Section 10

But, again, someone may ask, surely this web of destiny is not eternal ? By no means ; to be eternal, in the absolute sense of the word, it needs must be woven with the shuttle of the eternal will. That is to say, that into all our acts and words and thoughts we must put the whole of the eternal will of the universe.
132 THE WORLD-MYSTERY.
Surely this is impossible in the very nature of things ! That which we think to be ourselves, that which acts in us, is not the Self but that which we think to be ourselves. It is not a reality, but an ever-changing and impermanent something. For no matter how long it may persist, aye, even for an " eternity," it is not eternal in the absolute sense of the word. The Eternal, the One Reality, knows no change.
The web of the universe is woven with the shuttle of divine love — love for all that lives and breathes. It is that deific desire for universal good or harmony ; it is a perpetual self-sacri- fice, giving of its life and light to all without distinction. Thus it is in the " above," but in the " below," here in the world of men, the shuttle whereby we weave our web of destiny is the shuttle of desire. This is selfishness ; a power that concretes, that draws to itself for itself. We weave our webs of destiny from the warp and woof of things of sensation and of matter by means of the shuttle of desire. But as this lower desire is no stronger than our- selves, our lower natures, it cannot be that the fabric it weaves should be eternal. It is made up of ever-changing and impermanent materials,
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and so must cease when the energy that pro- duced it is exhausted.
What is most important to reaHsc, however, is that this web is a Kving thing. What we call matter is only negative life ; but the web of destiny extends beyond matter into the realms of feeling, emotion, volition and mind. Thought is one of the most important sub- stances from which it is woven. As the Dham- mapada of the Buddhists says (x. 3) :
" All that we are is the result of what we have thought ; it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."
This is the great teaching brought out so powerfully in the Gospel of Christendom ; "He who casteth his eyes on a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already with her in his heart. '^ That is to say, in his soul, within in the region of his mind which is so potent a region of his universe. Though this teaching is not explained at length in the Christian canon, in the Buddhist and Vedic canon there are numberless dissertations on the nature and power of thought. One example will suffice. In the Maitrdyana Upanishad (vi. 34, Max Miiller's Translation), we read :
134 THE WORLD-MYSTERY.
" Thought alone causes the round of a new- birth and a new death ; let a man therefore strive to purify his thoughts. What a man thinks, that he is : this is the old secret. If the thoughts of men were so fixed on the Eternal, as they are on the things of this world, who would not be freed from bondage ? "
This is the same teaching as that of the Ser- mon on the Mount : " The pure in heart shall see God."
This vesture of thought and the rest, then, is a very real thing. It is alive, it lives in us. This was also the belief of ancient Egypt. After the death of the body, the soul was said to pass forth on its path through the different regions of the Amenti. Just as the soul had shed off its body, so did the spirit shed off its psychic vestures, as it passed back into its own state, and these vestures, just as the body here below consists of countless " lives," consisted of living " beings," were woven out of living threads. In the Litany of the Sun already referred to, mention is made of " prayers to divers beings which have to serve as envelope to the essence of the Defunct."
And now the question arises, "If this is so.
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how is it possible to avoid for ever weaving this awful web of destiny more and more densely round ourselves. Thoughts come into our mind unbidden. It is impossible for one to get rid of them."
Now in the Roman Catholic Church there is a teaching that there is no sin, if a man does not join his " will " to the thought. This is precisely the teaching of the other religions I have referred to, and is consonant with the whole of what I have previously written. There is a continual procession of thoughts ever pass- ing through our minds — empty shapes, shadows and images. We can reject these shadows and let them pass on or arrest them by fixing our attention upon them. If we go further and give our consent to them we put our desire into them, and so breathe into them the breath of our life. They then become part of us, we have ensouled them, they are our children. If our desire is selfish and impure, then these children of ours are of a like nature, and we weave round ourselves and into our nature evil and impure forces.
I know that these things have been written of over and over again, but the story will not
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spoil for retelling. As we live, every moment we give birth to that which will be our self in a future existence and a future life. We give birth to a child. And if we, the dual parent of this child, are impure, passionate and immoral, the child we generate will be of like nature. Just as diseased and immoral parents, parents who procreate children in drunkenness and in obedience to the dictates of mere animal lust, give birth to abortions, crippled, lunatic and vicious children, so does each one of us give birth to an abortion if we are slaves of our desires. But if, on the other hand, we strive to trans- mute our lower desire into the divine love and will, then we may give birth to a divine child which will in time grow into the full stature of the Heavenly Man. This is the " second birth," the spiritual creation, spoken of by the Christ in the Gospel. This is why the Brahmans, not those who are born into a physical caste, but those who truly know Brahman, or the Eternal, are rightly called the "twice-born."
Yes, wc can escape from our web of destiny by weaving for ourselves the glorious vesture of the spirit, the "wedding garment," the " coat woven without scam of the Christ."
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As the Book of Peace {Mahdbhdrata, Shanti Parvan, Mokshadharma Parvan, ccci.) says :
"By casting off, through the aid of Yoga, these five faults — attachment, heedlessness, covetousness, lust and wrath, a man attains to freedom. As large fishes, breaking through the net, pass into their own clement [to sport in blessedness] , after the same manner Yogins [breaking through the net of lust, wrath and the rest] become cleansed of all sins and attain to the blessed state of freedom. As powerful animals, breaking through the nets with which the hunters surround them, escape into the blessed state of freedom, after the same manner Yogins, freed from all bonds, attain to the sinless path that leads to liberation. Feeble beings, entangled in acts, are surely destroyed. Even such is the case with those destitute of Yoga-power. As weak fishes, fallen into the net, become entangled in it, even so men destitute of the power of Yoga, encounter destruction [amid the bonds of the world]. Bound by the bonds of their acts, they that are weak meet with destruction, while they that are possessed of strength break through them."
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" The kingdom of heaven is to be attained by violence." Yoga means union, the striving / for union with the divinity that is in the heart
of all creatures. This is the at-one-ment that is the consummation of all religion. Yoga- power is the strength of the spiritual life, the energizing of the divine will. It is to be developed by " brooding " upon it ; by service of the Eternal, that is, by dedicating the whole of one's life to the Self; and by faith, that is, by faith and confidence in the possibility of such union.
It is said that the Supreme Being created the universe by means of such brooding (Tapas). By wrapping oneself round with this great spiritual power, by ever living in it, by realising the great Presence of the Eternal, the germ of the divine child will develop within. This brooding is the formation of a virgin womb, from which the immaculate child shall be born. This brooding is also heat and fire. It is thus that the three streams of life and conscious- ness (see p. 124) no longer continue as passive oceans of external existence, each on its own plane, but change into active energies which become three fires, or rather a triple-tongued
THE WEB OF DESTINY. 139
flame that finally blazes forth into the great fire and light of the universe.
Without doubt we can cast off our old gar- ments of desire and stand in the purified robes of divine will and universal compassion. To cast off our old squalid raiment we must practise non-attachment to it. We must be willing to stand naked before our Self, and this we cannot do unless we love that Self. There is a nega- tive and a positive method to be followed. The practice of non-attachment to the things of matter, to our possessions in this world, and to all that we think is oitrs within, is absolutely necessary, but this alone is not sufficient, it must also be accompanied by the positive love of the highest and the best, of the Self within. Both these forces are necessary. But there is danger even here, there is danger that a man should seek that Self for himself alone, should love that Self that so he may gain salvation for his own sake. Therefore it is, that he who would gain true wisdom, and live and realise the Self here on earth, must learn to love that Self in all that lives and breathes and not in himself alone. Then and not till then will he be on the path of final liberation from the delu-
140 THE WORLD-MYSTERY.
sion of that spiritual ignorance which causes him to weave his web of destiny.
This is the doctrine of the Christ, the saviour, the spirit within, the one from whom the many come if we could but understand it. This is also the teaching of Egypt of old. To quote yet once more from the inscriptions on the tombs of the kings of ancient Thebes :
"The kingly ' Osiris ' is an intelligent essence ; those who are born from him create him ; they rest when they have caused the kingly ' Osiris ' to be born."
The kingly Osiris is that highest vesture of the Self, the spirit or spiritual body. It is the causal vesture, the karmic record, from which the soul proceeds. The personalities all come forth from the divine individuality accord- ing to that karmic record. The many came forth for the one. This is the perennial root from which we came forth and into which we return, and by " we " I mean the " I am I," the person we think we are for one life, and not the real " I am " that is for the eternity. This " I am " is an " intelligent essence." " Those who are born from him " are our personalities, and it is the personal man who, by his efforts at
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self-purification and aspiration to this divine prototype within, shall grow like unto the spiri- tual man. So that at last he shall become at one with the Christ within, and so " create " the kingly .Osiris. And then shall we be at "rest," then shall we have found refuge in the " Self of Peace," then shall we have reached that " peace of God that passeth all understand- ing," and the web of our destiny shall be the same as that of the self-made and self-appointed destiny of God.
Deum te igitur scito esse. Know then that thou art God.
Cicero, Somkium Scipionis. Om! Peace, peace, peace!
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TRUE SELF-RELIANCE
A STUDY FROM CICERO AND THE UPANISHADS.
What am I ? Whence came I ? Whither do I journey ? Verily, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, mourning, and not to be comforted either by the lifeless dogmas of an effete theology or the cold denials of a material- istic science. It is from the sages of old, from the wise of the past, that the answer comes. That art thou. From That didst thou come. Into That shalt thou return. Aye, That art thou ! That is thy Self, none other. Such were the final words whispered into the ear of the disciple in the golden days of ancient Aryavarta. True then, true countless ages before, true for the rest of the eternity. No- where else is to be found true Self-reliance, nowhere else that peace which none can take away.
144 THE WORLD-MYSTERY.
A cold creed ! do I hear some one say ? Nay, not cold. It is a truth that transcends enthu- siasm, that surpasses all hope, that merges the highest ideal of love into an endless, boundless compassion for all that lives and breathes. For thus runs the Upanishad :
" Now will I tell thee the ancient mj'stery of the Highest. . . .
" That true Man, who wakes when we sleep, accomplishing every desire — that is called the Shining, the Highest, the Deathless. In that all the spheres are contained, and no one goes beyond. Aye, this [true Man] is That [the Universal Soul] .
" As fire, though one, on entering into the world, [pervading] form after form, takes the form [of what it enters] , so the Inner Self of all creatures, though one, takes on shape after shape, and yet [remains] apart.
" As air, though one, on entering into the world, [pervading] form after form, takes the form [of what it enters] , so the Inner Self of all creatures, though one, takes on shape after shape, and yet [remains] apart.
" As the sun, the means by which the whole world sees, is not sullied by the outer impurities
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which our eyes behold, so the Inner Self of all creatures, being one, is not sullied by the misery of the world, but [remains] apart [from it] .
" It is this Inner Self of all creatures, the Lord of the Will, who, though one, causes the one form to appear manifold. The wise who find this abiding in themselves, theirs is blessed- ness everlasting, and not others'.
"The eternal among the non-eternal, the conscious among the unconscious, who, though one, fulfils the desires of many. The wise who find this abiding in themselves, theirs is peace everlasting, and not others'.
"'This is That' — so runs the burthen of their thoughts — the transcendent bliss that beggars all description." {Kathopanishad, Adhyaya ii., Valli v. 6-14.)
The Upanishad then proceeds to explain that this Higher Self is self-luminous, and the cause, not only of the light on earth, but also of that in the heaven. The Self shines by its own light, it is self-motive within.
This is the secret of true Self-reliance ; no- where else is a lasting basis to be found, nowhere else unchanging certitude. In this self-motivity resides the essence of immortahty
K
146 THE WORLD-MYSTERY.
and nowhere else ; it is the one spark of divinity in man. A man must grow from within with- out, for such is the law. All other growth is artificial and unnatural, deceptive and illusory.
No one from without can give us peace and blessedness ; these must perforce come from within, from the Inner Self of all creatures — our true Higher Self.
Even should a Master — a Ji\'anmukta, one who has attained union, while still in the body, with that Higher Self — cast the mantle of his power round the disciple, should he wrap him in his aura, even then, it were to no profit, if the disciple is not ready to burst the veils of his Soul with self-effort.
If the nature of the disciple does not respond of its own will, and grow of its own energy, the artificial exaltation would be not only unprofit- able but even injurious. For the instant the protecting wall were removed, the reaction would sweep the unprepared neophyte off his feet. The passions and desires that had been curbed and held back by the external power of the teacher would fiercely spring forth, and the lassitude of the pupil's will, following the artificial stimulus, would be unable to check
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their wild career. And that is why it is so difficult even for a Master to interfere with the natural growth of the disciple. This is what is meant by saying that even sages dare not inter- fere with the growth of karmic seeds. Nature must work on in her own way, and growth must proceed /ro;7i within without and never from without within.