BOOK IV
1. Psychic and spiritual powers may be inborn, or they may be gained
by the use of drugs, or by incantations, or by fervour, or by Meditation.
Spiritual powers have been enumerated and described in the preceding
sections. They are the normal powers of the spiritual man, the antetype, the
divine edition, of the powers of the natural man. Through these powers, the
spiritual man stands, sees, hears, speaks, in the spiritual world, as the
physical man stands, sees, hears, speaks in the natural world.
There is a counterfeit presentment of the spiritual man, in the world
of dreams, a shadow lord of shadows, who has his own dreamy powers of vision,
of hearing, of movement; he has left the natural without reaching the
spiritual. He has set forth from the shore, but has not gained the further
verge of the river. He is borne along by the stream, with no foothold on either
shore. Leaving the actual, he has fallen short of the real, caught in the limbo
of vanities and delusions. The cause of this aberrant phantasm is always the
worship of a false, vain self, the lord of dreams, within one's own breast.
This is the psychic man, lord of delusive and bewildering psychic powers.
Spiritual powers, like intellectual or artistic gifts, may be inborn:
the fruit, that is, of seeds planted and reared with toil in a former birth. So
also the powers of the psychic man may be inborn, a delusive harvest from seeds
of delusion.
Psychical powers may be gained by drugs, as poverty, shame, debasement
may be gained by the self-same drugs. In their action, they are baneful,
cutting the man off from consciousness of the restraining power of his divine
nature, so that his forces break forth exuberant, like the laughter of
drunkards, and he sees and hears things delusive. While sinking, he believes
that he has risen; growing weaker, he thinks himself full of strength;
beholding illusions, he takes them to be true. Such are the powers gained by
drugs; they are wholly psychic, since the real powers, the spiritual, can never
be so gained.
Incantations are affirmations of half-truths concerning spirit and
matter, what is and what is not, which work upon the mind and slowly build up a
wraith of powers and a delusive well-being. These, too, are of the psychic
realm of dreams.
Lastly, there are the true powers of the spiritual man, built up and
realized in Meditation, through reverent obedience to spiritual law, to the
pure conditions of being, in the divine realm.
2. The transfer of powers from one venture to another comes through
the flow of the natural creative forces.
Here, if we can perceive it, is the whole secret of spiritual birth,
growth and life Spiritual being, like all being, is but an expression of the
Self, of the inherent power and being of Atma. Inherent in the Self are consciousness
and will, which have, as their lordly heritage, the wide sweep of the universe
throughout eternity, for the Self is one with the Eternal. And the
consciousness of the Self may make itself manifest as seeing, hearing, tasting,
feeling, or whatsoever perceptive powers there may be, just as the white
sunlight may divide into many-coloured rays. So may the will of the Self
manifest itself in the uttering of words, or in handling, or in moving, and
whatever powers of action there are throughout the seven worlds. Where the Self
is, there will its powers be. It is but a question of the vesture through which
these powers shall shine forth. And wherever the consciousness and desire of
the ever-creative Self are fixed, there will a vesture be built up; where the
heart is, there will the treasure be also.
Since through ages the desire of the Self has been toward the natural
world, wherein the Self sought to mirror himself that he might know himself,
therefore a vesture of natural elements came into being, through which
blossomed forth the Self's powers of perceiving and of will: the power to see,
to hear, to speak, to walk, to handle; and when the Self, thus come to
self-consciousness, and, with it, to a knowledge of his imprisonment, shall set
his desire on the divine and real world, and raise his consciousness thereto,
the spiritual vesture shall be built up for him there, with its expression of
his inherent powers. Nor will migration thither be difficult for the Self,
since the divine is no strange or foreign land for him, but the house of his
home, where he dwells from everlasting.
3. The apparent, immediate cause is not the true cause of the creative
nature-powers; but, like the husbandman in his field, it takes obstacles away.
The husbandman tills his field, breaking up the clods of earth into
fine mould, penetrable to air and rain; he sows his seed, carefully covering
it, for fear of birds and the wind; he waters the seed-laden earth, turning the
little rills from the irrigation tank now this way and that, removing obstacles
from the channels, until the even How of water vitalizes the whole field. And
so the plants germinate and grow, first the blade, then the ear, then the full
corn in the ear. But it is not the husbandman who makes them grow. It is, first,
the miraculous plasmic power in the grain of seed, which brings forth after its
kind; then the alchemy of sunlight which, in presence of the green colouring
matter of the leaves, gathers hydrogen from the water and carbon from the gases
in the air, and mingles them in the hydro-carbons of plant growth; and,
finally, the wholly occult vital powers of the plant itself, stored up through
ages, and flowing down from the primal sources of life. The husbandman but
removes the obstacles. He plants and waters, but God gives the increase.
So with the finer husbandman of diviner fields. He tills and sows, but
the growth of the spiritual man comes through the surge and flow of divine,
creative forces and powers. Here, again, God gives the increase. The divine
Self puts forth, for the manifestation of its powers, a new and finer vesture,
the body of the spiritual man.
4. Vestures of consciousness are built up in conformity with the
Boston of the feeling of selfhood.
The Self, says a great Teacher, in turn attributes itself to three
vestures: first, to the physical body, then to the finer body, and thirdly to
the causal body. Finally it stands forth radiant, luminous, joyous, as the
Self.
When the Self attributes itself to the physical body, there arise the
states of bodily consciousness, built up about the physical self.
When the Self, breaking through this first illusion, begins to see and
feel itself in the finer body, to find selfhood there, then the states of
consciousness of the finer body come into being; or, to speak exactly, the
finer body and its states of consciousness arise and grow together.
But the Self must not dwell permanently there. It must learn to find
itself in the causal body, to build up the wide and luminous fields of
consciousness that belong to that.
Nor must it dwell forever there, for there remains the fourth state,
the divine, with its own splendour and everlastingness.
It is all a question of the states of consciousness; all a question of
raising the sense of selfhood, until it dwells forever in the Eternal.
5. In the different fields of manifestation, the Consciousness, though
one, is the elective cause of many states of consciousness.
Here is the splendid teaching of oneness that lies at the heart of the
Eastern wisdom. Consciousness is ultimately One, everywhere and forever. The
Eternal, the Father, is the One Self of All Beings. And so, in each individual
who is but a facet of that Self, Consciousness is One. Whether it breaks
through as the dull fire of physical life, or the murky flame of the psychic
and passional, or the radiance of the spiritual man, or the full glory of the
Divine, it is ever the Light, naught but the Light. The one Consciousness is
the effective cause of all states of consciousness, on every plane.
6. Among states of consciousness, that which is born of Contemplation
is free from the seed of future sorrow.
Where the consciousness breaks forth in the physical body, and the
full play of bodily life begins, its progression carries with it inevitable
limitations. Birth involves death. Meetings have their partings. Hunger
alternates with satiety. Age follows on the heels of youth. So do the states of
consciousness run along the circle of birth and death.
With the psychic, the alternation between prize and penalty is
swifter. Hope has its shadow of fear, or it is no hope. Exclusive love is
tortured by jealousy. Pleasure passes through deadness into pain. Pain's
surcease brings pleasure back again. So here, too, the states of consciousness
run their circle. In all psychic states there is egotism, which, indeed, is the
very essence of the psychic; and where there is egotism there is ever the seed
of future sorrow. Desire carries bondage in its womb.
But where the pure spiritual consciousness begins, free from self and
stain, the ancient law of retaliation ceases; the penalty of sorrow lapses and
is no more imposed. The soul now passes, no longer from sorrow to sorrow, but
from glory to glory. Its growth and splendour have no limit. The good passes to
better, best.
7. The works of followers after Union make neither for bright pleasure
nor for dark pain The works of others make for pleasure or pain, or a mingling
of these.
The man of desire wins from his works the reward of pleasure, or
incurs the penalty of pain; or, as so often happens in life, his guerdon, like
the passionate mood of the lover, is part pleasure and part pain. Works done
with self-seeking bear within them the seeds of future sorrow; conversely,
according to the proverb, present pain is future gain.
But, for him who has gone beyond desire, whose desire is set on the
Eternal, neither pain to be avoided nor pleasure to be gained inspires his work.
He fears no hell and desires no heaven. His one desire is, to know the will of
the Father and finish His work. He comes directly in line with the divine Will,
and works cleanly and immediately, without longing or fear. His heart dwells in
the Eternal; all his desires are set on the Eternal.
8. From the force inherent in works comes the manifestation of those
dynamic mind images which are conformable to the ripening out of each of these
works.
We are now to consider the general mechanism of Karma, in order that
we may pass on to the consideration of him who is free from Karma. Karma,
indeed, is the concern of the personal man, of his bondage or freedom. It is
the succession of the forces which built up the personal man, reproducing
themselves in one personality after another.
Now let us take an imaginary case, to see how these forces may work
out. Let us think of a man, with murderous intent in his heart, striking with a
dagger at his enemy. He makes a red wound in his victim's breast; at the same
instant he paints, in his own mind, a picture of that wound: a picture dynamic
with all the fierce will-power he has put into his murderous blow. In other
words he has made a deep wound in his own psychic body; and, when he comes to
be born again, that body will become his outermost vesture, upon which, with
its wound still there, bodily tissue will be built up. So the man will be born
maimed, or with the predisposition to some mortal injury; he is unguarded at
that point, and any trifling accidental blow will pierce the broken Joints of
his psychic armour. Thus do the dynamic mind-images manifest themselves, coming
to the surface, so that works done in the past may ripen and come to fruition.
9. Works separated by different nature, or place, or time, are brought
together by the correspondence between memory and dynamic impression.
Just as, in the ripening out of mind-images into bodily conditions,
the effect is brought about by the ray of creative force sent down by the Self,
somewhat as the light of the magic lantern projects the details of a picture on
the screen, revealing the hidden, and making secret things palpable and
visible, so does this divine ray exercise a selective power on the dynamic
mind-images, bringing together into one day of life the seeds gathered from
many days. The memory constantly exemplifies this power; a passage of poetry
will call up in the mind like passages of many poets, read at different times.
So a prayer may call up many prayers.
In like manner, the same over-ruling selective power, which is a ray
of the Higher Self, gathers together from different births and times and places
those mind-images which are conformable, and may be grouped in the frame of a
single life or a single event. Through this grouping, visible bodily conditions
or outward circumstances are brought about, and by these the soul is taught and
trained.
Just as the dynamic mind-images of desire ripen out in bodily
conditions and circumstances, so the far more dynamic powers of aspiration,
wherein the soul reaches toward the Eternal, have their fruition in a finer
world, building the vesture of the spiritual man.
10. The series of dynamic mind-images is beginningless, because Desire
is everlasting.
The whole series of dynamic mind-images, which make up the entire
history of the personal man, is a part of the mechanism which the Self employs,
to mirror itself in a reflection, to embody its powers in an outward form, to
the end of self-expression, self-realization, self-knowledge. Therefore the
initial impulse behind these dynamic mind-images comes from the Self and is the
descending ray of the Self; so that it cannot be said that there is any first
member of the series of images, from which the rest arose. The impulse is
beginningless, since it comes from the Self, which is from everlasting. Desire
is not to cease; it is to turn to the Eternal, and so become aspiration.
11. Since the dynamic mind-images are held together by impulses of
desire, by the wish for personal reward, by the substratum of mental habit, by
the support of outer things desired; therefore, when these cease, the self
reproduction of dynamic mind-images ceases.
We are still concerned with the personal life in its bodily vesture,
and with the process whereby the forces which have upheld it are gradually
transferred to the life of the spiritual man, and build up for him his finer
vesture in a finer world.
How is the current to be changed? How is the flow of self-reproductive
mind-images, which have built the conditions of life after life in this world
of bondage, to be checked, that the time of imprisonment may come to an end,
the day of liberation dawn?
The answer is given in the Sutra just translated. The driving-force is
withdrawn and directed to the upbuilding of the spiritual body.
When the building impulses and forces are withdrawn, the tendency to
manifest a new psychical body, a new body of bondage, ceases with them.
12. The difference between that which is past and that which is not
yet come, according to their natures, depends on the difference of phase of
their properties.
Here we come to a high and difficult matter, which has always been
held to be of great moment in the Eastern wisdom: the thought that the division
of time into past, present and future is, in great measure, an illusion; that
past, present, future all dwell together in the eternal Now.
The discernment of this truth has been held to be so necessarily a
part of wisdom, that one of the names of the Enlightened is: 'he who has passed
beyond the three times: past, present, future.'
So the Western Master said: 'Before Abraham was, I am'; and again, 'I
am with you always, unto the end of the world'; using the eternal present for
past and future alike. With the same purpose, the Master speaks of himself as
'the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.'
And a Master of our own days writes: 'I feel even irritated at having
to use these three clumsy words—past, present, and future. Miserable concepts
of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill adapted
for the purpose, as an axe for fine carving.'
In the eternal Now, both past and future are consummated.
Björklund, the Swedish philosopher, has well stated the same truth:
'Neither past nor future can exist to God; He lives undividedly,
without limitations, and needs not, as man, to plot out his existence in a
series of moments. Eternity then is not identical with unending time; it is a
different form of existence, related to time as the perfect to the imperfect.
Man as an entity for himself must have the natural limitations for the part.
Conceived by God, man is eternal in the divine sense, but conceived by himself,
man's eternal life is clothed in the limitations we call time. The eternal is a
constant present without beginning or end, without past or future.'
13. These properties, whether manifest or latent, are of the nature of
the Three Potencies.
The Three Potencies are the three manifested modifications of the one
primal material, which stands opposite to perceiving consciousness. These Three
Potencies are called Substance, Force, Darkness; or viewed rather for their
moral colouring, Goodness, Passion, Inertness. Every material manifestation is
a projection of substance into the empty space of darkness. Every mental state
is either good, or passional, or inert. So, whether subjective or objective,
latent or manifest, all things that present themselves to the perceiving
consciousness are compounded of these three. This is a fundamental doctrine of
the Sankhya system.
14. The external manifestation of an object takes place when the
transformations ore in the same phase.
We should be inclined to express the same law by saying, for example,
that a sound is audible, when it consists of vibrations within the compass of
the auditory nerve; that an object is visible, when either directly or by
reflection, it sends forth luminiferous vibrations within the compass of the
retina and the optic nerve. Vibrations below or above that compass make no
impression at all, and the object remains invisible; as, for example, a kettle
of boiling water in a dark room, though the kettle is sending forth heat
vibrations closely akin to light.
So, when the vibrations of the object and those of the perceptive
power are in the same phase, the external manifestation of the object takes place.
There seems to be a further suggestion that the appearance of an
object in the 'present,' or its remaining hid in the 'past,' or 'future,' is
likewise a question of phase, and, just as the range of vibrations perceived
might be increased by the development of finer senses, so the perception of
things past, and things to come, may be easy from a higher point of view.
15. The paths of material things and of states of consciousness are
distinct, as is manifest from the fact that the same object may produce
different impressions in different minds.
Having shown that our bodily condition and circumstances depend on
Karma, while Karma depends on perception and will, the sage recognizes the fact
that from this may be drawn the false deduction that material things are in no
wise different from states of mind. The same thought has occurred, and still
occurs, to all philosophers; and, by various reasonings, they all come to the
same wise conclusion; that the material world is not made by the mood of any
human mind, but is rather the manifestation of the totality of invisible Being,
whether we call this Mahat, with the ancients, or Ether, with the moderns.
16. Nor do material objects defend upon a single mind, for how could
they remain objective to others, if that mind ceased to think of them?
This is but a further development of the thought of the preceding
Sutra, carrying on the thought that, while the universe is spiritual, yet its
material expression is ordered, consistent, ruled by law, not subject to the
whims or affirmations of a single mind. Unwelcome material things may be
escaped by spiritual growth, by rising to a realm above them, and not by
denying their existence on their own plane. So that our system is neither
materialistic, nor idealistic in the extreme sense, but rather intuitional and
spiritual, holding that matter is the manifestation of spirit as a whole, a
reflection or externalization of spirit, and, like spirit, everywhere obedient
to law. The path of liberation is not through denial of matter but through
denial of the wills of self, through obedience, and that aspiration which
builds the vesture of the spiritual man.
17. An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind
is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object.
The simplest manifestation of this is the matter of attention. Our
minds apprehend what they wish to apprehend; all else passes unnoticed, or, on
the other hand, we perceive what we resent, as, for example, the noise of a
passing train; while others, used to the sound, do not notice it at all.
But the deeper meaning is, that out of the vast totality of objects
ever present in the universe, the mind perceives only those which conform to
the hue of its Karma. The rest remain unseen, even though close at hand.
This spiritual law has been well expressed by Emerson:
'Through solidest eternal things the man finds his road as if they did
not subsist, and does not once suspect their being. As soon as he needs a new
object, suddenly he beholds it, and no longer attempts to pass through it, but
takes another way. When he has exhausted for the time the nourishment to be
drawn from any one person or thing, that object is withdrawn from his
observation, and though still in his immediate neighbourhood, he does not
suspect its presence. Nothing is dead. Men feign themselves dead, and endure
mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the
window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead, he
is very well alive: nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle; at times we
believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the names under which they
go.'
18. The movements of the psychic nature are perpetually objects of
perception, since the Spiritual Man, who is the lord of them, remains
unchanging.
Here is teaching of the utmost import, both for understanding and for
practice.
To the psychic nature belong all the ebb and flow of emotion, all
hoping and fearing, desire and hate: the things that make the multitude of men
and women deem themselves happy or miserable. To it also belong the measuring
and comparing, the doubt and questioning, which, for the same multitude, make
up mental life. So that there results the emotion-soaked personality, with its
dark and narrow view of life: the shivering, terror driven personality that is
life itself for all but all of mankind.
Yet the personality is not the true man, not the living soul at all,
but only a spectacle which the true man observes. Let us under stand this,
therefore, and draw ourselves up inwardly to the height of the Spiritual Man,
who, standing in the quiet light of the Eternal, looks down serene upon this
turmoil of the outer life.
One first masters the personality, the 'mind,' by thus looking down on
it from above, from within; by steadily watching its ebb and flow, as
objective, outward, and therefore not the real Self. This standing back is the
first step, detachment. The second, to maintain the vantage-ground thus gained,
is recollection.
19. The Mind is not self-luminous, since it can be seen as an object.
This is a further step toward overthrowing the tyranny of the 'mind':
the psychic nature of emotion and mental measuring. This psychic self, the
personality, claims to be absolute, asserting that life is for it and through
it; it seeks to impose on the whole being of man its narrow, materialistic,
faithless view of life and the universe; it would clip the wings of the soaring
Soul. But the Soul dethrones the tyrant, by perceiving and steadily affirming
that the psychic self is no true self at all, not self-luminous, but only an
object of observation, watched by the serene eyes of the Spiritual Man.
20. Nor could the Mind at the same time know itself and things
external to it.
The truth is that the 'mind' knows neither external things nor itself.
Its measuring and analyzing, its hoping and fearing, hating and desiring, never
give it a true measure of life, nor any sense of real values. Ceaselessly
active, it never really attains to knowledge; or, if we admit its knowledge, it
ever falls short of wisdom, which comes only through intuition, the vision of
the Spiritual Man.
Life cannot be known by the 'mind,' its secrets cannot be learned
through the 'mind.' The proof is, the ceaseless strife and contradiction of
opinion among those who trust in the mind. Much less can the 'mind' know
itself, the more so, because it is pervaded by the illusion that it truly
knows, truly is.
True knowledge of the 'mind' comes, first, when the Spiritual Man,
arising, stands detached, regarding the 'mind' from above, with quiet eyes, and
seeing it for the tangled web of psychic forces that it truly is. But the truth
is divined long before it is clearly seen, and then begins the long battle of
the 'mind,' against the Real, the 'mind' fighting doggedly, craftily, for its
supremacy.
21. If the Mind be thought of as seen by another more inward Mind,
then there would be an endless series of perceiving Minds, and a confusion of
memories.
One of the expedients by which the 'mind' seeks to deny and thwart the
Soul, when it feels that it is beginning to be circumvented and seen through,
is to assert that this seeing is the work of a part of itself, one part
observing the other, and thus leaving no need nor place for the Spiritual Man.
To this strategy the argument is opposed by our philosopher, that this
would be no true solution, but only a postponement of the solution. For we
should have to find yet another part of the mind to view the first observing
part, and then another to observe this, and so on, endlessly.
The true solution is, that the Spiritual Man looks down upon the
psychic nature, and observes it; when he views the psychic pictures gallery,
this is 'memory,' which would be a hopeless, inextricable confusion, if we
thought of one part of the 'mind,' with its memories, viewing another part,
with memories of its own.
The solution of the mystery lies not in the 'mind' but beyond it, in
the luminous life of the risen Lord, the Spiritual Man.
22. When the psychical nature takes on the form of the spiritual
intelligence, by reflecting it, then the Self becomes conscious of its own
spiritual intelligence.
We are considering a stage of spiritual life at which the psychical
nature has been cleansed and purified. Formerly, it reflected in its plastic
substance the images of the earthy; purified now, it reflects the image of the
heavenly, giving the spiritual intelligence a visible form. The Self, beholding
that visible form, in which its spiritual intelligence has, as it were, taken
palpable shape, thereby reaches self-recognition, self-comprehension. The Self
sees itself in this mirror, and thus becomes not only conscious, but
self-conscious. This is, from one point of view, the purpose of the whole
evolutionary process.
23. The psychic nature, taking on the colour of the Seer and of things
seen, leads to the perception of all objects.
In the unregenerate man, the psychic nature is saturated with images
of material things, of things seen, or heard, or tasted, or felt; and this web
of dynamic images forms the ordinary material and driving power of life. The
sensation of sweet things tasted clamours to be renewed, and drives the man
into effort to obtain its renewal; so he adds image to image, each dynamic and
importunate, piling up sin's intolerable burden.
Then comes regeneration, and the washing away of sin, through the
fiery, creative power of the Soul, which burns out the stains of the psychic
vesture, purifying it as gold is refined in the furnace. The suffering of
regeneration springs from this indispensable purifying.
Then the psychic vesture begins to take on the colour of the Soul, no
longer stained, but suffused with golden light; and the man red generate gleams
with the radiance of eternity. Thus the Spiritual Man puts on fair raiment; for
of this cleansing it is said: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
white as snow; though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool.
24. The psychic nature, which has been printed with mind-images of
innumerable material things, exists now for the Spiritual Man, building for
him.
The 'mind,' once the tyrant, is now the slave, recognized as outward,
separate, not Self, a well-trained instrument of the Spiritual Man.
For it is not ordained for the Spiritual Man that, finding his high
realm, he shall enter altogether there, and pass out of the vision of mankind.
It is true that he dwells in heaven, but he also dwells on earth. He has angels
and archangels, the hosts of the just made perfect, for his familiar friends,
but he has at the same time found a new kinship with the prone children of men,
who stumble and sin in the dark. Finding sinlessness, he finds also that the
world's sin and shame are his, not to share, but to atone; finding kinship with
angels, he likewise finds his part in the toil of angels, the toil for the
redemption of the world.
For this work, he, who now stands in the heavenly realm, needs his
instrument on earth; and this instrument he finds, ready to his hand, and
fitted and perfected by the very struggles he has waged against it, in the personality,
the 'mind,' of the personal man. This once tyrant is now his servant and
perfect ambassador, bearing witness, before men, of heavenly things and even in
this present world doing the will and working the works of the Father.
25. For him who discerns between the Mind and the Spiritual Man, there
comes perfect fruition of the longing after the real being of the Self.
How many times in the long struggle have the Soul's aspirations seemed
but a hopeless, impossible dream, a madman's counsel of perfection. Yet every
finest, most impossible aspiration shall be realized, and ten times more than
realized, once the long, arduous fight against the 'mind,' and the mind's
worldview is won. And then it will be seen that unfaith and despair were but
weapons of the 'mind,' to daunt the Soul, and put off the day when the neck of
the 'mind' shall be put under the foot of the Soul.
Have you aspired, well-nigh hopeless, after immortality? You shall be
paid by entering the immortality of God.
Have you aspired, in misery and pain, after consoling, healing love?
You shall be made a dispenser of the divine love of God Himself to weary souls.
Have you sought ardently, in your day of feebleness, after power? You
shall wield power immortal, infinite, with God working the works of God.
Have you, in lonely darkness, longed for companionship and
consolation? You shall have angels and archangels for your friends, and all the
immortal hosts of the Dawn.
These are the fruits of victory. Therefore overcome. These are the
prizes of regeneration. Therefore die to self, that you may rise again to God.
26. Thereafter, the whole personal being bends toward illumination,
toward Eternal Life.
This is part of the secret of the Soul, that salvation means, not
merely that a soul shall be cleansed and raised to heaven, but that the whole
realm of the natural powers shall be redeemed, building up, even in this
present world, the kingly figure of the Spiritual Man.
The traditions of the ages are full of his footsteps; majestic,
uncomprehended shadows, myths, demi-gods, fill the memories of all the nobler
peoples. But the time cometh, when he shall be known, no longer demi-god, nor
myth, nor shadow, but the ever-present Redeemer, working amid men for the life
and cleansing of all souls.
27. In the internals of the batik, other thoughts will arise, through
the impressions of the dynamic mind-images.
The battle is long and arduous. Let there be no mistake as to that. Go
not forth to this battle without counting the cost. Ages have gone to the
strengthening of the foe. Ages of conflict must be spent, ere the foe, wholly
conquered, becomes the servant, the Soul's minister to mankind.
And from these long past ages, in hours when the contest flags, will
come new foes, mind-born children springing up to fight for mind,
reinforcements coming from forgotten years, forgotten lives. For once this
conflict is begun, it can be ended only by sweeping victory, and unconditional,
unreserved surrender of the vanquished.
28. These are to be overcome as it was taught that hindrances should
be overcome.
These new enemies and fears are to be overcome by ceaselessly renewing
the fight, by a steadfast, dogged persistence, whether in victory or defeat,
which shall put the stubbornness of the rocks to shame. For the Soul is older
than all things, and invincible; it is of the very nature of the Soul to be
unconquerable.
Therefore fight on, undaunted; knowing that the spiritual will, once
awakened, shall, through the effort of the contest, come to its full strength;
that ground gained can be held permanently; that great as is the dead-weight of
the adversary, it is yet measurable, while the Warrior who fights for you, for
whom you fight, is, in might, immeasurable, invincible, everlasting.
29. He who, after he has attained, is wholly free from self, reaches
the essence of all that can be known, gathered together like a cloud. This is
the true spiritual consciousness.
It has been said that, at the beginning of the way, we must kill out
ambition, the great curse, the giant weed which grows as strongly in the heart
of the devoted disciple as in the man of desire. The remedy is sacrifice of
self, obedience, humility; that purity of heart which gives the vision of God.
Thereafter, he who has attained is wrapt about with the essence of all that can
be known, as with a cloud; he has that perfect illumination which is the true
spiritual consciousness. Through obedience to the will of God, he comes into
oneness of being with God; he is initiated into God's view of the universe,
seeing all life as God sees it.
30. Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil.
Such a one, it is said, is free from the bond of Karma, from the
burden of toil, from that debt to works which comes from works done in
self-love and desire. Free from self-will, he is free from sorrow, too, for
sorrow comes from the fight of self-will against the divine will, through the
correcting stress of the divine will, which seeks to counteract the evil
wrought by disobedience. When the conflict with the divine will ceases, then
sorrow ceases, and he who has grown into obedience, thereby enters into joy.
31. When all veils are rent, all stains washed away, his knowledge
becomes infinite; little remains for him to know.
The first veil is the delusion that thy soul is in some permanent way
separate from the great Soul, the divine Eternal. When that veil is rent, thou
shalt discern thy oneness with everlasting Life. The second veil is the
delusion of enduring separateness from thy other selves, whereas in truth the
soul that is in them is one with the soul that is in thee. The world's sin and
shame are thy sin and shame: its joy also.
These veils rent, thou shalt enter into knowledge of divine things and
human things. Little will remain unknown to thee.
32. Thereafter comes the completion of the series of transformations
of the three nature potencies, since their purpose is attained.
It is a part of the beauty and wisdom of the great Indian teachings,
the Vedanta and the Yoga alike, to hold that all life exists for the purposes
of Soul, for the making of the spiritual man. They teach that all nature is an
orderly process of evolution, leading up to this, designed for this end,
existing only for this: to bring forth and perfect the Spiritual Man. He is the
crown of evolution: at his coming, the goal of all development is attained.
33. The series of transformations is divided into moments. When the
series is completed, time gives place to duration.
There are two kinds of eternity, says the commentary: the eternity of
immortal life, which belongs to the Spirit, and the eternity of change, which
inheres in Nature, in all that is not Spirit. While we are content to live in
and for Nature, in the Circle of Necessity, Sansara, we doom ourselves to
perpetual change. That which is born must die, and that which dies must be
reborn. It is change evermore, a ceaseless series of transformations.
But the Spiritual Man enters a new order; for him, there is no longer
eternal change, but eternal Being. He has entered into the joy of his Lord.
This spiritual birth, which makes him heir of the Everlasting, sets a term to
change; it is the culmination, the crowning transformation, of the whole realm
of change.
34. Pure spiritual life is, therefore, the inverse resolution of the
potencies of Nature, which have emptied themselves of their value for the
Spiritual man; or it is the return of the power of pure Consciousness to its
essential form.
Here we have a splendid generalization, in which our wise philosopher
finally reconciles the naturalists and the idealists, expressing the crown and
end of his teaching, first in the terms of the naturalist, and then in the
terms of the idealist.
The birth and growth of the Spiritual Man, and his entry into his
immortal heritage, may be regarded, says our philosopher, either as the
culmination of the whole process of natural evolution and involution, where
'that which flowed from out the boundless deep, turns again home'; or it may be
looked at, as the Vedantins look at it, as the restoration of pure spiritual
Consciousness to its pristine and essential form. There is no discrepancy or
conflict between these two views, which are but two accounts of the same thing.
Therefore those who study the wise philosopher, be they naturalist or idealist,
have no excuse to linger over dialetic subtleties or disputes. These things are
lifted from their path, lest they should be tempted to delay over them, and
they are left facing the path itself, stretching upward and onward from their
feet to the everlasting hills, radiant with infinite Light.
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