CONTENTS
I.— An Every-day Philosophy
II.— Perception And Realization
III.— Ideas And Ideals
IV.— The Guide To Conduct
V.— The Manifestation Of Ideals
VI.— The Golden Rule
VII.— Live Your Own Life
VIII.— Mind Your Own Business
IX.— Carrying Others’ Burdens
X.— Giving And Receiving Advice
XI.— The Consciousness Of Fear
XII.— Cheerfulness
XIII.— The Secret Of Sympathy
XIV.— An Inclusive Toleration
XV.— The Attainment Of Freedom
CHAPTER I
AN EVERY-DAY PHILOSOPHY
The Soul unfolds as its subjective instrument the mind, and its objective instrument the body, relate themselves consciously to a more expanded environment. By way of reaction, the mind expresses and the body manifests the Soul’s degree of unfoldment. Impulse from without leads to awakening within. The incessant action and reaction of Soul, mind and body vitalize all of the instrumentalities of life.
With the Soul’s increasing unfoldment, it becomes conscious of new correspondence, the mind acquires new or developed faculties, and the body new and evolved functions. The Soul’s environment changes as one develops, and his degree of happiness represents the extent of his conscious adaptation to environment.
Each Soul in the infinitude of unfolding Souls is constantly seeking to harmonize itself consciously with all the other Souls of which it takes cognizance, and of which it is an integral part. In this search, it is most important that it secure a reliable guide for feeling, thought and act.
A reliable guide is that offering suggestions of permanent benefit, and which may be followed readily to one’s moral advantage in solving the problems of life which unceasingly present themselves. The suggestions must be not only morally sound, but must be capable of practical application and adjustment to the demands of changing conditions and relations.
What is the most practical guide? Is it a prescribed act or method which may be duplicated? Is it a mental or physical exercise which may be followed automatically? Is it a formulated affirmation or denial? Is any outward form calculated to constitute a reliable or infallible guide ?
As the relation between the Soul and its environment is subject to incessant change, no particular form of activity will continue to relate it harmoniously to its environment. Any special exercise, method or act, has its time, place and purpose, but its usefulness is outgrown when one realizes its underlying principles, the intelligent interpretation and adaptation of which supersedes imitation of form.
A particular outward exercise or act becomes of value to one today because his development has reached a point where it serves to relate him harmoniously to today’s environment. As soon as it has fulfilled this purpose completely, its essence has been extracted, its purpose has been subserved, and it has assisted to develop a new environment in relation to which the exercise or act offers no essential service.
Man is not an automaton, nor can he live automatically. Each must think and act for himself. No one can live for another, and no one can duplicate another. No particular mental formulation or physical exercise has the same exact relation or effect upon different persons, although under similar conditions they may be related similarly. Intelligently to prescribe an exercise that will be beneficial, one must discern the particular need or requirement of the individual to be affected.
While there are changeless principles underlying mental formulations and physical exercises, their individual application is dictated by Soul unfoldment, which is ever and always enlarging and responding to a more inclusive environment. It is evident that the most reliable guide in this incessant external change and ferment, is one which accommodates itself continually to the ever-expanding consciousness of the individual.
As long as one looks without for aid and assistance, and until he has awakened to consciousness of his own inherent divinity, he will make use of automatic formulations and exercises, and rely upon distinctively intellectual and physical agencies for guidance. One looks to results rather than to causes, and his guides will ever be fluctuating and unreliable, until he holds firmly a conception of principle.
The only reliable guide is eternal, changeless principle. Principle is the guide of the individualized thinker, of the conscious creator of conditions, of the one who purposely designs the fabric of his life. The formulation of principle changes with his mental development. Its manifestation alters with his physical growth. He does not discard formulations or exercises, but he changes them continually to meet the dictates of his temporary though ever-developing requirements. He makes use of formulations and exercises as means instead of causes, and therefore discards their empty husks when the essence has been extracted.
A philosophy for a single day may be founded on prescribed outward observances, but an Every-day Philosophy of Life must be based on understanding of principle. Automatically to follow the example of another is utterly impracticable. He who wisely directs his life along methods which are peculiarly and exclusively his own, is most practical.
As one reaches deeper realizations of unity, clearer and simpler formulations of principle are disclosed, until it is evident that a few simple statements may form the solid foundation of life’s philosophy. These statements are a combination of the present-day conceptions of physical science, including psychology, which conceptions it expresses in terms of Unity. An essential Oneness is seen to pervade the Universe— Oneness in Principle, Purpose and Object—from which proceed and into which return all of life’s activities.
With an abiding realization of life’s essential simplicity, one expresses and manifests simply. On the circumference of life is seeming diversity and complexity, apparent opposition and discord, evident contest and inharmony. It is only as realization reaches toward the center that the region of love and peace, of co-operation and harmony, is approached. Nor is this the calm of inactivity. It is the poise of controlled intense activity.
Each Soul must unfold continually toward a more nearly complete individual consciousness of its inherent divinity. To this end, its instrumentalities of mind and body must be exercised. It must receive, assimilate and express on all planes of consciousness, physical, intellectual, spiritual. The complex activities of life must be simplified by a consciousness which has been ennobled by realization of principle and the influx of harmonies from the subconscious and superconscious planes.
Since man is a unit, it is essential to his peace and comfort that he live a unital life. He does this only as the planes of his consciousness cooperate, when feeling holds thought in a poise which enables it to direct and control action. The consciousness dictates to and educates the subconsciousness, and when the dictation and education are in terms of principle, the reaction is harmonious and healthful.
One who accepts automatic exercises as his guide is really groping for the principles they serve to manifest. He is seeking the substance through the shadow, mistaking the latter for the substance itself.
The difference between individuals is indicated by their degree of Soul unfoldment, their contrasting consciousness of purpose, and their comparative directness of methods. What one does consciously another does unconsciously, what one strives for directly another strives for indirectly. Slight as this difference may seem, one’s consciousness of purpose and directness of method unerringly are measures of his wisdom.
Consciousness is all one knows of life. That of which he is not conscious has neither existence nor meaning for him. He realizes only that which he knows he possesses. Without this knowledge his possessions afford no satisfaction and confer no happiness. The greater joys of life accompany the conscious shaping of one’s life along direct lines of purposeful activity.
While all are pressing forward to the same goal, what interests each individual particularly is the health, harmony and happiness attendant upon each step of his progress. Whether a particular achievement or a given development takes a day, a year, or a hundred years, is of extreme importance to him. The amount of energy required and the degree of suffering involved is of vital interest to him. All these accompaniments are measured by his realization of principle and his consequent directness of purpose.
A haphazard life is one of inevitable opposition, contest and warfare. Such a life constantly strikes against the adamantine wall of principle, and is filled with perplexity, discouragement, disappointment and defeat. One can live a purposeful individual life only as he realizes purpose in all life, and this is revealed as consciousness of principle deepens and broadens.
The tree of physical life is usually pictured with its sap or energy moving upward from the roots through the trunk, and outward to the most distant twig and leaf. The tree of conscious spiritual life may be pictured reversely. As through the agency of physical manifestations the spiritual consciousness is awakened, it seeks conjunction with its source and reacts toward its origin, through twig and leaf to trunk and root.
In the growing understanding and realization of its divinity, the Soul consciously relates the circumference experiences of life to a point toward the center of Being. Gradually this consciousness filters through successive strata of existence, ever reaching greater depths of realization of the Essential Unity of Life.
Starting from the leaf or twig of dawning consciousness, the Soul seeks the light of principle (unity) amid the comparative darkness of experience (diversity). As this light is discerned, he establishes a focusing point of experience, a common center of union. The light of principle so discerned serves both to illumine the path he has traveled as well as all other paths leading up to the focusing point he has reached. It also intimates the direction and meaning of his onward journey to the next larger focusing point nearer the center of Being.
As one connects focusing points of principle, and applies his newly acquired realizations to the illumination of the past as affording a guide to the future, his scope of vision enlarges and his horizon expands. He reaches successively to stem, branch, limb and trunk of the Tree of Life and toward its root or source.
When in the mirror of fundamental principle the identity of center and circumference is revealed, one glorifies his manifestation of life by animating it with a spiritual consciousness which harmonizes his entire being, and places it in right relation with environment.
CHAPTER II
PERCEPTION AND REALIZATION
The one reliable guide is principle, truth, God. Until one finds God, comprehends principle, or realizes truth, he is tossed about in a sea of doubt and confusion. The Universe seems a chaos, the dominant note of which is chance or luck. Principle must be formulated and accepted intellectually before one may comprehend or understand it spiritually.
Man is a unit, each plane of whose life is equally essential. The concurrent conscious development of each plane is essential to a symmetrical character. Man is spiritual, mental, and physical. His comprehension of principle, his realization of truth, or his finding of God demands the constant co-operation of the physical, intellectual and spiritual natures, for normal consciousness is incomplete in the degree that this co-operation is lacking.
Principles may be formulated simply, and truth may be stated in terms readily comprehended. A perception of truth does not demand great intellectual power. It is sufficient that one knows what the words signify, that they are logical and consistent with the measure of his understanding.
In the Science of Numbers the solution of problems is dependent upon one’s perception of principles. It is so in the Science of Life. In one’s daily experiences the problems of life are involved, and these may be solved only through his perception and comprehension of the principles of life. As the solution of mathematical problems leads to the realization of the truth of the principles involved, so the solution of life’s problems leads to the realization of the truths of Being.
Experience, perception and realization are representative respectively of the physical, intellectual and spiritual planes of being. One’s perception of principle is tested and converted into realization through the avenue of experience. It is through the test of experience that he acquires knowledge of and faith in that which he believes to be true. That which is absorbed by the intellect, thereafter is assimilated by the understanding through the activities of life.
The physical, intellectual and spiritual are inseparable, and each is equally essential. In order to assimilate a truth completely one must make it his own on all three planes. This demands physical manifestation, intellectual expression and spiritual realization.
Most truths are capable of presentation in a manner acceptable to the average intellect, but intellectual perception alone is insufficient for practical demonstration. Truth must be tested in the laboratory of physical activity. The physical and intellectual faculties are the instrumentalities for the Soul’s realization.
One who is developed normally tests each truth on every plane. One whose consciousness is concentrated abnormally on any plane demands abnormal tests on such plane. The distinctly intellectual person rejects as insufficient the presentation of a truth that is acceptable to one whose intellectual faculties are less developed or exacting.
While experience is indispensable to realization, there is no exact relation or proportion between the two. One may realize little or much from a given amount of experience. While the amount varies with the individual, the process is the same for all. Life is a unit, all manifestations of which are governed by the same principles. The realization gained from a specific experience may be imperceptible, but there is a gain, and it finds its appropriate place in life’s mosaic. Whatever exists is necessary and has a purpose.
At any given time the experiences, perceptions and realizations of each individual differ from those of other individuals. One’s perceptions are always convertible into realization through his discernment of the truth involved in them. The combination of experience and perception produces exactly the amount of realization for which one is prepared.
While growth is slow and the perception of truth is rapid, there are degrees of perception. There is an orderly process of development, both of perception and realization, although consciousness of either may come in an instant. The view from the mountain top bursts suddenly upon one’s vision, but it is only after he has climbed up every elevation of the mountain side.
Life’s development is by way of the spiral. Again and again does the Soul pass through similar experiences, but never through identical ones. At each new turn of the spiral one is able to extract a deeper realization from his combination of experience and perception. As life’s spiral is eternal, his realization is limitless.
Experience without perception has no immediate value, nor has perception without experience. But in conjunction they are invaluable as preliminaries of realization. Experience and perception are necessary factors of realization, and in the absence of either there is no finished product.
A perception of the truth, “God is Love,” is attained readily. But what this perception, or the realization resulting from it, means to any individual depends upon his stock of experiences, perceptions and realizations. Whatever his perception, however, it will not be his only and final one, for it will deepen and broaden as he traverses life’s spiral. He tests it actively through experience and passively through silence and meditation. It penetrates and illumines every previous perception and realization, and thus modifies and changes them.
As a new perception is tested actively and passively, it is appropriated and assimilated by the whole being, and the Soul becomes conscious of more light and more life. Words and symbols lessen in importance as their underlying realities are reached and appropriated.
Living the life of principle is the essential of realisation. One must act as well as think, and should act in rhythm with his thoughts. Passivity is important, but it is not all-important. Life’s equilibrium requires that activity and passivity balance and complement each other.
One “lives the life” when he acts in accord with his higher perceptions of truth, when he exemplifies them in his daily life, and when he manifests his faith in principle. His being expands as he surrounds others with the atmosphere of his higher perceptions, and as he liberates the best he has through the activities of his life. This living and testing, this acting and manifesting, are inseparable from realization.
One’s perceptions are his ideals. He possesses them, but he never lives up to his ideals. His horizon is always at a distance. But he always thinks and acts in accord with his realizations, for these are so identified with him that they possess him. He manifests his realizations always, for he cannot be or do other than what he is.
The difference between individual methods denotes the extent to which each approximates his ideals or higher perceptions in daily life. As one is faithful to his higher perceptions, he lives a life of principle, and more and more converts perceptions into realizations.
A life of principle does not lack in warmth of feeling, of sympathy or love—quite the contrary. A life of principle is the very embodiment of feeling, sympathy and love. While it is deeply emotional, the emotions are controlled, they are not permitted to interfere with one’s exercise of justice and love.
The Universe is governed by law, and is exact and invariable in all its activities. Mathematical accuracy does not preclude love; on the contrary, it is love’s highest expression; it is the guarantee of justice without which there is no expression of love. There is neither coldness nor lovelessness in infinite justice. And the more nearly just one is, the more nearly Godlike is he.
A normal life involves the perception and realization of unity. The normal Soul lives these, both in expression and manifestation. He has converted sense impressions and intellectual perceptions into spiritual conceptions and realizations. Impression and expression co-operate, and the inner and outer function in conscious harmony. With this realization of unity, the Soul expresses mental peace and manifests physical health.
The babbling mountain brook bubbles and is noisy and restless, as it hurries and scurries over its rocky bed. The great river moves silently, powerfully and undisturbed, without turmoil or excitement. The greatly developed Soul has outgrown the perturbations of its babbling consciousness and its life is as that of the majestic and mighty river.
CHAPTER III
IDEAS AND IDEALS
Recognition is an essential of conscious attainment. Only as one recognizes an ideal can he appropriate it consciously. One can have clear recognition or certainty of possession only of that which is definite or denned. All word-pictures are appeals to the intelligence. They assist clear vision in so far as they present clear-cut ideas.
An idea is the mental picture of a material manifestation, and originates in the contemplation of objectivity. An idea is personal and is on the plane of separation. An ideal is a spiritual motive which springs from an idea. An ideal originates in a mental picture and translates it to the spiritual plane of unity and inclusiveness.
One’s idea of the objective world is his only knowledge of it. He knows the outer world not as it is, but as it seems to him to be. Each person senses it relatively to himself. As the outer world is to each what his individual idea of it is, each dwells ever and always in a world of ideas.
Before projecting ideals, one must have ideas. The ideal is the spiritual essence distilled from the idea which has been extracted from the objective world. The ideal is vital mentally and physically to the extent that it has been appropriated consciously on each of these planes. One whose ideas are the result of careful and exact observations of objective life, and who scrupulously constructs his ideals from definite ideas, will reach a spiritual consciousness expressing and manifesting itself normally on all planes of existence.
Each of the great religions of the world has recognized the use and advantage of well defined and carefully constructed ideas as factors in the projection of uplifting and constructive ideals, and each has portrayed a word-picture of the life of its Great Teacher most effectually calculated to promote this purpose. Each of these religions has impressed upon the minds of its adherents that the life so portrayed is that from which alone their ideals must be extracted.
When the basis of one’s ideal is solely a mental picture of objective life derived from a description or word-picture furnished by another, instead of being related directly to his- own observations of life, such ideal is manifested abnormally on the physical plane. The mental has not been brought into direct relation with the physical and the ideal has only a superficial vitality. The idea not having been derived direct from life or from manifested actuality in individual experience, the ideal extracted from it fails to stimulate normal activity on the physical plane. The ideal is as artificial as the idea from which it has sprung.
One can manifest his own ideals only. Manifestation is proof of ownership. Vitalized ideals cannot be borrowed; they are acquired through individual effort. Ideals lacking in vitality lead to stagnation, for they have no vital relation to the realm of physical activity or manifestation.
Religious fanatics and monomaniacs have dwelt in abstract thought-pictures to the exclusion of the actualities of objective life. They manifest their ideals in conduct as abnormal as their thought-processes are incomplete. Of necessity such erratic idealists are inconsistent and degrade the concrete in seeking to exalt the abstract.
The ready-made or prepared idea has its place and purpose, exactly as “predigested” food has. Those who do not prepare ideas for themselves, use readymade ones. In the infant stages of intellectual development, ready-made and “predigested” ideas are most acceptable. But that which is necessary in infancy may become worse than useless in manhood. When one “is prepared to live his own life, he is unwilling to accept automatically the ideas of others.
It is easy to attribute abstract qualities to abstract conceptions. It is not difficult to attach imaginary and undefined attributes to that which is imaginary and undefined. It requires no great effort to associate flowery adjectives with equally flowery abstractions, nor does it involve any great mental strain to attribute every possible perfection to the Jesus of the New Testament. That which the imaging faculty pictures to the mind requires neither original observation nor thought, without which it denotes the appropriation of an abstract mental image as the basis of an equally abstract spiritual conception.
In idealizing the mission of Jesus, it has been assumed that his life and teachings were equally ideal. The typical Christian does not consider it possible for himself or for another to live or to have lived a life as ideal as that of Jesus. And yet one cannot know but that his nearest neighbor is living a life quite as nearly perfect. One cannot understand that to which he has not yet unfolded. One must live the Ideal Life before he is competent to recognize it in others. The recognition of perfection involves the manifestation of perfection in him who recognizes. If one were able to close his mind as effectually to the apparent imperfections of his neighbor as he does to every suggestion of imperfection in the life of Jesus, he could recognize the Christ in the one as readily as in the other.
Jesus is the idea of which the Christ is the ideal. Similarly, each man is a Jesus from which, or into which, the same Christ-ideal may and should be projected. This would seem to be the fundamental spiritual conception of the story of Jesus. In exalting Jesus (the idea) rather than Christ (the ideal) the general interpretation of the narrative has been material and dead rather than spiritual and living.
One must first recognize in one man that which he afterwards realizes is common to all men. The Ideal Man can be perceived most readily in a man invested arbitrarily with all spiritual and ideal qualities and attributes. One is then able to recognize these in all men. One ascends to the impersonal through the personal and reaches the universal through the individual.
To the extent that one fails to recognize in others the same Christ (ideal) that he recognizes in Jesus (the idea), to that degree does he fail to idealize Jesus. One’s ideal of Jesus is lacking to the extent that it fails to impel in him a similar idealization of each and every man. The life and teachings of Jesus would seem to be in vain in the degree that they fail to bring about a realization of the universally individual ideal man.
The Ideal Life is the life of Love. One idealizes that which he loves. Through love alone one recognizes the Christ (ideal) in another. It is far more meritorious, and equally more difficult, to love one’s neighbor than it is to love Jesus. The latter is included in the former, while the former may not be included in the latter. One who recognizes the Christ in the physical man with whom he comes in contact, cannot fail to recognize the Christ in the ideally constructed idea of man.
The Ideal Life carries the consciousness of the ideal both within and without the Self. It is that life which, through idealizing the seemingly separate, removes the illusion of separation. It is that life which, gathering and preparing its ideas from the living activities of manifested life, actualizes its ideals normally on all planes by living them. Cloudiness of vision and mistiness of expression are not only not essential to the Ideal Life, but they fetter and hinder it.
In living the Ideal Life one has not necessarily reached the ultimate, for the Ideal Life admits of infinite gradations or degrees of attainment. Not only this, but it is a subjective quality rather than an objective condition. It involves the consciousness of the universal ideal in each individual idea, and the ideal of the Ideal Life is the Perfect Life.
CHAPTER IV
THE GUIDE TO CONDUCT
Each individual differs from every other. No two are alike. Experiences are never identical, for a unique consciousness is an element of every individual experience.
It is impossible to duplicate exactly the example of another by repeating his actions, for the conditions under which they are performed necessarily differ. Even though such difference be inappreciable, in some degree it renders the same action inapplicable or inappropriate.
The automatic duplication of another’s action as a guide to conduct is both unsafe and unsatisfactory. Besides being artificial and formal, it evidences lack of judgment and discrimination. Having no direct relation to the individual’s growth or development, it is destitute of spiritual advantage, and therefore of vitality.
Another’s conduct may be emulated to advantage only to the extent that one understands its relation to the circumstances and to the internal and external conditions impelling it. Assuming the fitness of an act under prescribed conditions, under changed conditions an equal fitness would demand a corresponding difference in action.
Simply acting as others do under apparently similar external conditions is a delusive and fluctuating guide. To follow such guide to permanent advantage is practically impossible, for this demands a discrimination and judgment not associated with automatic conduct.
The conduct of another is available as a guide, however, when its relation with circumstances and conditions both internal and external is understood. What another does is of little moment compared to why he does it. It is not one’s act that is important fundamentally, but rather the inner precept or rule of conduct that prompts the act.
Rules of conduct indicate the interpreted relation between the individual and the universal. They represent one’s application of methods to his interpretations of eternal principle.
As example and guide, that conduct which is in most complete accord with principle affords the greatest benefit. Not that such conduct always promotes immediate external harmony, that it appears to manifest friendship or affection, that it is most attractive of external rewards, or that it conforms to accepted world standards. Its immediate external effects may be in marked contrast to all of these.
Conduct in accord with eternal principle is the true example and guide because, irrespective of immediate results, it confers permanent and enduring advantages in the way of spiritual, mental and physical harmony. It promotes consciousness of harmony with that which is permanent and enduring.
That conduct is most beneficial which conforms most nearly to principle. In so far as it manifests and reveals eternal principles of right thinking and right acting, it is of benefit as a guide. Conduct is admirable to the extent that it is illumined with the light of principle. Principle is the guide which conduct should reveal.
Principle is apprehended through judgment and reason, and the One Principle manifests in infinite contrasts of appearance. While appearances are accepted as the correspondences of equally contrasting principles, the external or manifest is even more likely to conceal principles than to reveal them.
Appearances might serve as acceptable guides were principles correspondingly diverse. The adoption of such a false premise leads to conflicting and changing conclusions. To act pursuant to the dictates of appearance, and thus to fashion one’s conduct to an external conformity with that of another, involves spiritual and moral stagnation.
“When I am uncertain what to do I ask myself: ‘What would Jesus do?’ and act accordingly.” To duplicate what Jesus would do is both useless and meaningless, unless such action be the manifestation of a conception of the principle prompting it, and thus harmonizing it with one’s ideals.
It is the motive impelling an act and not the act itself which determines its spiritual value. Automatic action has no spiritual vitality. The consideration of others’ conduct is of advantage only to the extent that it assists one to discover and formulate principle, and to demonstrate the result of living in accord with his highest ideals.
The real question is not, “What would Jesus do?” but What should one do who has the same understanding and conception of eternal and changeless principle? Principle is the one and only eternal guide for each and all. In accepting principle as his guide, Jesus indicated clearly that all who would think and live rightly must do likewise.
The relationship between God and man is direct. The one who merely copies the form of another’s act does not live a life of principle. The great teachers who are regarded generally as having lived the ideal life are those who realized and manifested their direct relation to the Eternal, and refused to follow slavishly any form, custom, habit 01 tradition. Jesus is accepted as the ideal because he lived his own life in utter disregard of and unfettered by others’ conduct as his guide.
Assuming that Jesus lived an ideal life, it was only because it conformed to principle. He neither created any new principle, nor changed any old one. He neither made nor altered any truth, nor did he invent or initiate any truth through thinking, formulating or manifesting it. He neither did, nor could he, subtract from principle or truth.
What is to be exalted is the underlying Universal Truth rather than the manifested act; the Christ Ideal rather than the man Jesus. The latter but serves to reveal the former. It is to the degree that one conforms to the Christ Ideal that he lives an ideal life.
Without the spiritual understanding and realization of Jesus, one cannot advantageously duplicate the conduct of Jesus. Unless inspired by one’s own motives and wisdom, such conduct is wanting in spiritual vitality. The same words and the same acts possess the same spiritual value only as they are the mani’festations of the same conscious understanding. With such understanding one would act as Jesus did, not by way of duplication or imitation in form, but because actuated by the same impulses and inspired by the same motives.
Merely to duplicate the external life of Jesus is to ignore and set aside his teachings, and to lose the spirit in following the word. It is as one understandingly manifests the principles revealed in the life of Jesus that one does as Jesus did, even though his words and acts may be in striking contrast. It is only with identical understanding and under identical conditions that duplication of the conduct of Jesus is possible.
The one and only reliable and unfailing guide to conduct is found within. It is not discoverable without. This is the burden of the message of Jesus. The God within the Self must be consulted and lived. One’s understanding and realization of principle must be followed, and this is the only Guide to Conduct.
CHAPTER V
THE MANIFESTATION OF IDEALS
Both Religion and Science now proclaim the Unity of God, the Infinite, the Universe, Reality. The conception of Unity now universally accepted renders necessary not only the assumption of universal unity of principle, but also of intelligence and purpose.
There is a profound difference between principle and appearance or manifestation. Unity of principle is manifested in diversity of appearance, from the consideration of which all human knowledge is derived. The contrast of good and of evil is essential to the understanding and realization of the unital principle of Beneficence. So with all dualities of appearance. The conception of the Principle of Unity does not involve a denial of manifestation. It explains the latter rationally and in conformity to the requirements of the profoundest religious and scientific knowledge of the day.
The full realization of these truths is not a prerequisite of the ideal life. Both realization and the ideal life are matters of gradual development. One may commence to live the ideal life even while he denies and disclaims such conceptions. But the gradual realization of these truths is essential to the ideal life.
One who desires to live the ideal life may enter upon it even though he deny the truth that underlies it. He may reap the results of a mode of living, even while he repudiates another’s conception of it and the truth it represents. He does this through manifesting the requirements of that life. The ideal life is open to all, believer or unbeliever, credulous or incredulous, religious or irreligious. All paths lead to the same truth.
The ideal life is the life of idealization. An ideal is “a spiritual motive”; it is a magnet which attracts increasingly the higher altitudes of consciousness. It uplifts, elevates, dignifies and ennobles. It recognizes the essential good in appearance. It realizes the fundamental beneficence in phenomena. From the world of manifestation it extracts the essence which constitutes its very substance.
The life of idealization is a life of love. It involves recognition of the inherent worth and power of others. It realizes the Soul that animates the body. In human ideas, it pictures the Christ ideal. Vibrating on every plane to the keynote of its ideals, it induces responses which are in harmony with its vibrations. Uniting itself with thought-currents corresponding to and in sympathy with its ideals, it attracts to itself the greater power and intensity of increased mass and quantity.
It brings to the surface the beauties of life which otherwise might remain hidden beneath a travesty of appearance. One attains the ideal life through attributing ideals to others. Despite appearance, he acts toward others as though their lives were ideal. That which one persistently recognizes in another eventually is aroused in the othei’s consciousness.
One loves the true and the beautiful, and loves his idealizations of truth and beauty. Every possible ideal is warranted, for the true and beautiful are the essence and the heart of all life. Oftentimes they are obscured by the discord and inharmonies of diverse and dual conceptions, but the magnetic attraction of an ideal brings the true and beautiful to light.
An effort of the will is required at first to recognize ‘m others that wmcn seems denied and contradicted by appearance. With his deeper realization of essential Unity and Beneficence, this effort gradually lessens. When his consciousness is fully charged with this realization, appearance ceases to be a factor in the problem, and all of the infinite diversity at the circumference of life is seen to be equally tributary to the one common center. At the same time, all the good and “evil” appearances resolve themselves into the universal beneficence of Reality.
As one continues to idealize others according to the dictates of his will, it gradually dawns upon him that these products of his will are pictures within himself. He finds that others change as he changes his ideals of them, and that they possess the attributes he confers upon them. Apparently it requires but the magic wand of an ideal to change another at one’s pleasure.
As one idealizes others it comes to him also that whatever is true of another must be true equally of himself; that he can idealize in another only that which he himself possesses, and that what he recognizes in another is mirrored in his own Soul. He recognizes also that though the world of manifestation offers the ideas from which his ideals are extracted, the whole process of idealization is essentially mental and spiritual. He discovers ideals in others because in projecting them from himself he turns the searchlight of truth upon them.
After one idealizes others consciously, he idealizes himself consciously. Through recognition of the ideal without, he reaches a consciousness of the ideal within. His images of truth and beauty awaken him to the knowledge of his possession of these qualities. In his love for others he has come to love the Self; a Soul-consciousness which is the very essence of all faith.
After one recognizes truth and beauty in others, he realizes them in himself. Through first recognizing strength and power he is conscious of them within. He rises to a realization of strength through contemplating the idea of strength. His consciousness of the “outer” world is measured by his ideals. These are of his own creation, and under his conscious control. His physical body is as much a part of his “outer” world as is the physical body of another, and the fruitage of Self-idealization is similar to that of the idealization of another.
Each Soul has the whole universe to draw upon for its supplies. Whatever it desires it may visualize, and thus realize. In projecting the ideal, it places it within the sweep of his vision. That which was hidden is revealed, and that which was obscured by the clouds of duality shines forth from the clear sky of Unity.
Does one desire strength? He idealizes it in another, recognizes the Unity and the identity of the two Selves, and realizes his own strength. His recognition of strength without measures the realization of strength within. Love promotes the recognition of strength without and leads to the consciousness of strength within.
One’s faith in or consciousness of his own strength is not in the nature of a transfer from another. In loving another he does not deprive him of anything; nor in benefiting himself through love does he appropriate from another. On the contrary, he realizes only as he confers. Through the magic wand of ideality, that which slumbers in the subconsciousness is awakened into conscious vitality, the unknown is transformed into the known, and the invisible takes on visibility. In enlarging the realm of consciousness he creates equally for himself and others.
One lives the ideal life through the constant projection of ideals. He lives in a world of ideals, a world of love. He is enveloped in the atmosphere of the love he breathes, and of ideals wherein his love is vitalized. His ideals are expressed on the planes of human activity. His spiritual insight is expressed in definite thought, and manifested through harmonious conduct. In his idealization of other Selves and of his own Self he is the embodiment of love and faith. The more love he gives the more faith he receives. He is at the center of this vital activity of exchange when he lives the Ideal Life.
CHAPTER VI
THE GOLDEN RULE
If one consider human relations alone, probably the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, represents the popular idea of the full measure of justice. The conception is a relative one, and dictates conduct in correspondence with the particular development of the individual. Each individual differs from every other in his conception of what he would have done unto him. The Golden Rule, therefore, is latitudinal, and prescribes relative and often contrasting and apparently contradictory conduct on the part of different individuals.
Because it affirms the exact relation of cause and effect, the Golden Rule may be taken as an expression of justice. That is to say, it is the suggestion of how one determines the operation of the principle that in any event must bring to him exactly that to which he is entitled, and which ever returns to him what he should equitably receive in exchange for what he has given.
Except that what one did unto others and what was done unto him had the direct relation of cause and effect, the Golden Rule would not suggest a conception of justice. The truth is that one always receives precisely that to which he is entitled, and the Golden Rule simply admonishes him to make himself entitled to what he regards as most desirable to receive through expressing those desires in his conduct toward others. One reaps as he sows; he should, therefore, consciously sow as he would reap.
Without the underlying principle of Universal Justice the Golden Rule would have no reliable foundation, and could not be depended upon as a guide to life. But the law of the whole is forever the law of the part, and justice is always meted. What one usually expects is the justice that affects him pleasurably. To reap this, however, he must sow the seed of which pleasure is the inevitable fruit.
One must harmonize his conception of justice with the fact of justice. That one should receive exactly what he is entitled to, no more and no less, is the highest conception of justice. Indeed, this is exactly what always comes to one, for what he receives is measured by what he gives,and the relation between the twois determined by principles that are changeless and eternal.
One usually considers himself entitled only to that which is pleasant, and that the unpleasant is undeserved. He expects results related to a superior degree of wisdom than he has evidenced in thought and act. He is always expecting effects related to causes that have not been put into action. He expects a predetermined and certain result, measured by his own limited conception of life, without understanding either the cause he has set in motion or its related result.
If it be true that one reaps what he sows, it is equally true that sowing precedes reaping. If one receives what he gives, his receiving is the result of his giving. If this is a principle of Nature, it applies universally and eternally.
To reap wheat one must sow wheat. If he is unable to identify the seed, either he must trust to the knowledge of others, or blindly take chances of his sowing. If he cannot identify wheat, he may not know either what he is sowing or reaping. Only as one sows wheat shall he reap wheat. And if he sow only wheat, the reaping cannot be other than wheat.
If one’s reaping is of his own sowing it is not of others’ sowing. He cannot consistently accept the former conception, and at the same time blame others for his reaping. When he praises himself for his pleasurable sensations and experiences, and blames others for the painful ones, his inconsistency is the outcome of a dualistic conception. The operation of One Principle equally attracts both what one interprets as agreeable and as disagreeable. It is his interpretation that determines his relation to experiences and environments.
One determines his own fate. All one’s experiences and environments are the result of his own comparative ignorance or wisdom. If he reap what he sow, there is no sufficient reason for complaining of others, or of harboring ill-will or unkind feeling. Inherently either one is or is not an Individual, but he cannot at the same time consistently place himself in both categories.
Either JUSTICE REIGNS SUPREME HERE AND NOW, or there never was and never will be any justice. If the operation of principles that are inherent, eternal, unchangeable and beneficial toward all does not always manifest justice, one can never know justice.
But each one has a conception of justice that is in consonance with his individual plane of thought and wisdom, a conception that is always in correspondence with his understanding. What one ordinarily looks upon as injustice is seeming inequality of result, regardless of inequality of cause.
Apparently another has more happiness, more health, more money, more property, more possessions than I. Or another has less. Is that equality of result. Is that justice? Yes, both. For at the time and under the circumstances each has exactly that to which he is entitled.
Inherently, individuals are equals. Inherently, each is competent to set similar causes in operation, and to produce similar results. Inherently there is equality of opportunity. Not that each individual has the same immediate opportunities at each stage of development, but all individuals at the same stage of development have the same immediate opportunities and ultimately must experience all phases of growth.
In the course of time, each of us must pass through every grade of life’s school and thereby experience similar opportunities. Those who are now fellowstudents are setting varying and dissimilar causes in motion, and therefore directly attracting results that will vary and differ from each other in proportion to the cause operated.
Not only that, but one who bases his conceptions of justice on outward appearance and material possessions ignores the very essentials of life and of happiness. It is not material wealth of itself that confers happiness. It is the mental relation one makes between it and the Self. Happiness is a mental condition.
The real issue is obscured by erroneous conceptions. The question is not how shall one receive justice— for he can receive nothing else—but how shall he receive that justice which appeals to his consciousness in the way of harmonious sensations of greater and greater permanence. In other words, how shall one act so as most speedily to secure the growth that insures the greatest returns in increasing happiness? One may demand this in the name of Justice, for one acts always the best he knows how, and necessarily can see only from his individual point of view.
One’s higher growth is most quickly fulfilled and his greater happiness evolved as he follows the principle inculcated by the Golden Rule. To do this necessitates a life of consistency in thought, word and act, a life of integrity to principle. The result of honest and straightforward thought and act is a clearer insight, a deeper wisdom, a broader interpretation of truth, and a greater appropriation of the means of Soul unfoldment. These induce a wisdom which may be continually invested so as to carry compound interest in the way of the increasing conversion of unconscious harmonies into the consciousness of happiness.
To receive justice on any prescribed plane, one’s thoughts, words and deeds must be actuated by the justice that dominates that particular plane. One is juat to the Self, and receives justice, in proportion as he is just to others. He may obtain dollars through robbing others, but he must inevitably pay full value for them. The good of the Self is inseparably bound up with the good of all.
If one deprive another unjustly of his time, rest, good cheer, health, happiness, material possessions, or reputation, the former must inevitably suffer. There is no escape. He receives as he gives. For injustice he receives injustice, a quid pro quo—an exact equivalent—and this itself is justice.
Not that necessarily another will return one’s injustice with injustice; not that one will necessarily receive injustice from where he has conferred it; not that others can interfere with the exact and inexorable operation of natural principles. On the contrary, it is often the justice of others that quickly brings one’s injustice home to him. Injustice to others but evidences the injustice one has planted within himself. It is impossible to escape from this, for one cannot flee from the Self.
“Within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step no more than from himself can fly,
By change of place.”
The more one receives and the greater his conscious wisdom and knowledge, the greater are his responsibilities and the higher the standard to which he is called upon to conform. Great wealth carries with it corresponding responsibilities, the neglect of which must be compensated for both mentally and physically. Broader spiritual conceptions involve larger opportunities for benefiting others, and one is held to account for failure to respond to these requirements.
The higher one ascends the greater is the possible fall, and if he is unprepared for responsibility and would seek to avoid temporary results, he should remain at the lower levels. Until he is prepared to sustain himself in the higher atmospheres, if only agreeable results are looked for, it is advisable and inexpedient to soar.
For one who knows there is always justice, that he may learn through experience alone, that experience involves expression and harmonizing with environment, that he is here to overcome, and that overcoming demands temporary inconveniences and discomforts—for such, the road to progress and greater happiness is in the higher atmospheres wherein are offered greater opportunities and larger responsibilities.
Justice never demands impossibilities of any one. One may give only of what he has. He may consciously confer only that which he consciously possesses. The poor have not the opportunities of the rich, and the poor in thought lack the responsibility attaching to those who are mentally and spiritually opulent. One receives as he gives, as gauged by mental quality rather than material amount. An important factor in determining this mental quality is the proportion between one’s giving and his supply. Those who possess comparatively little have the same opportunities for growth and happiness as those who have much.
As the highest conduct one is capable of necessarily is a manifestation of his individual point of view, and as this is his sole guide, it is from this point of view alone that he may be judged rightly. As no individual can fully realize any viewpoint other than his own, no one is competent to pass judgment upon another. When one condemns another for lack of conformity to a standard not the other’s, he is unjust to the other as well as to himself.
The Universal Principle of Attraction is rooted alike in Justice and Love. Because the Universe is dominated by an All-inclusive Principle, all truths are contrasting manifestations of the One Truth. Infinite Justice and Infinite Love have identical meanings.
The popular conceptions of justice and of love place them in contrast and opposition. Love is thought to be warm and justice cold, the one typifying life and the other death. Love is regarded as expressing emotion, justice the lack of it. Love suggests giving, while justice implies withholding. The contrast between one’s conceptions of love and justice depends primarily on whether he is looking from the universal or the individual viewpoint, whether he is taking the larger or the smaller view.
There is an exact relation between cause and effect. Each individual may determine what he shall sow. He may reap whatever he desire. When he sows the right seed and cares for it after sowing, he may produce any effect through putting in operation the cause with which it is correlated. And any effect must continue unless its cause is modified, changed or altered.
The seeds one sows are his thoughts and acts. These are influenced largely by the environments that his prior thoughts and acts have caused to be related to him. As he changes his thoughts, he impels a change of environment which in turn induces new thought-combinations. Through right living one acquires a constantly increasing ability consciously to fashion and determine his environment, and harmoniously to adjust himself to it.
With a developed understanding of the relation between cause and effect one consciously produces the results he desires. Knowing the seed he sows, he is certain of the harvest. Not only does he receive what he deserves, and that to which he is entitled, but knowing this to be true he is conscious of eternal justice, and his perception ripens into abiding realization of the love and harmony of the Universe.
CHAPTER VII
LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE
When one says to another, “Live your own life,” he is met with the suggestion of “selfishness.” And yet whose life but his own can one live? It is impossible to do otherwise. In the endeavor to absorb, or to be absorbed into the lives of others, most people fail to live their own lives intelligently or beneficially.
No one lives his own life to the greatest advantage until he directs it from a viewpoint larger than the mere conception of physical and material demands. One cannot live his own life from such a limited point of view, for the reason that in so doing he is enslaved by physical and material environments.
Until one realizes the truth of Being, and knows that the Self is more than his physical body, and its needs more than material necessities, his conscious living is that of an animal, and his life is manifested in terms of selfishness. It is only as he identifies the Self with the Soul that he rises to- a consciousness of unity with his fellow-beings.
The realization of the truth that Soul is inseparable from Soul—and therefore that the interests and concerns of each are equally the interests and concerns of all—is what frees the awakened Individual. Each Soul is free from slavery to physical and material demands to the degree that he has unfolded to this consciousness.
To absorb this truth enables one to grant freedom to another, and thus to free the Self. Each person is bound fast to that which he himself binds. He who enslaves another enslaves the Self. Truth liberates, for it permits no assumption either of essential superiority or inferiority. Equality lies at the very heart of Truth, which is impersonal, universal and eternal.
One lives his own life to the extent that he lives a life of principle; that is, a life the conscious point of view of which is that of the Soul, or the viewpoint which is fundamental and eternal. Each individual must progress from the position of unfoldment occupied by him, and he can see life’s problems only in the light of his present vision.
To the one who is dissatisfied with his spiritual outlook and desires to enlarge it, the broader conceptions of Truth must be offered in terms related to his condition of development. They must be formulated to fit into the measure of his understanding. To meet his requirements the suggested methods must seem to him feasible and practicable.
The fundamental truth is that what is best for one is best for all and that one does most for all who does most for Self, the Soul. Such an one is at the very center of beneficent activity and is receptive to the widest range of responses. To the one who gives from the standpoint of the Universe does the Universe respond, and upon him does it bestow its stores of wisdom and harmony.
Would one live his own life he must see with clear and direct vision; he must realize the fundamental Unity that underlies diversity of appearance; he must pierce the veil of appearance and unfold to a consciousness of his inherent strength and grandeur. When these are done, and when he expands to a deep consciousness of his inherent greatness, he becomes incapable of thought or act that is not in consonance with his exalted estimate of the Self.
If one would live his own life—the life of the Soul —he must think and act from the one point of view of all who are concerned. In the largest and universal sense all are interested vitally in each thought and act of every individual. The understanding of one’s rights involves the understanding of others’ rights. In all its parts—spiritual, mental and physical—the universe is a Perfect Whole, and the tremor of each atom is felt throughout its confines.
In the lesser or individual sense there are those who at least seem to be affected most directly by one’s thoughts and acts. To live one’s own life in reference to such individuals he must think and act from a point of view common to all. The viewpoint referred to necessarily is that of Principle.
Fundamentally there is but one point of view. But this one point of view has two very contrasting aspects. One is that of appearance or expediency which regards the physical or the material as basic and fundamental, the other that of Principle or eternal truth which considers the spiritual as basic and fundamental.
The more nearly one lives toward the circumference of things the wider the divergence between these two aspects. The further he penetrates toward the center the more nearly do the two aspects converge. At the center their complete identity is discerned.
The viewpoint of appearance or expediency has direct relation to immediate, momentary and temporary relief or pleasure, while that of Principle or eternal truth is related directly to permanent and abiding happiness or harmony. Until one has penetrated to the heart of Being he is constantly obliged to choose for his guide either appearance or Principle.
There is no inherent contradiction or inconsistency between appearance and Principle. While the former is the manifestation of the latter and is seen in complexity and diversity, the latter is the unmanifest Unit or Principle—One and indivisible.
All points on the circumference converge to a common center, and all roads from the circumference lead to the center. But each road differs from all others in its degree of directness or indirectness, and while all must reach the center eventually, each individual chooses his own road, takes his own time, and also determines what he shall make of each minute of his journey.
The problems that confront one in his daily life are the opportunities presented to him for development, for soul unfoldment, for living his own life. If he would live his own life consciously, and therefore live a life of conscious harmony, he must meet and solve these problems. He can do this satisfactorily only as he discerns the principles each problem represents, for principles represent Eternal Truth.
To solve one’s life problems to the best advantage he must think and act that which is best for others as well as for the Self, in the light of what is permanent and abiding. He must think and act for all time and not for the moment, and for the benefit of humanity as a whole as well as for the individual as a part. He must have that love which would permit him even to inflict temporary pain on others when that is necessary to their more enduring happiness, harmony and development.
Doing unto another that which one would have done unto himself is not necessarily doing what is right or just. Until one realizes the truth of Being and thinks and acts from that standpoint alone, all his thoughts and acts are permeated with an injustice that affects the Self and others equally.
Before one can hold another in a just estimation or think or act for the best interests of all, it is essential that he estimate the Self rightly. The Golden Rule should constitute the cardinal rule of life, but if one would incorporate its essence into his life he must seek the wisdom that will enable him to apply it to the best advantage.
With the consciousness of identity of Self and Soul, and the realization that fundamentally the interests of one and all are the same, doing unto others that which one would have done unto himself is doing that which is best for one and all. This involves a true estimate of the Self and of every other Self, and relates itself to the permanent happiness of others rather than to their temporary pleasure.
To those who have unfolded sufficiently to an understanding of Truth, this consciousness inures both to their temporary pleasure and permanent happiness.
Live your own life! Do not try to live the life of others or permit them to try to live yours. All such attempts are doomed to complete and utter failure, for they involve an impossibility. To the extent that one lives his own life does he enable others to live their lives to the best advantage.
One must live his own life consciously if he would assist to elevate and free others. To do this he must live his own life from the point of view of all lives. This alone enables him to unfold to the realization both of his inherent dignity and the equal dignity of each and every other Soul or Self.
CHAPTER VIII
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS
“Mind your own business” expresses one of the underlying principles of action most conducive to general peace and happiness. There are few who do not accept this conception theoretically, and equally few who practice it. The problem of rightly determining what is one’s own business teems with difficulties, even to the best intentioned.
How can one mind his own business except as he knows what is his business ? The spiritual welfare of the one and the many are so closely interwoven that to separate them mentally is often most perplexing. If they are fundamentally one, how can any separation be made ? Does this essential unity render the welfare of all others one’s business? If so, has not every circumstance in the lives of others a bearing on one’s life which should prompt him to offer aid and assistance?
The Universe is a Unit. All of its parts are inseparably connected. Life is a Unit and each manifestation affects every other. Each community is a Unit, each member and organ of which is necessary to every other, while its general welfare is dependent upon that of each of its parts. Each molecule is a Unit, and each of its atoms is equally essential to its existence and welfare.
But with the Universe, Life, the community, the human organism, and the molecule, each of its several parts has its different and distinct work to perform. While all are animated by the same principles, each must make an individual application of them to a different set of circumstances.
Neither the mineral, vegetable nor animal kingdom may offer, to its respectively higher kingdom, advice of great practical value to the latter regarding its conduct in life. The former has never experienced the higher form of existence, and therefore has no appreciation of the peculiarly distinctive elements of the problems presented for solution.
Within more limited scope, there are vast contrasts between various races, nations and communities of mankind. There are many conditions of civilization, contrasting forms of religion, politics and laws. There are agricultural and industrial peoples; rural and urban populations; various trades, businesses, and professions; different histories, traditions, policies, and tendencies.
The law of the Whole is the law of the part, and in particularizing one finds similar differences existing even between members of the same family—husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister. No two persons are alike, because no two have passed through identical experiences. There is none whose response in thought and action to a new suggestion is exactly the same as that of another.
One knows only what he has acquired, and may impart only what he possesses. He may receive only that for which he is prepared. No one can live the life of another or do another’s thinking, feeling or acting. Each must live and answer for his own life.
What may one receive from another ? Suggestions. How far may one be affected by another’s suggestions ? To the extent that he is receptive and responsive to them. How are such conditions circumscribed or limited? By the wisdom one has absorbed and developed through experience. How may such suggestions be imparted? By means of the silent or spoken word, the expressed or manifested thought. If one impart a suggestion, when will it inure to another’s advantage? When it expresses a higher ideal than the other has realized, and being receptive to it, he follows its dictates.
When one offers advice to another he indicates a course of action he deems most advisable in regard to the circumstances as they are known to him. His experiences cannot have been identical with those of the one advised, and in viewing conditions from a contrasting point of view necessarily one recommends to another a line of conduct which must be applied to circumstances with which he is measurably unacquainted and unrelated.
This is what makes it most difficult to advise another specifically and advantageously in regard to concrete personal problems of life. There is no supreme specific standard to which one may conform; no manifested conditions or circumstances that one may accept as perfect, infallible or absolute.
When one advises another what specific course of action or mode of life will most conduce to the latter’s growth and happiness, he is apt to offer suggestions inapplicable to the actual facts or unfitted to the conditions of development of the one advised. He may be advising a plane to do the work of a mallet, a chisel to act as a saw, or a gimlet to strike the blow of a hammer.
The problems of life would be amazingly simplified were there a concrete and fixed Code of Nature or Supreme Infallible Compendium of Natural Principles, so authoritatively interpreted and manifested that one might have an exact model to which to conform his life. There is, indeed, that in Nature which is fixed, but it is abstract rather than concrete. It is unformed, invisible, spiritual.
The principles of Nature are exact, immutable and eternal. Their manifestations in individual activity represent the comparative ignorance or wisdom of one’s development. Whatever the forms or manifestation of Nature’s principles, they are interpretable individually only as one’s development dictates.
It is comparatively easy to conform to the requirements of an established and accepted code that is definite and exact, and has been authoritatively and universally interpreted. Man has formulated such codes, social, religious, political and legal, all of which prescribe as standards certain outward forms or observances. Those who have become proficient in these standards through test and experience may advise others advantageously in respect to them, for the factors are exact or are capable of being made exact.
Man-made regulations or laws lay the same obligations upon each of the individuals of a class. Under certain conditions prescribed actions are demanded. The inherent good of the individual on his plane of development is not in question, for this is subordinated to the assumed, supposed or imagined good of the community as a whole. There is taken for granted an inherent separation of individual and community interests. What the individual may deem to be to his best advantage or to the advantage of the community, or of both, is made subservient to what has been authoritatively determined, through man’s law, to be the best interests of the community as a whole.
To each individual at any particular moment there is a standard. The individual horizon is ever limited, and whatever completely fills his range of mental vision constitutes his standard. One may recognize the Universe only from his point of view, and whatever completely fills his measure of understanding at the time is his standard of perfection.
It is this limited and fluctuating measure of acquired wisdom that serves as guide. As experiences are never duplicated, imparting the full details of one’s experience to another would be of little value to the other. Moreover, the greater portion of one’s life is lived subconsciously, and as the whole of his prior existence enters into each experience, he is unable to impart the vitality of his experience to others.
The Science of Life solves as infinite a range of problems as the Science of Mathematics. In the latter the two principles of addition and subtraction, with their short cuts, multiplication and division, suffice to solve its most intricate problems. The Science of Life is as exact and simple in its underlying principles, while its problems are equally complex.
What one may convey to another in regard to the Science of Life—to the extent that the latter is able to receive it—is the light of Principle one has extracted from the darkness of experience. This may be used by another as he is able and willing to appropriate it, and in the degree that he absorbs it and makes his dimmer lights harmonize with its intenser vibrations.
Each molecule is a Unit. It is one of many which together constitute a larger Unit. Each human organism is a Unit. It bears the same relation to the race as the molecule does to it. From which point of view is one to think and act? If from that of the molecule one may seemingly benefit another molecule temporarily, but it will be at the expense of all, including the one. If from that of the human organism, one may seemingly benefit himself temporarily, but it will be at the disadvantage of the race, of which he is an inseparable part. If from the point of view of the race, whatever essential benefit he may be to another individual will inure to the advantages of all, including himself.
One minds his own business when, as the basis of thought and action, he takes into consideration that which is of essential benefit to all others as well as to himself. One’s usefulness to others is dependent fundamentally upon the point of view he accepts and adopts as the basis of his thoughts and acts. When his thoughts and acts proceed from the point of view of the benefit of all, he is strictly minding his own business, for he has kept within his rightful sphere of activity.
From the point of view of principle the test whether one is minding his own business or not will be: Is there involved in my thoughts and the advice they suggest to the other an advantage to the Self considered as separate from the advantage to others? Is my thought or advice of such a partial or prejudiced order that it is colored with a personal bias? Are my suggestions designed to promote the undue advantage of one person over that of another? If so, I am not minding my own business.
Truth is eternal and unchangeable, and one’s understanding of it is denoted by his interpretation of principle. The advice given by one whose thoughts and actions proceed from the plane of impartiality, neutrality and justice take the form of enunciations of principles. It is one’s realization of truth that constitutes his wisdom, denotes his condition of development, evidences itself in the form of harmony, and manifests itself in optimistic poise.
So far as the essentials of life and individual unfoldment are concerned, one’s usefulness to another is limited and restricted. One may teach another, but each must learn for himself. One’s usefulness as a guide is determined by the degree of truth he is able to impart. The experiences of others are of value to one only as they are illumined by the wisdom he has extracted from his own experience. Each of us represents an individual ray emanating from a Central Source, and it is only as one reaches from the circumference to the center that he may truly relate himself to another through the light of principle.
The thought and act that will inure most to the advantage of others are equally beneficial to oneself. Either to offer or accept advice is not always essential. Each must live his own life, and the most convincing exposition of principle is its living manifestation. Precept indicates the theory; example illustrates the practice. One’s example is the most effective suggestion he can give to another.
One minds his own business when he lives his own life and refrains from attempting to live the life of another; when he shoulders his own burdens, and neither unduly leans upon another nor permits another to lean upon him unduly. In so doing he manifests strength, love, peace and joy, and suggests that which is best calculated to assist others to mind their own business.
Each has an individual work to perform. As a Whole, the work of all will be harmonious and symmetrical as each individual understands the role he has to perform and keeps to his own part. When each minds his own business, there will be a consciousness of harmony that will manifest itself in one grand Symphony of Life.
CHAPTER IX
Carrying Others’ Burdens
The principles that govern the Universe are exact, inexorable, and eternal. God is changeless. In motive and intent all of their operations are beneficent. God is Good. Duality of appearance is representative of Unity of Principle. God is One.
It is impossible to conceive of God as other than Perfect and Changeless. It is impossible to regard the visible universe in its entirety as any less perfect. Although creation and exchange are constant and eternal, at each and every instant the visible universe is in complete harmony with itself. Each change is accompanied by a compensating exchange; while action and reaction are ever equal.
The full or Infinite Consciousness of this inherent perfection is confined to the abstract plane of Being, and does not pertain to the other planes of consciousness. Eternal creation registers gradual and ever continuing unfoldment to consciousness of the unconscious harmonies of Being.
Each manifestation of life possesses a consciousness of some of its inherent perfection, and the evolutionary development of life (all “development” being confined to the planes of existence) records a constant unfoldment of consciousness.
Consciousness develops with the broadening of life’s environment and the deepening of invironment’s responses. With the enlargement of consciousness, life unfolds to a constantly increasing knowledge of its inherent perfection and harmony. The eternal perfection of the Infinite is being approached continually by the finite; and of all forms of life man is most conscious of his innate and inherent perfection.
Development of consciousness is a matter of individual soul unfoldment. All change or growth fundamentally is soul unfoldment, and every change in outward manifestation is a result in exact relation and correspondence with its fundamental cause. As external and internal development are ever in correspondence, and as one without the other is impossible, the conclusion is inevitable that manifestation—including environment, activity and experience—is essential to soul unfoldment.
Each Soul follows its self-chosen path of unfoldment, however closely it may approximate that of another. Each Soul must learn for itself. One Soul may suggest to another, and the other may accept and adopt the suggestion. But the suggestion is unimportant until it has been accepted. The one is responsible only for making the suggestion, and the other responsible only for accepting it.
While each Soul is responsible for its suggestions to another, it is not responsible for the results of the other’s appropriation of them. One’s motive determines the spiritual and mental returns he shall receive, and one’s acts measure his physical and material compensations. Pain and disappointment are not infrequently the accompaniments of spiritual unfoldment.
Each individual Soul is inseparable from Universal Spirit and, as Life is a unit, all of its parts have identical attributes and interests. Whatever assists one Soul to a greater unfoldment assists all. Since the object of life is soul-unfoldment, it is most advantageous to each Soul to think and act for the benefit of all.
As each Soul must develop individually, and is helping others as it helps the Self, that conduct in thought and action is most beneficial which affords to others positively, the greatest opportunities for, and negatively, the fewest obstacles to, soul-unfoldment.
One ceases to place obstacles in the way of others, and therefore of the Self, when he comes to a realization of his essential unity with God, or oneness with the Universe. He then realizes his own inherent perfection as well as that of each and every other Soul. He then lives his own life to the best advantage of the Self and others.
To the degree that one is dominated by the conception of duality, he places obstacles in the way of others. He acts from the point of view of opposition and a sense of discord and inharmony. His recognition of discord prompts activities that have their basis in discord, and this results in intensified manifestations of discord. Sooner or later, however, this leads to a greater recognition of inherent harmony and to his realization of unity with that with which formerly he was in apparent opposition.
How can one Soul assist others? By suggestions of truth and by promoting opportunities and offering inducements for their manifestation by others. Whatever suggests to another a greater conception of truth than he realizes consciously, must be of advantage to him. Similarly, whatever facilitates another’s manifestation of these greater conceptions must be beneficial. And negatively, that which brings to another a realization of the ugliness of his present manifestation, and renders it less attractive, may be of service to him.
In other words, whatever impels toward the comparative light of greater truths is to the Soul’s advantage, and whatever impels toward the comparative gloom of lesser truths is to its detriment. In whichever direction one assists another he assists the Self.
In carrying these principles into operation necessarily one follows the guide of principle rather than appearance. He “sacrifices” the lesser to the greater gain. He subordinates the temporary to the permanent. He is even willing to inflict upon another such temporary discomfort as he may deem necessary preliminaries to the latter’s more permanent comfort.
If one live to the best advantage, he controls, and directs his emotions, and they become ready servants of the understanding. That one’s emotions dominate him, and are not controlled, denote that he is following appearance rather than principle. When principle alone is dominant, the emotions possess intelligent concentration and intensity.
Principles are not difficult of application on the distinctively mental plane. Affirmative and constructive thoughts—thoughts of love, peace, strength and harmony—are elevating and beneficial to others, while negative and destructive thoughts—thoughts of hate, strife, weakness and discord—are depressing and detrimental. As one’s constructive thoughts predominate, he affects others helpfully and lightens their burdens.
The first attempt to apply principles on the plane of manifestation is not easy, for the reason that one is liable to be misled by appearance and by uncontrolled emotions. Is it of advantage to another that he be relieved of incentives to activity, or that he be excused from solving the problems of life that confront him? Is it beneficial that the load he carries be transferred to the shoulders of another? When is interference in another’s life justifiable?
All physical and material burdens are lifted as the consciousness of burden is dispelled. Whatever the load carried, it is not a burden as long as it falls within one’s consciousness of strength. Ones conduct toward another should be designed primarily to promote in him such a consciousness of strength as will prevent or dispel the consciousness of burden.
If one cultivate and tolerate a consciousness of inability to carry more than a hundred pounds, the sense of burden commences when that limit is exceeded. But if his consciousness be extended so that it include the excess carried by him—whatever this may be—the sense of burden is eliminated. To the extent that each lives his own life, others are enabled to live theirs to the best advantage.
If obstacles and difficulties were inflictions from without, love and justice would dictate that one remove them physically whenever opportunity permitted. But they are the very reverse of this. They are opportunities and tests designed to develop one’s strength and promote one’s happiness. And yet there are occasions when it is advisable to relieve others directly of the physical burdens they are carrying.
There are mental and physical conditions in which one is unable to realize practically his inherent strength. Self imposed limitations may have become so crystallized that he is quite unable, at the time, to awaken his consciousness to a greater realization of his inherent powers. Under such conditions the burdens of others should be gently and lovingly lifted from their shoulders, in order that they have more favorable opportunities for Self realization.
Indiscriminate charity and promiscuous alms giving evidence lack of love or esteem for one’s fellow beings. They may serve to still the conscience temporarily, but they denote one’s comparative indifference to the enduring or soul welfare of others. They tend to intensify in others the consciousness of weakness and burden. They make idlers, paupers and outcasts, and they degrade both giver and receiver.
The question of burden or no burden is entirely a matter of proportion and relation. When one’s strength is more than equal to the demands made upon it, there is no recognition of burden, and this is the condition that always prevails when one acquires the sense of right relation and adjusts demands from the standpoint of principle. As this consciousness of inherent strength is unfolded, Life’s pathway is pleasant and is easily trod, and above the sense of toil and burden the Soul rises triumphant.
CHAPTER X
GIVING AND RECEIVING ADVICE
Theory is simple, while practice is difficult. Advice is the easiest thing to offer or give, and the most difficult to receive and follow. Advice is for another, practice is for oneself. Advice suggests an arbitrary undeviating course of action, from which the unexpected factor is omitted. Practice meets with unforeseen emergencies, and the unexpected is its constant companion.
That one’s advice is requested, of itself is not sufficient to induce a response. Necessarily one speaks and acts from his own point of view, and because another requests something of one is not sufficient reason for granting it. One does not always do what another demands. He must have an impelling motive, or there is no basis or foundation for action. One’s motives for giving advice are the same, whether it is or is not requested.
Advice is volunteered from motives of self-laudation, self-interest or self-preservation. One is flattered by an appeal to his assumed superior wisdom, or he sees where his desires may be fulfilled or his interests subserved through giving advice. The instinct of self preservation prompts him to advise what he considers he would do were he in the place of the one advised. The point of view from which his advice emanates is his estimate of the Self, and its assumed relation to the One Self, the Universe.
Why does one seek advice? Each of us feels that, whatever he may do, there is a possibility that afterward he may come to regard it as a mistake, and the average individual is unwilling to admit a mistake, except the mistake of another. Most people freely acknowledge these. So one flatters another by asking advice, and natters himself by holding the other responsible for any unpleasant results of his own actions.
The unenlightened believes that he reaps what others have sown, except when his reaping is agreeable. He insists that he has sown his good fortune, but that others have sown all else. Since he usually expects unpleasant results, their probable future appearance impels him to seek another’s advice. He then blames the other for sowing the crop he reaps.
Theoretically many accept the idea that “as one sows he reaps,” but few believe its logical sequence that “what one reaps he has sown.” No; if anything unpleasant is reaped, it is “the devil,” or the “principle of evil,” or “misfortune,” or “circumstance,” or “some one else” who is to blame. Anything rather than the Self. If advice is tendered and acted upon, the giver is blamed for unpleasant results, while the one advised congratulates himself upon his own superior wisdom in regard to all pleasant effects.
One may have determined already upon his course of action, but without entire satisfaction that his conclusion is logically deducible from his premise. He feels the desirability of insuring himself against undivided responsibility, and so asks advice. He continues asking advice until he finds another who advises him to do exactly what he has already decided to do. Often he conceals, or colors or distorts the fact—quite unintentionally or unconsciously perhaps—in such fashion as to compel the advice he desires to receive. In this way, he gets others to participate in the liability he assumes. The entire process of giving and receiving advice is most subtle and its impulses are deeply hidden.
Ordinarily, when one seeks another’s advice, he does it not so much with a view of following it as such, but of following it to the extent that it agrees with or confirms his own views. He wants to get what he considers the other’s support in favor of a course of action with the advisability of which he is not quite satisfied.
It it seldom, indeed, that other than professional advice is sought with the view of following it because of its intrinsic worth, and regardless of one’s pre-determination. One values advice as it enables him to carry out his own views to a greater advantage than he would otherwise be able to secure. This is, in fact, the usual reason for seeking even professional advice.
In going to a lawyer, one tells him what he wants to do, and requests his advice as to ways and means. If the lawyer understands his business, he will meet the requirements to the extent that the law permits. If his client wishes to form a Beef Trust, the lawyer does not draw up a Charter for an Altruistic Universal Brotherhood Colony. If the client desires to spend his money and energy in “getting even” with another, the lawyer may be depended upon to assist him. He knows what is wanted and he advises accordingly.
One goes to a physician not to be healed, but to be cured. He asks to be relieved of pain or suffering. He does not ask to have the fundamental cause removed. He requests that the result be eliminated. The physician devotes himself to doing what is required. If conscientious and painstaking, he will relieve the pain, if it necessitates a hundred visits and operations galore. The client is often more responsible for undesirable results than the lawyer, and the patient than the doctor. These professionals are advisers, and they give what is asked.
There are instances however, where advice is sought and followed by reason of the desire to understand and practice the principles involved, and because of the confidence and high estimation of its source. Before this occurs, it is necessary that the seeker be convinced of his comparative ignorance of the problem concerning which the advice is sought; so much so, in fact, that he is ready to acknowledge the superior wisdom of his adviser, and is willing to follow the latter’s instructions.
Even assuming this last mentioned condition to exist, and the advice given to be expressive of a higher wisdom than is consciously possessed by the one advised, the latter may not be able advantageously to follow it. The vitality of action depends upon the underlying motive and intent. When one acts upon another’s advice, he may not display the other’s measure of wisdom or vitality. Lacking the other’s motive, his action will be formal or automatic, and correspondingly ineffective.
If one’s advice is not accepted he should not feel injured. That is not his affair. Another is no more obligated to follow one’s advice than he is to give it. One has given what he had. To profit by that for which he asked, the other must take what is given. The desire to learn in one’s own way is a privilege that must be accorded another. It is his prerogative to decline assistance, and one that it were well to recognize.
If one has honestly given advice to another, he should not permit the subsequent “you told me to do it” to disturb him. Children, both physical and spiritual, blame others for unpleasant happenings. They must creep before they walk, and must depend upon others before they stand alone. There are few mental, moral or spiritual adults, and few are willing to shoulder their own responsibilities and stand alone.
One is often impelled to offer advice to his associates in social, business or professional relations. Matters are brought to his attention which suggest methods of improvement. He is prompted to advise that what he regards as lacking be supplied. If the problem comes within his legitimate sphere of activity, he is clearly minding his own business in pointing out the conditions. To decline to do so, in fact, is not to mind his business.
Advice involves the consideration of two conditions, one that exists and one that though non-existent is deemed more desirable, and advice is designed to show how the former may be converted into the latter. Until one’s advice is asked for, it is always safe to confine himself to pointing out these two contrasting conditions. If his advice is desired, it will then be asked for. If given, he should not feel offended if it is rejected.
In seeking advice, one usually neglects or fails to mention one or more important facts, the knowledge of which might seriously affect the judgment and conclusion. This is usually done unintentionally, although at times there is an intentional concealment or perversion, so one’s conclusions are based upon statements that are incomplete and therefore not indicative of the real problem to be solved. Under such conditions, his solution is not likely to be the best one.
Professional men are habitually deceived by their clients or patients. The experienced physician becomes a good deductive reasoner. While he notes results he reaches his conclusions as much from what is concealed as from what is divulged. A lawyer must guard himself constantly against his client’s lack of memory regarding matters detrimental to his own side of the case.
As a rule, neither the physician’s advice nor the patient’s statements become public property, or a matter of record. There are weighty reasons against making one. But much of a lawyer’s work is a matter of public record, and upon this record depends his professional reputation and recognition. He makes it his business to see that his client does not unintentionally forget any essential fact.
One should not offer advice when it is not asked. Or if his advice is invited and then resented, he should not again offer it. There are those who are intolerant of the idea that the wisdom of others is superior to their own, even though they may be floundering wildly in the results of their own ignorance. As they are not prepared to accept advice, they should be permitted to learn in their own way. When it is manifestly useless to give advice, carefully refrain from offering it. Keep it for those who desire it, and who are able to derive benefit from it.
Each should endeavor to live his own life and permit others to live theirs. Do not mourn or bewail others’ experiences. It is impossible to bear the burdens of others, although one may assist to strengthen another so that he will not consider as burdensome what he is obliged to carry. He may do this through suggesting inherent strength to the other, and thereby enabling him to reach a greater consciousness of his own power. The weight of a burden depends altogether upon the ratio between strength and burden. Any burden may be carried without discomfort if one possess the requisite conscious strength.
To lift another’s burden, at best can give but temporary relief. It may even temporarily retard the growth of self-reliance and self-control, for the one assisted may become weakened through lack of exercise. Moreover, when the burden is resumed, as it must be at some future time, it will seem the heavier. If one enable another to increase his strength sufficiently, the burden will cease to be regarded as such, and he may acquire the ability to bear even greater burdens without difficulty.
When one arrives at the consciousness of his inherent Individuality and knows that he is responsible for whatever befalls him, he is prepared to value advice, rightly. Before it is possible to act upon it, however, it must receive his deepest consideration, for it is as nothing to him until he has accepted and made it his own. If he adopt it without question, he does this at his own risk, and even here he alone is responsible for the results.
The truly individualized Soul does not accept any advice, as such. He listens to all suggestions, weighs them as best he knows, and acts as he deems most advisable. That, in fact, is what each of us must necessarily do at all times, but the Individual does it consciously, attaching no blame to another, whatever the results. He knows that what is reaped is the result of what was sown, and he sees no necessity for a scapegoat. He stands up in his own might, and has no inclination either to shirk or to ignore.
To live life nobly, one must live it fearlessly, manifesting courage, principle and love. His example will then be the best possible advice. One’s wisdom will radiate from him, and his mere presence will quicken in others a consciousness of the truths he realizes.
One may lead another to the understanding of principles, but the other must make his own application. One should not advise unless his advice is asked. If he deem the occasion an appropriate one, he may carefully ascertain the facts and give his advice honestly, fearlessly, impartially. He need not concern himself about results. That is a realm over which he has no direct control.
When one rejoices in his own Individuality, he asks no favors. He recognizes his Unity with all else, and knows that it is his estimate of the Self that determines his position. One is strong or weak as he rates himself. When he knows himself to be the embodiment of strength, love, and peace, he manifests these conditions.
One thus individualized lives from the point of view that his interests are inseparable from those of all others. Character building is the object of existence, and only by meeting ond overcoming obstacles are faculties exercised and strengthened. Character results from thought and action, and each individual must think and act for himself.
To assist others as much as possible and harm them the least should be one’s course in conduct. What he gives must inevitably return to him. If he would act for the greatest good and benefit to others, he must wisely refrain from giving unsought or unnecessary advice.
CHAPTER XI
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF FEAR
Fear is the child of ignorance, the product of distrust. It denotes ignorance of right proportions. It reflects a telescopic conception of one’s environment, and a miscroscopic estimate of one’s Self.
Fear is the result of a conception of dual or diverse principles in Nature. It betokens ignorance of the inherent Unity of all things. Fear increases as one’s conception of inherent diversity expands or as his understanding of inherent Unity contracts.
The conception of separation, opposition or antagonism generates fear. Because one finds his physical environment extensive and himself comparatively limited, he regards the Self as a slave to circumstances and as under the dominion of outer forces. As he realizes the Self and its environment to be One, he also recognizes the Oneness of the Universe, and to the extent this is realized is he free from the constraint of environment. As he comprehends the essential unity of the Self and environment, he ceases to fear.
When one knows his essential relation and Oneness with all else, the sense of separation and opposition vanishes. A member or organ of the physical body has no fear of a fellow-member or organ. One fears not that which he knows to be in constant correspondence with him, beneficially connected with him, and essential to his existence. He has no fear of that which he must forever be in connection with and dependent upon. Under such conditions one’s only “fear” is that he may be unable to show enough friendship or afford sufficient assistance to his co-operative comrade.
Fear of one another will cease when all are consciously working for the same cause, with the same purpose, and for the same end. Under such circumstances there is no occasion for fear. However many different spheres of activity there may be, however diverse the occupations, or the immediate purposes, objects or results, they all necessarily complement, supplement and assist each other. The good of one is the good of all.
The conception of inherent Unity leaves no room in the mind for jealousy, hatred, opposition or antagonism. It removes all vesiges of fear, and prohibits its recurrence. It enables each to secure the co-operation and share the strength of all others. It intensifies love, harmony, and mutuality. It confers power, strength, vitality and life. As health dissipates disease, and light dispels darkness, so is weakness eliminated by strength, and fear replaced by courage and faith.
Each individual interprets the universe as being divided into and composed of the Self and all else. The conscious relation one makes between the two—the within and the without or the Self and its environment —determines the extent of his fears. Is one the arbiter of his own destiny, or is he the slave of environment? Is it physical or material manifestation or size that tells? Or is it character or the Soul that determines results? Consciousness gauges and measures one’s relation to all else. Soon or late, consciousness gives each one the mastery.
Within the Soul itself is the capacity to wield all the powers and privileges inherent in Universal Spirit. Through the body’s agency the Soul may manifest its consciousness of equality and mutuality with all else. The position of mastery means direction of Self, a consciousness of independence that forbids any relation to or co-operation with slavery. It means the consciousness of power, of equality before the Laws of Nature, of subservience to none, and of lordship over none.
Any form of inequality is of mutual disadvantage. Any form of slavery involves bondage both of lord and of serf. Any form of fear demoralizes those who fear as well as those who are feared, while all forms of true freedom and courage strengthen the general cause of courageous action.
The Soul cannot perish or be injured. It is the individualized Self, and the body is its physical manifestation. While forms are forever changing, Life is eternally conserved. The principles of Nature are inherently beneficent, and always operate to one’s advantage. Whatever happens must be for his good. One who trusts the beneficence of Nature, knows that no harm can come to him and that there is no occasion for fear.
Nothing is harmful to one, and nothing is to his disadvantage, except as he so considers it. When he sees no harm to himself in any condition, there is none. When he fully understands that every condition is to his advantage, he no longer fears anything.
As one understands his essential unity with all else, his mastery of Self, his freedom from the thraldom of environment, and his view-point as that of the Soul, he becomes possessed of love, of strength, of courage, and of abounding vitality. The weakness of distrust, suspicion, hate and fear take flight as these permeate his being.
A necessary relation exists between the different parts of an organism. Each part is related, though indirectly perhaps, to every other part, and directly all are related to the government of the whole. The social body resembles the human body in this respect. Each member owes allegiance to the general government, and the prosperity of the government and of the people are ever in correspondence.
Symptoms of discord or inharmony in a body manifest themselves outwardly in some individual member or organ—in the weakest link of the chain. The suggestion is usually that of a merely local disorder. Some special function has failed to answer its purpose or to respond to the demands made upon it. A correct diagnosis involves the discernment of whether it is of a local or general nature, for upon this depends the method of treatment.
Physical disorder is usually of a general character. Where it is local, the rest of the system hastens to the relief of the disabled member, and the whole organism is devoted to its restoration. Under such conditions local remedies may be efficacious, and usually harmony is restored very quickly. When the symptoms denote a general “run down” condition, local remedies only repress local symptoms. It is necessary that the system be reinforced with new vitality for general use, and particularly in the disturbed parts.
The field of one’s fears is universal. He fears death, disease and poverty; he fears accident, and loss of things in particular and everything in general; he fears the opinions of others, and he fears his own opinions; he fears to be natural, to express himself, or to be individual; he fears to be alone, and fears to be with others; he fears to be conventional and he fears especially to be unconventional; he fears anything and everything that he deems stronger than himself; and he fears to fear.
Some teachers of spiritual philosophies spend much time in the elimination of fear, and the cultivation of courage. For this purpose formulas are devised, affirmations and negations are offered for practice, and students are advised what to do or not to do under varying conditions.
Local remedies have their place and purpose. Affirmations and negations may be beneficial. If one is bleeding, the wound should be closed; if bruised, the skin should be attended to properly. Whatever inharmony is inflicted from without, primarily requires treatment from without. But whatever comes from within, equally demands first and maximum attention at the source of the trouble.
A local bruise may be inflamed by local treatment until the whole system is involved. So it is with fear, which may even be stimulated by undesirable affirmations and negations.
Fear is the product of ignorant thought, a manifestation of conditions of false consciousness, the expression of a false conception of relationship. Its inception is within, and it should be treated at its source. It is the result of a misconception of principles, and it will seek outward manifestation so long as it is retained in the consciousness. If repressed locally it will find another avenue of expression, and such expression is always discordant and painful.
As far as affirmations, negations and formulas educate the individual and develop understanding of principles, will they assist to eliminate fear and establish faith, for outer symptoms appear only as they are generated from within. Cause removed, its result ceases to manifest. As long as the conception of fear is permitted to exist in the consciousness, it will manifest itself in the body in pain and suffering.
Fear and disease are names for corresponding mental conceptions and physical manifestations of false consciousness. It is difficult if not impossible to effect a cure through local treatment of the symptoms of a general disease. Cures are not effected in this way as a result of the local treatment itself, but because of the opportunity for recovery afforded the vital organs.
Fear and disease are inevitable as long as one believes in a God and a Devil, or in Good and Evil, as opposing and antagonistic principles of more or less equal power. The law of the Whole is the law of the part, and one’s conception of the Universe is inseparably related to his conception of the Self. While he believes in a divided and self-opposing Universe, he must believe in a divided and self-opposing Self.
If one persist in believing in inherent evil as well as Inherent Good, he will not fail to evidence that belief in a body which manifests his belief. As long as he conceives the Principle of the Universe to be dual or diverse, so long will his body remain a prey to the thought of duality or diversity that it necessarily represents.
The conception of God or the Universe lies at the root of all conceptions, and determines the position one assigns to the Self, and the relation he bears to all else. And by the “Universe” is meant all that is, visible and invisible, material and immaterial, physical and spiritual.
Fear results from the conception of a devil or a principle of evil, the formulated dissemination of which is well calculated to extend its consciousness Through fear alone is one enslaved. Through the conception of a principle of evil as a governing factor in the Universe, have religious institutions always derived or retained their power. The conception of inherent and universal justice and beneficence will banish the other, for it would not permit of inequality or slavery. It inculcates a realization of freedom, of unity, and of love.
The realization of Unity attacks the stronghold of theology. It seeks to eliminate the conception of a devil and of a principle of evil. So long however has the human mind been atrophied along these lines and been theologically moulded and biased, that to dispense with one’s belief in a principle of evil, is his last resort before coming into consciousness of Unity and health. Many have ceased to personify it as a devil, but few indeed have eliminated it fully from consciousness.
If there is no devil and no principle of evil, there is only Good and its Principle. If there is no inherent malevolence, there is only Beneficence. All one’s experience, all his environment, all that comes to and goes from him therefore are inherently good. Nothing may harm him, nothing may be to his disadvantage. If there is no devil and no principle of evil, there is no duality and no conflict of principles. If there is no duality and therefore no diversity in Principle, there is only Unity, Oneness, Completeness, Mutuality, Universal Love.
As this latter conception is fostered, encouraged, developed and lived, the Soul comes into an expanded consciousness of the unconscious harmonies of Universal Spirit. Through such consciousness the whole body is transformed, and expresses love, strength, courage and faith. Hate, weakness and fear are dispelled from consciousness, for they have nothing upon which to subsist.
It matters not how this understanding is reached. Each individual must pursue the course best suited to his condition and environment. Some will reach it first through the reason or the intellect, others through intuition or inspiration. Neither of these methods, however, may be dispensed with entirely. They represent respectively conscious and unconscious thought, and they are as complimentary and necessary to each other and to true soul-unfoldment, as well as to the cause of truth, as are the processes of induction and deduction.
Affirmations, denials, and local treatment of all kinds, are of permanent benefit only when they reach the cause of fear. Treatment of symptoms may remove the outward appearance and evidence of disorder, but as long as the cause remains, fresh symptoms will appear in new and unexpected directions. Nature always takes the line of least resistance. Energy repressed will seek a channel that offers minimum opposition. Fear may be permanently dissipated only by renewing the consciousness. The renewed consciousness realizes the universal and unital Principle of Good.
CHAPTER XII
CHEERFULNESS
Each of us requires a practical, working, everyday philosophy of life. But so anxious is each to acquire knowledge quickly, that usually he overlooks the fact that through experience alone can he realize and make his own the wisdom underlying appearances.
One must live his philosophy in order to arrive at a knowledge of its real meaning. But before he lives a principle of life, he must have a clear understanding of what he is to manifest. Until he is ahle to formulate his philosophy, he is in doubt as to what he really desires to do. Only after it is clearly presented to his mind and has passed the test of his reason, is he prepared to live it.
Were one able to reduce to direct practice the abstract principles set forth in a rule of conduct such as the Golden Rule, there would be little difficulty in living a life of principle. Of itself, to “Love one another” is all sufficient. But a life time is required for love’s interpretation and fulfilment. While the greatest truths may be most simply expressed, they are susceptible of infinite interpretations and applications.
One’s attitude toward the details of daily life determines his happiness or his misery. His habitual attitude of mind measures what he shall make of life. What is required is to bring himself into harmony with his immediate surroundings and its momentary requirements. To do this, he must constantly entertain mental conceptions that relate him harmoniously with his environment.
Each of us has some sort of a philosophy of life, some rule of conduct to which he endeavors to conform. These differ in their degree of comparative wisdom or ignorance. It is not the amount of time devoted to it that determines which philosophy one shall indorse.
To recognize the underlying unity of principle in diversity of appearance, requires some considerable degree of wisdom. With increasing wisdom, there comes a greater optimism and a wider consciousness of beneficence. No more philosophy is required in the promotion of happiness than in the promotion of misery. It is a question of degree or quality rather than quantity. It is the busiest man who is in greatest need of high spiritual conceptions.
The purpose in life is conscious harmony with environment, and each devotes his life-time to this purpose. There is no question as to one having time to be happy. One derives more happiness from a conception of good than from one of evil. Whether he think good or evil is a matter of suggestion and habit, and he can as readily cultivate the habit of seeing good as of recognizing evil.
Happiness comes from living normally, truthfully, simply; from expressing one’s highest perceptions. Cheerfulness is the manifestation of happiness or harmony. It is true that every detail of the philosophy of life has its direct relation to happiness and cheerfulness, but there are a few broad conceptions the acceptance of which profoundly influences the harmonies of life, and determines what one shall make of it.
It is of prime importance that one cultivate a faith in himself, without which he remains a mere sport of circumstances and environment. Not the credulous “faith” of ignorance, but the intelligent Faith of understanding and knowledge. Not a confidence in a power unrelated to himself, but a trust In his own ability to place himself in harmony with, and thereby assume direction of, such powers as are inherent in himself. He must come to a consciousness of the inherent grandeur and beauty of the Self.
Through making himself positive to environment, one may mould it along the line of desire, and so control destiny. Surroundings become passive when he knows that thought determines and dictates what shall come to him. When he knows his power, he can place compulsion on environment, and quickly attract to him what the requirements of his growth demand.
One may understand the Self and its higher powers only from the point of view of Unity. From that standpoint he sees that all principles of Nature are inherently beneficent. As every manifestation of principle must partake of its essential qualities, all experiences are of advantage to him. He attracts what he requires.
The Universe manifests kindness only, and this is clearly apparent when one meets its activities in a spirit of kindness. No person or thing may harm one except as his belief makes harm possible to him. He renders himself immune from injury when he knows that he is invulnerable. With this knowledge, fear departs from him and is replaced by Love that is allinclusive.
To develop happiness and manifest cheerfulness, one must live in and for the present—the Eternal Now. Each thought and act has an immediate effect upon one, though it may not be discerned outwardly at once. One does not have to wait for a reward or punishment, for the thought and act carry with them their own reward or punishment, and he is powerless to avoid what they justly and inevitably bring to him.
Cause and effect are united by immutable principle and law. It is impossible to escape or even postpone the effect upon oneself of his thought and act. He makes his heaven and hell here and now, so that any future heaven and hell will be but a continuation and extension of the present one. He makes his own misery and his own happiness, for these are but mental attitudes, the interpretations of the conditions he represents.
Misery here will not be compensated by happiness elsewhere. Do not encourage or even tolerate misery under such a delusion. Misery here is one’s own making, and its only reward is more misery. He is postponing the greater happiness of himself and others. He does not deserve any pleasant reward for willingly or wilfully remaining ignorant. Nor is there anything particularly meritorious in neglect of opportunities or failure to accomplish.
Does this seem unkind? Would it be kind, indeed, to encourage or place a premium on misery or weakness? The suggestion of a continuation of misery would certainly be cruel were one the slave of circumstances, or were misery forcibly imposed upon him. But one’s misery comes from within, and is entirely subject to his own control. The consciousness of this truth induces the assertion of mastery, and the rejection of all conceptions that tend toward inharmony.
Nor will happiness here be offset by misery elsewhere. Do not fear to be happy! The place to be happy is here, and the time is now, and happiness here earns reward of happiness hereafter. One who is always happy in the present can never be other than happy. Like produces like. Each reaps what he sows and receives what he gives—misery for misery and happiness for happiness.
Do not postpone happiness! Do not cultivate a long face or a solemn mien. These will not lead to a paradise in the stars. One is not here to find heaven, but to make one. Heaven is the condition resultant upon conformity to law, to principle.
One confers no happiness by being miserable, and no harm by being happy. He adds only to the happiness of others as he adds to his own, and only increases the misery of others as he continues miserable. There is no occasion but ignorance for postponing happiness. If anything is to be postponed, let it be misery!
When one’s thoughts and actions are illumined by the conception that heaven is a condition of mind and the result of his own mental attitude, he manifests his love for others now. In general, if one hate another he is quite prone to say so; if he love another he fears to let it be known. If he has unpleasant thoughts they flow out readily; if pleasant, they come reluctantly. He hesitates to do good, to be kind, to be loving. He has no compunction about hating; only about loving, or at least about manifesting love. He prefers to love others after they are dead, hating them while they live. As a rule, it may perhaps be said that one loves to manifest hate and hates to manifest love.
To avoid discords one must reverse these methods. He must keep a song in his heart and sing it to others constantly. Use alone creates a wealth of love, and to be love-wealthy one must be lavish with it. His deeds of kindness are effective only in proportion to the love he puts into them. Let him impress his loving thoughts on warm hearts rather than on cold marble! The time for kind thoughts and pleasant words is here and now.
“Have good will
To all that lives, letting unkindness die,
And greed and wrath; so that your lives be made
Like soft air passing by.”
“Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads
Let love through goodness shine.”
Health is free to healthy minds, and in health there is life, liberty and good cheer. Be merry, cultivate sweet thoughts, radiate gentle smiles. There is creative power latent in a ray of hope, and a spark of happiness.
Happiness and its manifested cheerfulness are the result of activity. Mere passive thought is insufficient. Unless it has found expression, thought is incomplete. A thought is not owned until one has “parted” with it. If one would manifest cheerfulness he must cast it about him, so that it will envelop him. He will thus be at its center, where it is most intense and satisfying. The thought atmospheres with which one surrounds himself become the magnets of his destiny.
Unless one act from his highest conceptions of life, he is losing time. Eternity lies before him, it is true, but because there is a tomorrow is no reason for inactivity today. Because there is a limitless reservoir from which he may draw, is no excuse for refraining to take advantage of it now. Because he has a boundless expanse of time within which to pass through the grades of life’s schooling, does not warrant his remaining indefinitely in the primary grades of experience.
In delaying and postponing, one is denying himself the benefits that are freely at his command. He is unnecessarily arresting his unfoldment and development. What he is now thinking and acting affects his present happiness. He determines his present relation to all else by the thought and act of the moment, and this relation he regulates for himself.
Habitual cheerfulness evidences the attitude of mind that recognizes harmony and manifests this recognition, for to each the world is but a mirror of the Self and its development in consciousness. As one realizes the inherent beauty and grandeur of the Self, he becomes the living manifestation of harmony and cheerfulness.
When he knows that he is the arbiter of his own destiny, that nothing can possibly come to him except what is destined to benefit him, and that the “harm” he received is only his ignorant interpretation of appearances, he cheerfully assumes the responsibilities of life and sees no occasion for ill-will toward others. He no longer even blames himself, for he is sure to receive the exact reward or punishment his thoughts and acts call for, and there is no occasion either for self-laudation or self-depreciation.
No one may really harm another. But one’s consciousness of the motive, the intent and the seeming result of thoughts and acts, determine their influence upon him. He knows life only as his consciousness interprets it. With high motive, kind intent, and thought and act proceeding from lofty conceptions, one becomes conscious of peace and poise, both mentally and physically.
Each determines what his consciousness shall be. He has the choice of happiness or misery, as he may elect. It depends upon his views of life, and the relation in which he places himself with his surroundings and environment.
When one looks for love and harmony only, he sees and knows nothing else. He is always open to greater understanding and higher realization, and he necessarily interprets from the plane of his development. There is no absolute finality, but his interpretation may secure him the harmony that fully satisfies the conditions he has reached, and the plane of his functioning.
No involved philosophy of life is essential to happiness. What one requires most is the ability to interpret and express vitally a few simple conceptions of life, the truth of which is self-evident. Living these truths will more quickly lead him to greater wisdom and understanding than any mere intellectual attainments. He must learn more or less slowly through experience and self-expression. Mere abstract learning does not suffice.
If one would be cheerful he must recognize a cheerful Universe about him, and radiate that consciousness. He must recognize it Here and Now, and as it more clearly appeals to him he will come to a fuller realization of it. He has the power to manifest all the beauty there is, and it is only by living lofty conceptions that he gradually attains greater beauty of character. It is through the consciousness of soul growth that one reaches the harmony of life that radiates cheerfulness.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SECRET OF SYMPATHY
Each Soul is destined to develop or unfold continually into greater consciousness of the attributes of Universal Spirit. Each individual is a point of focalization or expression of the Universal. Immanent and innate in each part therefore are the qualities of the Whole.
Existence and manifestation are essential to soulunfoldment. That they subserve no purpose is inconceivable. To admit lack of purpose or necessity, even in the slightest detail of the Universe, contravenes all conception of Unity, and assumes a chaos rather than a Cosmos. While one may not be able to connect cause and effect, never is he justified in concluding that such connection is lacking.
Each detail of the Universe is necessary, and subserves a particular and special purpose. Matter and energy are inseparable, inner and outer are dependent, Soul and body are one. Soul unfoldment indicates a broadening consciousness, resulting from the realization of wisdom. Wisdom is the essence of experience.
There is a principle and a spiritual center to all experience and an abstract truth in all concrete manifestation. While truth is unchangeable, manifestations change ever. Only through the fleeting may the eternal be discerned. It is the relative that enables the finite mind to cognize the Infinite, the Universal.
Consciousness unfolds as the result of its interpretation of experience and consequent extraction of wisdom. Without experience, consciousness would have nothing to interpret or from which to absorb wisdom. Consciousness interprets what the senses report to it, but without environment nothing would be reported. The outer world is as necessary as the inner; not only as necessary but, fundamentally, the two are one and inseparable.
As the Soul unfolds, it comes into conscious harmony with manifestations of greater number and variety, and with correspondingly broader spiritual environment. As conscious harmony constitutes love, that which the Soul receives as wisdom is given out as love. Love is the heart of all truth, and he who assimilates the most truth distills the most love. Thus it is that wisdom and love are intimately related.
One is in sympathy only with what he has experienced, for this is all that he represents. Each individual is representative only of the experiences he has met, and the wisdom he has absorbed from them. He is inclusive of all unfoldment less than his own present development. He is able to understand and appreciate only the motives, the meanings and the influences that correspond to all he has passed through and assimilated, and he sympathizes with others only as they encounter the difficulties and obstacles that he has previously overcome.
Without experience, sympathy with others would be impossible. One can love only that with which he is in harmony, and he vibrates in harmony only with that which is duplicated in himself. He cannot be at one with what is foreign to him, nor can he vibrate in sympathy with what is not in sympathy with him. There is sympathy between individuals only to the degree to which they have met and mastered conditions and unfolded qualities of consciousness in common.
Unconsciously the Universe is a complete harmony. Unconsciously all harmonies are inherent in each individual. But each must unfold gradually to a consciousness of these inherent harmonies. Love is the essence of such consciousness and it is expressed aclively by way of sympathy. The consciousness of love and the expression of it by way of sympathy open to each individual the avenues leading to further inclusiveness and higher wisdom.
To possess universal wisdom, one must love universally, his sympathy must be boundless, he must recognize within the Self that which actuates the murderer, the robber, the thief. He must know that their conditions and environments have been his. Universal love is possible to universal experience only. To be all-inclusive, necessarily he must be “bad” and good, low and high, sinner and saint.
In the course of man’s evolutionary development, there were times when murder, theft and the like were meritorious and commendable. One does not have to be a thief at the time, to sympathize with a thief. But, at some time, he must have nourished similar thoughts and manifested them. And the wisdom absorbed from an experience forever remains a part of him and enables him later on to respond to its counterpart in others.
One can sympathize with what he has passed through—brute life, animal life, savage life, crime, lawlessness. To the degree that their wisdom is absorbed, is he the better for having passed through each of these thought-conditions and physical manifestations. But he can have no sympathy with, and therefore condemns, that which he has not yet experienced, or having experienced, the wisdom of which he has not yet absorbed or to which he has not yet unfolded.
The study of embryology and anatomy demonstrates that the physical body retains the essence of all its ancestral forms or—as they may be termed—its physical experiences. And the thought-form of which the physical is the manifestation similarly retains the essence of all its ancestral thought-experiences. The quart measure includes the pint, the mountain top includes the base, and in the sun is included the electric light.
If the intenser harmonies and higher development recognized only what responded to them fully, their sympathies would be so narrowed that there would be an utter lack of harmony between those unequally developed. Interchange would be confined to those exactly alike, and one would be unable to supply to another that which the other lacked. There would be no interdependence or mutuality, and love and sympathy would be without purpose or advantage.
As one progresses he stores away; he includes, he does not eliminate essence or wisdom. Form alone is changed or eliminated. While it is true that his consciousness is dominated by the highest harmonies to which he has unfolded, it is equally true that he forever includes the lower intensities to which he has responded during the course of his unfoldment. He summons the subconscious to the conscious realm, and with the new and deeper understanding and through the realization and application of Life’s principles and laws, the old subconscious ideas and conceptions are renewed and rejuvenated. When his present conscious wisdom is superseded by the subconsciousness which is inclusive of its essence, its permanent conscious attendance is no longer necessary. It is stored away, but is ready to be called into activity whenever its response is required.
The higher harmonies are intensified through the constant quickening of the lower. Thereby a deeper realization is reached, a broader sympathy aroused and a greater intensity of love attained. Unless the higher harmonies included the lower, one could not love or sympathize with the latter. As it is, the lower and higher, the less and more developed, the smaller and greater unfoldment, mutually are beneficial and essential. The higher lifts the lower and the lower sustains the higher. There is no summit without its base.
The wise are those whose love is most universal. An unbounded love and an all-inclusive sympathy are the distinguishing traits of all Saviors and Christs. The conception of Unity is vitalized by these qualities, and they inculcate a Religion of Humanity. Love of God and Love of Man are One. They are as inseparable as God and Man.
The experiences his development demands come constantly to each individual. They offer opportunities for the absorption of the wisdom they represent and that he requires. This wisdom is appropriated and assimilated in proportion as he loves his experiences, and persuades them to disclose their secret love for him. One uses his wisdom to the best advantage as he expresses the higher love it represents and the wider sympathy it prompts. Wisdom expressed through love and sympathy promotes receptivity to higher wisdom, and this facilitates its further development. Love and Wisdom are the positive and negative poles of Being, and whatever divides them, serves equally to unite them and to demonstrate their essential inseparability.
To be wise, one must love; to be wiser, he must love more; to be wisest, he must love most. That is to say, to be wise one must be in conscious harmony with his environment, his fellow beings and his experiences, and this love must be evidenced in sympathetic thoughts and actions. The love that is synonymous with wisdom always seeks expression, and thus invites impression; always gives, and therefore cannot fail to receive; always sows, and of necessity reaps. It is the deeper love that is promoted by the world of experience and manifestation—a practical and serviceable love, and one that encircles all humanity.
CHAPTER XIV
AN INCLUSIVE TOLERATION
The fulfilment of inherent beneficence in the Principle of Life demonstrates the immanence of Universal Love. This love is not confined to emotion or passion. It is the expression rather of toleration, equality, mutuality, justice. The extent of one’s conscious harmonious relation or correspondence with his environment measures the degree of his conscious love. As one increases his realization of Oneness with all, he expresses and manifests more love. He finds an increasing agreement between himself and all others. Seeming inconsistencies are dispelled, apparent discords disappear, and inharmonies are converted into harmonies. As love thus develops in him he becomes broader in his conceptions and more tolerant in his life.
The ultimate roots of toleration, of equality, of justice, and of love are identical. These are all contrasting degrees of harmony, as applied to different conditions and circumstances. While this does not represent the popular conception of the derivation of love, it is the necessary logical deduction from a conception of Universal Unity and Beneficence.
While one lives on a distinctly physical plane he cannot comprehend a community of interests. The physical or material manifestations seem to be hopelessly at variance with this idea. Only as the intellectual and higher mental faculties develop and respond to the appeal can one come to see through diversity of appearance to the inherent and underlying Unity.
It must be that whatever exists at any particular time is a certain quantity. But one’s interpretation of it depends entirely upon himself. As far as one’s understanding and consciousness are concerned, all things are relative to his point of view and his means of vision at the time.
The attributes one ascribes to his surroundings and environment constitute his individual interpretation of what appeals to his consciousness. For example, what he calls sound and color are sensations. They are not properties of the vibrations that he interprets. They are the sensations to which their reception gives rise.
The vibrations which appeal to one as sound or color, and the exact sound or color they represent, depend upon the individual instrument receiving them. No two persons are receptive to the same exact range of vibrations, nor are their various interpretations of the same vibrations identical.
One may hear only such waves of energy as are in vibratory sympathy with the strings of his auditory nerves. Only such waves as move in correspondence with the retinal elements of his eye may he interpret as color. At a given point of greater or lesser intensity the vibrations cease to appeal to him as sound or light. Yet the essential difference between the vibrations that may be recognized as sound or light, and those immediately above or below them, is their greater or lesser intensity of motion. A particular range of vibrations appeals to one as sound and another range as light, while still other ranges may not provoke any sensation to which he can consciously relate them.
Each sees and hears differently and no person has perfect sight or hearing. It is the same with the senses of touch, taste and smell. Each is differently appealed to by the same or similar impressions. All have different tastes, sensations and feelings. Each has passed through experiences peculiar to himself, and each manifests a thought-form that is a composite of all his past thinking.
From this viewpoint one readily appreciates the fact that he must have individual taste, hearing and sight. Although he may prefer those who are somewhat akin to him in these matters, yet he is reasonably tolerant of others who differ from him. It is evident to him that those who are near-sighted may not see exactly as do those who are far-sighted, nor may those who are color-blind visually recognize what is seen by the cultivated eye of the artist. Those who are partly deaf do not appreciate sound in the same way as those whose auditory sense is in normal condition. Aside, too, from these extreme conditions, there are minor differences pertaining to all the senses and feelings.
As it is with the five physical senses, so it is with all our faculties and functions. We are individuals, and each one of us lives in a different universe. The Universe is defined, limited and circumscribed to each by his consciousness, and each registers and represents a different development. As with the physical senses, so is it with the mental faculties. Each occupies a different mental universe, and the individual physical manifestations are its correspondences.
Since in the nature of things it is inevitable that we must be different both physically and mentally, the sooner we recognize that fact and live accordingly, the better it will be for all of us. The next step is to learn that these incidental differences are necessary for the benefit of all, and that they offer the only means whereby one may develop and progress. One grows only through the appropriation and absorption of what he lacks in consciousness.
Delving still deeper, it becomes apparent that underlying these incidental differences is a spiritual Unity, expressive of all that is fundamental and basic. Spiritually we are One. But Unity of Principle is ever manifested through diversity of appearance. As this diversity is the expression of the activity of Universal Beneficence, without which there could be no progress, there is every reason why one should be tolerant or friendly toward its every manifestation.
It is through the operation of the Love Principle— the Principle of Attraction—that things are brought together. Whatever reaches one in the way of experience or environment has come to him as the result of mutual attraction. As the Principle of Attraction is always beneficent in its operation, this mutual attraction is the expression of love, and the conjunction is designed to benefit him. Whatever forms part of his experience or environment may be converted to his advantage, and has been attracted to him in order that he may use it to that end.
How may one make use of the material thus put into his hands ? How is he to use it in adding to his soul growth and building a character? By receiving it in the spirit in which it is brought to him. By recognizing its friendly intent and purpose. By reciprocating its kindly greeting. By being tolerant and loving.
The Universe is not chance and haphazard. Things do not occur from pure ignorance and lack of purpose. The Universe Is, and its manifestations are those of intelligence, purpose, principle and love. Through immutable operation of law, whatever is manifest has resulted from what formerly was invisible or unmanifest. The manifestations of the past, present and future alike represent the necessary results of good and sufficient causes.
Every religion, philosophy or school of thought that has ever existed, came into manifestation because it was required. There was a demand for it. When the demand ceased the manifestation of it was translated or merged into the new or substituted demand. Every church or school appeals to those whose growth lies within the confines of its limitations. Whenever there is a seeming danger of permanent limitation, intolerance and persecution always lead to the breaking of the shackles and an escape into comparative freedom.
The more comprehensive the truth the greater its manifestation of freedom, of toleration, of justice, and of love. To the degree that these are repressed there is an absence of truth. Truth includes an infinitude of contrasts and gradations. To the extent that they include more or less of these contrasts, all statements of truth are expressions of a larger or smaller degree of truth. The least amount of truth is conveyed when one extreme only is recognized. The difference between truth and “falsity” is in the degree of truth each represents. That is most “false” which manifests the least truth and ignores the most.
In order either to avoid or dispel the false, it is both inexpedient and unnecessary to be intolerant. As health is renewed through the cultivation of more health in consciousness, and darkness is dispelled by the addition of more light, so is the false converted into the truth. Intolerance denotes the recognition of one extreme only, and one intensifies intolerance when he adds to it more intolerance.
The highest conception of truth recognizes the good in all things and in all manifestations. While everything is inherently good in itself, some things are related more harmoniously than are others. One’s search is always for “the right thing in the right place,” the ideal, the idea and the manifestation which will reveal to him a higher understanding of inherent good than he has yet assimilated. But one receives and appropriates these only as he is prepared for them, and as his development has rendered him receptive to them. All things are good, but what are beyond one’s reach are not best for him until he may understand and appreciate them. This is why they are beyond his reach.
The present age had progressed so far along distinctly material lines at the expense of the spiritual that it evinced but slight consciousness of the higher truths. As a result, manifestations of individual and social disease, inharmony and discord, became more or less general. Those who keenly recognized these conditions set about inculcating a philosophy of life calculated to neutralize excessive materialism, through the introduction of higher spiritual conceptions.
Under such conditions the natural tendency was to administer heroic treatment. The earlier spiritual teachers of the present age were extremists, and necessarily so. Only as such could they make any impression, or stem the tide of materialism. Only enthusiasts were willing to encounter the abuse and misunderstanding that must inevitably be leveled at them and their teaching. To the extent that the tide of extreme materialism has been turned, are such teaching and work inapplicable and unnecessary.
Later, as new conditions and demands were reached, and different degrees of development had to be met, other teachers appeared. So it is with each advance. The growing need is met by thinkers and teachers farther and farther removed from the extremist type. But as more progressive schools arise each of the less progressive are also gaining adherents, and all are drawing ultimately from the great body of society, the mass of which have not yet even been reached.
As a result, at present there are numerous degrees of development in the spiritual and religious Movement of the present age, each of which is appealed to from different points of view and by varying modes of expression. This Movement has differently affected the various individuals influenced by it. Each has absorbed particular conceptions, and each has assimilated his new acquisitions from the point of view of the body of knowledge he formerly possessed.
Under such conditions is it possible that any single form of expression appeal equally to all of the followers of this great religious Movement? Most certainly not. So we have various designations, titles and descriptions of spiritual teachers and healers, as well as Homes, Brotherhoods, Sisterhoods, cults, colonies, clubs, systems, associations, “centers” and even federations, besides numerous individuals each representing a form of expression peculiar to it or to himself.
Is any one individual, or school, or system to be condemned? Certainly not, if Life is a Unit. If any did not meet a demand or supply a need it would not have a following. Any teaching is what is temporarily required by those who desire and seek it. Under such conditions, if it is not for them they can only be sure of it through investigating and understanding it.
Some teachers and schools in the new spiritual movement lay equal stress on the physical, the mental and spiritual, yet recognizing that the spiritual is the source and cause of all life. Others are inclined to overlook the mental, and others still are disposed to disregard the physical. Even if one may consider that a particular school expresses more truth than another, he cannot determine their relative value for another individual, unless he knows the exact requirement to be met.
No one is perfect. Each lacks something. Those who develop physically at the expense of the mental, lack the compensating mental training. Some develop mentally at the expense of the physical. One lacks this and another that, and each requires that which he lacks. The teacher who enables one to supply his present deficiency is the one he requires first. But he is not likely to turn to any teaching—no matter what its inherent truth—which promises to supply only what he already possesses.
After extreme necessities have been met, the inevitable tendency is toward a philosophy that recognizes the mental and physical as one and inseparable, that divorces itself from authority and tradition, that separates itself from dogma, and that inculcates love. Such philosophy has no condemnation, avoids extremes, and its practice manifests in universal toleration and love.
This position is not monopolized by the ideas or conceptions of one or more particular individuals; nor is the truth contained in, limited to, or confined by any one form of expression. It represents a philosophy of the broadest freedom, untrammeled by limitations. Whatever the particular designation, it may cover the same breadth of view and admit of as much truth as any other.
As one confines himself to external authority or to the wisdom (or ignorance) of individual persons, books, or forms of expression, he limits his vision and keeps the truth hidden. The immutable principles of Nature permit one to see the good in all, consistently to belong to all creeds, sects and philosophies, and to absorb the wisdom that each voices and represents.
The nearer one approaches this mountain-height of freedom and toleration, the fewer individuals he encounters. The great mass of humanity is steeped in superstition and slavery, so that every further advance toward freedom requires tests which fewer and fewer are prepared to meet. The mass of enslaved humanity forms the base of the mountain, and the few individual Souls who have attained to freedom constitute the summit.
And yet those who represent the higher portions of the mountain where there is a broader outlook, have every reason to be tolerant toward the lower levels. The lower furnishes the higher their support, and all are interdependent and inseparable. If one remembers that it is only through the elevation of the lower levels that the higher may be elevated still further, and that the higher must always have the lower upon which to rest, he will recognize the equal necessity for all degrees of development.
When one knows that growth may be secured only through the appropriation of what he lacks and through contact with others who differ from him, he will recognize the advantage to each and all of the existence of infinite contrasts. Recognizing the beneficent necessity of endless variety, he will develop a consciousness of mutuality and interdependence of all things that will be expressed by the broadest and most comprehensive toleration in thought and conduct. Toleration will then lose its negative significance and be converted into its positive aspect of Love.
CHAPTER XV
THE ATTAINMENT OF FREEDOM
An ideal is intended for realization. It is meant to be manifested. It is to be lived. However exalted its spiritual mountain peak, the physical serves as its base. It should be related consciously to every-day mental and physical living, which it may safely guide and direct. One’s ideals cannot extend too far into the clouds provided he keeps his feet firmly planted on earth.
Ideals are actualized and realized in life through living in conformity to their requirements. With one’s mental impression of a broader conception of life, the physical organism is placed under the compulsion of expressing it. Compliance may be delayed, but cannot be evaded entirely.
Life is a Unit. The constant tendency of spiritual, mental and physical activities is toward their conscious conformity and unity. The realization of one’s ideals indicates the adjustment of the physical to the mental, and the spiritual unfoldment consequent upon their resuiting conscious Unity. One cannot be conscious of harmony while inseparable activities are following the dictates of conflicting standards.
Living ideals are those which have been realized through manifestation. Livingness is conferred upon them sooner or later, according to the alacrity and willingness with which one responds to the demand for expression of his highest conceptions. Not only are mental activities called upon continually to respond to one’s spiritual unfoldment, but physical manifestations are likewise required in correspondence with his mental development. This is the process whareby the mental and physical gradually become spiritualized.
One should respond at once to the demand for manifestation of his highest conceptions. The demand comes only as opportunity arises. This habit of immediate response cannot be formed too soon, nor can its value be overestimated. In no other way can one “Do the right thing ait the right time.” DO IT NOW! Whatever one does, necessarily he does it Now, but if he temporize, delay, postpone, not only will the inner guide finally fail him entirely, but he will be unable to “do the right thing” at any time, for the right time for doing it will always have passed.
While life continues to manifest, necessarily one must express, and each and every act must be performed, Now. But mere expression or manifestation is of slight developmental power. Being “busy” is unimportant in itself. At each and every moment a choice is offered between contrasting mental attitudes and physical activities. Some attitude must be assumed and some activity manifested. Which shall it be ? – The inner spiritual prompting may be relied upon for guidance. But unless its solicitations are responded to promptly, the habit of ignoring them will be formed, and one will follow the dimly illumined pathway of his crude intellectual interpretation of appearance. The intellect can be depended upon for safe guidance only after it has become spiritually mellowed.
One is judged by his fidelity to the light he discerns, but he is his own judge. The constant tendency is for his ancient mental and physical furnishings to average up to his modern acquisitions. When a curtain is thrust aside revealing a brighter light of truth, he recognizes how antiquated are some of his most cherished possessions. Shall he shut out the light or refurnish his mental apartments?
Which shall it be? When the alternative is presented one must decide whether to let the light in or to exclude it. Shall he express his higher conceptions or his lower? Shall he be an animal or a man, an automaton or an Individual? In making his choice, he measures its return in terms of discord or harmony and forms the habits of life which crystallize into destiny.
What shall one do Now? Follow the guidance of the spirit, and physically act the thoughts which radiate from the light of his highest ideals. There is all the difference possible between averaging one’s ideals down to his manifestations, and averaging these up to his ideals. The former involves pain and penalty, the latter pleasure and reward.
One attains freedom through conscious liberation of the truth within him. One is conscious of outward freedom as a result of expressing it, or pressing it out of himself through living or enacting the truth. It is the consciousness of truth that frees, and one’s freedom is measured by the soul-unfoldment which ensues upon the conscious harmonious vibration of the physical and mental organisms at their higher levels of attainment.
True freedom is for those only who are ready and willing to be free by paying its price. Mere conformity to established habits of thought and traditions of action do not confer freedom. One must express himself habitually at his best if he would be free. He must be individual, unique. He is free when he has subordinated immaturity to maturity, crudity to refinement, evil to good. He is free from the domination of the developed by the undeveloped, of the mental by the physical, of the human by the animal. He has ceased to fetter himself and to bar his own progress, and has thus escaped from the only bondage there is.
Unless one free himself, he must remain enslaved. There is no other freedom. One manifests the truth through Living Ideals, and he alone can live his own ideals. Through the simple expedient of being true at all times to the light within him, he absorbs and radiates truth of ever increasing potency and splendor. He is true equally to himself and others, while his integrity to exalted purpose and his devotion to harmonious methods denote his Attainment of Freedom.
The End