♦The Sacred Truth of the Cessation of Suffering♦
The third sacred truth points the direction in which man must look
for the only possible remedy. He has broken away from his only true
Home, and finds himself a sufferer under the rigour of the very law
which should be his life and joy. The self-life, with its desires and
forthgoings, is the seed of separation. The self-life must therefore be
subdued.
Self must cease to sow the seed of evil deeds, however pleasant; for
every such seed sown is adding to the harvest of evil.
Not only so, but Self must cease to sow the seed of any deeds good
or evil, of which self-desire is the motive. Self must be rigorously
disciplined and denied.
Deeds of mercy and love, having no selfish end, are indeed good; these
hasten the at-one-ment of the broken universe; for the universe, in its
unity, is pure truth and pure mercifulness.
“_Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of
suffering. Verily, it is the destruction, in which no craving remains
over, of this very thirst; the laying aside of, the becoming free from,
the harbouring no longer of, this thirst._”
♦CHRIST♦
Read in the light of the third sacred truth, the words of Christ:--
“If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it
from thee.”
“If thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from
thee.”
“If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple.”
“Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot
be My disciple.”
“If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast ... and come,
follow Me.”
“Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of
Man hath not where to lay His head.”
* * * * *
“_It is only with renunciation that life, properly speaking, can be said
to begin._”
“_All turning to self is so far turning from God; and so much as we have
of self-love, so much we have of the hellish earthly weight that must
be taken off.... Self is not only the seat and habitation, but the very
life of sin; the works of the devil are all wrought in self, it is his
peculiar workshop, and therefore Christ is not come as a Saviour from
sin, as a Destroyer of the works of the devil in any of us, but as far
as self is overcome and beaten down in us._”--LAW.
“_God will have us surrender without terms, and until then we are fast
prisoners, and not children in His universe._”--MARTINEAU.
“_Christ’s love is firm, and can be severe. It never pares down
His requirements to make discipleship easy; rather it attracts by
heightening them, and insisting most strenuously upon the most difficult
surrender._”--MCLAREN.
“_For all followers of Christ, whoever and wherever they may be,
the one essential and inestimable law is that of self-surrender. This
was the very essence and substance of Christ’s teaching, again and
again declared in language of almost awful sternness. This is Christ’s
claim, just because He is our God and owns us; possible, because He
is our kinsman, and understands us; blessed, because it enables Him
to give us tenfold more, even now; merciful, for it is the way of our
salvation._”--THOROLD.
THE WAY OF EMANCIPATION.
BUDDHISM
I. THE WAY OF THE COMMON LIFE.
II. THE WAY OF THE SAINT.
“_The instant of harmony is the instant when the Buddha in us and the
pure truth become one. This is enlightenment. Literally we become Buddha
by the correspondence of our wisdom with the universal truth. The aim is
to reach this plane._”