‘the consciousness of freedom and the freedom of consciousness’ might
save those men down there from further pain.”
“Again I repeat, go on.”
“It lies in my power,” he said, coming nearer and regarding me fixedly
with his glowing eyes, “it lies in my power so to work upon the minds
of the opposing armies, the armies on both sides, that they will refuse
to fight any longer.”
“And betray their countries?” I asked.
“And bring peace,” he corrected me.
“And what have I to do with it?”
“You might have much to do with it.”
“Your words are still dark to me,” I said.
“Then I will make them clearer,” he replied. “In order for you to
understand my meaning, it is necessary that I explain myself. I am one
of those who serve the good by opposing the good, and thus giving it
greater activity.”
“So I had observed. Will you now state in clear words what purpose you
have with me?”
“My purpose is to make you a proposition. If you wish this carnage to
cease--and already it has gone on long enough to serve the purpose
which I serve, to soak the world with blood, to destroy that which a
decade of labor will be too brief to rebuild, to awaken all the hatred
and other evil passions which nest in the hearts of men--if you wish
this carnage to cease, I have the means by which it can be made to
cease.”
“And where do I come in?”
“I have long observed you,” he said, “observed your diligence in
applying the principles given you by your Teacher.”
“Then why did you ask me who I was, a little while ago?”
“Only as a preliminary to further conversation.”
“Oh!” I said.
“I have observed you,” he repeated, “and realized that with your power
and attainments you might be of greater service if you should shift
your allegiance and join us. Your consciousness of freedom would be
even greater.”
“But that consciousness of freedom was my definition of life! I suppose
you would say, in adjusting your argument to the limitations of my
mind, that in losing my life I should find it.”
A slight smile curved the lined features of the being before me.
“You would be always an entertaining companion,” he said. “Think twice
before you decline my proposition.”
“In your proposed agreement,” I replied, “you do not state clearly the
consideration. I am an old lawyer, and a stickler for forms.”
There was no smile now on his face, as he said to me:
“If you will transfer your allegiance to us, I will bring this war to
an end.”
“And could you?”
“I could.”
“How?”
“I have already stated how.”
“But the medicine you propose would be worse than the disease, even
assuming, which I deny, that the patient would swallow it.”
“But would you not make the sacrifice, if I proved to you that I could
make good my end of the bargain?”
“No.”
“Then surely you care little for the world!”
“You argue like a German propagandist,” I said.
“You mean that they argue like me,” he corrected.
“I have wondered,” I said, “in what school of logic they were trained.”
“And you refuse my proposition?”
“I wonder you should take the trouble to make it.”
“Why call that a trouble which gives me the pleasure of your society?”
“I have already heard,” I said, “that the devil was a great flatterer.”
“The devil has great tact.”
We stood looking at each other, measuring each other. He was an
interesting study.
“Dropping for the moment,” I said, “our differences of purpose and
ideal, and speaking merely as two minds--”
“Equal in brilliancy,” he interrupted.
“Speaking as two minds,” I continued, “will you not tell me why you
played upon my love for the world, my willingness to sacrifice myself
for the world, in your attempt to win me to your standard?”
“What else could I play upon?”
“Surely I must have some fault, some hidden sin, through which your
subtle mind could have thought to reach me.”
“Oh,” he said, “I am too wise to tempt you through your hidden faults,
for you are determined to conquer them! You could not be thrown off
the track that way. Only those young on your path are easily conquered
through their faults. The greater souls we attack through their
virtues.”
“Continue,” I said, “for truly you interest me.”
“It is said in the world,” he went on, “that there is more than one way
to skin a cat. There is also more than one way to get rid of a worker
for the Teachers whom you follow. When we cannot deflect a worker
through his evil passions, his hatred, anger, avarice, lust, jealousy
or fear, we are sometimes able to weaken him through his good passions,
his love, his loyalty, or his self-sacrifice.”
“Thank you for your confidence,” I said. “And now I will wish you good
evening.”
As I passed along the line I murmured to myself:
“Truly is the serpent more subtle than any beast of the field, and man
needs all his wisdom to stand against him.”
_May 1._
LETTER XXXVI
THE “LUSITANIA”
(_This letter was written on the 7th of May, at 10.30 A.M., New
York time, one hour after the sinking of the Lusitania, and nine hours
before the writer knew of it._)
AND still they press forward against us--the menacing powers of
darkness and evil, seeking to vent their rage against the world and to
glut themselves on the blood of the slain.
I have not been near you for a few days because I have had no time.
Did you fancy that I had escaped time? Not yet. Had I escaped time,
I could not speak thus to the world in the grip of time. Had I quite
transcended space, your room could not hold me.
During the six days that you have not seen me I have been here, there
and everywhere in Europe--even in Asia have I been, for the attack is
world-wide.
A little while ago I told you that we had driven back the forces of
evil. They have rallied and come forward again, not quite as strong,
but more desperate and more frenzied.
They seek now to embroil the United States, and the whole continent of
the old dead race that fed them on blood by magical rites ages ago,
that continent where the new race has to be born when this prolonged
labor is over.
Had I remembered the Law of Rhythm I should have known that the tide of
evil would flow back again, and that we should have to struggle with it
a second time. It may even now gather fresh force and renew the attack,
a little weaker still.
The evil beings whom we have slain are slain, they can trouble us no
more for a time; but the slain are few beside the many still active.
Help us with your thoughts.
Many of our friends in the world have staggered and grown weary during
the last few days. Do not you!
As thy day, so shall thy strength be, O World that we struggle for, and
for which we shall win in the end the crown of peace and brotherhood!
As I have said before, the world is in the throes of an initiatory
ceremony. The trial by water, the trial by air, the trial by fire--all
these must the world go through before it can take its place among the
initiates of the stellar hierarchies. There is no drawing back now, and
the world must not fail. Should it fail there would soon be a vacant
place in the circles of the Zodiac. But the world will not fail.
Again have I met with the evil being of whom I wrote at the beginning
of these letters. He is lashing himself in fury now, drunk with the
power of his place. Ere his hour draws near, he is hot to assert
himself.
The climax is approaching, and if I visit you less often than before,
it is because I cannot leave my place so often.
Never falter in courage. Your faith shall be the evidence of things
still unseen--as it has been before.
This second struggle with the powers of darkness will leave us stronger
and leave them weaker.
_I know many things which I cannot tell you_, for you are not
strong enough to receive them; but remember this--the Law of Rhythm
holds, it is the Law of laws, and after this storm will come a
corresponding calm, after this agony a rest in the quiet of love. When
hate has spent itself, then love can have its way.
Do you not hate, but stand steady, merely withstanding attacks. Do
not waste your strength. It will be needed by and by. If we use you
sometimes as a material base on which to plant our etheric feet for a
greater spring into space, remember that you offered yourself for the
service of the world, and the service has been accepted.
This is no time to talk of reward, but the law of justice is behind the
world.
So far as possible, strengthen those who suffer too much, and we will
strengthen you. The angels you saw last night are the bodyguard of the
Masters’ servants. As thy day, so shall thy strength be.
I will give you a formula for use in time of stress and storm: Reach
up to the indwelling Spirit and repeat, “For her ways are ways of
pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
It is only in contact with mind, with desire and with matter, that the
Spirit struggles and suffers. In its own home all is peaceful and
pleasant. Reach up to that home when the storms are too loud, and you
will find a place of silence.
Do not let go your hold upon the body. You could no longer be used as
a material base should you loosen your hold on the material, and those
who come to live altogether in the astral world just now have a hard
time at first.
Be calm and poised and sure. Be not a quicksand but a rock.
That is all for the present.
This little time of writing has rested me as well as you, and I will
return.
_May 7._
LETTER XXXVII
VEILED PROPHECIES
IF you were less easily startled, less easily thrown out of the
negative condition in which only you can take down my words, less
easily thrown back by shock into your normal objective consciousness, I
could have told you yesterday that the _Lusitania_ had gone down,
instead of merely hinting at disaster.
You are quite right always to stop the writing the moment your own
brain begins to work; but you can see that it limits us in the giving
of definite news.
We were near that ship when it went down, several of us, including the
one whom we call the Beautiful Being.
Hold steady now. That is the only advice I am offering you, save only
to remain in America for the present. The good you could do in England
now is outweighed by something else which you will understand before
the middle of August.[4]
If you look up the letter in which I told you that a great Being of
Thought had passed along the German line telling those who could
understand that their cause was lost, you will see that I said to
watch for the result. The result is this desperate and frenzied attack
everywhere by that nation.
May 15th is a significant date.[5] No, I tell you no more than that.
The powers of good will not fail.
You will have disturbing news from Europe before long. Hold quiet
through everything. We have done and are doing our best.
Thank you for what you have done for my friend and pupil. * * * Also
there is another thing you can do for us. * * *
There is much that you do not understand, but that we understand. The
road of initiation is a hard road for all. Love one another, you who
try to tread it. It makes the way easier.
_May 8._
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Extraordinarily verified on the fourteenth of
August.--_Editor._]
[Footnote 5: Date of the reception by Germany of the United States note
on the sinking of the _Lusitania_, and also of the demonstrations
in Italy which precipitated the entry of that country into the
war.--_Editor._]
LETTER XXXVIII
ADVICE TO A SCRIBE
YOU can be of more use to us if you do not allow yourself to be crushed
by the sadness of the world at this crisis through which the world is
passing.
Each day rise to the plane of the spirit, above the physical world,
beyond the desires of the astral world, beyond the lower stratum of
mind, up and up to the Source of all life and all wisdom.
Set apart some time every day for this exercise. Use the Hebrew formula
which you have used before, and use it with power, in connection
with the yoga practice in which you are versed. This combining of
two systems makes for strength, because it avoids the limitation of
too closely identifying the Self with one race or one period. Occult
development, occult power, is of all times and all races. The knowledge
of the new race about to be ushered in will include all the systems of
the past, taking from each the special thing in which it surpasses the
others.
Do not sink again into that slough of depression from which I called
you this day. It is not necessary for you to die a thousand times in
order to know death. It seems to me that you have gone deep enough into
the woe of the world. Now rise to a corresponding height.
Your sympathy will be no less tender if you do not die of sympathy
every day.
Your real work comes after the war, when the world can and will listen
to the teaching of brotherhood. Do not perish beforehand is my advice,
and the advice of my Teacher through me.
The Teachers are very grave in this crisis, but they are not crushed to
earth. They know that after the storm comes the calm and their faith
has survived.
In the awful depression in which you have been sunk for the last few
days, how could you help anyone? It is not for you to ask help from
others, but only from us. You know where we are. It is for you to
revive the drooping spirits and the drooping faith of those who have
not received the assurances which you have received.
This letter is not a reproof, but a lesson. I would not have you retire
to a selfish peace above the tumult and stay there, forgetting the
world. I do not forget the world. I work by day and by night. But what
help could I be to these war-shocked souls that come out here should I
weep when I encounter them? No help at all should I be. Instead, I seek
to strengthen them with my strength, to encourage them with my hope.
I do not mean, when I say that your work begins after the war, that
you can do nothing now. Far from it. You can do much, in both worlds.
But if you die of the wounds you behold out here, if you are caught
yourself in the whirlpool of despair, how can you draw others out of it?
I cannot repeat too often that this war is the world’s initiation. It
will be a new and an enlightened world which will rise from the ashes
of the old one--a phœnix of a world, and I want you to rise with it.
The agony cannot endure forever. It is too intense just now, which
means that the climax is approaching.
When I told you that the issue was settled here, I did not mean that
the war would end in a day or two. Study cause and effect. Study the
rise and fall of everything according to cyclic law. The tidal wave
must spend itself on the shore before it subsides again into the sea.
Be calm. Keep faith with those whose task it is to uphold the faith of
mankind.
When you say that you want to suffer as long as the world suffers, you
are speaking as our pupil, and we would not have it otherwise. But
remember that one may be strong in suffering. We would not have you
shirk the experience; but master and use the experience, instead of
letting it master and use you.
In regard to America, did I not tell you some time ago that there was
“an American on guard to-night,” old Abraham Lincoln, who renounced
heaven that he might watch over and guard the land he died for? Rest in
confidence on that assurance.
The other countries that you love are watched over also. And another
country which you do not love is watched over, lest it wander so far
that it cannot find its way back into the fold of human brotherhood.
There are souls in that country who are keenly aware that she has gone
as far as she safely may without becoming an outlaw among the nations.
There are even Germans in America who know it. If I named a few of
them, you might be surprised.
It is well that Germans in America should _feel_ the American
repudiation of this latest piracy on the high seas. Let them feel it to
the quick. They can learn in no other way.
Do you fancy that in writing through your hand this book to be
published after the war, I am impressing my thought only upon you? I am
impressing others besides you.
A few days after I wrote you that Abraham Lincoln was on guard, a
newspaper cartoonist published a drawing of the ghost of the great
Lincoln standing behind President Wilson. Did you think it was a mere
coincidence? It was not a mere coincidence. I impress my thought, and
the thought of the Masters behind me, on other minds than yours. I am a
_worker_ in the astral world. To impress the minds of men is one
of the duties assigned me. I go here and there where I am needed; but
I have not written anywhere else as I have written through you. I have
tried to, but with very indifferent success. An accurate amanuensis
between the worlds is rare. They have to be trained to distinguish
between the thoughts of the dictator and the thoughts of their own
minds, objective and subjective, also between these and the thoughts of
irresponsible entities who like to have a finger in the earthly pie.
You wonder why I do not tell you more stories? I will tell you a story
on my next visit.
_May 11._
LETTER XXXIX
ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES
THE story I have to tell you is a sad one, but we are writing of war.
It was three days after the _Lusitania_ went down. Leaving the
plains and hills of war-harried France, I had come out across the
waters to serve where service was most needed at the moment.
Drawing near to the scene of the disaster, I met a child-soul who
wandered up and down looking for something which it could not find--a
girl-child of maybe a dozen years, with troubled and bewildered eyes.
“Can I help you?” I asked, taking her by the hand, so that she ceased
her restless moving to and fro and paused with me.
“I have lost my mother,” she said. “Where is my mother?”
“I do not know,” I answered, “but we will look for her.”
It is not always easy for a bewildered soul to find in the astral
world another soul whom it seeks, though it is sometimes very easy
for a calm soul to find another. As on earth, the one we look for with
turmoil in our hearts seems to be held away from us by invisible hands.
Passing along with the child, I met many others equally bewildered. All
were looking for someone or for something.
“Why are we here?” asked the child. “I thought we were going to London.”
“Do you not know that you have been drowned?” I asked.
“Did I really drown when I was in the water?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was a dream, for I have been asleep.”
“Yes, you have been asleep, but the drowning was no dream.”
“Then where am I?”
“You are in the other world.”
“The other world! But I thought the other world was heaven.”
“Heaven is also in the other world.”
“You do not mean that I have gone to the bad place?”
“No, you have not gone to the darkest place,” I said, “and you will
find your way to heaven by and by.”
“But why was I drowned? Why did the ship go down? It was such a
beautiful ship, and we were so happy playing about the decks!”
“You were drowned because Germany is at war with England.”
“But why should they drown me?”
“In an attempt to prove that England does not hold the seas.”
“But what has that to do with me?”
“Nothing, my child. It has nothing to do with you. You are only a
helpless victim.”
“But _who_ drowned us?”
“The commander of a submarine.”
“Is he a very bad man?”
“I cannot imagine a good man doing it.”
“And why can’t I find my mother? Was she drowned, too?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then you don’t know everything?”
“No, I don’t know everything.”
“Are you an angel?”
“No, I am not an angel.”
“What are you, then?”
“A man.”
“And were you drowned, also?”
“No, I came to the other world more than three years ago.”
The child began to cry. Did you suppose that children never cried after
death? Dead children often cry. Would you not cry at the thought of
being drowned, if you woke and could not find your mother?
I too could have cried with the child, for I have had children of my
own, and one of them died young.
“Have I been very bad without knowing it, that I should be drowned like
this?” asked the little girl.
“No, I do not think that you have been very bad.”
As we passed across the rough waters we saw the corpse of a woman
floating face upwards in the pale light. The child could see it dimly,
though not so well as I.
Have you ever seen a living child weeping over the soulless corpse of
its mother? If that seemed sad to you, would it not seem sadder to see
the living _soul_ of a child weeping over the corpse of a mother
whose soul was absent? To me it was the most pitiful of all sad sights.
“Come away, little one,” I said, “your mother is not here.”
A little farther on we saw the body of a child also floating face
upwards in the pale light. I knew whose body it was, and so did the
child.
“Why, it isn’t pretty any more!” she said.
“Come away, little one,” I repeated, “come and look for the mother.”
But she seemed held fast near the floating thing in the water. No, it
was not pretty; but the soul beside me was very beautiful for all its
sadness.
“What will become of _it_?” she asked, awestruck.
“I do not know.”
“Do you think they will bury it somewhere?”
“If they find it they will bury it.”
“Could you not tell them where it is?”
“If we wait to look for them, we may not find the mother.”
We met many women passing to and fro over the water, mothers looking
for their children, wives seeking their husbands, some seeking their
own lost forms, others merely passing to and fro in bewilderment and
grief.
“It is very sad to die,” said the child.
“It is not always sad to die,” I answered. “It is sometimes beautiful
to die.”
“Where is the man who drowned us?”
“Why, do you want to see him?”
“I want him to see me.”
“He will see you his life-long in dreams,” I said, “whether he lives to
be old, or dies tomorrow.”
Coming toward us across the sea was the form of a woman wringing vapory
hands.
“Where is my child? Where is my child?” she was saying over and over.
“Mother, I am here!” cried the little girl, and the two forms melted in
a close embrace.
“I have found you! I have found you!” the mother and child repeated
over and over, as they clung together.
I remained near them a little while, for I wanted to help them to free
themselves from the sadness of their fate.
“Will you not come with me?” I asked them, when they could listen.
“But where shall we go?”
“Away from here.”
“I want to go home,” said the child.
“We are homeless now,” the mother answered; “we are in the other world.”
“Then you also know what has happened?” I asked her.
“Oh, yes, I know, I know!”
“Will you not come away with me?” I repeated.
“Are you an angel?” asked the mother, even as the child had asked.
I told her who I was and what I was doing there.
“Is there no help for us?” she asked.
“It is to help you that I have come.”
“But where shall we go?”
“Anywhere, away from here.”
As we stood talking together, another woman came toward us looking for
a lost child; another child--not hers--came toward us looking for a
lost mother.
I am willing to tell you that I did not well know what to do with
all these stricken souls. Where _could_ I take them for rest or
comfort?
The whole astral region around the earth is full of sadness and crying.
Only the strongest and most resolute souls can get far enough away
to escape the gloom and the horror. And these newly arrived ones have
not the strength; for you must know that in this world we go where our
desires and our thoughts go, and we go with our fears and our griefs.
I led the mother and child to another part of the world, and left
them with others in the care of two ministering older souls who have
given themselves to this sad work. But as one cannot teach a child the
differential calculus, so we cannot take to the lofty regions of peace
those beings in whose hearts there is no peace.
I shall ask the advice of the Teacher as to how much I should tell the
world of the awful conditions around us.
Even the restoration of peace on earth will not immediately purge the
astral world of the sores of war. You think that you suffer--and I
know better than anyone else how much; but you can escape into the
material world, you can walk on the green hills in the sunshine, you
can rise occasionally to the place of spiritual calm above the conflict
astral and material. These millions of grieving ones cannot go back to
the physical, and few of them can yet rise to the spiritual. Their
immediate future is a problem for the greatest of the Masters, a
problem that taxes the wisdom of the Masters of wisdom.
Hold steady, you for whom there is another day of anxiety not far off.
Hold steady; for though you may not realize it, I to whom you look for
strength find also strength in you. That is a mystery which I may or
may not explain by and by. You are a solid platform from which I can
spring, when I need the force of a material base. I shall not over-use
it.