1
People sometimes ask me to what religion I belong or
to what school of yoga I adhere. If I answer them, which is not often, I tell
them: "To none and to all!" If such a paradox annoys them, I try to soften their
wrath by adding that I am a student of philosophy. During my journeys to the
heavenly realm of infinite eternal and absolute existence, I did not once
discover any labels marked Christian, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Zen, Shin,
Platonist, Hegelian, and so on, any more than I discovered labels marked
Englishman, American, or Hottentot. All such ascriptions would contradict the
very nature of the ascriptionless existence. All sectarian differences are
merely intellectual ones. They have no place in that level which is deeper than
intellectual function. They divide men into hostile groups only because they are
pseudo-spiritual. He who has tasted of the pure Spirit's own freedom will be
unwilling to submit himself to the restrictions of cult and creed. Therefore I
could not conscientiously affix a label to my own outlook or to the teaching
about this existence which I have embraced. In my secret heart I separate myself
from nobody, just as this teaching itself excludes no other in its perfect
comprehension. Because I had to call it by some name as soon as I began to write
about it, I called it philosophy because this is too wide and too general a name
to become the property of any single sect. In doing so I merely returned to its
ancient and noble meaning among the Greeks who, in the Eleusinian Mysteries,
designated the spiritual truth learnt at initiation into them as "philosophy"
and the initiate himself as "philosopher" or lover of wisdom.
Now genuine wisdom being, in its highest phase, the fruit of a transcendental insight, is sublimely dateless and unchangeable. Yet its mode of expression is necessarily dated and may therefore change. Perhaps this pioneering attempt to fill the term "philosophy" with a content which combines ancient tradition with modern innovation will help the few who are sick of intellectual intolerances that masquerade as spiritual insight. Perhaps it may free such broader souls from the need of adopting a separative standpoint with all the frictions, prejudices, egotisms, and hatreds which go with it, and afford them an intellectual basis for practising a profound compassion for all alike. It is as natural for those reared on limited conceptions of life to limit their faith and loyalty to a particular group or a particular area of this planet as it is natural for those reared on philosophic truth to widen their vision and service into world-comprehension and world-fellowship. The philosopher's larger and nobler vision refuses to establish a separate group consciousness for himself and for those who think as he does. Hence he refuses to establish a new cult, a new association, or a new label. To him the oneness of mankind is a fact and not a fable. He is always conscious of the fact that he is a citizen of the world-community. While acknowledging the place and need of lesser loyalties for unphilosophical persons, he cannot outrage truth by confining his own self solely to such loyalties.
Why this eagerness to separate ourselves from the rest of mankind and collect into a sect, to wear a new label that proclaims difference and division? The more we believe in the oneness of life, the less we ought to herd ourselves behind barriers. To add a new cult to the existing list is to multiply the causes of human division and thence of human strife. Let those of us who can do so be done with this seeking of ever-new disunity, this fostering of ever-fresh prejudices, and let those who cannot do so keep it at least as an ideal--however remote and however far-off its attainment may seem--for after all it is ultimate direction and not immediate position that matters most. The democratic abolishment of class status and exclusive groups, which will be a distinctive feature of the coming age, should also show itself in the circles of mystical and philosophic students. If they have any superiority over others, let them display it by a superiority of conduct grounded in a diviner consciousness. Nevertheless, with all the best will in the world to refrain from starting a new group, the distinctive character of their conduct and the unique character of their outlook will, of themselves, mark out the followers of such teaching. Therefore whatever metaphysical unity with others may be perceived and whatever inward willingness to identify interests with them may be felt, some kind of practical indication of its goal and outward particularization of its path will necessarily and inescapably arise of their own accord. And I do not know of any better or broader name with which to mark those who pursue this quest than to say that they are students of philosophy. (20-1.18)
2
It may be asked why I insist on using the word
"philosophy" as a self-sufficient name without prefixing it by some descriptive
term or person's name when it has held different meanings in different
centuries, or been associated with different points of view ranging from the
most materialistic to the most spiritualist. The question is well asked,
although the answer may not be quite satisfactory. I do so because I want to
restore this word to its ancient dignity. I want it used for the highest kind of
insight into the Truth of things, which means into the Truth of the unique
Reality. I want the philosopher to be equated with the sage, the man who not
only knows this Truth, has this insight, and experiences this Reality in
meditation, but also, although in a modified form, in action amid the world's
turmoil. (20-1.127)
3
The practice of philosophy is an essential part of
it and not only consists in applying its principles and its wisdom to everyday
active living, but also in realizing the divine presence deep, deep within the
heart where it abides in tremendous stillness. (20-1.17)
4
The Advaitin who declares that as such he has no
point of view, has already adopted one by calling himself an Advaitin and by
rejecting every other point of view as being dualistic. A human philosophy is
neither dualistic alone nor nondualistic alone. It perceives the connection
between the dream and the dreamer, the Real and the unreal, the consciousness
and the thought. It accepts Advaita, but refuses to stop with it; it accepts
duality, but refuses to remain limited to it; therefore it alone is free from a
dogmatic point of view. But in attempting to bring into harmony that which
forever is and that which is bound by time and space, it becomes a truly human
philosophy of Truth.
5
Two things have to be learned in this quest. The
first is the art of mind-stilling, of emptying consciousness of every thought
and form whatsoever. This is mysticism or Yoga. The disciple's ascent should not
stop at the contemplation of anything that has shape or history, name or
habitation, however powerfully helpful this may have formerly been to the ascent
itself. Only in the mysterious void of Pure Spirit, in the undifferentiated
Mind, lies his last goal as a mystic. The second is to grasp the essential
nature of the ego and of the universe and to obtain direct perception that both
are nothing but a series of ideas which unfold themselves within our minds. This
is the metaphysics of Truth. The combination of these two activities brings
about the realization of his true Being as the ever beautiful and eternally
beneficent Overself. This is philosophy. (20-4.134)
6
Viewed from the standpoint of the house in which we
all have to live--that is, the body--Advaita Vedanta seems to deal only in
ultimate abstractions--however admirable and lofty its outlook. The body is
there and its actuality and factuality must be noted and, more, accepted. This
is why I do not give any other label to the ideas put into my later books than
the generic name philosophy. I do not call it Indian philosophy since there are
ideas in the books which do not belong to India at all. I do not identify it
with any particular land, race, religion, or teacher from the ancient past or
the modern present. Philosophy can not be limited only to abstract ideas. It
includes those ideas but it also includes other things. Its original Greek
meaning "love of wisdom" concerns the whole of man, and not only his abstract
thoughts, intellect, feelings, body, or relation to the world around him. It
concerns his entire life: his contacts with other people, the morality which
guides him in dealing with them, and finally his attitude towards himself.
Philosophy must be universal in its scope; therefore, it may embrace ideas which
originate not only in India or in America or in Europe, but in every other
country and in every other period of civilization. Not all ideas are
philosophical, but only those which are true, useful, in harmony with the
World-Idea, and able to survive the test of practice and applicability.
(20-1.128)
7
Truth will not insult intelligence, although it
soars beyond intellect. Let the religionists talk nonsense, as they do at times;
but holiness is not incompatible with the use of brains, the acquisition of
knowledge, and the rational faculties. (20-4.61)
8
To view the inferior mystical experiences or the
ratiocinative metaphysical findings otherwise than as passing phases, to set
them up as finally representative of reality in the one case or of truth in the
other, is to place them on a level to which they do not properly belong. Those
who fall into the second error do so because they ascribe excessive importance
to the thinking faculty. The mystic is too attached to one faculty, as the
metaphysician is to the other, and neither can conduct a human being beyond the
bounds of his enchained ego to that region where Being alone reigns. It is not
that the mystic does not enter into contact with the Overself. He does. But his
experience of the Overself is limited to glimpses which are partial, because he
finds the Overself only within himself, not in the world outside. It is
temporary because he has to take it when it comes at its own sweet will or when
he can find it in meditation. It is a glimpse because it tells him about his own
"I" but not about the "Not-I." On the other hand, the sage finds reality in the
world without as his own self, at all times and not at special occasions, and
wholly rather than in glimpses. The mystic's light comes in glimpses, but the
sage's is perennial. Whereas the first is like a flickering unsteady and uneven
flame, the second is like a lamp that never goes out. Whereas the mystic comes
into awareness of the Overself through feeling alone, the sage comes into it
through knowledge plus feeling. Hence, the superiority of his realization.
The average mystic is devoid of sufficient critical sense. He delights in preventing his intellect from being active in such a definite direction. He has yet to learn that philosophical discipline has a steadying influence on the vagaries of mystical emotion, opinion, fancy, and experience. He refuses to judge the goal he has set up as to whether it be indeed man's ultimate goal. Consequently he is unable to apply correct standards whereby his own achievements or his own aspirations may be measured. Having shut himself up in a little heaven of his own, he does not attempt to distinguish it from other heavens or to discover if it be heaven indeed. He clings as stubbornly to his self-righteousness as does the religionist whom he criticizes for clinging to his dogma. He does not comprehend that he has transferred to himself that narrowness of outlook which he condemns in the materialistic. His position would be preposterous were it not so perilous.
Mysticism must not rest so smugly satisfied with its own obscurity that it refuses even to make the effort to come out into the light of critical self-examination, clear self-determination, and rational self-understanding. To complain helplessly that it cannot explain itself, to sit admiringly before its own self-proclaimed impalpability, or to stand aristocratically in the rarefied air of its own indefinability--as it usually does--is to fall into a kind of subtle quackery. Magnificent eulogy is no substitute for needed explanation. (20-4.23)
9
We do not claim that an entirely new teaching has
been given to the world. But we do claim that a teaching and a praxis which we
found in a primitive antique form have been brought up-to-date and given a
scientific modern expression, that some parts of it which were formerly
half-hidden and others wholly so, have been completely revealed and made
accessible to everyone who cares for such things. (20-2.103)
10
This is a pioneer work, this making of a fresh
synthesis which draws from, but does not solely depend upon, the knowledge of
colleagues scattered in different continents as well as the initiations of
masters belonging to the most different traditions. (20-2.67)
11
There is a kind of understanding combined with
feeling which is not a common one here in the West, indeed uncommon enough to
seem more discoverable and less puzzling in the Asiatic regions. It is puzzling
for four reasons. One is that it cannot be attributed to the intellect alone,
nor to the emotional nature alone. Another is that it provides an experience so
difficult to describe that it is preferable not to discuss it at all. A third is
that although the most reverent it is not allied to religion. A fourth point is
that it is outside any precise labelling as for instance a metaphysics or cult
which could really belong to it. Yet it is neither anything new or old. It is
nameless. But because there is only one way to deal with it honestly--the way of
utter silence, speechless when in contact with other humans, perfectly still
when in the secrecy of a closed room--we may renew the Pythagorean appellation
of "philosophy" for it is truly the love of wisdom-knowledge. (20-1.129)
12
Such a revolutionary acquisition as insight must
necessarily prove to be in a man's life can only be developed by overcoming all
the tremendous force of habitual wrong thinking, by neutralizing all the
tremendous weight of habitual wrong feeling, and by counteracting all the
tremendous strength of habitual wrong-doing. In short, the familiar personal "I"
must have the ground cut from under its feet. This is done by the threefold
discipline. The combined threefold technique consists of metaphysical
reflection, mystical meditation, and constant remembrance in the midst of
disinterested active service. The full use and balanced exercise of every
function is needful. Although these three elements have here been isolated one
by one for the purpose of clearer intellectual study, it must be remembered that
in actual life the student should not attempt to isolate them. Such a division
is an artificial one. He who takes for his province this whole business of
truth-seeking and gains this rounded all-comprehensive view will no longer be so
one-sided as to set up a particular path as being the only way to salvation. On
the contrary, he will see that salvation is an integral matter. It can no more
be attained by mere meditation alone, for example, than by mere impersonal
activity alone; it can no more be reached by evading the lessons of everyday
external living than by evading the suppression of such externality which
meditation requires. Whereas metaphysics seeks to lift us up to the
superphysical idea by thinking, whereas meditation seeks to lift us up by
intuition, whereas ethics seeks to raise us to it by practical goodness, art
seeks to do the same by feeling and appreciating beauty. Philosophy in its
wonderful breadth and balance embraces and synthesizes all four and finally adds
their coping stone, insight. (20-4.178)
13
Philosophy must critically absorb the categories
of metaphysics, mysticism, and practicality. For it understands that in the
quest of truth the co-operation of all three will not only be helpful and
profitable to each other but is also necessary to itself. For only after such
absorption, only after it has travelled through them all can it attain what is
beyond them all. The decisive point of this quest is reached after the
co-operation between all three activities attains such a pitch that they become
fused into a single all-comprehensive one which itself differs from them in
character and qualities. For the whole truth which is then revealed is not
merely a composite one. It not only absorbs them all but transcends them all.
When water is born out of the union of oxygen and hydrogen, we may neither say
that it is the same as the simple sum-total of both nor that it is entirely
different from both. It is a fluid and therefore possesses properties which they
as gases do not at all possess. We may only say that it includes and yet
transcends them. When philosophic insight is born out of the union of
intellectual reasoning, mystical feeling, and altruistic doing, we may neither
say that it is only the totalization of these three things nor that it is
utterly remote from them. It comprehends them all and yet itself extends far
beyond them into a higher order of being. It is not only that the philosopher
synthesizes these triple functions, that in one and the same instant his
intellect understands the world, his heart feels a tender sympathy towards it,
and his will is moved to action for the triumph of good, but also that he is
continuously conscious of that infinite reality which, in its purity, no
thinking, no emotion, and no action can ever touch. (20-4.183)
14
The hidden teaching starts and finishes with
experience. Every man must begin his mental life as a seeker by noting the fact
that he is conscious of an external environment. He will proceed in time to
discover that it is an ordered one, that Nature is the manifestation of an
orderly Mind. He discovers in the end that consciousness of this Mind becomes
the profoundest fact of his internal experience. (20-4.132)
15
Truth existed before the churches began to spire
their way upwards into the sky, and it will continue to exist after the last
academy of philosophy has been battered down. Nothing can still the primal need
of it in man. Priesthoods can be exterminated until not one vestige is left in
the land; mystic hermitages can be broken until they are but dust; philosophical
books can be burnt out of existence by culture-hating tyrants, yet this
subterranean sense in man which demands the understanding of its own existence
will one day rise again with an urgent claim and create a new expression of
itself. (20-5.262)
16
Those who would assign philosophy the role of a
leisurely pastime for a few people who have nothing better to do, are greatly
mistaken. Philosophy, correctly understood, involves living as well as being.
Its value is not merely intellectual, not merely to stimulate thought, but also
to guide action. Its ideas and ideals are not left suspended in mid-air, as it
were, unable to come down to earth in practical and practicable forms. It can be
put to the test in daily living. It can be applied to all personal and social
problems without exception. It shows us how to achieve a balanced existence in
an unbalanced society. It is truth made workable. The study of and practice of
philosophy are particularly valuable to men and women who follow certain
professions, such a physicians, lawyers, and teachers, or who hold a certain
social status, such as business executives, political administrators, and
leaders of organizations. Those who have been placed by character or destiny or
by both where their authority touches the lives of numerous others, or where
their influence affects the minds of many more, who occupy positions of
responsibility or superior status, will find in its principles that which will
enable them to direct others wisely and in a manner conducive to the ultimate
happiness of all. In the end it can only justify its name if it dynamically
inspires its votaries to a wise altruistic and untiring activity, both in
self-development and social development. (20-1.177)
17
We may begin by asking what this philosophy offers
us. It offers those who pursue it to the end a deep understanding of the world
and a satisfying explanation of the significance of human experience. It offers
them the power to penetrate appearances and to discover the genuinely real from
the mere appearance of reality; it offers satisfaction of that desire which
everyone, everywhere, holds somewhere in his heart--the desire to be free.
18
It is the joyous duty of philosophy to bring into
systematic harmony the various views which mankind has held and will ever hold,
however conflicting they seem on the surface, by assigning the different types
to their proper level and by providing a total view of the possible heights and
depths of human thought. Thus and thus alone the most opposite tendencies of
belief and the most striking contrasts of outlook are brought within a single
scheme. All become aspects, more or less limited, only. None ever achieves
metaphysical finality and need never again be mistaken for the whole truth. All
become clear as organic phases of mankind's mental development. Philosophy alone
can bring logically opposite doctrines into harmonious relation with each other
by assigning them to their proper places under a single sheltering canopy. Thus
out of the medley of voices within us philosophy creates a melody. (20-1.481)
19
The quest has three aspects: metaphysical,
meditational, and morally active. It is the metaphysician's business to think
this thing called life through to its farthest end. It is the mystic's business
to intuit the peaceful desireless state of thoughtlessness. But this quest
cannot be conducted in compartments; rather must it be conducted as we have to
live, that is, integrally. Hence it is the philosopher's business to bring the
metaphysician's bloodless conclusions and the mystic's serene intuition into
intimate relation with practical human obligations and flesh-and-blood
activities. Both ancient mystical-metaphysical wisdom and modern scientific
practicality form the two halves of a complete and comprehensive human culture.
Both are required by a man who wants to be fully educated; one without the help
of the other will be lame. This may well be why wise Emerson confessed, "I have
not yet seen a man!" Consequently, he who has passed through all the different
disciplines will be a valuable member of society. For meditation will have
calmed his temperament and disciplined his character; the metaphysics of truth
will have sharpened his intelligence, protected him against error, and balanced
his outlook; the philosophic ethos will have purified his motives and promoted
his altruism, whilst the philosophic insight will have made him forever aware
that he is an inhabitant of the country of the Overself. He will have touched
life at its principal points yet will have permitted himself to be cramped and
confined by none. (20-1.173)
20
Philosophy takes its votaries on a holy pilgrimage
from ordinary life in the physical senses through mystical life in the
sense-freed spirit to a divinized life back in the same senses. (20-4.113)
21
The sincere, who are honestly desirous of
discovering Truth at whatever cost, will be helped within their limitations; the
insincere, who seek to support their petty prejudices rather than to follow
Truth, will have their hearts read and their hollowness exposed. (20-1.174)
22
Is there a universal truth? Is there a doctrine
which does not depend on individual opinion or the peculiarities of a particular
age or the level of culture of a particular land? Is there a teaching which
appeals to universal experience and not to private prejudice? We reply that
there is, but it has been buried underneath much metaphysical lumber, much
ancient lore, and much Oriental superstition. Our work has been to rescue this
doctrine from the dead past for the benefit of the living present. In these
pages we explode false counterfeits and expound the genuine doctrine. (20-5.194)
23
We may generally distinguish three different views
of the world. The first is that which comes easily and naturally and it depends
on five-sense experience alone. It may be called materialism, and may take
various shapes. The second is religious in its elementary state, depending on
faith, and mystical in its higher stage, depending on intuition and
transcendental experience. The third is scientific in its elementary state,
depending on concrete reason, and metaphysical in its higher state, depending on
abstract reason. Although these are the views generally held amongst men, they
do not exhaust the possibilities of human intelligence. There is a fourth
possible view which declares that none of the others can stand alone and that if
we cling to any one of them alone to the detriment of the others we merely limit
the truth. This view is the philosophic. It declares that truth may be arrived
at by combining all the other views which yield only partial truths into the
balanced unity of whole truth, and unfolding the faculty of insight which
penetrates into hidden reality. (20-1.19)
24
There are three things man needs to know to make
him a spiritually educated man: the truth about himself, his world, and his God.
The mystic who thinks it is enough to know the first alone and to leave out the
last two, is satisfied to be half-educated. (20-4.95)
25
The first step is to discover that there is a
Presence, a Power, a Life, a Mind, Being, unique, not made or begot, without
shape, unseen and unheard, everywhere and always the same. The second step is to
discover its relationship to the universe and to oneself. (20-4.133)
26
It is not enough to attain knowledge of the soul;
any mystic may do that. It is necessary to attain clear knowledge. Only
the philosophic mystic may do that. This emphasis on clarity is important. It
implies a removal of all the obstructions in feeling, the complexes in mind, and
obfuscations in ego which prevent it. When this is done, the aspirant beholds
truth as it really is. (20-4.62) (20-4.168)
27
In the first stage of progress we learn to stand
aside from the world and to still our thoughts about it. This is the mystical
stage. Next, we recognize the world as being but a series of ideas within the
mind; this is the mentalist-metaphysical stage. Finally, we return to the
world's activity without reacting mentally to its suggestions, working
disinterestedly, and knowing always that all is One. This is the philosophical
stage.
28
The faith in and the practice of reverential
worship into which he was initiated by religion must not be dropped. It is
required by philosophy also. Only, he is to correct, purify, and refine it. He
is to worship the divine presence in his heart, not some distant remote being,
and he is to do so more by an act of concentrated thought and unwavering feeling
than by resort to external indirect and physical methods. With the philosopher,
as with the devotee, the habit of prayer is a daily one. But whereas he prays
with light and heat, the other prays with heat alone. The heart finds in such
worship a means of pouring out its deepest feelings of devotion, reverence,
humility, and communion before its divine source. Thus we see that philosophy
does not annul religious worship, but purifies and preserves what is best in it.
It does annul the superstitions, exploitations, and futilities connected with
conventional religious worship. In the end philosophy brings the seeker back to
religion but not to a religion: to the reverence for a supreme power
which he had discarded when he discarded the superstitions which had entwined
themselves around it. Philosophy is naturally religious and inevitably mystical.
Hence it keeps intact and does not break to pieces that which it receives from
religion and yoga. It will, of course, receive only their sound fruits, not
their bad ones. Philosophic endeavour does not, for instance, disdain religious
worship and humble prayer merely because its higher elements transcend them.
They are indeed part of such endeavour. But they are not, as with religionists,
the whole of it. The mystic must not give up being religious merely because he
has become a mystic. In the same way, the philosopher must not give up being
both mystical and religious merely because he has become a philosopher. It is
vitally important to know this. Philosophy does not supersede religion but keeps
it and enlarges it. (20-1.454)
29
Science suppresses the subject of experience and
studies the object. Mysticism suppresses the object of experience and studies
the subject. Philosophy suppresses nothing, studies both subject and object;
indeed it embraces the study of all experience. (20-1.21)
30
Although philosophy propounds statements of
universal laws and eternal truths, nevertheless each man draws from its study
highly personal application and gains from its practices markedly individual
fulfilment. Although it is the only Idea which can ever bring men together in
harmony and unity, nevertheless it becomes unique for every fresh adherent. And
although it transcends all limitations imposed by intellect emotion form and
egoism, nevertheless it inspires the poet, teaches the thinker, gives vistas to
the artist, guides the executive, and solaces the labourer. (20-1.150)
31
Philosophy is faced with the problem of educating
each individual seeker who aspires to understand it. There is no such thing as
mass education in philosophy. (20-2.289)
32
The theory of philosophy is suited and available
to everyone who has the intelligence to grasp it, the faith to accept it, the
intuition to recognize its supreme pre-eminence. The practice of philosophy is
more restricted, being for those who have been sufficiently prepared by previous
inner growth and outer experience to be willing to impose its higher ethical
standards, mental training, and emotional discipline upon themselves. To come
unprepared for the individual effort demanded, unfit for the intellectual and
meditational exertions needed, unready for the teacher or the teaching, is to
find bewilderment and to leave disappointed. A premature attempt to enter the
school of philosophy will meet with the painful revelation of the dismaying
shortcomings within oneself, which must be remedied before the attempt can be
successful. (20-2.120)
33
It is the business of philosophy to cast out error
and establish truth. This takes it away from the popular conceptions of
religion. Philosophy by its very nature must be unpopular; hence it does not
ordinarily go out of its way to spread its ideas in the world. Only at special
periods, like our own, when history and evolution have prepared enough
individuals to make a modest audience, does philosophy promulgate such of its
tenets as are best suited to the mind of that period. (20-2.7)
34
Such a teaching cannot indulge in propagandist
methods or militant sectarianism. It must live quietly and offer itself only to
those who are intellectually prepared and emotionally willing to receive it.
(20-2.290)
35
The spiritual seekers who followed Rene\q Gue\qnon
and the poets who followed T.S. Eliot fell into the same trap as their leaders.
For in protesting, and rightly, against the anarchy of undisciplined and
unlimited freedom, both Gue\qnon and Eliot retreated backwards into formal
tradition and fixed myth. Both had served their historic purpose and were being
left behind. Both men were brilliant intellectuals and naturally attracted a
corresponding type of reader. Their influence is understandable. But it is not
on the coming wave of the Aquarian Age. New forms will be needed to satisfy the
new knowledge, the new outlook, the new feelings. The classical may be
respected, even admired; but the creative will be followed. (20-2.66)
36
The esoteric meaning of the star is "Philosophic
Man," that is, one who has travelled the complete fivefold path and brought its
results into proper balance. This path consists of religious veneration,
mystical meditation, rational reflection, moral re-education, and altruistic
service. The esoteric meaning of the circle, when situated within the very
centre of the star, is the Divine Overself-atom within the human heart.
(20-1.23)
37
Whatever were the motives which dictated the
exclusive reservation of ultimate wisdom in former centuries and the
extraordinary precautions which were taken to keep it from the larger world, we
must now reckon on the dominant fact that humanity lives today in a cultural
environment which has changed tremendously. The old ideas have lost their weight
among educated folk--except for individuals here and there--and this general
decay has passed by reflex action among the masses, albeit to a lesser extent.
Whether in religion or science, politics or society, economics or ethics, the
story of prodigious storm which has shaken the thoughts of men to their
foundations is the same. The time indeed is transitional. In this momentous
period when the ethical fate of mankind is at stake because the religious
sanctions of morality have broken down, it is essential that something should
arise to take their place. This is the supreme and significant fact which has
forced the hands of those who hold this wisdom in their possession, which has
compelled them to begin this historically unique disclosure of it, and which
illustrates the saying that the night is darkest just before dawn. This is the
dangerous situation which broke down an age-old policy and necessitated a new
one whose sublime consequences to future generations we can now but dimly
envisage. (20-2.8)
38
The goal of self-elimination which is held up
before us refers only to the animal and lower human selves. It certainly does
not refer to the annihilation of all self-consciousness. The higher
individuality always remains. But it is so different from the lower one that it
does not make much sense to discuss it in human language. Hence, those who have
adequately understood it write or talk little about its higher mysteries. If the
end of all existence were only a merger at best or annihilation at worst, it
would be a senseless and sorry scheme of things. It would be unworthy of the
divine intelligence and discreditable to the divine goodness. The consciousness
stripped of thought, which looks less attractive to you than the hazards of life
down here, is really a tremendous enlargement of what thought itself tries to
do. Spiritual advance is really from a Less to a More. There is nothing to fear
in it and nothing to lose by it--except by the standards and values of the
ignorant. (20-5.5)
39
It is perhaps the amplitude and symmetry of the
philosophic approach which make it so completely satisfying. For this is the
only approach which honours reason and appreciates beauty, cultivates intuition
and respects mystical experience, fosters reverence and teaches true prayer,
enjoins action and promotes morality. It is the spiritual life fully grown.
(20-1.22)
40
Not to escape life, but to articulate it, is
philosophy's practical goal. Not to take the aspirant out of circulation, but to
give him something worth doing is philosophy's sensible ideal. (20-1.340)
41
The philosophic student will not make the mistake
of using the quest as an excuse for inefficiency when attending to duties. There
is nothing spiritual in being a muddler. The performance of worldly duties in a
dreamy, casual, uninterested, and slovenly manner is often self-excused by the
mystically minded because they feel superior to such duties. This arises out of
the false opposition which they set up between Matter and Spirit. Such an
attitude is not the philosophical one. The mystic is supposed to be apathetic in
worldly matters, if he is to be a good mystic. The philosophical student, on the
contrary, keeps what is most worthwhile in mysticism and yet manages to keep
alert in worldly matters too. If he has understood the teaching and trained
himself aright, his practical work will be better done and not worse because he
has taken to this quest. He knows it is perfectly possible to balance mystical
tendencies with a robust efficiency. He will put as much thought and heart into
his work as it demands. (20-1.434)
42
It is not enough to negate thinking; this may
yield a mental blank without content. We have also to transcend it. The first is
the way of ordinary yoga; the second is the way of philosophic yoga. In the
second way, therefore, we seek strenuously to carry thought to its most abstract
and rarefied point, to a critical culminating whereby its whole character
changes and it merges of its own accord in the higher source whence it arises.
If successful, this produces a pleasant, sometimes ecstatic state--but the
ecstasy is not our aim as with ordinary mysticism. With us the reflection must
keep loyally to a loftier aim, that of dissolving the ego in its divine source.
The metaphysical thinking must work its way, first upwards to a more and more
abstract concept and second inwards to a more and more complete absorption from
the external world. The consequence is that when illumination results, whether
it comes in the form of a mystical trance, ecstasy, or intuition, its character
will be unquestionably different and immeasurably superior to that which comes
from the mere sterilization of the thinking process which is the method of
ordinary yoga. (20-4.62)
43
The activity of analytic thinking has been banned
in most mystical schools. They regard it as an obstacle to the attainment of
spiritual consciousness. And ordinarily it is indeed so. For until the intellect
can lie perfectly still, such consciousness cannot make itself apparent. The
difficulty of making intellect quite passive is however an enormous one.
Consequently different concentration techniques have been devised to overcome
it. Nearly all of them involve the banishment of thinking and the cessation of
reasoning. The philosophical school uses any or all of them where advisable but
it also uses a technique peculiarly its own. It makes use of abstract concepts
which are concerned with the nature of the mind itself and which are furnished
by seers who have developed a deep insight into such nature. It permits the
student to work out these concepts in a rational way but leading to subtler and
subtler moods until they automatically vanish and thinking ceases as the
transcendental state is induced to come of itself. This method is particularly
suited either to those who have already got over the elementary difficulties of
concentration or to those who regard reasoning power as an asset to be conserved
rather than rejected. The conventional mystic, being the victim of external
suggestion, will cling to the traditional view of his own school, which usually
sees no good at all in reasoned thinking, and aver that spiritual attainment
through such a path is psychologically impossible. Never having been instructed
in it and never having tried it, he is not really in a position to judge.
(20-4.65)
44
Continued and constant pondering over the ideas
presented herein is itself a part of the yoga of philosophical discernment. Such
reflection will as naturally lead the student towards realization of his goal as
will the companion and equally necessary activity of suppressing all ideas
altogether in mental quiet. This is because these ideas are not mere
speculations but are themselves the outcome of a translation from inner
experience. While such ideas as are here presented grow under the water of their
reflection and the sunshine of their love into fruitful branches of thought,
they gradually begin to foster intuition. (20-4.66)
45
The logical movement of intellect must come to a
dead stop before the threshold of reality. But we are not to bring about this
pause deliberately or in response to the bidding of some man or some doctrine.
It must come of its own accord as the final maturation of long and precise
reasoning and as the culmination of the intellectual and personal
discovery that the apprehension of mind as essence will come only when we
let go of the idea-forms it takes and direct our attention to it. (20-4.67)
46
The use of metaphysical thinking as part of the
philosophic system is a feature which few yogis of the ordinary type are likely
to appreciate. This is both understandable and pardonable. They are thoroughly
imbued with the futility of a merely rational and intellectual approach to
reality, a futility which has also been felt and expressed in these pages. So
far there is agreement with them. But when they proceed to deduce that the only
way left is to crush reason and stop the working of intellect altogether, our
paths diverge. For what metaphysics admittedly cannot accomplish by itself may
be accomplished by a combination of metaphysics and mysticism far better than by
mysticism alone. The metaphysics of truth, which is here meant, however, must
never be confused with the many historical speculative systems which exist.
(20-4.64)
47
This is the paradox that both the capacity
to think deeply and the capacity to withdraw from thinking are needed to attain
this goal. (20-4.68)
48
We cannot afford to dispense with mysticism merely
because we take to philosophy. Both are essential to this quest and both are
vital in their respective places. The mystic's power to concentrate attention is
needed throughout the study of philosophy. The philosopher's power to reason
sharply is needed to give mystical reverie a content of world-understanding. And
in the more advanced stages, when thinking has done its work and intellect has
come to rest, we cease to be a philosopher and dwell self-absorbed in mystic
trance, having taken with us the world-idea without which it would be empty. We
can only afford to dispense with both mysticism and philosophy when we have
perfectly done the work of both and when, amid the daily life of constant
activity, we can keep unbroken the profound insight and selfless attitude which
time and practice have now made natural.
49
The mistake of the mystics is to negate
prematurely. Only after reasoning has completed its own task to the
uttermost will it be psychologically right and philosophically fruitful to still
it in the mystic silence. (20-4.69)
50
The highest contribution which mysticism can make
is to afford 5its votaries glimpses of that grand substratum of the universe
which we may call the Overself. These glimpses reveal It in the pure unmanifest
non-physical essence that It ultimately is. They detach It from the things,
creatures, and thoughts which make up this world of ours, and show It as It is
in the beginning, before the world-dream made its appearance. Thus mysticism at
its farthest stretch, which is Nirvikalpa samadhi, enables man to bring about
the temporary disappearance of the world-dream and come into comprehension of
the Mind within which, and from which, the dream emerges. The mystic in very
truth conducts the funeral service of the physical world as he has hitherto
known it, which includes his own ego. But this is as far as mysticism can take
him. It is an illuminative and rare experience, but it is not the end. For the
next task which he must undertake if he is to advance is to relate his
experience of this world as real with his experience of the Overself as real.
And this he can do only by studying the world's own nature, laying bare its
mentalistic character and thus bringing it within the same circle as its source,
the Mind. If he succeeds in doing this and in establishing this relation
correctly, he will have finished his apprenticeship, ascended to the ultimate
truth and become a philosopher. Thenceforward he will not deny the world but
accept it.
The metaphysician may also perform this task and obtain an intellectual understanding of himself, the world, and the Overself. And he has this advantage over the mystic, that his understanding becomes permanent whereas the mystic's rapt absorption must pass. But if he has not passed through the mystical exercises, it will remain as incomplete as a nut without a kernel. For these exercises, when led to their logical and successful issue in Nirvikalpa samadhi, provide the vivifying principle of experience which alone can make metaphysical tenets real.
From all this we may perceive why it is quite correct for the mystic to look undistractedly within for his goal, why he must shut out the distractions and attractions of earthly life in order to penetrate the sacred precinct, and why solitude, asceticism, meditation, trance, and emotion play the most important roles in his particular experience. What he is doing is right and proper at his stage but is not right and proper as the last stage. For in the end he must turn metaphysician, just as the metaphysician must turn mystic and just as both must turn philosopher--who is alone capable of infusing the thoughts of metaphysics and the feelings of mysticism into the actions of everyday practical life. (20-4.115)
51
The crucial point of our criticism must not be
missed. Our words are directed against the belief which equates the criterion of
truth with the unchecked and unpurified feeling of it--however mystical it be.
We do not demand that feeling itself shall be ignored, or that its
contribution--which is most important--toward truth shall be despised. Our
criticism is not directed against emotion, but against that unbalanced attitude
which sets up emotion almost as a religion in itself. We ask only that the
reaction of personal feeling shall not be set up as the sole and
sufficient standard of what is or is not reality and truth. When we speak of the
unsatisfactory validity of feeling as providing sufficient proof by itself of
having experienced the Overself, we mean primarily, of course, the kind of
passionate feeling which throws the mystic into transports of joy, and
secondarily, any strong emotion which sweeps him off his feet into refusal to
analyse his experience coldly and scientifically. Three points may be here
noted. First, mere feeling alone may easily be egoistic and distort the truth or
be inflamed and exaggerate it or put forward a wanted fancy in place of an
unwanted fact. Second, there is here no means of attaining certainty. Its
validity, being only personal, is only as acceptable as are the offerings of
poets and artists who can also talk in terms of psychological, but not
metaphysical, reality. For instance, the mystic may gaze at and see what he
thinks to be reality, but some one else may not think it to be so. Third,
the path of the philosophical objection to appraising feeling alone as a
criterion of truth and of our insistence on checking its intimations with
critical reasoning may be put in the briefest way by an analogy. We feel
that the earth is stable and motionless, but we know that it traces a
curve of movement in space. We feel that it is fixed in the firmament,
but we know that the whole heliocentric system has its own motion in
space. The reader should ponder upon the implications of these facts. Are not
the annals of mysticism stained by many instances of megalomaniacs who falsely
set themselves up as messiahs merely because they felt that God had
commissioned them to do so? This is why the philosopher is concerned not only
with the emotional effects of inner experience, as is the mystic, but also with
the truth about these effects. (20-4.24)
52
The philosopher is satisfied with a noble peace
and does not run after mystical ecstasies. Whereas other paths often depend upon
an emotionalism that perishes with the disappearance of the primal momentum that
inspired it, or which dissolves with the dissolution of the first enthusiastic
ecstasies themselves, here there is a deeper and more dependable process. What
must be emphasized is that most mystical aspirants have an initial or occasional
ecstasy, and they are so stirred by the event that they naturally want to enjoy
it permanently. This is because they live under the common error that a
successful and perfect mystic is one who has succeeded in stabilizing ecstasy.
That the mystic is content to rest on the level of feeling alone, without making
his feeling self-reflective as well, partly accounts for such an error. It also
arises because of incompetent teachers or shallow teaching, leading them to
strive to perform what is impracticable and to yearn to attain what is
impossible. Our warning is that this is not possible, and that however long a
mystic may enjoy these "spiritual sweets," they will assuredly come to an end
one day. The stern logic of facts calls for stress on this point. Too often he
believes that this is the goal, and that he has nothing more about which to
trouble himself. Indeed, he would regard any further exertions as a sacrilegious
denial of the peace, as a degrading descent from the exaltation of this divine
union. He longs for nothing more than the good fortune of being undisturbed by
the world and of being able to spend the rest of his life in solitary devotion
to his inward ecstasy. For the philosophic mystic, however, this is not the
terminus but only the starting point of a further path. What philosophy says is
that this is only a preliminary mystical state, however remarkable and blissful
it be. There is a more matured state--that of gnosis--beyond it. If the student
experiences paroxysms of ecstasy at a certain stage of his inner course, he may
enjoy them for a time, but let him not look forward to enjoying them for all
time. The true goal lies beyond them, and he should not forget that
all-important fact. He will not find final salvation in the mystical experience
of ecstasy, but he will find an excellent and essential step towards salvation
therein. He who would regard rapturous mystical emotion as being the same as
absolute transcendental insight is mistaken. Such a mistake is pardonable. So
abrupt and striking is the contrast with his ordinary state that he concludes
that this condition of hyper-emotional bliss is the condition in which he is
able to experience reality. He surrenders himself to the bliss, the emotional
joy which he experiences, well satisfied that he has found God or his soul. But
his excited feelings about reality are not the same as the serene experience of
reality itself. This is what a mystic finds difficult to comprehend. Yet, until
he does comprehend it, he will not make any genuine progress beyond this stage.
(20-4.125)
53
What science calls the "critical temperature,"
that is, the temperature when a substance shares both the liquid and gaseous
states, is symbolic of what philosophical mysticism calls the "philosophic
experience," that is, when a man's consciousness shares both the external world
of the five senses and the internal world of the empty soul. The ordinary mystic
or yogi is unable to hold the two states simultaneously and, quite often, even
unwilling to do so, because of the false opposition he has been taught to set up
between them. (20-4.122)
54
There is a fundamental difference between mystical
escapism and mystical altruism. In the first case, the man is interested only in
gaining his own self-realization and will be content to let his endeavours stop
there. In the second case, he has the same aim but also the keen aspiration to
make his achievement, when it materializes, available for the service of
mankind. And because such a profound aspiration cannot be banished into
cold-storage to await this materialization, he will even sacrifice part of his
time, money, and energy to doing what little he can to enlighten others
intellectually during the interval. Even if this meant doing nothing more than
making philosophical knowledge more easily accessible to ordinary men than it
has been in the past, this would be enough. But he can do much more than that.
Both types recognize the indispensable need of deliberately withdrawing from
society and isolating themselves from its activities to obtain the solitude
necessary to achieve intensity of concentration, to practise meditative
reflection upon life, and to study mystical and philosophical books. But whereas
the first would make the withdrawal a permanent, lifelong one, the second would
make it only a temporary and occasional one. And by "temporary," we mean any
period from a single day to several years. The first is a resident of the ivory
tower of escapism, the second merely its visitor. The first can find happiness
only in his solitariness and must draw himself out of humanity's disturbing life
to attain it. The second seeks a happiness that will hold firm in all places and
makes retirement from that life only a means to this end. Each is entitled to
travel his own path. But at such a time as the present, when the whole world is
being convulsed and the human soul agitated as never before, we personally
believe that it is better to follow the less selfish and more compassionate one.
(20-4.222)
55
Life is not a matter of meditation methods
exclusively. Their study and practice is necessary, but let them be put in their
proper place. Both mystical union and metaphysical understanding are necessary
steps on this quest, because it is only from them that the student can mount to
the still higher grade of universal being represented by the sage. For we not
only need psychological exercises to train the inner being, but also
psychological exercises to train the point of view. But the student must not
stay in mysticism as he must not stay in metaphysics. In both cases he should
take all that they have to give him but struggle through and come out on the
other side. For the mysticism of emotion is not the shrine where Isis dwells but
only the vestibule to the shrine, and the metaphysician who can only see in
reason the supreme faculty of man has not reflected enough. Let him go farther
and he shall find that its own supreme achievement is to point beyond itself to
that principle or Mind whence it takes its rise. Mysticism needs the check of
philosophic discipline. Metaphysics needs the vivification of mystical
meditation. Both must bear the fruit in inspired action or they are but
half-born. In no other way than through acts can they rise to the lofty status
of facts.
The realization of what man is here for is the realization of a fused and unified life wherein all the elements of action, feeling, and thought are vigorously present. It is not, contrary to the belief of mystics, a condition of profound entrancement alone, nor, contrary to the reasonings of metaphysicians, a condition of intellectual clarity alone, and, still less, contrary to the opinions of theologians, a condition of complete faith in God alone. We are here to live, which means to think, feel, and act also. We have not only to curb thought in meditation, but also to whip it in reflection. We have not only to control emotion in self-discipline, but also to release it in laughter, relaxation, affection, and pleasure. We have not only to perceive the transiency and illusion of material existence, but also to work, serve, strive, and move strenuously, and thus justify physical existence. We have to learn that when we look at what we really are we stand alone in the awed solitude of the Overself, but when we look at where we now are we see not isolated individuals but members of a thronging human community. The hallmark of a living man, therefore, ought to be an integral and inseparable activity of heart, head, and hand itself occurring within the mysterious stillness and silence of its inspirer, the Overself.
The mistake of the lower mystic is when he would set up a final goal in meditation itself, when he would stop at the "letting-go" of the external world which is quite properly an essential process of mysticism, and when he would let his reasoning faculty fall into a permanent stupor merely because it is right to do so during the moments of mental quiet. When, however, he learns to understand that the antinomy of meditation and action belongs only to an intermediate stage of this quest, when he comes later to the comprehension that detachment from the world is only to be sought to enable him to move with perfect freedom amid the things of the world and not to flee them, and when he perceives at long last that the reason itself is God-given to safeguard his journey and later to bring his realization into self-consciousness--then he shall have travelled from the second to the third degree in this freemasonry of ultimate wisdom. For that which had earlier hindered his advance now helps it; such is the paradox which he must unravel if he would elevate himself from the satisfactions of mysticism to the perceptions of philosophy. If his meditations once estranged him from the world, now they bring him closer to it! If formerly he could find God only within himself, now he can find nothing else that is not God! He has advanced from the chrysalis-state of X to the butterfly state of Y.
If there be any worth in this teaching, such lies in its equal appeal to experience and to reason. For that inward beatitude which it finally brings is superior to any other that mundane man has felt and, bereft of all violent emotion itself though it be, paradoxically casts all violent emotions of joy in the shade. When we comprehend that this teaching establishes as fact what the subtlest reasoning points to in theory, reveals in man's own life the presence of that Overself which reflection discovers as from a remote distance, we know that here at long last is something fit for a modern man. The agitations of the heart and the troublings of the head take their dying breaths. (20-4.148)
56
The principle of balance is one of the most
important of philosophic principles. (20-3.269)
57
The basis of the universe is its equilibrium. Only
so can the planets revolve in harmony and without collision. The man who would
likewise put himself in tune with Nature, God, must establish equilibrium as the
basis of his own nature. (20-3.279)
58
The required condition of balance as the price of
illumination refers also to correcting the lopsidedness of letting the conscious
ego direct the whole man while resisting the superconscious spiritual forces. In
other words, balance is demanded between the intellect which seeks deliberate
control of the psyche and the intuition which must be invited by passivity and
allowed to manifest in spontaneity. When a man has trained himself to turn
equally from the desire to possess to the aspiration to being possessed, when he
can pass from the solely personal attitude to the one beyond it, when the will
to manage his being and his life for himself and by himself is compensated by
the willingness to let himself and his life be quiescent, then his being and his
life are worked upon by higher forces. This also is the kind of balance and
completeness which the philosophic discipline must lead to so that the
philosophic illumination may give him his second birth. (20-3.278)
59
But it is of the highest importance to note that
the principle of balance cannot be properly established in any man until each of
the elements within him has been developed into its completeness. The failure to
do so produces the type of man who knows truth intellectually, talks it
fluently, and does the wrong in spite of it. A balance of immature and
half-developed faculties is transitory by its very nature and never wholly
satisfactory, whereas a balance of fully matured ones is necessarily durable and
always perfectly gratifying.
60
Those who talk or write truth, but do not live it
because they cannot, have glimpsed its meaning but not realized its power. They
have not the dynamic balance which follows when the will is raised to the level
of the intellect and the feelings. It is this balance which spontaneously
ignites mystic forces within us, and produces the state called "born again."
This is the second birth, which takes place in our consciousness as our first
took place in our flesh. (20-3.385)
61
It is most important to get rid of an unbalanced
condition. Most people are in such a condition although few know it. For
example, intellectuality without spirituality is human paralysis. Spirituality
without intellectuality is mental paralysis. No man should submit to such
suicidal conditions. All men should seek and achieve integrality. To be wrapped
up in a single side of life or to be overactive in a single direction ends by
making a man mildly insane in the true and not technical sense of this word. The
remedy is to tone down here and build up there, to cultivate the neglected
sides, and especially to cultivate the opposite side. Admittedly, it is
extremely difficult for most of us, circumstanced as we usually are, to achieve
a perfect development and equal balance of all the sides. But this is no excuse
for accepting conditions completely as they are and making no effort at all to
remedy them. The difficulty for many aspirants in attaining such an admirably
balanced character lies in their tendency to be obsessed by a particular
technique which they followed in former births but which cannot by itself meet
the very different conditions of today. We must counterbalance the habit of
living only in a part of our being. When we have become harmoniously balanced in
the philosophic sense, heart and head will work together to answer the same
question, the unhurrying sense of eternity and the pressing urge of the hour
will combine to make decisions as wise as they are practical, and the
transcendental intuitions will suggest or confirm the workings of reason. In
this completed integral life, thought and action, devotion and knowledge do not
wrestle against each other but become one. Such is the triune quest of
intelligence, aspiration, and action. (20-3.280)
62
This perfect harmony between the various elements
of his personality is not to be achieved with some in the state of
half-development and others of full development. All are to be brought up to the
same high level.
63
Even our understanding of balance has to be
corrected. It is not, for philosophic purposes, the mean point between two
extremes but the compensatory union of two qualities or elements that need one
another. (20-3.277)
64
The danger of a lopsided character is seen when
humility reverence and piety are largely absent whilst criticism logicality and
realism are largely present. The intellect then becomes imperiously proud,
arrogantly self-assured, and harshly intolerant. The consequence is that its
power to glean subtler truths rather than merely external data is largely lost.
(20-3.386)
65
The balance needed by faith is understanding; by
peacefulness, energy; by intuition, reason; by feeling, intellect; by
aspiration, humility; and by zeal, discretion. (20-3.410)
66
Inner balance is not established by setting two
polar opposites against each other, as miserliness against extravagance, but by
combining two necessary qualities together such as bravery with caution.
(20-3.412)
67
Manifested life remains no less real because we
belittle it with the harsh cognomen of "illusion." Our active existence requires
no apology on its behalf to the one-eyed philosophers who accuse Westerners of
being entrapped by "Maya."
68
Neither the Buddhistic emphasis on suffering nor
the hedonistic emphasis on joy are proper to a truly philosophical outlook. Both
have to be understood and accepted, since life compels us to experience both.
(20-3.411)
69
A well-balanced person is not necessarily one who
takes the measured midpoint between two extremes but one who lets himself
be taken over by the inner calm. The needed adjustment is then made by itself.
Although this avoids his falling into lopsided acts or exaggerated views, a
merely moderate character is not the best result. More important is the
surrender to the higher power which is implicit in the whole process of
becoming truly balanced. (20-3.283)
70
It is good for an ascetic or monk to sit idle and
inactive whilst he contemplates the futility of a life devoted solely to earthly
strivings, but it is bad for him to spend the whole of a valuable incarnation in
such idleness and in such contemplation. For then he is fastening his attention
on a single aspect of existence and losing sight of all others. It is good for a
metaphysician to occupy himself with noting the logical contradictions involved
in the world's existence and in the reason's own discoveries, but bad for him to
waste a whole incarnation in fastening his attention on a single aspect. It is
good for the worldling to accumulate money and enjoy the good things it can buy,
marry a wife and adorn his home with comforts, but it is bad for him to waste
his valuable incarnation without a higher purpose and a loftier goal. Nor is
this all. Mysticism, metaphysics, and worldliness are useless unless they
succeed in affording a man a basis of altruistic ethics for everyday living. The
average mystic does not see that his lapse into loss of interest in the world
around him, his indifference to positive and practical service of mankind, in
short his whole other-worldliness, is not a virtue as he believes, but a defect.
Hermits who withdraw from the troubled world to practise the simplicity, monks
who retreat from the active world to muse over the evanescence of things,
defeatists who flee from their failure in life, marriage, or business to the
lethargy which they believe to be peace, thereby evidence that they have not
understood the higher purpose of incarnation. It is to afford them the
opportunity to realize in waking consciousness their innermost nature. This
cannot be done by turning their face from the experiences of human existence,
but by boldly confronting them and mastering them. Nor can it be done by
retreating into the joys of meditation. The passionate ecstasies of lower
mysticism, like the intellectual discoveries of lower metaphysics, yield only
the illusion of penetrating into reality. For the world, as well as the "I,"
must be brought into the circle of meditation if the whole truth is to be
gained. The one-sided, monkish doctrine which indicts the world's forms with
transiency and illusiveness must be met and balanced by the philosophic doctrine
which reveals the world's essence as eternal and real. There will then be no
excuse for lethargy, defeatism, or escapism. A metaphysical outlook often lacks
the spark of vitality; a mystical outlook often lacks the solidity of reasoned
thought; and both often lack the urge to definite action. The practical failures
of metaphysics are traceable to the fact that it does not involve the exercise
of the will as much as it involves the exercise of the intellect. The
intellectual failures of metaphysics are due to the fact that the men who taught
it in the past knew nothing of science and those who teach it in the present
know nothing of higher mystical meditation, whilst both have usually had little
experience of the hard facts of life outside their sheltered circle. The
failures of mysticism are due to the same causes, as well as others we have
often pointed out. Finally, the failure of metaphysicians to produce practical
fruit is partly due to the fact that they perceive ideas of truth and not
truth itself, as the failure of mystics is partly due to the fact that they
experience feelings of reality and not reality itself. The successes and
services of the sage on the contrary are due to the fact that he perceives truth
and experiences reality and not merely thoughts or feelings about them.
(20-4.223)
71
It is not only balance inside the ego itself that
is to be sought, not only between reason and emotion, thought and action, but
also and much more important, outside the ego: between it and the Overself.
(20-3.281)
72
From all these studies, meditations, and actions
the student will little by little emerge an inwardly changed man. He comes to
the habitual contemplation of his co-partnership with the universe as a whole,
to the recognition that personal isolation is illusory, and thus takes the firm
steps on the ultimate path towards becoming a true philosopher. The realization
of the hidden unity of his own life with the life of the whole world manifests
finally in infinite compassion for all living things. Thus he learns to subdue
the personal will to the cosmic one, narrow selfish affection to the
wide-spreading desire for the common welfare. Compassion comes to full blossom
in his heart like a lotus flower in the sunshine. From this lofty standpoint, he
no longer regards mankind as being those whom he unselfishly serves but rather
as being those who give him the opportunity to serve. He will suddenly or slowly
experience an emotional exaltation culminating in an utter change of heart. Its
course will be marked by a profound reorientation of feeling toward his fellow
creatures. The fundamental egoism which in open or masked forms has hitherto
motivated him will be abandoned: the noble altruism which has hitherto seemed an
impracticable and impossible ideal, will become practicable and possible. For a
profound sympathy of all other beings will dwell in his heart. Never again will
it be possible for him wilfully to injure another; but on the contrary the
welfare of the All will become his concern. In Jesus' words he is "born again."
He will find his highest happiness, after seeking reality and truth, in seeking
the welfare of all other beings alongside of his own. The practical consequence
of this is that he will be inevitably led to incessant effort for their service
and enlightenment. He will not merely echo the divine will but will allow it
actively to work within him. And with the thought comes the power to do so, the
grace of the Overself to help him to achieve quickly what the Underself cannot
achieve. In the service of others he can partially forget his loss of trance-joy
and know that the liberated self which he had experienced in interior meditation
must be equated by the expanded self in altruistic action. (20-4.224)
73
In observation a scientist, at heart a religious
devotee, in thought a metaphysician, in secret a mystic, and in public an
efficient honourable useful citizen--this is the kind of man philosophy
produces. (20-5.22)
74
He who has sufficiently purified his character,
controlled his senses, developed his reason, and unfolded his intuition is
always ready to meet what comes and to meet it aright. He need not fear the
future. Time is on his side. For he has stopped adding bad karma to his account
and every fresh year adds good karma instead. And even where he must still bear
the workings of the old adverse karma, he will still remain serene because he
understands with Epictetus that "There is only one thing for which God has sent
me into the world, and that is to perfect my nature in all sorts of virtue or
strength; and there is nothing that I cannot use for that purpose." He knows
that each experience which comes to him is what he most needs at the time, even
though it be what he likes least. He needs it because it is in part nothing else
than his own past thinking, feeling, and doing come back to confront him to
enable him to see and study their results in a plain, concrete, unmistakable
form. He makes use of every situation to help his ultimate aims, even though it
may hinder his immediate ones. Such serenity in the face of adversity must not
be mistaken for supine fatalism or a lethargic acceptance of every untoward
event as God's will. For although he will seek to understand why it has happened
to him and master the lesson behind it, he will also seek to master the event
itself and not be content to endure it helplessly. Thus, when all happenings
become serviceable to him and when he knows that his own reaction to them will
be dictated by wisdom and virtue, the future can no more frighten him than the
present can intimidate him. He cannot go amiss whatever happens. For he knows
too whether it be a defeat or a sorrow in the world's eyes, whether it be a
triumph or a joy, the experience will leave him better, wiser, and stronger than
it found him, more prepared for the next one to come. The philosophic student
knows that he is here to face, understand, and master precisely those events,
conditions, and situations which others wish to flee and evade, that to make a
detour around life's obstacles and to escape meeting its problems is, in the
end, unprofitable. He knows that his wisdom must arise out of the fullness and
not out of the poverty of experience and that it is no use non-cooperatively
shirking the world's struggle, for it is largely through such struggle that he
can bring forth his own latent resources. Philosophy does not refuse to face
life, however tragic or however frightful it may be, and uses such experiences
to profit its own higher purpose. (20-1.175)
75
When a certain balance of forces is achieved,
something happens that can only be properly called "the birth of insight."
76
He who knows and feels the divine power in his
inmost being will be set free in the most literal sense of the word from
anxieties and cares. He who has not yet arrived at this stage but is on the way
to it can approach the same desirable result by the intensity of his faith in
that being. But such a one must really have the faith and not merely say so. The
proof that he possesses it would lie in the measure with which he refuses to
accept negative thoughts, fearful thoughts, despondent thoughts. In the measure
that he does not fail in his faith and hence in his thinking, in that measure,
the higher power will not fail to support him in his hour of need. This is why
Jesus told his disciples, "Take no anxious thought for the morrow." In the case
of the adept, having given up the ego, there is no one left to take care of him,
so the higher Self does so for him. In the case of the believer, although he has
not yet given up the ego, nevertheless, he is trying to do so, and his
unfaltering trust in the higher Self is rewarded proportionately in the same
way. In both cases the biblical phrase, "The Lord will provide," is not merely a
pious hope but a practical fact. (20-3.97)
77
The free soul has brought his thought and actions
into perfect harmony with Nature's morality. He lives not merely for himself
alone, but for himself as a part of the whole scheme. Consequently, he does not
injure others but only benefits them. He does not neglect his own benefit,
however, but makes the two work together. His activities are devoted to
fulfilling the duties and responsibilities set for him by his best wisdom, by
his higher self.
The world is necessarily affected by his presence and activities, and affected beneficially. First, the mere knowledge that such a man exists helps others to continue with their efforts at self-improvement, for they know then that the spiritual quest is not a vain dream but a practicable affair. Second, he influences those he meets to live better lives--whether they be few or many, influential or obscure. Third, he leaves behind a concentration of spiritual forces which works on for a long time, through other persons, after he leaves this world. Fourth, if he is a sage and balanced, he will always do something of a practical nature for the uplift of humanity instead of merely squatting in an ashram. (20-5.180)
78
A mystic experience is simply something which
comes and goes, whereas philosophic insight, once established in a man, can not
possibly leave him. He understands the Truth and can not lose this understanding
any more than an adult can lose his adulthood and become an infant. (20-4.198)
79
"Intuition" had come to lose its pristine value
for me. I cast about for a better one and found it in "insight." This term I
assigned to the highest knowing-faculty of sages and was thus able to treat the
term "intuition" as something inferior which was sometimes amazingly correct but
not infrequently hopelessly wrong in its guidance, reports, or premonition. I
further endeavoured to state what the old Asiatic sages had long ago stated,
that it was possible to unfold a faculty of direct insight into the nature of
the Overself, into the supreme reality of the universe, that this was the
highest kind of intuition possible to man, and that it did not concern itself
with lesser revelations, such as giving the name of a horse likely to win
tomorrow's race, a revelation which the kind of intuition we hear so much about
is sometimes able to do. (20-4.152)
80
Insight is a function of the entire psyche and not
of any single part of it.
81
This is the true insight, the permanent
illumination that neither comes nor goes but always is. While being
serious, where the event or situation requires it, he will not be solemn. For
behind this seriousness there is detachment. He cannot take the world of
Appearances as being Reality's final form. If he is a sharer in this world's
experiences, he is also a witness and especially a witness of his own ego--its
acts and desires, its thoughts and speech. And because he sees its littleness,
he keeps his sense of humour about all things concerning it, a touch of
lightness, a basic humility. Others may believe that he stands in the Great
Light, but he himself has no particular or ponderous self-importance. (20-4.205)
82
He who possesses insight does not have to use
arguments and reach conclusions. The truth is there, self-evident, inside
himself as himself, for his inner being has become one with it. (20-4.170)
83
Whenever I have used the term "the centre of his
being," I have referred to a state of meditation, to an experience which is felt
at a certain stage. Because the very art of meditation is a drawing inwards and
the finer, the more delicate, the subtler this indrawing becomes, the closer it
is to this central point of consciousness. But from the point of view of
philosophy, meditation and its experiences are not the ultimate goal--although
they may help in preparing one for that goal. In that goal there is no kind of
centre to be felt nor any circumference either--one is without being localized
anywhere with reference to the body, one is both in the body and in the
Overself. There is then no contradiction between the two. (20-4.136)
84
Philosophy seeks not only to know what is best in
life but also to love it. It wants to feel as well as think. The truth, being
above the common forms of these functions, can be grasped only by a higher
function that includes, fuses, and transcends them at one and the same
time--insight. In human life at its present stage of development, the nearest
activity to this one is the activity of intuition. From its uncommon and
infrequent visitations, we may gather some faint echo of what this wonderful
insight is. (20-4.150)
85
Attention is forever being caught by some thought
or some thing, by some feeling or some experience. In the case of the ordinary
man, consciousness is lost in the attention; but in the case of the philosophic
man there is a background which evaluates the attention and controls it.
(20-5.81)
86
Insight is the flower of reason and not its
negation.
87
The ever changing world-movement is suspended and
transcended in the mystical trance so that the mystic may perceive its hidden
changeless ground in the One Mind, whereas in the ultramystic insight its
activity is restored. For such insight easily penetrates it, and always sees
this ground without need to abolish the appearance. Consequently the philosopher
is aware that everyday activity is as much and as needful a field for him as
mystical passivity. Such expression, however, cannot be less than what he is
within himself through the possession of insight. Just as any man cannot express
himself as an ant, do what he may, simply because his human consciousness is too
large to be narrowed down to such a little field, so the philosopher cannot
separate his ultramystic insight from his moment-to-moment activity. In this
sense he has no option but to follow and practise the gospel of inspired action.
(20-4.203)
88
To arrive at great certitude is to arrive at great
strength. Truth not only clears the head but also arms the will. It is not only
a light to our feet but is itself a force in the blood. (20-5.196)
89
The mystic will not care and may not be able to do
so but the philosopher has to learn the art of combining his inward recognition
of the Void with his outward activity amongst things without feeling the
slightest conflict between both. Such an art is admittedly difficult but it can
be learnt with time and patience and comprehension. Thus he will feel inward
unity everywhere in this world of wonderful variety, just as he will experience
all the countless mutations of experience as being present in the very midst of
this unity. (20-4.121)
90
Where we speak either metaphysically or
meditationally of the experience of pure consciousness, we mean consciousness
uncoloured by the ego.
91
The mastery of philosophy will produce a supreme
self-confidence within him throughout his dealings with life. The man who knows
nothing of philosophy will declare that it has nothing to do with practical
affairs and that it will not help you to rise in your chosen career, for
instance. He is wrong. Philosophy gives its votary a thoroughly scientific and
practical outlook whilst it enables him to solve his problems unemotionally and
by the clear light of reason. He will, however, be under certain ethical
limitations from which other men are exempt, for he takes the game of living as
a sacred trust and not as a means for personal aggrandizement at the expense of
others. (20-1.176)
92
It may be said that the world's supreme need is
exactly what the illumined man has found, therefore his duty is to give it to
the world. This is true, but it is equally true that the world is not ready for
it any more than he himself was ready for it before he underwent a long course
of purification, discipline, and training. Accepting these realities of the
situation, he feels no urge to spread his ideas, no impulse to organize a
following. However that does not mean that he does nothing at all; it only means
that he will help in the ways he deems to be most effective even if they are the
least publicized and the least apparent. He is not deaf to the call of duty but
he gives it a wider interpretation than those who are ignorant of the state and
powers which he enjoys. (20-4.264)
94
Whoever attains this, the topmost peak of the
philosophic life, will naturally possess the capacity--rather the genius--to
help the internal evolutionary advance of mankind. Indeed, it will be the
principal and secret business of his life, whatever his external and
conventional business may be. Those who stood closest to Jesus were asked to
preach the gospel. Clearly therefore he conceived the spreading of truth to be
their primary task. That other tasks, such as feeding and clothing the poor, had
their own particular importance too, was acknowledged in his injunction to
other persons. But that such tasks were secondary ones is clear inference
from his instructions to the apostles. And in this critical passage of humanity
from a used-out standpoint to a newer one which confronts it today, such a
service is more than important. In his own humbler way and in a quiet
unobtrusive manner, remembering always that people will find the best account of
his beliefs in his deeds, even the neophyte who has still to climb the foothills
of philosophy can and must communicate so much of this knowledge as he finds men
may be ready for, but not an iota more. His task is not, like that of the
apostles, to convert them but to help them. He may be only a firefly with little
light to shed but he should desert the esotericism of former centuries and try
to enlighten others because he must understand the unique character of this
century and see the dangerous gaping abyss which surrounds its civilization.
Moreover he may take refuge in the words of Tripura, an archaic Sanskrit
text, which, if its archaic idiom be translated into modern accents, says: "An
intense student may be endowed with the slenderest of good qualities, but if he
can readily understand the truth--however theoretically--and expound it to
others, this act of exposition will help him to become himself imbued with these
ideas and his own mind will soak in their truth. This in the end will lead him
to actualize the Divinity within himself." (20-4.292)
95
When he first attains to this clear vision, he
sees not only that which brings him great joy but also that which brings him
great sorrow. He sees men bewildered by life, pained by life, blinded by life.
He sees them wandering into wrong paths because there is no one to lead them
into right ones. He sees them praying for light but surrounded by darkness. In
that hour he makes a decision which will fundamentally affect the whole of his
life. Henceforth he will intercede for these others, devote himself to their
spiritual service. (20-4.226)
96
After the desire for the fullest overshadowing by
the Overself, which must always be primal, his second desire is to spread out
the peace, understanding, and compassion which now burn like a flame within him,
to propagate an inward state rather than an intellectual dogma, to bless and
enlighten those who seek their divine parent. (20-4.227)
97
The man who lives in the physical senses alone
reaches and affects those other men only whom he can come into contact with
physically. He is entirely limited by time and space. The man who lives in the
developed intellect or feelings also reaches and affects those other men who can
respond to his written or printed ideas or his artistic inspirations. He is
limited only partially by time and space. But the man who lives in the godlike
Overself within him is freed from time and space and uplifts all those who can
respond intuitively, even though they may never know him physically. For in the
spiritual world he cannot hide his light. (20-4.263)
98
The philosopher accepts his predestined isolation
not only because that is the way his position has to be, but also because his
physical presence arouses negative feelings in the hearts of ordinary people as
it arouses positive ones in the hearts of certain seekers. The negatives may
range all the way from puzzlement, bewilderment, and suspicion to fear,
opposition, and downright enmity. The positives may range from instinctive
attraction to a readiness to lay down life in his defense or service. All these
feelings arise instantly, irrationally, and instinctively. And they are
unconnected with whether or not he reveals his true personal identity. This is
because they are the consequence of a psychical impingement of his aura upon
theirs. The contact is unseen and unapparent in the physical world, but it is
very real in the mental-emotional world. It is truly a psychical experience for
both: clear and precise and correctly understood by him, vague and disturbing
and utterly misunderstood by ordinary people as well as pseudo-questers. It is
both a psychical and a mystical experience for those genuine questers with whom
he has some inward affinity, a glad recognition of a long-lost, much revered
Elder Brother. Unfortunately, despite the generous compassion and enormous
goodwill which he bears in his heart for all alike, it is the unpleasant
contacts which make up the larger number whenever the philosopher descends into
the world. Let him not be blamed if he prefers solitude to society. For there is
nothing he can do about it. People are what they are. Most times when he tries
to make himself agreeable to them, as though they both belonged to the same
spiritual level, he fails. He learns somewhat wearily to accept his isolation
and their limitation as inevitable and, at the present stage of human evolution,
unalterable. He learns, too, that it is futile to desire these things to be
otherwise. (20-5.151)
99
The peace to which he has become heir is not
self-absorbed rest from old activities that he deserts, but a divine awareness
that subsists beneath new ones that he accepts. (20-4.225)