about the same, though it takes but little energy to walk here.
On the mountain top I saw a man standing alone. He was looking out and
far away, but I could not see what he was looking at. He was abstracted
and communing with himself, or with some presence of which I was
unaware.
I waited for some time. At last, drawing a long breath--for we breathe
here--he turned his eyes to me and said, with a kind smile:
“Can I do anything for you, brother?”
I was embarrassed for a moment, feeling that I might have intruded upon
some sweet communion.
“If I am not too bold in asking,” I said, “would you tell me what you
were thinking as you stood there looking into space?”
I was conscious of my presumption; but being so determined to learn
what can be known, if sometimes I am too bold in making inquiries, I
feel that my very earnestness may win for me the forgiveness of those I
question.
This man had a beautiful beardless face and young-looking eyes; but his
garments were the ordinary garments of one who thinks little or nothing
of his appearance. That very unconsciousness of the outer form may
sometimes give it a peculiar majesty.
He looked at me in silence for a moment; then he said:
“I was trying to draw near to God.”
“And what is God?” I asked; “and where is God?”
He smiled. I never saw a smile like his, as he answered:
“God is everywhere. God _is_.”
“What is He?” I persisted; and again he repeated, but with a different
emphasis:
“_God_ is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“God _is_, _God_ is,” he said.
I do not know how his meaning was conveyed to me, perhaps by sympathy;
but it suddenly flashed into my mind that when he said, “God
_is_,” he expressed the completest realisation of God which is
possible to the spirit; and when he said, “_God_ is,” he meant me
to understand that there was no being, nothing that is, except God.
There must have been in my face a reflection of what I felt, for the
saint then said to me:
“Do you not also know that He _is_, and that all that is, is He?”
“I am beginning to feel what you mean,” I answered, “though I doubtless
feel but a little of it.”
He smiled, and made no reply; but my mind was full of questions.
“When you were on earth,” I said, “did you think much about God?”
“Always. I thought of little else. I sought Him everywhere, but seemed
only at times to get flashes of consciousness as to what He really
was. Sometimes when praying, for I prayed much, there would come to me
suddenly the question, ‘To what are you praying?’ And I would answer
aloud, ‘To God, to God!’ But though I prayed to Him every day for
years, only occasionally did I get a flash of that true consciousness
of God. Finally, one day when I was alone in the woods, there came the
great revelation. It came not in any form of words, but rather in a
wordless and formless wonder, too vast for the limitation of thought.
I fell upon the ground and must have lost consciousness, for after a
while--how long a time I do not know--I awoke, and got up and looked
about me. Then gradually I remembered the experience which had been too
big for me while I was feeling it.
“I could put into the form of words the realisation which had been too
much for my mortality to bear, and the words I used to myself were,
‘All that is, is God.’ It seemed very simple, yet it was far from
simple. ‘All that is, is God.’ That must include me and all my fellow
beings, human and animal; even the trees and the birds and the rivers
must be a part of God, if God were all that is.
“From that moment life assumed a new meaning for me. I could not see a
human face without remembering the revelation--that that human being I
saw was a part of God. When my dog looked at me, I said to him aloud,
‘You are a part of God.’ When I stood beside a river and listened to
the sound of its waters, I said to myself, ‘I am listening to the voice
of God.’ When a fellow being was angry with me, I asked myself, ‘In
what way have I offended God?’ When one spoke lovingly to me, I said,
‘God is loving me now,’ and the realisation nearly took my breath away.
Life became unbelievably beautiful.
“Therefore I had been so absorbed in God, in trying to find God, that I
had not given much thought to my fellow beings, and had even neglected
those nearest me; but from that day I began to mingle with my human
brethren. I found that as more and more I sought God in them, more
and more God responded to me through them. And life became still more
wonderful.
“Sometimes I tried to tell others what I felt, but they did not always
understand me. It was thus I began to realise that God had purposely,
for some reason of His own, covered Himself with veils. Was it that He
might have the pleasure of tearing them away? If so, I would help Him
all I could. So I tried to make other men grasp the knowledge of God
which I myself had attained. For years I taught men. At first I wanted
to teach everybody; but I soon came to see that that was impossible,
and so I selected a few who called themselves my disciples. They did
not always tell the world that they were my disciples, because I asked
them not to do so. But I urged each of them to give to someone as much
as possible of the knowledge that I had given to him. And so I think
that many have come to feel a little of the wonder which was revealed
to me that day alone in the woods, when I awoke to the knowledge that
God _is_, _God_ is.”
Then the saint turned and left me, with all my questions unanswered. I
wanted to ask him when and how he had left the earth, and what work he
was doing out here--but he was gone!
Perhaps I shall see him again some day. But whether I do or not, he has
given me something which I in turn give to you, as he himself desired
to give it to the world.
That is all for to-night.
LETTER XXI
THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL
ONE of the joys of being here is the leisure for dreaming and for
getting acquainted with oneself.
Of course there is plenty to do; but though I intend to go back to the
world in a few years, I feel that there is time to get acquainted with
myself. I tried to do that on earth, more or less; but here there are
fewer demands on me. The mere labour of dressing and undressing is
lighter, and I do not have to earn my living now, nor anybody else’s.
You, too, could take time to loaf, if you thought you could. You can do
practically anything you think you can do.
I purpose, for instance, in a few years not only to pick up a general
knowledge of the conditions of this four-dimensional world, but to go
back over my other lives and assimilate what I learned in them. I want
to make a synthesis of the complete experiences of my ego up to this
date, and to judge from that synthesis what I can do in the future
with least resistance. I believe, but am not quite sure, that I can
bring back much of this knowledge with me when I am born again.
I shall try to tell you--or some of you--when and about where to look
for me again. Oh, don’t be startled! It will not be for some time yet.
An early date would necessitate hurry, and I do not wish to hurry.
I could probably force the coming back, but that would be unwise,
for I should then come back with less power than I want. Action and
reaction being opposite and equal, and the unit, or ego, being able
to generate only so much energy in a given time, it is better for me
to rest in this condition of light matter until I have accumulated
energy enough to come back with power. I shall not do, however, as many
souls do; they stay out here until they are as tired of this world as
they formerly were tired of the earth, and then are driven back half
unconsciously by the irresistible force of the tide of rhythm. I want
to guide that rhythm.
Since I have been here one man whom I know has gone back to the earth.
He was about ready to go when I first found him. The strange part of it
was that he himself did not understand his condition. He complained of
being tired of things and of wanting to rest much. That was probably
a natural instinct for rest, in preparation for the supreme effort of
opening the doors of matter again. It is easy to come out here, but it
requires some effort to go _from_ this world into yours.
I know where that soul is now, for the Teacher told me. I had spoken
to the Teacher about him, but he already knew of his existence. It was
rather strange, for the man was one in whom I should have fancied that
the Teacher would have taken little interest. But one never knows.
Perhaps in his next life he may really begin to study the philosophy
which _they_ teach.
But I was speaking of the larger leisure out here. I wish you could
arrange your life so as to have a little more leisure. I do not want
you to be lazy, but the passive conditions of the mind are quite as
valuable as the active conditions. It is when you are passive that
we can reach you. When your mind and body are always occupied, it is
difficult to impress you with any message of the soul. Find a little
more time each day for doing nothing at all. It is good to do nothing
sometimes; then the semi-conscious parts of your mind can work. They
can remind you that there is an inner life; for the inner life that
is “capable” to you on earth is really the point of contact with the
world in which we live.
I have said that the two worlds touch, and they touch through the
inner. You go in to come out. It is a paradox, and paradoxes conceal
great truths. Contradictions are not truths, but a paradox is not a
contradiction.
There is a great difference in the length of time that people stay
out here. You talk of being homesick. There are souls here who are
homesick for the earth. They sometimes go back almost at once, which
is generally a mistake. Unless one is young and still has a store of
unused energy saved over from the last life, in going back to the earth
too soon one lacks the force of a strong rebound.
It is strange to see a man here as homesick for the earth as certain
poets and dreamers on earth are homesick for the inner life.
This use of the terms “outer” and “inner” may seem confusing; but
you must remember that while you go _in_ to come to us, we go
_out_ to come to you. In our normal state here we are living
almost a subjective life. We become more and more objective as we touch
your world. You become more and more subjective as you touch our world.
If you only knew it, you could come to us at almost any time for a
brief visit--I mean, by going deep enough into yourself.
If you want to try the experiment and will not be afraid, I can take
you out here without your quite losing consciousness in your body--I
mean without your being in deep sleep. You can call me when you want
to make a trial. If I do not come at once, do not be discouraged. Of
course at the moment I might be doing something else; but in that case
I will come at another time.
There is no hurry. That is what I want to impress upon you. What you do
not do this year you can perhaps do next year; but if you are always
rushing after things, you can accomplish little in this particular
work. Eternity is long enough for the full development of the ego of
man. Eternity seems to have been designed for that end. That was a
sound statement which was given at one time: “The object of life is
life.” I have realised that more fully since I had an opportunity to
study eternity from a new angle. This is a very good angle from which
to view both time and eternity. I see now what I did not see before,
that I myself have never wasted any time. Even my failures were a
valuable part of my experience. We lose to gain again. We go in and out
of power sometimes as we go in and out of life, to learn what is there
and outside. In this, as in all things, the object of life is life.
Do not hurry. A man may grow gradually into power and knowledge, or he
may take them by force. Will is free. But the gradual growth has a less
powerful reaction.
LETTER XXII
THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY
I WANT to talk to you to-night about eternity. Until I came out, I
never had a grasp on that problem. I thought only in terms of months
and years and centuries; now I see the full sweep of the circle. The
comings out and the goings into matter are no more than the systole
and the diastole of the ego-heart; and, speaking from the standpoint
of eternity, they are relatively as brief. To you a lifetime is a long
time. It used to seem so to me, but it does not seem so now.
People are always saying, “If I had my life to live over, I would do
so and so.” Now, no man has any particular life to live over, any more
than the heart can go back and beat over again the beat of the second
previous; but every man has his next life to prepare for. Suppose you
have made a botch of your existence. Most men have, viewed from the
standpoint of their highest ideal; but every man who can think must
have assimilated some experience which he can carry over with him.
He may not, on coming out into the sunlight of another life on earth,
be able to remember the details of his former experience, though some
men can recall them by a sufficient training and a fixed will; but the
tendencies of any given life, the unexplained impulses and desires, are
in nearly all cases brought over.
You should get away from the mental habit of regarding your present
life as the only one, get rid of the idea that the life you expect to
lead on this side, after your death, is to be an endless existence in
one state. You could no more endure such an endless existence in the
subtle matter of the inner world than you could endure to live forever
in the gross matter in which you are now encased. You would weary of
it. You could not support it.
Do get this idea of rhythm into your brain. All beings are subject
to the law of rhythm, even the gods,--though in a greater way than
ourselves, with longer periods of flux and reflux.
I did not want to leave the earth, I fought against it until the
last; but now I see that my coming out was inevitable because of the
conditions. Had I begun earlier I might have provisioned my craft for a
longer cruise; but when the coal and water had run out I had to make
port.
It is possible to provision even a small life-craft for a longer voyage
than the allotted threescore years and ten; but one must economise the
coal and not waste the water. There are some who will understand that
water is the fluid of life.
Many persons resent the idea that the life after death is not eternal,
a never-ending progression in spiritual realms; though few who so
object have much of an idea what they mean when they talk of spiritual
realms.
Life everlasting is possible to all souls--yes; but it is not possible
to go on forever in one direction. Evolution is a curve. Eternity is
a circle, a serpent that swallows its own tail. Until you are willing
to go in and out of dense matter, you will never learn to transcend
matter. There are those who can stay in or out at will, and, relatively
speaking, as long as they choose; but they are never those who shrink
from either form of life.
I used to shrink from what I called death. There are those on this side
who shrink from what _they_ call death. Do you know what they call
death? It is rebirth into the world. Yes, even so.
There are many here who are as ignorant of rhythm as most people are
on your side. I have met men and women who did not even know that they
would go back to the earth again, who talked of the “great change” as
the men of earth talk of dying, and of all that lay beyond as “unproved
and unprovable.” It would be tragic if it were not so absurd.
When I knew that I had to die I determined to carry with me memory,
philosophy, and reason.
Now I want to say something which will perhaps surprise you. There is a
man who wrote a book called _The Law of Psychic Phenomena_ and in
that book he said certain things of those two parts of the mind which
he called the subjective and the objective. He said that the subjective
mind was incapable of inductive reasoning, that the subjective mind
would accept any premise given it by the objective mind, and would
reason from that premise with matchless logic; but that it could not go
behind the premise, that it could not reason backwards.
Now, remember that in this form of matter where I am men are living
principally a subjective life, as men on earth live principally an
objective life. These people here, being in the subjective, reason
from the premises already given them during their objective or earth
existence. That is why most of those who last lived in the so-called
Western lands, where the idea of rhythm or rebirth is unpopular, came
out here with the fixed idea that they would not go back into earth
life. Hence most of them still reason from that premise.
Do you not understand that what you believe you are going to be out
here is largely determinative of what you will be. Those who do not
believe in rebirth cannot forever escape the rhythm of rebirth; but
they hold to their belief until the tide of rhythm sweeps them along
with it and forces them into gross matter again, into which they go
quite unprepared, carrying with them almost no memory of their life out
here. They carried out here the memory of the earth life because they
expected so to carry it.
Many Orientals who have always believed in rebirth remember their
former lives, because they expected to remember them.
Yes, when I realised that I had to leave the earth I laid a spell
upon myself. I determined to remember through both the going out and
the subsequent coming in. Of course I cannot swear now to remember
everything when I come into heavy matter again; but I am determined to
do so if possible; and I shall succeed to some extent if I do not get
the wrong mother. I intend to take great care on that point, and to
choose a mother who is familiar with the idea of rebirth. If possible,
I want to choose a mother who actually knew me in my last life as ----,
and who, if I shall announce in childhood that I am that same ---- whom
she knew when a young girl, will not chide me and drive me back into
myself with her doubts.
I believe that many children carry over into earth life memories of
their lives out here, but that those memories are afterwards lost by
reason of the suggestion constantly given to children that they are
newly created, “fresh from the hand of God,” etc., etc.
Eternity is indeed long, and there are more things on earth and heaven
than are dreamed of in the philosophy of the average teacher of
children.
If you could only get hold of the idea of immortal life and _cling to
it_! If you could realise yourself as being without beginning and
without end, then you might commence to do things worth while. It is a
wonderful consciousness that consciousness of eternity. Small troubles
seem indeed small to him who thinks of himself in the terms of a
million years. You may make the figure a billion, or whatever you like,
but the idea is the same. No man can grasp the idea of a million years,
or a million dollars, or a million of anything; the figure is merely a
symbol for a great quantity, whether it be years or gold pieces. The
idea cannot be fixed; there will always be something that escapes. No
millionaire knows exactly what he is worth at any given time; for there
is always interest to be counted, and the value is a shifting one.
It is so with immortality. Do not think of yourself as having lived
a million years, or a trillion years, but as truly immortal, without
beginning or end. The man who knows himself to be rich is richer than
the man who says that he has a certain amount of money, be the amount
large or small. So rest in the consciousness of eternity and work in
the consciousness of eternity.
That is all for to-night.
LETTER XXIII
A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT
TELL the friend who is so anxious lest I do you harm by writing with
your hand that that matter was thoroughly threshed out on this side
between the Teacher and me before it began to take form on your side.
Ordinary mediumship, where the organism of a more or less unhealthy
person on earth is opened indiscriminately for the entrance and
obsession of any passing spirit, good or evil, is a very different
proposition from this. Here I, who was your friend in the world, having
passed beyond, reach back to instruct you from my greater knowledge on
this side.
I am not making any opening in your nervous system through which
irresponsible and evil forces can enter and take possession of you.
In fact, if any spirit, good or bad, should make such an attempt, he
would have to reckon with me, and I am not powerless. I know now, have
both remembered and been taught, secrets by which I can protect you
from what is generally known as mediumship. Furthermore, I advise
you never, even at the urgent prayer of those whose loved ones have
gone out--_never_ to lend yourself to them. The wanderers in the
so-called invisible world have no right to come and demand entrance
through your organism, merely because it is so constituted that they
could enter, any more than a street crowd would have the right to
force its way into your home, merely because its members were curious,
hungry, or cold. Do not allow it. Permission was once given, yes; but
the case was exceptional and was not based on the personal desire or
curiosity of anybody--not even yourself. I doubt if permission will
ever be granted again.
Many things have changed since I began to write with you. At first I
used your hand and arm from the outside--sometimes, as you remember,
with such force as to make them lame the next day. Then, grown more
familiar with the means at my disposal, I tried another method, and you
noticed a change in the character of the writing. It began clumsily,
with large and badly formed characters, gradually becoming clearer as
my control of the instrument I was using was better established.
Now, for the last few times I have used still another and a third
method. I enter your mind, putting myself in absolute telepathic
rapport with your mind, impressing upon your mind itself the things I
wish to say. In order to write in this way, you have to make yourself
utterly passive, stilling all individual thought and yielding yourself
to my thought; but that is no more than you do every day in reading a
fascinating book. You give your mind to the author who leads you along,
rapt and passive, by means of the printed page.
These experiments in perfecting a way of communication have been very
interesting to me.
Tell your friend that I am not a child, nor a reckless experimentalist.
Not only in my last life on earth but in many former lives I have been
a student of the higher science, giving myself absolutely to truth and
to the quest of truth. I have never wantonly used any human being to
his or her detriment, and I certainly shall not begin with you, my true
friend and student.
Nor shall I interfere in any way with your life, or with your studies
and work. The idea is nonsensical. While I walked the world on two feet
I was never considered a dangerous man. I have not changed my character
merely by changing my clothes and putting on a lighter suit.
I have certain things to say to the world. At present you are the only
person who can act as amanuensis for me. This is neither my fault
nor yours. The question before us is not whether I want the letters
written, or even whether you want to write them, but whether they will
be beneficial to the world. I think they will. You think they may be.
B---- thinks that they are not only immensely valuable, but unique.
So-and-so and So-and-so have doubts and fears. I cannot help that, nor
can you.
Bless their hearts! Why should they be so anxious to bolt the doors
behind me? I shall certainly not try to run their affairs for them from
this side. They are equal to their job, or they would not be able to
hold it. But this is quite a different job which I have given myself,
and you have kindly consented to help me.
You may not get much reward for your labour, save the shake of the
wiseacres’ heads and their superior smiles, and the suggestion of the
more scientifically inclined that I am your own “subconscious mind.” I
shall not be offended by that hypothesis, nor need you.
Of course you are not worried, for if you were I could not write. Your
mind has to be placid as a lake on a windless night in order for me to
write at all.
Give my love to them.
LETTER XXIV
FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
I HAVE been doing many things of late. You could never imagine where I
went the other day--to the great funeral of the Emperor of Japan. You
could not go from Paris to Japan and return in so short a time, could
you? But I did.