sexes about which the reformers are making so much ado. It is these who
lament with such vigor the large families of the very poor. Looked at
from the standpoint of the eternal, the growing number of childless
families among the better classes is a much more serious state of
affairs. Large and half-cared for families of children prove nothing
more than ignorance on the part of the parents, of both spiritual and
physical laws. And the suffering that this ignorance entails will
inevitably lead the soul to a higher consciousness. But the other state
of affairs is—with exceptions—the result of selfishness; and the more
conscious the soul, the greater the alienation resulting from a selfish
course of action. Says H. P. B., "The selfish devotee lives to no
purpose. The man who does not go through his appointed work in life has
lived in vain."
It is very noble to slay the appetites but that may occasionally be only
a more subtle phase of selfishness. Besides that, desires that are slain
for selfish comfort's sake do not free us from the law. That is why it
is such nonsense to seek the solution of this old problem by placing the
caprice or whim of the individual man or woman above the law of the
universe. As long as men and women are selfish, as long as marriages are
made from selfish motives, I bow before the rampant desires that shall
force the soul into sacrifices until the self has disappeared. But when
the law is obeyed, and when old Karmic debts are paid, woman and man
will rise superior to it, the will of the individual become one with the
universal will, and the spirit have gained her freedom.
Please do not mistake me. I do not believe that marriage is the only
circumstance through which the sexes can become self-poised, completed
and stable. I do not believe that those who marry should always accept
the limited service that little children demand of them. I do not
believe that the sacrifices of fatherhood and motherhood are the highest
sacrifices. Nothing of the kind. Marriage is simply a means by which the
less advanced souls, the feeble, the selfish, may rise out of feebleness
into strength, out of self into God. Susan E. Blow, in her "Study of
Dante," has defined the Inferno as the soul filled with self, the
Purgatorio as the soul emptied of self, and the Paradiso as the soul
filled with God. Dante himself, with his divine insight into the nature
of sin, places the jealous souls (become so through selfishness extreme)
in icebound Cocytus, at the very pit of the Inferno. To most of us
marriage is indeed the gateway leading out of an Inferno of selfishness,
and it is marriage that places upon our backs the precious burdens which
we must carry up the Purgatorio mountain. "The more we climb the less it
hurts until we seem to fly."[3] But climb we must until the burdens have
all fallen and the self has disappeared. By the light of "the dim star
that burns within" the cyclic path must be ascended. But when the top
has been reached "its light will suddenly become the infinite light." We
shall have entered the Paradiso.
Advanced souls, those who are capable of wider and better service, need
not to complete themselves in marriage nor to find their expression in
the opportunities it gives them. They are strong enough to find it
voluntarily in a cause. They do not marry on the physical plane, but
truly wedded are they on the spiritual plane and in that marriage to the
needs of the world they find the other half, their expression. They
cease their hovering between opposites and are stable.
Such souls were Michael Angelo and Raphael, who found complete
expression in art. Socrates needed no wife. He found his expression in
loafing on the street-corners and plying his mystic questions. Xantippe
was clearly a superfluity and we do not blame her for scolding him when
we remember that she had none of his philosophic insight to carry her
over the desert of his neglect. Dorothea Dix, Florence Nightingale and
hundreds of other souls have found their appropriate expression in
ministry to physical suffering. H. P. B., great loving heart, forgot
self in a sublime service of the mind and of the spirit. Such souls do
not drift nor waver; they need none of the experiences of physical
fatherhood or motherhood; they are wedded to the needs of the world,
they become spiritual fathers and mothers to its children, they find
their expression in brotherhood, they are self-poised, completed, and at
rest.
[2] Voice of the Silence.
[3] Dante.
"Whoever, not being a sanctified person, pretends to be a Saint, he is
indeed the lowest of all men, the thief in all worlds, including that
of Brahma."
"Like a beautiful flower, full of color, but without scent, are the
fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly."—_Gems
from the East._
THE SOKRATIC CLUB.
BY SOLON.
(_Continued._)
At our next gathering an address was given by Mr. Knowlton on Art as an
Educational Factor, with special reference to the Drama. After the
formal address a very interesting conversation arose on the subject in
which the Professor, Mr. Knowlton, and Dr. Roberts took part, and which
I will relate here as far as I am able to remember it. The other members
took the part of listeners.
_Dr. Roberts._—"I can well understand, Mr. Knowlton, that Art plays an
important part in life and should be cultivated, and that no one's
nature is complete who lacks appreciation of the artistic and beautiful,
but even granting this, I do not agree with you that the training of the
artistic faculties should be given so much prominence, but should be
secondary to that training which fits a man for work in the world. To
put it in another way; for the man of the world, art is all very well
for his leisure hours and for his relaxation and enjoyment but can have
no place in his active everyday life."
_Mr. Knowlton._—"I take an entirely opposite view, Doctor, as you know
from what I have said, and I maintain that it is just because we have
put Art in a secondary place that our civilization is characterized by
so much unrest and skepticism; the finer, inner side of man's nature has
been subordinated to the grosser and external. What is the criterion of
success in the world to-day? That should be sufficient argument in
support of my claim. And the man who has achieved success, acquired
wealth, position, fame, has not thereby attained to happiness but in
nearly every case is still the victim of the unrest of the age. He may
use his wealth in the patronage of art, in collections of paintings and
sculpture, in support of Grand Opera and what not, but tell me, do you
honestly think that he truly appreciates these?"
_Dr. Roberts._—"No, I think not. Indeed, in nine cases out of ten, he
affects a patronage of art, has his private picture gallery and a box at
the opera because it is the fashion. No doubt by doing so he is useful
in a way to the Art world, but I must confess that if I wanted a true
appreciation of a work of Art, I would not go to such a one."
_Mr. Knowlton._—"No, the enthusiasm and the true love of art which is
the great incentive in making all life beautiful and harmonious would be
lacking. Well, what is the reason of this? I should say it is because
Art was made entirely subordinate if not almost neglected in his
education, and because it has held a subordinate place throughout his
life."
_The Professor._—"I do not think we can rightly say what position Art
should occupy in education and life unless we can first determine what
is truly man's work in the world and what is the object of life."
_Dr. Roberts._—"That is just the position I take. Life is a serious
matter and a man cannot afford to spend his time and energy on what
after all is more a matter of the imagination than anything else.
Although I certainly think the æsthetic faculties should not be
neglected but that they should receive a certain amount of training;
yet, at the same time, except in the case of those who follow art as a
profession, they play very little part in a man's life work. In fact, I
have known of more than one case where æsthetic sensitiveness has
positively unfitted men for the keen competition of life. After all, the
beautiful must give place to the useful, and, for my part, I say, give
me the cold facts of science and I will make life successful, whereas
the man whose artistic faculties have been trained as Mr. Knowlton says
they should be, would have his life made miserable by the discords and
inharmonies that he must inevitably meet. But put science and the
appreciation of facts as a basis, then a little æsthetic training is all
very well as an embellishment."
_The Professor._—"Doctor, I fear you have completely backslided to your
old materialistic position which you formerly used to hold."
_Dr. Roberts._—"If I have I certainly think I have reason and fact on
my side this time. Let us get to the bottom of this question. Mr.
Knowlton proposes to make education of the æsthetic and artistic
faculties of the first importance, but what would be the effect among
the masses of the people? I fully agree with providing high class
entertainments for the masses—picture-galleries, good music, etc. But
to give an education such as suggested would but make them more
discontented with their lot and increase their unhappiness. What they
need is plain scientific teaching and trade schools where they can be
trained to become more useful members of society and more competent to
earn a livelihood, but not music or art save as a recreation and which I
think ought to be provided for them in the shape of public concerts and
art galleries by the cities. With the exception of a little singing and
drawing when at school to enable them to appreciate this recreation when
they grow up, it would be waste of time for them to develop an
appreciation of the artistic. Their lot is too hard and all their
energies are needed for the stern realities of life."
_The Professor._—"That is all very well, and very well put from your
standpoint in regard to man's work in the world, but possibly there is
another standpoint from which the matter may be viewed."
_Mr. Knowlton._—"And perhaps the very discontent which you fear,
Doctor, would be just what is needed to lift the masses from their
present almost hopeless condition. The discontent from which they suffer
now will never cease through mere material means or scientific
education, or the making and enforcing of new laws."
_The Professor._—"They don't know the cause of their discontent. They
think that if they could have money and material comforts they would be
happy, but we know very well that these things do not bring happiness.
It is the insanity of the age, this pursuit of the phantom of material
prosperity, it is this that breeds all the selfishness, all the greed
and lust of possession. By regarding physical life as all important,
humanity has got off the track, has lost the way that leads to
happiness. Material happiness, physical existence, as an end, is a
veritable bottomless pit—the more it is sacrificed to, the more
insatiable it becomes, the more it demands. The physical life and
physical needs must not be neglected, but so long as these are regarded
as an end and their gratification as the _summum bonum_, just so long
will ever new needs arise, new forms of poverty, new distress."
_Dr. Roberts._—"Professor, you startle me! I hardly know what to say. I
cannot conceive how social reform can take place on any other lines than
the material."
_The Professor._—"It certainly requires courage, it requires first of
all philosophy as a basis, to deliberately turn around and put physical
existence and material comfort in a secondary place while aiming to
develop man's inner faculties. Yet I maintain that this is the only way
to bring hope and happiness to humanity. It will, as you say, make them
discontented with their lot, but this will be but temporary. It will
open for them a door to a higher life which alone through its reaction
on the collective mind of humanity will make possible and bring about
that active brotherliness which will ultimately remove poverty and
distress wherever found."
_Mr. Knowlton._—"Isn't it a law of Nature that the problems of one
plane can ultimately only be solved by rising to the next higher plane?
And it seems to me that this is one of Nature's methods in evolution, to
create discontent with the lower by awakening that which is higher, thus
creating a craving for the higher and a consequent output of energy to
attain it."
_The Professor._—"And, it should be added, ultimately making the lower
of greater service and a more useful instrument."
_Dr. Roberts._—"Granting all this for the sake of argument, how will
you proceed to bring it about, for as I have said, this artistic
appreciation is more a matter of the imagination than anything else and
applies to a realm of which there is, so far as I know, no scientific
knowledge and concerning which, consequently, there will be as many
opinions and methods of procedure as there are teachers? Look for
instance, at the many methods of voice training and all the schools of
Art. Where is there any recognized starting point?"
_The Professor._—"These are all very pertinent questions, Doctor. But
before discussing them let me refer to your remark about imagination.
Isn't it worth while to cultivate the imagination? Where would have been
all the great discoveries in Science had not our scientific men used
their imaginations? The pity is that there has been no training of this
faculty, it is almost a _terra incognita_. But to come to your questions
proper. How shall we proceed to awaken and train the love of the
beautiful that it may work this miracle of regenerating the human race,
for such I believe it will accomplish."
_Dr. Roberts._—"One moment, Professor, let me interrupt you here. A
little time ago we spoke of the lack of true appreciation of art among
many of the so-called patrons of art, but surely that must to some
extent be passing away, for nearly all the wealthy and even those of
moderate means provide that their children shall have some education in
art or music. Even in the public schools an important feature is made of
drawing and class singing. Surely all this ought to bring about what you
desire if your theory is correct, but for my part I cannot see that it
will cause any appreciable change, or in any great degree affect the
condition of the masses. I simply wanted to say this before you go
further, in order that we might not overlook what is already being done
and because I think this supports my position that art and music are all
very well for recreation and pleasure but that the main thing to help
the people is along what I call practical, material and scientific
lines. Only in this way can they be fitted for their work in the world."
_Mr. Knowlton._—"You have stated your position very clearly, Doctor,
and I now see there were many points I did not cover in my address
though some of your objections I certainly did anticipate. However, in
the first place it comes down to this. What answer is to be given to the
question which the Professor asked and which you have again raised? What
is a man's work in the world? What is man? What is his nature? In what
does education consist? We have often discussed these questions, Doctor,
so now we needn't go into them at any length, for you know very well my
position in regard to them, but they come up in a slightly different
aspect in relation to the subject in hand. Let us for the moment, then,
grant the existence of the inner man, the real man, the man of high
imaginations, high feelings, with keen appreciation of harmony and
beauty, that _something_ within us which prompts to a deed of
self-sacrifice, which feels the joy of helping another and relieving
distress. The outer man lives on material food, but for health needs
also pure air and sunshine—all these are necessary to animal existence.
But the inner man needs something more. There are other states of
feeling besides that of physical well-being. There are other powers
besides the physical or even the mental. It is no mere effect of the
imagination that beautiful music or harmony of form and color awaken in
response certain harmonies in the soul and it is just in this way that
true art may be made a vital educative factor."
_The Professor._—"A man's true work in the world is the soul's work,
and true education is that which enables the soul to fulfil its destiny
and make manifest its own nature. True education is therefore that which
will draw out the soul's own powers. If this were done the rest of our
life would all fall into its proper place."
_Dr. Roberts._—"But as I have said, even granting that, it is all
vague. Where and how will you begin? Have you any science of the soul's
powers and how to awaken them? What more would you have than is already
being done in the way of art education?"
_The Professor._—"It is just because there is a science of the soul's
powers that more should be done, and lovers of art have sought and
striven for this for centuries. But the time had not come. It has come
now and this renaissance of the soul's powers is already heralded by the
Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity."
_Dr. Roberts._—"What! do we have to go to the ancients for this? I
acknowledge all the culture and art of the Greeks, but I am not one of
those who puts Greek civilization above ours."
_The Professor._—"It is not a question of giving the palm to either
ancient or modern civilization. Our civilization marks one stage of
development but in it we have lost something that the ancients had.
There is something lacking from our lives. We have developed our
physical senses and physical and mental powers to a marvellous degree
but there are not that harmony and serenity in our lives which alone can
give true happiness. The key to these was in the Mysteries whereby man
was brought face to face with the essences of things and his own inner
nature."
_Dr. Roberts._—"How can these Mysteries be revived—so little is known
of them and you yourself speak of them as lost."
_The Professor._—"Lost only to the world at large, but they have never
been wholly lost. There have always been some in the world to whom has
been entrusted the sacred wisdom and through whom it has been handed
down from age to age."
Here some of the members began to make a move towards departure and as
it was quite late it was decided to resume the discussion at the next
meeting when it was expected Madam Purple would be present.
"A chariot cannot go on one wheel alone; so destiny fails unless men's
acts coöperate."—_Gems from the East._
FRAGMENT—OMNISCIENCE.
BY ADHIRATHA.
In the "Key to Theosophy" of H. P. B. there are some allusions to the
omniscience of the real man within everybody. Not grasping the meaning,
I once had a conversation with Madame Blavatsky on the subject, and I
must confess that at the time I was not any wiser for it. I thought what
a good thing it would be if instead of passing hours and hours on the
solution of a problem, one might simply ask the real man, who knowing
all, would tell you at once all about it. I must confess that I had some
doubt about the real man knowing all, and I asked Madame Blavatsky to
explain. I am sure that she tried to awake my understanding, but at that
time it was all a beginning, and young Theosophists felt then (as they
do sometimes even now) proud, when they knew the Sanskrit names of the
seven principles and a few more strange sounding words.
I thought: Omniscience is knowing all, which of course must comprise
everything and every problem, and the hardest mathematical nut will be
child's play for the real man to crack—_if_ H. P. B. is right!
Now if we but change intonation and instead of knowing _all_, say
_knowing_ all, we shall get a little step nearer the standpoint from
which the question looks more attackable. The question turns first about
that much abused word "knowledge." We generally think it to mean the
conviction or even certainty, that under given conditions of things some
unavoidable result took place, and will take place anew when those
conditions will re-occur. A doctor knows that for a certain illness, the
name of which implies a certain condition of the human body, a certain
remedy will reëstablish other conditions called health. An engineer
knows by experiment and calculation, that a certain form of structure
under given loads will have to resist such and such forces in its divers
parts, and then he lodges his material in such a way, that no part gets
too much and no material gets too little anywhere, which he can only do
approximately. But all this is not real knowledge and neither the doctor
nor the engineer knows what that thing is he is dealing with and how its
molecules feel.
Real knowledge has nothing to do with apparent knowledge, and it is
useless to ask the real man within to write out the development of a
mathematical problem for you. But when it comes to the application of
such a mathematical solution whereby one tries to get a certain insight
into nature, then it may be said that the real man has that insight into
nature without passing by the tedious way of a mathematical
investigation.
What science tries to find out, that the real man is already, and he
knows without a shade of doubt that which science strives at but never
reaches. That essence which constitutes the real man, which has passed
through all the kingdoms below man, which we find specified in every
human being as the monad, clothed in different garbs so as to appear
distinct, that essence knows all about everything we can think of, and
that part of the Universe which we can think of constitutes the _omnia_
for man. Having had the experience of all the kingdoms below us, the
monad knows them, and our all, as far as human nature is concerned, is
that of which we are able to think; therefore it is right to say, that
the real man knows that which the ordinary man comprises under the term
"all," and even more, because the all for the man of the present day is
less than the all of those who served to clothe the monad at some
earlier periods. It thus seems to me that the object of the development
of the thinking principle is not to arrive at a better knowledge of
nature, but to arrive at some knowledge in a certain way, which way has
to be learnt during certain periods of evolution. Discrimination has to
be learnt, and if one will learn how to avoid a wrong way, he must pass
it first, or else it would remain unknown to him. It seems a strange
thing that man has to incarnate so many times during millions of years
in order to develop the thinking principle, and after having developed
it, abandon it as a wrong way. But is it not the same with the evolution
of all the principles in Cosmos? Has not all to be gone through? Has not
every plane of consciousness to give way to another? We call them higher
or lower—but what about such terms? This is no loss, it is a momentary
necessity for a certain purpose of divine law, and although less in one
sense we gain and go forward in another, and pass where we have to pass.
This must not be misunderstood, and we must not say: Very well, I have
to develop intellect, and I shall do it, and shall not care for real
knowledge which will all come in time. This is sophistry. Through our
will and endowed with the thinking principle we have to regain that
knowledge which gradually has become latent while Manas had to be
developed, or else we shall never regain it. Thus we have to work with
ardent aspiration towards our highest ideals along the lines of nature
and divine law; thus we keep balanced, and while doing every one of our
daily duties, we inwardly live a life of spirituality and in
consciousness divine.
"Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained
treasure in their youth, perish like old herons in a lake without fish."
"Daily practical wisdom consists of four things:—To know the root of
Truth, the branches of Truth, the limit of Truth, and the opposite of
Truth."
"When trust is gone, misfortune comes in; when confidence is dead,
revenge is born; and when treachery appears, all blessings fly away."
_Gems from the East._
FORM OR MATTER.
BY W. E. GATES.