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 knowl- edge, 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 life-long accumu- lations 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 in- formation— of probing into the secrets of nature and adding one fact to an-
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other 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
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the one who has evolved the capacity; to know the higher joys of the uni- verse. One is a spiritual infant, with inherent but dormant faculties. The other is the spiritual adult, whose de- veloped faculties give him a capacity to live and enjoy life in a way that is as little comprehended by the or- dinary man of the world as the pleas- ures 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 liter- ature, and art treasures of exquisite beauty, while some master musician thrills all who listen with divinest har- monies ; but they simply have no exist- ence for the infant because he has not the capacity for a life so full and rich. Ability to receive, to respond to that
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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 impedi- ments 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.
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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 im- purity. He represents spiritual stag- nation. 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 animalculae and from its reeking sur- face 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 in- separable. The ocean is the antithesis of the stagnant pond. All that the ocean receives from the countless rivers it gives back to the skies. It is the
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eternal rebuke of both selfishness and inaction. Its ceaseless tides and cur- rents 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 gen- erous 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 occur-
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ring, 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 re- ceived as a matter of course and thought of as a personal possession that concerns nobody else. To the uni- verse every soul is important and one cannot be more important than an- other. Why, then, should anybody imagine that spiritual truth is for him rather than for the scores who can .re- ceive 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
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by the process of giving can the as- pirant 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 for- getfulness 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 Theoso- phy to anybody and everybody in sea- son and out. Judgment and discrim- ination must guide him. There are people to whom Theosophy can be ex- plained 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 ab- stract and shape their lives by its pre-
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cepts 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 civi- lization is, so most people must pass through much bitter experience before they begin to see the purpose of physical existence at all and to under- stand that there is such a thing as a life that is not centered in material things and material pursuits. But cer- tain it is that in every community there are a few people who can receive Theosophy, as Theosophy, as a phi- losophy of life, as the science of the soul, while almost everybody can re- ceive it indirectly ; that is, accept some- thing of its principles when they are not labeled "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
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give some light to others, for all are struggling with their personal prob- lems; 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 sugges- tion that will help. Suppose, for example, that a friend has a grievance against somebody and blindly and fool- ishly 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 per- sonal affront. We can always talk tolerance where there is narrowness, justice where there is oppression and mercy where there is cruelty. With- out dogmatically arguing our beliefs we can quietly let it be known that we are Theosophists, when it is appro- priate to the occasion, and modestly but unhesitatingly champion the truth
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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.