XV. The Future that Awaits Us... ... 262

Spiritual Life for the Man of the World.
A Lecture delivered in the City Temple, London, Thursday, October 10th, 1907.
(Reprinted from the "Christian Commonwealth.")
THE Rev. R. J. Campbell, M.A., who presided, said : In introducing the lecturer to a City Temple audience it is not my desire to indulge in personalities which might be em- banassing to her, but I feel it is due to ourselves to say that we recognise in Mrs. Besant one of the greatest moral forces of the day. (Applause.) She has well earned the respect now so freely accorded to her by the British pubhc, and by many thousands of thoughtful men and women all over the world. In time past she has had to sacrifice much for her fidelity to what she believed to be the truth. It is rare in such a case that strength of conviction is untainted by any trace of bitterness or intolerance. In pro- portion to the price that has had to be paid for one's convictions is the intensity and, sometimes shall we say, the dogmatism, and even intolerance, with which they are held ; but if there is one
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outstanding characteristic of Mrs. Besant's public life it is the entire absence of any trace either of bitterness or intolerance in her dealings with others. She looks for truth beneath all formal statements of belief ; she excommunicates no one ; and, therefore, as her acquaintance with life is so wide and deep, she has earned the position of a great spiritual teacher, and it is as such that we welcome her to the City Temple to-night.
Mrs. Besant (who was enthusiastically received) said : Before beginning that which I am to say to you to-night, will you permit me one word of preface both on my presence here and on the opinions which here I shall voice ? I thank your minister and I thank you for giving me the opportunity of speakmg here, but I am bound to say that the opinions I give must not be taken in any way to compromise the place in which I speak, or the minister who generally occupies this pulpit. We are all grateful to the minister of the City Temple - (loud applause) - for the courage with which he has given utterance to opinions which are in the air for educated and thoughtful people, but which only the few have the courage to express. (Renewed applause.) But when a truth is in the air the expression of that truth is one of the greatest services that man can render to man : For truth, you must
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remember, Is largely dependent upon the utter- ance of those who see it and are brave enough to speak it, and thousands welcome a truth that they know to be true, but have not the courage to speak it out while speech is still confined to the minority. It is therefore the more important that I may not be held in anything I say to compromise in any fashion the message which here is normally delivered. For my opinions are mine, as yours are yours, and in speaking here to-night I speak the truth as I see it, not desiring that any shall accept it who as yet see it not, and least of all desiring that any word of mine shall render heavier the burden or greater the difficulty which you (turning to Mr. Camp- bell), sir, have to face.
Now the complaint which we hear continually from thoughtful and earnest-minded people, a complaint against the circumstances of their life, is perhaps one of the most fatal. " If my circum- stances were different from what they are, how much more I could do ; if only I were not so surrounded by business, so tied by anxieties and cares, so occupied with the work of the world, then I would be able to live a more spiritual life." Now that is not true. No circumstances can ever make or mar the unfolding of the spiritual life in man. Spirituality does not depend upon
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the environment ; it depends upon the attitude of the man towards life, and I want If I can to-night to point out to you the way in which the world may be turned to the service of the spirit instead of submerging it, as I admit it often does. If a man does not understand the relation of the material and the spiritual ; if he separates the one from the other as incompatible and hostile ; if on the one side he puts the life of the world, and on the other the life of the spirit as rivals, as antagonists, as enemies, the one of the other, then the pressing nature of worldly occu- pations, the powerful shocks of the material environment, the constant luring of physical temptation, and the occupying of the brain by physical cares - these things are apt to make the life of the spirit unreal. They seem the only reality, and we have to find some alchem)% some magic, by which the life of the world shall be seen to be the unreal, and the life of the spirit the only reality. If we can do that, then the reality will express itself through the life of the world, and that life will become its means of expression, and not a bandage round its eyes, a gag which stops the breath. That is what we are to seek for to-night.
Now, you know how often In the past this question, whether a man can lead a spiritual
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life In the world, has been answered in the negative. In every land, in every religion, in every age of the world's history, when the question, has been asked, the answer has been - No, the man of the world cannot lead a spiritual life. That answer comes from the deserts of Egypt, the jungles of India, the monastery and the nunnery in Roman Catholic countries, in every land and place where man has sought to find out God by shrinking from the company of men ; and if for the knowledge of God and the leading of the spiritual life it be necessary to fly from the haunts of men, then that life for the most of us is impossible, for we are bound by circumstance that we cannot break to live the life of the world and to accommodate ourselves to its conditions. I am going to submit to you that that idea is based on a fundamental error, but that it is largely fostered in our modern life, not so much so in this country by thinking of secluded life in jungle or desert, in cave or monastery, but rather by thinking that the religious and the secular must be kept apart. That is a tendency here because of the modern way of separating what is called the sacred from that which is called the profane. People here speak of Sunday as the Lord's Day, as though every day were not
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His equally, and He should be served on il. (Applause.) To call one day the Lord's Day is to deny that same lordship to every other day in the week, and so make six parts of the life outside the spiritual, v^hile only one remams recognised as dedicated to the Spirit. And so the common talk of men - sacred history and profane history, religious education and secular education - all these phrases that are so com- monly used, they hypnotise the public mind into a false view^ of the Spirit and the w^orld. The right way is to say that the Spirit is the life, the world the form, and the form must be the expression of the life, otherwise you have a corpse devoid of life, and you have an un- embodied life, separated from all means of effective action ; and 1 want to put broadly and strongly the very foundation of what I beheve to be all right and sane thinking in this matter. The world is the thought of God, the expres- sion of the Divine mind. All useful activities are forms of Divine activity. The wheels of the world are turned by God, and men are only His hands which touch the rim of the wheel. All work done in the world is God's work, or none is His at all. Everything that serves man and helps on the activities of the world is rightly seen when seen as a Divme
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activity, and wrongly seen when called secular or profane. The merchant in his counting- house, the shopman behind his counter, the doctor in the hospital, is quite as much engaged in a Divine activity as any preacher in his church, (Applause.) Until that is realised the world is vulgarised, and until we can see one life everywhere, and all things rooted in that life, until then it is we who are hopelessly profane in attitude, we who are blind to the beatific vision, which is the sight of the one life in everything, and all things as expressions of that life.
Now, if that be true, if there is only one hfe in which you and I are partakers, one creative thought by which the worlds were formed and are maintained, then, however mighty may be the unexpressed Divine exist- ence - though it be true as it is written in an ancient Indian scripture, " I established this universe with one fragment of Myself, and 1 remain " - however true it may be that Divinity transcends the manifestation thereof, none the less the manifestation is still Divine ; and by understanding that we touch the feet of God. If it be true that He is everywhere and in everything, then He is as much in the market- place as in the desert, as much in the counting-
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house as In the jungle, as easily found in the street of the crowded city as in the solitude of the mountain peak. I do not mean that it is not easier for you and for me to realise the Divine greatness in the splendour, say, of snow- clad mountains, the beauty of some pine forest, the depth of some marvellous secret valley where Nature speaks in a voice that may be heard ; but I do mean that although we hear more clearly there it is because we are deaf, and not because the Divine voice does not speak. Ours the weakness that the rush and the bustle of hfe in the city makes us deaf to the voice that is ever speakmg ; and if we were stronger, if our ears were keener, if we were more spiritual, then we could find the Divine life as readily in the rush of Holborn Viaduct as in the fairest scene that Nature has ever painted in the solitude of the mountain or the magic of the midnight sky. (Applause.) That is the first thing to realise - that we do not find because our eyes are blinded.
But now let us see what are the conditions by which the man of the world may lead the spiritual life, for I admit there are conditions. Have you ever asked yourselves why around you objects that attract you are found on every side, things you want to possess ? Your desires
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answer to the outer beauty, the attractiveness, of the endless objects that are scattered over the world. H they were not meant to attract they would not be there ; if they were really hindrances, why should they have been put in our path ? Just for the same reasons as when a mother wants to coax her child into the exertion that will induce it to walk she dangles before its eyes, a little out of reach, some dazzling toy, some tinsel attraction, and the child's eyes are gained by the brilliant object, and the child wants to grasp the thing just out of its reach. He tries to get on his feet, falls, and rises again, endeavours to walk, struggles to reach, and the value of the attraction is not in the tinsel that presently the child grasps, crushes, and throws away, wanting something more, but in the stimulus to the life within, which makes him endeavour to move in order to gain the glittering prize that he despises when he has won it. And the great mother-heart by which we are trained is ever dangling in front of us some attractive object, some prize for the child-spirit, turning outwards the powers that live within ; and in order to induce exertion, in order to win to the effort by which alone those inward-turned powers will turn outwards mto manifestation, we are bribed and coaxed and
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induced to make efforts by the endless toys of life scattered on every side. We struggle, we endeavour to grasp ; at last we do grasp and hold ; after a short time the brilliant apple turns to ashes, as in Milton's fable, and the prize that seemed so valuable loses all its attractiveness, becomes worthless, and some- thing else is desired. In that way we grow. The result is m ourselves ; some power has been brought out, some faculty has been developed, some inner strength has become a manifested power, some hidden capacity has become faculty m action. That is the object of the Divine teacher ; the toy is thrown aside when the result of the exertion to gain it has been achieved. And so we pass from one point to another, so we pass from one stage of evolution to the next ; and although until you believe in the great fact of continual re-birth and ever- continuing experience, you will not realise to the full the beauty and the splendour of the Divine plan, still, even in one brief life you know you gain by your struggle, and not by your accomplishment, and the reward of the struggle is m the power that you possess, or, in the great words of Edward Carpenter, narrowed down if you do not believe in re-incarnation, " Every pain that I suffered in one body was a
Spiritual Life for the Man of the World. ] 1
power that I wielded in the next." And even in one life you can see it, even in one brief span from the cradle to the grave you can trace the working of the law. You grow, not by what you gain of outer fruit, but by the inner unfold- ing necessary for your success in the struggle.
Now, if long natural experience has made wise the man, these objects lose their power to attract, and the first tendency then is to cease from effort ; but that would mean stagnation. When the objects of the world are becoming a little less valuable than they were, then is the time to look for some new motive, and the motive to action for the spiritual life is, first, to perform action because it is duty, and not in order to gain the personal reward that it may bring. Let me take the case of a man of the world and a spiritual man, and see what it needs to turn one mto the other. I take one in which you will not question that he is a man of the world, a man who is making some enormous fortune, who puts before himself as the one object of life money, to be rich. It is a common thing. Now, for a moment, pause on the life of the man who has determined to be rich. Every- thing is subordinated to that one aim. He must be master of his body, for if that body is his master he will waste with every week and month
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the money that he has gathered by struggle ; he will waste in luxury for the pleasing of the body the money that he ought to grip, m order that he may win more. And so the first thing that a man must do is to master the body, to teach it to endure hardness, to learn to bear frugality, to learn to bear hardship even ; not to think whether he wants to sleep, if by travelling all night a contract can be gained ; not to stop to ask whether he shall rest if, by going to some party at midnight, he can make a friend who will enable him to gain more money by his influence. Over and over again in the struggle for gold the man must be master of this outer body that he wears, until it has no voice m determining his line of activity - it yields itself obedient servant to the dominant will, to the compelling brain. That is the first thing he learns - conquest of the body.
Then he learns concentration of mind. If he is not concentrated his rivals will beat him in the struggle of the market-place. If his mind wanders about here, there, and everywhere, undecided, one day trying one plan, and another day another plan, without perseverance, without deliberate continuing labour, that man will fail. The goal he desires teaches him to concentrate his mind ; he brings it to one point ; he holds
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It there as long as he needs it ; he is steady in his persevering mental effort, and his mind grows stronger and stronger, keener and keener, more and more under his control. He has not only learned to control his body, but to control his mind. Has he gained anything more ? Yes, a strong will ; only the strong will can suceeed m such a struggle. The soul grows mighty in the attempt to achieve. Presently that man, with his mastered body, his well-controlled mind, his powerful will, gains his objects and grasps his gold. And then ? Then he finds out that, after all, he cannot do so very much with it to make happiness for himself ; that he has only got one body to clothe, one mouth to feed ; that he cannot multiply his wants with the enormous supply that he can gain, and that, after all, his happiness-gaining power is very limited. His gold becomes a burden rather than a joy, the first delight of the achievement of his object palls, and he becomes satiated with possession, until, in many a case, he can do nothing but, by mere habit, roll and roll and roll up increasing piles of useless gold. It becomes a nightmare rather than a delight ; it crushes the man who won it.
Now, what will make that man a spiritual man ? A change of his object that is all.
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Let that man in this or any other life awaken to the valuelessness of the gold that he has heaped together ; let him see the beauty of human service ; let him catch a ghmpse of the splendour of the Divine order ; let him realise that all that life is worth is to give it as part of the great life by which the worlds are main- tained, and the power he has gained over body, over mind, over will, will make that man a giant in the spiritual world. He does not need to change those qualities, but to get rid of the selfishness, to get rid of the indifference to human pain, to get rid of the recklessness with which he crushed his brother, in order that he might climb into wealth on the starvation of myriads. He must change his ideal from sel- fishness to service ; from strength used for crushing to strength used for uplifting ; and in the giant of the money market you will have the spiritual man ; his life is concentrated to humanity, and he owns only to serve and to help. (Applause.) Difference of object, dif- ference of motive, not difference of the outer life, on that does it depend whether a man is of the world worldly or of the spirit spiritual.
I used just now the word duty, for that is the first step. Any one of you, whatever may be your work in the world, it matters not, if
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you begin to do it not because It brings you a livelihood - though there is nothing to be ashamed of in its bringing you the power to live here if you begin to do it slowly, gradually, more and more because it ought to be done, and not because you want to gain somethmg for yourself, then you are taking the first step towards the spiritual life, you are changing your motive ; all the activities of your day will have a new object. Duty must be done ; the wheels of the world must be kept turning. Men and women must be fed along the various lines of trade and commerce ; the sick must be healed ; the ignorant must be taught ; justice must be sought as between the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor ; and, looking at it thus, the tradesman, the merchant, the doctor, the lawyer, the teacher may all take a new view of life, and they may say : This activity with which I am engaged is part of the great working of the world which is Divine. I am in it to do it, and my duty lies in the perfect performance of my task. I will teach, or heal, or argue, or trade, or enter into commercial relations of all kinds, not for the mere money that it brings, or the power that it yields, but in order that the great work of the world may be worthily carried on, and that work may be done by me as
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servant of a will greater than my own, instead of for my own personal gain and profit.
That is the first step, and there is not one of you that cannot take it. You may do your business just the same, but you carry a new spirit with you into it ; you do it because it is your work in the world, as a servant does a task for his master because he is bidden to do it, and his loyalty makes him do it well. Then every adding up of a number of figures in a ledger, every selling of an article in a shop would be done with this sublime ideal behind it : "I do it as a part of the world's work, and this is the duty that falls to my lot to do," and would be taken as coming directly from the great Will by which the worlds move, as your share of the Divine activity, your part of the universal work ; and the mightiest archangel, the greatest of the shining ones, can do nothing more than his share of carrying out the Divine will. And George Herbert wrote truly that the one who sweeps a room as to the glory of God makes that and the action fine. That is spiritual life where all is done for duty, for the larger instead of for the smaller self. (Applause.) And, mind, it is not always easy. No shuffling, no leaving of a task undone, because the Master's eve will not be there, for our Master's
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eye Is everywhere, and never sleeping. No scamping of work, for that is not to be one of the Divine artificers, but only an ignorant and clumsy worker. Art is only doing what you do perfectly, and God is always an artist. There is nothing, however small, no animal that only the microscope enables you to see, that is not perfect in its beauty, and the more closely you examine the more exquisite does it become. Why, those minute diatoms that you can only see by the microscope, every minute shell is sculptured with patterns geometrically perfect - for whom ? For the satisfaction of that sense of perfection which is one of the Divine ele- ments in God and man alike. Not what you do, but how you do it, whether it be perfectly wrought to the utmost limit of your ability ; that is the test of a man's character, and by the work you can know the character of the worker. (Applause.)
Now that seems a small thing when you bring it down to your own house, shop, office. Taken one by one, so small ; but suppose everyone did it, how would the face of the world then appear ? No scamped work, no unreliable products on the market, nothing adulterated, nothing that was not what it pretended to be, the face value and the real value always identical, every house
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perfectly built, every drain perfectly laid, every- thing done as w^ell as the skill and strength of man can do it. Why, a world like that seems a fairy tale, an impossible Utopia, but that would be the result if every individual man did his duty as perfectly as his powers permitted. And that is the first step towards the spiritual life. It is not outside your reach ; it is close to everyone of you.
But that is not all ; there is a higher stage of the spiritual life than that. It is much to feel your- self a co-worker with the Divine m the world, much to make your work great by knitting it to the universal work throughout this mighty system of worlds and universes ; much, too, as Emerson said, to hitch your wagon on to a star, instead of some miserable post by the wayside. But even that is not the only thing within your power, even that is not the most splendid to which you can attain. For there is one thing greater even than duty, and that is when all action is done as sacrifice. Now, what does that mean ? There would be no world, no you, no I, if there had not been a primary sacrifice by which a fragment of the Divine thought sheathed itself in matter, limited itself in order that you and I might become self-consciously Divine. There is a profound truth in that great Christian
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teaching of a Lamb slain - when ? On Calvary ? No, "from the foundation of the world." That is the great truth of sacrifice. No Divine sacri- fice, no universe. No Divine self-Iimilations, none of the worlds which fill the realms of space. It is all a sacrifice, the sacrifice of love that limits itself that others may gain self-conscious being and rejoice in the perfection of their own ultimate Divinity. And inasmuch as the life of the world is based on sacrifice, all true life is also sacrificial ; and when every action is done as sacrifice then the man becomes the perfect, spiritual man. Now that is hard. The first stage is not so difficult. We may give away largely ; we may make our lives useful ; but how difficult it is - our lives being made useful, and wrapped up in some useful work - to be able to see that work shivered into pieces, and look on its ruins with calm content. That is one of the things that is meant by sacrifice - that you may throw the whole of your life into some good work, the whole of your energy into some great scheme, you may toil and build and plan and shape, and you may nourish your own begotten scheme as a mother may cherish the child of her womb, and presently it falls to pieces round you. It fails, it does not succeed ; it breaks, it does not grow ; it dies, it does not live. Can you be
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content with such a result ? Years of labour, years of thought, years of sacrifice, and see everything crumble into dust, and nothing remain? If not, then you are working for self, and not as part of the Divine activity ; and, however gilded over with love of others your scheme may have been, it was your work and not God's work, and therefore you have suffered in the breaking. For if it were really His and not yours ; if it were a sacrifice and not your own possession, you would know that all that is good in it must inevitably go into the forces of good in the world, and that if He did not want the form you builded you would rather it were broken, and the life that cannot die go into other forms which fit better with the Divine plan, and work into the great scheme of evolution. (Applause.)
Let me put it another way, and you will see exactly what I mean, less abstractly perhaps. Take an army, an army awaiting attack from some enemy greater, stronger than itself. The commander-in-chief maps out his scheme of battle, places one regiment m one spot and one regiment in another, makes one great plan that includes the whole, and the day of battle dawns. From the side of the general goes a galloping messenger, and he sends word to some young captain in one part of the field,
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" Go, attack that fort that lies in front of you, capture it, and hold it until word comes to leave." And the young captain, with his little band of young men behind him, looks at the fort in front, and knows he cannot take it, sees that failure is inevitable, knows that it means mutilation and death to the men under his command nay, he knows that if he carries out the order to the last, not one man of that little band may see to-morrow's sun, but every one will be swept away in the death-hail that will come upon them as they struggle up the hill to the impregnable fort at the top. He sees it all ; does he hesitate ? If he does he is traitor, dishonoured, craven. He calls his men together. *' Orders have come to take the fort ! " They charge up at it. They are decimated. Again they charge, and again they leave a tenth of their number on the slope. Again, and again, and again they charge, until no man is left there to stand and charge again. Meanwhile, on another side of the field pro- gress has been made with the general's plan ; meanwhile the attention of the enemy has been occupied by this handful of men who go cheer- fully to death, and the plan has developed ; for while the enemy were watching the forlorn hope the plan of their comrades has been
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carried out on the other side, and in the long run, when the sun is setting, victory belongs to the army, although those men lie spread dead and dying on the slope. Have they failed ? It looks hke failure to he there dying and dead ; surely the men have failed. Ah ! when the story of that battle is written, when a grateful nation raises a monument to the memory of the conquerors of that battle, high on that monu- ment will be graven in imperishable gold the names of the men who died and made victory possible for their comrades by accepting defeat for themselves. (Loud applause.)
You read my parable. There is no failure where the commander-in-chief is the Divine architect of the universe, no failure, but in- evitable success ; and shall it not be a pride to anyone who is called to sacrifice in order that the plan may be carried out ? And there is no failure, for victory is ever on the Divine side. What matters it if you and I look like failures ; what matters it if our petty plans crumble to pieces in our hands ; what matters it if our schemes of a moment are found to be useless and are thrown aside ? The life we have thrown into them, the devotion with which we planned them, the strength with which we strove to carry them out, the sacrifice with which we offered them to
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the success of the mighty whole, that enrolled us as sacrificial workers with the Deity, and no glory is greater than the glory of the personal failure which ensures universal success. (Applause.) That is only for the strong. I grant it. That is only for the heroes. It is their work and their delight. But even to be able to see the beauty of it is to bring some of the beauty into every one of our lives. For to see a thing to be noble is to begin to incarnate that nobility in your life, and the mere recognition of the splendour of an ideal is the first step towards becoming transformed mto its image.
Now suppose that you and I can shape our lives on lines such as these which inadequately I have tried to sketch, we shall become the spiritual man living in the life of the world, making the world slowly after the fashion of the Divine ideal, and making it more and more the perfectly manifested Divine thought. That is the central idea then which will transform the man of the world into the spiritual man, and in the world it can best be performed. The life of the jungle, for those who know the many lives of men, is never the last life of a saviour of his race. Sometimes such a life will be one of the many lives through which he goes to gather universal experience ; sometimes
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a time of gathering strength together and accu- mulating the power that hereafter is to be used ; but the hfe of the Christs of the race is the life in the world, and not the life in the jungle. Though we may profitably go some- times into seclusion, the manifested God walks in the haunts of men. For only there is the great work to be done, there the trials to be faced, there the powers to be opened up. When all our powers are brought out, when we are all of us Christs, ah ! then we can go out of the outer life of the world to become part of its inner life which shapes and moulds the outer activity ; but those who are only growing to that stature must grow by the law of growth, and that is the law of experience. But only the perfect may pass behind the veil and thence send out the spiritual powers un- folded in the life of the world.
And so it seems to me there is not one of us who may not begin to lead the truly spiritual life, and the world will be the better for the living, while the man will unfold the more rapidly for his effort. For every one of us, if we only think of it, each one is at work to carve his own life into a perfect image, the image of the Divine manifest in man. It is not that the Divine is not withm you ; were it not so, how
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should you bring it forth ? The ideal comes before the manifestation, the thought creates the form, and in every one of you there is sleeping, as it were, the Divine image, and your work is to make that image manifest, and then you are the spiritual man. Come with me to the studio of some great sculptor, not a mere marble- chipper, but one of those geniuses who show the marble living, and the ideal in spotless form. How does that man work ? Do you think he is carving a statue out of the marble ? He is doing nothing of the kind. He is setting free a statue within the marble, and cutting away the superincumbent, useless marble that hides from the eyes of man the beauty of the ideal that he sees. (Applause.) That is the sculp- tor of genius ; in the rough block, which is all that you and I can see with our poor eyes, he sees the perfect statue imprisoned within the stone, and with every blow of mallet, and with every deft touch of chisel, he brings that prisoner nearer to freedom, his ideal nearer to manifestation. And so with you and me : we are rough blocks of marble as we live here in the studio of the world, rough, unhewn, so many of us, and the divinity within us is hidden, as the statue within the block. And you and I are sculptors, and by our life that statue is to be
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made manifest, that imprisoned beauty is to be set free, and with the mallet of will, the chisel of thought, we must cut away all this superin- cumbent, useless stone that hides the living divinity within us, hides its unmanifested glory from the sight of men. Sculptors everyone of you, shaping out what you shall inevitably be in years, m centuries, to come, and the more skil- fully, with the more knowledge, with the stronger will, the more powerfully you can use your mallet and your chisel, the swifter will come the day of liberation, the nearer the manifestation of the work. And so, wherever you may be, in whatever workshop of this great world you may find yourselves at labour, keep ever in your heart the ideal that you fain would realise. Feel the presence of the imprisoned Divinity that you have the mighty privilege, and you alone, of liberating ; and take in hand your tools, cut away the worthless stone, liberate the splendid statue, and then you shall know your- self self-consciously as that which you really are, men in the image of God. (Loud applause, during which Mrs. Besant resumed her seat, after having spoken without notes for an hour.) Mr. Campbell, in expressing to Mrs. Besant the sense of obligation to her for her lecture, said he did not know that he had ever listened
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to a more magnificent oratorical effort within those walls. Bui that was a comparatively small matter - what of the truth itself ? They had been hstenmg to the utterances of a great preacher, and what had been said carried con- viction with it. So far from the minister or the officers of the church being m any way com- promised by Mrs. Besant's presence in the pulpit he hoped she would not feel compromised by her presence in the pulpit. " The fact is that we al the City Temple have learned to disregard these things ; it is no use troubling about what compromises you or what does not. Speaking for myself, I can say I am only proud to have had such a great preacher enunciating great truths standing side by side with me in this historic pulpit, and I want to assure Mrs. Besant on your behalf that she will be a welcome guest at any future time when her busy life permits her to revisit the City Temple." (Loud applause.)
Mrs. Besant : Friends, when a person has something to say, or thinks that she has, for a number of people to listen to the saying is always the greatest of kindnesses, and I always think that m a question of speaker and audience the vote of thanks should be given by the speaker to the hearers, and not by the hearers to the
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28 The Spiritual Life.
speaker. Let me, however, in all seriousness say to you that I believe that the more a plat- form can be broad and all-inclusive, the more serviceable it is to human w^elfare. (Applause.) While I congratulate myself on the invitation that brought me here, I congratulate you on havmg a pastor and officers v^^ho are wilhng to throw this pulpit open to all who are truly m earnest, and who they believe have somethmg to say which may be of value to all. A broad platform is a public blessing, and your City Temple is a broad platform.
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life.
r* Theosophical T^ev/eu'," JHCay and June, 1899.)
EVERY one who sets himself in earnest to the living of the Inner Life encounters certain obstacles at the very beginning of the pathway thereto, obstacles which repeat them- selves in the experience of each, having their basis in the common nature of men. To each wayfarer they seem new and peculiar to himself, and hence give rise to a feeling of personal dis- couragement which undermines the strength needed for their surmounting. If it were under- stood that they form part of the common experience of aspirants, that they are always encountered and constantly over-climbed, it may be that some cheer would be brought to the cast-down neophyte by the knowledge. The grasp of a hand in the darkness, the sound of a voice that says : " Fellow-traveller, I have trodden where you tread and the road is prac- ticable " - these things bring help in the night-
30 The Spiritual Life.
time, and such a help-bringer this article would fain be.
One of these difficulties was put to me some time ago by a friend and fellow- wayfarer m connection with some counsel given as to the purification of the body. Me did not in any way traverse the statement made, but said with much truth and insight that for most of us the difficulty lay more with the Inner Man than with his instruments ; that for the most of us the bodies we had were quite sufficiently good, or, at the worst, needed a little tuning, but that there was a desperate need for the improvement of the man himself. For the lack of sweet music, the musician was more to blame than his instrument, and if he could be reached and improved his instrument might pass muster. It was capable of yielding much better tones than those produced from it at present, but those tones depended on the fingers that pressed the keys. Said my friend pithily and somewhat pathetically : " I can make my body do what 1 want ; the difficulty is that / do not want."
Here is a difficulty that every serious aspirant feels. The improving of the man himself is the chief thing that is needed, and the obstacle of his weakness, his lack of will and of tenacity of purpose, is a far more obstructive one than can
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 31
be placed in our way by the body. There are many methods known to all of us by which we can build up bodies of a better type if we want to do so, but it is the " wanting" in which we are deficient. We have the knowledge, we recognise the expediency of puttmg it mto practice, but the impulse to do so is lackmg. Our root-difficulty lies in our inner nature ; it is inert, the wish to move is absent ; it is not that the external obstacles are insurmountable, but that the man himself lies supine and has no mind to climb over them. This experience is being continually repeated by us ; there seems to be a want of attractiveness in our ideal ; it fails to draw us ; we do not wish to realise it, even though we may have intellectually decided that its realisation is desirable, it stands before us like food before a man who is not hungry ; it is certainly very good food and he may be glad of it to-morrow, but just now he has no craving for it, and prefers to lie basking in the sunshine rather than to get up and take possession of it.
The problem resolves itself into two ques- tions : Why do I not want that which I see, as a rational being, is desirable, productive of happiness ? What can i do to make myself want that which i know to be best for myself and for the world ? The spiritual teacher who
32 The Spiritual Life.
could answer these questions effectively would do a far greater service to many than one who IS only reiterating constantly the abstract desirabihty of ideals that we all acknowledge, and the Imperative nature of obligations that we all admit - and disregard. The machine is here, not wholly ill-made ; who can place his finger on the lever, and make it go ?
The first question must be answered by such an analysis of self-consciousness as may explain this puzzling duality, the not desiring that which we yet see to be desirable. We are wont to say that self-consciousness is a unit, and yet, when we turn our attention inwards, we see a bewildering multiplicity of " I's," and are stunned by the clamour of opposing voices, all coming apparently from ourselves. Now consciousness - and self - consciousness is only consciousness drawn into a definite centre which receives and sends out - is a unit, and if it appears in the outer world as many, it is not because it has lost its unity, but because it pre- sents Itself there through different media. We speak glibly of the vehicles of consciousness, but perhaps do not always bear in mind what is implied in the phrase. If a current from a galvanic battery be led through a series of several different materials, its appearance in the
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 33
outer world will vary with each wire. In a platinum wire it may appear as light, in an iron one as heat, round a bar of soft iron as mag- netic energy, led into a solution as a power that decomposes and recombines. One single energy is present, yet many modes of it appear, for the manifestation of life is always con- ditioned by its forms, and as consciousness works in the causal, mental, astral or physical body, the resulting " I " presents very different characteristics. According to the vehicle which, for the time being, it is vitalising, so will be the conscious " I." If it is working in the astral body it will be the " I " of the senses ; if in the mental, it will be the " I " of the intel- lect. By illusion, blinded by the material that enwraps it, it identifies itself with the craving of the senses, the reasoning of the intellect, and cries, " I want," " I think." The nature which is developing the germs of bliss and knowledge is the eternal Man, and is the root of sensations and thoughts ; but these sensations and thoughts themselves are only the transitory activities in his outer bodies, set up by the contact of his life with the outer life, of the Self with the not-Self. He makes temporary centres for his life in one or other of these bodies, lured by the touches from without that awaken his
34 The Spiritual Life.
activity, and working in these he identifies him- self with them. As his evolution proceeds, as he himself develops, he gradually discovers that these physical, astral, mental centres are his instruments, not himself ; he sees them as parts of the " not-Self " that he has temporarily attracted into union with himself - as he might take up a pen or a chisel ; he draws himself away from them, recognising and using them as the tools they are ; knows himself to be life - not form, bliss - not desire, knowledge - not thought ; and then first is conscious of unity, then alone finds peace. While the conscious- ness identifies itself with forms, it appears to be multiple ; when it identifies itself as life it stands forth as one.
The next important fact for us is that, as H.P.B. pointed out, consciousness, at the pre- sent stage of evolution, has its centre normally in the astral body. Consciousness learns to know by its capacity of sensation, the sensation which belongs to the astral body. We sensate ; that is, we recognise contact with something which IS not ourselves, something which arouses in us pleasure or pain, or the neutral point between. This life of sensation is the greater part of the life of the majority. For those below the average, this life of sensation is the
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 35
whole life. For a few advanced beings this life of sensation is transcended. The vast majority occupy the various stages which stretch between this life of sensation and that which has transcended such sensation : those of mixed sensation and emotion and thought in diverse proportions, and of emotion and thought in diverse proportions. In the life that is wholly of sensation there is no multiplicity of " 1 s,' and therefore no conflict ; in the life that has transcended sensation there is an Inner Ruler, Immortal, and there is no conflict ; but in all the ranges between there are manifold " I's " and among them conflict.
Let us consider this life of sensation as found in the savage of low development. There is an " I," passionate, craving, fierce, grasping, when aroused to activity. But there is no conflict, save with the world outside his physical body. With that he may war, but inner war he knows not. He does what he wants, without questionings beforehand or re- morse afterwards ; the actions of the body follow the promptings of desire, and the mind does not challenge, nor criticise, nor condemn. It merely pictures and records, storing up ma- terials for future elaboration. Its evolution is forwarded by the demands made upon it by the
36 The Spiritual Life.
" I " of sensations to exert its energies for the gratification of that imperious " I." It is driven into activity by these promptings of desire, and begins to work on its store of observations and remembrances, thus evolving a little reasoning faculty and planning beforehand for the gratifi- cation of its master. In this way it develops intelligence, but the intelligence is wholly sub- ordinated to desire, moves under its orders, is the slave of passion. It shows no separate in- dividuality, but is merely the willing tool of the tyrannous desire-" I."
Contest only begins when, after a long series of experiences, the Eternal Man has developed sufficient mind to review and balance up, during his life in the lower mental world between death and birth, the results of his earthly activities. He then marks off certain experiences as re- sulting in more pain than pleasure, and comes to the conclusion that he will do well to avoid their repetition ; he regards them with repulsion and engraves that repulsion on his mental tablets, while he similarly engraves attraction as regards other experiences that have resulted in more pleasure than pain. When he returns to earth, he brings this record with him, as an inner tendency of his mind, and when the desire-" I " rushes towards an attractive object, recom-
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 37
mencing a course of experiences that have led to suffering, he interposes a feeble protest, and another " 1 " consciousness working as mind - makes itself felt and heard as regarding these experiences with repulsion, and objecting to being dragged through them. The protest is so weak and the desire so strong that we can scarcely speak of a contest ; the desire-" I," long enthroned, rushes over the weakly-pro- testing rebel, but v/hen the pleasure is over and the painful results follow, the ignored rebel lifts his voice again in a querulous " I told you so," and this is the first sting of remorse. As life succeeds life the mind asserts itself more and more, and the contest between the desire-" I " and the thought-" I " grows fiercer and fiercer, and the agonised cry of the Christian mystic : " 1 find another law in my members warring against the law of my mind," is repeated in the experience of every evolving Man, The war grows hotter and hotter as, during the deva- chanic life, the decisions of the Man are more and more strongly impressed on the mind, appearing as innate ideas in the subsequent birth, and lending strength to the thought-" I," which, withdrawing itself from the passions and emotions, regards them as outside itself, and repudiates their claim to control it. But the
38 The Spiritual Life.
long inheritance of the past is on the side of the monarch it would discrown, and bitter and many-fortuned is the war. Consciousness, m its out-going activities, runs easily into the worn channels of the habits of many lives ; on the other hand it is diverted by the efforts of the Man to take control and to turn it into the channels hewn out by his reflections. His will determines the line of the consciousness-forces working in his higher vehicles, while habit largely determines the direction of those working in the desire body. The will, guided by the clear-eyed intelligence, points to the lofty ideal that is seen as a fit object of attainment ; the desire-nature does not want to reach it, is lethargic before it, seeing no beauty that it should desire it, nay, often repelled by the austere outlines of its grave and chastened dignity. " The difficulty is that I do not wanty We do not want to do that which, in our higher moments, we have resolved to do. The lower " 1 " is moved by the attraction of the moment rather than by the recorded results of the past that sway the higher, and the real difficulty IS to make ourselves feel that the lethargic, or the clamorous, " I " of the lower nature is not the true " I."
How is this difficulty to be overcome? How
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 39
is it possible to make that which we know to be the higher to be the habitual self-conscious *' I " ?
Let no one be discouraged if here it be said that this change is a matter of growth, and cannot be accomplished in a moment. The human Self cannot, by a single effort, rise to manhood from childhood, any more than a body can change from infancy to maturity in a night. If the statement of the law of growth bring a sense of chill when we regard it as an obstacle in the way of our wish for sudden perfection, let us remember that the other side of the state- ment is that the growth is certain, that it cannot be ultimately prevented, and that if law refuses a miracle it on the other hand gives security. Moreover, we can quicken growth, we can afford the best possible conditions for it, and then rely on the law for our result. Let us then consider the means we can employ for hastening the growth we see to be needed, for transferring the activity of consciousness from the lower to the higher.
The first thing to realise is that the desire- nature is not our Self, but an instrument fashioned by the Self for its own using ; and next that it is a most valuable instrument, and is merely being badly used. Desire, emotion, is the motive
40 The Spiritual Life.
power in us, and stands ever between the thought and the action. Intellect sees, but it does not move, and a man without desires and emotions would be a mere spectator of life. The Self must have evolved some of its loftiest powers ere it can forego the use of the desires and emotions ; for aspirants the question is how to use them instead of being used by them, how to discipline them, not how to destroy. We would fain " want " to reach the highest, since without this wanting we shall make no progress at all. We are held back by wanting to unite ourselves with objects transitory, mean and narrow ; cannot we push ourselves forward by wanting to unite ourselves with the permanent, the noble and the wide? Thus musing, we see that what we need is to cultivate the emotions, and direct them in a way that will purify and ennoble the character. The basis of all emotions on the side of progress is love, and this is the power which we must cultivate. George Eliot well said : " The first condition of human good- ness is something to love ; the second, something to reverence." Now reverence is only love directed to a superior, and the aspirant should seek one more advanced than himself to whom he can direct his love and reverence. Happy the man who can find such a one when he seeks,
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 41
for such finding gives him the most important condition for turning emotion from a retardmg force into a lifting one, and for gaining the needed power to "want" that which he knows to be the best. We cannot love without seeking to please, and we cannot reverence without taking joy in the approval of the one we revere. Hence comes a constant stimulus to improve ourselves, to build up character, to purify the nature, to conquer all in us that is base, to strive after all that is worthy. We find ourselves quite spontaneously "wanting" to reach a high ideal, and the great motive power is sent along the channels hewn out for it by the mind. There is no way of utilising the desire-nature more certain and more effective than the making of such a tie, the reflection in the lower world of that perfect bond which links the disciple to the Master.
Another useful way of stimulating the desire- nature as a lifting force is to seek the company of any who are more advanced in the spiritual life than we are ourselves. It is not necessary that they should teach us orally, or indeed talk to us at all. Their very presence is a benediction, harmonising, raising, inspiring. To breathe their atmosphere, to be encircled by their magnetism, to be played on by their thoughts - these things
E
42 The Spiritual Life.
ennoble us, unconsciously to ourselves. We value w^ords too highly, and depreciate unduly the subtler silent forces of the Self, w^hich, " sweetly and mightily ordering all things," create within the turbulent chaos of our person- ality the sure bases of peace and truth.
Less potent, but still sure, is the help that may be gained by reading any book which strikes a noble note of life, whether by lifting up a great ideal, or presenting an inspiring character for our study. Such books as the Bhagavad Gitd, The Voice of the Silence, Light on the Path, The Imitation of Christ, are among the most power- ful of such aids to the desire-nature. We are apt to read too exclusively for knowledge, and lose the moulding force that lofty thought on great ideals may exercise over our emotions. It is a useful habit to read every morning a few sentences from some such book as those named above, and to carry these sentences with us through the day, thus creating around us an atmosphere that is protective to ourselves and beneficial to all with whom we come into contact.
Another absolutely essential thing is daily meditation - a quiet half-hour in the morning, ere the turmoil of the day begins, during which we deliberately draw ourselves away from the
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 43
lower nature, recognise it as an Instrument and not our Self, centre ourselves in the highest consciousness we can dream, and feel it as our real Self. " That which is Being, Bliss and Knowledge, that am I. Life, Love and Light, that am 1." For our essential nature is divine, and the effort to realise it helps its growth and manifestation. Pure, passionless, peaceful, it is " the Star that shines within," and that Star is our Self. We cannot yet steadily dwell in the Star, but as we try daily to rise to it, some gleam of its radiance illumines the illusory " 1 " made of the shadows amid which we live. To this ennobling and peace-giving contempla- tion of our divine destiny we may fitly rise by worshipping with the most fervent devotion of which we are capable - if we are fortunate enough to feel such devotion - the Father of the worlds and the Divine Man whom we reverence as Master. Resting on that Divine Man as the Helper and Lover of all who seek to rise — call Him Buddha, Christ, Shri Krishna, Master, what we will — we may dare to raise our eyes to the One from Whom we come, to Whom we go, and in the confidence of realised sonship murmur, " 1 and the Father are One," " 1 am That."
One of the most distressing of the difficulties
E 2
44 The Spiritual Life.
which the aspirant has to face arises from the ebb and flow of his feelings, the changes in the emotional atmosphere through which he sees the external world as well as his own character with its powers and its weaknesses. He finds that his life consists of a series of ever-varying states of consciousness, of alternating conditions of thought and feeling. At one time he is vividly alive, at another quiescently dead ; now he is cheerful, then morbid ; now overflowing, then dry ; now earnest, then indifi^erent ; now de- voted, then cold ; now aspiring, then lethargic. He is constant only in his changeableness, persistent only in his variety. And the worst of it is that he is unable to trace these effects to any very definite causes ; they " come and go, impermanent," and are as little predicable as the summer winds. Why was meditation easy, smooth, fruitful, yesterday ? why is it hard, irregular, barren, to-day ? Why should that noble idea have fired him with enthusiasm a week ago, yet leave him chill now ? Why was he full of love and devotion but a few days since, but finds himself empty now, gazing at his ideal with cold, lack-lustre eyes ? The facts are obvious, but the explanation escapes him ; he seems to be at the mercy of chance, to have slipped out of the realm of law.
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 45
It is this very uncertainty which gives the poignancy to his distress. The understood is always the manageable, and when we have traced an effect to its cause we have gone far on the way to its control. All our keenest sufferings have in them this constituent of uncertainly ; we are helpless because we are ignorant. It is the uncertainty of our emotional moods that terrifies us, for we cannot guard against that which we are unable to foresee. How then may we reach a place where these moods shall not plague us, a rock on which we can stand while the waves surge around us ?
The lirst step towards the place of balance is taken when we recognise the fact - though the statement of it may sound a little brutal - that our moods do not matter. There is no constant relation between our progress and our feelings ; we are not necessarily advancing when the flow of emotion rejoices us, nor retrograding when its ebb distresses us. These changing moods are among the lessons that life brings to us, that we may learn to distinguish between the Self and the not-Self, and to realise ourselves as the Self. The Self changes not, and that which changes is not our Self, but is part of the tran- sitory surroundings in which the Self is clothed and amid which it moves. This wave that
46 The Spiritual Life.
sweeps over us is not the Self, but is only a passing manifestation of the not-Self. " Let it toss and swirl and foam, it is not I." Let consciousness realise this, if only for a moment, and the force of the wave is spent, and the firm rock is feh under the feet. Withdrawing from the emotion, we no longer feel it as a part of ourselves, and thus ceasing to pour our life into it as a self-expression, we break off the connec- tion which enabled it to become a channel of pain. This withdrawal of consciousness may be much facilitated if, in our quiet times, we try to understand and to assign to their true causes these distressing emotional alternations. We shall thus at least get rid of some of the help- lessness and perplexity which, as we have already seen, are due to ignorance.
These alternations of happiness and depres- sion are primarily manifestations of that law of periodicity, or law of rhythm, which guides the universe. Night and day alternate in the physical life of man as do happiness and de- pression in his emotional life. As the ebb and flow in the ocean, so are the ebb and flow in human feelings. There are tides m the human heart as in the affairs of men and as in the sea. joy follows soiTow and sorrow follows joy, as surely as death follows birth and birth death.
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 47
That this is so is not only a theory of a law, but it is also a fact to which witness is borne by all who have gained experience in the spiritual life. In the famous Imitation of Christ it is said that comfort and sorrow thus alternate, and " this is nothing new nor strange unto them that have experience in the way of God ; for the great saints and ancient prophets had oftentimes
experience of such kind of vicissitudes
If great saints were so dealt with, we that are weak and poor ought not to despair if we be
sometimes hot and sometimes cold 1
never found any so religious and devout, that he had not sometimes a withdrawing of grace or felt not some decrease of zeal." (Bk. 11. ix. 4, 5, 7.) This alternation of states being recognised as the result of a general law, a special mani- festation of a universal principle, it becomes possible for us to utilise this knowledge both as a warning and an encouragement. We may be passing through a period of great spiritual illumi- nation, when all seems to be easy of accomplish- ment, when the glow of devotion sheds its glory over life, and when the peace of sure insight is ours. Such a condition is often one of con- siderable danger, its very happiness lulling us into a careless security, and forcing into growth any remaining germs of the lower nature. At
48 The Spiritual Life.
such moments the recalling of past periods of gloom is often useful, so that happiness may not become elation, nor enjoyment lead to attach- ment to pleasure ; balancing the present joy by the memory of past trouble and the calm pre- vision of trouble yet to come, we reach equilibrium and find a middle point of rest ; we can then gain all the advantages that accrue from seizing a favourable opportunity for progress without risking a slip backwards from premature triumph. When the night comes down and all the lire has ebbed away, when we find ourselves cold and indifferent, caring for nothing that had erst attracted us, then, knowing the law, yfe can quietly say : " This also will pass in its turn, light and life must come back, and the old love will again glow warmly forth." We reruse to be unduly depressed in the gloom, as we refused to be unduly elated in the light ; we balance one experience against the other, removing the thorn of present pain by the memory of past joy and the foretaste of joy in the future ; we learn in happiness to remember sorrow and in sorrow to remember happiness, till neither the one nor the other can shake the steady foothold of the soul. Thus we begin to rise above the lower stages of consciousness in which we are flung from one extreme to the other, and to gain the equilibrium
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 49
which is called yoga. Thus the existence of the law becomes to us not a theory but a con- viction, and we gradually learn something of the peace of the Self.
It may be well also for us to realise that the way in which we face and live through this trial of inner darkness and deadness is one of the surest tests of spiritual evolution. " What worldly man is there that would not willingly receive spiritual joy and comfort if he could always have It ? For spiritual comforts exceed all the delights of the world and the pleasures of the flesh. . . . But no man can always enjoy these divine comforts according to his desire ; for the time of trial is never far away. . . . Are not all those to be called mercenary who are ever seeking consolations ? . . . Where shall one be found who is willing to serve God for nought ? Rarely is anyone found so spiritual as to have suffered the loss of all things." (Bk. II. X. 1 ; xi. 3, 4.) The subtle germs of selfishness persist far on into the life of discipleshlp, though they then ape In their growth the semblance of virtues, and hide the serpent of desire under the fair blossom of beneficence or of devotion. Few indeed are they who serve for nothing, who have eradicated the root of desire, and have not merely cut off
50 The Spiritual Life.
the branches that spread above ground. Many a one who has lasted the subtle joys of spiritual experience finds therein his reward for the grosser delights he has renounced, and when the keen ordeal of spiritual darkness bars his way, and he has to enter into that darkness unbefriended and apparently alone, then he learns by the bitter and humiliating lesson of disillusion that he has been serving his ideal for wages and not for love. Well for us if we can be glad in the darkness as well as in the light, by the sure faith in - though not yet by the vision of - that Flame which burns ever- more within, THAT from the light of which we can never be separated, for it is in truth our very Self. Bankrupt in Time must we be ere ours is the wealth of the eternal, and only when the living have abandoned us does the Vision of Life appear.
Another difficulty that sorely bewilders and distresses the aspirant is the unbidden presence of thoughts and desires that are mcongruous with his life and aims. When he would fain contemplate the Holy, the presence of the un- holy thrusts itself upon him ; when he would see the radiant face of the Divine Man, the mask of the satyr leers at him in its stead. Whence these thronging forms of evil that
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 51
crowd round him ? whence these mutterlngs and whisperings as of devils in his ear ? They fill him with shuddering repulsion, yet they seem to be his ; can he really be the father of this foul swarm ?
Once again an understanding of the cause at work may rob the effect of its sharp poison- tooth, and deliver us from the impotence due to ignorance. It is a commonplace of theo- sophical teaching that life embodies itself in forms, and that the life-energy which comes forth from that aspect of the Self which is knowledge moulds the matter of the mental plane into thought-forms. The vibrations that affect the mental body determine the materials that are built into its composition, and these materials are slowly changed in accordance with the changes in the vibrations sent forth. If the consciousness cease to work in a particular way, the materials which answered to those previous workings gradually lose their activity, finally becoming effete matter and being shaken out of the mental body. A considerable number of stages, however, intervene between the full activity of the matter constantly answering to mental impulses and its final deadness when ready for expulsion. Until the last stage is reached it is capable of being thrown into
52 The Spiritual Life.
renewed activity by mental Impulses either from within or from without, and long after the man has ceased to energise it, having outgrown the stage it represents, it may be thrown into active vibration, made to start up as a living thought, by a wholly external influence. For example : a man has succeeded in purifying his thoughts from sensuality, and his mind no longer generates impure ideas nor takes pleasures in contem- plating impure images. The coarse matter, which in the mental and astral bodies vibrates under such impulses, is no longer being vivified by him, and the thought-forms erst created by him are dying or dead. But he meets some one in whom these things are active, and the vibrations sent out by him revivify the dying thought-forms, lending them a temporary arti- ficial life ; they start up as the aspirant's own thoughts, presenting themselves as the children of his mind, and he knows not that they are but corpses from his past, re-animated by the evil magic of impure propinquity. The very contrast they afford to his purified mind adds to the harassing torture of their presence, as though a dead body were fettered to a living man. But when he learns their true nature, they lose their power to torment. He can look at them calmly as remnants of his past, so
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 53
that they cease to be poisoners of his present. He knows that the life in them is an alien one and is not drawn from him, and he can '* wait with the patience of confidence for the hour when they shall affect " him " no longer."
Sometimes in the case of a person who is making rapid progress, this temporary revivifica- tion is caused deliberately by those who are seeking to retard evolution, those who set them- selves against the Good Law. They may send a thought-force calculated to stir the dying ghosts into weird activity, with the set purpose of causing distress, even when the aspirant has passed beyond the reach of temptation along these lines. Once again the difficulty ceases when the thoughts are known to draw their energy from outside and not from inside, when the man can calmly say to the surging crowd of impish tormentors : " You are not mine, you are no part of me, your life is not drawn from my thought. Ere long you will be dead beyond possibility of resurrection, and meanwhile you are but phantoms, shades that were once my foes."
Another fruitful source of trouble is the great magician Time, past-master of illusion. He imposes on us a sense of hurry, of unrest, by masking the oneness of our life with the veils
54 The Spiritual Life.
of births and deaths. The aspirant cries out eagerly : "How much can I do, what progress can I make, during my present life ? " There is no such thmg as a " present life " ; there is but one life - past and future, with the ever- changing moment that is their meeting-place ; on one side of it we see the past, on the other side the future, and it is itself as invisible as the little piece of ground on which we stand. There is but one life, without beginning and without ending, the ageless, timeless life, and our arbitrary divisions of it by the ever-recurring incidents of births and deaths delude us and ensnare. These are some of the traps set for the Self by the lower nature, which would fain keep its hold on the winged Immortal that is straying through its miry paths. This bird of paradise is so fair a thing as its plumes begin to grow, that all the powers of nature fall to loving it, and set snares to hold it prisoner ; and of all the snares the illusion of Time is the most subtle.
When a vision of truth has come late in a physical life, this discouragement as to time is apt to be most keenly felt. " I am too old to begin ; if I had only known this in youth," is the cry. Yet truly the path 'is one, as the life is one, and all the path must be trodden in the
On Some Difficulties of the Inner Life. 55
life ; what mailers ll ihen whclher one stage of the path be trodden or not during a particular part of a physical life ? If A and B are both going to catch their first glimpse of the Reality two years hence, what matters it that A will then be seventy years of age while B will be a lad of twenty ? A will return and begin anew his work on earth when B is ageing, and each will pass many times through the childhood, youth and old age of the body, while travelling along the higher stages of the path of life. The old man who " late in life," as we say, begins to learn the truths of the Ancient Wisdom, instead of lamenting over his age and saying : *' How little can 1 do in the short time that remains to me," should say : " How good a foundation I can lay for my next incarnation, thanks to this learning of the truth." We are not slaves of Time, save as we bow to his im- perious tyranny, and let him bind over our eyes his bandages of birth and death. We are always ourselves, and can pace steadfastly on- wards through the changing lights and shadows cast by his magic lantern on the life he cannot age. Why are the Gods figured as ever-young, save to remind us that the true life lives un- touched by Time ? We borrow some of the strength and calm of Eternity when we try to
56 The Spiritual Life.
live in it, escaping from the meshes of the great Enchanter.
Many another difficulty will stretch itself across the upward path as the aspirant essays to tread it, but a resolute will and a devoted heart, lighted by knowledge, will conquer all in the end and will reach the Supreme Goal. To rest on the Law is one of the secrets of peace, to trust it utterly at all times, not least when the gloom descends. No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise ; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in over- coming them we may grow strong, and they only who have suffered are able to save.
t
The Place of Peace.
HTHE rush, the turmoil, the hurry of modern "*■ life are in everybody's mouth as a matter of complaint. " I have no time ' is the com- monest of excuses. Reviews serve for books ; leading articles for political treatises ; lectures for investigation. More and more the attention of men and women is fastened on the superficial things of life ; small prizes of business success, petty crowns of social supremacy, momentary notoriety in the world of politics or of letters - for these things men and women toil, intrigue and strive. Their work must show immediate results, else it is regarded as failure ; the winning- post must always be in sight, to be passed by a swift brief effort with the roar of the applauding crowd hailing the winner. The solid reputation built up by years of strenuous work ; the patient toil that labours for a lifetime in a field wherein the harvest can only ripen long after the sower has passed out of sight ; the deliberate choice of a lofty ideal, too high to attract the average man, too great to be compassed in a lifetime - all these things are passed by with a shrug of good-natured contempt or a scowl of suspicion. The spirit of the age is summed up by the words of the caustic
F
58 The Spiritual Life.
Chinese sage of yore : "He looks at an egg, and expects to hear it crow." Nature is too slow for us, and we forget that what we gain in speed we lose in depth.
But there are some in whose eyes this whirling dance of gnats m the sunlight is not the be-all and end-all of human life. Some in whose hearts a whisper sometimes sounds softly, saying that all the seeming clash and rush is but as the struggle of shadows thrown upon a screen ; that social success, business triumph, pubhc admira- tion are but trivial things at best, bubbles floating down a tossing streamlet, and unworthy of the rivalries, the jealousies, the bitternesses their chase engenders. Has life no secret that does not lie on the surface ? no problem that is not solved in the stating ? no treasury that is not scattered on the highway ?
An answer may be found without straying beyond the experience of every man and woman, and that answer hides within it a suggestion of the deeper truth that underlies it. After a week or a month of hurried town-life, of small excitements, of striving for the little triumphs of social life, of the eagerness of petty hopes, the pain of petty disappointments, of the friction arising from the jarring of our selfish selves with other selves equally selfish ; after this, if we go
The Place of Peace. 59
far away from this hum and buzz of life into silent mountain solitudes where are sounding only the natural harmonies that seem to blend with rather than to break the silence - the rushing of the waterfall swollen by last night's rain, the rustle of the leaves under the timid feet of the hare, the whisper of the stream to the water-hen as she slips out of the reeds, the murmur of the eddy where it laps against the pebbles on the bank, the hum of the insects as they brush through the tangle of the grasses, the suck of the fish as they hang in the pool beneath the shade ; there, where the mind sinks into a calm, soothed by the touch of Nature far from man, what aspect have the follies, the exasperations, of the social whirl of work and play, seen through that atmosphere surcharged with peace ? What does it matter if in some small strife we failed or we succeeded ? What does it matter that we were slighted by one, praised by another ? We regain perspective by our distance from the whirlpool, by our isolation from its tossing waters, and v/e see how small a part these outer things should play in the true life of man.
So distance in time as well as distance in space gives balanced judgment on the goods and ills of life. We look back, after ten years have
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60 The Spiritual Life.
slipped away, at the trials, the Joys, the hopes, the disappointments of the time that then was, and we marvel why we spent so much of our life-energy on things so little worth. Even life's sharpest pains seems strangely unreal thus contemplated by a personality that has greatly changed. Our whole life was bound up in the life of another, and all of worth that it held for us seemed to dwell in the one beloved. We thought that our life was laid waste, our heart broken, when that one trust was betrayed. But as time went on the wound healed and new flowers sprang up along our pathway, till to-day we can look back without a quiver on an agony that then well-nigh shattered life. Or we broke with a friend for a bitter word ; how foolish seem our anger and excitement, looking back over the ten years' gulf. Or we were madly delighted with a hardly-won suc- cess ; how trivial it looks, and how exaggerated our triumph, when we see It now In due pro- portion In the picture of our life ; then It filled our sky, now It Is but a point.
But our philosophic calm, as we contemplate the victories and defeats of our past across the interval of space or time, suffers an ignominious breach when we return to our dally life and find it not. All the old trivialities, in new
The Place of Peace. 61
dresses, engross us ; old joys and sorrows, with new faces, seize us. " The tumultuous senses and organs hurry away by force the heart." And so once more we begin to wear out our lives by petty cares, petty disputes, petty long- ings, petty disappointments.
Must this be always so ? Since we must live in the world and play our part in its drama of life, must we be at the mercy of all these passing objects ? Or, though we must dwell among them in place and be surrounded with them in time, can we find the Place of Peace, as though we were far away ? We can, and this is the truth that underlies the superficial answer we have already found.
Man is an Immortal Being, clad in a garb of flesh, which is vivified and moved by desires and passions, and which he Imks to himself by a thread of his immortal nature. This thread is the mind, and this mind, unsubdued and inconstant, wanders out among the things of earth, is moved by passions and desires, hopes and fears, longs to taste all cups of sense- delights, is dazzled and deafened by the radiance and the tumult of its surroundings. And thus, as Arjuna complained, the "mind is full of agitation, turbulent, strong, and obstinate." Above this whirling mind, serene and passionless
62 The Spiritual Life.
witness, dwells the True Self, the Spiritual Ego of man. Below there may be storm, but above there is calm, and there is the Place of Peace. For that Self is eternal, and what to it are the things of time, save as they bring experience, the knowledge of good and evil ? So often, dwelhng in its house of clay, it has known birth and death, gains and losses, joys and griefs, pleasures and pams, that it sees them all pass by as a moving phantasmagoria, and no ripple ruffles its passion- less serenity. Does agony affect its outer case, it is but a notice that harmony has been broken, and the pain is welcome as pointing to the failure and as bearing the lesson of avoidance of that whence it sprang. For the True Self has to conquer the material plane, to purify and sublimate it, and only by suffering can it learn how to perform its work.
Now the secret of reaching that Place of Peace lies in our learning to identify our con- sciousness with the True, instead of with the apparent. Self. We identify ourselves with our minds, our brain minds, active in our bodies. We identify ourselves with our passions and desires, and say we hope or we fear. We identify ourselves with our bodies, the mere machinery wherewith we affect the material world. And so, when all these parts of our
The Place of Peace. 63
nature are moved by contact with external things and feel the whirl of the material life around them, we also in consciousness are affected, and "the uncontrolled heart, following the dictates of the movmg passions, snatcheth away our "spiritual knowledge, as the storm the bark upon the raging ocean." Thence excitement, loss of balance, irritability, injured feelings, resentments, follies, pain - all that is most separated from peace and calm and strength.
The way to begin to tread the Path that leads to the Place of Peace is to endeavour to identify our consciousness with the True Self, to see as it sees, to judge as it judges. We cannot do it - that goes without saying - but we can begin to try. And the means are : disengagement from the objects of the senses, carelessness as to results, and meditation, ever renewed, on the True Self. Let us consider each of these means.
The first of these can be gained only by a constant and wise self-disciphne. We can cultivate indifference to small discomforts, to pleasures of the table, to physical enjoyments, bearing with good-humoured tolerance outward things as they come, neither shunning nor court- ing small pleasures or pains. Gradually, with- out growing morbid or self-conscious, we shall
64 The Spiritual Life.
become frankly indifferent, so that small troubles that upset people continually in daily life will pass unnoticed. And this will leave us free to help our neighbours, whom they do disturb, by shielding them unobtrusively, and so smoothing life's pathway for feet tenderer than our own. In learning this, moderation Is the keynote. *' This dlvme discipline, Arjuna, is not to be attained by the man who eateth more than enough or too little, nor by him who hath a habit of sleeping much, nor by him who is given to overwatchlng. The meditation which destroyeth pain is produced in him who is moderate in eating and in recreation, of mod- erate exertion in his actions, and regulated in sleeping and waking." The body is not to be shattered : it is to be trained.
The second of these methods is *' careless- ness as to results." This does not mean that we are not to notice the result of our actions in order to learn from them how to guide our steps. We gam experience by such study of results, and so learn Wisdom. But it does mean that when an action has been done with our best judgment and strength and with pure intent, then we should let it go, metaphorically, and feel no anxiety about* its results. The action done is beyond recall, and v/e gain nothing
The Place of Peace. 65
by worry and by anxiety. When Its results appear, we note them for instruction, but we neither rejoice nor mourn over them. Remorse or jubilation takes away our attention from, and weakens us in, the performance of our present duty, and there is no time for either. Suppose the results are evil, the wise man says : " I made a mistake, and must avoid a similar blunder in future ; but remorse will only weaken my present usefulness and will not lessen the results of my mistaken action. So instead of wasting time in remorse, I will set to work to do better." The value of thus separating one- self from results lies in the calmness of mind thus obtained and the concentration brought to bear on each action. " Whoever in acting dedicates his actions to the Supreme Spirit [the One Self] and puts aside all selfish interest in their result, is untouched by sm, even as the leaf of the lotus is unaffected by the waters. The truly devoted, for the purification of the heart, perform actions with their bodies, their minds, their understanding, and their senses, putting away all self-interest. The man who is devoted and not attached to the fruit of his actions obtains tranquillity ; whilst he who through desire has attachment for the fruit of action is bound down thereby.
66 The Spiritual Life.
The third method, meditation, Is the most efficacious and the most difficult. It consists of a constant endeavour to realise one's identity with one's True Self, and to become self- conscious here as It. " To whatsoever object the Inconstant mind goeth out he should subdue it, bring it back, and place it upon the Spirit." It is a work of a lifetime, but it will bring us to the Place of Peace. The effort needs to be continually renewed, patiently persisted in. It may be aided by fixing on definite hours, at which, for a few moments, we may withdraw ourselves like the turtle into its shell, and remember that we are not transitory but eternal, and that passing incidents can affect us not at all. With the gradual growth of this power of remaining " in the Self " comes not only Peace but Wisdom, for absence of personal desires, and recognition of our immortal nature, leave us free to judge all things without bias and without prejudice. "This tranquil state attained, there- from shall soon result a separation from all troubles ; and his mind being thus at ease, fixed upon one object, it embraceth wisdom from all sides. The man whose heart and mind are not at rest is without wisdom." Thus " being possessed of patience, he by degrees finds rest," and " supreme bliss surely cometh to the sage
The Place of Peace. 67
whose mind is thus at peace ; whose passions and desires are thus subdued ; who is thus in the True Self and free from sin."
This is the three-fold Path that leads to the Place of Peace, to dwell wherem ever is to have conquered Time and Death. The "path winds steeply uphill all the way," but the pinions of the Dove of Peace fan the wearied brow of the pilgrim, and at last, at last, he finds calm that naught can ruffle.
Devotion and the Spiritual
Life.
A Lecture delivered in 1895.
The soul cannot be gained by knowledge, nor by understanding, nor by manifold science , . . nor by devotion, nor by know- ledge which is unwedded to devotion. — '" Mundakopanishad," iii. II. 3, 4.
^ I 'HAT, which Is from the oldest Scripture of **' our race, is really the motto on which I am going to speak to you to-night, and I am gomg to try to trace for you the famous two paths of the finding of the Self - the paths which may be trodden separately, but which for the perfection of Humanity must finally blend mto one. The one path is the Path of Knowledge, and it leads to Liberation ; the other path is the Path of Devotion, and that, joined to right knowledge, leads to that eternity of Service which it is the greatest glory of man to attain.
But before I take up these two paths, there is just a word or tv/o to be said on a matter which may clear the way, in order that we may definitely understand the roads along which we are to travel in thought to-night. Altogether apart, as we may say, from these Paths of Knowledge and Devotion which lead severally
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 69
to Liberation and to the Great Renunciation, there are the paths which are followed by men who have not yet taken on themselves the duty of discipleship, but who are men good and earnest in their lives, and doing good work in the world - those are the paths of action, the paths where Karma is generated, and good action and good desire generate good Karma. But Karma ever brings a man back to re-birth. Myriads of years may intervene - nay, in some cases millions of years may intervene - but still the end of work is re-birth, still the end of desire is to " pass from death to death." Works which are good and useful to humanity gam their reward. Putting it in Christian phrase, we should say they gain Heaven ; putting it in Hindu phrase, they gain Svarga ; putting it in Theosophic parlance, they gain Devachan ; and beyond the temporary Devachan, or Svarga, or Heaven, there is a possibility of work done so well with a view always to its results, that you may have that Heaven of the kosmic Devas which you read of in the Hindu writings, where one who has passed beyond ordinary humanity, and has won by effort these higher seats in Heaven, may reign throughout the course of a Manvantara, and may direct the kosmic processes of the worlds. But whatever
70 The Spiritual Life.
comes of work finds Its end. Neither Libera- tion nor the Great Renunciation can close the path of the man who works with a view to results ; for nature is ever just, and what a man pays for he will obtain. If he works for the sake of reward, the reward will come to him from the unerring Justice that guides the worlds. So good deeds become exhausted ; so the result of good Karma comes to an end ; and, whether it be in this or in any other v/orld, the end is sure, and back to re-birth must come the Ego who has worked for reward and whose reward at length is exhausted. But, says one of those great Scriptures, with a quotation from which I began, there is a time when the study of works and of the worlds of works is exhausted. Then comes the time whereof it is written : -
Let the Brahman, after he has examined all these worlds that are gained by works, acquire freedom from all desire. Nothing that is eternal can be gained by what is not eternal.*
When all desire is exhausted then the Path of Knowledge or of Devotion may be entered on.
Let us take the Path of Knowledge. Know- ledge of what ? Not the learning of the world ; not those many sciences which may be gamed by the intellect alone ; not that long course of
* " Mundakopanishad," i. II. 12.
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 71
study laid down in the Indian books ; nor even the mastery of the sixty-three sciences into which all human learning is divided. When we speak of the Path of Knowledge we mean more than intellectual learning ; we mean the path which leads to spiritual knowledge, that is, to the knowledge of the ONE, of the SELF, the seeking, the finding Brahman, for by knowledge He may be found, by knowledge He may be entered into. And there are some who choose the Path of Knowledge unallied to Devotion, and who tread that Path ever, life after life, until the right to Liberation has been gained. Let us try to realise the steps of such a path. First, there must be the recognition of the ONE on whom all worlds are built, of the ONE, the SELF eternal and unchanging that throws out universes, as a spider throws out its web, and draws them in again ^ - the one Existence which is at the root of all, supreme, incognisable by human thought : knowledge recognises the One without a second. The next stage in that knowledge, in recognising the One, is the reali- sation that all things that take on separate forms must have an end, that in very truth there is no separateness in the universe, but only appearance of separation ; the One without a second who
* " Mundakopaiiishad," i, I. 7.
72 The Spiritual Life.
alone exists, who is the One and the only Reality, That is realised as the Self of each, as the one Life of which all forms are only transient manifestations. Thus the recognition of the absence of separateness must be a step on this Path of Knowledge. Until absence of separ- ateness is realised the soul passes from death to death.* But more than this realisation of non- separateness is needed. There is the distinct and the deliberate effort to realise that the Self of the Universe is the Self of man dwelling in the heart, that that Self, as we saw a few weeks ago, clothes itself in sheath after sheath for the purpose of gathering experience, and on the Path of Knowledge sheath after sheath is stripped from off the Self, until the very Self of all is found. For this, knowledge is necessary. First the knowledge of the existence of the sheaths, then the knowledge of the Self working within the sheaths, then the realisation that those sheaths can be laid aside one after another, that the senses can be stilled and silenced, that the Self can withdraw itself from the sheath of the senses until they no longer function save by the will, and the voice of the Self may be heard without the intrusion of the outer world.
And then the sheath of the mind - that also
* " Kathopanishad." Valli Iv. 10.
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 73
we considered in our study - the sheath of the mind in which the Self works in the internal world of concepts and of ideas ; that also is recognised as external to the Soul, and the Soul casts that aside as it casts off the sheath of the senses. And then realising that these sheaths are not itself, realising that the Self is behind and within these, this knowledge of non- separateness becomes a practical realisation, not only intellectually admitted, but practically realised in life. And this must inevitably lead to renunciation. But, mark you, it is the re- nunciation essentially of the reason, it is the renunciation which draws itself away from the objects of the senses and the objects of the mind by a deliberate retiring within the Self, and this exclusion of the outer and of the inner world is most easily followed by retiring from the haunts of men, most easily accomplished by isolation from the great Brotherhood of Humanity, most easily won if the Self, that thus seeks, separates itself from all others that are illusory, and in that quietude of an external world realises the inner isolation.
Then, supposing that that absolute exclusion be not accepted, there may still be renunciation - renunciation by knowledge, renunciation by the deliberate will that no Karma shall be generated.
74 The Spiritual Life.
renunciation by the knowledge that if there be no desire then no chains of Karma are made which draw the Self back to re-birth. And, mark you - for I want you to keep this in mind, and you will see why presently - it is essentially the renunciation of the man who knows that while he desires he is bound to the wheel of births and of deaths, and that no liberation is possible for him, save as these bonds of the heart are broken. Then, realising this, if he is still compelled to act, he will act without desire ; if he is compelled to live amongst men he will do his work careless of the results that flow therefrom. Renunciation which is complete, but renunciation for the sake of escape, re- nunciation in order that he may gain his freedom and escape from the burden of the world. And so once more it is written that :-
When they have reached the Self [that is, when they have realised Brahman] the Sages become satisfied through knowledge ; they are conscious of their Self, their passions have passed away and they are tranquil. The wise having reached Him who is omnipresent everywhere, and devoted to the Self, enter mto Him wholly.*
That, then, is the goal of this Path of Knowledge ; a lofty state, a state supremely
* " Mundakopanishad," iii. II. 5.
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 75
great and mighty, where a Soul serene in its own strength, calm in its own wisdom, has stilled every impulse of the senses, is absolutely master over every movement of the mind, dwelling within the nine-gate city of its abode, neither acting nor causing to act. But a state of isolation, though a state great in its power, in its wisdom, great in its absolute detachment from all that is transitory, and ready to enter into Brahman. And into Brahman such a Soul enters and gains its liberation, to remain in that union for ages after ages - a time that no human years may reckon, that no human thought can span - having reached what the Hindu calls Moksha, in perfect unity with the One and with the All, coming out from that union only when the great Manvantara redawns, and out of that state of liberation life again passes into all mani- fested forms.
Turn from the Path of Knowledge to the Path of Devotion. • Here right knowledge may not be ignored. Right knowledge - for that is needed, otherwise the world cannot well be served ; right knowledge, because the union must be the goal, although a union differing somewhat from that which is gained by knowledge ; right knowledge, because if right knowledge be absent then even love may go astray in its desire of
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76 The Spiritual Life.
service, and may injure where it fain would help. So that we must not have devotion unwedded to knowledge, for the knowledge is needed for the perfect service, and perfect service is the essence of the life of the devotee. But the goal of the Path of Devotion is conscious union with the supreme Self which is recognised as manifesting through all other selves, and those other selves are never left out of thought until the union of all selves is found in the One. For in this Path of Devotion love is the impulse, love that is ever seeking to give itself to those above it that it may gain strength for service, and to those below in order that the service may be done. So that the true devotee has his face turned upward to those that are higher than himself, that so he may gain from them spiritual force, spiritual strength, spiritual energy, but not for himself, not that he may be liberated; for he desires no liberation till all share his freedom ; not in order that he may gain, for he desires no gain, save as he may give ; not in order that he may keep ; but in order that he may be a channel of blessing to others. So that on the Path of Devotion the Soul is ever turned to the light above, not that itself may be enlightened, not that itself may shine, but that it may serve as focus and channel for that light, to pass it on
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 77
to those who are in darkness ; and its only longing for the light that is above is in order that it may pass it onward to those that are below. That then is the first, the supreme charac- teristic of the man who would follow the Path of Devotion. He must begin in love, as in love he has to find his end. In order that this may be, he must recognise the spiritual side of nature ; he is not to be alone. It is not enough that he should recognise the Self, that he should recognise the One of whom all forms are but passing manifestations ; he must recognise those passing manifestations m order that he may be equipped for service. So that he will begin by recognis- ing that out of the One Eternal Source of Life - the Self, that is, of all - there come out the various sparks that are spiritual Intelligences in every grade of evolution : some, mighty spiritual Intelligences that in past Manvantaras have gained Their victory, and Who come out of the Eternal Fire ready to be Lights in the world. Those he will recognise as the supreme embodiments of the Spiritual Life, Those he will recognise as the foundations of the mani- fested Universe, Those he will see far, far above himself ; for the evolution behind Them has carried them onwards through many Nirvanas to the place at which They emerge for the
78 The Spiritual Life.
manifestations of our own Universe, and he will give Them - the name matters not - but some name that will carry with it Their supreme spiritual greatness, call Them Gods, or call Them what you will, so that you realise in Them the supreme embodiments of Spiritual Life, towards Whom the Universe is tending, and in union with Whom it finds itself on the threshold of the One.
Those then first he will recognise. And then stretching downwards from Them in count- less hierarchies grade after grade of Spiritual Intelligences in all the manifested forms of Life in the spiritual side of the Universe, down- wards continually through the mighty Ones Whom we speak of as Builders of the worlds, Whom we speak of as Planetary Spirits, Whom we speak of as the Lords of Wisdom, down- wards from them to those great Ones embodied in the highest forms of Humanity that we name the Masters, and Who reveal to us the Divine Light which is beyond themselves ; and then downwards still in lower and lower grades of spiritual entities, until the whole Universe to him is full of these living forms of Light and of Life, recognised as one mighty Brotherhood of whom the embodied selves of men form part. Therefore his path is in the realisation of
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 79
Brotherhood, and not in the effort for Isolation. It is not liberation that he asks for himself, it is power of service that he claims from the Highest, in order that he may help those who have not yet reached the place where he stands himself. And therefore 1 said that the Path of Devotion begins in love and ends in love ; begins in love to every sentient creature around us and ends in love to the Highest, the highest that our thought may conceive. And so recog- nising this Brotherhood of Helpers he would fain be a conscious helper with them all - takmg his share in the burden of the Universe, bear- ing his part of the common burden, and ever desiring more strength in order that that strength may be used in the common helpmg, ever desiring more wisdom in order that that wisdom may be used in the enlightening of the ignor- ance around. He then will not be isolated, nor will he be content with the recognition of the Self within. On the contrary, he will ever be seeking to serve, and he will recognise the selves without as well as the Self within, and he will renounce. He too realises renunciation, as the man on the Path of Knowledge realises it ; but his renunciation is of a different kind. It is not the stern renunciation of knowledge, which says : " I will not bind myself by attach-
80 The Spiritual Life.
ment to transitory things, because they will bring me back to birth ; " it is the joyous renunciation of one who sees beyond him the mighty Helpers of man, and who, desiring to serve Them, can- not care for the things that hold him back, and offers all to Them - not sternly, in order that he may be free, but full of joy, in order that he may give everything to Them ; not cutting asunder desire with an axe as you might cut the chain that binds you, but burnmg up desire in the fire of devotion, because that fire burns up everything which is not one with its heat and with its flame. And so he is free from Karma, free because he desires nothing save to serve, save to help, save to reach onward to union with his Lord, and outward to union with men. And this service will indeed detach him from the senses, it will detach him from the mind ; but the very detachment will be that he may serve better. For this is the lesson which is learnt by the devotee : that while it is his duty to act, because without action the world could not go on, while it is his duty to act in the very spot in which he finds himself, because there lies the duty for which he has come to birth, and which he therefore should perfectly discharge, he yet seeks no fruit of action. Realising that he is here for action,
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 81
he will act : but it is not so much himself ; his thought will ever be fixed on the object of service and of love, and the senses, as Shri Krishna said, the senses and the mind will move to their appropriate objects, while he himself remains unfettered withm.
And then realise the gain. If we work our very best, if we work our very wisest, if for love's sake we give our best thought and our best effort to the service of man, then the very moment the act is accomplished we have no desire as to the result, save that it shall be as the Wiser Ones above us will and guide. And if thus we cut ourselves free from the action, if, havmg done our share in it, we leave to Them an unfettered field where all great spiritual energies may play, unbarred and untouched by our blindness and by our weakness ; and if this spirit of devotion be within us, if we give of our very best to the service of men, then, if leaving the act to Those who guide the destinies of the world we take no further interest in the result, we leave Them to make our weakness perfect by Their strength, we leave Them to correct our blunders by Their wisdom, our errors by Their righteous- ness ; we leave all to Them, and the very blunder that we make loses most of its power for mischief ; and though we shall reap pain
82 The Spiritual Life.
for the mistake that we may have made, the issue will be right, for the desire was to serve and not to blunder. And if we do not mix our own personality with it, if we leave the field clear for Them to work, then even out of our blunder will come the issue of success, and the failure that was a failure of the intellect only will give way before the mightier forces of the Spirit which is moved by love.
And then all anxiety disappears. The Life which is at peace within in this devotion has no anxiety in the outer world ; it does its best, and if it blunders it knows that pain will teach it of its blunder, and it is glad to take the pain which teaches wisdom and so makes it more fit to be co-worker with the great Souls who are the workers of the world. The pain then for the blunder causes no distress ; the pain for the error is taken only as lesson, and, taken thus, cannot ruffle the Soul's serenity which wills only to learn right and to do right, and cares not what price it pays if it become better servant of man and of man's great Teachers. And so doing the best and leaving the results, we find that what we call devotion is really an attitude of the Soul, it is the attitude of love, the attainment of peace, which having its face turned ever to the light of Those within it, is always ready for service, and
DevotioA and the Spiritual Life. 83
by Their light finds fresh opportunities of service
day by day. . ,. ,
But you may say : To whom is this devotion paid ? The root of this devotion must be found by each of us in the place in which we are, to those who are living around us in the daily hfe we lead. No talk of devotion is worth anything if it does not show itself in the life of love, and that life of love must begin where love will be helpful to the nearest. And the true devotee is one who, just because he has no thought nor care for self, has all thought and all care for those who are around him, and he is able, out of the great peace of his own selflessness, to find room for all the troubles and strifes of his fellow-men. And so the life of devotion will begin in the home, in the perfect discharge of all home duties, in all the brightness that can be brought into the home life, in the bearing of all the home burdens that the devotee can bear, in the lightening of every burden for others and the taking on him- self the burden which he takes away from them. And then from the life of the home to the life of the wider world outside, giving there his best and his choicest. Never asking. Is it trouble- some ? Never asking. Is it painful ? Never asking. Would I not rather do something else ? For his only will is to serve ; and the best that
84 The Spiritual Life.
he can give Is that which he wills to give. And then from that outer world of service, choosing his very best capacities to lay them at the feet of mankind, out of that life of service, to the nearest first and then to those who are farther away, will come the purifying fire of devotion which will make his vision clearer for Those who lie beyond him and above. For only as man serves and loves those who are around him will the eyes of the Spirit begin to be opened, and then he will recognise that there are Helpers beyond him ready to help him as he is helping others.
For mind you, on this Path of Devotion there is no help given to the individual as indi- vidual ; it is only given to him by the Great Ones beyond him if in his turn he passes it on to others. His claim to be helped is that he is always helping, and that therefore a gift to him as individual is a gift that in very truth is given to every one that needs. And then as his eyes become clearer, and he recognises these many grades of Spiritual Intelligences, he will realise that there are some of them embodied around him ; and by recognising those that are embodied around him but are greater than him- self, he will be able to climb upward step by step until he will see the yet greater Ones beyond
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 83
these; and then having reached Them, the greater, that are still beyond. For in this path of spiritual progress by way of devotion, every step opens up new horizons, and every clearing of the spiritual vision makes it pierce more deeply into that intensity of Light in which the highest Spiritual Intelligences are shrouded from the eyes of the flesh and of the intellect. And so the Soul who is in him, the Soul of the devotee, will gladly recognise all human excellence around him, will love and admire that excellence wherever he finds it ; he will, in fact, to use a word which many scoff at - he will be a hero-worshipper, not as seeing no fault in those whom he admires, but as seeing most the good in them and loving that, and letting the recognition of the good overbear the criticism of the fault : loving and serving them for what they are to man, and throwing the mantle of charity over the faults which they may commit in their service. And as he sees and recognises this in those around him, he will come into touch with higher Disciples than those who move most commonly in the world of men - those who have reached a little farther, those who have seen a little deeper. Spirits that are gradually burning up all ignorance and all selfishness, and who are in direct touch with Those Whom we call the Great Masters,
86 The Spiritual Life.
the members of the great White Lodge ; and then he will love and serve them if opportunity should offer, love and serve them to the utmost of his ability, knov^ing that all such service purifies himself as well as helps the world, and makes him more and more a channel for the energies which he desires to spread amongst those with less vision than himself. And then, after a while, through these into touch with the Masters Themselves, with those highest and mightiest embodiments of Humanity, high above us in Their spiritual purity, in Their spiritual wisdom, in Their perfect selflessness, high as though They were Gods in comparison with the lower Humanity, because every sheath in Them is translucent, and the Light of the Spirit shines through unchecked ; not differing from men in Their essence, but differing from men in Their evolution. For the sheaths in us shroud the Light within us, while the sheaths with Them are pure, and the unsullied light shines through unchecked ; and They it is who will help and guide and teach, when man has risen to Their Feet by this Path of Devotion that I have spoken of ; and the touch with Them is the going forward on the Path of Spiritual Know- ledge, for without this devotion the further heights may not be won.
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 87
And here I take occasion to read to you words that came only a day or two ago from an Indian Disciple, which will give you the meaning of devotion far better than any words of mine. He wrote :
Devotion to the Blessed Ones is a sine qua non of all spiritual progress and spiritual knowledge. It gives you the proper attitude in which to work on all the planes of life. It creates the proper atmosphere for the soul to grow and flower in love and beauty, in wisdom and power. It tunes the harp of the heart, and thus makes it possible for the musician to play the correct notes. That is the function of devotion. But you must know the notes you have to play, your fingers must learn how to sweep along the strings, and you must have a musical ear, or better still, a musical heart. . . . What is proper tuning to the musical instru- ment that devotion is to the human Monad. But other faculties are needed for the production of various sweet strams.
There you have the meaning of devotion m a few words. It is the tuning of the heart. Knowledge may be needed for the different strains that are wanted, but devotion tunes the heart and the soul, so that every strain may come out in perfect harmony. Then is the growth in love, then is the growth in knowledge, then is the growth in spiritual purity : then all the forces of the spiritual spheres are helping onwards this Soul that fain would rise for service.
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and all the strength of Those Who have achieved Is used to help on the one who would fain achieve, in order that he may better serve.
And what does devotion mean in life ? It means clearer vision so that we may see the right ; it means deeper love so that we may serve the better; it means unruffled peace and calm that nothing can shake or disturb, because, fixed in devotion on the Blessed Ones, there is nothing that can touch the Soul. And ever through those Blessed Ones there shines the light which comes from yet beyond Them, and which They focus for the help of the worlds, which they make possible for our weak eyes to bear.
And then there are the peace, the vision, the power of service — that is what devotion means in life ; and the Self whom the spotless devotee is seeking, that Self is pure, and that Self is Light"* — Light which no soil may sully. Light which no selfishness may dim, until the devotee himself vanishes in the Light which is himself. For the very Self of all is Light and Love, and the time at last comes, which has come to the Masters, when that Light shines out through spotless transparent purity and gives its full effulgence for the helping of the world. That
*Munclakopanishad, iii. I. 10.
Devotion and the Spiritual Life. 89
is the meaning of devotion. That, however feebly phrased - and all words are feeble - that is the inner life of those who love, who recognise that life is only meant for service, who recognise that the only thing that makes life worthy is that it shall be burnt in the lire of devotion, in order that the world may be lighted and may be warmed. That is the goal which ends, not in liberation, but in perfect service. Liberation only when all Souls are liberated, when all together enter into the bliss unspeakable, and which, when that period of bliss is over, brings them out again as conscious co-workers with unbroken memory in the higher spiritual regions ; for they have won their right to be conscious workers for ever in all future Manvantaras ; for the Life of Love never gives liberation from service, and as long as eternity endures the Soul that loves works for and serves the Universe.
H
The Ceasing of Sorrow.
An jirlicle in the " Theosophical Review " in October, 1897.
C AITH a great Scripture, defining pleasure *^ as threefold, that there is a pleasure " born of the blissful knowledge of the Self," that *' putteth an end to pain " (Bhagavad Gita, xviii. 36, 37). Pleasures are many, but " the delights that are contact-born, they are verily wombs of pain," whereas he only " whose self is unattached to external contacts . . . enjoys happiness exempt from decay " (v. II, 1 2). Looking at the faces we pass daily in city or hamlet, alike in carriage, omnibus and cart, of old, middle-aged and young, of men and women - nay, even of the little ones, too often - we see in all dissatisfaction and harassment, trouble and unrest. Rarely are our eyes gladdened by a face serene and happy, free from lines carven by worry and anxiety, a face that tells of a soul at peace with itself and with all around, of " a heart at leisure," unhurried, strong. Some cause there must be for this general characteristic, increasing with the increase of " civilisation," and yet that it is an evitable evil is evidenced by the rare sweet presences
The Ceasing of Sorrow. 91
that bring with them a serener atmosphere and radiate peace as others radiate unrest. A trouble so general must have its roots deep m human nature, and some fundamental prmciple deep-lying as the trouble, must exist as remedy. There must be some mistake into which as a race we fall that stamps on us this mark of sorrow. But if this be so, ignorance brings about our sadness, and the knowledge of the mistake puts the remedy within our grasp.
Ages ago the knowledge was given in the Upanishads ; somewhat less than five thousand years ago it was expounded in the original Bhagavad Gita ; twenty-four centuries ago the Lord Buddha enforced in plainest language the immemorial teaching ; nineteen hundred years ago the Christ offered the same gift to the western world. Some, learning it, have entered the supreme Peace ; some, earnestly striving to Itarn it, are feeling its distant touch as an ever- growing reality ; some, seeing its far-off radiance through a momentary rift in the storm-clouds, yearningly aspire to reach it. Alas ! the myriads of driven souls know not of it, dream not of it, and yet it is not far from any one of us. Per- haps a recital of the ancient teaching may help one here and there to escape from sorrow's net, to break the connection with pain.
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The cause of sorrow is the thirst for separated life in which individuality begins ; without that thirst the eternal seed could not develop into the likeness of its generating Sire, becoming a centre of self-consciousness able to exist amid the tremendous vibrations which disintegrate universes, able to remain without a circumfer- ence, possessing inherently the power to generate it again, and thus to act as an axis for the eternal Motion when it is going to turn the great Wheel which is parentless, ere the Son has " awakened for the new wheel and his pilgrimage thereon." Unless the thirst for separ- ated life were aroused, universes could never come into manifestation, and it must continue in each soul until it has accomphshed its mighty task - a paradox to the intellect but a truism to the spirit - of forming a centre which is itself eternally, and at the same time is everything.
While this thirst for separated life again and again draws the soul into the ocean of births and deaths, a yet deeper constituent of its being drives it to seek ever for union. All men seek happiness, seek they never so blindly ; the search needs no justification ; it is a universal instinct, and even those who torture the body, and seem to be trampling happiness under foot, do but choose the valley of pain because they
The Ceasing of Sorrow. 93
believe that through it lies the shortest path to a deeper and more abiding joy.
Now what is the essence of happiness, found alike in the delirious passion of the sensualist and in the rapt ecstasy of the saint ? It is union with the object of desire, the becoming one with that which promises delight. The drunkard who swallows his drink, the miser who clutches his gold, the lover who embraces his mistress, the artist who saturates himself in beauty, the thinker who concentrates himself on his idea, the mystic who loses himself in the empyrean, the yogin who merges himself in Deity - all are alike in finding happiness in union with the object of desire. This one thing they have in common. But their place in evolution is shown by the object with which union is sought. Not the search for happiness, but the nature of the object which yields happi- ness is the distinguishing mark of the base or lofty soul.
We seem to wander from our thesis in taking our next step, but the wandering is only seeming, illusory. In any given universe one Life is evolving into many lives through an ascending series of forms. The lives manifest as energies, displayed and further developed by means of forms. In order that these lives may thus
94 The Spiritual Life.
develop, the forms must be continually chang- ing, for each form is first an instrument and later a prison. As the latent powers in a life - inseparate ever from the one Life as a plant from its hidden root - are drawn out by the play of the environment upon it, the form which was its helpful vehicle becomes its encramping mould. What then can happen? Either the life must perish, stifled by the form it had shaped, or the form must break into pieces and set free the life in an embryonic form of a higher type. But the life cannot perish, being an offshoot of the Eternal ; hence the form must break. The breaking of a series of forms round an ever- expanding life means - evolution.
The expansion of this life may be likened to the expansion of life in a seed - from nucleus to embryo, from embryo to seedling, from seedling to sapling, from sapling to tree, capable of yielding seeds like that from which it grew. All growth is the unfolding of hidden powers, powers that in a LoGOS have reached their highest point for that universe - His universe - and that He plants as seed of every separated life. As water ever rises to its own level so does this down-poured life strive to rise to the level of its source ; as mass attracts mass so does each life separate in manifestation seek itself, the
The Ceasing of Sorrow. 95
one Life. That one Life exerts ceaselessly an upward drawing force, like the vis a fronte of the bafHed botanist. Its embryonic Self in each answers to the Father-self and blindly reaches out, groping after the One within the many, the One that is itself. Thus external contacts arise ; by the inward urging of the Self the forms meet, then cling or clash. The attractive force is the one Self in all ; the variety, the pleasure or the pain, is in the forms.
Further, it is the life that seeks the life, but in the search it is the form that finds the form, thus baffling the seeker. The forms are barriers between life and life, cannot intermingle, are mutually exclusive. Life could mix with life as two rivers mix their waters, but as rivers cannot join while each is running within its own banks, so lives cannot unite while forms lock each withm its own enclosure.
Let us gather up our threads and twist them together into an Ariadne-clue to guide us through the Cretan labyrinth of life that we may find and slay the Minotaur called sorrow.
There is a thirst for separated life necessary to the building of the one who endures ;
There is a persistent seeking for happiness ;
The essence of happiness lies in union with the object of desire ;
96 The Spiritual Life.
One Life is evolving through many imper- manent forms ;
Each separated life seeks this Life which is itself, and thus forms come into contact ;
These forms exclude each other and keep the contained lives apart.
We may now^ understand how sorrow ariseth. A soul seeks beauty, and finds a beautiful form ; it unites itself to the form, rejoices over it ; the form perishes and a void is left. A soul seeks love, and it finds a lovable form ; it unites itself to the form and joys in it ; the form perishes and the heart lies desolate. And this is the experience in its least sorrowful shape ; far more grievous is the sad satiety of possession, the wearied relinquishment of a prize so hardly won. Disillusion treading on the heels of dis- illusion, and yet ever fresh illusion and ever renewed disgust.
Search the world over and we find that all the sufferings of normal evolution are due to union with the changing and dying forms, the blind and foohsh seeking for a happiness that shall endure by a clinging to the form that perishes. These are " the delights that are contact-born," and because they lead to weari- ness or, at the best, to loss, they are truly described as " wombs of pain." As against
The Ceasing of Sorrow. 97
these we are bidden to seek " the bhssful know- ledge of the Self." Let life seek life, and the way to happiness is found : let the self seek the Self, and the upwinding path to peace stretches before the weary heart. To seek happiness by union with forms is to dwell amid the transitory, the limited, the clashing ; to seek happiness by union with Life is to rest at peace on the per- manent, the infinite, the harmonious.
Does this sound as though we were stripping our lives of joy and beauty, and setting them lonely in measureless depths of space ? Nay, what we love in our beloved is not the form but the life, not the body but the soul. Clear- eyed love can leap across death s abyss, across birth's Lethe-stream, and find and clasp its own unerringly though new and alien form be casket for the jewel-soul it knows. When this is seen the cause of sorrow is understood, and long practice brings its certain remedy, for we, our- selves life, not form, unite our life to life, not form, in our dear ones, blend more and more as form after form is dashed in pieces by the compassionate severity of a law that is love, until we find ourselves not twain but one, one also with the Life that is m and around and through all, and, inseparate amid the separated, we have put an end to pain.
98 The Spiritual Life.
This is the ceasing of sorrow, this the entering into peace.
On the way to the blissful seat, moreover, the understanding of the cause of sorrow robs sorrow itself of its sting, for we learn that it is only that stern-seeming because veiled happiness *' which at first is as venom but in the end is as nectar." From this knowledge spnngs a strong serenity that can endure as seeing the end, can *' glorify the Lord in the fires." Shall not the gold rejoice in the burning that frees it from worthless dross ?
Without the experience of sorrow, strength could not be developed. Strong mental and moral muscles are not obtained without strenuous exercise, any more than physical muscles become powerful without it. Struggle is a condition of the lower evolutions in nature ; it is the means by which strength is developed. Only perfect strength is calm.
Without the experience of sorrow, sympathy could not be evolved. By suffering we learn to understand at once the pain and its needs, the demand and its meeting. Having suffered under temptation, we learn how to help effec- tively those who are tempted ; only those who have risen from falls can aid the fallen with that exquisite understanding which alone prevents
The Ceasing of Sorrow. 99
help from being Insult. Every bud of pain opens into a blossom of power, and who would grudge the brief travail through which an eternal Saviour is brought forth ?
Without the experience of sorrow we could not gain the knowledge of good and evil ; without this the conscious choice of the highest could not become certain, nor the very root of desire to unite with forms be eradicated. The perfect man is not one whose lower nature still yearns for contact-born delights, but is strongly held in check ; he is one who has eliminated from his lower nature all its own tendencies, and has brought it into perfect harmonious union (yoga) with himself ; who passes through the lower worlds unaffected by any of their attrac- tions or repulsions, his will unalterably pointing towards the highest, working without an effort with all the inviolability of law and all the flexibility of intelligent adaptation. For the building of such a man hundreds of incarnations are not too many, myriad years are not too long.
Never let us forget, in the wildest storm of sorrow, that these early stages of our evolution, in which pain plays so large a part, are early stages only. They bear an infinitesimal pro- portion to our existence ; nay, the two things are incommensurables, for how can we measure
100 The Spiritual Life.
time against eternity, myriad years against an unending life ? If we spake of the cycle of reincarnation as the infant stage of humanity, full of infantile ailments, we should utterly exaggerate its relative importance. Verily " our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Therefore when the storm- clouds gather, look beyond them to the change- less sky ; when the billows buffet, lift the eyes to the eternal shore. Let earth and hell pour forth their angriest forces to overwhelm, they shall only lift us upwards, bear us onwards. For we are unborn, undying, constant, change- less and eternal, and we are here only to forge the instruments for an immortal service, the service which is perfect freedom.
The Value of Devotion.
Jin jirticle in the " Theosophical Review " in May, 1900.
A MONG the many forces which inspire men ■**• to activity, none, perhaps, plays a greater part than the feeling we call devotion, - together with some feelings that often mask themselves under its name though fundamentally differing from it in essence. The most heroic self-sacrifices have been inspired by it, while the most terrible sacrifices of others have been brought about by its pseudo-sister fanaticism. It is as powerful a lever for raising a man as is the other for his degradation. The two sway mankind with over-mastering power, and in some of their manifestations show an illusory resemblance ; but the one has its roots in knowledge, the other in ignorance ; the one bears the fruits of love, the other the poison-apples of hate.
A clear understanding of the nature of devo- tion is necessary, ere we are in a position to weigh its value and to distinguish it from the false Duessa. We must trace it to its origin in
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human nature, and see in what part of that nature it takes its rise. We must know in order that we may practise ; for as knowledge without practice is barren, so practice without knowledge IS wasted. Emotion unregulated by knowledge, like a river overflowing its banks, spreads in every direction as a devastating flood, while emotion guided by knowledge is like the same river running in appointed channels and fertilising the land through which it flows.
If we study the inner nature of man, we find that it readily reveals three marked aspects that are distinguished from each other as the spiritual, the intellectual and the emotional. On studying these further, we learn that the spiritual nature is that in which all the separate individualities inhere, that it is the common root, the unifying influence, that principle which, when developed, enables a man to realise in consciousness the oneness of all that lives. The intellectual nature may be said to be its antithesis ; it is the individualising force in man, that which makes the many from the One. Its self-realisation is "1," and from this it sharply divides the "not-I." It knows itself apart, separate, and works best in isolation, drawn inwards, self-concentrated, indifl^erent to all without. Not herein can be found the root of devotion, of a feeling which
The Value of Devotion. 103
rushes outward ; intellect can grasp, it cannot move. Remains the emotional nature, the energising force that causes action, that which feels. This it is that attracts us to an object, or repels us from it, and herein we shall find that devotion has its source. For as we study the emotional nature we see that it has two emotions - attraction and repulsion. It is ever moving us towards or away from objects surrounding us, according as those objects afford us pleasure or pain. All the feelings which draw us towards another fall under the head of attraction and are forms of Love. All those which repel us from another fall under the head of repulsion and are forms of Hate.
Now Love takes different forms, and is called by different names, according as its object is above it, equal with it, or below it. Directed to those below it we name it pity, compassion, benevolence ; directed to those equal with it, we call it friendship, passion, affection ; directed to those above it, we style it reverence, adoration, devotion. Thus we trace devotion to its origin in the love-side of the emotional nature, and we define it as love directed to an object superior to the lover. When love is directed to the Guru, to God, we rightly term it devotion, for then it is poured out before the superior, and
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shows In perfection the characteristic of all love given to those w^ho are greater than ourselves, the characteristic of self-surrender.
Here we have the touchstone by which we can separate it from the fanaticism which has inspired religious wars, religious persecutions, religious animosities. These have their roots in hatred, not in love ; they repel us from others instead of drawing us towards them. In the name of love to God men injure their fellows ; but when we analyse the motive power of their actions we do not find it in the love, but in their sense that they are right and others wrong, in the separateness they feel from others, in the feeling of repulsion from them because of their supposed wrongness, i.e., in hate. Out of this come the bitter waters that sterilise the heart over which they flow. By this we can judge what we regard as devotion in ourselves ; if it makes us humble, gentle, tolerant, friendly to all, then it is true devotion ; if it makes us proud, harsh, separate, suspicious of all, then, however fair its seeming, it is dross, not gold.
Now devotion being a form of love, it can only flow out when an object presents itself which is attractive in its own nature, i.e., happi- ness-giving. All men seek happiness, and that
The Value of Devotion. 105
attracts them, draws them towards itself, which seems to them to make for happiness. Happi- ness is the feehng which accompanies the increase of life, and true and permanent bliss lies in union with the Self, the All-life, in conscious Self-identification with and expansion into the All ; all efforts after happiness are efforts to unite with objects in order to absorb their life, thereby expanding the life that absorbs them. Happiness results from this union, because thereby the feeling of life is increased. Funda- mentally the impulse to seek union comes from the Self, seeking to overpass the barriers which separate its selves on the lower planes, and the attraction between selves is the seeking by the Self in each of the Self in the other, " Lo, not for the sake of the husband is the husband dear, but for the sake of the Self the husband is dear. Lo ! not for the sake of the wife is the wife dear, but for the sake of the Self the wife is dear." And so also with sons, wealth, Brahmanas, Kshattriyas, the worlds, the gods, the Vedas, the elements, until : " Lo ! not for the sake of the All is the All dear, but for the sake of the Self the All is dear."* The Self seeks the Self, and this is the universal search for happiness, ever frustrated by the clash of
* " Brihadaranyakopanishad," VI. v. 6.
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form with form, the obstruction of the vehicles in which the separated selves abide.
In order to draw out devotion, then, an object which is attractive must be presented to man, and we find such objects presented most completely in the revelations of the Supreme Self made through human form in the " God- Men " who appear from time to time ~ the Avataras, or Divine Incarnations. Such beings are rendered supremely attractive by the beauty of character they manifest, by the rays of the Self which shme through the human veil, imper- fectly conceahng their divine loveliness. When He who is Beauty and Love and Bliss shows a little portion of Himself on earth, encased in human form, the weary eyes of men light up, the tired hearts of men expand, with a new hope, a new vigour. They are irresistibly attracted to Him, devotion spontaneously springs up. Among Christians the intensity of religious devotion flows out to Christ, the Divine Man, regarded as an incarnation of Deity, far more than to " God " in the abstract. It is His human side. His life and death. His sympathy and compassion. His gentle wisdom and patient sufferings, which stir men's hearts to a passion of devotion ; as the " Man of Sorrows," the innocent and willing Sufferer, He wins per-
The Value of Devotion. 107
ennially the love of men ; it is the memory
of Him as Man that holds men captive ; as
phrased by one of His devotees : -
The cross of Christ Is more to us than all His miracles.
And so in the God- Men of other faiths ; it is Shri Rama the Divine King, Shri Krishna the Friend and Lover, who win the undying, passionate devotion of millions of human hearts. They render Deity attractive by softening its dazzling radiance into a light that human eyes can bear as it shines through the veil of humanity ; They limit the divine attributes till they become small enough for the human in- telligence to grasp. These stand as Objects of devotion, attracting love by Their perfect love- ableness ; They need only to be seen to be loved ; where They are not loved it is merely because they are not seen. Devotion to Divine Men is not a matter for discussion or for argu- ment ; the moment one of Them is seen by the inner vision the heart rushes out to Him and falls unbidden at His feet. Devotion may be cultivated by the reason, may be approved of and nurtured by the intelligence ; but its primary impulse comes from the heart, not from the head, and flows out spontaneously to the Object that attracts it, to the shining of the
1 2
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Self through a translucent veil ; to the Heart's Desire in manifested form.
Next, as objects of devotion, come the Teachers who, having Themselves obtained liberation, remain voluntarily within touch of humanity, retaining human bodies while the Jivatma enjoys nirvanic consciousness. They stand, as it were, between the Avataras and the earthly Gurus who are Their disciples and who have not yet reached liberation, but to the eyes of men on earth They are scarce distin- guishable from the Avataras Themselves, and they draw men with the same overmastering attraction. The Avatara truly is greater, but that greatness lies on the side turned away from earth, and we can imagine no completer per- fection than that of the Masters of Wisdom.
Then come, in more constant physical com- munication with men, the Gurus who are the immediate spiritual teachers of those whose faces are turned to the steep path that leads to the heights, to the snowy mountains of human per- fection. Still marred by weaknesses though they be, these have advanced sufficiently beyond their fellow-men to serve as their guides and helpers ; and for the most part the earlier stages of progress are trodden by devotion to them. Further, as they are near the threshold of
The Value of Devotion. 109
liberation, they will shortly pass into the class beyond them, and, as spiritual links are imperish- able, will then be able, with added force, to draw their devotees after them. Love given to them strengthens and expands the nature of their lovers, and there is no surer path to devotion, in its highest meaning, than the love and trust given to the earthly Guru. Nowhere has this been realised so strongly as in the East, where the love and service of the Guru have ever been held as necessary to spiritual progress. Much of the decay of modern India is due to the ignorance, the pride, the unspirituality of those who still wear the ancient name while devoid of all the qualities once implied by it ; for as the best wine makes the sharpest vinegar, so is the degradation of the highest the lowest depth.
How shall devotion, then, be evoked and nourished ? Only by meeting in the outer or inner world a fit object of devotion, and by yielding fully and unreservedly to the attraction it exercises. The glad and cordial recognition of excellence wherever found, the checking of the critical and carping spirit that fixes on defects and Ignores virtues, these things prepare the soul to recognise his Guru when he appears. Many a one misses his teacher by the mental habit of
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fixing the attention on blemishes rather than on beauties, by seeing only the sun-spots and not the Sun. Further the recognition of excellence shows the capacity to reproduce it ; sympathetic vibrations are given out only by a string tuned to produce by itself a similar note ; the soul knows his kin, even though they be elder than himself, and only those akin to greatness are awakened by the great to response.
When the Guru is found and the tie with him is made, the first great step is taken. Then follows the steady culture of devotion to him, and through him to Those beyond and to the Supreme Self, manifested in form. This must never be forgotten, for the Guru is a means not an end, a transmitter not an originator of the divine light, a moon not a sun. He helps, strengthens, guides, evolves his pupil ; but the end is the shining out of the Self m the disciple, the Self who is one, and is in Guru and chela alike.
Devotion to the embodiment of the Self spoken of as the Avatara may be nourished and increased by reading and meditating on His sayings and the incidents of His life on earth, it is a good plan to read over an incident and then vividly picture it in the mind, using the imagination to- produce a full and detailed picture,
The Value of Devotion. Ill
and feeling oneself as present In it, a spectator or an actor therein. This " scientific use of the imagination" is a great provocative of devotion, and it actually brings the devotee into touch with the scene depicted, so that he may one day find himself scanning the akashic record of the event, a very part of that living picture, learning undreamed of lessons from his presence there.
Another way of cultivating devotion is to be much in company with those m whom devotion burns more brightly than in ourselves. As burning wood thrown into a smouldering fire will cause a flame to burst out brightly again, so the nearness of the warm fire of devotion in another rekindles the flagging energy of a weaker soul. Here again the disciple may gain much by frequenting the company of his Guru, whose steadier force will energise his own. Narada, in his admirable Sutras, thus instructs us on the culture of devotion, and who should teach better than that ideal devotee ?
Almost needless to add that the direct con- templation of, meditation on, adoration of the object of devotion quicken and intensify the love. In the hurry of modern life we are apt to forget the power of quiet thought and to grudge the time necessary for its exercises. Thought of
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the one we love increases love, and the would- be devotee must give time to the object of his devotion, and it is not his thought alone that is at work. As little can a plant grow without sunlight as devotion without the warming and energising rays that stream from its object ; the older soul pours out far more love than he receives, and his light and heat permeate and strengthen the younger soul. The Guru loves his chela, God loves his devotee, far more than the chela loves his Guru, or the devotee his God. The love of the devotee for his Lord is but a faint reflection of the love of Him who is Love itself. It is said that if a child throws a pebble to the ground, the whole great earth moves towards the pebble as well as draws the pebble to itself ; attraction cannot be one-sided. In the spiritual world when man makes one step towards God, God makes a hundred steps towards man, for greatness there means great- ness in giving, and the ocean pours forth its measureless depths towards any drop that seeks its bosom.
Having seen what devotion is, what its objects, how it can be increased, we may fitly measure its value so as to find motive for attain- ing it.
Devotion changes the devotee into the like-
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ness of the one he loves. Solomon, the wise Hebrew, declares that as a man thinks so he is. The Chhandog])opanishad teaches that man is created by thought ; what he thinks on that he becomes. But the intellect alone cannot easily be shaped into the likeness of the Supreme. As cold iron is hard, and incapable of being worked, but heated in the furnace becomes fluid and flows readily into any desired mould, so it is with the intellect. It must be melted in the fire of devotion, and then it will quickly be shaped into the likeness of the Beloved. Even love between equals, where it is strong and faithful and long continued, moulds them into each other's likeness ; husband and wife become like each other, close friends grow similar each to each. And love directed to one above us exercises its transforming power still more forcibly, and easily shapes the nature it renders plastic into the likeness which is enshrined in the heart.
Devotion prevents the making of new karma, and when the old is exhausted the devotee is free. The great Christian teacher, St. Paul, writing of himself, declared that he no longer lived but Christ lived in him, and this saying becomes true of each devotee as his devotion leads him to surrender himself utterly to the one
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he loves. He thinks of his body not as his, but as an instrument used by his Lord for the world's helping ; all his actions are done because they are the duty given him by his Beloved ; does he eat, it is not to gratify the palate, but to keep in working order his Lord's instrument ; does he think, it is not for the pleasure of thinking, but in order that his Lord's work may be the better done; he merges his life in the life he loves, thinks, works, acts, in union with that higher life, merging his smaller rill of being in the larger stream, and finding a deep joy in feeling himself part of the fuller life. So it is written : " Whatsoever thou doest, whatsoever thou eatest, whatsoever thou offerest, whatsoever thou givest, whatsoever thou doest of austerity, O son of Kunti, do thou that as an offering unto Me. Thus shalt thou be liberated from the bonds of action (yielding) good and evil fruits.' {Bhagavad-Gildy ix. 27, 28.) Where fruits of action are not desired, where actions are done only as sacrifice, no karma is made by the actor, and he is not bound by them to the wheel of births and deaths.
Devotion cleanses the heart. Once again Shri Krishna teaches us, and the words at first seem strange. "Even if the most sinful worship me with undivided heart, he too must be ac-
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counted righteous." Why ? we naturally ask ; and the answer comes : " Because he hath rightly re- solved ; speedily he becometh dutiful, and goeth to peace eternal." {^hagavad-Gitd, 30, 31.) In the higher world men are judged by motives not by actions, by inner attitude not by external signs. When a man feels devotion to the Supreme, he has turned his back on evil and has turned his face to the goal ; he may stumble, stray, even fall, but his face is turned in the right direction, he is going homewards ; he must needs become dutiful by the force of his devotion, for seeking union with his Beloved he will swiftly cast away everything that prevents the union ; to Him who sees the end from the beginning he is righteous when his face is turned to righteousness, and his love will burn up in him the evil that veils from him the Being he adores and produce in him the likeness that he worships. So sure is this action, so inviolable the law, that he is " accounted righteous." To the two great classes of the self-seekers and the seekers of the Self, he has changed from the first into the second.
Devotion puts an end to pain. That which we do for the object of our love is done with joy, and pain is merged in gladness when it is endured for the sake of one we love. The mere
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earthly lover will gladly undergo hardships, perils, sufferings, to win approval from, or to gain something desirable for, hi§ beloved. How should not the one who has caught a glimpse of the beauty of the Self do joyfully all that brings him nearer to union, sacrifice ungrudgingly, nay, with delight, all that withholds him from the bridal of the inner life ? For the sake of being with one we love, we readily endure incon- venience, sacrifice comfort, the joy of the presence of the loved one lends charm to the surmounting of all obstacles that separate. Thus devotion makes hard things easy, and painful things pleasant. For love is the World-alchemist and transmutes all to gold.
Devotion gives peace. The heart at peace in the Self is at peace with all. The devotee sees the Self in all ; all forms around him bear the impress of the Beloved. How then can he hate or despise or repel any, when the face he loves smiles at him behind every mask? "Sages look with equal eye on a Brahmana adorned with learning and humility, on a cow, an elephant, and even a dog and a dog-eater. (Bhagavad-Gita, v. 1 8.) No one, nothing, can be outside the heart of the devotee, since nothing is outside the embrace of his Lord, if we love the very objects touched by the one we
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love, how shall we not love all forms in which the Beloved is enshrined ? A child in his play may draw over his laughing face a hideous mask, but the mother knows her darling is underneath ; and when m the world-lila the Lord is hidden under form repulsive, His lovers are not repelled, but see only Him. There is no creature, moving or unmovmg, that exists bereft of Him, and in the heart-chamber of the vilest sinner the Holiest abides.
Thus we return to our starting-point and learn to recognise the devotee by his aspect to his fellow-creatures. His abounding love, his tenderness, his compassion, his pity, his sympathy with all faiths and all ideals, these mark him out as a lover of the Lord of love. It is told of Shri Ramanujacharya that a mantra was once given him by his Guru, and he asked what would happen if he told it to another : " Thou wilt die," was the answer. "And what will happen to the one who hears it ? " " He will be liberated." Then out ran the devotee of Shri Krishna, and flying to the top of a tower, he shouted out the mantra to the crowded streets below, careless what happened to himself so that others should be set free from sin and sorrow. There is the typical devotee, there the lover transformed into the likeness of the Beloved.
Spiritual Darkness.
An Article in the " Theosophical Review" in February), 1900.
FEW of the perils which beset the path of the serious aspirant are more depressing in their nature, more fatal in their effects, than what is called spiritual darkness - the gloom which descends on the heart and brain, wrappmg the whole nature in its sombre folds, blottmg out all memories of past peace, all hopes of future progress. As a dense fog pervades a great city, stealing mto every nook and corner, effacing every familiar landmark, shutting off every vista, blurring mto dimness even the brilhant lights, until, to the bewildered wayfarer, nothing seems left save himself and the stifling mephitic vapour that enfolds him, so is it when the fog of spiritual darkness comes down on the aspirant or the disciple. All his landmarks disappear, and the way vanishes in the gloom ; his wonted lights are shorn of their lustre, and human beings are mere shadows that now and again push up against him out of the night and into the night again disappear. He is alone and lost ; a sense of terrible isolation shuts him in, and no one
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shares his solitude. The human faces that smiled on him have vanished ; the human voices that cheered him are silent: the human love that caressed him has grown chill. His "lovers and friends are put away from " him ; and no words of comfort reach him across the deadly stillness. To move forward, when the ground on which the foot must be planted is invisible, feels as if he were stepping over a precipice, and a dull surging of waves at a far depth seems to threaten destruction, while their very distance below intensifies the nearer silence. Heaven is shut out as well as earth ; sun, moon and stars have vanished, and no glimmer of their radiance pierces the gloom from above. He feels as though suspended in an abyss of nothingness, and as though he would shortly pass into that nothingness himself ; his flame of life seems to flicker in the darkness, as though, in sympathy with the universal gloom, it would itself cease to shine. The "horror of great darkness" is upon him, paralysing every energy, crushing every hope. God and man have deserted him - he is alone, alone.
The testimony of every great mystic proves that this picture is not overdrawn ; there are no cries of human anguish more bitter than those which wail out from the pages on which noble
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and saintly souls have recorded their experiences on the Path. They had looked for peace, and combat surrounds them ; for joy, and sorrow is their portion ; for the Beatific Vision, and the darkness of the pit hems them m. That lesser souls have not faced the ordeal, and look un- believingly on its possibility, putting their theories of v^hat should be against the iron facts of what is - this proves nothing save that their hour is not yet come. The child cannot measure the man's struggle, nor the babe feel the anguish that pierces the breast which feeds it. To every age its proper fruitage, and while we can understand the experiences that lie behind us, none may grasp the nature of those that he ahead. Let the undeveloped soul, if he will, scoff at the agony he cannot appreciate, depreciate the suffer- ing he cannot yet feel, even deride as weakness the signs of an anguish whose hghtest touch would shrivel up his own vaunted strength. Those growing into divine manhood know the reality of the darkness, and only those who know can judge.
At a very early stage of real apprenticeship to the higher life, darkness - less absolute than that above described, but sufficiently trying to the as yet undeveloped soul - will strain and test his powers. The earnest aspirant soon finds
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that fits of gloom, the cause of which he cannot discover, descend upon him and subject him to much distress. He is apt, in the over- sensitiveness vv^hich accompanies this stage of growth, to blame himself for these accesses of sadness, and to take himself sharply to task for the loss of the serenity which he has put before himself as his ideal. When the gloom is upon him, every surrounding object takes an unwonted and exaggerated shape. Small annoyances loom large, distorted by the mists that surround him, petty troubles grow into great shadows that overcloud the sun, and friction that in happier seasons would pass unnoticed now rasps every nerve and tortures every sensibility. He feels that he has fallen from the place to which he had climbed by prolonged efforts, and that all his past struggles are wasted and their fruits rent away from his grasp. As has been well said: " It is wonderful how the Powers of the Dark seem to sweep away as it were in one gust all one's spiritual treasures, garnered with such pain and care after years of incessant study and experience." What wonder that the trembling and bewildered soul of the neophyte feels a touch almost of despair as the spoils of victory on many a hard-fought field crumble into ashes in his hands.
K
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Let us examine into the cause of the dark- ness, for though, while it is upon us, all merely theoretical knowledge breaks down under our feet, yet that knowledge may help to clear it away more rapidly, when once it begins to lighten. Nothing but repeated practical experi- ence can keep us as steady and as serene in the darkness as in the light, but theoretical know- ledge has its place in the evolution of the mind.
We will take separately the cases of the aspirant and of the accepted disciple, for though the causes of the darkness which affects the former may also play their part in bringing down the night on the latter, there are addi- tional causes at work where the accepted dis- ciple is concerned.
First comes the well-known fact of the quick- ening of karma, once a man has set his face resolutely towards the portal of the Path. We need not dwell on this, for it has been often explained, and it plays a comparatively small