LECTURE
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
© The School of Truth
Source p. 14, Feb / Mar 2008 - The Path of Truth
The grandeur of man's nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions. His powers of intellect, of conscience, of love, of knowing God, of perceiving the beautiful, acting on his own mind, on outward nature, and on his fellow-creatures - these are glorious prerogatives. - Channing.
It may come as a surprise to many of us to be told that the most vital aspect of our spiritual life is the times through which we are passing, it is not how much of God we are able to appropriate to ourselves in terms of personal problems solved and blessings received, but rather how can we become more effective instruments in His service; in the giving of ourselves so that His spirit may radiate through us in helping to lift the burden of spiritual ignorance and its consequent suffering from our world.
When the Christ said that we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and then the "things" that we desired would be added, He did not mean that the sole purpose of our search for God should be in order to get the things. In fact, He emphasized in His deeper teaching that we should "take no thought" for them as the Father knew what we had need of before we asked Him.
The motivation of our effort should be to seek Him "in spirit and in truth" for His own sake and it would follow naturally - according to the sincerity of our seeking - that the things that were necessary for our spiritual unfoldment and therefore for our highest good would be made manifest.
It would be well for us to ponder on this distinction between these two approaches to God. The Christ knew that unless we understood it we would be in danger of concentrating the development of our consciousness more on the "things" we desired than on the spiritual kingdom where God, in His essential nature, was to be found. From this would inevitably follow our increasing attachment to, and our placing undue value on, the material and physical and there would be, unrecognized by us, a dimming of our spiritual consciousness, the cultivation of a false sense of spiritual values and, consequently, an insidious but nevertheless real barrier to our entering the kingdom.
His kingdom, the Christ stated, was not of this world (the world of phenomena as we understand it), and He pointed out with subtle meaning that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Not that riches in itself was to be deplored, but that the unbalanced preoccupation with it and the negative state of consciousness it could hinder his true spiritual progress. He knew of the pitfalls on the Path that lay in our well-intentioned but unwise materialization of spiritual concepts, and how this focusing of our attention on the often ignorant and, unknown to us, indiscriminate desires of the personality would inhibit the unfoldment of the powers of the soul - the evolving spiritual being which is the REAL man.
In this age it is essential that we concern ourselves not so much with the quest for things but with the development of qualities, the strengthening of character, and a reorientation of our thought in our relationship with God and our fellow beings. Prior to this, our main incentive in seeking God has been for the alleviation of our personal trials and tribulations and the replacement of these by more health, happiness, and prosperity. While this has been an understandable desire and we have all in one way or another experienced divine aid - which is constantly being given - in helping us surmount the many difficulties that have appeared in our lives, the present urgent need is that we raise our spiritual vision to a higher level. In so doing not only shall we get closer to seeking God "in spirit and in truth", but we shall increasingly succeed in mastering that most obstinate obstacle to the attainment of spiritual poise and power and the cause of all our troubles - the ignorant little self, the personality.
We may remember the words of the Christ to the apostles and which carry the essence of His Teaching: "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
In this quotation from St John we have the 'statement' of a universal spiritual principle and in which we may note the quality so needful to our spiritual growth - not merely unselfishness, but selflessness.
Were we to be strictly honest with ourselves and impersonally objective, we would have to admit that by far the greater measure of our seeking for God has been motivated by the desire to experience what God could give us, whether it be health, wealth, happiness, position, or power. We have sincerely tried to express love and trust and so on, but always there has been the expectation of something visible in return for our efforts. Frequently there has been this "reward" and we have felt grateful, but the whole object of the exercise has been a giving of ourselves in order for there to be a receiving of ourselves. We have fallen short in entering into the spirit of Truth and its intrinsic meaning, for we have not given without thought of return. We have not yet grown completely to accept that "the Father knoweth what things we have need of, before we ask Him."
But as inner growth proceeds the soul exerts increasing influence on the mind and emotions of its temporary vehicle, the personality, seeking to make of it a more effective instrument through which it (the soul) may express its higher knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in unselfish action towards all its fellow beings.
For on its own plane of consciousness the soul knows its oneness with all other souls, but has not yet managed to build for itself a sufficiently developed personality at the physical level with which it has been able fully to integrate itself and thus manifest its powers at this lower level.
The divine urge from within calls for a change in the focus of man’s consciousness. His thoughts, feelings, and actions are not so strongly wrapped up in a concern for his own well-being but are being directed towards his fellowmen in help and upliftment. The love side of his nature is beginning to manifest itself unselfishly, firstly in his will-to-do-good and then spontaneously and gladly in goodwill towards all. Mentally he is starting to see and, because of his mental apprehension, to feel emotionally the great spiritual principle of unity governing the human race.
At the moment man is governed mainly by his feelings and emotions for his higher principle, the mind, has not yet become as active and mature as it will be in the future. Because of this emotional predominance he is, generally speaking and to a greater or lesser degree, still selfish in his attitudes and reactions. His ego is highly sensitive to what it regards as transgressions on its territory, be they mental, emotional, or physical. But as the mind matures, its horizons are pushed back and man develops height and depth of vision. This is the beginning of spiritual perception and insight, and it is the hope of mankind.
No matter what the object of man's quest may be, he cannot begin to have any feelings about it until he first has a mental concept of it, be it shallow or profound. As he increases in spiritual stature his mind, supported by his spiritual will, becomes more discreetly selective and wisely discriminates and exercises control over his feelings and emotions; for without his guiding factor they can lead him, with the best of intentions, into much trouble. Later, his intuition will become more active - and the intuition is the plane of consciousness which the Greek knowers call "pure reason". It supersedes the plane of the intellect - which arrives at conclusions by weighing up pros and cons - in that it understands the nature of a problem in its completeness and instantly knows the answer, which it then works down into the feelings and gives man the incentive to act.
We stress the importance of this relationship between the mind and the emotions because it is only through their united action, spurred by unselfish purpose, that our consciousness can expand into the higher spiritual levels where we can perceive the truth alluded to by the Christ, that the more we are engrossed in our own well-being, the more separative do we become, thus unknowingly erecting a barrier between ourselves and that spiritual kingdom the Christ enjoined us to seek first. And herein lies the spiritual challenge of this age.
When man is able to perceive with his mental vision that the human race is an expression of God and that in essence we are all members of one another by virtue of the fact that we embody the one Divine Life, he will understand that it is not in working against the other members that he achieves his own salvation; but by co-operating with them in a spirit of goodwill and helpfulness he contributes to the good of the whole.
What we have said in the foregoing may seem a far cry from seeking our own personal kingdom of God, but this kingdom we shall not be able to enter until we have the risen consciousness where we can know, understand, and feel our oneness with all life.
As the Christ emphasized, the key to the gates of this kingdom is love, not as the pale reflection of it that we envisage it to be at our present standard of spiritual growth, but love that is universal, embracing all life in all the Kingdoms of nature, and in which there is no sense of separation.
People in all lands, of all races and colours, are striving to bring this spiritual vision of goodwill toward all men to fruition. As we look around us we may see with our physical eyes more division and strife than unity and cooperation, but to the spiritually perceptive there are signs everywhere that a new spirit is in the process of germination. Men are beginning to realise, even if unconsciously at first, that it is wiser to talk than to fight, to share than to hoard, to unite than to divide. The initial motivation may be fear, but from fear will spring wisdom - the desire to be and do the right because it is right, and not because they fear to do wrong.
Lecture Index
Return
The School of Truth
Return