker 1: qualities which lead to the highest noblest and most effective
- 16:35Speaker 1: and enduring action. He whose actions proceed from some or
- 16:40Speaker 1: all of the ten elements wastes his energies upon negations,
- 16:44Speaker 1: and does not preserve his soul. But he whose actions
- 16:48Speaker 1: proceed from some or all of the ten qualities, he
- 16:51Speaker 1: truly and wisely acts, and so preserves his soul. He
- 16:56Speaker 1: who lives largely in the ten earthly elements, and who
- 17:00Speaker 1: is blind and deaf to the spiritual varidities, will find
- 17:04Speaker 1: no attraction in the doctrine of self surrender, for it
- 17:07Speaker 1: will appear to him as the complete extinction of his being.
- 17:11Speaker 1: But he who is endeavoring to live in the ten
- 17:13Speaker 1: heavenly qualities will see the glory and beauty of the doctrine,
- 17:18Speaker 1: and will know it as the foundation of life eternal.
- 17:21Speaker 1: He will also see that when men apprehend and practice it, industry, commerce, government,
- 17:28Speaker 1: and every worldly activity will be purified, and action, purpose,
- 17:32Speaker 1: and intelligence, instead of being destroyed, will be intensified and enlarged,
- 17:38Speaker 1: but free from strife and pain. Chapter four, The Uses
- 17:44Speaker 1: of temptation. The soul, in its journey towards perfection, passes
- 17:49Speaker 1: through three distinct stages. The first is the animal stage,
- 17:54Speaker 1: in which the man is content to live in the
- 17:57Speaker 1: gratification of his senses, unawaken into the knowledge of sin
- 18:01Speaker 1: or of his divine inheritance, and altogether unconscious of the
- 18:05Speaker 1: spiritual possibilities within himself. The second is the dual stage,
- 18:11Speaker 1: in which the mind is continually oscillating between its animal
- 18:15Speaker 1: and divine tendencies, having become awakened to the consciousness of both.
- 18:21Speaker 1: It is during this stage that temptation plays its part
- 18:24Speaker 1: in the progress of the soul. It is a stage
- 18:27Speaker 1: of continual fighting, of falling and rising, of sinning and repenting.
- 18:32Speaker 1: For the man, still loving and reluctant to leave the
- 18:36Speaker 1: gratifications in which he has so long lived, yet also
- 18:40Speaker 1: aspires to the purity and excellence of the spiritual state,
- 18:45Speaker 1: and he is continually mortified by an undecided choice urged
- 18:50Speaker 1: on by the divine life within him. This stage becomes
- 18:53Speaker 1: at last one of deep anguish and suffering, and then
- 18:57Speaker 1: the soul is ushered into the third stage, that of knowledge,
- 19:01Speaker 1: in which the man rises above both sin and temptation
- 19:05Speaker 1: and enters into peace. Temptation, like contentment in sin, is
- 19:11Speaker 1: not a lasting condition, as the majority of people suppose.
- 19:15Speaker 1: It is a passing phase. An experience through which the
- 19:18Speaker 1: soul must pass. But as to whether a man will
- 19:21Speaker 1: pass through that condition in this present life and realize
- 19:25Speaker 1: holiness and heavenly rest here and now will depend entirely
- 19:30Speaker 1: upon the strength of his intellectual and spiritual exertions, and
- 19:34Speaker 1: upon the intensity and order with which he searches for truth. Temptation,
- 19:40Speaker 1: with all its attendant torments, can be overcome here and now,
- 19:45Speaker 1: but it can only be overcome by knowledge. It is
- 19:48Speaker 1: a condition of darkness or of semi darkness. The fully
- 19:53Speaker 1: enlightened soul is proof against all temptation. When a man
- 19:57Speaker 1: fully understands the source, nat and meaning of temptation, in
- 20:02Speaker 1: that hour, he will conquer it and will rest from
- 20:05Speaker 1: his long travel. But whilst he remains in ignorance, attention
- 20:10Speaker 1: to religious observances and much praying and reading of scripture
- 20:14Speaker 1: will fail to bring him peace. If a man goes
- 20:18Speaker 1: out to conquer an enemy, knowing nothing of his enemy's strength, tactics,
- 20:23Speaker 1: or place of ambush, he will not only ignomomously fall,
- 20:27Speaker 1: but will speedily fall into the hands of an enemy.
- 20:31Speaker 1: He who would overcome his enemy, the tempter must discover
- 20:35Speaker 1: his stronghold and place of concealment, and must also find
- 20:39Speaker 1: out the unguarded gates in his own fortress where his
- 20:42Speaker 1: enemy affects so easily an entrance. This necessitates continual meditation,
- 20:49Speaker 1: ceaseless watchfulness, and constant and rigid introspection, which lays bare
- 20:55Speaker 1: before the spiritual eyes of the tempted one the vain
- 20:58Speaker 1: and selfish motives of his soul. This is the holy
- 21:02Speaker 1: warfare of the saints. It is the fight upon which
- 21:05Speaker 1: every soul enters when it awakens out of its long
- 21:08Speaker 1: sleep of animal indulgence. Men fail to conquer, and the
- 21:13Speaker 1: fight is indefinitely prolonged because they labor almost universally under
- 21:18Speaker 1: two delusions, first that all temptations come from without, and
- 21:24Speaker 1: second that they are tempted because of their goodness. Whilst
- 21:28Speaker 1: demand is held in bondage by these two delusions, he
- 21:32Speaker 1: will make no progress. When he has shaken them off,
- 21:36Speaker 1: he will pass on rapidly from victory to victory, and
- 21:40Speaker 1: will taste of spiritual joy and rest. Two searching truths
- 21:45Speaker 1: must take the place of these two delusions, and those
- 21:49Speaker 1: truths are first that all temptation comes from within, and
- 21:54Speaker 1: second that a man is tempted because of the evil
- 21:58Speaker 1: that is within him. The idea that God, a devil,
- 22:02Speaker 1: evil spirits, or outward objects are the source of temptation
- 22:06Speaker 1: must be dispelled. The source and cause of all temptation
- 22:10Speaker 1: is in the inward desire that being purified or eliminated.
- 22:15Speaker 1: Outward objects and extraneous powers are utterly powerless to move
- 22:20Speaker 1: the soul to sin or to temptation. The outward object
- 22:24Speaker 1: is merely the occasion of the temptation, never the cause.
- 22:28Speaker 1: This is the desire of the one tempted. If the
- 22:31Speaker 1: cause existed in the object, all men would be tempted alike.
- 22:35Speaker 1: Temptation could never be overcome, and men would be hopelessly
- 22:39Speaker 1: doomed to endless torment. But seated as it is in
- 22:43Speaker 1: his own desires, he has the remedy in his own hands,
- 22:47Speaker 1: and can become victorious over all temptation by purifying those desires.
- 22:53Speaker 1: A man is tempted because there are within him certain desires,
- 22:57Speaker 1: are states of mind which he has come to regard
- 22:59Speaker 1: as unholy. These desires may lie asleep for a long time,
- 23:04Speaker 1: and the man may think that he has gotten rid
- 23:06Speaker 1: of them, when suddenly, on the presentation of an outward object,
- 23:11Speaker 1: the sleeping desire wakes up and thirsts of immediate gratification.
- 23:16Speaker 1: And this is the state of temptation. The good in
- 23:19Speaker 1: man is never tempted. Goodness destroys temptation. It is the
- 23:24Speaker 1: evil in a man that is aroused and tempted. The
- 23:28Speaker 1: measure of a man's temptations is the exact register of
- 23:31Speaker 1: his own unholiness. As a man purifies his heart, temptation ceases.
- 23:37Speaker 1: For when a certain unlawful desire has been taken out
- 23:40Speaker 1: of the heart, the object which formerly appealed to it
- 23:44Speaker 1: can no longer do so, but becomes dead and powerless,
- 23:48Speaker 1: for there is nothing left in the heart that can
- 23:50Speaker 1: respond to it. The honest man cannot be tempted to steal,
- 23:54Speaker 1: let the occasion be ever so opportune. The man of
- 23:58Speaker 1: purified appetites cannot be tempted to gluttony and drunkenness, though
- 24:03Speaker 1: the viands and wines be the most luscious. He of
- 24:07Speaker 1: an enlightened understanding, whose mind is calm and the strength
- 24:10Speaker 1: of inward virtue, can never be tempted to anger, irritability,
- 24:14Speaker 1: or revenge. And the wiles and charms of the wanton
- 24:19Speaker 1: fall upon the purified heart as empty, meaningless shadows. Temptation
- 24:24Speaker 1: shows a man just where he is sinful and ignorant,
- 24:28Speaker 1: and is a means of urging him onto higher altitudes
- 24:30Speaker 1: of knowledge and purity. Without temptation, the soul cannot grow
- 24:35Speaker 1: and become strong. There could be no wisdom, no real virtue,
- 24:40Speaker 1: and though there would be lethargy and death, there could
- 24:43Speaker 1: be no peace and no fullness of life. When temptation
- 24:47Speaker 1: is understood and conquered, perfection is assured, and such perfection
- 24:52Speaker 1: may become any man's who is willing to cast every
- 24:55Speaker 1: selfish and impure desire by which he is possessed, into
- 24:59Speaker 1: the sacrifice fire of knowledge. Let men therefore search diligently
- 25:05Speaker 1: for truth, realizing that whilst they are subject to temptation,
- 25:09Speaker 1: they have not comprehended truth and have much to learn. You,
- 25:14Speaker 1: who are tempted, know then that ye are tempted of yourselves.
- 25:19Speaker 1: For every man is tempted when he is drawn away
- 25:22Speaker 1: from his own loss, says the apostle James, you are
- 25:26Speaker 1: tempted because you are clinging to the animal within you
- 25:29Speaker 1: and are unwilling to let go, because you are living
- 25:32Speaker 1: in the false mortal self, which is ever devoid of
- 25:35Speaker 1: all true knowledge, knowing nothing, seeking nothing but its own
- 25:40Speaker 1: immediate gratification, Ignorant of every truth and of every divine principle.
- 25:46Speaker 1: Clinging to that self, you continually suffer the pains of
- 25:50Speaker 1: three separate torments, the torment of desire, the torment of repletion,
- 25:56Speaker 1: and the torment of remorse. So flameth trishna, lust and
- 26:02Speaker 1: thirst of things. Eager, ye cleave to shadows, dote on dreams,
- 26:09Speaker 1: a false self in the midst ye plant and make
- 26:12Speaker 1: a world around which seems blind to the height beyond,
- 26:17Speaker 1: deaf to the sound of sweet airs breathed from far
- 26:20Speaker 1: past Indra's sky, dumb to the summons of the true
- 26:24Speaker 1: life kept for him who false puts by. So grow
- 26:29Speaker 1: the strifes and lusts which make Earth's war so grief poor,
- 26:34Speaker 1: cheated hearts and flow, salt tears so wax, The passions
- 26:39Speaker 1: envies anger's hates, So years chase blood stained years with
- 26:45Speaker 1: wild red feet. In that false self lies the germ
- 26:50Speaker 1: of every suffering, the blight of every hope, the substance
- 26:54Speaker 1: of every grief. When you are ready to give it up,
- 26:58Speaker 1: when you are willing to have laid bare for you,
- 27:00Speaker 1: all its selfishness, impurity, and ignorance, and to confess its
- 27:05Speaker 1: darkness to the uttermost. Then will you enter upon the
- 27:09Speaker 1: life of self knowledge and self mastery. You will become
- 27:13Speaker 1: conscious of the God within you, of that divine nature which,
- 27:17Speaker 1: seeking no gratification, abides in a region of perpetual joy
- 27:22Speaker 1: and peace, where suffering cannot come, and where temptation can
- 27:26Speaker 1: find no foothold. Establishing yourself day by day more and
- 27:31Speaker 1: more firmly in that inward divinity, the time will at
- 27:35Speaker 1: last come when you will be able to stay with
- 27:38Speaker 1: him whom millions worship, few understand, and fewer still follow.
- 27:44Speaker 1: The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me,
- 27:49Speaker 1: the man of integrity. There are times in the life
- 27:53Speaker 1: of every man who takes his stand on high moral
- 27:56Speaker 1: principles when his faith in and knowledge of these principles
- 28:01Speaker 1: is tested to the uttermost, and the way in which
- 28:04Speaker 1: he comes out of the fiery trial decides as to
- 28:07Speaker 1: whether he has sufficient strength to live as a man
- 28:10Speaker 1: of truth and join the company of the free, or
- 28:14Speaker 1: shall still remain a slave and a hireling to the
- 28:17Speaker 1: cruel taskmaster self. Such times of trial generally assume the
- 28:23Speaker 1: form of a temptation to do a wrong thing and
- 28:27Speaker 1: continue in comfort and prosperity, or to stand by what
- 28:30Speaker 1: is right and accept poverty and failure. And so powerful
- 28:35Speaker 1: is the trial that to the tempted one it plainly
- 28:39Speaker 1: appears on the face of things, as though if he
- 28:42Speaker 1: chooses the wrong his material success will be assured for
- 28:45Speaker 1: the remainder of his life, but if he does what
- 28:48Speaker 1: is right, he will be ruined forever. Frequently the man
- 28:53Speaker 1: at once quails and gives way before this appalling prospect,
- 28:57Speaker 1: which the path of righteousness seems to hold out for him.
- 29:01Speaker 1: But should he prove sufficiently strong to withstand this onslought
- 29:05Speaker 1: of temptation than the inward seducer, the spirit of self
- 29:10Speaker 1: assumes the grab of an angel of light and whispers,
- 29:14Speaker 1: Think of your wife and children, Think of those who
- 29:17Speaker 1: are dependent upon you. Will you bring them down to
- 29:20Speaker 1: disgrace and starvation? Strong, indeed, and pure must be the
- 29:26Speaker 1: man who can come triumphant out of such a trial.
- 29:30Speaker 1: But he who does so enters at once a higher
- 29:33Speaker 1: realm of life, where his spiritual eyes are open to
- 29:36Speaker 1: see beautiful things. And then poverty and ruin, which seemed inevitable,
- 29:42Speaker 1: do not come, but a more abiding success comes and
- 29:46Speaker 1: a peaceful heart and a quiet conscience. But he who
- 29:50Speaker 1: fails does not obtain the promised prosperity, and his heart
- 29:55Speaker 1: is restless and his conscience troubled. The right doer cannot
- 30:00Speaker 1: ultimately fail, the wrongdoer cannot ultimately succeed. For such is
- 30:05Speaker 1: the law which moves to righteousness, which none at last
- 30:09Speaker 1: can turn aside or stray. And it is because justice
- 30:13Speaker 1: is at the heart of things, because the great law
- 30:16Speaker 1: is good, that the man of integrity is superior to
- 30:20Speaker 1: fear and failure and poverty and shame and disgrace. As
- 30:26Speaker 1: the poet further says, of this law, the heart of
- 30:29Speaker 1: its love, the end of it is peace and consummation,
- 30:34Speaker 1: sweet obey. The man who, fearing the loss of present
- 30:38Speaker 1: pleasures or material comforts, denies the truth within him, can
- 30:43Speaker 1: be injured and robbed and degraded and trampled upon, because
- 30:48Speaker 1: he first injured, robbed, and degraded and trampled upon his
- 30:52Speaker 1: own nobler self. But the man of steadfast virtue, of
- 30:57Speaker 1: unblemished integrity cannot be subject to such conditions, because he
- 31:02Speaker 1: has denied the craven self within him, and has taken
- 31:05Speaker 1: refuge in truth. It is not the scourge in the
- 31:10Speaker 1: chains which make a man a slave, but the fact
- 31:13Speaker 1: that he is a slave. Slander, accusation, and malice cannot
- 31:18Speaker 1: affect the righteous man, nor call from him any bitter response.
- 31:23Speaker 1: Nor does he need to go about to defend himself
- 31:26Speaker 1: and prove his innocence. His innocence and integrity alone are
- 31:31Speaker 1: a sufficient answer to all that hatred may attempt against him.
- 31:35Speaker 1: Nor can he ever be subdued by the forces of darkness,
- 31:39Speaker 1: having subdued all those forces within himself. But he turns
- 31:44Speaker 1: all evil things to good account out of darkness. He
- 31:48Speaker 1: brings light out of hatred, love, out of dishonor, Honor
- 31:53Speaker 1: and slanders, envies, and misrepresentations only serve to make more
- 31:59Speaker 1: bright jewel of truth within him, and to glorify his
- 32:03Speaker 1: high and holy destiny. Let the man of integrity rejoice
- 32:08Speaker 1: and be glad when he is severely tried. Let him
- 32:12Speaker 1: be thankful that he has been given an opportunity of
- 32:15Speaker 1: proving his loyalty to the noble principles which he has expoused.
- 32:20Speaker 1: And let him think, now is the hour of holy opportunity.
- 32:25Speaker 1: Now is the day of triumph for truth. Though I
- 32:28Speaker 1: lose the whole world. I will not desert the right,
- 32:32Speaker 1: so thinking he will return good for evil, and will
- 32:36Speaker 1: think compassionately of the wrong doer, the slanderer, the backbiter,
- 32:42Speaker 1: and the wrong doer. May seem to succeed for a time,
- 32:45Speaker 1: but the law of justice prevails. The man of integrity
- 32:49Speaker 1: may seem to fail for a time, but he is invincible,
- 32:53Speaker 1: and in none of the world's visible or invisible can
- 32:57Speaker 1: there be forged a weapon that shall prevail against him.
- 33:01Speaker 1: Chapter six. Discrimination. There is one quality which is pre
- 33:06Speaker 1: eminently necessary to spiritual development, the quality of discrimination. A
- 33:13Speaker 1: man's spiritual progress will be painfully slow and uncertain until
- 33:18Speaker 1: their opens with him the eye of discrimination. For without
- 33:22Speaker 1: this testing proving searching quality, he will but grope in
- 33:26Speaker 1: the dark, will be unable to distinguish the real from
- 33:30Speaker 1: the unreal, the shadow from the substance, and will so
- 33:34Speaker 1: confuse the false with the true as to mistake the
- 33:37Speaker 1: inward promptings of his animal nature for those of the
- 33:40Speaker 1: spirit of truth. A blind man left in a strange
- 33:44Speaker 1: place may go grope his way in the darkness, but
- 33:48Speaker 1: not without much confusion and many painful falls and bruisings.
- 33:53Speaker 1: Without discrimination, a man is mentally blind, and his life
- 33:58Speaker 1: is a painful groping in darkness, a confusion in which
- 34:02Speaker 1: vice and virtue are indistinguishable one from the other, where
- 34:07Speaker 1: facts are confounded with truths, opinions with principles, and where ideas, events, men,
- 34:14Speaker 1: and things appear to be out of all relation to
- 34:17Speaker 1: each other. A man's mind and life should be free
- 34:20Speaker 1: from confusion. He should be prepared to meet every mental, material,
- 34:26Speaker 1: and spiritual difficulty, and should not be inextricably caught, as
- 34:31Speaker 1: many are, in the meshes of doubt, indecision, and uncertainty
- 34:36Speaker 1: when troubles, in so called misfortunes, come along. He should
- 34:40Speaker 1: be fortified against every emergency that can come against him.
- 34:44Speaker 1: But such mental preparedness and strength cannot be attained in
- 34:48Speaker 1: any degree without discrimination, and discrimination can only be developed
- 34:53Speaker 1: by bringing into play and constantly exercising the analytical faculty. Mind,
- 35:01Speaker 1: like muscle, is developed by use, and the assiduous exercise
- 35:05Speaker 1: of the mind in any given direction will develop in
- 35:09Speaker 1: that direction mental capacity and power. The merely critical faculty
- 35:15Speaker 1: is developed and strengthened by continuously comparing and analyzing the
- 35:20Speaker 1: ideas and opinions of others. But discrimination is something more
- 35:25Speaker 1: and greater than criticism. It is a spiritual quality from
- 35:29Speaker 1: which the cruelty and egotism which so frequently accompany criticism
- 35:34Speaker 1: are eliminated, and by virtue of which a man sees
- 35:38Speaker 1: things as they are and not as he would like
- 35:41Speaker 1: them to be. Discrimination, being a spiritual quality, can only
- 35:47Speaker 1: be developed by spiritual methods, namely, by questioning, examining, and
- 35:54Speaker 1: analyzing one's own ideas, opinions, and conduct. The critical fault
- 35:59Speaker 1: finding fact faculty must be withdrawn from its merciless application
- 36:04Speaker 1: to the opinions and conduct of others, and must be
- 36:07Speaker 1: applied with undiminished severity to one's self. A man must
- 36:13Speaker 1: be prepared to question his every opinion, his every thought,
- 36:17Speaker 1: in his every line of conduct, and rigorously and logically
- 36:21Speaker 1: tests them. Only in this way can the discrimination which
- 36:26Speaker 1: destroys confusion be developed. Before a man can enter upon
- 36:31Speaker 1: such mental exercise, he must make himself of a teachable spirit.
- 36:37Speaker 1: This does not mean that he must allow himself to
- 36:39Speaker 1: be led by others. It means that he must be
- 36:42Speaker 1: prepared to yield up any cherished thoughts to which he
- 36:45Speaker 1: clings if it will not bear the penetrating light of reason.
- 36:50Speaker 1: If it shrivels up before the pure flames of searching aspirations.
- 36:55Speaker 1: The man who says I am right, and who refuses
- 36:59Speaker 1: to question his position in order to discover whether he
- 37:03Speaker 1: is right, will continue to follow the line of his
- 37:06Speaker 1: passions and prejudices, and will not acquire discrimination. The man
- 37:11Speaker 1: who humbly asks, am I right, and then proceeds to
- 37:16Speaker 1: test and prove his position by earnest thought and the
- 37:20Speaker 1: love of truth, will always be able to discover the
- 37:23Speaker 1: true and to distinguish it from the false, and he
- 37:27Speaker 1: will acquire the priceless possession of discrimination. The man who
- 37:32Speaker 1: is afraid to think searchingly upon his opinions and to
- 37:36Speaker 1: reason critically upon his position will have to develop moral
- 37:40Speaker 1: courage before he can acquire discrimination. A man must be
- 37:45Speaker 1: true to himself, fearless with himself, before he can perceive
- 37:50Speaker 1: the pure principles of truth, before he can receive the
- 37:54Speaker 1: all revealing light of truth. The more truth is inquired of,
- 37:58Speaker 1: the brighter it shine. It cannot suffer under examination and analysis.
- 38:05Speaker 1: The more error is questioned, the darker it grows. It
- 38:09Speaker 1: cannot survive the entrance of pure and searching thought. To
- 38:13Speaker 1: prove all things is to find the good and throw
- 38:16Speaker 1: the evil. He who reasons and meditates learns to discriminate.
- 38:22Speaker 1: He who discriminates discovers the eternally true. Confusion, suffering, and
- 38:28Speaker 1: spiritual darkness follow the thoughtless harmony, blessedness and the light
- 38:34Speaker 1: of truth attend upon the thoughtful. Passion and prejudice are
- 38:39Speaker 1: blind and cannot discriminate. They are still crucifying the Christ
- 38:44Speaker 1: and releasing Barabbas. Belief the basis of action. Belief is
- 38:51Speaker 1: an important word in the teachings of the Wise, and
- 38:54Speaker 1: it figures prominently in all religions. According to Jesus, a
- 38:59Speaker 1: certain kind kind of belief is necessary to salvation or regeneration,
- 39:04Speaker 1: and Buddha definitely thought that the right belief is the
- 39:07Speaker 1: first and most essential step in the way of truth,
- 39:11Speaker 1: as without right belief there cannot be right conduct, and
- 39:15Speaker 1: he who has not learned how to rightly govern and
- 39:18Speaker 1: conduct himself has not comprehended the simplest rudiments of truth. Belief,
- 39:24Speaker 1: as laid down by the great teachers, is not belief
- 39:27Speaker 1: in any particular school, philosophy, or religion, but consists of
- 39:32Speaker 1: an attitude of mind determining the whole course of one's life.
- 39:37Speaker 1: Belief in conduct are therefore inseparable, for the one determines
- 39:42Speaker 1: the other. Belief is the basis of all action, and
- 39:46Speaker 1: this being so, the belief which dominates the hearts or minds,
- 39:50Speaker 1: is shown in the life. Every man acts, thinks, lives
- 39:55Speaker 1: in exact accordance with the belief which is rooted in
- 39:58Speaker 1: his innermost being. And such is the mathematical nature of
- 40:02Speaker 1: the laws which govern mind, that it is absolutely impossible
- 40:06Speaker 1: for any one to believe in two opposing conditions at
- 40:10Speaker 1: the same time. For instance, it is impossible to believe
- 40:15Speaker 1: in justice and injustice, hatred and love, peace and strife,
- 40:20Speaker 1: self and truth. Every man believes in one or the
- 40:24Speaker 1: other of these opposites, never in both, and the daily
- 40:28Speaker 1: conduct of every man indicates the nature of his belief.
- 40:32Speaker 1: The man who believes in justice, who regards it as
- 40:35Speaker 1: an eternal and indestructible principle, never boils over with righteous indignation,
- 40:41Speaker 1: does not grow cynical and pessimistic over the inequalities of life,
- 40:46Speaker 1: and remains calm and untroubled through all trials and difficulties.
- 40:50Speaker 1: It is impossible for him to act otherwise, for he
- 40:53Speaker 1: believes that justice reigns, and that Therefore all that is
- 40:58Speaker 1: called injustice is fleaading and illusory. The man who is
- 41:02Speaker 1: continually getting enraged over the injustice of his fellow man
- 41:06Speaker 1: who talks about himself being badly treated, or who mourns
- 41:10Speaker 1: the lack of justice in the world around him, shows
- 41:14Speaker 1: by his conduct his attitude of mind, that he believes
- 41:18Speaker 1: in injustice. However he may protest to the contrary. In
- 41:22Speaker 1: his inmost heart, he believes that confusion and chaos are
- 41:26Speaker 1: dominant in the universe, the result being that he dwells
- 41:30Speaker 1: in misery and unrest, and his conduct is faulty. Again.
- 41:36Speaker 1: He who believes in love, in its stability and power,
- 41:40Speaker 1: practices it under all circumstances, never deviates from it, and
- 41:45Speaker 1: bestows it alike upon enemies as upon friends. He who
- 41:49Speaker 1: slanders and condemns, speaks disparagingly of others, or regards them
- 41:55Speaker 1: with contempt, believes not in love but hatred. All his
- 42:00Speaker 1: actions prove it, even though with tongue or pen he
- 42:04Speaker 1: may eulogize love. The believer in peace is known by
- 42:08Speaker 1: his peaceful conduct. It is impossible for him to engage
- 42:11Speaker 1: in strife. If attacked, he does not retaliate, for he
- 42:16Speaker 1: has seen the majesty of the Angel of Peace, and
- 42:19Speaker 1: can no longer pay homage to the demon of strife,
- 42:23Speaker 1: the stirrer up of strife, the lover of argument. He
- 42:27Speaker 1: who rushes into self defense upon any or every provocation
- 42:31Speaker 1: believes in strife, and will have naught to do with peace. Further,
- 42:38Speaker 1: he who believes in truth renounces himself, that is, he
- 42:42Speaker 1: refuses to center his life in those passions, desires, and
- 42:46Speaker 1: characteristics which crave only their gratification, And by thus renouncing
- 42:52Speaker 1: he becomes steadfastly fixed in truth and lives a wise,
- 42:56Speaker 1: beautiful and blameless life. The believer in is known by
- 43:01Speaker 1: his daily indulgences, gratifications, and vanities, and by the disappointments, sorrows,
- 43:07Speaker 1: and mortifications which he continually suffers. The believer in truth
- 43:13Speaker 1: does not suffer, for he has given up that self
- 43:16Speaker 1: which is the cause of such suffering. It will be
- 43:19Speaker 1: seen by the foregoing that every man believes either in
- 43:23Speaker 1: permanent and eternal principles directing human life towards law and harmony,
- 43:29Speaker 1: or in the negation of those principles, with the resultant
- 43:32Speaker 1: chaos and human affairs, and in his own life belief
- 43:37Speaker 1: in the divine principles of justice, compassion, love constitutes the
- 43:42Speaker 1: right belief laid down by Buddha as being the basis
- 43:46Speaker 1: of right conduct, and also the belief unto salvation, as
- 43:50Speaker 1: emphasized in the Christian scriptures. For he who so believes
- 43:54Speaker 1: cannot do otherwise than build his whole life upon these principles,
- 43:59Speaker 1: and so purified his heart and perfects his life. Belief
- 44:04Speaker 1: in the negation of this divine principle constitutes what is
- 44:08Speaker 1: called in all religions unbelief, and this unbelief is manifested
- 44:14Speaker 1: as a sinful, troubled, and imperfect life. Where there is
- 44:19Speaker 1: right belief, there is a blameless and perfect life. Where
- 44:23Speaker 1: there is false belief, there is sin, there is sorrow.
- 44:27Speaker 1: The mind and life are improperly governed, and there is
- 44:30Speaker 1: affliction and unrest. By their fruits, ye shall know them.
- 44:35Speaker 1: There is much to talk about belief in Jesus. But
- 44:39Speaker 1: what does belief in Jesus mean. It means belief in
- 44:43Speaker 1: his words, in the principles he enunciated and lived, in
- 44:48Speaker 1: his commandments, and in his exemplary life of perfection. He
- 44:52Speaker 1: who declares belief in Jesus and yet is all the
- 44:56Speaker 1: time living in his lusts and indulgences, or in the
- 44:59Speaker 1: spirit of hatred and condemnation, is self deceived. He believes
- 45:04Speaker 1: not in Jesus. He believes in his own animal self,
- 45:09Speaker 1: as a faithful servant delights in carrying out the commands
- 45:12Speaker 1: of his master. So he who believes in Jesus carries
- 45:15Speaker 1: out his commandments, and so is saved from sin. The
- 45:20Speaker 1: supreme test of belief in Jesus is this, do I
- 45:24Speaker 1: keep his commandments? And this test is applied by Saint
- 45:28Speaker 1: John himself in the following words. He is that Saint
- 45:33Speaker 1: I know him Jesus and keepeth not his commandments, is
- 45:38Speaker 1: a liar, and the truth is not in him. But
- 45:42Speaker 1: whose keepeth his word in him? Verily is the word
- 45:46Speaker 1: of God perfected. It will be found, after a rigid
- 45:50Speaker 1: and impartial analysis that belief lies at the root of
- 45:54Speaker 1: all human conduct, Every thought, every act, every habit is
- 45:59Speaker 1: the direct outcome of a certain fixed belief, and one's
- 46:03Speaker 1: conduct altars only as one's belief are modified. What we
- 46:07Speaker 1: cling to in that we believe, we practice in that
- 46:10Speaker 1: we believe. When our belief in a thing ceases, we
- 46:15Speaker 1: can no longer cling to or practice it. It falls
- 46:18Speaker 1: away from us as a garment. Outworn men cling to
- 46:21Speaker 1: their lusts and lies in vanities because they believe in them,
- 46:26Speaker 1: believe there is gain and happiness in them. When they
- 46:30Speaker 1: transfer their belief to the divine qualities of purity and humility,
- 46:34Speaker 1: those sins trouble them no more. Men are safe from
- 46:38Speaker 1: error by belief in the supremacy of truth. They are
- 46:42Speaker 1: saved from sin by belief in holiness or perfection. They
- 46:46Speaker 1: are saved from evil by belief in good. For every
- 46:49Speaker 1: belief is manifested in the life. It is not necessary
- 46:53Speaker 1: to inquire as to a man's theological belief, for that
- 46:57Speaker 1: is of little or no account. For what can it
- 47:00Speaker 1: avail a man to believe that Jesus died for him,
- 47:03Speaker 1: or that Jesus is God, or that he is justified
- 47:06Speaker 1: by faith if he continues to live in his lower,
- 47:10Speaker 1: sinful nature. All that is necessary to ask is this,
- 47:15Speaker 1: how does a man live? How does he conduct himself
- 47:18Speaker 1: under trying circumstances. The answer to these questions will show
- 47:23Speaker 1: whether a man believes in the power of evil or
- 47:26Speaker 1: in the power of good. He who believes in the
- 47:29Speaker 1: power of good lives a good, spiritual, or godly life.
- 47:34Speaker 1: For Goodness is God, yea verily is God himself, and
- 47:39Speaker 1: he will soon leave behind him all sins and sorrows.
- 47:43Speaker 1: Who believes with steadfast and unwavering faith in the Supreme
- 47:48Speaker 1: Good Chapter eight, The belief that saves. It has been
- 47:54Speaker 1: said that a man's whole life and character is the
- 47:57Speaker 1: outcome of his belief, and also that his belief has
- 48:01Speaker 1: nothing whatever to do with his life. Both statements are true.
- 48:06Speaker 1: The confusion and contradiction of these two statements are only
- 48:09Speaker 1: apparent and are quickly dispelled when it is remembered that
- 48:13Speaker 1: there are two entirely distinct kinds of beliefs, namely head
- 48:18Speaker 1: belief and heart belief. Head or intellectual belief, is not
- 48:24Speaker 1: fundamental and causative, but it is superficial and consequent, and
- 48:29Speaker 1: that it has no power in the molding of a
- 48:31Speaker 1: man's character. The most superficial observer may easily see. Take
- 48:37Speaker 1: for instance, half a dozen men from any creed. They
- 48:41Speaker 1: not only hold the same theological belief, but confess the
- 48:45Speaker 1: same articles of faith in every particular, and yet their
- 48:49Speaker 1: characters are vastly different. One will be just as noble
- 48:53Speaker 1: as another is ignoble. One will be mild and gentle
- 48:57Speaker 1: another course and irascable. One will be honest, another dishonest.
- 49:03Speaker 1: One will indulge certain habits which another will rigidly abjure,
- 49:08Speaker 1: and so on, plainly indicating that theological belief is not
- 49:12Speaker 1: an influential factor in a man's life. A man's theological
- 49:17Speaker 1: belief is merely his intellectual opinion or view of the universe, God,
- 49:22Speaker 1: the Bible, et cetera. And behind and underneath this head
- 49:26Speaker 1: belief there lies deeply rooted in his innermost being, the hidden, silent,
- 49:31Speaker 1: secret belief of his heart. And it is this belief
- 49:35Speaker 1: which molds and makes his whole life. It is this
- 49:38Speaker 1: which makes those six men who whilest holding the same theology,
- 49:43Speaker 1: are yet so vastly at variance in their deeds. They
- 49:48Speaker 1: differ in the vital belief of the heart. What, then,
- 49:52Speaker 1: is this heart belief? It is that which a man
- 49:55Speaker 1: loves and clings to and fosters in his soul. For
- 49:58Speaker 1: he thus loves and cling to and fosters in his
- 50:01Speaker 1: heart because he believes in them, and believing in them
- 50:05Speaker 1: and loving them, he practices them. Thus is his life
- 50:09Speaker 1: the effect of his belief. But it has no relation
- 50:13Speaker 1: to the particular creed which comprises his intellectual belief. One
- 50:18Speaker 1: man clings to impure and immoral things because he believes
- 50:22Speaker 1: in them. Another man does not cling to them because
- 50:26Speaker 1: he has ceased to believe in them. A man cannot
- 50:29Speaker 1: cling to anything unless he believes in it. Belief always
- 50:33Speaker 1: precedes action. Therefore man's deeds in life are the fruits
- 50:37Speaker 1: of his belief. The priest and the levite, who passed
- 50:41Speaker 1: by the injured and helpless man, held no doubt very
- 50:45Speaker 1: strongly to the theological doctrines of their fathers. That was
- 50:49Speaker 1: their intellectual belief. But in their hearts they did not
- 50:53Speaker 1: believe in mercy, and so live and acted accordingly. The
- 50:57Speaker 1: good Samaritan may or may not have had anything theological beliefs,
- 51:01Speaker 1: nor was it necessary that he should have, But in
- 51:05Speaker 1: his heart he believed in mercy and acted accordingly. Strictly speaking,
- 51:11Speaker 1: there are only two beliefs which vitally affect the life,
- 51:14Speaker 1: and they are belief in good and belief in evil.
- 51:18Speaker 1: He who believes in all those things that are good
- 51:21Speaker 1: will love them and live in them. He who believes
- 51:25Speaker 1: in those things that are impure and selfish will love
- 51:28Speaker 1: them and cling to them. The tree is known by
- 51:32Speaker 1: its fruits. A man's beliefs about God, Jesus, and the
- 51:36Speaker 1: Bible are one thing, his life, as bound up in
- 51:40Speaker 1: his actions, is another. Therefore, a man's theological belief is
- 51:45Speaker 1: of no consequence but the thoughts which he harbors his
- 51:49Speaker 1: attitude of mind towards others in his actions. These and
- 51:54Speaker 1: these only determine and demonstrate whether the belief of a
- 51:58Speaker 1: man's heart is fitxed in the false or true thought
- 52:03Speaker 1: and action. As the fruit to the tree and the
- 52:07Speaker 1: water to the spring, so is action to thought. It
- 52:12Speaker 1: does not come into manifestation suddenly and without a cause.
- 52:16Speaker 1: It is the result of a long and silent growth,
- 52:20Speaker 1: the end of a hidden process which has long been
- 52:23Speaker 1: gathering force. The fruit of the tree and the water
- 52:27Speaker 1: gushing from the rock are both the effect of a
- 52:30Speaker 1: combination of natural processes in air and earth, which have
- 52:35Speaker 1: long worked together in secret to produce the phenomenon. And
- 52:40Speaker 1: the beautiful acts of enlightenment and the dark deeds of
- 52:43Speaker 1: sin are both the ripened effects of trains of thought
- 52:48Speaker 1: which have been harbored in the mind. The sudden falling,
- 52:51Speaker 1: when greatly tempted into some grievous sin by one who
- 52:55Speaker 1: was believed, and who probably believed himself to san firm
- 53:01Speaker 1: is seen neither to be a sudden nor a causeless thing.
- 53:05Speaker 1: When the hidden processes of thought which led up to
- 53:09Speaker 1: it are revealed. The falling was merely the end, the outworking,
- 53:15Speaker 1: the finished result of what commenced in the mind. Probably
- 53:18Speaker 1: years before, the man had allowed a wrong thought to
- 53:22Speaker 1: enter his mind, and a second and a third time
- 53:26Speaker 1: he had welcomed it and allowed it to nestle in
- 53:29Speaker 1: his heart. Gradually he became accustomed to it, and cherished
- 53:34Speaker 1: and fondled and tended it, And so it grew, until
- 53:39Speaker 1: at last it attained such strength and force that it
- 53:43Speaker 1: attracted to itself the opportunity which enabled it to burst
- 53:48Speaker 1: forth and ripen into act. As falls the stately building
- 53:53Speaker 1: whose foundations have been gradually undermined by the action of water,
- 53:57Speaker 1: so at last falls the strong man who allows corrupt
- 54:01Speaker 1: thoughts to creep into his mind and secretly undermine his character.
- 54:07Speaker 1: When it is seen that all sin and temptation are
- 54:10Speaker 1: the natural outcome of the thoughts of the individual, the
- 54:14Speaker 1: way to overcome sin and temptation becomes plain, and its
- 54:18Speaker 1: achievement and near possibility, and sooner or later a certain reality.
- 54:24Speaker 1: For if a man will admit, cherish, and brood upon
- 54:28Speaker 1: thoughts that are pure and good, those thoughts, just as
- 54:32Speaker 1: surely as the impure, will grow and gather force, and
- 54:37Speaker 1: will at last attract to themselves the opportunities which will
- 54:41Speaker 1: enable them to ripen into act. There is nothing hidden
- 54:45Speaker 1: that shall not be revealed, And every thought that is
- 54:48Speaker 1: harbored in the mind must, by virtue of the impelling
- 54:53Speaker 1: force which is inherent in the universe, at last blossom
- 54:57Speaker 1: into act, good or bad, acording to its nature. The
- 55:02Speaker 1: divine teacher and the sensualists are both the product of
- 55:06Speaker 1: their own thoughts, and have become what they are as
- 55:10Speaker 1: the result of the seeds of thought which they have implanted,
- 55:14Speaker 1: are allowed to fall into the garden of the heart,
- 55:17Speaker 1: and have afterwards watered, tended, and cultivated. Let no man
- 55:23Speaker 1: think he can overcome sin and temptation by wrestling with opportunity.
- 55:29Speaker 1: He can only overcome them by purifying his thoughts. And
- 55:33Speaker 1: if he will, day by day, in the silence of
- 55:36Speaker 1: his soul and in the presence of his duties, strenuously
- 55:40Speaker 1: overcome all erroneous inclination and put in its place thoughts
- 55:44Speaker 1: that are true, and that will endure the light. Opportunity
- 55:49Speaker 1: to do evil will give place to opportunity for accomplishing good.
- 55:54Speaker 1: For a man can only attract that to him which
- 55:57Speaker 1: is in harmony with his nature, And no temptation can
- 56:00Speaker 1: gravitate to a man unless there is that in his
- 56:03Speaker 1: heart which is capable of responding to it. Guard well
- 56:08Speaker 1: your thoughts, reader, for what you really are in your
- 56:12Speaker 1: secret thoughts today, be it good or evil, you will
- 56:16Speaker 1: sooner or later become an actual deed. He who unwearyingly
- 56:21Speaker 1: guards the portals of his mind against the intrusion of
- 56:25Speaker 1: sinful thoughts, and occupies himself with loving thoughts, with pure,
- 56:30Speaker 1: strong and beautiful thoughts, will, when the season of their
- 56:35Speaker 1: ripening comes, bring forth the fruits of gentle and holy deeds,
- 56:40Speaker 1: And no temptation that can come against him shall find
- 56:43Speaker 1: him unarmed or unprepared. Chapter ten. Your mental attitude as
- 56:51Speaker 1: a being of thought, your dominant mental attitude, will determine
- 56:55Speaker 1: your conditions in life. It will also be the gauge
- 56:59Speaker 1: of your knowledge and the measure of your attainment. The
- 57:03Speaker 1: so called limitations of your nature are the boundary lines
- 57:07Speaker 1: of your thoughts. They are self erected fences, and can
- 57:12Speaker 1: be drawn to a narrower circle, extended to a wider
- 57:16Speaker 1: or be allowed to remain. You are the thinker of
- 57:20Speaker 1: your thoughts, and as such you are the maker of
- 57:23Speaker 1: your self and condition. Thought is causal and creative, and
- 57:28Speaker 1: appears in your character and life in the form of results.
- 57:32Speaker 1: There are no accidents in your life. Both its harmonies
- 57:37Speaker 1: and antagonisms are the responsive echoes of your thoughts. A
- 57:42Speaker 1: man thinks, and his life appears. If your dominant mental
- 57:48Speaker 1: attitude is peaceable and lovable, bliss and blessedness will follow you.
- 57:54Speaker 1: If it be resistant and hateful, trouble and distress will
- 57:58Speaker 1: cloud your pathway. Out of ill will will come grief
- 58:02Speaker 1: and disaster. Out of good will healing and reparation. You
- 58:08Speaker 1: imagine your circumstances as being separate from yourself, but they
- 58:13Speaker 1: are intimately related to your thought world. Nothing appears without
- 58:17Speaker 1: an adequate cause. Everything that happens is just, nothing is faded.
- 58:24Speaker 1: Everything is formed as you think. You travel as you love,
- 58:30Speaker 1: you attract. You are to day where your thoughts have
- 58:33Speaker 1: brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.
- 58:38Speaker 1: You cannot escape the result of your thoughts. But you
- 58:41Speaker 1: can endure and learn, can accept and be glad. You
- 58:46Speaker 1: will always come to the place where your love, your
- 58:49Speaker 1: most abiding and intense thought, can receive its measure of gratification.
- 58:56Speaker 1: If your love be base, you will come to a
- 58:58Speaker 1: base place. If it be beautiful, you will come to
- 59:02Speaker 1: a beautiful place. You can alter your thoughts and so
- 59:07Speaker 1: alter your condition. Strive to perceive the vastness and grandeur
- 59:12Speaker 1: of your responsibility. You are powerful, not powerless. You are
- 59:18Speaker 1: as powerful to obey as you are to disobey, as
- 59:22Speaker 1: strong to be pure as to be impure, as ready
- 59:26Speaker 1: for wisdom as for ignorance. You can learn what you
- 59:30Speaker 1: will can remain as ignorant as you choose. If you
- 59:34Speaker 1: love knowledge, you will obtain it. If you love wisdom,
- 59:38Speaker 1: you will secure it. If you love purity, you will
- 59:41Speaker 1: realize it. All things await your acceptance, and you choose
- 59:47Speaker 1: by the thoughts which you will entertain. A man remains
- 59:52Speaker 1: ignorant because he loves ignorance and chooses ignorant thoughts. A
- 59:58Speaker 1: man becomes wise because because he loves wisdom and chooses
- 1:00:02Speaker 1: wise thoughts. No man is hindered by another. He is
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: only hindered by himself. No man suffers because of another,
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: He suffers only because of himself. By the noble gateway
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: of pure thought, you can enter into the highest heaven.
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: By the ignoble doorway of impure thought, you can descend
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: into the lowest hell. Your mental attitude towards others will
- 1:00:31Speaker 1: faithfully react upon yourself and will manifest itself in every
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: relation of your life. Every impure and selfish thought that
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: you send out comes back to you in your circumstances
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: in some form of suffering. Every pure and unselfish thought
- 1:00:49Speaker 1: returns to you in some form of blessedness. Your circumstances
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: are effects of which the cause is inward and invisible.
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: As the father of your thoughts, you are the maker
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: of your state and condition. When you know yourself, you
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: will perceive that every event in your life is weighed
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: in the faultless balance of equity. When you understand the
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: law within your mind, you will cease to regard yourself
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: as the impotent and blind tool of circumstances, and will
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: become the strong and seeing master sowing and reaping. Go
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: into the fields and country lanes in the springtime, and
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: you will see farmers and gardeners busy sowing seeds in
- 1:01:37Speaker 1: the newly prepared soil. If you were to ask any
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: one of those gardeners or farmers what kind of produce
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: he expected from the seed he was sowing, he would
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: doubtless regard you as foolish, and would tell you that
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: he does not expect at all. That it is a
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: matter of common knowledge that his produce will be of
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: the kind which he is sowing, and that he is
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: sowing wheat or barley or turn ups, as the case
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: may be, in order to reproduce that particular kind. Every
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: fact in process in nature contains a moral lesson for
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: the wise man. There is no law in the world
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: of nature around us which is not to be found
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: operating within the same mathematical certainty in the mind of
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: man and in human life. All of the parables of
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: Jesus are illustrative of this truth, and are drawn from
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: the simple facts of nature. There is a process of
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: seed sowing in the mind and life, of a spiritual sowing,
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: which leads to a harvest according to the kind of
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: seeds sown. Thoughts, words, and acts are seeds sown, and
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: by the inviolable law of things, they produce after their kind.
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: A man who thinks hateful thoughts brings hatred upon himself.
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: The man who thinks loving thoughts is loved. The man
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: whose thoughts, words, and acts are sincere is surrounded by
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: sincere friends. The insincere man is surrounded by insincere friends.
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: The man who sows wrong thoughts and deeds, and prays
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: that God will bless him is in the position of
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: a farmer, who, having sown terrors, ask God to bring
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: forth for him a harvest of wheat. That which ye sow,
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: ye reap see yonder fields. The cessmum was sessmoon, the
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: corn was corn, The silence and the darkness knew. So
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: is a man's fate born. He cometh reaper of the
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: things he sowed. He who would be blessed, let him
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: scatter blessings. He who would be happy, let him consider
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: the happiness of others. Then there is another side to
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: this seed sowing. The farmer must scatter all his seed
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: upon the land and then leave it to the elements.
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: Were he to covetuously hoard his seed, he would lose
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: both it and his produce, for his seed would perish.
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: It perishes when he sows it. But in perishing it
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: brings forth a great abundance. So in life we get
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: by giving, we grow rich by scattering. The man who
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: says he is in possession of knowledge which he cannot
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: give out because the world is incapable of receiving it,
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: either does not possess such knowledge, or if he does,
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: will soon be deprived of it. If he is not
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: already so deprived, To hoard is to lose. To exclusively
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: retain is to be dispossessed. Even the man who would
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: increase his material wealth must be willing to part with
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: invest what little capital he has, and then wait for
- 1:04:59Speaker 1: the increase. So long as he retains his hold on
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: his precious money, he will not only remain poor, but
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: will be growing poorer every day. He will, after all
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: lose the thing he loves, and will lose it without increase.
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: But if he wisely lets it go, if like the farmer,
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: he scatters his seeds of gold, then he can faithfully
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: wait for and reasonably expect the increase. Men are asking
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: God to give them peace and purity, and righteousness and blessedness,
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: but are not obtaining these things. And why not because
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: they are not practicing them, not sowing them, I once
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: heard a preacher pray very earnestly for forgiveness, and shortly afterwards,
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: in the course of his sermon, he called upon his
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: congregation to show no mercy to the enemies of the church.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: Such self delusion is pitiful, and men have yet to
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: learn that the way to obtain peace and blessedness is
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: to scatter peaceful and blessed thoughts, words, and deeds. Men
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: believe that they can sow the seeds of strife, impurity,
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: and unbrotherliness, and then gather in a rich harvest of peace, purity,
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: and concord by merely asking for it. What more pathetic
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: sight than to see an irritable and quarrelsome man praying
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: for peace. Men reap that which they sow, And any
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: man can reap all blessedness now and at once, if
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: he will put aside selfishness and so broadcasts the seeds
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: of kindness, gentleness, and love. If a man is troubled, perplexed, sorrowful,
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: or unhappy, let him ask what mental seeds have I
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: been sowing? What seeds am I sowing? What have I
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: done for others? What is my attitude towards others? What
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: seeds of trouble and sorrow and unhappiness? Have I sown
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: that I should thus reap these bitter weeds. Let him
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: seek within and find, and having found, let him abandon
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: all the seeds of self, and so henceforth only the
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: seeds of truth. Let him learn of the farmer, the
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: simple truths of wisdom. Chapter twelve, The reign of law.
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: The little party gods have had their day. The arbitrary gods,
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: creatures of human caprice and ignorance, are falling into disrepute.
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: Men have quarreled over and defended them, until they have
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: grown weary of the strife. And now everywhere they are
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: relinquishing and breaking up these helpless idols of their long worship.
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: The God of revenge, hatred, and jealousy, who gloats over
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: the down of his enemies. The partial God who gratifies
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: all of our narrow and selfish desires, The God who
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: saves only the creatures of his particular special creed, The
- 1:08:11Speaker 1: God of exclusiveness and favoritivism. Such were the gods miscalled
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: by us, God of our soul's infancy, God's base, and
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: foolish as ourselves, the fabrications of our selfish self and
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: we relinquished our petty gods with bitter tears and misgivings,
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: and broke our idols with bleeding hands. But in so
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: doing we did not lose sight of God. Nay, we
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: drew nearer to the great, silent heart of Love. Destroying
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: the idols of self. We begin to comprehend somewhat of
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: the power which cannot be destroyed, and entered into a
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: wider knowledge of the God of Love, of peace, of joy,
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: the God in whom revenge and partiality cannot exist, The
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: God of Light, from whose presence the darkness of fear
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: and doubt and selfishness cannot choose but flee. We have
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: reached one of those epochs in the world's progress which
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: witnesses the passing of the false gods, the gods of
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: human selfishness and human illusion. The new old revelation of
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: one universal, impersonal truth has again dawned upon the world,
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: and its searching light has carried consternation to the perishable
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: gods who take shelter under the shadow of self. Men
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: have lost faith in a God who can be cajoled,
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: who rules arbitrarily and capriciously, subverting the whole order of
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: things to gratify the wishes of His worshipers, and are
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: turning with a new light in their eyes and a
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: new joy in their hearts, to the God of Law.
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: And to him they turn not for personal happiness and
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: gradas notification, but for knowledge, for understanding, for wisdom, for
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: liberation from the bondage of self. And thus turning they
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: do not seek in vain, nor are they sent away
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: empty and discomfited. They find within themselves the reign of law.
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: That every thought, every impulse, every act and word brings
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: about a result in exact accordance with its own nature.
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: That thoughts of love bring about beautiful and blissful conditions,
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: that hateful thoughts bring about distorted and painful conditions, That
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: thoughts and acts good and evil are weighed in the
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: faultless balance of the Supreme Law, and receive their equal
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: measure of blessedness on the one hand and misery on
- 1:10:49Speaker 1: the other. And thus finding they enter a new path,
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: the path of obedience to the Law. Entering that path,
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: they no longer accuse, no longer doubt, no longer fret
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: and despond, for they know that God is right, the
- 1:11:06Speaker 1: universal laws are right, the cosmos is right, and that
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: they themselves are wrong, if wrong there is, and that
- 1:11:15Speaker 1: their salvation depends upon themselves, upon their own efforts, upon
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: their personal acceptance of that which is good and deliberate
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: rejection of that which is evil. No longer merely hearers,
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: they become doers of the word, and they acquire knowledge,
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: They receive understanding, They grow in wisdom, and they enter
- 1:11:38Speaker 1: into the glorious life of liberation from the bondage of self.
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: The law of the Lord is perfect in enlightening the eyes.
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: Imperfection lies in man's ignorance, in man's blind folly. Perfection,
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: which is knowledge of the perfect law, is ready for
- 1:11:57Speaker 1: all who earnestly seek it. It belongs to the order
- 1:12:00Speaker 1: of things. It is yours and mind now, if we
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: will only put self seeking on one side and adopt
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: the life of self obliteration. The knowledge of truth, with
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: its unspeakable joy, its calmness, and quiet strength, is not
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: for those who persist in clinging to their rights, defending
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: their interests, and fighting for their opinions, whose works are
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: imbued with the personal eye, and who build upon the
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: shifting sands of selfishness and egotism. It is for those
- 1:12:33Speaker 1: who renounce these causes of strife, these sources of pain
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: and sorrow, and they are indeed children of truth, disciples
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: of the Master, worshipers of the Most High. The children
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: of Truth are in the world today. They are thinking, acting, writing,
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: speaking yea, even prophets are among us, and their influences
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: pervading the whole earth. An undercurrent of holy joy is
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: gathering force in the world, so that men and women
- 1:13:06Speaker 1: are moved with new aspirations and hopes. And even those
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: who neither see nor hear feel within themselves strange yearnings
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: after a better and fuller life. The law reigns, and
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: it reigns in men's hearts and lives. And they have
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: come to understand the reign of law who have sought
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: out the tabernacle of the True God by the fair
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: pathway of unselfishness. God does not alter for men, for
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: this would mean that the perfect must become imperfect. Man
- 1:13:40Speaker 1: must alter for God, and this implies that the imperfect
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: must become perfect. The law cannot be broken for man,
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: otherwise confusion would ensue. Man must obey the law. This
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: is in accordance with harmony, order justice. There is no
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: more painful bondage than to be at the mercy of
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: one's inclinations. No greater liberty than utmost obedience to the
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: law of being. And the law is that the heart
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: shall be purified, the mind regenerated, and the whole being
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: brought in subjection to love, till self is dead, and
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: love is all in all. For the reign of law
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: is the reign of love, and love waits for all.
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: Rejecting none, love may be claimed and entered into now,
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: for it is the heritage of all ah, beautiful truth.
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: To know now that man may accept his divine heritage
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: and enter the Kingdom of heaven all pitiful error, to
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: know that man rejects it because of love of self.
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: Obedience to the law means the destruction of sin and
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: self and the realization of unclouded joy and undying peace.
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: Clinging to one's selfish inclinations means the drawing about one's
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: soul clouds of pain and sorrow which darken the light
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: of truth, the shutting out of one's self from all
- 1:15:11Speaker 1: real blessedness. For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: also reap Verily. The law reigneth, and reigneth forever and
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: justice and love are its eternal ministers, the supreme justice.
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: The material universe is maintained and preserved by the equilibrium
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: of its forces. The moral universe is sustained and protected
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: by the perfect balance of its equivalents. As in the
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: physical world, nature abhors a vacuum, so in the spiritual world,
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: disharmony is annulled. Underlying the disturbances and destructions of nature,
- 1:15:55Speaker 1: and behind the mutability of its forms, there abides the
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: eternal and pert mathematical symmetry. And at the heart of life,
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: behind all its pain, uncertainty, and unrest, thereby the eternal harmony,
- 1:16:10Speaker 1: the unbroken peace, and involuble justice. Is there then no
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: injustice in the universe. There is injustice, and there is not.
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: It depends upon the kind of life and the state
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: of consciousness from which a man looks out upon the
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: world and judges. The man who lives in his passions
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: sees injustice everywhere. The man who has overcome his passions
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: sees the operations of justice in every department of human life.
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: Injustice is the confused, feverish dream of passion, real enough
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: to those who are dreaming it. Justice is the permanent
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: reality in life, gloriously visible to those who have wakened
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: out of the painful nightmare of self. The divine order
- 1:17:01Speaker 1: cannot be perceived until passion and self are transcended, the
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: faultless justice cannot be apprehended, and till all sense of
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: injury and wrong is consumed in the pure flames of
- 1:17:14Speaker 1: all embracing love, the man who thinks I have been slighted,
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: I have been injured, I have been insulted, I have
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: been treated unjustly, cannot know what justice is. Blinded by self,
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: he cannot perceive the pure principles of truth, and, brooding
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: upon his wrongs, he lives in continual misery. In the
- 1:17:39Speaker 1: region of passion, there is a ceaseless conflict of forces,
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: causing suffering to all who are involved in them. There
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: is action and reaction, deed in consequence, cause and effect.
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: And within and above all is the divine justice regulating
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: the play of forces when the utmost mathematical accuracy, balancing
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: cause and effect with the finest precision. But this justice
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: is not perceived, cannot be perceived by those who are
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: engaged in the conflict. Before this can be done, the
- 1:18:16Speaker 1: fierce warfare of passion must be left behind. The world
- 1:18:21Speaker 1: of passion is the abode of schisms, quarrelings, wars, lawsuits, accusations, condemnations, impurities, weaknesses, follies, hatreds, revenges,
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: and resentments. How can a man perceive justice or understand
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: truth who is even partly involved in the fierce play
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: of its blinding elements as well? Expect a man caught
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: in the flames of a burning building to sit down
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: and reason out the cause of the fire. In this
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: realm of passion, men see injustice in the actions of others, because,
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: seeing only in immediate appearances, they regard every act as
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: standing by itself, undetached from cause and consequence, having no
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: knowledge of cause and effect. In the moral sphere, men
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: do not see the exacting and balancing process which is
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: momentarily proceeding, nor do they ever regard their own actions
- 1:19:21Speaker 1: as unjust, but only the actions of others. A boy
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: beats a defenseless animal, then a man beats the defenseless
- 1:19:29Speaker 1: boy for his cruelty. Then a stronger man attacks the
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: man for his cruelty to the boy. Each believes the
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: other to be unjust and cruel, and himself to be
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: just and humane and doubtless most of all, would the
- 1:19:44Speaker 1: boy justify his conduct toward the animal as altogether necessary.
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: Thus does ignorance keep alive hatred and strife. Thus do
- 1:19:53Speaker 1: men blindly inflict suffering upon themselves, living in passion and resentment,
- 1:19:59Speaker 1: and not finding them true way in life? Hatred is
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: met with hatred, passion with passion, strife with strife. The
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: man who kills is himself killed. The thief who lives
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: by depriving others is himself deprived. The beast that prais
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: on others is hunted and killed. The accuser is accused,
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: The condemner is condemned. The denouncer is persecuted by this.
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: The slayer's knife doth stab himself. The unjust judge has
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: lost his own defender. The false tongue dooms its lie.
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: The creeping thief and spoiler rob to render. Such is
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: the law. Passion also has its active and passive sides,
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: fool and fraud, oppressor and slave, aggressor and retaliator. The
- 1:20:51Speaker 1: charlatan and the superstitious compliment each other and come together
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: by the operation of the law of justice. Men unconsciously
- 1:21:01Speaker 1: cooperate in the mutual production of affliction the blindly the blind,
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: and both fall together into the ditch. Pain, grief, sorrow,
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: and misery are the fruits of which passion is the flower.
- 1:21:16Speaker 1: Where the passion bound soul sees only injustice. The good man,
- 1:21:21Speaker 1: who has conquered passion sees cause and effect, sees the
- 1:21:25Speaker 1: supreme justice. It is impossible for such a man to
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: regard himself as treated unjustly, because he has ceased to
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: see injustice. He knows that no one can injure or
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: cheat him. Having ceased to injure or cheat himself, however
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: passionately or ignorantly men may act towards him, it cannot
- 1:21:46Speaker 1: possibly cause him any pain, for he knows that whatever
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: comes to him, it may be abuse, and persecution can
- 1:21:54Speaker 1: only come as the effect of what he himself has
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: formally sent out. He therefore regards all things as good,
- 1:22:02Speaker 1: rejoices in all things, loves his enemies, and blesses them
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: that curse him, regarding them as the blind but beneficent
- 1:22:11Speaker 1: instruments by which he is enabled to pay his moral
- 1:22:14Speaker 1: debts to the great law. The good man, having put
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: away all resentment, retaliation, self seeking, and egotism, has arrived
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: at a state of equilibrium and has thereby become identified
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: with the eternal and universal equilibrium. Having lifted himself above
- 1:22:34Speaker 1: the blind forces of passion, he understands those forces contemplates
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: them with a calm, penetrating insight, like the solitary dweller
- 1:22:44Speaker 1: upon a mountain who looks down upon the conflict of
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: the storms beneath his feet. For him, injustice has ceased,
- 1:22:53Speaker 1: and he sees ignorance and suffering on the one hand,
- 1:22:56Speaker 1: and enlightenment and bliss on the other. He sees that
- 1:23:00Speaker 1: not only do the fool and the slave need his sympathy,
- 1:23:04Speaker 1: but that the fraud and the oppressor are equally in
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: need of it, and so his compassion is extended towards all.
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: The supreme justice and the supreme love are one. Cause
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: and effect cannot be avoided, Consequences cannot be escaped. While
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: a man is given to hatred, resentment, anger, and condemnation,
- 1:23:26Speaker 1: he is subject to injustice, as the dreamer to his dream.
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: It cannot do otherwise than see injustice. But he who
- 1:23:34Speaker 1: has overcome those fiery and binding elements knows that unerring
- 1:23:39Speaker 1: justice presides over all, and in reality, there is no
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: such thing as injustice in the whole of the Universe,
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, The Use of Reason. We have heard it
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: said that reason is a blind guide, and that it
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: draws men away from truth rather than leads them to it.
- 1:24:00Speaker 1: If this were true, it would be better to remain
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: or to become unreasonable, and to persuade others to do so.
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: We have found, however, that the diligent cultivation of the
- 1:24:12Speaker 1: divine faculty of reason brings about calmness and mental poise,
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: and enables one to meet cheerfully the problems and difficulties
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: of life. It is true that there is a higher
- 1:24:24Speaker 1: light than reason, even that of the spirit of truth itself.
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: But without the aid of reason, truth cannot be apprehended.
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: They who refuse to trim the lamp of reason will
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: never whilst they so refuse, perceive the light of truth.
- 1:24:42Speaker 1: For the light of reason is a reflection of that light.
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: Reason is a purely abstract quality and comes midway between
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: the animal and divine consciousness in man, and leads, if
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: rightly employed, from the darkness of one to the light
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: of the other. It is true that reason may be
- 1:25:01Speaker 1: enlisted in the service of the lower, self seeking nature,
- 1:25:05Speaker 1: but this is only a result of its partial and
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: imperfect exercise. A fuller development of reason leads away from
- 1:25:13Speaker 1: the selfish nature and ultimately allies the soul with the highest,
- 1:25:18Speaker 1: the divine. That spiritual Percival, who, searching for the holy
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: grail of the perfect life, is again and again left
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: alone and wearying in a land of sand and thorns,
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: is not so stranded because he has followed reason, but
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: because he is still clinging to and is reluctant to
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: leave some remnants of his lower nature. He who will
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: use the light of reason as a torch to search
- 1:25:46Speaker 1: for truth will not be left at last in comfortless darkness.
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.
- 1:25:54Speaker 1: Though your sins may be as scarlet, they shall be
- 1:25:57Speaker 1: as white as snow. Many men and women pass through
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: untold sufferings and at last die in their sins because
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: they refuse to reason, because they cling to those dark
- 1:26:09Speaker 1: delusions which even a faint glimmer of light of reason
- 1:26:12Speaker 1: would dispel. And all must use their reason freely, fully
- 1:26:17Speaker 1: and faithfully. Who would exchange the scarlet robe of sin
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: and suffering for the white garment of blamelessness and peace.
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: It is because we have proved and know these truths
- 1:26:29Speaker 1: that we exhort men to tread the middle road, whose
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: course bright beyond reason traces and soft, quiet, smooth, for
- 1:26:38Speaker 1: reason leads away from passion and selflessness into the quiet
- 1:26:42Speaker 1: ways of sweet persuasion and gentle forgiveness. And he will
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: never be led astray, nor will he follow blind Guides
- 1:26:50Speaker 1: who faithfully adheres to the apostolic injunction prove all things
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: and hold fast that which is good. They, therefore, who
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: despise the light of reason, despise the light of truth.
- 1:27:04Speaker 1: Large numbers of people are possessed of the strange delusion
- 1:27:08Speaker 1: that reason is somehow intimately connected with the denial of
- 1:27:12Speaker 1: the existence of God. This is probably due to the
- 1:27:16Speaker 1: fact that those who try to prove that there is
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: no God usually profess to take their stand upon reason,
- 1:27:23Speaker 1: while those who try to prove the reverse generally profess
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: to take their stand on faith. Such argumentative combatants, however,
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: are frequently governed more by prejudice than either faith or reason,
- 1:27:37Speaker 1: their object being not to find truth but to defend
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: and confirm a preconceived opinion. Reason is concerned not with
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: ephemeral opinions, but with the established truth of things, and
- 1:27:52Speaker 1: he who is possessed of The faculty of reason, in
- 1:27:55Speaker 1: its purity and excellence, can never be enslaved by prejudice,
- 1:27:59Speaker 1: and will put from him all preconceived opinions as worthless.
- 1:28:04Speaker 1: He will never attempt to prove nor disprove, but after
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: balancing extremes and bringing together all apparent contradictions, he will
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: carefully and dispassionately weigh and consider them, and so arrive
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: at truth. Reason is in reality associated with all that
- 1:28:22Speaker 1: is pure and gentle, moderate, and just. It is said
- 1:28:26Speaker 1: of a violent man that he is unreasonable, of a
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: kind and considerate man that he is reasonable, and of
- 1:28:33Speaker 1: an insane man that he has lost his reason. Thus
- 1:28:37Speaker 1: it is seen that the word is used even to
- 1:28:40Speaker 1: a great extent unconsciously, though none the less truly in
- 1:28:45Speaker 1: a very comprehensive sense. And though reason is not actually
- 1:28:49Speaker 1: love and thoughtfulness and gentleness insanity, it leads to and
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: is intimately connected with these divine qualities, and cannot accept,
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: for purposes of analysis, be dissociated with them. Reason represents
- 1:29:06Speaker 1: all that is high and noble in man. It distinguishes
- 1:29:09Speaker 1: him from the brute, which blindly follows its animal inclinations,
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: and just in the degree that man disobeys the voice
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: of reason and follows his inclinations, does he become brutish,
- 1:29:21Speaker 1: as Milton says, reason in man obscured or not obeyed
- 1:29:27Speaker 1: immediately inordinate desires and upstart passions catch the government from
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: reason and to servitude reduce man till then free. The
- 1:29:39Speaker 1: following definition of reason from Nuttle's dictionary will give you
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: some idea of the comprehensiveness of the word. The cause, ground, principle,
- 1:29:49Speaker 1: or motive of anything said or done, efficient cause, final cause,
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: the faculty of intelligence in man, especially the faculty by
- 1:29:59Speaker 1: which we arrive at necessary truth. It will thus be
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: seen that reason is a term, the breath of which
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: is almost sufficient to embrace even truth itself. And Archbishop
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: Trench tells us in his celebrated work on the Study
- 1:30:14Speaker 1: of Words, that the terms reason and word are indeed
- 1:30:19Speaker 1: so essentially one and the same, that the Greek language
- 1:30:22Speaker 1: has one word for them both. So that the Word
- 1:30:25Speaker 1: of God is the reason of God, and one of
- 1:30:28Speaker 1: the renderings of lutzas Tao is reason. So that in
- 1:30:33Speaker 1: the Chinese translation of our New Testament, Saint John's Gospel
- 1:30:37Speaker 1: runs in the beginning, was the Tao to the undeveloped
- 1:30:42Speaker 1: and uncharitable mind. All words have narrow applications. But as
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: a man enlarges his sympathies and broadens his intelligence, words
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: become filled with rich meanings and assume comprehensive proportions. Let
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: us therefore cease from foolish quarrelings of words, and, like
- 1:31:01Speaker 1: reasonable beings, search for principles and practice those things which
- 1:31:07Speaker 1: make for unity and peace. Self discipline. A man does
- 1:31:12Speaker 1: not live until he begins to discipline himself. He merely
- 1:31:16Speaker 1: exists like an animal. He gratifies his desires and pursues
- 1:31:21Speaker 1: his inclinations just where they may lead him. He is
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: happy as a beast is happy because he is not
- 1:31:29Speaker 1: conscious of what he is depriving himself. He suffers as
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: the beast suffers, because he does not know the way
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: out of suffering. He does not intelligently reflect upon life,
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: and lives in a series of sensations, longings, and confused
- 1:31:46Speaker 1: memories which are unrelated to any central idea or principle.
- 1:31:51Speaker 1: A man whose inner life is so ungoverned and chaotic
- 1:31:55Speaker 1: must necessarily manifest this confusion in the visible conditions of
- 1:31:59Speaker 1: his life outer life in the world, and though for
- 1:32:02Speaker 1: a time running with the stream of his desires, he
- 1:32:06Speaker 1: may draw to himself a more or less large share
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: of the outer necessities and comforts of life. He never
- 1:32:13Speaker 1: achieves any real success, nor accomplishes any real good, and
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: sooner or later, worldly failure and disaster are inevitable as
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: the direct result of the inward failure to properly adjust
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: and regulate those mental forces which make the outer life.
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: Before a man accomplishes anything of an enduring nature in
- 1:32:34Speaker 1: the world, he must first of all acquire some measure
- 1:32:37Speaker 1: of success in the management of his own mind. This
- 1:32:41Speaker 1: is as mathematical a truism as that two and two
- 1:32:45Speaker 1: are four, For out of the heart are the issues
- 1:32:48Speaker 1: of life. If a man cannot govern the forces within himself,
- 1:32:53Speaker 1: he cannot hold a firm hand upon the outer activities
- 1:32:56Speaker 1: which form his visible life. On the other hand, and
- 1:33:00Speaker 1: as a man succeeds in governing himself, he rises to
- 1:33:04Speaker 1: higher and higher levels of power and usefulness and success
- 1:33:09Speaker 1: in the world. The only difference between the life of
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: the beast and that of the undisciplined man is that
- 1:33:16Speaker 1: the man has a wider variety of desires and experiences
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: a greater intensity of suffering. It may be said of
- 1:33:24Speaker 1: such a man that he is dead, being truly dead
- 1:33:27Speaker 1: to self control, chastity, fortitude, and all of the nobler
- 1:33:32Speaker 1: qualities which constitute life. In the consciousness of such a man,
- 1:33:37Speaker 1: the crucified Christ lies entombed, awaiting that resurrection which shall
- 1:33:43Speaker 1: revify the mortal sufferer and wake him up to a
- 1:33:46Speaker 1: knowledge of the realities of his existence. With the practice
- 1:33:50Speaker 1: of self discipline, a man begins to live. For he
- 1:33:54Speaker 1: then commences to rise above the inward confusion, and to
- 1:33:58Speaker 1: adjust his conduct to a steadfast center within himself. He
- 1:34:03Speaker 1: ceases to follow where inclination leads him, reigns in the
- 1:34:07Speaker 1: steed of his desires, and lives in accordance with the
- 1:34:11Speaker 1: dictates of reason and wisdom. Hitherto his life has been
- 1:34:15Speaker 1: without purpose or meaning. But now he begins to consciously
- 1:34:19Speaker 1: mold his own destiny. He is clothed in his right mind.
- 1:34:25Speaker 1: In the process of self discipline, there are three stages,
- 1:34:28Speaker 1: namely one control, two purification, three relinquishment. A man begins
- 1:34:38Speaker 1: to discipline himself by controlling those passions which have hitherto
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: controlled him. He resists temptation and guards himself against all
- 1:34:48Speaker 1: those tendencies to self gratifications, which are so easy and natural,
- 1:34:53Speaker 1: and which have formerly dominated him. He brings his appetite
- 1:34:58Speaker 1: into subjection and begins to eat as a reasonable and
- 1:35:01Speaker 1: responsible being, practicing moderation and thoughtfulness in the selection of
- 1:35:06Speaker 1: his food, with the object of making his body a
- 1:35:10Speaker 1: pure instrument through which he may live and act as
- 1:35:13Speaker 1: becomes a man, and no longer degrading that body by
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: pandering to gustatory pleasure. He puts a check upon his tongue,
- 1:35:22Speaker 1: his temper, and in fact his every animal desire and tendency.
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: And this he does by referring all acts to a
- 1:35:31Speaker 1: fixed center within himself. It is a process of living
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: from within outward instead of as formally, from without inward.
- 1:35:41Speaker 1: He conceives an ideal and enshrining that ideal in the
- 1:35:45Speaker 1: sacred recesses of his heart. He regulates his conduct in
- 1:35:49Speaker 1: accordance with its exaction and demands. There is a philosophical
- 1:35:54Speaker 1: hypothesis that at the heart of every atom and every
- 1:35:58Speaker 1: aggregation of atoms in the universe, there is a motionless
- 1:36:02Speaker 1: center which is the sustaining source of all the universal activities.
- 1:36:07Speaker 1: Be this as it may, there is certainly in the
- 1:36:10Speaker 1: heart of every man and woman a selfless center, without
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: which the outer man could not be, and the ignoring
- 1:36:18Speaker 1: of which leads to suffering and confusion. The selfless center,
- 1:36:22Speaker 1: which takes the form in the mind of an ideal
- 1:36:26Speaker 1: of unselfishness and spotless purity, the attainment of which is desirable,
- 1:36:32Speaker 1: is man's eternal refuge from the storms of passion and
- 1:36:35Speaker 1: all the conflicting elements of his lower nature. It is
- 1:36:39Speaker 1: the rock of ages, the christ within, the divine and
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: immortal in all men. As a man practices self control,
- 1:36:48Speaker 1: he approximates more and more to this inward reality, and
- 1:36:53Speaker 1: is less and less swayed by passion and grief, pleasure
- 1:36:56Speaker 1: and pain, and lives a steadfast and virtuous life, manifesting
- 1:37:01Speaker 1: manly strength and fortitude. The restraining of the passions, however,
- 1:37:07Speaker 1: is merely the initial stage and self discipline, and is
- 1:37:11Speaker 1: immediately followed by the process of purification. By this, a
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: man so purifies himself as to take passion out of
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: the heart and mind altogether, not merely restraining it when
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: it rises within him, but preventing it from rising altogether.
- 1:37:28Speaker 1: By merely restraining his passions, a man can never arrive
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: at peace, can never actualize his ideal he must purify
- 1:37:36Speaker 1: those passions. It is in the purification of his lower
- 1:37:40Speaker 1: nature that a man becomes strong and godlike, standing firmly
- 1:37:45Speaker 1: upon the ideal center within and rendering all temptations powerless
- 1:37:50Speaker 1: and ineffectual. This purification is affected by thoughtful care, earnest meditation,
- 1:37:57Speaker 1: and holy aspiration, and as success is achieved, confusion of
- 1:38:02Speaker 1: mind and life pass away, and calmness of mind and
- 1:38:06Speaker 1: spiritualized conduct insure true strength and power and usefulness are
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: born of self purification. For the lower animal forces are
- 1:38:17Speaker 1: not lost, but are transmuted into intellectual and spiritual energy.
- 1:38:23Speaker 1: The pure life, pure in thought, indeed, is a life
- 1:38:27Speaker 1: of conservation of energy. The impure life, even though the
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: impurity should not extend beyond thought, is a life of
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: dissipation of energy. The pure man is more capable and
- 1:38:40Speaker 1: therefore more fit to succeed in his plans and to
- 1:38:43Speaker 1: accomplish his purposes than the impure. Where the impure man fails,
- 1:38:49Speaker 1: the pure man will step in and be victorious, because
- 1:38:53Speaker 1: he directs his energies with a calmer mind and a
- 1:38:56Speaker 1: greater definiteness and strength of purpose, with a growth both impurity,
- 1:39:01Speaker 1: all the elements which constitute a strong and virtuous manhood
- 1:39:05Speaker 1: are developed in an increasing degree of power, and as
- 1:39:09Speaker 1: man brings his lower nature into subjection and makes his
- 1:39:13Speaker 1: passions do his bidding, just so much will he mold
- 1:39:16Speaker 1: the outer circumstances of his life and influence others for good.
- 1:39:22Speaker 1: The third stage of self discipline, that of relinquishment, is
- 1:39:26Speaker 1: a process of letting the lower desires and all impure
- 1:39:30Speaker 1: and unworthy thoughts drop out of the mind, and also
- 1:39:34Speaker 1: refusing to give them any admittance, leaving them to perish.
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: As a man grows purer, he perceives that all evil
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: is powerless unless it receives his encouragement, and so he
- 1:39:46Speaker 1: ignores it and lets it pass out of his life.
- 1:39:50Speaker 1: It is by pursuing this aspect of self discipline that
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: a man enters into and realizes the divine life and
- 1:39:58Speaker 1: manifests those qualities which are distinctly divine, such as wisdom, patience,
- 1:40:05Speaker 1: non resistance, compassion, and love. It is here also where
- 1:40:10Speaker 1: a man becomes consciously immortal, rising above all the fluctuations
- 1:40:15Speaker 1: and uncertainties of life, and living in an intelligent and
- 1:40:19Speaker 1: unchangeable peace. By self discipline, a man attains to every
- 1:40:24Speaker 1: degree of virtue and holiness, and finally becomes a purified
- 1:40:28Speaker 1: son of God, realizing his oneness with the central heart
- 1:40:32Speaker 1: of all things. Without self discipline, a man drifts lower
- 1:40:37Speaker 1: and lower, approximating more and more nearly to the beast,
- 1:40:42Speaker 1: until at last he grovels a lost creature in the
- 1:40:46Speaker 1: mirror of his own befolment. By self discipline, a man
- 1:40:50Speaker 1: rises higher and higher, approximating more and more nearly to
- 1:40:54Speaker 1: the divine, until at last he stands erect in his
- 1:40:58Speaker 1: divine dignity, a save soul, glorified by the radiance of
- 1:41:03Speaker 1: his purity. Let a man discipline himself, and he will live.
- 1:41:08Speaker 1: Let a man cease to discipline himself, and he will perish.
- 1:41:14Speaker 1: As a tree grows in beauty, health, and fruitfulness by
- 1:41:17Speaker 1: being carefully pruned and tended, so a man grows in
- 1:41:21Speaker 1: grace and beauty of life by cutting away all the
- 1:41:24Speaker 1: branches of evil from his mind, and as he tends
- 1:41:27Speaker 1: and develops the good by constant and unfailing effort. As
- 1:41:32Speaker 1: a man by practice acquires proficiency in his craft, so
- 1:41:36Speaker 1: the earnest man acquires proficiency in goodness and wisdom. Men
- 1:41:41Speaker 1: shrink from self discipline because in its early stages it
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: is painful and repellent, and the yielding to desire is
- 1:41:49Speaker 1: at first sweet and inviting. But the end of desire
- 1:41:53Speaker 1: is darkness and unrest, whereas the fruits of discipline are
- 1:41:57Speaker 1: immortality and peace. Chapter sixteen. Resolution. Resolution is the directing
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: and impelling force in individual progress. Without it, no substantial
- 1:42:11Speaker 1: work can be accomplished. Not until a man brings resolution
- 1:42:16Speaker 1: to bear upon his life does he consciously and rapidly develop.
- 1:42:20Speaker 1: For a life without resolution is a life without aims,
- 1:42:24Speaker 1: and a life without aims is a drifting and unstable thing.
- 1:42:29Speaker 1: Resolution may of course be linked to downward tendencies, but
- 1:42:34Speaker 1: it is more usually the companion of noble aims and
- 1:42:37Speaker 1: lofty ideals. And I am dealing with it in this
- 1:42:41Speaker 1: its highest use in application. When a man makes a resolution,
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: it means that he is dissatisfied with his condition and
- 1:42:49Speaker 1: is commencing to take himself in hand, with a view
- 1:42:52Speaker 1: in producing a better piece of workmanship out of the
- 1:42:55Speaker 1: mental materials of which his character and life are composed.
- 1:43:00Speaker 1: And in so far as he is true to his resolution,
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: he will succeed in accomplishing his purpose. The vows of
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: the saintly once are holy resolutions directed towards some victory
- 1:43:11Speaker 1: over self. And the beautiful achievements of holy men and
- 1:43:15Speaker 1: the glorious conquests of the divine teachers were rendered possible
- 1:43:19Speaker 1: and actual by the pursuit of unswerving resolution to arrive
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: at the fixed determination to walk a higher path than hithertofore.
- 1:43:30Speaker 1: Although it reveals the great difficulties which have to be surmounted,
- 1:43:34Speaker 1: it yet makes possible the treading of that path and
- 1:43:38Speaker 1: illuminates its dark places with the golden halo of success.
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: The true resolution is the crisis of long thought, protract
- 1:43:47Speaker 1: its struggle or fervent but unsatisfied aspiration. It is no
- 1:43:52Speaker 1: light thing, no whimsical impulse or vague desire, but a
- 1:43:56Speaker 1: solemn and irreficable determination not to rest nor cease from
- 1:44:01Speaker 1: effort until the high purpose which is held in view
- 1:44:04Speaker 1: is fully accomplished. Half hearted and premature resolution is no
- 1:44:09Speaker 1: resolution at all, and it is shattered by the first difficulty.
- 1:44:14Speaker 1: A man should be slow to form a resolution. He
- 1:44:18Speaker 1: should searchingly examine his position and take into consideration every
- 1:44:22Speaker 1: circumstance and difficulty connected with his decision, and should be
- 1:44:27Speaker 1: fully prepared to meet them. He should be sure that
- 1:44:30Speaker 1: he completely understands the nature of his resolution, that his
- 1:44:34Speaker 1: mind is finally made up, and that he is without
- 1:44:37Speaker 1: fear and doubt in the matter. With the mind thus prepared,
- 1:44:42Speaker 1: the resolution that is formed will not be departed from,
- 1:44:46Speaker 1: and by the aid of it a man will in
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: due time accomplish his strong purpose. Hasty resolutions are futile.
- 1:44:55Speaker 1: The mind must be fortified to endure immediately the resolution
- 1:45:01Speaker 1: to walk a higher path is made temptation and trial begin.
- 1:45:05Speaker 1: Men have found that no sooner have they decided to
- 1:45:08Speaker 1: lead a truer and nobler life than they have been
- 1:45:11Speaker 1: overwhelmed with such a torrent of new temptations and difficulties
- 1:45:15Speaker 1: as to make their position almost unendurable. And many men,
- 1:45:19Speaker 1: because of this relinquish their resolution. But these temptations and
- 1:45:24Speaker 1: trials are a necessary part of the work of regeneration
- 1:45:28Speaker 1: upon which the man has decided, and must be hailed
- 1:45:31Speaker 1: as friends and met with courage if the resolution is
- 1:45:35Speaker 1: to do its work. For what is the real nature
- 1:45:38Speaker 1: of a resolution? Is it not the sudden checking of
- 1:45:42Speaker 1: a particular stream of conduct and the endeavor to open
- 1:45:45Speaker 1: up an entirely new channel. Think of an engineer who
- 1:45:49Speaker 1: decides to turn the course of a powerfully running stream
- 1:45:52Speaker 1: or river in another direction. He must first cut out
- 1:45:55Speaker 1: his new channel, and must take every precaution to avoid
- 1:45:59Speaker 1: failure in the carrying out of his undertaking. But when
- 1:46:03Speaker 1: he comes to the all important task of directing the
- 1:46:06Speaker 1: stream into its new channel, then the flowing force, which
- 1:46:10Speaker 1: for ages has steadily pursued its accustomed course, becomes refractory,
- 1:46:15Speaker 1: and all the patients and care and skill of the
- 1:46:18Speaker 1: engineer will be required for the successful completion of the work.
- 1:46:23Speaker 1: It is even so with the man who determines to
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: turn his course of conduct in another and higher direction.
- 1:46:30Speaker 1: Having prepared his mind, which is the cutting of a
- 1:46:33Speaker 1: new channel, he then proceeds to the work of redirecting
- 1:46:37Speaker 1: his mental forces, which have hitherto flowed on uninterruptedly, into
- 1:46:42Speaker 1: the new course. Immediately this is attempted, the arrested energy
- 1:46:48Speaker 1: begins to assert itself in the form of powerful temptations
- 1:46:52Speaker 1: and trials hitherto unknown and unencountered. And this is exactly
- 1:46:57Speaker 1: as it should be. It is the law, and the
- 1:47:00Speaker 1: same law that is in the water is in the mind.
- 1:47:04Speaker 1: No man can improve upon the established law of things,
- 1:47:07Speaker 1: but he can learn to understand the law instead of
- 1:47:11Speaker 1: complaining and wishing things were different. The man who understands
- 1:47:15Speaker 1: all that is involved in the regeneration of his mind
- 1:47:19Speaker 1: will glory in tribulations, knowing that only by passing through
- 1:47:23Speaker 1: them can he gain strength, obtain purity of heart, and
- 1:47:28Speaker 1: arrive at peace. And as the engineer, at last, perhaps
- 1:47:32Speaker 1: after many mistakes and failures, succeeds in getting the stream
- 1:47:36Speaker 1: to flow on peacefully in the broader and better channel,
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: and the turbulence of the water is spent, and all
- 1:47:44Speaker 1: dams can be removed. So the man of resolution at
- 1:47:47Speaker 1: last succeeds in directing his thoughts and acts into the
- 1:47:51Speaker 1: better and nobler way to which he aspires, and temptations
- 1:47:55Speaker 1: and trials give place to steadfast strength and settled peace.
- 1:48:01Speaker 1: He whose life is not in harmony with his conscience,
- 1:48:05Speaker 1: and who is anxious to remedy his mind in conduct
- 1:48:08Speaker 1: in a particular direction, let him first mature his purpose
- 1:48:13Speaker 1: by earnest thought and self examination, and having arrived at
- 1:48:17Speaker 1: a final conclusion, let him frame his resolution, and having
- 1:48:21Speaker 1: done so, let him not swerve from it. Let him
- 1:48:25Speaker 1: remain true to his decision under all circumstances, and he
- 1:48:29Speaker 1: cannot fail to achieve his good purpose, for the great
- 1:48:32Speaker 1: law ever shields and protects him who, no matter how
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: deep his sins or how great his many failures and mistakes,
- 1:48:41Speaker 1: has deep in his heart resolved upon the finding of
- 1:48:45Speaker 1: a better way, and every obstacle must at last give
- 1:48:49Speaker 1: way before matured and unshaken resolution, the glorious conquest. Truth
- 1:48:57Speaker 1: can only be apprehended by the conquest self. Blessedness can
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: only be arrived at by overcoming the lower nature. The
- 1:49:06Speaker 1: way of truth is barred by a man's self. The
- 1:49:10Speaker 1: only enemies that can actually hinder him are his own
- 1:49:14Speaker 1: passions and delusions. And tell a man realizes this and
- 1:49:19Speaker 1: commences to cleanse his heart, he has not found the
- 1:49:22Speaker 1: path which leads to knowledge and peace, and till passion
- 1:49:26Speaker 1: is transcended, truth remains unknown. This is the divine law.
- 1:49:32Speaker 1: A man cannot keep his passions and have truth as well.
- 1:49:37Speaker 1: Error is not slain until selfishness is dead. The overcoming
- 1:49:42Speaker 1: of self is no mystical theory, but a very real
- 1:49:46Speaker 1: and practical thing. It is a process which must be
- 1:49:50Speaker 1: pursued daily and hourly with unswerving faith and undaunted resolution
- 1:49:56Speaker 1: if any measure of success is to be achieved. The
- 1:50:00Speaker 1: process is one of orderly growth, having its sequential stages,
- 1:50:05Speaker 1: like the growth of a tree, and as fruit can
- 1:50:08Speaker 1: only be produced by carefully and patiently training the tree,
- 1:50:13Speaker 1: even so, the pure and satisfying fruits of holiness can
- 1:50:16Speaker 1: only be obtained by faithfully and patiently training the mind
- 1:50:21Speaker 1: in the growth of right thought and conduct. There are
- 1:50:25Speaker 1: five steps in the overcoming of passion, which includes all
- 1:50:29Speaker 1: bad habits and particular forms of wrongdoing, which I will
- 1:50:34Speaker 1: call one repression, two endurance, three elimination, four understanding, five victory.
- 1:50:49Speaker 1: When men fail to overcome their sins, it is because
- 1:50:53Speaker 1: they begin to try at the wrong end. They want
- 1:50:56Speaker 1: to have the stage of victory without passing through the
- 1:50:59Speaker 1: previous four stages. They are in the position of a
- 1:51:03Speaker 1: gardener who wants to produce good fruit without training and
- 1:51:07Speaker 1: attending to his trees. Repression consists in checking and controlling
- 1:51:12Speaker 1: the wrong act such as an outburst of temper, a
- 1:51:17Speaker 1: hasty or unkind word, a selfish indulgence, etc. And not
- 1:51:23Speaker 1: allowing it to take actual form. This is equivalent to
- 1:51:27Speaker 1: the gardener nipping off the useless buds and branches from
- 1:51:30Speaker 1: his tree. It is a necessary process, but a painful one.
- 1:51:36Speaker 1: The tree bleeds while undergoing the process, and the gardener
- 1:51:40Speaker 1: knows that it must not be taxed too severely. The
- 1:51:43Speaker 1: heart also bleeds when it refuses to return passion for passion,
- 1:51:49Speaker 1: when it ceases to defend and justify itself. It is
- 1:51:53Speaker 1: the process of mortifying the members of which Saint Paul speaks,
- 1:51:58Speaker 1: But this repression is only the beginning of self conquest,
- 1:52:03Speaker 1: when it is made an end in itself, and there
- 1:52:05Speaker 1: is no object of finally purifying the heart. That is
- 1:52:09Speaker 1: a stage of hypocrisy, a hiding of one's true nature
- 1:52:14Speaker 1: and striving to appear better in the eyes of others
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: than one really is. In that case it is an evil,
- 1:52:22Speaker 1: but when adopted as the first stage toward complete purification,
- 1:52:26Speaker 1: it is good. Its practice leads to the second stage
- 1:52:30Speaker 1: of endurance or forbearance, in which one silently endures the
- 1:52:35Speaker 1: pain which arises in the mind when it is brought
- 1:52:38Speaker 1: in contact with certain actions and attitudes of other minds
- 1:52:42Speaker 1: toward one. As success is attained in this stage, the
- 1:52:47Speaker 1: striver comes to see that all his pain actually arises
- 1:52:51Speaker 1: in his own weaknesses, and not in the wrong attitudes
- 1:52:54Speaker 1: of others toward him, these latter being merely the means
- 1:52:58Speaker 1: by which his sins are brought to the surface and
- 1:53:01Speaker 1: revealed to him. He thus gradually exonerates all others from
- 1:53:07Speaker 1: blame in his falls and lapses of conduct, and accuses
- 1:53:11Speaker 1: only himself, and so learns to love those who thus
- 1:53:16Speaker 1: unconsciously reveal to him his sins and shortcomings. Having passed
- 1:53:22Speaker 1: through these two stages of self crucifixion, the disciple enters
- 1:53:27Speaker 1: the third, that of elimination, in which the wrong thought
- 1:53:32Speaker 1: which lay behind the wrong act, is cast from the
- 1:53:35Speaker 1: mind immediately it appears. At this stage, conscious strength and
- 1:53:41Speaker 1: holy joy begin to take the place of pain, and
- 1:53:45Speaker 1: the mind, having become more comparatively calm, the striver is
- 1:53:49Speaker 1: enabled to gain a deeper insight into the complexities of
- 1:53:53Speaker 1: his mind, and thus to understand the inception, growth, and
- 1:53:57Speaker 1: outworking of sin. This is the stage of understanding perfection,
- 1:54:04Speaker 1: and understanding leads to the final conquest of self, a
- 1:54:09Speaker 1: conquest so complete that sin can no more rise in
- 1:54:12Speaker 1: the mind, even as a thought or impression. For when
- 1:54:16Speaker 1: the knowledge of sin is complete, when it is known
- 1:54:20Speaker 1: in its totality, from its inception as a seed in
- 1:54:23Speaker 1: the mind to its ripened outgrowth as act, in consequence,
- 1:54:28Speaker 1: then it can no more be allowed a place in life,
- 1:54:31Speaker 1: but it is abandoned forever than the mind is at peace.
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: The wrong acts of others no longer arouse wrong and
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: pain in the mind of the disciple. He is glad
- 1:54:45Speaker 1: and calm and wise. He is filled with love, and
- 1:54:50Speaker 1: blessedness abides with him, and this is victory. Chapter eighteen.
- 1:54:57Speaker 1: Contentment in activity, the confounding of a positive spiritual virtue
- 1:55:03Speaker 1: or principle with a negative animal vice, is common amongst writers,
- 1:55:09Speaker 1: even of what is called the Advanced Thoughts school, and
- 1:55:13Speaker 1: much valuable energy is frequently expended in criticizing and condemning,
- 1:55:18Speaker 1: where a little calm and reasoning would have revealed a
- 1:55:21Speaker 1: greater light and led to the exercise of a broader charity.
- 1:55:27Speaker 1: The other day I came across a vicious attack upon
- 1:55:31Speaker 1: the teaching of love, wherein the writer condemned such teaching
- 1:55:35Speaker 1: as weakly, foolish and hypocritical. Needless to say that which
- 1:55:41Speaker 1: he was condemning as love was merely weak sentimentality and hypocrisy.
- 1:55:47Speaker 1: Another writer, in condemning meekness, does not know that what
- 1:55:51Speaker 1: he calls meekness is only cowardice. While another who attacks
- 1:55:56Speaker 1: chastity as a snare is really infusing painful and hypocritical
- 1:56:02Speaker 1: restraint with the virtue of chastity. And just lately I
- 1:56:06Speaker 1: received a long letter from a correspondent who took great
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: pains to show me that contentment is a vice and
- 1:56:14Speaker 1: is the source of innumerable evils. That which my correspondent
- 1:56:19Speaker 1: called contentment is of course animal indifference. The spirit of
- 1:56:24Speaker 1: indifference is incompatible with progress, whereas the spirit of contentment
- 1:56:30Speaker 1: may and does attend the highest form of activity, the
- 1:56:34Speaker 1: truest advancement and development. Indolence is the twin sister of indifference,
- 1:56:40Speaker 1: but cheerful and ready action is the friend of contentment.
- 1:56:45Speaker 1: Contentment is a virtue which becomes lofty and spiritual in
- 1:56:49Speaker 1: its later developments, as the mind is trained to perceive
- 1:56:54Speaker 1: and the heart to receive the guidance in all things
- 1:56:58Speaker 1: of a merciful law. To be contented does not mean
- 1:57:02Speaker 1: to forego effort. It means to free effort from anxiety.
- 1:57:07Speaker 1: It does not mean to be satisfied with sin and
- 1:57:10Speaker 1: ignorance and folly, but to rest happily in duty done,
- 1:57:15Speaker 1: work accomplished. A man may be said to be content
- 1:57:19Speaker 1: to lead a groveling life, to remain in sin and
- 1:57:22Speaker 1: in debt. But such a man's true state is one
- 1:57:26Speaker 1: of indifference to his duty, his obligations, and the just
- 1:57:30Speaker 1: claims of his fellow men. He cannot truly be said
- 1:57:33Speaker 1: to possess the virtue of contentment. He does not experience
- 1:57:37Speaker 1: the pure and abiding joy which is the accompaniment of
- 1:57:41Speaker 1: active contentment. So far as his true nature is concerned,
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: he is a sleeping soul, and sooner or later will
- 1:57:49Speaker 1: be awakened by intense suffering, having passed through which he
- 1:57:53Speaker 1: will find that true contentment is the outcome of honest
- 1:57:57Speaker 1: effort and true living. There are three things with which
- 1:58:01Speaker 1: a man should be content, One with whatever happens, Two
- 1:58:08Speaker 1: with his friendships and possessions, Three with his pure thoughts.
- 1:58:15Speaker 1: Contented with whatever happens, he will escape grief. With his
- 1:58:20Speaker 1: friends and possessions, he will avoid anxiety and wretchedness. And
- 1:58:25Speaker 1: with his pure thoughts he will never go back to
- 1:58:28Speaker 1: suffer and grovel in impurities. There are three things with
- 1:58:33Speaker 1: which a man should not be content. One with his opinions,
- 1:58:39Speaker 1: two with his character, three with his spiritual condition. Not
- 1:58:46Speaker 1: content with his opinions, he will continually increase in intelligence.
- 1:58:52Speaker 1: Not content with his character, he will ceaselessly grow in
- 1:58:55Speaker 1: strength and virtue, and not content with his spiritual condition,
- 1:59:00Speaker 1: he will every day enter into a larger wisdom and
- 1:59:04Speaker 1: fuller blessedness. In a word, a man should be contented
- 1:59:10Speaker 1: but not indifferent to his development as a responsible and
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: spiritual being. The truly contented man works energetically and faithfully,
- 1:59:21Speaker 1: and accepts all results with an untroubled spirit, trusting it
- 1:59:25Speaker 1: first that all is well, but afterwards with the growth
- 1:59:29Speaker 1: of enlightenment, knowing that results exactly correspond with efforts. Whatsoever
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: material possessions come to him, come not by greed and
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: anxiety and strife, but by right, thought, wise action, and
- 1:59:46Speaker 1: pure exertion. The temple of brotherhood. Universal brotherhood is the
- 1:59:52Speaker 1: supreme ideal of humanity, and towards that ideal, the world
- 1:59:56Speaker 1: is slowly but surely moving to day as never before.
- 2:00:02Speaker 1: Numbers of earnest men and women are striving to make
- 2:00:06Speaker 1: this ideal tangible, and real fraternities are springing up on
- 2:00:10Speaker 1: every hand, and press and pulpit the world over are
- 2:00:15Speaker 1: preaching the brotherhood of man. The unselfish elements in all
- 2:00:20Speaker 1: such efforts cannot fail to have their effect upon the race,
- 2:00:24Speaker 1: and are with certainty urging it towards the goal of
- 2:00:28Speaker 1: its noblest aspirations. But the ideal state has not yet
- 2:00:33Speaker 1: manifested through any outward organization, and societies formed for the
- 2:00:39Speaker 1: purpose of propagating brotherhood are continually being shattered to pieces
- 2:00:44Speaker 1: by internal dissension. The brotherhood for which humanity size is
- 2:00:50Speaker 1: withheld from actuality by humanity itself. Nay more, it is
- 2:00:55Speaker 1: frustrated even by men who work zealously for it is
- 2:00:59Speaker 1: a desirable possibility. And this because the purely spiritual nature
- 2:01:04Speaker 1: of brotherhood is not perceived, and the principles involved, as
- 2:01:09Speaker 1: well as the individual course of conduct necessary to perfect unity,
- 2:01:14Speaker 1: are not comprehended. Brotherhood as a human organization cannot exist
- 2:01:21Speaker 1: so long as any degree of self seeking reigns in
- 2:01:24Speaker 1: the hearts of men and women who ban themselves together
- 2:01:27Speaker 1: for any purpose. As such self seeking must eventually rend
- 2:01:31Speaker 1: the seamless coat of loving unity. But although organized brotherhood
- 2:01:37Speaker 1: has so far largely failed, any man may realize brotherhood
- 2:01:41Speaker 1: in its perfection and know it in all its beauty
- 2:01:45Speaker 1: and completion, if he will make himself of a wise,
- 2:01:49Speaker 1: pure and loving spirit, removing from his mind, every element
- 2:01:54Speaker 1: of strife, and learning to practice those divine qualities without
- 2:01:58Speaker 1: which brothers is but a mere theory, opinion, or elusive dream.
- 2:02:05Speaker 1: For brotherhood is at first spiritual, and its outer manifestation
- 2:02:09Speaker 1: in the world must follow as a natural sequence, as
- 2:02:14Speaker 1: a spiritual reality. It must be discovered by each man
- 2:02:17Speaker 1: for himself, and in the only place where spiritual realities
- 2:02:22Speaker 1: can be found, within himself, and it rests with each
- 2:02:27Speaker 1: whether he shall choose or refuse it. There are four
- 2:02:32Speaker 1: chief tendencies in the human mind which are destructive of
- 2:02:35Speaker 1: brotherhood and which bar the way to its comprehension, namely, pride, self, love, hatred, condemnation.
- 2:02:47Speaker 1: Where these are there can be no brotherhood, And whatsoever heart,
- 2:02:52Speaker 1: these hold sway, discord rules, and brotherhood is not realized.
- 2:02:57Speaker 1: For these tendencies are in their very names nature dark
- 2:03:01Speaker 1: and selfish, and always make for disruption and destruction. From
- 2:03:06Speaker 1: these four things precedes that serpent brood of false actions
- 2:03:10Speaker 1: and conditions, which poison the heart of man and fill
- 2:03:14Speaker 1: the world with suffering and sorrow. Out of the spirit
- 2:03:18Speaker 1: of pride precede envy, resentment, and Opinionativeness. Pride envies the position, influence,
- 2:03:26Speaker 1: or goodness of others. It thinks I am more deserving
- 2:03:30Speaker 1: than this man or this woman. It also continually finds
- 2:03:34Speaker 1: occasion for resenting the actions of others and says, I
- 2:03:39Speaker 1: have been snubbed, I have been insulted. And thinking altogether
- 2:03:43Speaker 1: of his own excellence, it sees no excellence in others.
- 2:03:48Speaker 1: From the spirit of self love precede egotism, lust for power,
- 2:03:54Speaker 1: and disparagement and contempt. Self love worships the personality in
- 2:03:59Speaker 1: which it moves. It is lost in the adoration and
- 2:04:02Speaker 1: glorification of that eye, that self, which has no real existence,
- 2:04:09Speaker 1: but is a dark dream and a delusion. It desires
- 2:04:13Speaker 1: pre eminence over others and thinks I am great, I
- 2:04:18Speaker 1: am more important than others. It also disparages others and
- 2:04:23Speaker 1: bestows upon them contempt, seeing no beauty in them, being
- 2:04:28Speaker 1: lost in the contemplation of its own beauty. From the
- 2:04:32Speaker 1: spirit of hatred precedes lander, cruelty, reveling, and anger. It
- 2:04:38Speaker 1: strives to overcome evil by adding evil to it. It says,
- 2:04:44Speaker 1: this man has spoken of me, ill I will speak
- 2:04:47Speaker 1: still more ill of him, and thus teach him a lesson.
- 2:04:51Speaker 1: It mistakes cruelty for kindness and causes its possessor to
- 2:04:55Speaker 1: revile a reproving friend. It feeds the flame of anger
- 2:05:00Speaker 1: with bitter and rebellious thoughts from the spirit of condemnation
- 2:05:06Speaker 1: precede accusation, false pity, and false judgment. It feeds itself
- 2:05:12Speaker 1: on the contemplation of evil and cannot see the good.
- 2:05:16Speaker 1: It has eyes for evil only, and finds it in
- 2:05:19Speaker 1: almost every thing and every person. It sets up an
- 2:05:23Speaker 1: arbitrary standard of right and wrong by which to judge others,
- 2:05:28Speaker 1: and it thinks, this man does not do as I
- 2:05:31Speaker 1: would have him do, He is therefore evil, and I
- 2:05:35Speaker 1: will denounce him. So blind is the spirit of condemnation, that,
- 2:05:40Speaker 1: whilst rendering its possessor incapable of judging himself, it causes
- 2:05:45Speaker 1: him to set up as the judge of all the earth.
- 2:05:49Speaker 1: From the four tendencies enumerated, no element of brotherliness can proceed.
- 2:05:55Speaker 1: They are deadly mental poisons, and he who allows them
- 2:05:59Speaker 1: to rankle in his mine cannot apprehend the peaceful principles
- 2:06:03Speaker 1: on which brotherhood rests. Then there are chiefly four divine
- 2:06:08Speaker 1: qualities which are productive of brotherhood, which are, as it were,
- 2:06:13Speaker 1: the foundation stones on which it rests. Namely, humility, self surrender, love, compassion.
- 2:06:25Speaker 1: Wheresoever these are, their brotherhood is active in whatsoever heart
- 2:06:31Speaker 1: these qualities are dominant. Their brotherhood is an established reality,
- 2:06:36Speaker 1: for they are in their very nature unselfish, and are
- 2:06:40Speaker 1: filled with the revealing light of truth. There is no
- 2:06:44Speaker 1: darkness in them, and where they are, so powerful is
- 2:06:48Speaker 1: their light that the dark tendencies cannot remain, but are
- 2:06:53Speaker 1: dissolved and dissipated. Out of these four qualities precede all
- 2:06:58Speaker 1: those angelic actions in conditions which make for unity and
- 2:07:03Speaker 1: bring gladness to the heart of man and to the world.
- 2:07:07Speaker 1: From the spirit of humility, precede meekness and peacefulness. From
- 2:07:12Speaker 1: self surrender, compatience, wisdom and true judgment. From love spring kindness,
- 2:07:19Speaker 1: joy and harmony. And from compassion precede gentleness and forgiveness.
- 2:07:26Speaker 1: He who has brought himself into harmony with these four
- 2:07:29Speaker 1: qualities is divinely enlightened. He sees whence the actions of
- 2:07:34Speaker 1: men proceed and whither they tend, and therefore can no
- 2:07:39Speaker 1: longer live in the exercise of the dark tendencies. He
- 2:07:44Speaker 1: has realized brotherhood in its completion, as freedom from malice,
- 2:07:48Speaker 1: from envy, from bitterness, from contention, from condemnation. All men
- 2:07:56Speaker 1: are his brothers, those who live in the dark tendencies,
- 2:08:00Speaker 1: as well as those who live in the enlightened qualities.
- 2:08:03Speaker 1: For He knows that when they have perceived the glory
- 2:08:05Speaker 1: and beauty of the light of truth, the dark tendencies
- 2:08:09Speaker 1: will be dispelled from their minds. He has but one
- 2:08:12Speaker 1: attitude of mind towards all, that of good will. Of
- 2:08:17Speaker 1: the four dark tendencies are born ill will and strife.
- 2:08:22Speaker 1: Of the four divine qualities are born good will and peace.
- 2:08:28Speaker 1: Living in the four tendencies, a man is a strife producer.
- 2:08:32Speaker 1: Living in the four qualities, a man is a peacemaker
- 2:08:37Speaker 1: involved in the darkness of the selfish tendencies. Men believe
- 2:08:41Speaker 1: that they can fight for peace, kill to make alive,
- 2:08:45Speaker 1: slay injury by injuring, restore love by hatred, unity by contention,
- 2:08:52Speaker 1: kindness by cruelty, and established brotherhood by erecting their own opinions,
- 2:08:59Speaker 1: which they themself self's will, in the course of time
- 2:09:02Speaker 1: abandoned as worthless as objects of universal adoration. The wished
- 2:09:08Speaker 1: for temple of brotherhood will be erected in the world
- 2:09:12Speaker 1: when its four foundation stones of humility self surrender, love,
- 2:09:17Speaker 1: and compassion are firmly laid in the hearts of men.
- 2:09:22Speaker 1: For brotherhood consists first of all in the abandonment of
- 2:09:26Speaker 1: self by the individual, and its after effects is unity
- 2:09:31Speaker 1: between man and man. Theories and schemes for propagating brotherhood
- 2:09:36Speaker 1: are many, but brotherhood itself is one and unchangeable, and
- 2:09:41Speaker 1: consists in the complete cessation from ego and strife, and
- 2:09:46Speaker 1: in practicing good will and peace. For brotherhood is a
- 2:09:50Speaker 1: practice and not a theory. Self surrender and good will
- 2:09:54Speaker 1: are its guardian angels, and peace is its habitation. Where
- 2:09:59Speaker 1: two are des determined to maintain an opposing opinion, the
- 2:10:03Speaker 1: clinging to self and ill will are there, and brotherhood
- 2:10:06Speaker 1: is absent. Where two are prepared to sympathize with each other,
- 2:10:12Speaker 1: to see no evil in each other, to serve and
- 2:10:15Speaker 1: not to attack each other, the love of truth and
- 2:10:18Speaker 1: good will are there, and brotherhood is present all strifes, divisions,
- 2:10:24Speaker 1: and wars. And here in the proud, unyielding self all peace,
- 2:10:30Speaker 1: unity and concord. And here in the principles which the
- 2:10:34Speaker 1: yielding up of self reveals. Brotherhood is only practiced and
- 2:10:39Speaker 1: known by him whose heart is at peace with all
- 2:10:43Speaker 1: the world, Chapter twenty, Pleasant Pastures of peace. He who
- 2:10:50Speaker 1: aspires to the bettering of himself and humanity should ceaselessly
- 2:10:55Speaker 1: strive to arrive at the exercise of that blessed attitude
- 2:10:59Speaker 1: of mind by which he is enabled to put himself
- 2:11:03Speaker 1: mentally and sympathetically in the place of others. And so,
- 2:11:08Speaker 1: instead of harshly and falsely judging them and thereby making
- 2:11:12Speaker 1: himself unhappy without adding to the happiness of those others,
- 2:11:17Speaker 1: he will enter into their experience, will understand their particular
- 2:11:21Speaker 1: frame of mind, and will feel for them and sympathize
- 2:11:25Speaker 1: with them. One of the great obstacles to the attainment
- 2:11:29Speaker 1: of such an attitude of mind is prejudice, and until
- 2:11:33Speaker 1: this is removed, it is impossible to act toward others
- 2:11:37Speaker 1: as we would wish others to act toward us. Prejudice
- 2:11:42Speaker 1: is destructive of kindness, sympathy, love, and true judgment, and
- 2:11:46Speaker 1: the strength of a man's prejudice will be the measure
- 2:11:49Speaker 1: of his harshness and unkindness toward others. For prejudice and
- 2:11:54Speaker 1: cruelty are inseparable. There is no rationality in prejudice, and
- 2:12:01Speaker 1: immediately it is aroused in a man, he ceases to
- 2:12:04Speaker 1: act as a reasonable being and gives way to rashness, anger,
- 2:12:09Speaker 1: and injurious excitement. He does not consider his words nor
- 2:12:14Speaker 1: regard the feelings and liberties of those against whom his
- 2:12:18Speaker 1: prejudices are directed. He has, for the time being forfeited
- 2:12:24Speaker 1: his manhood and has descended to the level of an
- 2:12:27Speaker 1: irrational creature. While a man is determined to cling to
- 2:12:32Speaker 1: his preconceived opinions, mistaking them for truth, and refuses to
- 2:12:37Speaker 1: consider dispassionately the position of others, he cannot escape hatred
- 2:12:42Speaker 1: nor arrive at blessedness. The man who strives after gentleness,
- 2:12:48Speaker 1: who aspires to act unselfishly toward others, will put away
- 2:12:52Speaker 1: all his passionate prejudice and petty opinions, and will gradually
- 2:12:57Speaker 1: acquire the power of thinking and feeling for us, of
- 2:13:01Speaker 1: understanding their particular state of ignorance or knowledge, and thereby
- 2:13:06Speaker 1: entering fully into their hearts and lives, sympathizing with them
- 2:13:11Speaker 1: and seeing them as they really are. Such a man
- 2:13:15Speaker 1: will not oppose himself to the prejudices of others by
- 2:13:19Speaker 1: introducing his own, but will seek to allay prejudice by
- 2:13:23Speaker 1: introducing sympathy and love, striving to bring out all that
- 2:13:27Speaker 1: is good in men, encouraging the good by appealing to it,
- 2:13:32Speaker 1: and discouraging the evil by ignoring it. He will realize
- 2:13:36Speaker 1: the good in the unselfish efforts of others, though their
- 2:13:40Speaker 1: outward methods may be very different from his own, and
- 2:13:43Speaker 1: will so rid his heart of hatred, and will fit
- 2:13:46Speaker 1: it with love and blessedness. When a man is prone
- 2:13:50Speaker 1: to harshly judge and condemn others, he should inquire how
- 2:13:54Speaker 1: far he feels short himself. He should also reconsider those
- 2:13:59Speaker 1: periods of sefer when he himself was misjudged and misunderstood,
- 2:14:04Speaker 1: and gathering wisdom in love from his own bitter experience,
- 2:14:09Speaker 1: should studiously and self sacrificingly refrain from piercing with anguish
- 2:14:14Speaker 1: hearts that are as yet too weak to ignore, too
- 2:14:18Speaker 1: immature and uninstructed to understand. Sympathy is not required towards
- 2:14:24Speaker 1: those who are purer and more enlightened than one's self,
- 2:14:28Speaker 1: as the purer one lives above the necessity for it.
- 2:14:32Speaker 1: In such a case, reverence should be exercised, with a
- 2:14:36Speaker 1: striving to lift one's self up to the purer level
- 2:14:40Speaker 1: and so enter into possession of the larger life. Nor
- 2:14:44Speaker 1: can a man fully understand one who is wiser than himself,
- 2:14:49Speaker 1: And before condemning he should earnestly ask himself whether he is,
- 2:14:54Speaker 1: after all better than the man whom he has singled
- 2:14:57Speaker 1: out as the object of his bitterness. If he is,
- 2:15:02Speaker 1: let him bestow sympathy. If he is not, let him
- 2:15:06Speaker 1: exercise reverence. For thousands of years, the sages have taught
- 2:15:11Speaker 1: both by precept and example that evil is only overcome
- 2:15:15Speaker 1: by good. Yet still that lesson, for the majority, remains unlearned.
- 2:15:22Speaker 1: It is a lesson profound in its simplicity and difficult
- 2:15:26Speaker 1: to learn because men are blinded by the illusions of self.
- 2:15:30Speaker 1: Men are still engaged in resenting, condemning, and fighting the
- 2:15:34Speaker 1: evil in their own fellow men, thereby increasing the delusion
- 2:15:39Speaker 1: in their own hearts and adding to the world some
- 2:15:42Speaker 1: of misery and suffering. When they find out that their
- 2:15:46Speaker 1: own resentment must be eradicated and put love in its place,
- 2:15:51Speaker 1: evil will perish for lack of sustenance, with burning brain
- 2:15:56Speaker 1: and heart of hate. I sought my wronger early life,
- 2:16:01Speaker 1: and all the wretched night and day my dream and
- 2:16:04Speaker 1: thought was slay and slay my better self rose uppermost.
- 2:16:10Speaker 1: The beast within my bosom lost itself in love peace
- 2:16:15Speaker 1: from afar shone o'er me radiant like a star. I
- 2:16:20Speaker 1: slew my wronger with the deed, a deed of love.
- 2:16:24Speaker 1: I made him bleed with kindness, and I filled for
- 2:16:28Speaker 1: years his soul with tenderness and tears. Dislike, resentment, and
- 2:16:34Speaker 1: condemnation are all forms of hatred, and evil cannot cease
- 2:16:39Speaker 1: until these are taken out of the heart. But the
- 2:16:43Speaker 1: obliterating of injuries from the mind is merely one of
- 2:16:47Speaker 1: the beginnings. In wisdom. There is a still higher and
- 2:16:51Speaker 1: better way, and that way is so to purify the
- 2:16:55Speaker 1: heart and enlighten the mind, that far from having to
- 2:16:59Speaker 1: forget injury, there will be none to remember. For it
- 2:17:03Speaker 1: is only pride and self that can be injured and
- 2:17:06Speaker 1: wounded by the actions and attitudes of others. And he
- 2:17:10Speaker 1: who takes pride and self out of his heart can
- 2:17:13Speaker 1: never think the thought I have been injured by another,
- 2:17:17Speaker 1: or I have been wronged by another. From a purified
- 2:17:22Speaker 1: heart precedes the right comprehension of things, and from the
- 2:17:27Speaker 1: right comprehension of things perceivees the life that is peaceful,
- 2:17:31Speaker 1: freed from bitterness, and suffering, calm and wise. He who
- 2:17:37Speaker 1: thinks this man has injured me has not perceived the
- 2:17:41Speaker 1: truth in life. Fall short of that enlightenment which disperses
- 2:17:46Speaker 1: the erroneous idea of evil as a thing to be
- 2:17:49Speaker 1: hatefully resented. He who is troubled and disturbed about the
- 2:17:53Speaker 1: sins of others is far from truth. He who is
- 2:17:58Speaker 1: troubled and disturbed about his own lithe sins, is very
- 2:18:01Speaker 1: near to the gate of wisdom. He in whose heart
- 2:18:05Speaker 1: the flames of resentment burn cannot know peace nor understand truth.
- 2:18:11Speaker 1: He who will banish resentment from his heart will know
- 2:18:15Speaker 1: and understand. He who has taken evil out of his
- 2:18:19Speaker 1: heart cannot resent or resist it in others, for he
- 2:18:23Speaker 1: is enlightened as to its origin and nature, and knows
- 2:18:28Speaker 1: it as a manifestation of the mistakes of ignorance. With
- 2:18:32Speaker 1: the increase of enlightenment, sin becomes impossible. He who sins
- 2:18:38Speaker 1: does not understand. He who understands does not sin. The
- 2:18:43Speaker 1: pure man maintains his tenderness of his heart toward those
- 2:18:47Speaker 1: who ignorantly imagine they can do him harm. The wrong
- 2:18:51Speaker 1: attitude of others toward him does not trouble him. His
- 2:18:55Speaker 1: heart is at rest in compassion and love. Blessed is
- 2:18:59Speaker 1: he who has no wrongs to remember, no injuries to forget,
- 2:19:04Speaker 1: in whose pure heart no hateful thought about another can
- 2:19:08Speaker 1: take root and flourish. Let those who aim at the
- 2:19:12Speaker 1: right life, who believe that they love truth, cease to
- 2:19:16Speaker 1: passionately oppose themselves to others, and let them strive to
- 2:19:21Speaker 1: calmly and wisely understand them. And in thus acting toward others,
- 2:19:26Speaker 1: they will be conquering themselves. And while sympathizing with others,
- 2:19:31Speaker 1: their own souls will be fed with the harmony dues
- 2:19:34Speaker 1: of kindness, and their hearts will be strengthened and refreshed
- 2:19:39Speaker 1: in the pleasant pastures of peace.