Theosophy - Hints to Young Students of Occultism by L.W.Rogers
HINTS
TO YOUNG STUDENTS OF OCCULTISM
BY
L.W.ROGERS
Published in 1911
PREFACE
INTRODUCTORY
-SELF EXAMINATION
THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTENTION
-ORIGINAL THINKING
PERSISTENT AND REGULAR EFFORT
-ENTHUSIASM
THOUGHT ASSIMILATION IS ESSENTIAL TO SOUL GROWTH
SAFE AND DANGEROUS MENTAL CONDITIONS
SELF-RELIANCE
THE FATAL DELUSION OF DELAY
THE ONE PROTECTION AGAINST DANGER
-CULTIVATING SYMPATHY
THE CONDITIONS OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS
-SPREADING THE LIGHT
CONQUERING DELUSIONS
FAULTS TO BE GUARDED AGAINST
THE WRONG ROAD AND THE RIGHT ONE
TOLERANCE
PURITY
TRUTHFULNESS
FEARLESSNESS
PREFACE
The
growing interest in the higher life,and the general search for information
that is helpful in attaining it, is sufficient reason for the publication
of this little book. The purpose has not been to write of the subject in hand
either exhaustively or systematically but to put forward helpful suggestions
for taking some easy steps in self-development.
Many
who earnestly desire to escape from the bondage of the lower nature, and rise
to spiritual illumination, are at a loss how to proceed, or even how to practically
apply to daily life the occult information they may have gained by general
reading. This little volume is an effort to assist them - hints on how to
utilize time and energy - a few guide-boards in the evolutionary wilderness
at doubtful turns in the road, indicating the advantageous way to go and displaying
warning signs across some attractive byways that lead to perilous places.
INTRODUCTORY
The
young student of occultism - he who is just beginning to learn that there
is a deeper meaning in life than he had suspected - who has but recently come
into contact with Theosophy's explanation of the purpose of life and the method
of human evolution - often has the idea that there is some particular bit
of information which, if he can but secure it, will enable him to quickly
develop clairvoyance and rise into the possession of great spiritual power.
He has an impression that there are certain formulas which the teachers can
hand over to him, if they will, that can be used as a key to unlock the storehouse
of occult knowledge. If the beginner would make rapid progress in evolving,
the divine powers within him he should put aside such notions and realize
at once that all any teacher can do for him is to point out the way in which
he can help himself and that knowledge of the path to be followed will come
to him in exact proportion to the earnestness of his desire to find it. He
should remember, too, that there are precepts to practice as well as knowledge
to gain. It is extremely important for him to study the literature of occultism,
to read and to learn all he possibly can from those who have information to
impart, but something more is necessary. As he acquires these spiritual truths
he must strive to live them, to shape his daily life by them. Fortunate indeed
is he who can make his inner spiritual development keep pace with his intellectual
acquirement of the facts. To discover a spiritual truth and then make no use
of it in the evolution of one's character is quite as bad, if not worse, than
to remain in ignorance of it; for responsibility is measured by opportunity.
The
idea that anybody can put the beginner quickly into possession of spiritual
power is as erroneous as it would be to suppose that by handing him a diploma
a university president can give a young person an education. This notion that
Theosophy has occult wealth to be handed over in a lump sum - to be conferred
instead of earned - is usually accompanied with the desire to be conspicuously
helpful, to quickly undertake some work, the benevolence of which is at least
equalled by its dramatic method; to become one of the invisible helpers who
has the power to work in his astral body during the hours when the physical
body is asleep. That is a most laudable ambition and a worthy thing to attain.
But the point that should be understood about it is that the way to it is
through actual spiritual development and not by the immediate opening of astral
sight. The first step toward being an invisible helper is to become a visible
helper, to cultivate the desire to help by exercising our benevolent impulses
on the human beings about us. When we have actually become of service on the
physical plane, when we have utilized the opportunity of our daily life to
assist others, and have thus proven that the thing we really desire is to
be helpful and not merely to possess occult power, we shall have taken the
first necessary step in the realization of our ambition.
If
the beginner is anxious to know how rapidly he is getting on in spiritual
development he has only to watch his daily life. His first work is to get
control of his physical body and make it obey his will. Therefore if he can
see that he is growing less irritable, that trifling things are losing their
power to annoy him, that he is not so easily thrown off his balance as he
used to be, he knows that his will is becoming established in its power to
direct the physical and astral mechanism through which it functions. It is
always to the little things, rather than to great events, that he should look
as tests of the new powers he is developing. His fitness to pass the portal,
later in his evolution, toward which he is now directing his first uncertain
steps, is not determined by one supreme occasion, like an examination for
entering some university, so much as it is being determined by the thoughts
and desires of his daily life; and it is the little things, the small problems
of the daily life that are hourly testing his judgment, his sincerity, his
courage and his patience. Unless he begins to be successful in meeting these
he cannot hope to become even a candidate for greater tests of his powers.
There
are many ways in which the young student of occultism can begin the cultivation
of the character qualities he must possess before he can go far in his efforts
at conscious evolution, - scores of things he can do in the line of character
building that will lay an enduring foundation for the spiritual power he would
attain; and let it be well understood that all such work done in the beginning
will save him much trouble, and give him great satisfaction,later on. The
reward for his pains will be rich indeed. He who erects a fine building upon
a weak and illy-constructed foundation is no more foolish than he who does
careless work in the foundation he lays for his temple not built with hands.
Every flaw in the foundation is a menace for the future; and is not that precisely
why the testing is so constant and continuous? The things that ceaselessly
test us, that sometimes appear to bar our further progress, should be as welcome
as the ring of the inspector's hammer on the car-wheels before one's train
leaves the station, or as the test of plumb and square in the house-builder's
operation.
SELF
EXAMINATION
An
excellent thing for one to do when he is first coming into a
knowledge of
Theosophy, and is beginning to seek the way forward by its guiding
light, is to ask himself in what particular traits he is lacking
and then earnestly
set about acquiring them. It is usually not difficult to find some
weak points. Is there sound moral courage? Does he ever fear
to express an opinion that
he feels ought to be expressed, but which he knows to be unpopular?
Is he firm in defence of the truth, as he sees it, or does he
take refuge in silence
when he instinctively feels that he should speak? Moral courage
he must have and he should begin to inspect his daily conduct
and seek to strengthen his
character in this direction. And so he may run down the scale of
his virtues and his frailties, critically examining each point,
until he comes to things
we usually consider as of no importance. Is he careless about the
waste of time? Does he realize the value of every hour of his
waking consciousness?
Has he begun to understand the fact that the average man fritters
away in an aimless sort of fashion by far the larger part of
his physical lifetime,
and makes but correspondingly feeble progress, instead of which
he could, if he would, so use that wasted time that it would
count tremendously in quickening
his evolution? If he does understand that fact he will begin to
take account of his waking hours and ask what he has to show
for them. He will scrupulously
cultivate the habits of promptness and punctuality. If he has an
appointment at a certain hour he will not arrive fifteen minutes
later, nor five minutes
later. If he has letters requiring replies he will not permit them
to lie about unanswered awaiting the vague and uncertain time
when he happens to
feel like writing. Among his earliest lessons should be this fact:
that procrastination is not only "the thief of time" but
also of other people's time and that responsibility for careless
conduct by no means ends with his personal
loss. In many directions he will find opportunities, if he seeks
them, to strengthen his character and perfect his armour against
the coming day of
a mighty conflict. Great things are possible only to strong souls
and it is from the trivial events of daily life that strength
is won. Until we have
become masters of the little things there is nothing great awaiting
us.
THE
IMPORTANCE OF ATTENTION
Perhaps
it would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of the thing
we call "attention".
It should be assiduously cultivated in every possible way. Whatever
is being done should be done with an undivided mind, whether
it is important or trivial.
Attention to the work in hand is not only the first step toward
success with that particular bit of work but is also a step in
actual occult development.
To study a subject for a half hour with unwavering attention accomplishes
more than to follow it a half day with a wandering mind; and
while we are
thus gaining knowledge rapidly by determinedly sustained attention
we are doing something more. We are bringing the mind into the
particular condition
it must reach before any marked progress in occultism is possible.
The
mental habit of most people reminds one of a kitten at play. It strikes at
a swinging string, catches up a bit of paper, leaps into the air after a fly,
then darts into another room to dash from object to object in a new field,
all for no other purpose than because it has nothing more serious in life
to attend to. So it is with the wandering mind. It fills up the time with
a multitude of trifling thoughts that, all summed up in the end, amount to
simply nothing. It occupies itself with dreamy speculations about nothing
in particular, darts backward to uselessly run over a recent conversation,
leaps off to review a journey made a week ago, dallies over a remembered remark
by a friend, suddenly recalls a duty not discharged, forgets it the next instant
because a carriage passes the window, and then dashes off on some entirely
new round of equally frivolous mental activities that are as devoid of connection
with the first set as they are of method or purpose.
Such
a state of mind belongs to that period of our existence when we had no knowledge
of the purpose of life. It is not becoming to the student of Theosophy and
he should, without any loss of time, begin an earnest effort to free himself
from so pernicious a mental habit. A good way to accomplish this is to endeavour
to keep the mind steadily upon the work in hand, whether it is reading, writing,
talking listening, or discharging some simple duty. When it is some pastime
or recreation,to which attention is turned for rest, the mind should be fully
given up to it and kept entirely away from the work that has been temporarily
dropped.
Attention
is the very gist of occult progress. It is impossible to imagine anybody getting
on without acquiring it; and the way to acquire it to the degree that makes
it effective is to keep constantly at it in all the little things we do until
it becomes an ingrained and deep-seated habit. Is not attention the very basis
upon which occult development rests? Take as an example telepathy, with which
most people have had more or less experience. You are about to say something
when your friend says it for you. You have decided to move a chair or open
a window, but before you can rise your companion requests you to do that particular
thing. You have not thought for a week about purchasing a certain needed article
when it comes into your mind suddenly, but before your thought can frame itself
into words your companion brings up the subject. Very often you both speak
the same words at the same instant about the same thing. Very often, too,
you know precisely what another is going to say just before he utters it.
Now, this occurs when the mind is not disturbed by other thoughts and things.
We cannot imagine a person getting the thought of another when his own mind
is galloping about among other subjects. How can he get what another is thinking
when he does not even get what he is saying? But we can imagine telepathy
being cultivated by close and sympathetic attention. We can imagine a person
listening so intently to another's conversation and getting so completely
into his line of thought that he gets his ideas before they are expressed
in words. Such centered and sustained attention necessarily cultivates sensitiveness.
A
very good time for cultivating the attention is while listening to a discourse.
A special effort can be made to get every idea expressed by the speaker; and
if, as sometimes happens, the ideas are not numerous, to give the closest
attention to all that is said, keeping mental account of the points as they
are developed without losing anything that is being stated. Whether one agrees
with the speaker or not should not be permitted to impair the attention. In
either case the mind should be held unwaveringly upon the discourse, so firmly
and persistently that there is no opportunity for other things to intrude.
If the ideas come from the speaker too slowly to occupy the mind it can be
kept busy reviewing the points thus far made, or even in speculating upon
what are likely to come, but in any case it should be kept to the speaker
and his subject with the greatest care. The attention should not be permitted
to fail from the moment he rises until he has finished. This attention should
be absolute. If somebody enters or leaves the room disregard it. Try to see
nothing but the speaker and hear nothing but his discourse, until it is finished.
If this practice should, at first, prove trying it need not be continued throughout
an entire sermon or lecture. But for such length of time as may be decided
upon the attention should be rigorously sustained. If the discourse is a good
one much more will thus be learned from it. If it is of the order that bores
one it will be robbed of much, if not all, of its oppressiveness; for when
the mind is concentrated upon it, and busy speculating about it, time does
not hang heavily, but passes without notice. An unfailing method of shortening
the apparent time of any discourse is to concentrate the attention upon it.
ORIGINAL
THINKING
Another
thing which the young student should take up is the matter of
original thinking.
Naturally he will read much of occultism in the books written by
occultists, and he will have a tendency to fall into their style
of expression. When he
prepares a paper on a theosophical subject he will usually find,
upon critically examining his work, that he has set forth much
the same points, in much the
same way, with the same degree of emphasis and with the same kind
of illustrations that his authors have used. Often he unconsciously
falls into almost precisely
the same expressions. All this is work in an imitative rut, from
which he should make a determined effort to extricate himself.
No matter how admirable
the work of the teacher is the student does not desire to become
either a copyist or a parrot. He does not want his mind to get
the habit of running
only along the grooves fashioned by others and then not running
at all when it reaches the end of the groove. To avoid this misfortune
he should read
only for a short time and then stop and ponder well the ideas presented.
Let him try to find various points of view and see if he cannot
think of something
more to be said on the matter. He can call up in his mind some
of his experiences that are in line with the statement of principles
given and ponder over the
corroboration thus furnished. When he discusses with others what
he has read let him try to avoid the exact language used by the
author and put the thought
into original expressions of his own. He should endeavour to think
out original illustrations to illuminate the subject, and new
sets of circumstances to
which the principles stated will apply; and the way to do it is
to think, and think, and think about it. Original thinking is
an invaluable accomplishment
and the only reason why there is not more of it is because there
are so few who are willing to give it the necessary time and
effort.
CHAPTER
III
PERSISTENT
AND REGULAR EFFORT
Another
matter which the student who is just entering upon the study of occultism
should have well settled in his mind in the beginning is the necessity for
hard work. Whoever starts out with the notion that indifferent and desultory
study of the subject will carry him through is foredoomed to failure; and
he who imagines that by galloping through the literature of occultism, as
he would read a collection of novels, he can become an occultist will be nearly
as far from his goal when he finishes as when he began. He may give to his
occult studies much time or little, as he will. That is not the point. The
important thing is that whether the period be several hours a day or but one
hour, or even the half of it, it should be characterized by that mental energy
that is the natural result of an eager desire and a steady purpose. Half-hearted
work is but little better than no work. Without hard work the student's progress
will be discouragingly slow. That is true of all our undertakings. Why should
it not be true of occultism? The university student who makes rapid progress
in law, or medicine, or mathematics, or languages, is he who works hard. Genius
is only the essence of hard labour. It may have been performed in a past life
but that does not alter the fact. We have no faculties that we have not made
and every mental effort now is determining our intellectual accomplishments
of the future, as well as accelerating present progress.
Not
only should we work with wide-awake energy but we should work
with persistence
and regularity if we would get on. Regularity has a magic of its
own. A given amount of energy put forth regularly, steadily,
produces enormously more than
the same amount of energy put forth irregularly, spasmodically.
Let the young student set aside each day a certain time for occult
studying and thinking,
and permit no break in the work, and he will make gratifying progress.
The difficulty of quickly getting down to work grows less and
less. The art of
becoming absorbed in the subject matter becomes easier and easier.
Soon he finds that his hour or half-hour, as the case may be,
counts in results out
of all proportion to the time recorded by the clock. But let him
make the mistake of giving occult studies two hours today, nothing
tomorrow, fifteen
minutes the next day, nothing more for a week, then a full day "to make
up for lost time", with such future chance periods as convenience
may dictate - make it the sport of circumstance and the dependent
of caprice -
and a sum total of many more hours will take him a much less distance
on his spiritual journey. By the first method he gets into the
current of regularity
and it carries him along with a sort of cumulative momentum. He
is really entering upon a new moral and intellectual life - acquiring
a new viewpoint,
a new standard of measures, setting up new habits of consciousness
- and a certain inertia has to be overcome. By regularity he not
only gets into the
new stride quickly but does not wholly lose it during the intervening
hours; while by the second method he not only loses it but loses
most of his study
time in getting back to it. He has the inertia to overcome again
and again and spends most of his time making new starts instead
of making progress.
Regularity
in the study of occultism counts heavily for progress in still another way.
Such study is usually taken up by the beginner after he has seen or heard
something that has aroused his interest in the subject. It may be some occult
experience, or a conversation with a friend, or on account of psychic phenomena
in a newspaper, or a lecture on Theosophy. Something has aroused a temporary
interest. Now, if he sets out with a plan and purpose and decides in advance
that he will follow a fixed program of daily study there is a fair chance
that he will acquire a permanent interest in the matter before his enthusiasm
wanes. But if he has no prearranged program, and only decides to utilize for
such reading and study the idle time that he may chance to have in the coming
days, he is extremely likely to permit one thing after another to push aside
his occult studies until his interest slowly faces out and his golden opportunity
is gone. It is a golden opportunity when any human being is, by any
occurrence whatever, brought into contact with occult teaching; and fortunate
indeed are those who realize it and promptly act upon it. It may mean to them,
at its very least, all the difference there is between many happy, useful
lives and many very commonplace ones, although it may appear on the surface
to be a trivial matter whether one follows up such an opportunity at once
or not. Trifles at the starting point may represent great differences further
along. Two raindrops may fall nearly together at the top of a mountain range
and yet, because one strikes the eastern slope and the other the western,
ultimately find their way into different oceans. Those who have a fondness
for such analysis have often shown that great events have turned on the pivots
of trifles. The difference between adopting a regular program for daily occult
study and adopting another that is lawless and erratic is one of those apparent
trifles that serves as a pivot on which a destiny may turn.
ENTHUSIASM
Enthusiasm
is a thing of priceless value. Somebody has defined it as the power of God
made manifest in a human being. Whatever else it may be it is certainly a
great motor power, a force that carries one forward and upward. The difference
between a person filled with enthusiasm about occultism and another who is
not is the difference between life and death. One is asleep to everything
but his material surroundings. The other is awake aroused, in touch with the
life currents of the universe. The chief work of the theosophical lecturer
is to arouse such enthusiasm - to so present spiritual facts to the minds
that can receive them that the recognition of universal truth kindles the
divine fire within. With those who have reached a certain point in evolution
this flame of enthusiasm will burn steadily, however feebly, and they may
fortunately walk in the light for the remainder of this incarnation. With
many others it will slowly subside, leaving them, however, more susceptible
to future stimuli. Happy indeed is that truth seeker who resolves upon a program
of daily study and, while the flame of his new enthusiasm still burns, gets
settled into the fixed habit that will carry him safely to the point where
his temporary interest has become permanent.
CHAPTER
IV
THOUGHT
ASSIMILATION IS ESSENTIAL TO SOUL GROWTH
The
student of Theosophy should read much but think more. He could get along without
reading if books on occultism could not be had, but he could not get on without
thinking if all the books ever written were at hand. There is a close analogy
between the growth of the physical body and the growth of the soul. For the
body to grow requires both eating and digestion. Of course there can be no
bodily growth whatever without digestion and assimilation. By digestion the
food is reduced to the condition in which it is available for body building
and by assimilation it is built in. And precisely so it is with soul expansion.
The raw material of facts, principles and experiences must undergo a certain
process before they are available for soul growth. Reading and observing are
merely the acts of collecting soul food. If we do nothing more it is as though
one should eat when, through some physiological derangement, the function
of digestion is suspended. There could then be no gain to him from it and
no growth on account of it. The mind is to the soul what the stomach is to
the physical body - the laboratory of preparation. The mind takes the accumulation
of facts, principles, observations and experiences, and from the whole mass
extracts conceptions, new views of things, new understandings of life - extracts
the very gist of the totality of perception, and this essence of the whole
is then ready for assimilation by the soul, ready to be built into the causal
body. By the action of the mind the rough material for soul growth has been
transmuted and made available; and without such action that material in the
rough could no more be utilized for soul growth than fruits and vegetables,
as such, can be built into the physical body. Mind action, then, is not merely
important; it is absolutely necessary.
Whatever
the time may be that one can set apart for occult studies each
day there should
be a reasonable portion of it given up exclusively to quiet thought
into which no reading is permitted to intrude. It is a common
error for those just becoming
interested in Theosophy to bury themselves in some book during
every moment that can be snatched from pressing duties. This
eager desire to read everything
on the subject within reach is most commendable and the burning
zeal that grasps at every possible acquisition foreshadows rapid
progress; but the sooner
that zeal is directed into channels along which it may make the
most of the energy expended the better. To this end a certain
definite time should be
determined upon for quiet thinking about the higher life. A half-hour
is little enough but twenty, or even ten minutes is much better
than nothing. The hour
at which it is desirable will naturally vary with the habits and
duties of different people; but it should be at that part of
the day when there is the
most freedom from one's daily activities and the least liability
to interruption. Noon time may be desirable for some. Early twilight
may be better for others.
The hour of retiring for the night will probably be the most convenient
for many. This time for quiet thought should not be made a substitute
for morning
meditation, if the student is fortunate enough to be giving a few
minutes to that shortly after rising. It should be a period of
tranquil thinking and
aspiration rather than of strenuous will-compelling mental effort.
The mind can dwell upon what has been read during the day and
the facts and principles
set forth by the author, or at least some of them, can be recalled,
pondered over and applied to what one knows of life through personal
experience. A
part of the time can be given to the experiences of the past twenty-four
hours. The mind can run back over the winding path traversed
during that time, the
people met, the things said, done, thought and desired, and each
can be considered in the light of the higher life. Was the conduct
all that could be desired?
Was any opportunity to be helpful overlooked? Was any word spoken
that were better unsaid? Was any thought entertained that should
not have been harboured?
In short, did you live up to your highest aspiration or was there
a weak point to be carefully strengthened for the morrow? In
thus pondering over the reading
and the events of the day, and renewing the determination to live
up to the highest one can conceive, the half hour speeds swiftly
and pleasantly past
and by the wondrous alchemy of mental action experience is transmuted
into spiritual strength.
The
entire time of this meditative fragment of the day should not be given to
retrospective thought. At least a few minutes should always be devoted to
pondering over the inner life and the purpose of existence. This will prove
a source of real strength - a living spring of progressive energy. Think upon
the desirability of the higher life and of the transitory nature of everything
in the visible world. Reflect upon the swift flight of time, the ever-increasing
speed with which the years are rolling by; upon the fact that the physical
life is as short as it is important and that whoever would use it wisely has
no time to lose from what remains. Consider the utter uselessness of striving
for wealth, of accumulating a fortune, large or small, of giving more attention
to the physical body than will keep it in health and comfort; and remember
that all energy, beyond that, expended upon physical things, to accumulate
them and take care of them , is worse than wasted; for it is thought and energy
invested in the perishable- time and energy that could be utilized in the
useful work of helping others forward, which incidentally builds into your
own soul the things that do not perish but which will multiply your strength
and widen your field for future lives. Reflect upon the fact that warm friendships
are superior to material possessions; upon the desirability of sterling character
qualities; upon the fact that every virtue, grace, power and attribute of
character built into one's self during this physical life becomes an eternal
possession- a never-failing source of sunshine and joyousness through all
future lives. Recall the most carefree, joyous exalted moments of your conscious
existence and reflect that that condition should be your normal physical life
- that life rightly lived is joy, although the vast majority do not
suspect it, and that a far happier life than the imagination can picture can
be yours in the near future if the aspiration to live up to the highest that
is in you is assiduously cultivated. For at least a few moments daily give
free rein to your imagination and let it picture the future field of your
activities - build the stage upon which you shall play the drama of your lives.
Refuse to live within the narrow walls of this one incarnation. Sweep them
aside and realize that this little life is but the dull and gloomy morning
of the coming radiant day. Plan not for this small hour but count the lives
that lie ahead as a part, with this, of one imposing whole. Look forward to
future lives as youth looks forward to maturity. Make your plans for the remainder
of this incarnation as in the closing period of school years one plans his
life's career, shaping his present energies to serve his future purpose. This
daily glimpse of wider fields in which the seeds of present thought shall
blossom into deeds of worth in future lives will, in time, fan the faintest
aspirations into steady flame and give to the inner life a reality that enables
the student to comprehend something of the delusive character of the physical
existence with its false standards that lead the unwary astray.
CHAPTER
V
SAFE AND DANGEROUS MENTAL CONDITIONS
In
the previous chapter it was suggested that the time set aside
daily for reviewing
the events of the preceding hours and pondering over the meaning
of life and its varied problems should be a period of tranquil
thought and aspiration.
Perhaps it may not be amiss to add that the word "tranquil" should
not be taken to mean the passivity that characterizes the trance medium who
is about to pass "under control". To assume that attitude
of mind is to abandon oneself to the psychic circumstances of the
moment, without
the slightest opportunity of judging whether they may be good or
bad. It would be much as though a blind man who could swim but
little should fling himself
upon the tide, not knowing whether it would carry him into water
that was safe and comfortable or into a dangerous undertow. The
student's will should
always be in control. Under no circumstances should it be surrendered
to anything or anybody. It is his purpose to know himself and his
environment; to attain
firsthand knowledge of the mysteries of life; to purify his vehicles
of consciousness and develop his spiritual powers that he may be
of the greatest possible assistance
in spreading the light and helping others forward. It is not his
purpose to evolve the characteristics that will permit others to
speak through him -
to lend his body to others to be used as an instrument for the
communication of information about which he can personally know
nothing and the truth or
inaccuracy of which he cannot possibly determine. That sort of
thing can well be left to those who desire to engage in it. The
way of the student of occultism
lies in the opposite direction. He is to learn the mastery of matter
and acquire intelligent control of occult forces, not to become
an unconscious and helpless
automaton in the hands of others. Therefore when he withdraws daily
into the quietude of the most retired spot to which he has access
and there, alone
with his thoughts, calmly and serenely gives himself up to the
reflections upon the higher life, his mental attitude should be
one of reception but not
of surrender. He should be as one who listens for the faintest
whisper from the depths of being, but who uses discrimination in
its testing and reason
in its interpretation. He should be at all times mentally and morally
awake and alert. He should not be misled by the widespread belief
that the invisible
world is sharply divided into two parts and that those who seek
information from the realm hidden to physical senses are surely
making connections with
that part known as heaven when they succeed in establishing communication.
Another
common misconception is that all who have died are good and wise,
and it is
a dangerous one. The chief difference between those we call dead
and the rest of us is that they have no physical bodies through
which to function in the
visible world. As to moral difference there is none; and the astral
world certain presents quite as many grades of moral and intellectual
development
as the physical life does. The selfishness and depravity that characterize
unnumbered thousands here are fully as conspicuous there. Moreover
it is the
lower and grosser part of the astral world that impinges upon the
physical and the facility of communication increases with the
coarseness and materiality
of the matter forming the normal habitat of the disembodied intelligence.
Therefore, should the student of occultism surrender his physical
body to
such entities as may desire to take possession of it, the probability
of getting information of any value is exceedingly small, while
the possibility of coming
into contact with most unfortunate influences is great. Nor would
the good intentions of the student be a guarantee that this would
not occur, any more
than the good intentions of an experimenting chemist will insure
him against injury if he brings the wrong ingredients together.
The outcome for the student
would doubtless depend upon the karma of the past and the natural
affinity he might, or might not, have for various classes of
entities inhabiting the
lower levels of the astral world. But, aside from what might occur
in such a case, the passive surrender of his body to become the
instrument of another,
no matter how well he might be protected by his karma, is a step
in the wrong direction and therefore not progress at all. One
purpose of human evolution
is to achieve the mastery of matter, to come into perfect control
of the vehicles of consciousness. To this end the will must be
cultivated, not surrendered;
strengthened, not enfeebled.
CHAPTER
VI
SELF-RELIANCE
One
of the things to be constantly aimed at is self-reliance. It should
be most assiduously cultivated. The sincere student of occultism
is striving to perfect
himself as an instrument to be used in quickening human evolution.
He may now be serving that sublime purpose in the very humblest
way but he will not
overlook the fact that great tasks await the willing and capable
worker; that volunteers for selfless service are very, very few
and that the need of them
is great. Therefore he will understand that as rapidly as he can
fit himself for effective service the larger tasks will be found
at hand, awaiting him.
But only those who have evolved the necessary qualities are available
for the work and can hope to be given a part in it; and of what
use would one
be who has not become self-reliant? Worlds are not shaped with
the helpless hands of infants. We must get beyond the clinging,
timorous, dependent stage
that characterizes children, before we shall be of much real service
in the evolutionary work. There is an attitude of mind that means "Well, I'm
willing enough but I don't know what to do. I'm ready to work if somebody
will furnish me a place". That is much better than indifference
but it is not the self-reliant attitude that one should strive
to reach. The desirable
mental attitude is one of strong, resolute determination to find
a way to serve without anybody's help - a desire to be useful,
directed by steady,
self-reliant purpose.
In
the most prosaic affairs of life and in earth's hurly-burly business grind
it is the self-reliant who move the world. The self-reliant man comes to the
front in times of difficulty and peril as naturally as oil comes to the surface
of water. He belongs there by right of ability to manage, to direct. Being
in control of himself he can control events. Being master of himself he is
master of the situation. In a crisis all instinctively turn to the masterful
man.
One
of the divine characteristics of occultism is its absolute justice.
Each is
exactly what he makes himself and gets precisely what he earns;
not a jot less nor more. He merely comes into his own. But he
must come in on his own
account. He cannot play the role of Micawber in occultism, waiting
for "something
to turn up" that will carry him into useful and desirable
occult work as a political upheaval sometimes carries an indifferent
candidate into office
to the surprise of everybody. The successful ones who have made
rapid progress in occultism are those who have resolutely forced
their way forward. They
did not even wait for an opportunity, but made it. The most conspicuous
figures in the history of the Theosophical Society are striking
examples of what comes
of a self-reliant determination to serve; that does not wait even
for an invitation to work for the common good. Each created a field
and filled it. Colonel Olcott,
for example, did not wait for the growth and maturity of an occult
society that could furnish him the office of president and thus
give him an opportunity
to be uniquely useful. He set to work and built the organization,
thus becoming signally useful to the world at once. The others
did not wait for the western
nations to ask for a theosophical literature. They anticipated
the demand by producing a literature that will some day be recognized
as marking an epoch
in the history of western civilization.
A
beginner in the study and practice of Theosophy is often inclined to think
that it is only a few who can do important things and the rest are necessarily
doomed to be satisfied with looking on and applauding. They forget that a
multiplicity of agencies and methods are used to hasten human evolution and
that the apparently unimportant things are quite as necessary as those that
attract attention. They also forget that those who are doing the great things
once stood where the beginner now stands and that the younger student can
as certainly reach an equally important and useful field of activities in
the future, if he really desires to, and now seeks to be of service in the
smaller way. If he puts his hand to the small work now he shall grasp the
great task later as certainly as he lives and thinks. But no one may hope
to be entrusted with great responsibilities until he has proved that he is
capable of discharging small ones.
CHAPTER
VII
THE
FATAL DELUSION OF DELAY
Some
sound advice can be given to seekers after occult wisdom in two words: act
now. Don't postpone good intentions. The worlds is full of
people who have a vague notion that at some indefinite time and
in some dimly comprehended
fashion they shall get to the point of being unselfishly useful
to the world. Everywhere we meet the people who are going to do
something "sometime".
One is waiting until real estate takes a "boom" so that
the enhanced value of his investments will pay his debts and then he
will be free to devote himself to theosophical work. Another ability
as public speaker
and with theosophical knowledge to impart, could render invaluable
service. He realizes it but feels that he must stay in business
until he "has
made a lot of money", not realizing that he doesn't in the
least need a lot of money but that competent and sincere work will
win its way. Another
has put his financial faith in mines and is only waiting till they
develop and then, well just wait, something tremendous
will happen? This victim of delusion misses a point that a dollar
in the hand is worth more than a
million in the mine that has not been found. The dollar he really
could give might put a theosophical book in a public library or
buy a dinner for a hungry
family or mend the shoes of a shivering child; but the millions
he dreams about will very probably never do anything for him except
keep him impoverished
in the search for them; and if the highly improbable should occur
and they ever really appear they will so engross his attention
in taking care of them
that he won't have time to think of anything else. Another tells
us he is studying Theosophy carefully and thoroughly and, when
he has mastered it,
he will begin to teach; quite overlooking the fact that if he were
to live a thousand years in this particular life he could not have "mastered"
it; and that if he really desires to teach others there are always those at
hand to instruct in some way. The test of ability to teach is not the fact
that the would-be teacher knows everything but that he knows more than those
to be taught. "Every contact is an opportunity".
And
thus it is with those who wait. The delusion may have one form or another
but the result is the same- inactivity and loss of opportunity. The very fact
that they feel that they should do something is the evidence that they have
reached the point in evolution where they must do something or miss
their opportunity; that is to say, fail in what the Hindu calls their dharma,
the next step in their evolution that can be taken along the line of least
resistance.
Act
now. It is a thousand times better to do a little at once than
to decide that
a great deal shall be done in the indefinite future. Mexico is
sometimes called by travellers the mañana country. The
peons who serve you readily agree that anything you desire to
have done, shall be done but -mañana
señor - tomorrow! Never today on any account, if it can be avoided.
But tomorrow, oh, yes, si señor! anything you like, only not
now. And so they sit in the sun, and doze and dream, in serene confidence
that it will be easier tomorrow. It is an attitude of mind in perfect keeping
with the accompanying poverty of results. It is the same species of delusion
that afflicts those of higher intellectual development who yet do not stop
to analyse their own motives and to see the inconsistency of their declarations.
Anybody who really will do something in the future will be found doing a little
something now - mingling at least a little present performance with his future
promises. He will realize that the way to do things is to begin, no matter
how feeble the beginning.
Act
now. An occult significance invests those two little words. Action is the
very expression of life on the physical plane. We are missing the purpose
of life by inaction. We are simply marking time, not moving forward in the
evolutionary march. So important is action that it better even to blunder,
while trying to do our best, than not to attempt to do anything at all. It
is better for an infant to try to walk, and fall, than never to make the venture.
The pain of the fall will pass and a permanent lesson will be learned. In
India a mistaken class of devotees withdraw from the world of affairs and
by cutting off almost entirely all relationship with the rest of the human
race seek through isolation and inaction to avoid responsibility for wrong
acts and seek salvation for the self. It is said by occult investigators that
they succeed so well in the desire to hold themselves aloof from the race
that a terrible isolation is their future fate. Against this foolish course
a great spiritual truth was once proclaimed: Inaction in a deed
of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin". And so none may escape his responsibilities
to others by withdrawing tortoise-like, into his shell of self-interests.
The
second word shares the importance of the first. "Now" signifies
the most vital period of all time. The magic of success lies within that little
word. The man who procrastinates necessarily misses opportunities. The very
essence of success is the ability to instantly seize and utilize an opportunity.
Every event has its "psychological moment". The most
momentous affairs of the world swing this way, or that way, with
the instantaneous decision
of some master mind. On the other hand the results in many a battle
and in many a national crisis have been changed and the tide of
success turned in
the direction of disaster by the hesitation and indecision of one
who was the unfortunate victim of procrastination. To form the
habit of quick decision
and prompt action is to arm oneself with a mighty weapon for successful
work; and with the cultivation of such a habit of life gradually
comes the ability
to recognize the propitious moment when it arrives.
"There
is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at
the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
That tide is often
at the flood for a moment only and he who, through procrastination, fails to
utilize that golden moment has paid dearly for his negligence. Procrastination
is one of the fetters that binds, one of the bars that imprisons. If we would
make progress worthy of students of occultism we must free ourselves from this
encumbrance. We must acquire the art of prompt decision and immediate action.
We must not be postponers. We must not be content with resolving that a thing
ought to be done, and then quietening the divine insistence of the higher self
with the comfortable thought that sometime, somehow, we will do it. We must
acquire the beneficent habit of doing things for the common welfare and of doing
them now.
CHAPTER
VIII
THE
ONE PROTECTION AGAINST DANGER
There
is one thing the young student of occultism should not overlook, for its importance
to him is tremendous. He should keep well in mind the fact that the development
of the heart qualities is the very essence of real progress. He is likely to
have the notion that it is all a matter of acquiring knowledge; that he can
settle down to a study of the books and that the information he thus gets will
solve all his problems; that there is nothing to do but to acquire a thorough
understanding of occult laws and principles. But this is a grave mistake. A
mere intellectual grasp of Theosophy will be of little service to him. Indeed,
if he does not live it as well as understand it, then occult knowledge will
be a detriment to him. If he uses the information he acquires merely to get
more from the material life for himself he would be more fortunate without it.
A purely selfish use of anything is unfortunate but a selfish use of occult
knowledge is most unfortunate. Such a course leads onward to a very great danger
- a peril that increases with every forward step in knowledge that is used for
one's self. There may be swift progress in the acquirement of such knowledge
but it is not spiritual progress. It is merely intellectual development; and
it is only a question of time when the student who follows that course will
likely find himself cut off from the life current of Theosophy and left to hug
his intellectual idols by the wayside - the most fortunate thing that, under
the circumstances, can happen to him. The alternative is that he may go on in
occult development and the acquiring of occult power for selfish use until he
has brought upon himself the corrective reaction of nature for such misuse of
her gifts - a fate that sums up in one tragedy all the pains, penalties and
horrors the imagination can picture.
Of course
such a possible finale lies in the far away time, along the intellectual
road, but that only serves to increase the present danger by making it appear
distant, vague and uncertain. But the relationship between beginning and end
is as certain as that between the placid waters of the Niagara river and the
rushing falls a few miles below. A stranger on those waters, who have never
seen the falls, would regard a warning as an impertinence. His boat would move
obedient to the oars and there would be no more indication of danger than upon
any other river. Should he choose to drift slowly down the stream he would be
a long time reaching the point where his speed would perceptibly increase. Then
its steady acceleration would be so gradual that there would be no apparent
cause for alarm until it had become too late for possible escape. No less directly
connected are the trifling use of occult powers for selfish purposes and the
great peril that is related to it. Make no mistakes because the water is placid
now. The falls are ahead, nevertheless, for all who follow the selfish
course.
It is
clear, then, that the young student cannot begin too early to consider this
danger and to take the precautions that shall insure his safety. Unselfishness
will be his protection. By its cultivation he fortifies himself; he insures
his safety in advance. He should try to acquire the habit of thinking much of
others, and considering their welfare. If he enters the Theosophical Society
the chief reason should be because it gives him an opportunity to help humanity
along in its evolution and he should think of the occult information he gets,
not as so much personal possession, but as so much added knowledge and power
with which to help others along. The desire to help should be cultivated in
every possible way until it becomes the habit of the waking consciousness. There
is an inner and an outer courtesy. The outer concerns itself with forms. It
is conventional and gives skill in social graces and certain rules and usages
that prevent friction. It is satisfied if it violates no law. The inner courtesy
is born of a real regard for the welfare of others. The person who possesses
it is thinking less of the rules and how he shall appear to others than of how
he can be helpful to those about him; and nobody does, or can, possess this
inner courtesy until he feels right toward other human beings. It is
the very blossom of unselfishness. This mental attitude of helpfulness should
be constant and enduring. It should be carried through the daily round of occupations.
In the home, the office, the street, the Theosophist should be keen and alert
for every opportunity to be useful. He should cultivate both the habit of being
helpful and the habit of utilizing every opportunity that comes to him to assist
others.
CULTIVATING
SYMPATHY
It
is said that in all true schools of occultism there is a golden
rule that insures
the safety of the student; and this rule is that for every step taken
in acquiring occult knowledge three steps are to be taken in perfecting
character. From this
it will easily be seen that it is not enough to cultivate the habit
of helpfulness. It is most excellent and necessary but there should
be something more. The student
should work steadily at the development of the heart qualities, for
his future safety lies there. His sympathy with suffering can be
quickened and the heart
made to keep pace with the intellect by practical work among the
people about him wherever he may be. There are always the sick,
the unfortunate, the blind,
the aged and feeble. Every community has those who are confined to
their homes by illness, accident or old age. Such people spend
much time in lonely solitude.
Those around them who are not in their condition are too busy to
realize the situation. To an active person suddenly confined to
a room by accident or by
illness the hours of an afternoon spent alone seem endless. To an
aged person accustomed to the more sociable ways of the past generation
- who feels that
the world has moved on and left him - a call that breaks the monotony
of a day with a conversation he can appreciate must be a boon.
The student of occultism
who is looking for opportunities to be useful and for conditions
that will quicken human sympathy need not look far. He can easily
make up a practical working
list by which he can daily give a half hour, or an hour, of thought
and time to others entirely outside the line of what can be considered
his duties or
obligations. A cheery visit to the sick, a social chat with some
person too infirm to go out, a trifling service to some unfortunate,
are things of genuine
value out of all proportion to their apparent worth. It is not difficult
to find the unfortunate, for they are everywhere. The hospitals
are excellent fields
for benevolent work,and especially the county hospitals. In the free
wards of any hospital there are always those suffering from the
double affliction of
sickness and poverty and the appearance of a sympathetic person as
a visitor would be welcomed with delight.
The
prisons are, of course, always a good field for benevolent work. If one finds
it difficult to get into such work he can at least confer small favours. He
can take some magazines or illustrated papers as gifts and say a few cheerful
words. Then he can gradually get into sympathetic touch with some particular
prisoner, study his case in a friendly way and find how he can be of real service
to the unfortunate one.
Other
avenues of helpfulness will open up for the person who turns his mind to the
subject. If hospitals and prisons are not accessible then there are always the
simpler things at hand. There are tired mothers who can be relieved of the care
of children for a few hours; there are anxious fathers out of work who may possibly
be helped to find employment; there are overworked factory girls, slaving to
earn a bare living, who would be delighted with some discarded clothing; there
are children in the poorer districts who seldom or never get an outing.
Nothing
is more necessary to the students of occultism than such sympathetic participation
in human affairs and yet it is the thing that is sadly neglected. There is no
greater mistake than the belief that such work is unimportant, and can be left
to the Salvation Army or the Associated Charities, and no more fatal blunder
than the notion that time cannot be taken from study in order to give trivial
assistance to our less fortunate brothers. That is just what can be done
with the greatest advantage to ourselves.
To set
aside some part of one's time for the deliberate cultivation of human sympathy,
to make oneself a center for radiating the sunshine of life, to thus take thought
of the welfare of others, and to become practically helpful to them, is to imitate,
in some degree, the life and work of the great Masters of Compassion who are
giving, not some, but all of their energies to practical work for the world
with never a thought of themselves.
It
is a very grave mistake to become so absorbed in one's business
or studies as to
be almost unconscious of the lives of others. Such a life is one-sided
and unbalanced. To spend all one's time accumulating information
is second only to the foolishness
of giving an incarnation to the accumulation of money - and that
would be nearly as foolish as to spend a winter accumulating snow.
It is the folly of follies
to devote time exclusively to study, to the neglect of practice.
And yet there are many who make that mistake. You may hear them
say: " the Theosophical
Society is not for material work. It is for the purpose of training students
of occultism." And you may observe those who hold such views
diligently studying the Secret Doctrine, and other profound works in occultism,
for years - and doing little else! They acquire much occult information,which
doubtless gives them the same sort of mental satisfaction that some people feel
in accumulating money. But they make no use of the information for the world's
helping. It is as though a would-be hero should spend a lifetime training to
become the most valiant member of a lifesaving crew and, in his anxiety to learn
everything to be known about storms, lifeboats, signals and resuscitations,
he should never find time to join his comrades in the actual work of rescuing
shipwrecked people. Students of that class naturally settle into the study rut
and the real, living, theosophical movement sweeps past them and is lost. To
be of any value to a person Theosophy must be lived, not merely intellectually
comprehended, and it is in order to live it to the uttermost, to the very fullest,
that the student should seek to blend precept and practice in an ideal life.
Becoming
completely absorbed in business or in one's studies, while surrounded by all
the opportunities presented by the physical plane life,is much like going to
a good play and then reading a newspaper while the performance goes on unnoticed.
The life we are now living gives admirable opportunities for balanced development,
and it is just the things we do not naturally take to that may be most in need
of attention. The person who has a strong tendency to give most of his time
to amusements can clearly improve matters by turning some attention to study;
and no less certainly can the one who is wholly absorbed in study give some
time to other things, to his great profit. The improvement of the intellect
is important, but by no means the important thing in life. The cultivation
of sympathy, of compassion, is tremendously more important to the student of
occultism, and yet is precisely the thing that we seldom think of as requiring
systematic development. We have many methods and countless contrivances for
developing the intellect but we leave the heart qualities to take care of themselves,
and to grow in any vague and indefinite way that may come about.
It is
quite as possible to cultivate compassion as to cultivate the intellect, but
it requires to be done with attention and systematic effort. The necessity for
it must first be recognized and the mind be turned resolutely to the subject.
This is the first step toward breaking up that self-centered absorption that
makes us oblivious of the struggling brothers beside us on life's highway. Then
one begins to observe more and more the difficulties and the life-problems of
those about him. And as he looks and listens his sympathy grows strong.
CHAPTER
IX
THE
CONDITIONS OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS
One
of the essentials in spiritual progress is the giving out of what is received.
Without such giving there can be no real growth. There may be the accumulation
of certain knowledge, but it will prove as worthless to its possessor, who relies
upon that to carry him through, as gold would be to a man perishing alone in
the desert, where all his lifelong accumulation of money would avail him nothing
- could not procure him a crust of bread nor a single drop of water. No, spiritual
growth can never come of the accumulation of occult information - of probing
into the secrets of nature and adding one fact to another until the possessor
feels that he is well versed in mystic lore. To grow spiritually means to live
more vividly, to have a greater life capacity. To accumulate much knowledge
and to make spiritual progress are two very different things. It is not facts
we need so much as capacity to live, to love, to know the joy that we are now
unable to comprehend. An infant a week old has five senses and is equipped with
motor and sensory nerves; but it has not yet developed to that stage of its
physical existence in which they are available for the enjoyment of a more abundant
life than that it is living. Therefore it cannot live the wider, keener life
of the healthy adult who finds manifold pleasures in physical existence. It
cannot even comprehend that wider life. The difference is merely one of capacity
to live. Still greater is the difference between the man who is spiritually
undeveloped and the one who has evolved the capacity to know the higher joys
of the universe. One is a spiritual infant, with inherent but dormant faculties.
The other is the spiritual adult, whose developed faculties give him a capacity
to live and enjoy life in a way that is a little comprehended by the ordinary
man of the world as the pleasures of literature, art and music are unknown to
the infant in its cradle. The baby inhabits the same world as the adult and
precisely the same sights and sounds are about him, but he has not as yet the
capacity to appropriate them. In the very house he inhabits there may be libraries
of choice literature, and art treasures of exquisite beauty, while some master
musician thrills all who listen with divinest harmonies; but they simply have
no existence for the infant because he has not the capacity for a life so full
and rich. Ability to receive, to respond to that which exists, is the measure
of one's life.
To
grow spiritually is to develop one's latent capacities, to enlarge the horizon
of consciousness and to come into accord with the life-stream that pulses through
the universe. It is not a process of accumulating information, or accumulating
anything; but rather of getting rid of the impediments that obstruct the life-stream
- that shut us out from the cosmic life-rhythm - that compel the universal life-tide
to flow about us instead of through us.
To
get spiritual knowledge and keep it, instead of being the method of spiritual
growth, is one of the impediments that shuts out the life-current. A truth discovered
should become a truth promulgated. Pass on the thought if you would receive
more. Treasure no spiritual knowledge as a personal possession if you would
not be cut off from the source of wisdom. One grows most, spiritually, when
the life-stream flows most through him to others. One who seeks to have and
to hold is like a pond without an outlet, covered with its green slime of impurity.
He represents spiritual stagnation. One who receives and gives again is like
a lake from which springs a noble stream to quench the thirst of parching fields
beyond. It is to the pond what sunshine is to shadow - what health is to disease.
The pond is not without a certain phase of life. In its putrid waters swarm
myriads of animalcule and from its reeking surface arises the effluvia of fever.
It is a noxious sort of life - the individual life turned inward upon itself.
There can be no true life without outward activity. Life and activity are inseparable.
The ocean is the antithesis of the stagnant pond. All the ocean receives from
the countless rivers it gives back to the skies. It is the eternal rebuke of
both selfishness and inaction. Its ceaseless tides and currents are the rhythmic
pulse of health. From the land it receives, purifies and returns the gift. The
miserly pond becomes stagnant in a week- the generous ocean never.
SPREADING
THE LIGHT
The
stream must flow through the mind,not stop there, if spiritual growth is to
begin and continue. Ways must be found of handing on the gift, of letting the
light shine, of being an instrument for the illumination of others. No person
can get something for nothing (although he may foolishly believe he can) or
get help without helping. If he has already had some light it only signifies
that he had a claim upon nature that has thus been paid. It may have been established
without thought of what was occurring, but it was due him and payment was inevitable
and as natural as the rising of the sun or the coming of the summer. But the
fact that some light and help have come does not prove that they will continue
if they are received as a matter of course and thought of as a personal possession
that governs nobody else. To the universe every soul is important and one cannot
be more important than another. Why, then, should anybody imagine that spiritual
truth is for him rather than for the scores who can receive it through
him?
There
are some games that reverse the common rule of procedure and the winner is held
to be he who can first get rid of all the points he holds. And so it is with
things spiritual. Progress is by reversal of the common rule of procedure of
the physical world. It is not by grasping but by giving that we get more, -
that we finally win. Only by the process of giving can the aspirant gain. He
cannot get the full benefit of a spiritual truth until he has given it to others.
The more he gives the richer he becomes. He cannot pass knowledge on to others
without getting more wisdom from it himself. The effort to enlighten others
increases his own illumination, and the more he gives the more he gets. His
very forgetfulness of himself in the work of helping others gives the conditions
that insure his rapid progress.
Of
course one should never make himself a nuisance by talking Theosophy
to anybody
and everybody in season and out. Judgment and discrimination must
guide him. There are people to whom Theosophy can be explained
with as little profit as
one can urge the beauties of the landscape upon his horse. The majority
of people can no more receive Theosophy in the abstract and shape
their lives by its precepts
than a Fiji savage can see the necessity for railways and libraries.
As the savage must evolve a long way before he even understands
what civilization is,
so most people must pass through much bitter experience before they
begin to see the purpose of physical existence at all and to understand
that there is
such a thing as life that is not centered in material things and
material pursuits. But certain it is that in every community there
are a few people who can receive
Theosophy, as Theosophy, as a philosophy of life, as the science
of the soul, while almost everybody can receive it indirectly;
that is, accept something
of its principles when they are not labelled "Theosophy", and when
they are unaccompanied with any effort to induce them to accept a new and strange
view of existence that suddenly upsets all their established ideas. There are
always opportunities everywhere to give some light to others, for all are struggling
with their personal problems; and if we see that we cannot give one who is groping
in the dark the light of the entire philosophy we can usually at least give
him a suggestion that will help. Suppose, for example, that a friend has a grievance
against somebody and blindly and foolishly determines to "get even",
and nurses his wrath against a hoped-for day of vengeance. We can
at least declare
our belief in the folly of such a course and express admiration for
the magnanimity that can ignore a personal affront. We can always
talk tolerance where there
is narrowness, justice where there is oppression and mercy where
there is cruelty. Without dogmatically arguing our beliefs we can
quietly let it be known that
we are Theosophists, when it is appropriate to the occasion, and
modestly but unhesitatingly champion the truth as we see it when
the opportunity occurs.
Most important of all, we can constantly be in that helpful frame
of mind that is always ready to give freely to others all the light
that we have been given,
for that is a step toward the goal of perfect illumination.
CHAPTER
X
CONQUERING
DELUSIONS
As the
young student of occultism gets fairly into his work he will find that his viewpoint
is gradually changing and that old ideas are being replaced by newer and truer
ones. Ultimately he will discover that he has been living in the midst of delusions
and mistaking them for realities. One part of his work now is to conquer the
delusions and come into a realization of the truth that is hidden by outward
appearances. To acquire the ability to distinguish between the apparent and
the real is a stupendous task, for only when human evolution is finished can
such discrimination be perfect. But the searcher for occult truth can take a
step that will start him on the way, and that is the important thing now. To
this end he may begin with an effort to master the illusion that the physical
body is himself. We are so used to identifying the self with the body from our
very infancy that to separate the two in thought even for a moment is at first
nearly impossible, and yet it must be done. To fully realize that the body is
as much an instrument of the self as the hand is, or as one's pen is, constitutes
one of the first steps in occult progress. We have before us the work of freeing
ourselves from delusions and this one that leads us to think of the body as
the self is a starting point in the task. When it is accomplished we shall have
made a most encouraging forward step that will lead to success in more difficult
ones.
There
are various ways in which we can gradually acquire the feeling that the body
is not at all the self, but only a thing we use for our convenience. One useful
way is to keep in mind the fact that the body is a mere aggregation of matter
that has no permanent relationship to the self; that this
aggregation of physical matter is constantly changing; that it is
always coming and going
and is never the same for even a few days at a time. Some parts of
it are replaced with new matter more slowly than others, but within
a very few years (the seven
years suggested by some physiologists is now said to be much too
long for the facts) the entire body will be replaced by new matter.
To put it differently,
the physical body a person has today will, in a short time, have
been returned to the elements of which it is composed, while matter
that is now widely scattered
over the earth will, by that time, be fashioned into the physical
body he is yet to have. As a matter of scientific fact, from birth
to death we have many
physical bodies but the process of their coming and going is so gradual
and imperceptible that we do not realize it. Nevertheless the quantity
of matter
that a man uses as a body, in the course of a long life - the matter
which the average man regards as himself - will amount to more than
a ton. A very little
thought will show anybody the folly of identifying that ton of matter
as himself! It is only a quantity of matter brought together to build
a working instrument
for the self, as the matter in the pen has been fashioned into a
different instrument for the use of the self; only, in the case of
the body the matter has not all
been used at one time. If the student will remember that the self,
with all its memories, is unaffected by this constant change in the
physical body; that
it really has no permanent relationship wherever to the body, which,
to the eye of science is but a whirling, shifting mass of matter,
the delusion that
he is the body will begin to lose its power over his mind. Think
continually of the body as merely a changing aggregation of atoms,
forming, reforming, disappearing,
while the self is permanent, enduring and independent, temporarily
using the physical body but ready when the time comes to step entirely
aside from it,
to use it no longer, to return to it no more.
It
is not easy to think of the self as separated from the familiar
form we know and
here the student of Theosophy will be helped by the fact that the
astral body is a duplicate of the physical form. Remembering that
the astral is a degree
nearer reality than the physical region he can think of the astral
body as representing the self and thus, in thought, separate himself
from the physical body and picture
the self with all its attributes and powers being expressed in the
higher vehicles, wholly independent of the mass of matter called
the physical body. Of course
he cannot stop there. It is but a beginning. The time will come when
he must separate the self from the astral body also, and from the
mental body as well.
The thing he may really do with good results is to go as far up as
the causal body in his thought of separating the self from its
vehicles. He should always
think of these invisible vehicles, or bodies, as being composed of
matter that freely interpenetrates the physical body as water saturates
a sponge. He should
keep it always in mind that man is a wonderfully complex being and
that the various bodies he inhabits are but sections of the complex
whole, each playing
a distinct part in the total of the life functions. Perhaps it may
help him to remember the complexity of the physical body, considered
by itself. It, alone,
is composed of various grades of matter, each of them being a section
of the physical body and giving us an outline of it. There is,
first, the dense matter
of the bones. They are the framework for the rest and give us the
body in outline,but the skeleton is not the body. Then there is
a different grade of matter which
we call flesh. It also represents the form of the body but it is
far from being the whole body. Then we have the nerves. If a diagram
of the nervous system
were made, with each nerve in its proper place we should have again
a perfect outline of the human form. But these nerves are not the
body, - only a section
of it performing a distinct office. Then there is also the fluid
which we call the blood. If it could be suddenly stopped in its
circulation, instantly frozen,
and all of the particles in the capillaries were to remain where
they were at the instant that circulation was suspended while all
the rest of the matter
of the body should, by some magic, vanish, we would still have the
human form perfectly outlined by the blood that circulates in it.
Yet because the blood
outlines the human form is not the body. It is only another section
of the complex whole known as the physical body. It requires all
these sections, and requires
them all interlaced and performing different functions, to constitute
the physical body.
Now,
it is no more erroneous to think of any one of these different sections of the
body, each with its specific work to do, as being the physical body than to
think of any one of the bodies of man as being the man. Just as all these grades
of physical matter, each carrying forward its particular set of activities from
birth to death, are required to make up the physical body, to constitute the
mechanism through which the man functions on the physical plane, so are the
different bodies through which we function in the various planes required to
express the whole range of the ego's activities in the three worlds in which
we simultaneously exist. The physical, the astral, the lower mental and the
causal bodies, should be thought of as four separable parts or sections of one
complex whole, but not as the man himself; the ego, the self, being the individualized
portion of the universal consciousness functioning through them all.
Another
way in which one can achieve some degree of success from freeing
oneself from
delusions is to remember that the physical senses are very unreliable
interpreters of facts and that in the simplest of things they
mislead us. The physical senses
tell us that the earth is stationary and that the sun, as well as
the moon, moves about it. We have to fall back upon our reason,
make mechanical measurements
and careful comparisons of various facts, before we can free ourselves
from this particular deception of the physical senses; and many
people never do get
free from it. If we look at a straight log that lies on the bank
of a stream with one end submerged in the clear water, the eye
reports to us that the log
is bent at the point where it enters water. If two trains are standing
side by side and we are on one while the other begins to move
slowly the eye falsely
reports to the consciousness that our own train is moving. If we
cross the first and second fingers of the hand and then roll
a marble back and forth across
the finger tips the sense of touch falsely informs us that there
are two marbles instead of one. Many facts and experience may
be cited to show the utter unreliability
of the testimony of the physical senses. The student should keep
it steadily in mind that just as we are thus misled by the physical
senses in these matters
so are we deceived by them in other and more important affairs; and
just as one may hold the mental picture of the earth being spherical
and moving about
the sun until the idea of it being flat and stationary becomes unnatural
and absurd so can he think the truth about the interpenetrating
relationship of
the various bodies in which he functions until the old delusions
disappear and trouble him no longer. The physical body becomes
to him in reality an instrument
that he is using, a vehicle in which he is moving about and through
which he communicates with others in his daily activities. Slowly
but surely this fact
becomes established in his consciousness, and he has taken an important
step in discrimination between the real and the unreal.
CHAPTER
XI
FAULTS
TO BE GUARDED AGAINST
When
a person who comes into the study of Theosophy begins to see its power and beauty
in reshaping the lives of those who endeavour to practice its precepts, it is
not strange that he should become enthusiastic in his effort to interest others
in it, or that he should develop a strong feeling of partisanship for it.
But
in this direction lies a subtle danger - the danger of becoming dogmatic and
thus stifling spiritual growth. Whoever falls into that error has put an end
to his own progress. It is true that Theosophy is a study of life so comprehensive
in its sublime reach that it includes all religions; but this very fact should
teach the student tolerance, rather than give him a feeling that Theosophy is
the only thing needed for the salvation of the world. It should not be forgotten
that until a person has reached a certain point in human evolution Theosophy
can do nothing for him = cannot even arrest his attention - and that he reaches
that particular point in his development through some of the religious or philosophical
movements from which he finally graduates into Theosophy. Therefore the organized
moral and intellectual movements of various kinds that fill the world bear somewhat
the relationship to Theosophy that private and public schools of all descriptions
bear to the university. For a student of occultism to assume the attitude which
indicates a belief that Theosophy is a thing to supplant all religious denominations
- that it is the one and only thing required by humanity - would be much like
insisting that all common schools be raised tomorrow to the university level.
One of the really beautiful things about Theosophy is its breath and tolerance;
and it is only when its devotees shape their course by that spirit of tolerance
that progress is possible for them. Theosophy is not a thing that requires partisanship.
It wins its way by its inherent reasonableness, not by the vehemence with which
it is urged.
The
disposition to too strongly argue the benefits of Theosophy is an error to be
avoided. We have only to observe one orthodox religionist arguing the superiority
of this denomination to all others to know how ineffective it is with his opponent,
who is equally sure of the superiority of his faith. Neither of them
is learning anything. Each is only wondering why the other insists upon using
more than his share of the time! Now, the student of occultism should never
permit himself to drop into that antagonistic mental condition. It is an
attitude that closes the mind to truth. The reverse of that
mental condition should be characteristic of the occult student.
He should always be receptive
to truth. He should, indeed, be always eagerly alert for a new idea,
for a new point of view from which to look at any particular fact.
He should not be as
one who has a certain doctrine to defend and is always suspicious
of any new fact or idea, his first feeling being a fear that it may
endanger his belief.
One's first thought should not be "Does this new idea support my theory"
but "Is it true?" It is only by such an attitude of mind
that truth can be recognized when it is encountered and the student
of occultism is, above
all things, a truth seeker. He has nothing to fear about any possible
antagonism between his belief and the facts. He knows that if there
is any apparent disagreement
there is something wrong either with his conception of theosophical
principle or his understanding of the facts; and he sets to work
to think out the solution
and adjust himself to the truth. Thus shall he constantly grow in
wisdom and understanding.
But
there is another fault to be guarded against even more carefully
than the inclination
toward militant dogmatic defence of one's beliefs, and it presents
greater difficulties because it lies more deeply rooted within
the personality. This is the disposition
to resent personal criticism and to defend oneself with such vigour
that little or no consideration is given to the criticism. It is
the most common, as well
as the most personally injurious, course that people take. It is,
once more, the mental attitude that closes the mind to truth, and
to the very truth that
is perhaps most needed. There is an occult maxim that "every contact is
an opportunity". It is also true that every contact with another
furnishes us a teacher, but that we usually foolishly reject the
teaching when it touches
our vanity or pride. The true student of occultism is as willing
to learn from babes as from sages. He tries to keep an open mind,
always at attention, always
receptive to truth regardless of the source and regardless of how
it may affect him personally. He should not only welcome criticism
but should regard the critic
as his friend and teacher. If he is wise he will extract a valuable
lesson from the criticism. He will think it calmly over and try to
get his critic's point
of view. If he can see that there was good ground for the criticism
he will set to work at once to eliminate the fault on which it was
based. If he cannot
find cause for the criticism, and reaches the conclusion that it
was unjust,he will understand that his own false judgements of others
are reacting upon him
and will try henceforth to be more careful and considerate.
Undue
partisanship of our beliefs shuts out the truth, and dogmatism bars the way
to our further progress. Foolish sensitiveness about personal criticism likewise
closes the mind to truth and leaves us firmly clinging to the very faults that
prevent our spiritual development.
CHAPTER
XII
THE
WRONG ROAD AND THE RIGHT ONE
Old
sayings often contain great wisdom. That is why they are old. If
they were not
the vehicles of wisdom they would have died young. They survive through
the centuries becauset they are successful teachers. Their age
is equal to their
utility. One of these old maxims should have the respectful consideration
of students of occultism. This ancient saying runs like this: "The longest
way around is the shortest way home." It is a sage warning against injudicious
haste. It is a concise statement of the fact that human experience has demonstrated
that it is unwise to take "short cuts" to a given destination
instead of following the well established road; and that the desire
to save time is
liable in the end to lead not only to the loss of time but to invite
disaster, also.
Now,
there is probably no field of activity where this is so true as it is in the
study of occultism. The student is likely to be strongly attracted towards psychic
development and to find himself ardently desiring to posses the power of clairvoyance,
and this desire may tempt him to abandon the longer but safer way. It is well
to desire the opening of the inner faculties in order that one may become more
efficient and useful in the great work of uplifting the race; but it is a sad
misfortune to make it an end in itself and thus lose sight of more important
things in the effort to attain it. Such a desire may tempt the unwary into the
byway of artificial development - and the slough of despond and disaster that
lies at the farther end of it. Be content with the upward path, though the hills
are rugged and the climb is slow and difficult. It is the shortest way home.
As
a matter of simple fact there are more important things than clairvoyance to
be developed by the student of occultism - things tremendously more important.
Without them clairvoyance is but a dangerous instrument to possess; with them,
the inner faculties will open as a matter of course, - will open as a flower
unfolds before the rising sun.
The
psychism that dazzles many people and appears so wonderful and desirable - the
faculty that enables the psychic to describe another's characteristics, to trace
a little of his past and to foretell a few future events - is of extremely small
and uncertain value. It is rarely, if ever, under control and direction of the
psychic and is no more like the higher clairvoyance used in occult investigation
than a flaw in a windowpane that happens to magnify the stars seen through it,is
like the astronomer's telescope that sweeps the heavens with scientific accuracy.
Such minor psychic faculty does not imply spirituality any more than the ability
to hypnotize implies it, and may be possessed by the good or the bad just as
intellect is. Perhaps its chief merit lies in the fact that it has served to
arouse many people to an interest in occultism and has impelled them to an investigation
that has led them away from materialism.
Even
if the occult student, at the peril of his health and at the risk of generating
unfortunate karma that may retard his higher development for several incarnations,
acquires this lower psychic faculty it will avail him little in added ability
to gain knowledge. Lacking the training necessary for accurate observations
and interpretation he is as helpless, for all practical purposes, as an uneducated
man would be in possession of a chemist's laboratory. He would have reached
such minor psychic development only after giving it much time and attention
that could have been turned to far better account in another direction where
it would have resulted in permanent gain of the greatest value to him. The value
of the slight psychic ability that is exhibited by the fortune-telling variety
of clairvoyant,and that is chiefly used for commercial purposes, is very greatly
exaggerated. Because a few things are accurately given us we get the erroneous
impression that our whole future lies open to the psychic and that he could,
with perfect ease, forecast any part of it. At the same time we pay but little
attention to the things about which he is altogether in error, so strongly are
we impressed with that which is correct. The actual value of this degree of
clairvoyance, or of mediumship, as the case may be, is but little, if any above
that of palmistry. The skilful palmist, without possessing a trace of clairvoyance,
can read from the open hand nearly as much of the life record of the past, and
the life plan of the future, as can a person possessed of this minor psychic
development, and with less liability of error. Of course the psychic gets a
somewhat different class of facts, a little more of detail, perhaps than, that
the skilled palmist, yet nothing more remarkable and certainly not of greater
accuracy or value than the capable palmist is able to give.
With
nothing of real value to gain, but with the possibility of losing
much in the
effort to acquire that uncertain and impermanent little, it is clearly
enough a foolish thing to give time and energy to such development.
Many persons have
tried this supposed "shorter way" to their sorrow, and
by a certain kind of peculiar breathing exercise, or other method,
have succeeded in gaining
astral sight and also in wrecking the nervous system and destroying
health and happiness for the remainder of this life. Sometimes it
happens that by such
artificial development astral sight is gained on the lower levels
of the astral region, only for the experimenter to find to his horror
that he cannot then
control it and must, against his will, remain conscious of unpleasant
things. He finds, when it is too late, that he has made haste unwisely
and has done
worse than merely waste time. He has not only failed to find what
is truly the shortest way home but he may easily entangle himself
in difficulties that may
prove a handicap on the right t road when he finally comes to a realization
of his error and resolves to set out properly on the forward journey.
But
what is this longer way around that is really the shortest way home? It is the
development of the spiritual nature, and it is only apparently the longer way
on account of the delusion regarding the supposed shorter one. This method instead
of dealing with psychism gives its attention entirely to spirituality; and instead
of regarding the present life as the field of operations its outlook is from
the viewpoint of the ego's general and continuous welfare, and necessarily extends
over many lives. In other words it takes into consideration the whole of the
journey instead of a little fragment of it and refuses to sacrifice the welfare
of the future to the whim of the present. And just here is one of the points
that the student should keep always in mind, - the necessity of thinking of
more than one incarnation at a time for if he did only that his plans for his
development would thus be greatly limited and narrowed. He should try to free
himself from the idea that death is in any way the end of the program and endeavour
to accustom himself to the thought that it is merely an incident, a change,
as finishing a given task or retiring for an afternoon nap is a change in the
day's routine. He should keep it steadily in mind that there is no death; that
there are only various states of consciousness and that one who is following
out a consistent plan of evolutionary development may carry it along from life
to life, thus moving forward with constantly accelerating speed. He should think
of, and plan for, the far away future, - never alone for the few years that
may perhaps remain of the present incarnation.
With
a view then to permanent, instead of temporary results, let the attention be
turned to the work of spiritual development, to the elimination of one's undesirable
characteristics, to the purification of the lower nature, to the task of bringing
the whole of the activities of the waking consciousness into harmony with the
loftiest ideals one can conceive. This is the apparently longer way around which
is really the short and sure way home. On this road we may travel as rapidly
as we choose. The rapidity of our progress will depend entirely upon the earnestness
and the energy put into the work and when the right time comes, or, speaking
more accurately, when the right inner condition is attained, astral sight will
come as a natural result and be a blessing instead of a curse.
One
thing that the aspirant for spiritual development should never
forget is that
he does not work alone. He probably will, for a considerable time,
be unconscious of the fact that any other being in the universe
has the slightest interest
in his efforts. And this is well; for one of the lessons he is learning
is to stand alone and persevere. But the fact is that every aspiration
is known and
every effort is observed. Just as much help is given as the aspirant
is able to receive, and long before he knows it in his waking consciousness
the earnest
student is, during the hours of sleep, receiving instruction on the
inner planes. Without such help spiritual progress would be practically
impossible; and an
extremely important thing to remember is that we can help only as
we deserve it. Now, we deserve it in proportion that we give it;
and this is why it is
that to "forget oneself in the service of others" is a wiser course
than to give time and energy to developing psychic faculties for our own satisfaction
that are of no real value to anybody. Some of us have heard it said by others,
farther along on the road that "it is precisely when we are thinking least
about ourselves that we are making the greatest progress". Try
hard to be useful, to deserve much rather than to secure entertaining
faculties for
the personal satisfaction it may give.
While
the development of clairvoyance is so attractive to many we seldom
hear questions
asked about how to develop intuition, - a matter of very much greater
importance. Developing the intuition is a process of illuminating
the lower personality
with the light of the higher self and it comes about by pure living
and lofty thinking. Intuition is from a high level of the inner
worlds - from the source
of wisdom - and it is the ability of rising to such spiritual heights,
of bringing into the physical consciousness such unerring insight,
that the student of occultism
should strive for instead of for the development of psychic faculties.
When the art of thus controlling and purifying thought and desire
is attained the
awakening of the spiritual powers will follow. "All things come to him
who waits" - and works.
CHAPTER
XIII
TOLERANCE
The
cultivation of a broad tolerance is necessary for one who would make any intellectual
and moral progress. Intolerance fetters the soul. It erects barriers between
us and others and clouds the vision instead of illuminating the understanding.
It limits our opportunities and narrows our field of experience. Now experience
is the great teacher - the master instructor in the evolutionary school. It
is through experience that we evolve, that we reach the higher stages of development.
The difference between the ignorant, uncouth and depraved, and the enlightened,
refined and noble, is the result of thought and emotion working on the experiences
that arouse them. Thought and experience, acting and reacting on each other,
are the great character builders. At a lower stage of evolution the experience
arouses thought and we get a lesson we did not seek by making mental deductions
from the experience, as for example, when one has thoughtlessly gone out on
a cold day without adequate clothing and suffered in consequence, and, reflecting
upon it afterward, learns at least a little in the development of caution. At
a higher stage of evolution thought takes precedence and we deliberately search
out that within us which needs strengthening and as deliberately seek the experience
required to develop the desire virtue, as when, after deciding that we are deficient
in compassion we set about cultivating it by visiting the sick and the bereaved.
But whether experience comes first or last it is an indispensable factor in
human progress and soul development, and whatever restricts our experience delays
our evolution.
While
religious intolerance is a very pronounced form of this vice -
a term none too
strong for a thing so detrimental to human welfare - we should not
forget that, in one form or another, there is more intolerance
in the average person and,
indeed, even in the fairly liberal and progressive man, than most
of us would be willing to admit. In many directions this deadly
moral nightshade extends
its branches. There is race intolerance, national intolerance, class
intolerance and, insidious and far-reaching in its evil effects,
the more common form of
intolerance which we know as self-righteousness, that leads a person
to place false emphasis on the weaknesses of others and remain
blind to his own. Many
people have passed the point where they have any prejudice against
a person because he is of another race and color; have reached
the degree of enlightenment
that enables them to look upon a man of another nationality as they
regard a fellow countrymen; have learned to feel no prejudice against
another because
he is of a different class or of a higher or lower walk of life,
as the case may be; have reached the degree of understanding that
enables them, no matter
what their own station is, to see all people as one; to look with
an impartial eye upon the richest and and the poorest, the learned
and the ignorant, as different
members of the universal family, each entitled to the most courteous
consideration; - many people are able to do all this, and yet when
it comes to dealing with
various grades of moral weaknesses they exhibit a self-righteous
intolerance that is a bar to spiritual progress. There are certain
forms, or classes, of
moral weaknesses with which they have nothing to do and toward their
unfortunate brothers and sisters afflicted with these moral flaws
they assume an attitude
of lofty disdain. Many a man who is broadminded and progressive regards
a thief or a degenerate as being beyond the pale of consideration,
while many a literal
and sympathetic woman regards her fallen sister with equal intolerance
and draws her skirts aside, as she passes, with frank contempt.
And so it is that thousands
of us who are swift to condemn the intolerance of religious bigotry
are still blind to the fact that we are, ourselves, equally intolerant
when it comes to
matters of a different sort.
Now,
it is when we have conquered intolerance in its commoner forms and are ready
for the higher work of overcoming the subtler variety, that great spiritual
lessons can come to us through the very people against whom, through our intolerance,
we are closing the gates of our sympathy. If we do not erect the barrier of
intolerance and thus completely separate ourselves from them - if we do not
thus limit our field of experience by our foolish prejudice - we shall find
that from the sympathetic consideration we give them will spring a wider wisdom
than we now possess. The great work that lies before every evolving soul is
nothing less than the comprehension of life in all its forms and varieties,
the understanding of the universe and the acquirement of compassion; and every
barrier that stands in the way of that must be broken down. To permit any lingering
intolerance to narrow and blind us in our spiritual unfoldment would be something
like the blunder of a man who desires to be a great painter harbouring such
a prejudice against a certain color that he would have nothing to do with it.
He would thus be shutting out a factor in his artistic development that would
be absolutely fatal to his ultimate success and all his work would be marred
and his progress in art would be barred by that foolish prejudice until he got
rid of it. Red may not be as pleasing a color as blue, but both are equally
the result of the division of a pure white ray of light by a prism and each
is essential to the harmony of colors. Even so is every human personality the
result of trying to manifest inherent divinity through the medium of matter
and its differing expressions must be studied and understood before we can comprehend
the harmony of the whole.
Between
intolerance and self-righteousness there is a most intimate relationship and
the highest of spiritual authorities has pointed out the subtle evil that lurks
therein. Perhaps many good people will never cease wondering about the utterance
of the Christ as He rebuked the Pharisees and mingled with the publicans and
sinners, declaring the latter to be much nearer the kingdom of heaven than the
self-righteous. But to the student of occultism this truth must be as clear
as the sunlight. A feeling of separateness is the sin of sins and the most difficult
to overcome. The sinners from whom the self-righteous drew back in horror doubtless
had the heart side of their natures much more highly evolved than their haughty
critics had, and although they were at the moment showing forth a moral weakness
to be condemned they would, in the natural course of things, evolve out of that
much more quickly than those who looked upon them with intolerant contempt would
be able to get rid of that flaw. To put the case differently it was just
because this particular class of sinners represented a lower form of iniquity
than self-righteousness that the public was able to recognize it as a sin, and
it was precisely because self-righteousness was a more subtle (and therefore
more dangerous) form of iniquity that the people did not recognize it as a sin
at all.
Why
is intolerance such a dangerous thing? For one reason because by placing undue
emphasis on the fault against which the line of exclusion is drawn without mercy
or consideration, we become blind to the good qualities of which no human being
is destitute, and thus ignore the very thing for which we should always be searching
and which we should emphasize and encourage. We permit the one bad quality to
hypnotize us, so to speak, by steadily regarding it until our moral judgment
is unbalanced, as a man gazes at a black spot on a white wall until certain
muscles are fatigued, and hypnosis is induced. Even so do the intolerant paralyze
perception and become blind to the good.
The
remedy for intolerance is to remember that all life is one; that those about
us are literally ourselves in other forms and that at a high point on the inner
planes consciousness is a unit. We are individuals and yet we are one, as the
fingers are separate and yet one in consciousness, so that one of them cannot
suffer without affecting the one consciousness that directs all. The body is
no more the self than one finger is the hand. The universal Self is being expressed
through many forms, each of which expresses but a fragment of the one consciousness,
and if one of these apparently separate selves regards another with self-righteous
intolerance a subtle injury is done which is somewhat analogous to the wound
one hand might inflict upon the other.
A helpful
method in eliminating intolerance, in breaking down the separating walls, is
to deliberately search for the good in everything and everybody; to remember
that there is nobody who does not embody some virtue. The good and the
bad, or strength and weakness, are mingled in all. The distinction is that the
weaknesses differ in the manner of their expression. Some weaknesses are more
unpopular than others, that's all; and that is what determines the moral code.
One robs a stranger but would defend his friends with his life. Another breaks
no law, but would sneak away at the first sign of danger to himself and leave
his friends to perish. One gives way to the lust of drunkenness, but is always
the friend of other people. Another is a model of sobriety but will meanly spread
he gossip of his friend's shame. One is quick in temper and engages in a street
brawl, but a moment later shakes hands with his antagonist. Another would do
nothing so disgraceful but when offended bullies and insults the timid in a
way that satisfies his anger and proves his cowardice. And so it goes throughout
the whole list of human weaknesses. Some classes of faults are more unpopular
than others largely because they are more on the surface; and, as a rule, those
who are most intolerant of the frailties of others are precisely those who,
in other directions, are morally lame themselves. But there is good in all;
even in the intolerant!
Tolerance
is a noble virtue, and a cornerstone in the temple not built with hands. Upon
it must rest other virtues to be acquired. Tolerance precedes enlightenment
as the dawn precedes the day. It dispels the darkness of our ignorance about
others and illuminates the road that leads to peace. It is the gateway to universal
brotherhood. Without tolerance there can be no justice. With tolerance there
can be no cruelty. It is the herald of mercy and the prophecy of dawning compassion.
CHAPTER
XIV
PURITY
Purity
is a word that signifies much in occultism We encounter it often, for there
can be no spiritual progress that does not reckon with it. A striving after
purity is one of the absolute essentials to higher development. There can be
no real spiritual illumination without it, no matter what other qualifications
may be possessed.
The
essential difference between a spiritual person and the man of the world is
that the latter lives largely in his physical senses. At a low point in evolution
- the savage state- he lives altogether in the physical senses. He is completely
dominated by physical desires, passion and emotions. It is the triumph of matter.
As evolution goes forward, as experience is multiplied by successive incarnations,
the mentality asserts itself and finally becomes the center in which he lives,
mental pleasures gradually outweighing the physical. Ultimately spiritual joys
will rise triumphant over both; but for a long period the man is slowly rising
from the one stage to the other, with the new and higher drawing in him while
the old and lower still hold him firmly. When he comes into a realization of
the fact that he can work intelligently with nature in hastening his own evolution,
and turns his attention to a definite method of doing it, he enters into a contest
with his lower nature, the duration of which is dependent upon his earnestness
no less than upon his will power.
At the
point where the aspirant for higher things awakes to the fact that the old life
of sensation is an undesirable slavery, realizes dimly that something better
lies above, and beyond it, and resolves to attain it, he is likely to be surprised
at the strength of the old fetters which hold him back. There are certain appetites
that he would gladly be rid of but they assert themselves at intervals with
astonishing vigour. There are passions he thought dead which he finds were only
sleeping. There are impulses he believed were under control but they flash out
without the slightest warning and throws him off his balance. There are certain
classes of undesirable thoughts that he hoped to have done with forever but
they leap into his mind in spite of him.
Why
is it that with the perfectly pure motive of rising above the lower
nature,with
the sincere desire for a loftier life, and with an earnest effort
to achieve it, we do not promptly succeed? When we intellectually
comprehend that the change
is necessary to our happiness, and most devoutly desire its consummation,
why is a prolonged struggle necessary to accomplish it? Because
the difficulty is
not in ourselves at all but in the bodies we live in. The self has
resolved upon the higher life. The ego has succeeded in impressing
the waking consciousness
- in arousing a longing to escape from the thraldom of the lower
nature. But the bodies are to be reckoned with and they cannot
be changed in a day. They
are the seat of what is commonly called "sin", and the
fortress of the lower nature: and that fortress cannot be carried
by assault. It can be
taken only under siege.
The
progress of purification is a process of changing the matter that composes the
physical body and its invisible counterpart, as actually and literally as one
would reconstruct a house, making it into a totally different habitation. The
very desire to attain the higher life begins the reconstruction. But just as
one could not instantly raze his house and as instantly rebuid it, but could
effect any desired change by taking the necessary time, so any change that we
are capable of imagining can be made in ourselves within a reasonable period.
We cannot unbuild in a few days what we have been so long in building. Our battle
is against the automatism that we have created. The matter of the astral body
has long been accustomed to act in a certain way under certain circumstances
and it continues to do it, for a time, in spite of all our genuine desires to
the contrary. If a man has long given way to great anger on slight provocations,
and resolves to do so no more, his good resolution will help a little toward
his some-time self-mastery; but when the good resolution is followed by sudden
and unexpected provocation he is aware of what is happening. So, too, with the
mental body. However much he may desire to be pure in mind an impure thought
that has often been harboured in the past will flash in when some connecting
thought or old association opens up the way. Of course the astral and mental
bodies work together, desire and thought being inextricably mingled and interwoven,
and the purification of both goes forward together.
While
the purification of the lower nature is not an instantaneous process and is
likely to be attended with some temporary failures in the efforts to live up
to one's ideal, the final triumph is certain if there is reasonable persistence
and earnestness, together with some knowledge of how to proceed. There should
be no feeling of an effort to escape from something undesirable and degrading.
The mind should not be turned in that direction at all. It should be kept busy
in the opposite direction - should be occupied with pure and lofty thinking.
There should be no mental effort to crush out the old order of things. Let it
be crowded out by thoughts of the opposite nature. To set
the mind determinedly against a certain objectionable thing is only
to give that thing new vitality
and invite it to battle. Non-resistance has its value here as elsewhere. "Let
sleeping dogs lie".
Another
helpful thing to remember is that association and environment are important
factors. Suppose a man is trying to overcome a certain thing - the desire for
liquor or tobacco, or meat; and what is true of these will apply to all other
desires of the lower nature. He may escape them for a time and almost believe
that they are dead when some old association will arouse them again. Environment
is a thing to be taken into account. Until one has grown strong enough to touch
elbows with old temptations and remain absolutely unmoved it is wise to keep
as far from them as possible. A man who is fighting the drink habit need not
increase his difficulties by living next door to a bar. One who is trying to
purify the mind can keep away from certain classes of much advertised plays
in which the public desire for the salacious is gratified under the mask of
dramatic art of a higher order. It is remarkable what vitality the desires of
the lower nature have, how tenaciously they cling and how subtly they masquerade
in the attractive disguises. Art is invoked to refine them and wit is used to
adorn them and keep them alive in clever song and apt story.
Every
person has his varying moods. There are times when we feel spiritually very
strong and easily dominate the lower nature. But there are other times when
materiality rises against us in its might and we feel the very near danger of
losing our balance and being swept from our footing in the tide of reaction.
In such moments of peril a definite course of action is useful. The Christian
prays, which draws his mind away from lower things to the higher. The occultist
can think steadily of the Masters of Compassion, even of the Christ, all of
whom he regards as embodying all that is pure and exalted. He can remind himself
of the too-often forgotten fact that his efforts are known and observed and
that he does not strive after purity unaided.
To succeed
well in dominating the lower nature the danger of permitting the mind to turn
for even a moment to impure thoughts and things should be well understood. Any
sort of dallying is fatal and safety lies only in turning the mind instantly
in the other direction when the old thoughts and impulses crown upon us. This
is repeatedly emphasized in such invaluable occult works as The
Voice of the Silence
"Strive with
thy thoughts unclean before they overpower thee........Beware, disciple,suffer
not e'en though it be their shadow to approach".
and
again:
"One single
thought about the past that thou has left behind will drag thee down, and
thou wilt have to start the climb anew".
To be pure is to
be strong. Purity and spiritual strength are inseparable. There can be no real
strength without purity; not even mental strength. In proportion that the lower
nature dominates a man's life he is both physically and mentally weak, as well
as morally weak. The physical, mental and moral are so inextricably interwoven
that each necessarily reacts upon the others. None of them can stand alone because
they are really a blended whole, gaining or losing together. There must be purity
then and strength for all or for none. Purity, the, is literally the way to
strength, to power, to illumination and to immortality.
CHAPTER
XV
TRUTHFULNESS
Truthfulness,
like purity, is one of the absolute essentials to occult progress. Whoever would
know the truth must be truthful. We cannot comprehend reality until we are,
ourselves, sound and true and genuine to the heart's center.
The
average man of the world little realizes the extent of his falsity. He thinks
falsely, acts falsely and speaks falsely, with little thought that he is doing
anything wrong. He habitually represents himself to be different from what he
really is. He always tries to give the impression that he is better than he
knows himself to be. His life among others is a perpetual masquerade. To prevent
others knowing the truth about him he cheerfully lies whenever he thinks it
necessary as a part of the program of concealment. He acts as well as talks
in a way calculated to mislead people, and bring them to erroneous conclusions
about him and his affairs. It never occurs to him that he should , under any
circumstances, admit it that he has been in the wrong or even that he has made
an error of judgment. If this quarrel with another has become known he takes
great pains to show that it was entirely the fault of his enemy. If has circulated
a story detrimental to another, and later finds it to be untrue, instead of
setting it right, as far as he can, he too often thinks only of justifying his
criticism by trying to find some other damaging facts about his victim to help
show the probability, at least, of his first statement being reasonable! In
any event he will not permit anybody to think that he is
in any way to blame for any trouble that exists, and whenever he
is connected with any
controversy or difficulty with others he insists upon ignoring that
axiom of nature that there are always two sides to every question.
He fully believes
that in thus getting credit for being a better man than he actually
is - a person without fault or frailty - he is promoting his own
welfare; and if somebody
should suggest to him that his truest self-interest could be better
served by being perfectly candid and truthful even about himself,
he would probably think
it very foolish advice. Just like the man, with a different kind
of moral weakness, who steals another's money, he feels certain that
he is "getting the best
of it", and that the saying "honesty is the best policy" is
only a maxim for fools instead of a literal fact in nature. It has
never occurred
to him that in deceiving others he is bandaging his own eyes, blunting
his own perceptions, dulling his own intuition, and that in masking
himself he is placing
a mask over those very truths of nature which are a necessity to
this higher development. It is true that he may lead others to believe
him a better man
than he is and that for a little span he may strut in his disguise
of false-righteousness; but he pays a fool's price for the vain folly
and the law of adjustment, whether
in this incarnation or another, will finally bring him the bitter
humiliation necessary to arouse him from his false attitude toward
life. His account of
vanity and humility will finally balance and cancel itself and he
will awake to the fact that his foolish untruthfulness has cost him
dearly - that it has
retarded his progress in a way that is worse than merely to have
remained ignorant of nature's choicest wisdom, though that in itself
is misfortune enough.
One
of the things that first impresses those fortunate enough to come into touch
with teachers of occultism who are direct pupils of the Masters of Wisdom is
their painstaking precaution to prevent anybody getting from them a wrong idea
about the facts as they are. Thus intense is the feeling of responsibility on
the part of those who know the occult results of the slightest misleading of
others. The informed occultist instead of ever trying to make himself appear
before the world better than he is, in any trouble with which he might be connected,
does not beyond merely declaring the fact of his innocence attempt to defend
himself even when entirely blameless. He knows perfectly well that what
people think him to be just now is of extremely small importance, while what
he really is, is of transcendent consequence. He will set right any erroneous
impression if he can without augmenting the trouble, but not for the good opinion
and the applause of the whole world would he say or do anything that would be
the slightest misrepresentation of the truth. The more one knows about occultism
the more scrupulously accurate he must necessarily become in the minutest degree
about the most trivial things, for he has learned that only as he lives truth
shall he know it.
Somebody
has invented the convenient and comforting phrase, "a white lie".
It is quite color blind on the subject of falsehood. The essence
of untruthfulness
is deception and deception is unjustifiable. The manner of accomplishing
the deception is wholly immaterial. It may be only by a smile or
a facial expression
of surprise, but if it misleads it is no less a lie than if plainly
put in words. Of course there are impertinent persons who take
the liberty of interrogating
people about things which are none of their business, but the victim
of their inquisitiveness is under no obligation to satisfy their
curiosity; still less
to take upon himself the misfortune of misstatement in order to prevent
them learning facts they have no right to know. There are times
when absolute silence
is commendable, when one is justified in disregarding a direct question
and declining to utter a word on the subject.
Putting
aside the more obvious forms of falsification, that scarcely require comment,
there remains that which is the more dangerous just because it is less pronounced
and is veiled under the conventionalities of polite usage. How easy it is to
indulge the pernicious habits of flattering another and saying falsely pleasant
things about him in order to be agreeable and to make him friendly! We praise
his song or his essay extravagantly when we know well enough that it was only
ordinarily good; and in doing that we cultivate his vanity, if he has that very
common weakness, and lead him to place a false valuation upon his accomplishments
and perhaps to foolishly attempt something for which he is not competent. We
often excuse our inclination to flatter with the thought that it is well to
stimulate others. The truth is that it would be much kinder to gently criticize
our friend's work and help him to appear to better advantage in the future instead
of to worse. The truth cannot do him harm if it is tempered with real sympathy
and we are prompted by a genuine desire to help instead of to please.
Our
daily social life, also,is full of false standards and is narrowed and bemeaned
with petty deceptions; and of course it is as useless as it is false and hollow.
Nothing can be worth while that does not in some way promote the welfare of
people or living things.
The
person who would find a satisfactory life must have his every thought and act
ring true to the genuine in human nature. He must acquire again the candour
and truthfulness of childhood and cultivate his sympathy to the point that prevents
such candour being harsh and brutal. He must continually guard his thoughts,
his speech and his acts to see that no shadow of untruthfulness is in any of
them. Only he who can live a perfectly open, candid life with no motive disguised,
no action cloaked and no thought concealed, may hope to reach the very heart
of nature's wisdom and comprehend it.
CHAPTER
XVI
FEARLESSNESS
Fearlessness
is something more than courage. A man whom we call courageous may
be very far
from fearless. A recruit going into the battlefield for the first
time, white-faced but determined, is called a man of courage. Wellington
is said to have remarked
as a young soldier passed him to the front, pale, trembling but resolute: "There
goes a brave man; he realizes the danger, but unhesitatingly faces it".
A man may have the courage to move toward a known danger, even to
risk his life
where there is a strong probability of losing it, and yet be by no
means fearless. Perfect freedom from fear marks a high state of development
and indicates great
knowledge; for, as a matter of fact, fear arises from ignorance.
Chiefly
because ignorance is the parent of fear, a man who is courageous in one thing
is sometimes an abject coward in another. He may face death a hundred times
and come to be quite unconcerned about bullets and shells, and yet he could
not be induced to spend a night alone in a graveyard. A French king who died
upon the scaffold with such calm courage and dignity as to arouse general admiration
had been so lacking in a different kind of firmness as to hasten his own downfall.
On the other hand, a notorious outlaw of the early California days who was celebrated
for his daring, who had killed many people in the various raids and robberies
of his band, and who seemed to risk his life as recklessly as though he were
a total stranger to fear, nevertheless died in abject terror when he was finally
caught and hanged by the vigilantes. Some men, courageous
in other matters, are filled with fear by the sight of a harmless
snake. Others would on no account
be present at a materializing seance, while it would be extremely
difficult to induce many ordinarily courageous persons to visit alone
at night an unoccupied
house which was alleged to be "haunted". But all these
fears would vanish with a little knowledge. The graveyard can have
no terror for the man
who knows that the dead physical body is as much a separate thing
from the dead man who once lived in it as his clothing is and that
a cemetery is as harmless
as a wardrobe. The outlaw about to be deprived of the physical life
he had forfeited to the outraged public would not have suddenly turned
coward had he not been
ignorant of the fact that there is really no death and that while
he was losing his physical body he had a better one left. The life
ahead of him in the astral
world would certainly be an undesirable one; but what probably filled
him with fear was the possibility of extinction. The man who is afraid
of a materialization,
or a ghost, would quickly regain his courage if he understood a little
more about the facts and laws of the invisible world. He would not
run from a wraith
if he knew it was but a temporary aggregation of matter as harmless
as puff of smoke. We are mightily amused at a huge elephant going
into a paroxysm of
terror at sight of a mouse; but it is no more remarkable than the
many baseless fears of human beings that arise from various kinds
of ignorance.
The
action of fear upon the physical body is interesting and instructive and even
a superficial examination of it shows that it is extremely detrimental in its
effects, while courage is of incalculable value to a person. Sudden fear contracts
the heart, impedes the circulation of the blood and leaves the face blanched
and ashen. We are not surprised when the clairvoyant tells us that the color
in which this emotion expresses itself is grey. It is quite in keeping with
what we know of its physical effects. The motion of fear appears to be synonymous
with contraction. It is a lessening of life, and therefore of vitality
- a tendency toward separation from the source of life. Fear is the ally of
disease and death. It is destructive, disintegrating. Every physician knows
this from experience and always does his best to keep fear from the mind of
his patient. He knows that if he can kindle hope and revive courage the battle
is more than half won.
Because
fear means a restriction of the life-forces, a process of life
contraction instead
of expansion, it is inimical to soul growth. Only in the atmosphere
of serene fearlessness can the inherent divinity come to perfect
expression. Any kind
or degree of fear is an enemy of growth and progress; and the kinds
and degrees are many. People fear poverty, fear disease, fear old
age, fear accident, fear
possible helplessness, fear loss of position, of power, of social
standing, - fear even the opinions of others about them. With many
people one or another,or
several, of these things gives rise to a mental condition of perpetual
unrest. Ignorance, once more, is the cause of all such fear. The
difficulty is in the
failure to understand facts - to see things in their correct relationship
to each other and thus to realize the harmlessness of things which,
seen out of
their true relationship, are fear inspiring. A man is afraid of a
harmless wraith because he erroneously attaches to it a power it
does not possess. Just so are
all the rest of his fears groundless, and the objects of them equally
powerless to injure him, except through the fear he permits them
to inspire in him. To
all things over which he worries a man attaches a wholly imaginary
power to do him injury and in order to acquire fearlessness he
must try to understand
nature's methods of evolution and to comprehend why certain unpleasant
experiences, such as the unexpected loss of property, accidents
on sea or land, friendlessness
in old age, etc., come to people. He must come into an understanding
of three things: First, that no such experiences can come to any
human being unless that
person has himself generated the causes that will bring them; second,
that when a thing is inevitable it is much less disastrous if calmly
faced than if met
with paralysing fear that renders one helpless; and third, that ill-fortune
has a lesson to teach that is of more real value to a man than
good fortune
could possibly have been in its stead - not that painful things in
general are better than pleasant ones, but that they are absolutely
necessary to those to
whom they come; and were it otherwise they would not, and could not,
come to them. A pain in a boy's stomach is not better than the
condition of perfect
health, but until he learns better than to eat green apples that
pain is giving him a lesson that is necessary for his future health
and safety. If a thing
is inevitable nothing can be gained by frantically trying to escape
it; and if it has a lesson to teach that will enable us to avoid
greater suffering later
on, it is obviously foolish to lament it.
A wise
man once said that there are two classes of things about which he refused to
worry. One was the thing he could not help and the other things he could. It
is quite useless to worry about the one and unnecessary to worry about the other;
and so a little common sense puts the demon of worry entirely out of court.
But
there is something more to be said about fear than that it arises
from ignorance
, for its root is in an ignorance, that is closely associated with
selfishness. "Perfect love casteth out fear"; and there
can be perfect love only where there is absolute unselfishness.
The man who reaches a knowledge of the
actual unity of all life has no fear. Fear and hatred perish together.
A man does not fear himself. When he knows that he is one with
all that lives he can
have neither hatred nor fear of anything nor can anything have fear
of him. The devotee of the orient prays that he may become one
who is afraid of nothing
and of whom nothing is afraid.
The "perfect love that casteth out fear" also casts out selfishness, A
man is no longer thinking about himself but about others. Instead of worrying
for fear he will be friendless and helpless in old age he is thinking altogether
about how he can help those who are now poor and friendless; and in that very
forgetfulness of himself he is creating the conditions that will make his own
old age rich with loyal friendships. On the other hand a man who is trying to
accumulate money "to provide for old age" may permit his
anxiety to secure plenty of it to lead him into the very things that
will make a friendless
old age certain.
The
thoughtful student of cause and effect, as they operate in human evolution,
will not be misled by the foolish idea that by increasing his material possessions
he can protect himself against any fate he has earned; nor will he waste time
worrying about blunders that he may have made in the past and the resulting
unpleasantness that may still be ahead, but will meet the inevitable serenely,
pondering its lessons when it comes, getting from its severity a Spartan strength
and courage and rejoicing that the account now balanced is done with forever.
To live in fear of what may be ahead of us as the life-plan unfolds is only
to increase whatever misfortune may come and to weaken our powers of resistance
at the moment when they are most needed.
To the
disciple who has entered fully into the spiritual life nothing matters. He has
reached a clear understanding of the fact that a superior intelligence is superintending
his evolution and that all the events of this life and his future lives will
be adjusted with more careful planning for his welfare than that of a tutor
for his pupil or a father for his son; that no useless lesson will be given
him, that no unneeded experience can befall him, and that while he may not understand
all the events in a program so far-reaching that it includes his evolution on
planes of the universe of which he is wholly ignorant in his waking consciousness,he
has no more to fear from it than an infant has in the arms of its loving mother.
When this view of evolution is fully comprehended one reaches a mental condition
that is higher than courage, - the condition that can properly be called fearlessness.
It is not the state in which the will is called upon to enable one to resolutely
face danger or death. It is rather the state of consciousness that, realizing
there is neither danger nor death and that all things are well with the soul,
looks fearless and unafraid upon any change that can come. |