THE SECRET OF STRENGTH
I
Strength to step forward is the primary
need of him who has chosen his path. Where
is this to be found? Looking round, it is not
hard to see where other men find their strength.
Its source is profound conviction. Through this
great moral power is brought to birth in the
natural life of the man that which enables him,
however frail he may be, to go on and conquer.
Conquer what? Not continents, not worlds, but
himself. Through that supreme victory is
obtained the entrance to the whole, where all
that might be conquered and obtained by effort
becomes at once not his, but himself.
To put on armor and go forth to war,
taking the chances of death in the hurry of the
fight, is an easy thing; to stand still amid
the jangle of the world, to preserve stillness
within the turmoil of the body, to hold silence
amid the thousand cries of the senses and
desires, and then, stripped of all armor and
without hurry or excitement take the deadly
serpent of self and kill it, is no easy thing.
Yet that is what has to be done; and it can
only be done in the moment of equilibrium
when the enemy is disconcerted by the silence.
But there is needed for this supreme
moment a strength such as no hero of the
battlefield needs. A great soldier must be filled
with the profound convictions of the justness
of his cause and the rightness of his method.
The man who wars against himself and wins
the battle can do it only when he knows that
in that war he is doing the one thing which
is worth doing, and when he knows that in
doing it he is winning heaven and hell as his
servitors. Yes, he stands on both. He needs
no heaven where pleasure comes as a long-promised
reward; he fears no hell where pain
waits to punish him for his sins. For he has
conquered once for all that shifting serpent
in himself which turns from side to side in
its constant desire of contact, in its perpetual
search after pleasure and pain. Never again
(the victory once really won) can he tremble
or grow exultant at any thought of that which
the future holds. Those burning sensations
which seemed to him to be the only proofs
of his existence are his no longer. How, then,
can he know that he lives? He knows it only
by argument. And in time he does not care to
argue about it. For him there is then peace;
and he will find in that peace the power he
has coveted. Then he will know what is that
faith which can remove mountains.
II
Religion holds a man back from the path,
prevents his stepping forward, for various very
plain reasons. First it makes the vital mistake
of distinguishing between good and evil.
Nature knows no such distinction; and the
moral and social laws set us by our religions
are as temporary, as much a thing of our own
special mode and form of existence, as are the
moral and social laws of the ants or the bees.
We pass out of that state in which these things
appear to be final, and we forget them forever.
This is easily shown, because a man of broad
habits of thought and of intelligence must
modify his code of life when he dwells among
another people. These people among whom
he is an alien have their own deep-rooted
religions and hereditary convictions, against
which he cannot offend. Unless his is an
abjectly narrow and unthinking mind, he sees
that their form of law and order is as good as
his own. What then can he do but reconcile
his conduct gradually to their rules? And then
if he dwells among them many years the sharp
edge of difference is worn away, and he forgets
at last where their faith ends and his commences.
Yet is it for his own people to say he
has done wrong, if he has injured no man and
remained just?
I am not attacking law and order; I do not
speak of these things with rash dislike. In
their place they are as vital and necessary as
the code which governs the life of a beehive
is to its successful conduct. What I wish to
point out is that law and order in themselves
are quite temporary and unsatisfactory.
a man's soul passes away from its brief
dwelling-place, thoughts of law and order do
not accompany it. If it is strong, it is the
ecstasy of true being and real life which it
becomes possessed of, as all know who have
watched by the dying. If the soul is weak, it
faints and fades away, overcome by the first
flush of the new life.
Am I speaking too positively? Only those
who live in the active life of the moment, who
have not watched beside the dead and dying,
who have not walked the battlefield and
looked in the faces of men in their last agony,
will say so. The strong man goes forth from
his body exultant.
Why? Because he is no longer held back
and made to quiver by hesitation. In the
strange moment of death he has had release
given him; and with a sudden passion of
delight he recognises that it is release. Had;
he been sure of this before, he would have
been a great sage, a man to rule the world,
for he would have had the power to rule
himself and his own body. That release from
the chains of ordinary life can be obtained as
easily during life as by death. It only needs a
sufficiently profound conviction to enable the
man to look on his body with the same emotions
as he would look on the body of another
man, or on the bodies of a thousand men. In
contemplating a battlefield it is impossible to
realize the agony of every sufferer; why, then,
realize your own pain more keenly than
another's? Mass the whole together, and look
at it all from a wider standpoint than that
of the individual life. That you actually feel
your own physical wound is a weakness of
your limitation. The man who is developed
psychically feels the wound of another as
keenly as his own, and does not feel his own
at all if he is strong enough to will it so.
Every one who has examined at all seriously
into psychic conditions knows this to be a fact,
more or less marked, according to the psychic
development. In many instances, the psychic is
more keenly and selfishly aware of his own
pain than of any other person's; but that is
when the development, marked perhaps so far
as it has gone, only reaches a certain point.
It is the power which carries the man to the
margin of that consciousness which is profound
peace and vital activity. It can carry him no
further. But if he has reached its margin he
is freed from the paltry dominion of his own
self. That is the first great release. Look at
the sufferings which come upon us from our
narrow and limited experience and sympathy.
We each stand quite alone, a solitary unit, a
pygmy in the world. What good fortune can
we expect? The great life of the world rushes
by, and we are in danger each instant that
it will overwhelm us or even utterly destroy us.
There is no defence to be offered to it; no
opposition army can be set up, because in this
life every man fights his own battle against
every other man, and no two can be united
under the same banner. There is only one way
of escape from this terrible danger which we
battle against every hour. Turn round, and
instead of standing against the forces, join
them; become one with Nature, and go easily
upon her path. Do not resist or resent the
circumstances of life any more than the plants
present the rain and the wind. Then suddenly,
to your own amazement, you find you have
time and strength to spare, to use in the great
battle which it is inevitable every man must
fight,--that in himself, that which leads to
his own conquest.
Some might say, to his own destruction.
And why? Because from the hour when he
first tastes the splendid reality of living he
forgets more and more his individual self. No
longer does he fight for it, or pit its strength
against the strength of others. No longer does
he care to defend or to feed it. Yet when
he is thus indifferent to its welfare, the individual
self grows more stalwart and robust,
like the prairie grasses and the trees of untrodden
forests. It is a matter of indifference to
him whether this is so or not. Only, if it is so,
he has a fine instrument ready to his hand; and
in due proportion to the completeness of his
indifference to it is the strength and beauty
of his personal self. This is readily seen; a
garden flower becomes a mere degenerate copy
of itself if it is simply neglected; a plant must
be cultivated to the highest pitch, and benefit
by the whole of the gardener's skill, or else it
must be a pure savage, wild, and fed only by
the earth and sky. Who cares for any intermediate
states? What value or strength is
there in the neglected garden rose which has
the canker in every bud? For diseased or
dwarfed blossoms are sure to result from an
arbitrary change of condition, resulting from
the neglect of the man who has hitherto been
the providence of the plant in its unnatural
life. But there are wind-blown plains where
the daisies grow tall, with moon faces such
as no cultivation can produce in them. Cultivate,
then, to the very utmost; forget no inch
of your garden ground, no smallest plant that
grows in it; make no foolish pretence nor fond
mistake in the fancy that you are ready to
forget it, and so subject it to the frightful consequences
of half-measures. The plant that is
watered to-day and forgotten to-morrow must
dwindle or decay. The plant that looks for no
help but from Nature itself measures its
strength at once, and either dies and is
re-created or grows into a great tree whose
boughs fill the sky. But make no mistake like
the religionists and some philosophers; leave
no part of yourself neglected while you know
it to be yourself. While the ground is the
gardener's it is his business to tend it; but
some day a call may come to him from another
country or from death itself, and in a moment
he is no longer the gardener, his business is at
an end, he has no more duty of that kind
at all. Then his favorite plants suffer and die,
and the delicate ones become one with the
earth. But soon fierce Nature claims the place
for her own, and covers it with thick grass or
giant weeds, or nurses some sapling in it
till its branches shade the ground. Be warned,
and tend your garden to the utmost, till you can
pass away utterly and let it return to Nature
and become the wind-blown plain where the
wild-flowers grow. Then, if you pass that way
and look at it, whatever has happened will
neither grieve nor elate you. For you will be
able to say, "I am the rocky ground, I am the
great tree, I am the strong daisies," indifferent
which it is that flourishes where once your rose-trees
grew. But you must have learned to study
the stars to some purpose before you dare to
neglect your roses, and omit to fill the air
with their cultivated fragrance. You must
know your way through the trackless air, and
from thence to the pure ether; you must be
ready to lift the bar of the Golden Gate.
Cultivate, I say, and neglect nothing. Only
remember, all the while you tend and water,
that you are impudently usurping the tasks of
Nature herself. Having usurped her work,
you must carry it through until you have
reached a point when she has no power to
punish you, when you are not afraid of her,
but can with a bold front return her her own.
She laughs in her sleeve, the mighty mother,
watching you with covert, laughing eye, ready
relentlessly to cast the whole of your work
into the dust if you do but give her the chance,
if you turn idler and grow careless. The idler
is father of the madman in the sense that the
child is the father of the.man. Nature has
put her vast hand on him and crushed the
whole edifice. The gardener and his rose-trees
are alike broken and stricken by the great
storm which her movement has created; they
lie helpless till the sand is swept over them
and they are buried in a weary wilderness.
From this desert spot Nature herself will
re-create, and will use the ashes of the man
who dared to face her as indifferently as the
withered leaves of his plants. His body, soul,
and spirit are all alike claimed by her.
III
The man who is strong, who has resolved
to find the unknown path, takes with the
utmost care every step. He utters no idle word,
he does no unconsidered action, he neglects no
duty or office however homely or however
difficult. But while his eyes and hands and
feet are thus fulfilling their tasks, new eyes
and hands and feet are being born within
him. For his passionate and unceasing desire
is to go that way on which the subtile organs
only can guide him. The physical world he has
learned, and knows how to use; gradually his
power is passing on, and he recognises the
psychic world. But he has to learn this world
and know how to use it, and he dare not lose
hold of the life he is familiar with till he has
taken hold of that with which he is unfamiliar.
When he has acquired such power
with his psychic organs as the infant has with
its physical organs when it first opens its lungs,
then is the hour for the great adventure. How
little is needed--yet how much that is! The
man does but need the psychic body to be
formed in all parts, as is an infant's; he does
but need the profound and unshakable conviction
which impels the infant, that the new
life is desirable. Once those conditions gained
and he may let himself live in the new atmosphere
and look up to the new sun. But then
his must remember to check his new experience
by the old. He is breathing still, though differently;
he draws air into his lungs, and takes
life from the sun. He has been born into the
psychic world, and depends now on the
psychic air and light. His goal is not here: this
is but a subtile repetition of physical life; he
has to pass through it according to similar
laws. He must study, learn, grow, and conquer;
never forgetting the while that his goal is that
place where there is no air nor any sun or
moon.
Do not imagine that in this line of progress
the man himself is being moved or changing
his place. Not so. The truest illustration of the
process is that of cutting through layers of crust
or skin. The man, having learned his lesson
fully, casts off the physical life; having learned
his lesson fully, casts off the psychic life; having
learned his lesson fully, casts off the contemplative
life, or life of adoration.
All are cast aside at last, and he enters the
great temple where any memory of self or sensation
is left outside as the shoes are cast from
the feet of the worshipper. That temple is the
place of his own pure divinity, the central flame
which, however obscured, has animated him
through all these struggles. And having found
this sublime home he is sure as the heavens
themselves. He remains still, filled with all
knowledge and power. The outer man, the
adoring, the acting, the living personification,
goes its own way hand in hand with Nature,
and shows all the superb strength of the savage
growth of the earth, lit by that instinct which
contains knowledge. For in the inmost sanctuary,
in the actual temple, the man has found
the subtile essence of Nature herself. No
longer can there be any difference between
them or any half-measures. And now comes
the hour of action and power. In that inmost
sanctuary all is to be found: God and his creatures,
the fiends who prey on them, those
among men who have been loved, those who
have been hated. Difference between them exists
no longer. Then the soul of man laughs in
its strength and fearlessness, and goes forth
into the world in which its actions are needed,
and causes these actions to take place without
apprehension, alarm, fear, regret, or joy.
This state is possible to man while yet he
lives in the physical; for men have attained it
while living. It alone can make actions in the
physical divine and true.
Life among objects of sense must forever
be an outer shape to the sublime soul,--it can
only become powerful life, the life of accomplishment,
when it is animated by the crowned
and indifferent god that sits in the sanctuary.
The obtaining of this condition is so supremely
desirable because from the moment it
is entered there is no more trouble, no more
anxiety, no more doubt or hesitation. As a
great artist paints his picture fearlessly and
never committing any error which causes him
regret, so the man who has formed his inner
self deals with his life.
But that is when the condition is entered.
That which we who look towards the mountains
hunger to know is the mode of entrance and
the way to the Gate. The Gate is that Gate of
Gold barred by a heavy bar of iron. The way
to the threshold of it turns a man giddy and
sick. It seems no path, it seems to end perpetually,
its way lies along hideous precipices,
it loses itself in deep waters.
Once crossed and the way found it appears
wonderful that the difficulty should have looked;
so great. For the path where it disappears does
but turn abruptly, its line upon the precipice
edge is wide enough for the feet, and across
the deep waters that look so treacherous there,
is always a ford and a ferry. So it happens in
all profound experiences of human nature.
When the first grief tears the heart asunder it
seems that the path has ended and a blank
darkness taken the place of the sky. And yet by
groping the soul passes on, and that difficult
and seemingly hopeless turn in the road is
passed.
So with many another form or human torture.
Sometimes throughout a long period or
a whole lifetime the path of existence is perpetually
checked by what seem like insurmountable
obstacles. Grief, pain, suffering, the loss
of all that is beloved or valued, rise up before
the terrified soul and check it at every turn.
Who places those obstacles there? The reason
shrinks at the childish dramatic picture which
the religionists place before it,--God permitting
the Devil to torment His creatures for their
ultimate good! When will that ultimate good
be attained? The idea involved in this picture
supposes an end, a goal. There is none. We
can any one of us safely assent to that; for as
far as human observation, reason, thought, intellect,
or instinct can reach towards grasping
the mystery of life, all data obtained show that
the path is endless and that eternity cannot be
blinked and converted by the idling soul into
a million years.
In man, taken individually or as a whole,
there clearly exists a double constitution. I am
speaking roughly now, being well aware that
the various schools of philosophy cut him up
and subdivide him according to their several
theories. What I mean is this: that two great
tides of emotion sweep through his nature, two
great forces guide his life; the one makes him
an animal, and the other makes him a god. No
brute of the earth is so brutal as the man who
subjects his godly power to his animal power.
This is a matter of course, because the whole
force of the double nature is then used in one
direction. The animal pure and simple obeys
his instincts only and desires no more than to
gratify his love of pleasure; he pays but little
regard to the existence of other beings except
in so far as they offer him pleasure or pain; he
knows nothing of the abstract love of cruelty or
of any of those vicious tendencies of the human
being which have in themselves their own
gratification. Thus the man who becomes a
beast has a million times the grasp of life over
the natural beast, and that which in the pure
animal is sufficiently innocent enjoyment, uninterrupted
by an arbitrary moral standard, becomes
in him vice, because it is gratified on
principle. Moreover he turns all the divine
powers of his being into this channel, and degrades
his soul by making it the slave of his
senses. The god, deformed and disguised,
waits on the animal and feeds it.
Consider then whether it is not possible to
change the situation. The man himself is king
of the country in which this strange spectacle
is seen. He allows the beast to usurp the place
of the god because for the moment the beast
pleases his capricious royal fancy the most. This
cannot last always; why let it last any longer?
So long as the animal rules there will be the
keenest sufferings in consequence of change,
of the vibration between pleasure and pain,
of the desire for prolonged and pleasant
physical life. And the god in his capacity of
servant adds a thousand-fold to all this, by
making physical life so much more filled with
keenness of pleasure,--rare, voluptuous,
aesthetic pleasure,--and by intensity of pain
so passionate that one knows not where it
ends and where pleasure commences. So
long as the god serves, so long the life of
the animal will be enriched and increasingly
valuable. But let the king resolve to change
the face of his court and forcibly evict the animal
from the chair of state, restoring the god
to the place of divinity.
Ah, the profound peace that falls upon the
palace! All is indeed changed. No longer is
there the fever of personal longings or desires,
no longer is there any rebellion or distress, no
longer any hunger for pleasure or dread of
pain. It is like a great calm descending on a
stormy ocean; it is like the soft rain of summer
falling on parched ground; it is like the
deep pool found amidst the weary, thirsty
labyrinths of the unfriendly forest.
But there is much more than this. Not only
is man more than an animal because there is
the god in him, but he is more than a god because
there is the animal in him.
Once force the animal into his rightful
place, that of the inferior, and you find yourself
in possession of a great force hitherto unsuspected
and unknown. The god as servant
adds a thousand-fold to the pleasures of the
animal; the animal as servant adds a thousand-fold
to the powers of the god. And it is upon
the union, the right relation of these two forces
in himself, that man stands as a strong king,
and is enabled to raise his hand and lift the
bar of the Golden Gate. When these forces
are unfitly related, then the king is but a
crowned voluptuary, without power, and whose
dignity does but mock him; for the animals,
undivine, at least know peace and are not torn
by vice and despair.
That is the whole secret. That is what
makes man strong, powerful, able to grasp
heaven and earth in his hands. Do not fancy
it is easily done. Do not be deluded into the
idea that the religious or the virtuous man does
it! Not so. They do no more than fix a standard,
a routine, a law, by which they hold the
animal in check. The god is compelled to
serve him in a certain way, and does so, pleasing
him with the beliefs and cherished fantasies
of the religious, with the lofty sense of personal
pride which makes the joy of the virtuous.
These special and canonized vices are
things too low and base to be possible to the
pure animal, whose only inspirer is Nature herself,
always fresh as the dawn. The god in
man, degraded, is a thing unspeakable in its infamous
power of production.
The animal in man, elevated, is a thing unimaginable
in its great powers of service and
of strength.
You forget, you who let your animal self
live on, merely checked and held within certain
bounds, that it is a great force, an integral
portion of the animal life of the world you
live in. With it you can sway men, and influence
the very world itself, more or less perceptibly
according to your strength. The god,
given his right place, will so inspire and guide
this extraordinary creature, so educate and
develope it, so force it into action and recognition
of its kind, that it will make you tremble
when you recognise the power that has awakened
within you. The animal in yourself will
then be a king among the animals of the world.
This is the secret of the old-world magicians
who made Nature serve them and work
miracles every day for their convenience. This
is the secret of the coming race which Lord
Lytton foreshadowed for us.
But this power can only be attained by giving
the god the sovereignty. Make your animal
ruler over yourself, and he will never rule
others.
EPILOGUE
Secreted and hidden in the heart of the
world and in the heart of man is the light
which can illumine all life, the future and the
past. Shall we not search for it? Surely some
must do so. And then perhaps those will add
what is needed to this poor fragment of
thought.
THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD
From _The Path_, March, 1887
The most notable book for guidance in Mysticism
which has appeared since _Light on the Path_
was written has just been published under the
significant title of _Through the Gates of Gold_.
Though the author's name is withheld, the occult
student will quickly discern that it must proceed
from a very high source. In certain respects the
book may be regarded as a commentary on _Light
on the Path_. The reader would do well to bear
this in mind. Many things in that book will be
made clear by the reading of this one, and one will
be constantly reminded of that work, which has
already become a classic in our literature. _Through
the Gates of Gold_ is a work to be kept constantly
at hand for reference and study. It will surely take
rank as one of the standard books of Theosophy.
The "Gates of Gold" represent the entrance to
that realm of the soul unknowable through the
physical perceptions, and the purpose of this work
is to indicate some of the steps necessary to reach
their threshold. Through its extraordinary beauty
of style and the clearness of its statement it will
appeal to a wider portion of the public than most
works of a Theosophical character. It speaks to the
Western World in its own language, and in this
fact lies much of its value.
Those of us who have been longing for something
"practical" will find it here, while it will
probably come into the hands of thousands who
know little or nothing of Theosophy, and thus meet
wants deeply felt though unexpressed. There are
also doubtless many, we fancy, who will be carried
far along in its pages by its resistless logic until
they encounter something which will give a rude
shock to some of their old conceptions, which they
have imagined as firmly based as upon a rock--a
shock which may cause them to draw back in alarm,
but from which they will not find it so easy to
recover, and which will be likely to set them
thinking seriously.
The titles of the five chapters of the book are,
respectively, "The Search for Pleasure," "The
Mystery of Threshold," "The Initial Effort," "The
Meaning of Pain," and "The Secret of Strength."
Instead of speculating upon mysteries that lie at the
very end of man's destiny, and which cannot be
approached by any manner of conjecture, the work
very sensibly takes up that which lies next at hand,
that which constitutes the first step to be taken if
we are ever to take a second one, and teaches us its
significance. At the outset we must cope with
sensation and learn its nature and meaning. An
important teaching of _Light on the Path_ has been
misread by many. We are not enjoined to kill out
sensation, but to "kill out _desire_ for sensation,"
which is something quite different. "Sensation, as
we obtain it through the physical body, affords us
all that induces us to live in that shape," says this
work. The problem is, to extract the meaning which
it holds for us. That is what existence is for. "If
men will but pause and consider what lessons they
have learned from pleasure and pain, much might
be guessed of that strange thing which causes these
effects."
"The question concerning results seemingly
unknowable, that concerning the life beyond the
Gates," is presented as one that has been asked
throughout the ages, coming at the hour "when the
flower of civilization had blown to its full, and when
its petals are but slackly held together," the period
when man reaches the greatest physical development
of his cycle. It is then that in the distance a great
glittering is seen, before which many drop their
eyes bewildered and dazzled, though now and then
one is found brave enough to gaze fixedly on this
glittering, and to decipher something of the shape
within it. "Poets and philosophers, thinkers and
teachers, all those who are the 'elder brothers of the
race'--have beheld this sight from time to time,
and some among them have recognized in the bewildering
glitter the outlines of the Gates of Gold."
Those Gates admit us to the sanctuary of man's
own nature, to the place whence his life-power
comes, and where he is priest of the shrine of life.
It needs but a strong hand to push them open, we
are told. "The courage to enter them is the courage
to search the recesses of one's own nature without
fear and without shame. In the fine part, the
essence, the flavor of the man, is found the key
which unlocks those great Gates."
The necessity of killing out the sense of separateness
is profoundly emphasized as one of the most
important factors in this process. We must divest
ourselves of the illusions of the material life. "When
we desire to speak with those who have tried the
Golden Gates and pushed them open, then it is very
necessary--in fact it is essential--to discriminate,
and not bring into our life the confusions of our
sleep. If we do, we are reckoned as madmen, and
fall back into the darkness where there is no friend
but chaos. This chaos has followed every effort of
man that is written in history; after civilization has
flowered, the flower falls and dies, and winter and
darkness destroy it." In this last sentence is indicated
the purpose of civilization. It is the blossoming
of a race, with the purpose of producing a certain
spiritual fruit; this fruit having ripened, then the
degeneration of the great residuum begins, to be
worked over and over again in the grand fermenting
processes of reincarnation. Our great civilization
is now flowering and in this fact we may read the
reason for the extraordinary efforts to sow the seed
of the Mystic Teachings wherever the mind of man
may be ready to receive it.
In the "Mystery of Threshold," we are told that
"only a man who has the potentialities in him both
of the voluptuary and the stoic has any chance of
entering the Golden Gates. He must be capable of
testing and valuing to its most delicate fraction every
joy existence has to give; and he must be capable of
denying himself all pleasure, and that without
suffering from the denial."
The fact that the way is different for each individual
is finely set forth in "The Initial Effort," in
the words that man "may burst the shell that holds
him in darkness, tear the veil that hides him from
the eternal, at any moment where it is easiest for
him to do so; and most often this point will be
where he least expects to find it." By this we may
see the uselessness of laying down arbitrary laws
in the matter.
The meaning of those important words, "All
steps are necessary to make up the ladder," finds a
wealth of illustration here. These sentences are particularly
pregnant: "Spirit is not a gas created by
matter, and we cannot create our future by forcibly
using one material agent and leaving out the rest.
Spirit is the great life on which matter rests, as
does the rocky world on the free and fluid ether;
whenever we can break our limitations we find ourselves
on that marvellous shore where Wordsworth
once saw the gleam of the gold." Virtue, being of
the material life, man has not the power to carry
it with him, "yet the aroma of his good deeds is a
far sweeter sacrifice than the odor of crime and
cruelty."
"To the one who has lifted the golden latch
the spring of sweet waters, the fountain itself whence
all softness arises, is opened and becomes part of
his heritage. But before this can be reached a heavy
weight has to be lifted from the heart, an iron bar
which holds it down and prevents it from arising
in its strength."
The author here wishes to show that there is
sweetness and light in occultism, and not merely a
wide dry level of dreadful Karma, such as some
Theosophists are prone to dwell on. And this sweetness
and light may be reached when we discover
the iron bar and raising it shall permit the heart
to be free. This iron bar is what the Hindus call
"the knot of the heart"! In their scriptures they
talk of unloosing this knot, and say that when that
is accomplished freedom is near. But what is the
iron bar and the knot? is the question we must
answer. It is the astringent power of self--of
egotism--of the idea of separateness. This idea has
many strongholds. It holds its most secret court and
deepest counsels near the far removed depths and
centre of the heart. But it manifests itself first, in
that place which is nearest to our ignorant perceptions,
where we see it first after beginning the search.
When we assault and conquer it there it disappears.
It has only retreated to the next row of outworks
where for a time it appears not to our sight, and
we imagine it killed, while it is laughing at our
imaginary conquests and security. Soon again we
find it and conquer again, only to have it again
retreat. So we must follow it up if we wish to
grasp it at last in its final stand just near the "kernel
of the heart." There it has become "an iron bar
that holds down the heart," and there only can
the fight be really won. That disciple is fortunate
who is able to sink past all the pretended outer
citadels and seize at once this _personal devil_ who
holds the bar of iron, and there wage the battle.
If won there, it is easy to return to the outermost
places and take them by capitulation. This is very
difficult, for many reasons. It is not a mere juggle of
words to speak of this trial. It is a living tangible
thing that can be met by any real student. The
great difficulty of rushing at once to the centre lies
in the unimaginable terrors which assault the soul
on its short journey there. This being so it is better
to begin the battle on the outside in just the way
pointed out in this book and _Light on the Path_,
by testing experience and learning from it.
In the lines quoted the author attempts to direct
the eyes of a very materialistic age to the fact which
is an accepted one by all true students of occultism,
that the true heart of a man--which is visibly represented
by the muscular heart--is the focus point
for spirit, for knowledge, for power; and that from
that point the converged rays begin to spread out
fan-like, until they embrace the Universe. So it is
the Gate. And it is just at that neutral spot of
concentration that the pillars and the doors are fixed.
It is beyond it that the glorious golden light burns,
and throws up a "burnished glow." We find in
this the same teachings as in the Upanishads. The
latter speaks of "the ether which is within the
heart," and also says that we must pass across
that ether.
"The Meaning of Pain" is considered in a way
which throws a great light on the existence of that
which for ages has puzzled many learned men.
"Pain arouses, softens, breaks, and destroys. Regarded
from a sufficiently removed standpoint, it
appears as a medicine, as a knife, as a weapon, as a
poison, in turn. It is an implement, a thing which
is used, evidently. What we desire to discover is,
who is the user; what part of ourselves is it that
demands the presence of this thing so hateful to
the rest?"
The task is, to rise above both pain and pleasure
and unite them to our service. "Pain and pleasure
stand apart and separate, as do the two sexes; and
it is in the merging, the making the two into one,
that joy and deep sensation and profound peace are
obtained. Where there is neither male nor female,
neither pain nor pleasure, there is the god in man
dominant, and then is life real."
The following passage can hardly fail to startle
many good people: "Destiny, the inevitable, does
indeed exist for the race and for the individual;
but who can ordain this save the man himself?
There is no clew in heaven or earth to the existence
of any ordainer other than the man who suffers or
enjoys that which is ordained." But can any earnest
student of Theosophy deny, or object to this? Is it
not a pure statement of the law of Karma? Does it
not agree perfectly with the teaching of the Bhagavat-Gita?
There is surely no power which sits apart
like a judge in court, and fines us or rewards us
for this misstep or that merit; it is we who shape,
or ordain, our own future.
God is not denied. The seeming paradox that a
God exists within each man is made clear when we
perceive that our separate existence is an illusion;
the physical, which makes us separate individuals,
must eventually fall away, leaving each man one
with all men, and with God, who is the Infinite.
And the passage which will surely be widely
misunderstood is that in "The Secret of Strength."
"Religion holds a man back from the path, prevents
his stepping forward, for various very plain reasons.
First, it makes the vital mistake of distinguishing
between good and evil. Nature knows no such distinctions."
Religion is always man-made. It cannot
therefore be the whole truth. It is a good thing for
the ordinary and outside man, but surely it will
never bring him to the Gates of Gold. If religion
be of God how is it that we find that same God
in his own works and acts violating the precepts
of religion? He kills each man once in life; every
day the fierce elements and strange circumstances
which he is said to be the author of, bring on
famine, cold and innumerable untimely deaths;
where then, in The True, can there be any room
for such distinctions as right and wrong? The disciple,
must as he walks on the path, abide by law
and order, but if he pins his faith on any religion
whatever he will stop at once, and it makes no
matter whether he sets up Mahatmas, Gods, Krishna,
Vedas or mysterious acts of grace, each of these
will stop him and throw him into a rut from which
even heavenly death will not release him. Religion
can only teach morals and ethics. It cannot answer
the question "what am I?" The Buddhist ascetic
holds a fan before his eyes to keep away the sight
of objects condemned by his religion. But he thereby
gains no knowledge, for that part of him which is
affected by the improper sights has to be known by
the man himself, and it is by experience alone that
the knowledge can be possessed and assimilated.
The book closes gloriously, with some hints that
have been much needed. Too many, even of the
sincerest students of occultism, have sought to ignore
that one-half of their nature, which is here taught
to be necessary. Instead of crushing out the animal
nature, we have here the high and wise teaching
that we must learn to fully understand the animal
and subordinate it to the spiritual. "The god in
man, degraded, is a thing unspeakable in its
infamous power of production. The animal in man,
elevated, is a thing unimaginable in its great powers
of service and of strength," and we [are] told that
our animal self is a great force, the secret of the
old-world magicians, and of the coming race which
Lord Lytton foreshadowed. "But this power can
only be attained by giving the god the sovereignty.
Make your animal ruler over your self, and he will
never rule others."
This teaching will be seen to be identical with
that of the closing words of _The Idyll of the White
Lotus_: "He will learn how to expound spiritual
truths, and to enter into the life of his highest self,
and he can learn also to hold within him the glory
of that higher self, and yet to retain life upon this
planet so long as it shall last, if need be; to retain
life in the vigor of manhood, till his entire work is
completed, and he has taught the three truths to all
who look for light."
There are three sentences in the book which
ought to be imprinted in the reader's mind, and we
present them inversely:
"Secreted and hidden in the heart of the world
and the heart of man is the light which can illumine
all life, the future and the past."
"On the mental steps of a million men Buddha
passed through the Gates of Gold; and because a
great crowd pressed about the threshold he was able
to leave behind him words which prove that those
gates will open."
"This is one of the most important factors in
the development of man, the recognition--profound
and complete recognition--of the law of
universal unity and coherence."