Section 3

This book was used at your christening, and will be brought forth at your funeral.
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It is given to you for a plaything in your cradle and will be folded in your hands in your coffin. It is your Sacred Book — your Bible — your Bhagavat — your Ritual. It encases your prayers and your psalms. Alas ! it embodies your evil thoughts and your woes.
Each letter casts a shadow, and the bright est throws the blackest. It is illuminated with its own light, and the color of the glow varies with the turning of the pages. It is written in hieroglyphics which you alone can understand — and even you puzzle over the letters, when naught but the dictionary of objectivity can help.
Study the world, that you may find its final interpretation.
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PRIDE AND PHILOSOPHY.
It is not strange that pride is the usual vice of all young Philosophers. By young Philosophers I mean those just beginning the pursuit of a genuine system. The first result of ardent and earnest investiga tion is an increase of power, and with power comes pride. A consciousness of strength makes one teem with self-respect, or in other words an emotion which the vulgar call conceit.
To be a few inches higher than your fel low-men on the ladder, enables you to look down upon them, and alas ! to despise them. We condemn self-respect, pride, self- love and self-pity, because to respect your self is, to a great extent, to be satisfied; and to be satisfied in this sense of self-admira tion, is to check all further advancement along the line of consciousness.
A respect of self is simply another way
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of being proud of self, and this entire sen timent should be replaced by a something which puts the contemplation of self, in the petting, coddling, comforting way, entirely out of your thought.
Pursue a thing for its own sake — beauty — art — health — happiness, and in the pur suit after the ideal self-respect will be killed. Do not be alarmed, there is no danger of your going wrong in this; the object of your pursuit will save you from degrada tion. When you are on the chase, no one can hurt you by enticements or allurements. You will not stop to lie or to steal or to do vulgar acts. You have no time to call names or, in any manner, to lower your moral standard.
Other people will honor your concentra tion and the results produced by it. You have no need to contemplate yourself, or pay homage to your own soul.
Pride is an uncomfortable thing to have about one ; it pricks like a paper of pins ; it is easily knocked over, and it falls like lead, and in the overturning makes a noise and
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attracts everybody's attention. A haughty, self-respecting person is ever sensitive lest his pride shall be hurt, and challenges the world with his satisfied gaze ; which world, proceeds immediately upon the challenge to knock him down.
It is not in the least strange that the young Philosopher is proud, because an in creased sense of power makes one superior, and being strong, he takes delight in mani festing this consciousness. There are two reasons for this ; one is that he sees the littleness of his fellow-man as he never did before (this is right), and the other reason is that he is not yet himself sufficiently in love with the object of his pursuit (say truth) to rise above this enervating con sciousness of self (this is wrong). We find ourselves only in something outside, never in dwelling on self emotionally. To dwell on self in this way is to sap your own life. This has nothing to do with self-con templation intellectually, which is desir able. We prohibit emotional self-contem plation only.
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Pride is an emotion, a feeling ; self-respect explains itself in its name. It is a warming up of self to self, an admiration of self for self, a gloating over, a feeding upon self. This is one of the greatest evils.
When the young man came to Christ and informed him in a self-complacent way, that he had kept all the Commandments from his youth up, the Master requested him to sell all that he had and follow him ; mean ing, that in pursuit of the Ideal he should forget his own goodness.
Do not mistake us. Your final object is to find yourself, but you never can do it by self-admiration. As you never have seen your own face except in a mirror, you never can behold yourself except in another. When you gaze into the eyes of a friend you find a little image of yourself imbedded there. To find the beauty of the subject, you must gaze at the object.
Pore over self, look into self, analyze self, dissect self; but never shed one tear upon the soil of your own soul; if you do, some thing rank and poisonous will grow with
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roots so deep, that it will take your whole Unit of Force to pull it out.
The true Philosopher does not carry his pride with him long. Before he enters the narrow path he is stripped naked and his pride falls first. He is allowed nothing heavy about him, and pride is heavy; he has to run, for he is after something which eludes and evades him. His eye must be steadily fixed on the object or it will escape him ; and self-respect would be a fatal encum brance. He becomes so in earnest in view ing himself in the thing that he is after that he forgets himself altogether; this proves that one who would save his life must lose it in the life of another.
The first sorrow that comes to the young Philosopher is the fall of his pride; when it has been broken he becomes a servant ; and that to the very ones upon whom he for merly looked down. " He that is first shall be last." He stoops to conquer, and when he again holds up his head, it is for the pur pose of seeing better, rather than that of looking over the hats of people.
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The object of this Philosophy is to gain power; not that we may come down on others with crushing blows, but that we may give them a lift upward. You might stiffen your back till you walked like a heathen king, but as your strut becomes intensified your line of equipoise might be overlooked and your next position would be that of a fool in the dirt.
Save your energy for the race; you are supposed to be after something and very much in earnest. Other people will see you running and possibly they will start in too, just for the running's sake, and later on they may find an object to chase.
If you have a vestige of pride left, if your self-respect still lingers; if your self-love whimpers and whines, get rid of them all. They will block your way where ever you turn; and as long as you harbor these vices you will get no where. Your haughty looks will set others to laughing; and you will freeze yourself. Before you go farther strangle your pride, lest it get too heavy for you and throw you down.
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WHO ARE OUR CRANKS?
What are cranks ? Who are they ? These questions are easily answered. First let me say, that there are all degrees of cranks, from absolute to comparative ; that they range from a fool to a knave and from a king down to a peasant. Let me add also, that they are dangerous every one of them, from the highest to the lowest. A crank is an unbalanced person; by this we do not mean insane, but one whose consciousness is clouded; he wears a veil and does not see straight ; he is cross eyed and intrinsically evil.
A person may be ignorant and not be a crank ; he may see but a short distance but his vision will be correct as far as it goes . He will not have a mountain-top sweep, but he can make out a horse or a dog as truly
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as could'Lord Bacon. Ignorance and short sightedness do not mean crankism.
A crank has crooked sight ; no matter what he sees nor how far, everything is out of gear, distorted. To be seen properly even a small thing should be consistent with itself and to the one who sees. A crank's vision is out of focus; not only his physical vision, but his mental and psychical vision as well.
The mass of humanity have a vast deal of common sense. Selfishness develops this very early. The great body of mankind adjust themselves to their environment without knowing why. They avoid spectacles and steer clear of oculists. They have a sort of horse understanding which enables them to find a stable and fodder. Selfish ness is the cause of this, but it is a proper selfishness and of a different kind from that of the crank.
If the crank is not born an Egoist he very soon becomes one, for it is almost invariably the love of notoriety that leads him into eccentricities. He longs for some sort of
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fame, any sort. The idea of the love of truth for itself has never entered his head. His first ambition is to be looked up to. He begins by becoming odd, and thus attracts notice. There is so much of the fakir about him, that he grows more eccen tric as people stare. If he gets a following, he begins to believe in himself and finally concludes that he is inspired ; having no balance, but only love of fame, he does more and more absurd things until the world hisses him down.
His disciples become contaminated with his unholy magnetism, and become lesser cranks themselves, rushing with their erratic Master to destruction.
There are religious, scientific, artistic, scholastic, dogmatic cranks ; cranks of both sexes; cranks among the rich and the poor. They run after all sorts of absurdities which have no basis of reason. They like conceal ment and mystery; they hate the light of the sun and sense. Alas ! a vast proportion are women, whose little minds dabble right and left in mysterious cults, that they may
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have hobbies and fads. They bring greater cranks to their drawing rooms to lecture them on X pins nothing, and that they may drink in words as a toper swallows rum. They ask no questions other than, " Is it new?" " Is it strange ? " They never once inquire " On what is it based?" "Is it sound? " They abhor logic, evidence and facts ; they adore theories, dreams and asser tions. They love one who will state to them something in positive tones with divine authority. They delight in being hypno tized by fools more foolish than themselves. They glory in the Kingdom of Fooldom and long to dwell there forever.
Talk to them in plain Saxon, and they accuse you of being rough; present them a syllogism and they dub you as dry; preach to them plain facts, and they call you com mon ; give them experience and they banish you at once. They desire and promulgate hypotheses and theories; they stand with each foot on an assertion and shake their fists at reason.
You will find the crank on nearly every
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street of every city in America, to say noth ing of Europe and the Holy East. But the Arch Crank is rarer; and like the Chief Devil is slippery and evasive. He is around though, and he has one quality that the ordinary crank has not — wickedness; his very crankiness is abnormal self-interest and sin. Beware of the others, but very much of him ; he is horned and hoofed and clawed. He can hurt you with his head or his feet or his hands, even with his eyes. In fact, His Majesty the Prince of Evil, is a crank, if crookedness means anything.
You ask anxiously, " How shall we recog nize those who are truly clairvoyant and honest ? " By one simple rule — a common sense seeker after synthetic truth for truth's sake is never a crank. If he is in earnest, fame and notoriety are side issues. He is so serious that he forgets to pose; he is not sit ting for his photograph, he is engaged in living. Life is his object, not position; he may appear cranky at times, and exceed ingly absurd, but his motive, if he let you see it, will clear his name. The would-be
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Sage often seems like a fool, but to look the crank and to be one, are vastly different.
" Are there no honest cranks ? " you ask. Yes, a few. They are the great specialists, who have scarcely any power ^generaliza tion; they accomplish something in one particular line, but their vision is narrow ; they see straight ahead, but they cannot look out at the sides. They have a defect of vis ion which the doctors find hard to cure.
The all-round Sage has eyes peering to all points of the compass. Try to " evolute " eyes ; the more eyes you have, the less of a crank you will be.
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ONE DAY.
In the dark we dream of the dawn and youth — divine youth — starry-eyed. We pray for the morning — and the flash — a sky warm with the bud of passion — a form soft- limbed and strong. It comes — We have prayed. It comes — morning — youth.
We stand somewhere on a high place, and thrill with our blood — and the sunrise. The bud steals up on the sky like the promise of a fiery rose — the blood mounts to our cheeks like a prophesy of creation. But it is opening — the great flower. The sky quivers with red rapture — youth is fulfilled — passion is rising — our soul is on fire.
Alas ! We stare at the sun and he puts out our eyes — the new sun — the young sun — he stabs us with needles of light till pleasure is pain. And our passion — the
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flower of our youth — pierces us through and through till ecstacy weeps.
Alas ! We long for the noon — the climax — the zenith. We go in the dark and wait.
Up the high path of the sky the sun triumphantly marches — and we wait in the dark. The noon of our life — the climax — the zenith — when glitters the mind like steel in the battle — when the heart beats time to the fight — when our muscles are hard like a rock — our nerves tense like the string of a bow.
Alas ! We uncover our heads and go out at the stroke of the clock — High noon when the mass is said and the aged die — And we stare, but the sun more cruel than fate pierces us through with its darts. We are blind — struck by the light.
Alas ! Our blood had grown rich — we were ripe — our muscles and nerves were tense — our heart beat time to the march of our feet — We lifted our arm, our strong right arm, and hurled the lance — It was noon — it struck at the sun in the zenith
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above, and backward it flew to our heart — straight to our heart. The rose of our passion was dead — killed by our strong right arm.
We go in the dark and pray — pray for the eve and the setting sun — for the splendors that usher in night, when the stars of hope come out. We pray for the calm of our poisoned blood — for the cool of the slow heart beat — for the quiet of sleep — for comforting dreams.
Alas ! the sun goes down and we stare in its face — but our eyes are gone — eaten by worms — the worm of age. And we fall to the ground for our limbs are weak — they shake with years. And we look within but we cannot see, for our blood is cold and thick — our heart is ice, and beats with a noise like the cracking of snow.
Alas! Alas!! But wait !!! The GODS do face the sun. BE GODS.
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SECRET GRIEF.
You will understand it, and how impossi ble it is to seek sympathy anywhere. You would go to the rack ere you would tell it ; torture could never force it from you. You hide it and hide it deeper and deeper for fear some far-reaching eye will pierce to the secret. It is yours, emphatically yours. Your closest friend never suspects it, or if he does he cannot divine it. Shame would paint your face redder than roses if it were dreamed of; not the shame of guilt, but the shame of shyness. You know that no mor tal can comprehend it, no mortal but you ; even God must be puzzled about it you are sure. It is utterly inexplicable, and simply is as life is. It is something so foreign to what you would tolerate in another, that you wonder that you nurse it in yourself.