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Living in The World
A play of opposites
Is this a world of exile from our spiritual home or is it a world of education for our spiritual home? If it is the first then all experience gained in it is worthless and useless. But if it is the second then every experience has meaning and is related to this universal purpose. The truth does not lie wholly with the Hindus, who liken life to the illusions of dream, nor with the Buddhists, who despise it as a burden and a misery, nor with the hedonists, who value it only for the pleasure it yields. Surely the truth must contain and reconcile all these points of view? Where is the incentive to improve oneself or society, to make something of one's career, one's life, to be ambitious or enjoy art--what is there to live for if everything is illusion? The value which so many put on life is paltry compared with its real value. No man has any choice as to whether or not he should seek the kingdom of heaven, his higher Spiritual Self. Every man is seeking it, knowingly or unwittingly, and is preordained to do so. There is no escape. There is no satisfaction for him outside it. It is not necessary to divide mankind into two categories--the believers and the infidels--for all alike are on this quest, only many do not know it. The difference is that the seeker consciously enters on this quest whereas the ordinary man, although also pursuing it, does so blindly and unknowingly. Many persons mistakenly suppose that they have escaped from difficult problems by avoiding the environments or the individuals associated with those problems. This is mere escapism, useful as a relief but useless as a final and sole solution. What matters is not only the quality of a man's consciousness but also the quality of his day-to-day living, not only the rare special mystical ecstasies that may grace his experience but also his relationship with the contemporary world and his attitude toward it. It is not enough to be a mystic: he cannot avoid the common road which all men must travel. In brief, can he be in the world but not of it? Can he sanctify the ordinary, the customary; those actions, this business, that very work for a livelihood; the contacts with family, friends, critics, and enemies? After all he is a human being with personal concerns; he cannot live for twenty-four hours a day in abstract ideas alone, or in religious withdrawnness: he has a body of flesh, a relevant duty or responsibility to perform in the world outside.(P) To refuse to explore experience for its meaning by denying its very existence, merely because it is painful experience, is simply to evade the very purpose of incarnation here on earth. It is only by striving to understand the significance of what happens to us, only by drawing out the lessons of life from it, that the higher truth about one's self and about the universe can ever reveal itself. Common sense is still needed here. We are in the body; we are surrounded by the world. It would be hypocritical to dismiss the first as non-existent and reject identification with it. And to talk as if one could even thrust the second away would be madness and self-contradiction. It is utterly absurd to ignore the potent effect of one's surroundings, to try to put them aside as unimportant, to write them off in forgetfulness, to deny their existence as mere illusion, or even to consider such efforts as an indispensable part of spiritual training. Our very existence as persons makes it necessary to give proper attention to the body and its needs, and to the worldly surroundings in which it lives. They cannot be dismissed, much less despised, without falling into an insane mysticism or an off-balance metaphysics. Those who reject the external order of things are as foolish as those who reject the eternal order. The unsolved problems which life in the world has brought him represent either debts requiring payment or weaknesses requiring amendment. If they are too much for him, flight to some peaceful retreat in Nature's green solitudes may offer relief--for a time. Such desertion of the world is not wrong, provided he uses it to help prepare himself for an eventual solution of the problems. A reincarnated monk may tend to seek the haven of a cloister through inability or unwillingness to cope with a world which is admittedly difficult to cope with. Yet the world offers him an experience which may be just what he needs to draw out latent forces. Life forces him to pay attention to the world: its denial in metaphysics or dismissal in yoga does not invalidate this necessity. We must respect the facts of experience even though we try to transcend them. It is not enough to look into himself. Even if he does find the kingdom of heaven there, Nature compels him to look out of himself too. The worldly realities have to be recognized for what they are, treated with respect, and behaviour must be brought into accordance with them. What is the use of denying the world as "unreal," of dismissing the body as "nothing," as I have heard Indian mystics do, when all the time both are obstinately present to the senses and dominant in the mind? The world has to be dealt with, the body has to be tended, whatever views, opinions, or beliefs one holds. Meeting the needs of physical existence is a justifiable and necessary duty if one is to survive. This involves realistic acknowledgment of the body's functions and practical connection with the world around. It is not the goal to be unaware of the hard realities around him. To throw away external experience is to throw away man's third-best tutor. Life also has its voice and speaks in this way to correct wrong theory and to discipline wrong action. The transcendental intelligence behind our personality has put us in this world neither to deny it nor to hide from it, but to accept it and learn its valuable lesson. An intellectual recognition of the transiency of life is not the same as a temperamental despondency about life. The first may be allied with enthusiasm, serenity, and humour but the other may not. If anyone feels the truth of Shakespeare's lament that "time will come and take my love away," if he complains that worldly transiency mars his pleasure in favourable circumstances, he ought also to rejoice that the same transiency mellows his pain in untoward circumstances, for time is just as likely to take them away too! By abandoning so-called security, he finds a real freedom. The very treasures for which they lose their ideals, their morality, eventually slip away from them, as if to teach a lesson. During times of great suffering, he may best countenance his bereavement by taking it as a reminder of the transiency of earthly life, and of the necessity to cultivate the interior life of spiritual growth. By so doing, he helps himself and also others. Man's life is not a static square: it is a turning circle. Change is either coming or leaving him at some point, in his mind, body, or circumstance. It is in the nature of all things that they must perish, of all possessions that they must pass into other hands, of all desires that their satisfaction shall bring with it an accompaniment or a consequence that is not desirable. But to dwell only on this aspect is to become wrapped in negativity and obsessed by it. All worldly happiness suffers from being incomplete and imperfect. Most worldly happiness is transient and unstable. All mortal unions which begin in one year must be ended in another, must be divided after short or long time. One must learn how to stand alone if need be. He must needs attend to the things of earth and self. But if he over-attends to them, if he dwells over-long in their midst, then loss, pain, or death will come to teach him the lesson of their transience. The uncertainty of fortune and the brevity of satisfaction are two lessons of our time.Status of the herd
We who are spiritually minded move against a background which is materialistic and uninspired. The tragic antithesis between the divine and the material afflicts us at every turn. Those who are seeking material fulfilment are at cross-purposes with those who are not; the one group is obeying the law of its being just as much as the other, yet they are moving in opposite directions. It is not that they do not understand each other's tongues so much as that they do not understand each other's emotions. Such is the wide difference between men for whom the quest is nothing and those for whom it is everything. The difficulties of being completely honest, truthful, and sincere, of keeping to idealism in a materialistic or mad world, afflict only the living. The dead are luckier. Not for them the compromises, the white lies, the half-measures, and the glib hypocrisies. To recognize any situation as factual is one thing, but to reconcile it with spiritual life is another. The quest's ideals draw him one way, the world's temptations pull him otherwise. His problem is how to stay in the world and do the world's work without losing his spiritual integrity. Down through the centuries there have always been men who made hearsay their truth, appearances their reality, and conformity their virtue. They are the gregarious many, the countless victims of those twin illusions: the ego and the world. Most men are enslaved by things and nearly all men by thoughts. They know nothing of the tremendous sensation of freedom which comes from the philosophic insight into both. There are millions of men and women living today whose whole conception of life is so entirely materialistic that they not only do not comprehend a spiritual conception, but do not even want to comprehend it. They find a completely worldly life sufficient for their needs. They do not want, do not miss, and are quite indifferent towards spiritual things. Most people react mechanically, not creatively, to surroundings and situation, events and persons. In this they are like children and animals, not like truly and fully human beings acting from knowledge and power. The present state of the masses is hardly to be envied. Lives of humdrum toil, varied by a little sensual excitement, existences estranged from true happiness--the divine calm of the spirit is remote from them. They readily fill all the day and even part of the night with activities intended to satisfy their worldly desires but grudge the few minutes required to satisfy their spiritual aspirations through prayer and meditation. Time, which is flowing like a tidal river through and away from their lives, thus carries them farther away from--and not nearer to--the higher purpose for whose realization they were sent into bodies on this earth. They are too concerned with earning their livelihoods, with the members of their families, and with attending to personal wants to bestow thought upon such abstract topics as life's higher meaning. They are not to be blamed but they are also not to be imitated. In the ordinary man there is no desire constantly to improve the moral nature, no hunger imperatively to enter the mystical consciousness. Spiritually, he is in a state of inertia, unwilling and unready to use any initiative in enlarging the horizons of the ego. Most, but not all, of this inner laziness can be traced to the fact that he is the victim of his own past, the prisoner of his own particular innate tendencies and habitual thinking. Nevertheless, the same evolutionary process which has placed him where he now is will also advance him to a higher point. The truth is that few wish to trouble themselves with following such a way of regeneration, and most prefer the comfortable sloth of accepting their deficiencies as normal qualities of the human being. Therefore they allow one thing after another, one event after another, to detain them from making the mystical ascent and so waste a whole incarnation before they are even aware that it is wasted. Is their spiritual life to wait like a whining beggar on those intervals of leisure which a materialistic existence throws them like sops to Cerberus? Some aspirants have even turned away from the quest because other things claimed a stronger interest. Others have given up its goal simply because they believe it to be unattainable. And then there are those who are literally afraid of devoting themselves to the quest. It seems in their eyes to demand too much or give too little. The first interest of the common people today is better economic conditions. The interest in religion, if it comes at all into their lives, is naturally somewhat distant from this one. The interest in mysticism, if it manifests in groups here and there, is still more distant from it. The interest in philosophy, if it awakens in a few individuals, is so far off from the interest in improving their lot as to be almost shadowy. Those who are uninterested in any higher purpose, meaning, or activity which transcends their routine lives, who are spiritually unconscious, are to be neither condemned nor defended. They are simply immature. In what way have the basic desires of people today changed from those of four, three, two, one thousand years ago? Shelter, food, sex, and clothes are still sought now as then. But the forms they have taken and the opinions or beliefs held about them have changed. Man as a sense-bound beast is in conflict with man as a spiritual being. Those who are satisfied to remain with their animal instincts form the larger group. Those who are struggling to advance beyond them form the smaller one. Some say change systems if you want to improve men. Their opponents say change men if you want to change systems. Both state partial truths, both suffer from their limitation of refusing to acknowledge that the argument of the other side is essential to a complete judgement. The animal hungers and aggressive urges in human nature account for many or most of our more serious troubles: they cannot be altered as easily as we alter policies. If men will not use their intelligence to examine and sift their traditional inheritances, social and individual, they must expect to suffer the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children. Most are conventional; they do not like to appear unusual. They feel uneasy if they are with someone different from others. This makes them good citizens and communally helpful. All these people have lost flesh-and-blood reality; they seem like marionettes, directed here and there by egoistic motives or animal reflexes in some cosmic play. As they get more "civilized," their way of living gets more artificial, unnatural, and insensitive. How else explain the foods they eat, the noises they endure, the doctrines they espouse, and the tasks they toil at? Theirs is the happiness of slaves and prisoners, slaves to the senses and prisoners of the body. It is the happiness of ignorance because it does not know what joy and freedom, what calm and beauty, lie beyond both. Unfeeling toward these delicate vibrations, unaware of the nature of soul, they pass by the gate of the kingdom of heaven in ignorance of its existence and worth. Caught up in all the trivialities of daily living, never having time for That which life is really all about, they should not wonder that their end is either a secret sorrow or a complacent self-deception. The fact is that the truth has forever been open to mankind but man has rarely opened himself to the truth. Of what use to offer the subtlest ideas and most refined sentiments of philosophy to crude, untutored minds which could see only madness in mentalism, only horror in ego-merger, and which responds so predominantly to animal instincts? Our age is too ready with its cynicism, too sure of its materialism. The man who has no awareness of his true self enjoys a certain sense of real living but it is largely a self-deceptive enjoyment. Just because they move about and engage themselves actively they believe they are getting on, but that could be an illusion. Many get nowhere but find this out only when it is too late. Modern man does not usually know that he is unwhole, divided in himself and ignorant of himself, and that the healing of this division is essential to health and happiness. Those who respond to the dictations and commands of authority form the largest group--the masses. Those who respond to the directives of their intellect form the next one. Those who respond to their own intuitive determinations form the smallest group. It is natural for a generation which thinks that being sophisticated means being intelligent to think also that being spiritual means being idiotic. The average life is commonplace and repetitive; the average mind is inert and asleep. They have no higher conception of themselves and hence no ideal to strive for. This inner emptiness of their lives results in boredom, depression, irritation, and confusion. Modern man lives in his body for material ends, almost independently of the rest of him. He has run his head into the noose of one-sided life. To exploit the physical resources of Nature is not materialism, but to make such exploitation the chief purpose of human existence is materialism. There is no peace in our restless daily existence, no poise in our restless minds and hearts. We are wealthy in techniques and skills, poor in wisdom and insight. We have too much selfishness, too little goodness. Most of us are caught in a tangled web of activity, but few of us seek release from it. If we examine the enormous volume of writing appearing in novel and play, film and radio, we shall find that two themes dominate. Scripts on crime or violence, sexual adultery or promiscuity, occupy more time than any other subjects. Sadism and salaciousness are human distortions, the development of animal attributes channelled through the human intellect--the very attributes which, as remnants of our prehuman stage of existence, are now in line to be overcome and eradicated if we are to conform to evolutionary purpose. The fact is that most people are unacquainted with the mystical point of view, uninformed about mystical teachings, and unattracted by mystical practices. This is partly because there are few mystics in the world and not much reliable information about mysticism, and partly because the dominating trends of most people are materialistic ones. The values which they consider the most important are sensuous ones. The contempt of mysticism prevails among so many who do not know what mysticism even means. So long as human beings do not know and feel their real being within the greater being of God, so long will friction and hostility prevail among them. Beauty is too noticeably absent from their minds, manners, and homes; truth is not an idea whose discovery would be exciting; goodness is taken for granted but only on the most ordinary bourgeois level. All their ideas of truth are limited by the illusions, falsities, uglinesses, and weaknesses which limit and hold their own minds. When Radhakrishnan was sent as the first ambassador to Russia of the newly created Indian Republic and presented his credentials to Stalin, the latter, on learning that his visitor was a professor of philosophy, answered, "We have to fill the people's bellies first, not teach them philosophy." This reminded me of Napoleon's visit to one of the Italian universities after his army had victoriously crossed the border for the first time by crossing the Alps. He went through some of the rooms in the university and came into one where a class was being taught. On learning that the students were being taught metaphysics he exclaimed, "Bah!" and went out. What is behind the attitude of those two men, Stalin and Napoleon, an attitude we often come across in less exalted circles? Is it not that people realize that a man who is hungry because of his poverty and inability to buy enough food is unlikely to be able to put his mind into the creation of art for its own sake or to think of lofty abstract ideas for their own sake with sufficient concentration? Most people live upon the mere surface of their consciousness, knowing nothing of the great Power and intelligence which support it. Those who are so immersed in outer activities that they have no inner life at all die before they are dead. At one extreme are those who are held captive by convention; at the other, those who delight in flouting public opinion. The common attitude regards that which is beyond a man's comprehension as being therefore beyond his concern. The peasant mentality is a stable, solid, and reliable thing but it is unashamedly interested only in the smaller concerns of life. It would be openly materialistic too were it not for the inheritance of a conservative tradition of conformity to religion, strong but narrow, outward, and superstitious. That it has little time or use for culture is obvious. All these people are trying to evade personal responsibility by finding someone else to make their decisions and be responsible for the results, someone behind whom they can hide from the world's stresses and under whose aegis they can shirk the necessities of thinking, willing, and experiencing. Their need is for definite, invigorating ideas which will deliver them from wearisome perplexity and for an illuminating faith by which to live in a darkened world. There is no inner aim, no spiritual significance, no worthwhile objective in their lives. They move through the years towards--nothing. They move from action to action without any consistency of principle. They grope through life like players in a game of blindman's bluff. They either do not know how to conduct their existence or else they fail to conduct it in the right way. In both cases they need help, guidance, direction. But unasked-for advice is unwelcome. The conventional attitude which left Mozart to die in a pauper's grave but set up elaborate marble monuments to numerous mediocrities is not one to be admired. It will not be by surrounding men with social benefits that they will take to the spiritual path. America is evidence of that. On the other hand, excessive deprivation of such benefits is equally an obstacle, for it continuously concentrates the immature mind on physical needs. What is needed, therefore, is a safe balance between these two extremes. The masses should also be given what they inwardly need, not always and only what they demand. It is often the minorities who hold the better views, for wisdom is not usually in the majority. Today the mass-man resents the idea that anyone is better than he is, or entitled to more than he has. He demands equality in every way, from sharing responsibility to sharing rewards. Education, which was to have made him a gentleman, has missed the mark and made him a grumbling complainant, full of demands. In ordinary times the less evolved masses were not pressed to accept a faith far beyond their mental reach or to submit to an ascetic discipline which they could not bear. But these are extraordinary times. The young postwar generation has an intelligence quotient nearly one-third higher than the earlier ones. The desire for knowledge is world-wide. Their interests revolve only around themselves, or around those lengthenings of themselves called families. The lack of time given in everyday living to religious devotion, let alone mystical practice, is partly responsible for the materialistic tone of society and, indirectly, for the moral degradation of society. How few nourish their character on high principles, how many on cynical opportunism! The masses float conventionally with the stream of religious authority; the individualized swim against it. The many merely echo what they have heard, like parrots; the few investigate it. "There is nothing more absurd than to be of the same mind with the generality of men, for they have entertained many gross errors which time and experience have confuted. It is indeed our sluggishness and incredulity that hinder all discoveries, for men contribute nothing towards them than their contempt or, what is worse, their malice."--from The Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, 1652 They who reject the Quest live to no purpose beyond living itself, to no higher end than satisfying natural necessities. They are unlikely to recognize a true teacher, much less respond to him. Millions of people accept and hold certain beliefs because they get comfort from them, not because they have verified them and found them true. They are treating emotional pleasure as a better guide than rational judgement. When life has cheated their hopes and illness has darkened their years, their shallowness and frivolity may appear insufficient and inadequate. The soul-suffocating conditions of repetitive factory work creates not only an unhealthy boredom, but also an insensitivity to the finer things of life. The lower self seems uppermost in humanity and directs its activities. The higher self is something unreal, remote, and impossible. This blind unwillingness to see that man is more than his body has multiplied crime and dissolved virtue. Those existentialists who find life meaningless must themselves necessarily become aimless. They live for no worthy purpose, certainly for no high one, and so they live largely in vain. Men of unlit minds will either humbly respect such a teaching or impulsively scoff at it. The world is not ready for a fresh mystical revelation, not ready to follow a new religious seer, because it is not ready for a self-denying and flesh-denying life. It would not know what to do with such a revelation and it could not accept the discipline preached by such a seer. What is it that motivates these people? First it is selfishness, second it is materialism, third it is inertia. But the selfishness is often masked under the guise of tradition, the materialism is often hidden under the form of religion, and the inertia is often covered by convention. Where vulgarians throng to dance and barbarians eat corpses, there philosophy must isolate itself, withdrawn, while the karmic hurricane collects itself. They are not sinners but mummies. Even sinners may be vital, may repent; but these are the dead-in-life, stiff with bourgeois hypocrisy and conventionality. If they are without virtue, faith, moral principle, and God, the cause can be summed up as simple lack of interest in such matters. In the end the psycho-physical progress of the mass depends upon that of the individual. In the end society consists of its individual members. They are the materials out of which it is built. How then can it be better in quality than the general average of their individual quality? In the past only a small number of persons had the interest, the equipment, or the time for such a quest. In the future there will be many more. But in the present, though the interest grows and the information swells, the limits remain. The hunger for reality does not take a philosophical form in the less evolved herd. It may there take a political form, a social form, an emotional form, and so on. Only with the herd's own evolution will its awareness of the true objective evolve. We are half-formed creatures, with only parts of us developed. The whole Man is yet to come. Only when society reaches a higher level, when civilization evolves to a finer state than exists at present, can we expect that the proper respect and appreciation will be given to those higher truths literally shining with light to which only a comparative few give themselves. If men do not have sufficient vision to see the importance of philosophy, that is not their fault any more than it is the fault of a tender plant not to be a mature tree. Business can render honest useful service to society without falling into the absurd self-flattery and the blatant charlatanry of its publicity. Its easy ethical attitudes and easy surrender to economic pressures are responsible for the wholesale perversion of a profession such as writing. The advertisement which fails to go into hypocritical rhapsodies about some very ordinary product is uncommon. The advertisement writer who fails to hypnotize himself into seeing or imagining all kinds of exaggerated virtues about a product is uncommon. The advertised description which honestly tells you both what is right and what is wrong with the product is nonexistent. Such publication of the half-lie as if it were the whole truth, of the cheap and sensational or the exaggerated and misrepresentative, is another form of that crude immature culture whose world-spread is so rapid in our time. Every important source of ideas, whether it be the press, literature, radio and film, the arts, or the schools and colleges needs to be brought into line with this ultimate purpose of moral and spiritual re-education. The masses listen to scraps of news with eagerness as it pours out of the radio, as it is illustrated by the television, or as it is printed in the journals published every day. In this way their curiosity is momentarily satisfied, but only momentarily. It arises afresh day after day until it becomes a thirst.There are two points of interest here which may not be generally noticed. The first is that curiosity is not all bad--it is a kind of caricature of the desire to know and to understand. It is related, if rather remotely, to that wonder which Plato said is a beginning of philosophy. The second point is that the satisfaction of continuing this curiosity scatters attention until the scattered condition becomes a permanent part of the mental character. Philosophy departs from this state through sustained interest in its study, concentrated practised attention in its meditation, and independent thought for its application in living. All these run counter to the scattered mental condition of the mass of mankind.
Most advertising depends on the power of suggestion, not on service. Therefore it is selfish, to some extent hypocritical. The sort of journalism, and today even literature, which is mere backbiting gossip in print expresses the affinity of writer with reader; both fit this low plane. The great technical advances which have been made in the past two centuries have not been made without cost. Before that period the psychiatrist was unknown because his service was not needed. Although man has done so much to improve his environment, he has also done much harm to himself. His nerve system and his muscular system are markedly weaker, his emotional nature more frayed and unstable, his faith in and sensitivity to the higher power markedly less. Many of the forms of so-called progress which we have seen in the past century and a half were really corrections of the evils which the beginning of the Industrial Age had brought into being. They were not really new forms, real progress, but rather rectification of the wrongs we had done. Cities have grown immense in many countries, bringing many evils, difficulties, and problems which never existed before. The machine which can do so much to help us if used with wisdom and caution has become a Frankenstein. Chemicals have followed the same path in medicine and food, making it more difficult to get pure food, or to get well-healed without introducing new and hostile complications.Of course, a world-wide spiritual awakening--by which I do not mean a merely religious awakening--could also remove the threat of self-destruction. But this century has been a period of challenge, and it is for the human beings to accept this challenge and rise to it positively if they want a positive result. So far we have seen mostly that the high degree of knowledge and skill which science has developed has been developed on a lavish scale financially for the weapons and instruments of destruction, and much less for pacific purposes.
If this short survey of the situation seems depressing, it will not alter the general structure of the World-Idea. The cycles through which we pass, the grim and the grand, must one day also bring us to a union of this high intellectual development exemplified by science with the less materialistic and gentler ideals which originally spread out from the East.
Progress must be meticulously and carefully defined as a theory, and the facts offered in proof of it must be as full and complete as possible, so that their adverse side may be included as well as their beneficial side--a point which becomes very obvious in the case of science. Therefore, it is not enough to point out the magnificent progress of technical, engineering, and scientific activities; there must also be a scrupulous examination of the pollutions and sicknesses, the dangers and hazards which they have brought into existence. The same critical examination is needed for the moral, the ethical, the religious, and the metaphysical progress of scholarly activities. Without unreasonably rejecting the contributions of modern ways of living or the useful arts of twentieth-century civilization, or the practical techniques of science and industry, we may still refuse to let them dominate us to such an extent that the intuitive elements in human nature are overwhelmed and lost. We must complement and balance them. The whirring machine is not a sin against life but rather a part of its larger fulfilment. For man cannot improve his intelligence without inventing machines. Ascetics, mystics, and sentimentalists who complain that the machine has maimed and killed should also remember that it has served and saved. And when the same people mourn over the lost Arcadian happiness of primitive mankind they might remember that men who lived in frequent fear of wild beasts and hostile tribes could not have been ideally happy. We have done much to improve the architecture of a house but little to expand the consciousness of the person who lives in it. If industrial civilization has enriched our outer life it has also impoverished the inner life. It need not have done so if we had brought about a proper equilibrium between the two and if we had done so under the light of the guiding principle of what we are here on earth for.(P) We fuss about with so many things that we miss the fundamental and profoundest thing of all. Peace, inward beauty, and sanity are singularly absent from the mad, mechanized life of our large cities. The victims of modern civilization are supposed to have more leisure. But do they really have it? Mass-production of goods may cheapen their cost and thus spread their use, but this benefit is offset by the loss of the craftsman's skill, the artist's individuality. Everything has to be paid for, as always. We get nothing for nothing. We live in a condition of spiritual languor, of lost spiritual vision, and decayed intuition. Our mistakes have been to make the body's possessions and comforts, its machines and devices, so sufficient unto themselves that the mind's higher needs have been overlooked or brushed aside. The discontent, rebelliousness, bitterness, and violence on the part of workers in industry which we have seen rising like a tide through the past century, in several cases ending in open revolution is not altogether or rather only a matter of more wages and fewer working hours. It is also a matter of the kind of work which they have to do. When men work with machines they get worked upon by the machines themselves, they begin to lose their humanness and become more mechanical. And if the work is a mere repetition of a previous operation done at speed--as we saw theatrically presented in Charles Chaplin's film Modern Times--the worker's situation psychologically gets worse. The dehumanization of large masses of people creates negative emotions and materialistic thoughts within them. This is not to say that the machine is an evil thing. It has its place, especially where it saves unpleasant, dirty, or fatiguing labour. This is only to say that it should be kept in its place and not allowed to overwhelm the worker inwardly. It is less urgent to invent new mechanical devices than it is to correct old moral defects. A wife and mother of three children who went out daily to work told me feelingly how much the automatic washing machine had meant to her in saved toil and time, how greatly it had relieved her from the dismaying burden of the family laundry. Here was a vivid and incontestable instance of machinery's positive value and necessary place in human life. We have had proof enough that without a prior or accompanying spiritual growth, technical improvements lead to mixed evil and good results--with the evil ones always in excess. We moderns have tried to make Nature serve our purposes. We have built a civilization on science and technology. But in the process of making material things our slaves, we have ourselves become slaves to them. The present spectacle affords ironic evidence of the paradoxical nature of our vaunted "progress." The products of applied science, the inventions of modern industry, and the energies which drive engines need not have evil consequences if they are used in inner freedom, not in enslavement. The man of an earlier generation who looked through the slot of Edison's kinetoscope and was thrilled by what he saw would be pitied by cinema-audiences of the present generation for getting so much emotion out of so little an experience--such is the complacency bred by familiarity. We live in an age of division of labour. It may make for industrial efficiency for a man to spend his whole life putting the heads on pins, but I fancy that he will be something less than a man at the end of fifty years. The artisans of old time, both in Europe and Asia, were equipped to practise all of a craft or even several arts at once. Moreover they created their own designs and then executed them by their own hands. The machine may be used against men and women, as in war, or for them, as in peace. The ascetic notion, popularized by such men as Tolstoy and Gandhi, that it is necessarily harmful and always evil is unphilosophical.Reconciling the mystical and mundane
Is it really necessary to choose between the way of the world, which leads to the possession of things, and the way of the Spirit, which leads to the possession of oneself? Again paradox is truth. The brevity of life, possessions, beauty, and such is true and good reason to abandon all: world, love, and so on. But the opposite is also true. We can enjoy beauty, life, and all the rest if detached. So both sides together equal the whole truth. So I join no sect or teaching--alone. In the true concept of spiritual life, there is plenty of space for the rational, normal, and practical life also. To work effectively in this world of everyday without repudiating or forgetting the world of the Spirit--this is his duty. This mystical preachment on the gospel of inspired action is written for those who find themselves tangled up in the affairs of this world and must make the best of it. I counsel them to make the best of it by making the better of their inner life. I suggest that it is better to aspire aright and rise spiritually than to remain like a stagnant pool. And I would remind them that their worldly work can be carried out on a basis of service plus self-interest, where now it may be carried out on a basis of self-interest alone; for to serve is to put the spirit in action. It is not necessary to renounce life in the bustling world. It is necessary, however, to change its basis, to transform its character, to make it echo the voice of the Ideal, which is to lead us upwards towards better things. The ugly way so many human beings behave is simply a revelation of the ugliness in human nature. The mystically inclined person may not like this sombre reality and may prefer a fantasy of how he would like them to be. Yet so far as his fantasy includes the picture of a divinity within their hearts, this is also true and is the bright reality which must be put into balance with the darker one. He has to keep his feet on solid earth, but without letting himself get earthbound. Instead of falling into the common attitude of classifying the natural everyday side of human nature as hostile to the mystical inner side, as an incompatible opposite, why not bring both sides together in harmony? This can be done intellectually by understanding mentalism, and emotionally by appreciating or creating inspired art. We have to work with the actual but we can do so by the light of the ideal. Wang Yang-ming maintained that wisdom and virtue could not be gained by meditation alone. He asserted that the daily experience of dealing with ordinary matters was also needed, providing that experience was sincerely reflected upon by conscience, reason, and intuition. He need not seek flight to isolation or to monasticism. He can participate in the world's life without being soiled by the world's evil. He can continue to grow in knowledge of truth and devotion to the Good even in the midst of such profane activities. But to succeed in this a correct attitude toward them and toward their results must be acquired. Living in the world as we are, having to submit to demands which the world makes upon us, we must learn how to deal with them in a correct way. By correct I mean in harmony with our inner goal. The harder the situation is to bear, the more it should arouse a wise ambition in him to get out of it. Ambition requires, however, an all-around awakening and remaking of his personality. He can fight and be ambitious and yet hold on to ideals; there is no need to lose them. Balance is to be the ideal. If he is to be in the world and of the world, he will still remain undeceived by the world. Both attitudes are required for a proper result: the idealistic which looks to a new and better future, the practical which recognizes the limitations of its heritage from the past. It is out of this new conflict in the personal situations through which he passes, the conflict between idealism's abstract call and actuality's practical demands, that he has the chance to discover his balance. Only to the extent that a man can find harmony within himself can he adjust harmoniously with his world. What is wrong if we claim some happiness from this world, provided we keep our balance, the heart anchored to an allegiance higher than the world, the mind always remembering for what it is really here? Contrast remains the essence of all human experience. A civilized life ought to possess better quality things--art, music, and literature, some touch of refinement somewhere, and a little basic knowledge of food values and perils, of personal hygiene and health preservation. Precisely because it comes with the truth, because it is associated with the discovery of reality, the final phase of philosophy--sahaja--cannot be segregated from the business of living. Each man finds what he is looking for, and the world is a mirror of his own self. The frog is lured to grovel in the mud surrounding a lotus whereas the butterfly is lured by the fragrance of the flower itself. The philosophic student perceives quite clearly that the lotus-flower of reality which looks so lovely in the bright gay sunshine cannot be separated from the roots which look so ugly in the black muddy slime. He makes a perfectly balanced adjustment to the world as he finds it, not merely as a concession to a compulsive environment, but because Philosophy does not stand aside from human needs nor remain unrelated to human affairs. If his fidelity to worthy ideals remains through situations which test character and he reacts honourably to events which expose it, he finds that in the end his real welfare in the world also remains. Whether he is encircled by business affairs or pressed by everyday work or worthily consumes time in other ways, his lasting good will not suffer. Only the less important surface life may do so. Even there he may be saved from entering wrong courses. It is a paradox of the strongest irony that the place where we can best find the Overself is not in another world but in this one, that the chance to grow enduringly out of darkness into light is better here. This is the extraordinary paradox of the Quest, that it is a road leading out of daily life and yet far inseparable from daily living itself. If he puts everything in its place--the lower and lesser things where they belong, the higher and greater ones above them--what has he to fear from the world? He can still remain active in it; flight will be unnecessary. If he does not forget the final purpose of all this worldly activity, that through the body's life and the mind's existence he may seek and find his true self, the Overself, the inner failure and superficiality of so many lives will be avoided. It is needful to relate this earthly life to the divine one, not only in isolated sessions of meditation but also in the whole of the daily existence. When this is fully done the consequences are unpredictable, the effects on oneself and others incalculable. The high moods created in meditation must be brought into contact with the personal daily life, must bear fruit there; and although this happens anyway quite automatically to some extent, it could happen to a much larger extent if turned into a conscious deliberate process. This earthly life is the "narrow gate" which opens onto the kingdom. Whoever lives in such a society, his heart in the Real, his mind in the True, is as much absent from it as he is present. For sincere questers there is, or should be, an interest in life which grows with time. It is here, in the ordinary and uneventful tasks of the day, that he may find just as much opportunity to practise nonattachment, to suppress egoism, and to express wisdom. The flow of current events and the incidents of day-to-day living ought not be allowed to shake him from his stand in the truth. They give him the chance to view them metaphysically from the Eternal Now, and psychologically from the ideal Self. "What is the path?" the Zen Master Nan-sen was asked. "Everyday life is the path," he answered. We are told that economic necessities must be satisfied before spiritual ones. But why not both together, side by side, since there is no separation between them? The way in which we gain the mundane ends is always governed by our spiritual background. Why do men embark on this quest? Is it not because it gives them hope? Here we should not confuse hope with optimism.How to treat opportunity
Wisdom takes advantage of opportunity, spiritual not less than material, but foolishness neglects it. It is of immense importance, whether in the internal spiritual life or the external worldly career, to cultivate the art of detecting, recognizing, and accepting opportunity. Two factors need especially to be remembered here. First, sometimes she presents her face plainly and unmistakably, but more often she presents two faces each equally attractive and each claiming to bear her name: or else she disguises herself under the garb of commonplace events and unprepossessing personalities. Second, she never repeats the same situation with the same chances in precisely the same way. With altered conditions, the same causes cannot produce the same phenomena. To miss those chances through ignorance or the blindness of unpreparedness, through logic's limitation or the dismissing of intuition, is to miss portions of success or happiness that could easily have been ours. Understand that destiny often moves forward like a game of chess. If you cannot see immediately your way to success in a career or the solution of a problem, you should look for the first step in that direction. For only after that has been taken will the second show itself, and later the third, and so on. Learn to detect the beginnings of the way to opportunity, even though opportunity itself is still not visible. The opportunity is unrepeatable and unreceivable in exactly the same way, for the passage of time--be it a moment or a century--has forced change on both the situation and the person. In making a decision as to the kind of life he will lead, he has pronounced a judgement on the other kinds also. What happens thereafter will itself judge his judgement. A single mistake in the rejection of an opportunity or in the choice of direction at a crossroad may lead to a quarter-lifetime's suffering. The student may quite easily discover by analysis the smaller lessons embodied in that suffering and yet may quite overlook the larger lessons, for he may fail to ascribe major blame to the early rejection or choice. He may still not realize how it all stems out of that primary root, how each error in conduct that naturally happens after it becomes a channel for a further one, and that in its turn for still another, so that the descent is eventually inevitable and its attendant sorrows become cumulative. Thus all traces back to the initial foundational error, which is the most important one because it is the choice of wrong direction, because such a wrong choice means that the more he travels through life, the more mistaken all his later conduct becomes.(P) If he accepts the hand of opportunity when it is offered him, the effects will be favourable in every direction. If he feels the premonition that he is on the verge of a new cycle, and makes decisions or acts accordingly, the way into it will open out for him. That man is immensely fortunate who is able to detect opportunities when they come and who, having detected, proceeds to take advantage of them. What most people count as great misfortunes sometimes open the door to new opportunities, ideas, or courses of action leading to advantages that would not otherwise have come. It is wiser to defer an appraisal of such events until they have shown their results as a whole to a final view. How little do we know that some small act, some minor move, may lead to consequences that open up an entirely new phase of experience. If he acts too quickly on decisions made impulsively, he may suffer loss or hurt. But if he is overly slow to take action on decisions made long before, the consequence may be the loss of a good opportunity. This situation has happened in the lives of many people. Where they have recognized its significance as a spiritual chance, everything thereafter went well for them, but where they failed to recognize it, everything went wrong, materially and spiritually. If we do not make good use of our chances, they come to us in vain. If our opportunities are ill-used, they will not recur for a long time. Thus a life will teach us a better sense of values. Situations develop where to take a certain course would lead to immediate advantage, and he may feel tempted to take it. But if, from the point of view of his spiritual growth, it is undesirable, what does he gain in the end? Opportunities are not always recognized as such by the aspirant. He who expects them to come fully labelled for what they are falls into error. The difficulty which seems to retard his steps on the spiritual path hides within itself the chance to develop qualities and strengthen weak places. What could be more poignant than the after-regrets at valuable opportunities thrown away through one's faults or missed through one's blindness? Error begets further error, creates its own heirs. This is why the first step on a new course is the most important. It is true that some opportunities by their very nature can come only once in a lifetime.Seeking guidance
When a decision has to be made, and different sides of one's nature are pulling in different directions, creating inner conflict, bewilderment, and rendering a firm decision impossible, what is the aspirant to do? Find the true guidance? Let him first surrender the problems to the Higher Power. This surrender is best formulated through the medium of a heartfelt prayer in which there is earnest desire first to learn and then to accept the guidance. This must be done with the utmost concentration and sincerity, seeking to learn the Higher Will and being ready to abide by it even if it disagrees with personal desires.After this is done, wait calmly for days or even weeks with faith that the solution to the problem will eventually come. If it does not come directly from within as an intuitive certitude, then it may come through some event or contact or as a distant trend forming itself in outward circumstances and pointing to a specific direction.
The need to guide his personal life more intuitively comes home to him after every major mistake has been committed and its effects felt. He sees then that it is not enough to calculate by intellect, nor feel by impulse, nor act on emotion, for these have led him to sufferings that could have been prevented, or caused other people sufferings that bring him regrets. He learns that it is necessary to listen inwardly, to wait in mental quiet for intuitive feeling to arise and guide him. Success in the perplexing game of living is only possible when decisions based on balanced truthful thinking become easy and natural. But in turn, truthful thinking is only possible when every egoistic motive, every emotional weighting, and every personal wish and fear is removed from the thought process. If a situation is fraught with anxiety and is also either unavoidable or unalterable, the first procedure is to organize all your forces to meet it calmly. The second is to call on the higher power for help by turning to it in relaxation and meditation. However difficult the circumstances of his surface life may become, the student must cling to his faith that the Overself really is, and that if he seeks Its guidance It will lead him to the wisest solution of his problem. This does not necessarily or always mean that he should stop his own personal efforts. On the contrary, he should use his reason and judgement to the best degree of which he is capable, and also consult others who are more experienced or more expert than he is. But after he has done all that he can do, he should hand over his problem to the Overself. He must prove that he has really surrendered it by releasing himself from further anxiety concerning the outcome. He must be confident that the higher power, which is always with him, can meet his needs. He must be patient enough to wait and courageous enough to accept a solution which offends his egoism. Then, outer help or inner guidance or an answer to his problem will be forthcoming. He must learn to depend on the infinite source of his being for everything, but only after he has done all that his limited mind and ability can do. It is correct practice for a man to abandon his anxieties or fears and turn them over to the Overself, but it is incorrect for him to do so without or before analysing their nature, origin, and lesson. The practice of trying, by "going into the silence," to rise above mundane difficulties before they are properly understood and before one's own responsibility for them is honestly assessed, is a premature one. However harassing a problem may seem to us, if we can give up our egoistic attitude towards it, if we can keep the lower emotions away from it, the best possible solution under the circumstances will develop of its own accord. There is veritable magic in such a change of thinking and feeling. It opens the gate to higher forces and enables them to come to our help. Each problem is to be solved by the simple method of turning it over to the Overself and then dismissing it from mind. The ego is faulty and blind; what it cannot solve or manage, the Overself can. But this method requires time and patience. Sometimes the guidance will evolve naturally out of the situation, the circumstances, the events. He will then only have to be a spectator, but he must still supply the intuitive interpretation and recognition of this recognition. Take your peril to the Overself, identify your real being with the Overself and not with the vanishing ego. Then you will be at the standpoint which perceives that you are as secure and safe as the Overself is. Hold your position as the final and highest one. Reject the very thought of being in danger. There is none in the Overself. The problem which the ego has created for you but which the ego cannot solve for you will dissolve under the impact of the Overself's light. He should make it an unfailing practice to turn inwards in moments of need for help and in moments of perplexity for direction. No other act is so urgent or so important as this, to turn now in thought and remembrance, in love and aspiration, toward the Overself. For if you do not but turn toward that other and worldly act which is so clamant and demanding, you fall into a tension which may lead to error and consequent suffering. But if you do turn toward the Overself first and then act, you rise up to inner calm and consequent wiser judgement. After he has meditated sufficiently on his problem, he should drop it from mental view altogether and wait, passively and patiently, surrendering it to the intuitive element within himself. If he can get deep enough, absorbed enough, he will touch this element and may instantly receive a solution from it. If he cannot, it will be necessary to try again another time, and perhaps even several times. Then, either in that passive contemplation or unexpectedly during the day, or abruptly on awaking from sleep, the elusive answer to his question may be presented to him as a clear self-evident fact. Work quietly for a few minutes daily in handing your problem over to the Higher Power, confessing you have done what you could, and praying from the depths of your heart for the right solution. However, on no account dictate what that solution should be. Examine the lesson behind your sufferings in dealing with problems of the past, acknowledge the mistakes and repent them. Then wait and watch what happens during the coming weeks or months. The advantage of this method is that it "works"; the disadvantage is that it gives us what is best for our next spiritual step forward, which is not always to personal liking but is always for our best in the long run. The important thing is to adopt and maintain an attitude of surrender--not to another person but to the Overself--in the face of adverse emotions. Without recourse to an experienced teacher it is going to be a longer and harder road than with it. For he will be compelled to find his way by a trial-and-error method. It is not easy to know always what to do in certain situations, and this creates anxious states of mind and may lead to vacillating decisions. In that case it is better to make the experiment of waiting a little and praying to the Higher Self for guidance before falling asleep. Then, immediately after awakening, or rather in that brief state between sleep and waking, one should remain passive to whatever thought, message, or picture presents itself. This may require repetition day after day until the result is successful. He must wait indefinitely until intuition supplies the needed answer or, if the matter is more urgent, wait only for a definite period and then review the situation again, ask humbly for guidance, and force a decision even though it is at risk. Why fatigue yourself trying to make a difficult decision? Why not hand the problem over to the higher power, which knows better than you? Where logic fails to guide, surrender and intuition may take its place and prove their worth. Having turned the problem over to the higher power, just leave it to time. This does not necessarily mean you have nothing further to do. There may be action required, but in that case quietly await the signal or guidance: let it appear of its own accord in its own hour, meanwhile trusting yourself to the Power, giving your problem to its wisdom, and letting your destiny take its course under this new association. One must be on guard against the ego. He should test his actions by their motives; let him ask himself whether his teacher would act in the same way. Seeking guidance should be combined with the active use of his own reason about any matter, because the highest reason coincides with the highest guidance. In financial matters, especially, he should make reason the touchstone. He has to ask himself: What is it that the Overself is impelling me to do? The answer will hardly ever be a spontaneous one. He will have to wait patiently for days or weeks or perhaps months before it will be heard sufficiently clearly and definitely. He may bring his problem into the presence of the Light, and seek guidance upon it. But he ought not to do so before first seeking the Light itself for its own sake. If he does, and makes the contact, it will throw his problem aside, and he must allow it to do so. He must be patient and let the matter of guidance come up later, or at another time. Act neither too soon nor too late. Await the proper occasion with patience. Its coming will announce itself if you are sensitive to intuitional prompting. But if calculating doubt or emotional desire or other people's suggestions get in the way, you may misread the fitting time and spoil the opportunity. If he will take the Overself's timing rather than his own, if he will cease struggling against this destiny and resign himself to it, he will begin to note and understand that many of the greatest events of his life have happened without his having any part in bringing them about. To shirk all responsibility and get someone else to make his decision in a perplexing situation contributes little or nothing to his own growth, but to seek help from more experienced persons in making his decision is quite proper. Often the guidance does not come till the time when it is needed, the answer to our questioning does not make itself heard until the eleventh hour. Until then we must learn to wait in hopeful patience and in trustful expectation. It is a mistake to assume that the sought-for guidance must necessarily reveal itself in all its entirety and all at once. It may, but quite often it does not show more than the next step to be taken or the next truth to be assimilated. The later ones are then withheld until this is done. Why should they be given in advance before we have demonstrated our faith in the first lead already given and our willingness to put it into practice? Moreover, the proficient disciple must learn to live in the eternal Now and its resultant peace, not be anxious about the imagined future and its possible events. At the moment of his greatest need--which usually means at the moment when a decision can no longer be deferred--the event will happen or the guidance will come which will show him the way out of his problem. Only by the application of philosophic technique, referring every difficulty as it manifests to, and dissolving it in, the Infinite Mind, will it be possible successfully to handle such problems. When confronted with an external situation which they are unable to cope with, some seek escape from the necessity of dealing with it. The philosophic method is to face and analyse the facts. It is of practical importance in the affairs of his life not to enter any undertaking nor make a decision nor begin a day without first entering into a meditation. This will tend to introduce proper deliberateness and dismiss hasty carelessness from his decisions, to insert intuitive guidance into his activities, and to warn him against wrong enterprises. The intuition may be slow in revealing itself but when it does the inner certitude it provides, the strong consciousness of being right, will enable him to act decisively and swiftly. It is said proverbially that practice makes perfect and that habit makes easy. Certainly he who diligently cultivates the habit of relying on his intuitive forces for guidance and on his higher ones for courage, will do what he is bidden unswayed by his ego's criticism or other people's opposition. The worth of following such a course will prove itself by its results, for they will, in the end, promote the true happiness and real welfare of all concerned. The history of his future will test his choices of the present and tell him whether they are wise or not. His mistakes will punish him, his right decisions reward him. He will avail himself of the guidance of circumstances if he can detect the hand of the higher power in them. If he turns away from his problem and to the Overself, the moment its peace is felt or its message of truth is heard, he may take this as a sign that help in some way will assuredly come to him. He should not assume that the guidance must manifest itself in one particular way alone. On the contrary, it may come to him in a variety of ways, and may even be transmitted through someone else. God may help us, or God's healing may come to us, indirectly. Instead of a miracle happening abruptly we may be led intuitively to the knowledge which, or to the person who, will reveal what we can do to serve or save ourselves. The end result may thus be the same as the miracle, but we shall have guided our lives toward it by our own informed effort. As soon as he turns it over to the Higher Power to deal with, what is he doing? First, he is withdrawing the ego from trying to manage the matter. Second, he is placing the other person in the Overself's care or inserting the situation in the universal harmony. In the first case, management will no longer be limited by the short sight of his desires and the shallow penetration of his intellect. In the second case, the person will be exposed to the recuperative, renewing, and pacifying powers of the Overself or the situation will be benefited, through the mentalistic nature of the universe, in the best possible way for the ultimate good of all concerned in it.This procedure is not the treatment suggested by rainbow-dreaming teachers, for it begins by noting the actual condition, however unpleasant or unhealthy that may be. It analyses by all the means within its reach the nature, the causes, and the effects of the condition: only then, only after this is done, does it turn away from miserable actuality and try to see the glorious ultimate ideality. From the moment that he consciously gives recognition to the Overself and its perfection, he opens the door to its forces.
If, while managing a situation, you are filled with anxiety or taut with tension, take it as a warning sign that you are managing with the unaided ego alone. That is, you have forgotten, or failed, to turn it over to the higher power, to put it in the hands of the Overself. To become as a child, in Jesus' sense, means to become permeated with the happiness, with the joy, which a child's freedom from responsibilities and anxieties brings it. All problems being turned over to the higher power, the philosopher enjoys the same inner release. The practice of turning to the Overself for relief, help, guidance, or healing in a grievous crisis is most effective only when, first, the will acts resolutely to put away thoughts of anguish, second, the turn is made swiftly, and, third, the will continues to keep the mind dwelling steadily on the benefic qualities of its sacred object, idea, or declaration. He will not rigidly hold to any course of worldly action which he has charted, but will hold himself open to a change indicated by higher leading at any time. He knows that such an indication may come from within intuitively or from without circumstantially. If it is a truly intuitive decision or choice, one of the signs validating it will be the feelings of satisfaction and serenity which immediately follow it. If he has sought guidance through intuition or meditation but found only a barren result, he should watch whether circumstances themselves decide his course for him. If they do, it could well be that this is the outer response to his inner request. While you are thinking about a problem and in search of an answer to it, you cannot get the intuition which is its true and final solution. But when you are no longer doing so, the answer appears. This happens with the genius during the interval between two thoughts but with the ordinary man during sleep. The guidance, the message, the answer, the solution he seeks may come in different ways at different times. It may appear as a pictured symbol or be received as a mentally-thought sentence or flash through his consciousness as a self-evident intuition. If he is seeking to solve a problem and receives as the fruit of his meditation a vague peaceful happy feeling, this is not necessarily the end; it often means that at a subsequent time he will receive a very definite solution, either from within or from without. It is good for him to try the method of simple prayer for obtaining the illumination he needs upon the specific problems which trouble him. He may address prayer to whatever higher power he most believes in or to his own higher self. If in doubt regarding any great difficulty, close your eyes, think of a master, silently call on his name, then patiently wait. The force using him may come to your help. If the technique of turning a problem or situation over to the higher power fails to yield favourable results, the fault lies in the person attempting to use it, not in the technique itself. If he is using it as an attempt to escape from coping with the problem or as a refusal to face up to the situation, and thus as an evasion of the lessons involved, it will be better for his own growth to meet with failure. And even among those who claim to have perceived the lessons, they may not have really done so but may have accepted only what suited their egos and rejected the rest. The full meaning of the experience must be taken deeply to heart and applied sincerely to living before the claim to have learned it can be substantiated. Counsel given in individual cases and isolated instances should not be taken always as meant for every case and for universal application. Human beings are too varied for all to follow a single line. In personal temperament and moral character, in intellect and feeling, in aptitude and skill, differences are great enough to make necessary different prescriptions for the way of life. The hardship, the difficulty, or the problem which he cannot meet by his own strength he may meet with the help of the divine strength. Seeking help from the higher power need not mean turning away altogether from ordinary dependence on human power and skill. Whatever outward changes he may find it desirable to make, or whatever decisions he may have to come to, he should do so in a way that will help him fulfil his high purpose, even while at the same time they take care of his earthly life. By attending to the deepest inner promptings that may come to him in moments of relaxed calm, he may get valuable pointers toward the best direction in which to make these changes and adjustments. He will find that at the exact point in time and the essential point in place where his real need is, a way out or over or through his problem will appear. This is not always the point which this clamouring ego may determine it to be. Silencing the ego by going into the stillness within is the best way to draw this help. Why should we bear all the grievous burdens of the ego? By turning them over to the higher self, not prematurely but after analysing their lessons and doing what we ought to, we gain relief. With the onset of crisis or stress, trouble or calamity, he turns his mind instantly toward the Higher Power. This can be done easily, effortlessly--but only after long self-training and much practice in thought control. He will not let others push him into activities that are not his duty or inclination; he is responsible for and must make his own decisions. It is ironically paradoxical, this discovery that the very higher power to which we must turn in our helplessness is within ourselves. Whatever the difficulty, you will certainly face it better and may solve it sooner if the ordinary approach through reason and practicality is controlled and illumined by the final approach through the higher self. This is done by dwelling on its never-leaving presence and healing power. To lose one's faith in the higher laws and powers when the dice of destiny come up with an unfavourable number is not only a sign of weakness but also a sign that one's faith was incomplete. It has touched the emotions only or the intellect only but it has not touched both of them, while it has still to touch the will. Although proper judgement may call for a particular decision, inexorable necessity may call for quite a different one. There are certain periods in a man's life when he can find no help outside himself, just as there are occasions when help from others comes easily enough. You are more likely to get light on your problem if you avoid getting tense or feeling frustrated about it. The need to make a rapid decision may create panic in an uncertain mind. Here again the best counsel is to go into the calm Silence, push aside the insistent thoughts of pressure, and wait in patience for mental quiet to manifest itself. Then only can intuitive guidance emerge. Bring your need, your problem, even your desire into the silence and let it rest there. If you do this often enough, it will be corrected for you should it be partly wrong, or totally eradicated should it be wholly wrong, or miraculously satisfied or solved should it be right for you! He who, like others, looks to material things, but, unlike others, only as secondary to his dependence on the higher power, finds in experience his final confirmation. As Lao Tzu said: "The Tao knows how to render help." Even where men are ignorant of the law of karma, the higher self provides warnings to them when they deviate from the right path; but, alas, they do not heed these delicate feelings which speak from within and are often called the voice of conscience. When confronted with a troublesome situation, he must feel, "I, in my ego, can do little." The problem must be turned over to a higher power for solution. He does not accept the situation in the merely fatalistic resignation which puts up with anything, but learns to live with it in living trust that the higher power will bring it to the best possible ultimate issue. If he has done everything that is in his power, the results are not in his hands and must consequently indicate destiny's will for him. They do not belong to his own will and must be accepted by him. Time will show their wisdom. On all occasions when the intuition's prompting is absent and the intellect's judgement is doubtful, prudence suggests a pause. It is better not to act than to act prematurely, not to decide than to decide without sufficient reason or intuition to support one. By giving himself more time to wait upon his problem, he may give himself an intuitive, and hence deeper, understanding of it than a merely calculated and shallower one. Action taken prematurely under the pressure of need may turn a right course into a wrong one. Timeliness is a necessary ingredient of successful action. If he feels clearly guided to a mission which seems impossible, he may safely leave to the Overself the means of carrying it out. So long as he fails to see that the answer to his problems is within himself, but prefers the glib and easy explanation that it is in his environment, so long will the problem remain unsolved. In all critical situations, try to become very very quiet, seeking the help or guidance to come up from the deeper levels of being. To say turn a situation over to the Overself is tantamount to saying turn it over to the Universal Power to deal with. All questions can find some kind of an answer in this mental silence; no question can be brought there often enough without a response coming forth in time. It is needful to be patient and to have faith during the waiting period. The inner monitor is certainly there but we have to reach it. Sometimes when every other road seems implacably blocked, the right road to travel is indicated. He may be obliged by circumstances to follow a course of action that he might not otherwise have even considered. At the very moment that any problem produces thoughts of despondency, turn that problem over to the higher power again, and try to remain inwardly calm. They should heed the warnings of experience, the guidance of elders, the injunctions of religion; but they need not do so without having critically scrutinized and carefully weighed what is thus proffered to them. Whatever is proper to a particular situation should be done; rules should not be followed blindly. The arrogant do not seek help and consequently do not get it. Can he put his personal problems, interests, or difficulties into the hands of the higher Power? This is both the first and the last procedure, but in between he may be led to call for the services of reason, observation, experience, authority, and specialized knowledge. I have known questers who have reached a cul-de-sac when an intensifying problem finally entered the critical stage. Then, following this teaching, they decided to hand it over to the Overself entirely and be done with further cogitation and agitation about it. The tension came to a swift end, proving that they had really handed it over and were not deceiving themselves. They waited patiently for direction to be given them. Sometimes this came quickly, overwhelmingly, and clearly--sometimes it came slowly, gently, and weakly.Worldly success
Despite Saint Francis, it must be stated that a wide observation and experience shows poverty to be not necessarily holy, nor prosperity evil. The practicality of the ordinary common man is praiseworthy: it is not to be regarded as materialistic. Efficiency in work and tidiness in homekeeping are not so materialistic as they sound. Even the mystic will benefit by them no less than the worldling, for they will save time which he can give to what he deems the more important activities of his life. The problem of earning a livelihood under modern conditions and in harmony with the Quest's ethics is more complicated and less easy to solve for some people than for others. There are professions, occupations, pursuits, and trades which at times demand transgression of these ethics. If any general principles can be laid down, they are that earnings, profits, or dividends should be honestly made and that no suffering should be inflicted on any living creature. It is true that more wealth means more opportunity and that this in turn, if rightly used, may lead to more wisdom. But it is not necessarily true that more wealth leads to more wisdom. This foolish attempt to climb higher and higher in the Tower of Babel which they have built arises out of false notions of success and failure. They measure success by the conditions surrounding a man and assess failure in the same way. There is a harsh lesson that life will ultimately teach them--that there is no equivalent compensation for the loss of spiritual values. The need of money is second to the need of good health, and both are second to the need of spiritual strength. All three are important, for most other desired things depend heavily on them. If money occupies a large part of their thoughts, are they to blame for that? Life being what it is, necessity demands such attention, realism compels it. Only when higher purposes are displaced, neglected, or ignored because of this stress on the money-thought are imbalance and materialism produced. The possession of money, as of power, is not an evil and may, by its wise use, be a positive good. But, by providing new temptations, it may also bring into activity weaknesses lying below the surface of a man's character. Success can easily lead a man to failure if it becomes an intoxicant instead of a lubricant. The man who is unwilling to put a deliberate restraint on his desire nature cannot possibly find peace of mind. Yet a noteworthy feature of life in certain Western countries is the encouragement of new wants, the stimulation by advertising and salesmanship of new hungers for possession. The suffering of the rich cannot be put on the same level as the suffering of the poor, for the rich have compensations which are unavailable to the poor. The search after happiness takes people to different activities and places, but rarely to the right ones. This is because they confound pleasure with happiness. The ultimate value of all this activity in business, profession, politics, family, and so on is not in carrying them on successfully, but in using them to carry one's own mind nearer to enlightenment. In a man's enthusiasm, which is so natural and so pardonable, for a great invention he has made or a great piece of work he may have done, he can become somewhat one-sided and indeed almost obsessed. Then it is good if he understands that it is necessary for him to restore the balance of his personality because it is unhealthy and unwise to stake so much of his happiness and thought upon what is, after all, a worldly activity. The frustrations and disappointments which may have been experienced in connection with his work will have carried this lesson behind them. It is better for a man, as for a nation, to have less riches and more truth, than less truth and more riches. Poverty is a stiff test of moral fibre.(P) Being poor makes some men turn to materialism as the harsh real truth, but it turns other men to religion, as giving the consolation and support they need. Suffering of any kind and derived from any cause turns the sufferers either to or from a spiritual faith. It depends on several factors which it shall be in individual cases. We see this especially during and after a war involving the whole nation. We still live in a world of slaves--slaves to money, to position that yields money, to things that cost money, to people who possess it. Money buys nearly all these things and persons. The sage is free in one way because of his inward indifference to money, and the millionaire is free in another way because he has all the money he needs. Simone de Beauvoir: "Material independence is one of the necessary conditions for inner liberty." Is this true? Sometimes yes, other times not. If it is for rich men to always learn the lesson that comfort does not mean happiness, it is for poor men to learn that simple living may go with a serene mind. The businessman who is an adept at knowing how to make a living may be an idiot at knowing how to live. What does all this extroverted activity or intellectual agitation mean, after all? It means that the human mind is unable to bear facing itself, looking into itself, being by itself. The man whose name has become celebrated in certain circles, however limited, so that he is to that extent a public figure, must beware of the perils that beset his exposed position. He should especially be careful of those who try to draw him into confidential conversation in order to betray his confidence at a later date. Every ambition achieved likewise means an addition to our troubles. With conditions in the business world fostering the ego's over-growth as they do, I have often advised young men of exceptional talent engaged in or entering this world to make money quickly with the special purpose of escaping from it. Then they can give adequate time to the study and meditation and retreat they need for their philosophic interests. Thus they use their business career as an expedient, not to satisfy ambition. Ambition is a good for the young man but becomes a bad when he overreaches himself. For then it is at the expense of others who have to suffer for it. Does he really want the outer things for which he is striving more than he wants the inner qualities they are blocking? He who gains a fortune is born again. He who lives in penurious squalor is as one dead. Those who despise wealth have never known it. When men must struggle for their livelihood to such a degree that they have no energies and no time left for higher pursuits, it is futile to expect them to be fit for metaphysical study or mystical exercises. Those Europeans who sneer at American dollar worship are really sneering at the effort to raise personal standards of living, to improve life on earth, and to provide the body with a worthwhile environment.Independence
Despite Somerset Maugham's assertion that "there is nothing better than to be like everybody else," the commonly accepted and familiar view, the normal and ordinary way of living--these may have to be reversed when the truth hits one's consciousness. Most people submit to the conventions and obey the unwritten laws which in the society or the community prevail at the time. The man who refuses to submit or to obey is manifesting either a disordered mind or an unbalanced temperament, or is showing personal courage in being loyal to a high idea or ideal at whatever cost. We have no plaint to make against convention as such. Every arrangement for human living inevitably becomes conventional as soon as it becomes stabilized. Our plaint is rather against conventions which have become insincere, hypocritical, hollow, out-of-date, blind, or unjust. He has to devise a way of living that will respect these principles without alienating him from the social world in which he has to live. The task may be an impossible one but he must try. To live with men as one of them, yet not to live within their narrow limitations, is his duty and necessity. Let others not mistakenly believe that he has adopted a non-cooperative attitude, has fled from reality, renounced a human existence in exchange for an illusory one in an imaginary world, or deserted the paths of sanity and reason. If he wants to live in comparative outer peace with them, he must make certain outer concessions. It is better to behave as unprovokingly as possible, to hide his deeper thoughts behind a screen, and to avoid being labelled as a religious fanatic or intellectual faddist. It is especially unwise to uncover one's philosophical thoughts before everybody. He must try to adjust himself smoothly to his environment. This is a hard task, but he must not shirk it and must do all that can be done in the given circumstances. He must fulfil his reasonable obligations towards society, must co-operate in turning the great wheel of human activity, must contribute his share in achieving the general welfare; but he should reserve the right to do so in his own way and not according to society's dictation. And because he has outstripped those around him in important ways, because he is already thinking centuries ahead of them, it is unlikely that he will succeed wholly in fending off their criticisms or even in avoiding their hostility. For with all his endeavours to placate them and with all his sacrifices for the sake of harmony, human nature being what it is--a mixture of good and evil, of the materialistic and the holy--crises may sometimes arise when society will attack him. If the inner voice of conscience bids him do so, then he will perforce have to make a firm stand for principles. It is then that he must summon enough courage to do what is unorthodox or to say what is unpopular and display enough independence to disregard tradition or ignore opinion. Up to a certain point he may walk with the crowd, but beyond it his feet must not move a step. Here he must claim the privilege of self-determination, concerning which there can be no compromise; for here, at the sacred bidding of the Overself, he must begin to live his own life. Consequently, although he will always be a good citizen he may not always be a popular one.(P) Let us not betray the good that is in us by a cowardly submission to the bad that is in society.(P) It is only the beginner who enthusiastically and indiscriminately discusses with friends, relatives, or strangers the new teachings or exciting truths which have only recently been accepted by him. The proficient student is also the prudent one. He restrains his feelings against the temptation of telling everyone everything. Thus his ego is checked instead of being displayed. To make a public exhibition of asceticism, to display the peculiarities of one's soul always and everywhere, to cut oneself off showily from the common life, is to be not a spiritual aspirant but a spiritual egoist. It is not in any arrogance that he must be true to himself against the pressures of society. Every man whose activity brings him before the public--be he a politician, an artist, or a writer--becomes a target for gossip, and if because of his spiritual and cultural interests he lives a quiet, almost hermitlike existence, the gossip will turn to misunderstanding and criticism. They see or sense that he never gives himself up entirely to the society in which he happens to be, that he keeps always a certain inward reserve and outward constraint. This puzzles, irritates, or annoys some, or arouses suspicion in others. Thus the seed of future hostility towards him is sown by their own imperfection. The Silence which befriends him gives others a queer undesirable feeling. He who is not content to follow the mob, who seeks to be an individual person and not merely appear to be one, needs strength and bravery to resist the mob's pressure. If he insists on a way of life that is unconventional, he must accept the criticism which follows it. And if it is worthwhile he will pay this price quite cheerfully. Among the traditions of Jesus current with Muhammedan mystics, there is one which mentions that the more people reviled him the more he spoke good of them. When one of his disciples complained about this as being an encouragement to them, Jesus answered, "Every man giveth of that which he hath." He who seeks to enjoy the smiles of truth must be willing to endure the criticisms of uncomprehending observers, the sneers of unbelieving ones, the frowns of convention, for he who is not prepared to conform must be prepared to suffer. Mentally he may have to resist the ideas of the community in which he lives when they are thrust upon him through customs, conventions, conversations, and religion. He has to contend not only with the foolishness of his fellow humans but also with the destructiveness of Nature itself, not only with the tendency of institutions and organizations to decline from their best to their worst, ending with the "letter" and losing the "spirit," but also with his own personal weaknesses and shortcomings. Whoever rebels against the majority's view, whoever dares to think and speak independently, must be prepared to endure mental, or even physical loneliness. Tolerance is needed if we are to live with even a minimum of harmony in society. To the philosopher it comes easily as a natural result of his development. But it need not be practised at the expense of the equally necessary attributes of prudence and caution. There is a point where it must stop, a point where it leads to greater evil than good. But be warned that the same power which, on your side, brings you into a goodwill relationship with all people also isolates you from them. For it withdraws you from the herd's narrow outlook and petty interests to seek higher aspirations. Independent judgement is an asset if it is sufficiently well-informed--if not, then it may be a liability.