Back of the old doctrine of vicarious atonement is a profound and beautiful natural truth, but it has been degraded into a teaching that is as selfish and brutal as it is false. The natural truth is the sacrifice of the solar Logos, or the deity of our system. The sacrifice consists of limiting Himself in the matter of manifested worlds and it is reflected in the sacrifice of the Christ and other great teachers who use their vast consciousness through a physical brain for the helping of the world. Compared to the descent of such supermen into mundane spheres a mere physical death is a trifling sacrifice indeed.
The help that such great spiritual beings have given mankind is incalculable and altogether beyond what we are able to comprehend. But for such sacrifice the race would be very, very far below its present evolutionary level. But to assume that such sacrifices relieve man from the necessity of developing his spiritual nature or in any degree nullify his personal responsibility is false and dangerous doctrine. Nobody more than the theosophist pays to the Christ the tribute of the mostreverent gratitude. He also holds with St. Paul that each must work out his own salvation.
The belief in special creation arose in that period of our history when our ancestors knew little of nature. Modern science was then unborn and superstition filled the western world. Now that we do know the truths of nature, now that we know that creation is a continuous process that is still going on, it is time to abandon the old conceptions and bring religious beliefs and scientific principles into harmonious relationship.
Wherever it touches the practical affairs of life the old idea of special creation and special salvation fail to satisfy our sense of justice and of consistency. Intuitively we know that any belief that is not in harmony with the facts of life is a wrong belief. The idea of special creation is not only inconsistent with the facts as science has found them, but it does not give us a sound basis for moral development. Having started with the false idea of the special creation of the soul, which brings it into the world free from personal responsibility, it became a necessity to invent a special salvation to give any semblance of justice at all.
Now the vital point against this plan of salvation is that it denies the soul's personal responsibility and teaches that whatever the offenses against God and nature have been, they may be cancelled by the simple act of believing that another suffered and died in order that those sins might be forgiven. It is the pernicious doctrine that wrong doing by one can be set right by the sacrifice of another. It is simply astounding that such a belief could have survived the Middle Ages andshould continue to find millions who accept it in these days of clearer thinking. But it seems that when people are taught a thing in childhood the mind accepts it then without reasoning and afterwards vaguely regards it as one of the established facts without thinking further of it at all. But upon reflection we see at once the impossibility of its being true. We hear of a lingering practice in a remote province of China, whereby a man convicted of a crime is permitted to hire a substitute to suffer the penalty in his stead. The law must have its victim and its supremacy must be upheld. We laugh at that and know well enough that punishing the unfortunate substitute, who sacrifices himself to obtain a sum of money that will provide for his family, cannot regenerate the offender. Indeed, we see clearly that his willingness to shift the responsibility for his crime upon another only sinks him farther into iniquity. The only person who can gain in moral strength is the one who makes the sacrifice.
Let us suppose that that system of vicarious atonement for wrong doing were to be adopted generally. Then every murderer who had the means would escape the consequences of his crime. Every burglar who was successful enough to have the cash on hand could elude prison. Every pickpocket could hire a substitute to suffer for him and thus continue his criminal career. Every embezzler would have the money to purchase freedom. Every corruptionist would be safe. Every thief could laugh at the law. It would make a mockery of justice. It would place a premium upon crime and a handicap upon honesty and virtue. However bad thedishonest might be it would make them worse. It would necessarily lower the standard of their morality by shifting the burden of their sins to others. It would destroy personal responsibility, and personal responsibility is the basis of sound morals and the foundation of civilized society.
Yet that is precisely the sort of thing that goes with the belief in special creation and special salvation—the teaching that we are not responsible for our sins and that by believing that another assumed them and died for us we can escape the results of our wrong doing and thus be saved. What are we to be saved from? From nothing but ourselves. From our selfishness, from our capacity to do evil, from our willingness to inflict pain, from our lack of sympathy with all suffering and from the heartlessness that is willing to let others suffer in order that we may escape. Salvation must necessarily mean capacity to enjoy heaven. The man who is willing to purchase bliss by the agony of another is unfit for heaven and could not recognize it if he were there. What do we think of a person here who shifts his sins upon another and while that other suffers he goes free and enjoys the fruits of his baseness?
A heaven that is populated with those who see in vicarious atonement a happy arrangement for letting them in pleasantly and easily would not be worth having. It would be a heaven of selfishness and that would be no heaven at all. A real heaven can be composed only of those who have eliminated selfishness; only of those who want to help others instead of trying to dodge the consequences of their own acts; only of those who aremanly and womanly and generous and just and true. Nothing less than a recognition of personal responsibility can lead to a heaven like that. Yet the theory of special salvation ignores it, waves it aside—in fact denies it!
Reincarnation represents personal responsibility and therefore absolute justice. It shows that, not merely in all the vast future, but also in this life and in every life, and all the time, our degree of happiness depends upon our present and past course. If reincarnation were generally understood it would necessarily raise the average of morality. It furnishes a deterrent for the evil doer and a tremendous incentive for the man who desires to obey natural law and be happy. It shows the one that there is no possible escape from evil deeds; that he must return life after life to associations and environments determined by the good or the ill he has done; that he can no more escape from his evil deeds than he can escape from himself; that he must ultimately suffer in turn the pain of every blow and the humiliation of every insult he has inflicted upon others. It assures the man of good intentions and right desires that every good deed shall rise up in the future to bless him; that all whom he has helped shall become his helpers hereafter; that even his good intentions that failed in their purpose through mistaken judgment, shall bring him joy in the future.
What a splendid thing it is to know that every thought and act adds permanent value to the character; that all we learn in any life becomes an eternal possession; that we can add to our intellect, to our insight, to our compassion, to our wisdom, to our power, as certainly and definitely as a man can add to his bank account or permanent investments; that whatever we may be in this incarnation we can return again stronger and wiser and better.
The hypothesis of reincarnation shows our inherent divinity and the method by which the latent becomes the actual. Instead of the ignoble belief that we can fling our sins upon another it makes personal responsibility the keynote of life. It is the ethics of self-help. It is the moral code of self-reliance. It is the religion of self-respect.
Think of the utility as well as of the common-sense of a scheme of salvation that really saves us because it evolves us; that never denies us a chance to retrieve an error; that gives us an opportunity to right every wrong; that brings us back life after life until all enemies have been changed to friends; until all accounts are closed and balanced; until all our powers have been evolved, until intellect has become genius; until sympathy has become compassion and the last moral battle has been fought and won.
Every human being is constantly generating three classes of forces, and they determine the kind of life he will lead here, the degree of success or failure that will characterize it, and the state of his consciousness on the inner planes after the death of his physical body. The law of rebirth brings us back to incarnation, but it is the law of action and reaction under which we evolve while here.
The three classes of energies which we generate are those of thought, desire and action. They belong, in the order named, to the mental world, the astral world and the physical world. All people are constantly thinking and desiring and, with varying degrees of energy, are putting thought and desire into action. These forces sent out into the worlds of thought, emotion and action, produce certain reactions, or consequences, and to them the man is bound until justice is done and the soul has learned its evolutionary lesson.
That thought and desire are forces as certainly as electricity is, the student of the occult well knows, but the world is not quite yet at the point where thefact is generally accepted. That, however, is the history of all human progress. When Franklin began his experiments with electrical force almost nobody believed there was any such thing in existence. Yet today we use it to carry our messages, run our trains and drive our machinery. Had anybody predicted all that at the time of the first experiments he would have been considered extraordinarily foolish. What the world accepts or rejects at any particular time usually has very little to do with the facts. The general public can be expected to come trailing along, about a half century late, with its acceptance and approval. Thought is a force or telepathy and hypnotism would be impossible. Both have been scientifically demonstrated.
The mental body grows by the process of thinking. The force generated in thinking reacts in the production of greater faculty for thinking, so that we literally create our mental abilities. The activities of thought change the mental body into a better and constantly better instrument through which the ego can express itself. But our thoughts also affect others and we thereby make ties with them that must work out sooner or later in associated experience.
Desires generate a kind of energy that plays a most important role in the drama of human evolution. The law operates to bring together the desirer and the object that aroused the desire. For the soul can only judge the wisdom of its desires by observing the result of gratifying them. Thus do we acquire discrimination. It is usually a strong desire nature thatbrings trouble of various kinds and yet the force of desire it is that pushes all evolution onward. Through experience the soul finally learns to control desire, to raise lower desires into higher ones and thus ultimately to attain non-attachment and liberation.
Actions are the physical expression of thoughts and desires and, as we are constantly simultaneously thinking, desiring and acting, very complex results arise. In the multitudinous activities of life we set up relationships with other souls, some of the results of which reach far into the future. The average man, with no knowledge of the laws under which he is evolving, is usually making both friends and foes for future incarnations and is often unwittingly laying up pain and sorrow for himself that a little occult knowledge would enable him to avoid. Every injury that he inflicts will return to him, though not necessarily in kind. Nature does not punish. She merely teaches and knows nothing of retaliations. Her great concern seems to be that all souls shall get on in evolution and when a lesson is learned her purpose appears to be accomplished.
The forces we generate in each incarnation shape and determine the next and succeeding ones. Our friends, our families, our business associates, our nation, are determined by what we have thought and felt and done in the past and by the lessons it is necessary we shall learn. Our wealth or poverty, our fame or obscurity, our strength or frailty, our intelligence or stupidity, our good or bad environment, our freedom or limitations, all grow out of the thoughtsand emotions and acts in the past. From their consequences there is no possibility of escape.
But that does not mean that we are the helpless slaves of fate from which there is no release. We who generated the forces can neutralize them. We can undo anything we have done. It only means that for a time we must work within the self-imposed limitations created by a wrong course in the past.
Those who are interested in the long-time discussion over free-will and determinism have often been impressed with the remarkably strong arguments that can be marshaled by each side to the controversy. Either side, when presented alone, appears to be conclusive. The explanation lies in the fact that each is right, but only to a certain point. Both free will and necessity are factors and when the theosophical viewpoint is understood the apparent contradiction disappears. We are temporarily bound,but we did the binding, by the desires we indulged and the emotions we freely harbored in the past.
The condition of temporary restraint in which we now find ourselves may be likened to that of a party of gold hunters who go into Alaska to locate mines. They are all aware that in that remote northern country navigation closes very early and that after the last boat leaves there is no possibility of getting out of that region until navigation opens again in the next season. Some of them are discreet and reach the landing in ample time. Others are careless. They continue their search for gold a little too long, and arrive at the river a day too late. The boat has sailed andthey must become prisoners of the ice king. It's a great misfortune but they alone are responsible. They cannot escape from Alaska for many months but within Alaska they are absolutely free. They can build a cabin and either waste the time with idle games or seriously think and study. They are limited but free within the limitation, and the limitation itself was of their own making. It is precisely so with us in the environment of the present incarnation and with our various fortunes. We made them and, when the forces with which we did it are exhausted, we shall be free. Meantime we can do much toward modification and improvement.
The reactions from the forces we generate naturally do us exact justice just because theyarereactions. We reap precisely what we sow. The reaction may sometimes seem harsh but consideration of the matter from all points of view will show that mercy as well as justice is always a factor. Let us consider the method by which nature changes recklessness into caution. A man is careless, we will say, about lighting a cigar and throwing the burning match down wherever it may happen to fall. He may go on doing that a long time with no serious result, yet all careful people know that he is a source of danger. Some time ago a newspaper told the story of such a man, who passed along the street, lighted a cigaret and carelessly flung the flaming match from him. A nurse was passing with her charge in its tiny carriage. The match fell on some of the light, airy wraps of the infant and they burst into a blaze. Before the fire could be extinguished the child was so badly burned that it died the next day.
The moment such a case is stated we realize the necessity of something that will cure the man of such fatal carelessness. He is a menace to the lives and property in his vicinity. No law, however, can be invoked. He had no criminal intent but he is none the less dangerous for that, as the incident proved. We are helpless, however, to prevent his continued carelessness. But nature is not helpless. Under the law of action and reaction he must reap as he has sown. It may be in the latter part of this incarnation, or it may be in a following one, but sooner or later his carelessness will react and he will lose his physical body in pain and distress and come to know personally just what his recklessness means. In the reaction, a part only of which is on the physical plane, he gets the experience that is necessary to set him right. The folly of his course is so driven in on his consciousness that he is changed from the careless man to the careful man. In no other way could his cure be brought about.
It may be said that if a misfortune comes to us as the result of our wrong thinking and acting in a past life we can now know nothing of its cause and therefore we cannot profit by the reaction. But while we do not know in the limited consciousness of the physical brain the soul does know and in the wider consciousness the lesson is registered.
The principles of justice are never violated in teaching the soul its evolutionary lessons. Nothingcan come to a man that he does not merit and that which often looks like a misfortune is only the beneficent working of the law seen from an angle that makes it illusory. But, it may be objected, how does theosophy see "beneficent working of the law" in the burning of a theater where a score of people lose their lives, including several children? How can theosophy explain that?
How can it be explained by those who hold that the soul is created at birth? If God really brings the soul into its original expression in an infant body, why does he throw it out again in a few years, or even months? What can be the purpose? It would be difficult indeed to explain the death of children if the soul were created at birth. But let us look at it from the theosophical viewpoint. The child is an old soul with a young body. Hark back to the case of the man whose carelessness caused the death of the baby in its carriage. He, and others like him, are again in incarnation and in the burning theater they get the reaction of the unfortunate forces they have generated. But why so many in some catastrophes? it may be asked. A principle is not affected by the number involved. If we can see justice in the death of one person we can see justice in the death of a hundred. It is simply class instruction. People of a kind have been drawn together.
We should not forget that we see only a small fragment of any such case from the physical plane. We form an opinion, however, on that inadequate survey and are quick to declare our opinion of the justice orinjustice involved. But our verdict depends wholly upon a viewpoint. Let us suppose, for example, that a man strolls down the street and that, as he turns a corner, he suddenly comes upon a little tragedy of life. A young man is lying on the ground, battered and bleeding, while two others stand over him. What would the average man, coming suddenly on the scene say? He would probably indignantly blurt out "The ruffians!" and he would be inclined to assist the man who was down. But let us suppose that he had been a moment earlier. He would then have been in time to turn around the corner with the other men and would have seen him rush upon a defenseless woman, push her down, snatch her purse and dash away, but, fortunately, in the direction of the men who assaulted and stopped him. Had the last arrival seen the entire affair he would have reversed his opinion and said that the thief got what he deserved. And so it is in our inadequate physical plane view of what we call a calamity. It may appear to involve an injustice, but only because we do not see the entire transaction.
Those who study the occult laws that shape human destiny may learn to use them for their rapid progress and for insuring a comfortable, as well as spiritually profitable, life journey.
But before we can work successfully within the law we must know that the law really exists. Most people seem either to believe there is no law that will certainly bring them the results of their good or evil thoughts and acts or that if there is such a law they can in some way dodge it and escape the consequence,and so we see them go along through life always doing the selfish thing or the thoughtless thing. They misstate facts, they engage in gossip, they harbor evil thoughts, they have their enemies and hate them, they scheme to bring discomfort and humiliation upon those whom they dislike. And then, when the harvest from this misdirected energy is ripe and they are misled by the falsehoods of others to their loss and injury, when they fall into the company of schemers and are swindled, when a false story is started about them, when—through no fault of the moment—they are plunged into discomfort and humiliation, they merely call it so much bad luck and go blindly on with their generation of wrong forces that will in due time bring another enforced reaping of pain.
There is a law that regulates the pleasure and pain of daily life as certainly as there is a law that guides the earth in its orbit about the sun. That law of action and reaction is just as constant, accurate and immutable as the law of gravity that keeps our feet upon the ground while we come and go and think nothing at all about it.
There is something almost terrifying in the immutability of all natural laws and their utterly impersonal aspect. They are the operation of forces which, in themselves, are not related to what we call good and bad. They simply are. The law of gravity will illustrate the point. It operates with no consideration whatever for character or motives. It holds all people, good and bad alike, firmly upon the earth while it whirls through space. If a saint and a fiend stumbleover a precipice, it will hurl them both to the bottom with perfect impartiality. If the fiend, who may just have murdered a victim, is more cautious than the saint and avoids the precipice, the law has not favored him. He has merely reaped the reward of his alertness in spite of his bad morals. The saintly man may have come fresh from some deed of mercy but the law of gravity takes no account of that. When he stepped over the precipice, and was dashed to death, he paid the penalty of carelessness regardless of his benevolence. There is profound wisdom in the words "God is no respecter of persons," for, of course, all natural laws are but the expression of the divine will.
But this immutability of natural law is not in the least terrifying when we come to look more closely at it. On the contrary it is within that very immutability that divine beneficence and compassion are hidden. It is only by the constancy if the changeless law that we can calculate with absolute certainty and surely attain the results at which we aim. It is because of the certainty that the doing of evil brings pain and the doing of good yields a return of happiness that we can control circumstances and determine destiny.
Why should there be such a law operating in the mental and moral realm? Because only thus can we evolve. We must not only change from ignorance to wisdom but from selfishness to compassion, from wrong doing to perfect harmlessness. How would that be possible without the law of cause and effect, without action and reaction which brings pleasure for righteousness and pain for evil deeds? Only under such alaw can we learn what is the right and what is the wrong thing to do. If it is agreed that we are souls, that evolution is a fact, and that perfection is the goal of the human race, then the necessity for the law of action and reaction is as obvious as the reason for a law of gravity.
The existence and operation of this law of cause and effect are set forth repeatedly in the Christian scriptures. "With what measures ye mete it to others it shall be measured to you," is certainly explicit. In Proverbs[M]we have this definite declaration: "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein, and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him." Of course the language is figurative. No writer of common sense would assert that every time a workman digs a pit he shall tumble into it nor that whenever anybody rolls a stone it will roll back upon him! We dig pits in the moral world whenever we undermine the character of another with a false story, whether we originate it or merely repeat it, and into such a pit we shall ourselves fall, in the reaction of the law. We have loosened and set rolling the stones of envy and hatred and they shall return to crush us down to failure and humiliation in the reaction that follows. We have ignorantly generated evil forces under the law when we could have used it for our success and happiness.
"Judge not, that ye be not judged," is another statement of the law of action and reaction. It is not an assertion that we should not judge because we are notqualified nor because we may ignorantly wrong another with such a judgment. It is an explicit statement that the consequence of judging others is that we, in turn, shall be judged. If we criticize, we shall be criticized. If we condemn others for their faults and failures, we shall be condemned. If we are broad and tolerant and remain silent about the frailties of others we shall be tolerantly regarded by others.
All of us who have studied the subject find in our daily lives the evidence of the truth of such Biblical declarations. We know perfectly well that anger provokes anger and that conciliation wins concessions, while retaliation keeps a feud alive. We know that retort calls out retort, while silence restores the peace. In these little things it is usually within the power of either party to the trouble to have peace instead of turmoil—just a matter of self control. But in the larger events it is not always so. They are not invariably within our immediate control because they are often the results of causes generated in the past which we can no longer modify. And this brings us to a wider view of this law of cause and effect.
If we look at the life history of an individual as it stretches out from birth to death it presents a remarkable record of events that appear to have no logical relationship to each other. In childhood, there may have been either great happiness or great sorrow and suffering regardless of the qualities of character we are considering, and there is nothing in the present life of the child to explain either. The child itself may be gentle and affectionate and yet it may be the recipient of grossabuse and cruel misunderstanding. In maturity we may find still greater mysteries. Invariably there are mingled successes and failures, pleasures and pains. But when we come to analyze them we fail to find a satisfactory reason for them. We see that the successes often arrive when they are not warranted by anything that was done to win them, and for the want of any rational explanation we call it "good luck." We also observe that sometimes failure after failure comes when the man is not only doing his very best but when all of his plans will stand the test of sound business procedure. Baffled again we throw logic to the winds and call it "bad luck."
Luck is a word we use to conceal our ignorance and our inability to trace the working of the law. Suppose we were to ask a savage to explain how it is that a few minutes' time with the morning paper enables one to know what happened yesterday in London. He knows nothing of reporters and cables and presses. He cannot explain it. He cannot even comprehend it. But if he is a vain savage and does not wish to admit his ignorance he might solemnly assert that the reason we know is because we are lucky; and he would be using the word just as sensibly as we use it!
If by luck we mean chance, there is no such thing in this world. Chance means chaos and the absence of law. From the magnificent, orderly procession of a hundred million suns and their world systems that wheel majestically through space down to the very atom, with all of its electrons, the universe is a stupendous proclamation of the all-pervading presence of law. Itis a mighty panorama of cause and effect. There is no such thing as chance.
What thenisgood luck? We know that people do receive benefits which they apparently have not earned. There simply cannot be a result without a cause. They have earned it in other lives when the conditions did not permit immediate harvesting of the results of the good forces generated and Nature is paying the debt and making the balance of her books at a later period. It may be in the case of one that some specific act is attracting its reward, or it may be in the case of another that he is nearing the point in evolution where he no longer desires things for himself, only to discover that nature fairly flings her treasures at his feet. He has put himself in harmony with evolutionary law—with the divine plan, and nature withholds nothing.
When we eliminate chance, then, we are forced to seek the cause of unexplained good or bad fortune beyond the boundaries of this life because there is nothing else we can do. We have results to explain and we know they do not come from causes that belong to this life. They must of necessity arise from causes generated in a past life.
Now the moment we get away from the narrow view that we began existence when we were born, all the mysteries about us disappear and we can fall back on natural law and logically explain everything. Why does one person begin life with a good mind while another is born with small mental capacity? Because one worked hard at life's problems in past incarnations while the other led a butterfly existence and merely amused himself. Why does one move serenely through trying circumstances always maintaining a cheerful view of life while another loses control of his temper at the slightest annoyance and wears himself out with the trifling vexations of existence? Only because one has for a long period practiced self control while the other has never given a thought to the matter. Why is one so thoughtful of others that he wins universal love and admiration while another is so self centered that he makes no true friends at all? Again past experience explains it. The one has studied the laws of destiny and lived by them while the other has not yet even learned of their existence.
Putting aside the old belief that the soul is created at birth, and keeping in mind the newer and scientific view that we have all lived many lives before, all the difficulties and perplexities at once disappear. We are no longer puzzled because we find in a man's life some good fortune when he has apparently done nothing to deserve it, for we see that he must have set the forces in motion in a previous life which now culminate in this result. We are no longer mystified because apparent causeless misfortunes befall him for we know that in the nature of things he did generate the causes in the past. A single incarnation has the same relation to the whole of the soul's evolution that a single day has to one incarnation. As the days are separated by the nights and yet all the days are related by the acts which run through them, so the incarnations are separated by periods of rest in the heaven world and yet all the incarnations are related by the thoughts and acts running throughthem. What a man does in his youth affects his old age, and what we did in our last incarnation is affecting the present one. The one is no more remarkable than the other. As we mould old age by youth so we are shaping the coming incarnation by this one. Before we shall be able to see the utter reasonableness of the truth that what we are now is the result of our past we must have a clear understanding of the relationship between the soul and the body. The physical body in each incarnation is the material expression of the soul, of its moral power or weakness, of its wisdom or ignorance, of its purity or its grossness, just as one's face is, at each moment the expression of one's thought and emotion in physical matter. Every change of consciousness registers itself in matter. A man has emotions. He feels a thrill of joy and his face proclaims the fact. He becomes angry, and the change from joy to anger is registered in physical matter so that all who see his face are aware of the change in his consciousness, which they cannot see. These are passing changes like sunshine and shadow and they are obvious to all. But we know that as the years pass the constant influence of consciousness moulds even physical matter into permanent form. A soul of sunny disposition finally comes to have benevolent features while one of morose tendency as certainly has a face of settled gloom. Nobody can contact the soul of another with any physical sense we possess yet nobody has the slightest doubt of his ability to distinguish between a sunny, peaceful soul and a soul that is not in harmony with life. We know the difference only because consciousness moulds matter. But this is merely the surface indication. Consciousness is continually influencing matter and the major part of its work is not visible to us. What the consciousness is, the body becomes. Whether we are now brilliant or stupid, comely or deformed, is the result of the activities of consciousness, and the very grain of the flesh and the shape of the physical body are the registrations in matter of what we, the soul, thought and did in the past.
Consider a specific thing like deformity and we shall begin to see just why and how it may have come about. If in a past life a person was guilty of deliberate cruelty to another, and on account of it suffered great mental and emotional distress afterward, it would be no remarkable thing if the mental images of the injuries inflicted on his victim are reproduced in himself. In idiocy we have apparently merely a distorted brain so that the consciousness cannot function through it. Might not that distortion of the physical brain easily be the result of violent reaction from cruelties in a past life? The consciousness that can be guilty of cruelty is seeing things crooked—out of proportion. Otherwise it could not be cruel. This distortion in consciousness must register a corresponding distortion in matter, for the body is the faithful and accurate reflection of that consciousness. It is just because the body is the true and exact expression of the consciousness in physical matter that the palmist and phrenologist can sometimes give us such remarkable delineations of character. The record is there in hand and head for those who can read it.
This broader outlook on the life journey, extending over a very long series of incarnations, gives us a whollydifferent view of the difficulties with which we have to contend and of the limitations which afflict us. It at once shows us that in the midst of apparent injustice there is really nothing but perfect justice for everybody; that all good fortune has been earned; that all bad fortune is deserved, and that each of us is, mentally and morally, what he has made himself. Masefield put it well when he wrote:
All that I rightly think or do,Or make or spoil or bless or blast,Is curse or blessing justly dueFor sloth or effort in the past.My life's a statement of the sumOf vice indulged or overcome.And as I journey on the roadsI shall be helped and healed and blessed.Dear words shall cheer, and be as goadsTo urge to heights as yet unguessed.My road shall be the road I made.All that I gave shall be repaid.
All that I rightly think or do,Or make or spoil or bless or blast,Is curse or blessing justly dueFor sloth or effort in the past.My life's a statement of the sumOf vice indulged or overcome.And as I journey on the roadsI shall be helped and healed and blessed.Dear words shall cheer, and be as goadsTo urge to heights as yet unguessed.My road shall be the road I made.All that I gave shall be repaid.
Have we ever heard of a plan more just, of a truth more inspiring? It is surely a satisfying thought that every effort shall give increased power of intellect; that all kindly thought of others is a shield for our own protection in time of need; that every impulse of affection shall ripen into the love of comrades; that all noble thinking builds heroic character, with which we shall return, in some future time, to play to a still noble part in the world of men.
FOOTNOTES:[M]Proverbs, XXVI, 27.
[M]Proverbs, XXVI, 27.
[M]Proverbs, XXVI, 27.
If we accept the idea of evolution at all we cannot escape the conclusion that there is superphysical evolution. The belief that man is the highest intelligence in the universe, except God himself, would be utterly inconsistent with evolutionary facts and principles. Evolution is a continuous unfolding from within, and it is only the limitation of our senses that leads us to set limitations to it. The one great life of the universe expresses itself in myriad forms and at innumerable levels of development. One of those levels is humanity. But as certainly as our consciousness has evolved to its present stage it shall go on to higher ones.
Orderly gradation is clearly nature's method of expression. A continuous, unbroken line of life reaches downward from man. Its successive stages are seen in the animals, the reptiles, the insects and the microbes. Even the great kingdoms into which the biologist divides life fade into each other almost imperceptibly and it becomes difficult to say where the vegetable kingdom stops and the animal kingdom begins. Just as that continuous chain of life runs downward from man it must also rise above him until it merges in the SupremeBeing. There must necessarily be the higher as well as the lower products of evolution. Man is merely one link in the evolutionary chain. The human level is the point where consciousness has become completely individualized and is capable of turning back upon itself and studying its own inner processes.
The thought of Occidental civilization has been sadly fettered with materialism. It has scarcely dared to think beyond that which could be grasped with the hands. The physical senses were its outposts of investigation. What could not be seen or heard or felt had no existence for it. Modern science explored the material universe and perfected its methods until the vast panorama of worlds could be intimately studied, and its illimitable scope and colossal grandeur be somewhat comprehended. But there was no study of life comparable to the vast stretch of worlds; for material science had made the remarkable blunder of assuming that the last word on the nature of matter had been said. Then came the startling discoveries that revolutionized the accepted views of matter, that proved that the supposedly indivisible atom was a miniature universe, a tiny cosmos of force. The old theories about matter had to be thrown aside. They were as much out of date as the belief that the earth is flat. Stripped of technical terms of expression the revised view of matter is, substantially, that it is the lowest expression of life; and now modern science is turning tardy attention to a study of the life side of the universe. The moment that is done the sense of consistency and the law of correspondence compel us to postulate a gradation of intelligences rising above man as man does above the insects.
The scientific mind instantly grasps the inherent reasonableness of the existence of superphysical beings. Writing on the subject of energy, Nicola Tesla says:
"We can conceive of organized beings living without nourishment and deriving all the energy they need for the performance of their life functions from the ambient medium.*** There may be *** individualized material systems of beings, perhaps of gaseous constitution, or composed of substance still more tenuous. In view of this possibility—nay, probability—we cannot apodictically deny the existence of organized beings on a planet merely because the conditions on the same are unsuitable for the existence of life as we conceive it. We cannot even, with positive assurance, assert that some of them might not be present here in this our world, in the very midst of us, for their constitution and life manifestation may be such that we are unable to perceive them."[N]
"We can conceive of organized beings living without nourishment and deriving all the energy they need for the performance of their life functions from the ambient medium.*** There may be *** individualized material systems of beings, perhaps of gaseous constitution, or composed of substance still more tenuous. In view of this possibility—nay, probability—we cannot apodictically deny the existence of organized beings on a planet merely because the conditions on the same are unsuitable for the existence of life as we conceive it. We cannot even, with positive assurance, assert that some of them might not be present here in this our world, in the very midst of us, for their constitution and life manifestation may be such that we are unable to perceive them."[N]
Alfred Russell Wallace, who was called "the grand old man of science," wrote in one of his latest books:
"I think we have got to recognize that between man and the ultimate God there is an almost infinite multitude of beings working in the universe at large, at tasks as definite and important as any we have to perform on earth. I imagine that the universe is peopled with spirits—that is, with intelligent beings with powers and duties akin to our own, but vaster. I think there is a gradual ascent from man upward and onward."
"I think we have got to recognize that between man and the ultimate God there is an almost infinite multitude of beings working in the universe at large, at tasks as definite and important as any we have to perform on earth. I imagine that the universe is peopled with spirits—that is, with intelligent beings with powers and duties akin to our own, but vaster. I think there is a gradual ascent from man upward and onward."
While the scientist, still lacking the absolutely conclusive evidence, goes only to the point of asserting that it is reasonable and probable that supermen exist, the occultist asserts it as a fact within his personal knowledge.[O]So we have the direct testimony of the occultists, the endorsement of the scientists as to its probability, and, perhaps the most important of all, the inherent reasonableness of the idea.
The relationship of the supermen, or great spiritual hierarchy, to the human race is that of teachers, guardians and directors. They superintend human evolution. But this does not mean in the very least the relationship that is expressed in the term "spirit guides" so frequently use by the spiritualist. That is a totally different thing. They seem to imply that the "spirit guide" gives direct instructions or orders to the person known as a "medium." If we were all thus controlled and directed what would become of free will? Evolution can proceed only if we use our initiative in the affairs of life. If we were to be directed by the wisdom and will of others we would not evolve at all. We would be merely automata directed by others, and no matter how great they were we could never thus develop our judgment and self-reliance. It is not thus that the great spiritual hierarchy directs human evolution. It is, in part, by working with mankind en masse and bringing mental and moral forces to play upon them, thus stimulating latent spiritual forces from within. It is also by directly, or indirectly placing ideals instead of commands before the race. In another direction itis actual superintendence, or administration, or teaching, in a way that does not interfere with one's initiative or will. If the soul is to evolve it must have liberty—even the freedom to make mistakes.
It is sometimes asked why, if the supermen exist, those who are in incarnation do not come out into the world and give us ocular evidence of the fact. It is pointed out that they could speedily convince the world by a display of superphysical force. But they are probably not in the least interested in convincing anybody of their existence. Theyareinterested in raising the general level of morality, of course, but such an exhibition would not make people morally better. The work of the supermen can best be done from higher planes than the physical. As for the very small number of the supermen who take physical bodies to better do their special work, they can best accomplish it from secluded places; and if they sometimes have reason to come out into the seething vibrations of our modern civilization it is easy to understand that they would not be conspicuously different from other men, to the ordinary observer.
It is from the spiritual hierarchy that come all the religions of the world. There the question may arise, "Then why do they differ so greatly?" Because the peoples to whom they are given differ greatly. The difference of temperament and viewpoint between the Orient and the Occident is enormous. We are evolving along the outer, the objective, and our civilization represents the material conquest of nature. They are evolving the inner, the subjective. In the Orient the common trend of conversation is philosophical, just asin the Occident it is commercial. Such different types of mind require somewhat different statements of ethics, but the fundamental principles of all religions are identical.
When a new era in human evolution begins a World Teacher comes into voluntary incarnation and founds a religion that is suited to the requirements of the new era. Humanity is never left to grope along alone. All that it can comprehend and utilize is taught it in the various religions. World Teachers, the Christs and saviours of the race, have been appearing at propitious times since humanity began existence.
Most readers will probably agree that a World Teacher known as the Christ did come and found a religion nearly two thousand years ago. Why do they think so? They reply that God so loved the world that he sent his Son, the Christ, to bring it light and life. If that is true how can we avoid the conclusion that He, or his predecessors, must have come many a time before? The belief that He came but once is consistent only with the erroneous notion that Genesis is history instead of allegory, and that the earth is about six thousand years old! Science has not determined its age but we know that it is very old, indeed. Many eminent scientists have made rough estimates, taking into consideration all that we have learned from astronomy, geology and archeology. Phillips, the geologist, basing his calculations upon the time required for the depositions of the stratified rocks, put the minimum age at thirty-eight million years and the maximum age at ninety-six million years. Sir George Darwin, basing his calculation wholly upon astronomical data, puts the earth's age at a minimum of fifty-six million years. Joly arrived at his estimate by a calculation of the time required to produce the sodium content of the ocean, and concluded that the age of the earth is between eighty million and one hundred million years. Sollas is said to have made careful study of the matter and he finds the minimum to be eighty million, and the maximum age to be one hundred and fifty million years. But perhaps the most exhaustive study of the matter, and that made by the use of the later scientific knowledge, was by Bosler, of the French scientists. He bases his calculations upon the radio-activity of rocks and arrives at a minimum earth age of seven hundred and ten millions of years. Thus it will be observed that as our knowledge grows the estimated age of the earth increases.
In the face of such facts what becomes of the assertion that God so loved the world that he sent His Son to help ignorant humanity about two thousand years ago—but never before? What about the hundreds of millions of human beings who lived and died before that time? Did He care nothing for them? Did He give his attention to humanity for a period of only two thousand years and neglect it for millions of years? Two thousand years, compared to the age of the earth, is less than an hour in the ordinary life of a man. Does anybody believe that God, in his great compassion, sent just one World Teacher for that brief period? What would we say of a father who gave one hour of his whole life to his child and neglected him absolutelybefore and after that? Countless millions of the people who lived and died prior to the coming of the Christ were very much like ourselves. They belonged to ancient civilizations that often surpassed our own in many desirable characteristics. They were educated and cultured in their time and fashion. They were fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and husbands and wives, with the same kind of heart ties that we have. What of them? Were they permitted to grope in the moral wilderness without a Teacher or a ray of light? Of course the idea is preposterous. If God so loved the world that He sent his Son two thousand years ago He sent Him, or some predecessor, very many times before. By the same token He will come again. The only logical escape from such a conclusion is in the materialist's belief that He never came at all.
All religions crystalize, become materialized, and lose their spiritual significance. That is precisely what has happened to the various great religions of the modern world, including Christianity. It is no longer the dynamic thing in the lives of the people it once was. That's why a world war was possible. The fault is not with the teachings of the Christ. The trouble is that the world has not lived by them. We need a restatement of the old teachings in the terms of modern life that shall again make it a living force in the lives of men. It is when the World Teacher is most needed that he comes; and when has the need been greater than now? The world war has demonstrated the failure of so-called Christian civilization. We have seen the highest type of that civilization revert to the law of the jungle, deliberately disregardthe usages of civilized warfare, and commit atrocities that would shame barbarians. We surely need no further proof that the Christian religion has not accomplished all that the spiritual hierarchy had a right to hope for, and that the coming of the Christ again is a necessity.
But the spiritual hierarchy sends its great ambassadors only when the time is propitious, only when the world is ready to listen. Perhaps such an event can never be predicted in terms of time, but only in those of conditions. When the strength of the nations is spent, when the slain totals appalling numbers, when few homes of high or low degree are without their terrible sacrifice, when the heart of the race is filled with anguish, when famine and disease have done their awful work, and humanity fully realizes what the reaction from greed, lust, cruelty and revenge actually means, the world will be ready to listen as it never listened before, and after that we may reasonably expect the Christ to again appear to re-proclaim the ancient truth in terms of modern life.
The supermen are not myths nor figments of imagination. They are as natural and comprehensive as human beings. In the regular order of evolution we shall reach their level and join their ranks while younger humanities shall attain our present estate. As the supermen rose we, too, shall rise. Our past has been evolution's night. Our present is its dawn. Our future shall be its perfect day. Think of that night from which we have emerged—a chaos of contending forces, a world in which might was the measure of right, a civilization of scepter and sword, of baron and serf, of masterand slave. That, we have left behind us. Think of the grey dawn that our civilization has reached—the dawn of a public conscience, of individual liberty, of collective welfare, of the sacredness of life, but with armed force still dominant, with war the arbiter of national destiny, with industrial slavery still lingering, with conflict between the higher aspirations and the lower desires still raging—a world of selfishness masked by civilized usage, a world of veneered cruelty and refined brutality. In all that we now live. But think of the coming results of evolution!—an era in which love shall replace force, when saber and cannon shall be unknown, when selfish desires shall be transmuted into noble service, when, finally, we shall finish the painful period of human evolution and join the spiritual hierarchy to direct the faltering steps of a younger race.