has been and there never will be a life free from them. Life isn't
conceivable on any other terms. But the wonderful source of consolation
and strength, the source that gives freedom from worry and freedom from
fear is the realisation of the fact that the guiding force and the
moulding power is within us. It becomes active and controlling in the
degree that we realise and in the degree that we are able to open
ourselves so that the Divine intelligence and power can speak to and can
work through us.
Judicious physical exercise induces greater bodily strength and vigour.
An active and alert mental life, in other words mental activity, induces
greater intellectual power. And under the same general law the same is
true in regard to the development and the use of spiritual power. It,
however, although the most important of all because it has to do more
fundamentally with the life itself, we are most apt to neglect. The
losses, moreover, resulting from this neglect are almost beyond
calculation.
To establish one's centre aright is to make all of life's activities and
events and results flow from this centre in orderly sequence. A modern
writer of great insight has said: "The understanding that God is, and
_all there is_, will establish you upon a foundation from which you can
never be moved." To know that the power that is God is the power that
works in us is knowledge of transcendent import.
To know that the spirit of Infinite wisdom and power which is the
creating, the moving, and the sustaining force in all life, thinks and
acts in and through us as our own very life, in the degree that we
consciously and deliberately desire it to become the guiding and the
animating force in our lives, and open ourselves fully to its leadings,
and follow its leadings, is to attain to that state of conscious oneness
with the Divine that Jesus realised, lived and revealed, and that he
taught as the method of the natural and the normal life for all men.
We are so occupied with the matters of the sense-life that all
unconsciously we become dominated, ruled by the things of the senses.
Now in the real life there is the recognition of the fact that the
springs of life are all from within, and that the inner always leads and
rules the outer. Under the elemental law of Cause and Effect this is
always done--whether we are conscious of it or not. But the difference
lies here: The master of life consciously and definitely allies himself
in mind and spirit with the great central Force and rules his world from
within. The creature of circumstances, through lack of desire or through
weakness of will, fails to do this, and, lacking guiding and directing
force, drifts and becomes thereby the creature of circumstance.
One of deep insight has said: "That we do not spontaneously see and know
God, as we see and know one another, and so manifest the God-nature as
we do the sense-nature, is because that nature is yet latent, and in a
sense slumbering within us. Yet the God-nature within us connects us as
directly and vitally with the Being and Kingdom of God within, behind,
and above the world, as does the sense-nature with the world external to
us. Hence as the sense-consciousness was awakened and established by the
recognition of and communication with the outward world through the
senses, so the God-consciousness must be awakened by the corresponding
recognition of, and communication with the Being and Kingdom of God
through intuition--the spiritual sense of the inner man.... The true
prayer--the prayer of silence--is the only door that opens the soul to
the direct revelation of God, and brings thereby the realisation of the
God-nature in ourselves."
As the keynote to the world of sense is activity, so the keynote to
spiritual light and power is quiet. The individual consciousness must be
brought into harmony with the Cosmic consciousness. Paul speaks of the
"sons of God." And in a single sentence he describes what he means by
the term--"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God." An older prophet has said: "The Lord in the midst of thee
is mighty." Jesus with his deep insight perceived the identity of his
real life with the Divine life, the indwelling Wisdom and Power,--the
"Father in me." The whole course of his ministry was his attempt "to
show those who listened to him how he was related to the Father, and to
teach them that they were related to the same Father in exactly the same
way."
There is that within man that is illumined and energised through the
touch of His spirit. We can bring our minds into rapport, into such
harmony and connection with the infinite Divine mind that it speaks in
us, directs us, and therefore acts through us as our own selves. Through
this connection we become illumined by Divine wisdom and we become
energised by Divine power. It is ours, then, to act under the guidance
of this higher wisdom and in all forms of expression to act and to work
augmented by this higher power. The finite spirit, with all its
limitations, becomes at its very centre in rapport with Infinite spirit,
its Source. The finite thereby becomes the channel through which the
Infinite can and does work.
To use an apt figure, it is the moving of the switch whereby we connect
our wires as it were with the central dynamo which is the force that
animates, that gives and sustains life in the universe. It is making
actual the proposition that was enunciated by Emerson when he said:
"Every soul is not only the inlet, but may become the outlet of all
there is in God." Significant also in this connection is his statement:
"The only sin is limitation." It is the actualising of the fact that in
Him we live and move and have our being, with its inevitable resultant
that we become "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." There
is perhaps no more valuable way of realising this end, than to adopt the
practice of taking a period each day for being alone in the quiet, a
half hour, even a quarter hour; stilling the bodily senses and making
oneself receptive to the higher leadings of the spirit--receptive to the
impulses of the soul. This is following the master's practice and
example of communion with the Father. Things in this universe and in
human life do not happen. All is law and sequence. The elemental law of
cause and effect is universal and unvarying. In the realm of spirit law
is as definite as in the realm of mechanics--in the realm of all
material forces.
If we would have the leading of the spirit, if we would perceive the
higher intuitions and be led intuitively, bringing the affairs of the
daily life thereby into the Divine sequence, we must observe the
conditions whereby these leadings can come to us, and in time become
habitual.
The law of the spirit is quiet--to be followed by action--but quiet, the
more readily to come into a state of harmony with the Infinite
Intelligence that works through us, and that leads us as our own
intelligence when through desire and through will, we are able to bring
our subconscious minds into such attunement that it can act through us,
and we are able to catch its messages and follow its direction. But to
listen and to observe the conditions whereby we can listen is essential.
Jesus' own words as well as his practice apply here. After his
admonition against public prayer, or prayer for show, or prayer of much
speaking, he said: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." Now
there are millions of men, women, and children in the world who have no
closets. There are great numbers of others who have no access to them
sometimes for days, or weeks, or months at a time. It is evident,
therefore, that in the word that has been rendered closet he
meant--enter into the quiet recesses of your own soul that you may thus
hold communion with the Father.
Now the value of prayer is not that God will change or order any laws or
forces to suit the numerous and necessarily the diverse petitions of
any. All things are through law, and law is fixed and inexorable. The
value of prayer, of true prayer, is that through it one can so harmonise
his life with the Divine order that intuitive perceptions of truth and a
greater perception and knowledge of law becomes his possession. As has
been said by an able contemporary thinker and writer: "We cannot form a
passably thorough notion of man without saturating it through and
through with the idea of a cosmic inflow from outside his world
life--the inflow of God. Without a large consciousness of the universe
beyond our knowledge, few men, if any, have done great things.[C]
I shall always remember with great pleasure and profit a call a few days
ago from Dr. Edward Emerson of Concord, Emerson's eldest son. Happily I
asked him in regard to his father's methods of work--if he had any
regular methods. He replied in substance: "It was my father's custom to
go daily to the woods--_to listen_. He would remain there an hour or
more in order to get whatever there might be for him that day. He would
then come home and write into a little book--his 'day-book'--what he had
gotten. Later on when it came time to write a book, he would transcribe
from this, in their proper sequence and with their proper connections,
these entrances of the preceding weeks or months. The completed book
became virtually a ledger formed or posted from his day-books."
The prophet is he who so orders his life that he can adequately listen
to the voice, the revelations of the over soul, and who truthfully
transcribes what he hears or senses. He is not a follower of custom or
of tradition. He can never become and can never be made the subservient
tool of an organisation. His aim and his mission is rather to free men
from ignorance, superstition, credulity, from half truths, by leading
them into a continually larger understanding of truth, of law--and
therefore of righteousness.
It was more than a mere poetic idea that Lowell gave utterance to when
he said:
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment.
To establish this connection, to actualise this God-consciousness, that
it may not be for one transcendent moment, but that it may become
constant and habitual, so that every thought arises, and so that every
act goes forth from this centre, is the greatest good that can come into
the possession of man. There is nothing greater. It is none other than
the realisation of Jesus' injunction--"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God
and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." It
is then that he said--Do not worry about your life. Your mind and your
will are under the guidance of the Divine mind; your every act goes out
under this direction and all things pertaining to your life will fall
into their proper places. Therefore do not worry about your life.
When a man finds his centre, when he becomes centred in the Infinite,
then redemption takes place. He is redeemed from the bondage of the
senses. He lives thereafter under the guidance of the spirit, and this
is salvation. It is a new life that he has entered into. He lives in a
new world, because his outlook is entirely new. He is living now in the
Kingdom of Heaven. Heaven means harmony. He has brought his own personal
mind and life into harmony with the Divine mind and life. He becomes a
coworker with God.
It is through such men and women that God's plans and purposes are
carried out. They not only hear but they interpret for others God's
voice. They are the prophets of our time and the prophets of all time.
They are doing God's work in the world, and in so doing they are finding
their own supreme satisfaction and happiness. They are not looking
forward to the Eternal life. They realise that they are now in the
Eternal life, and that there is no such thing as eternal life if this
life that we are now in is not it. When the time comes for them to stop
their labours here, they look forward without fear and with anticipation
to the change, the transition to the other form of life--but not to any
other life. The words of Whitman embody a spirit of anticipation and of
adventure for them:
Joy, Shipmate, joy!
(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry)
One life is closed, one life begun,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps.
Joy, Shipmate, joy!
They have an abiding faith that they will take up the other form of life
exactly where they left it off here. Being in heaven now they will be in
heaven when they awake to the continuing beauties of the life subsequent
to their transition. Such we might also say is the teaching of Jesus
regarding the highest there is in life here and the best there is in the
life hereafter.
XI
SOME METHODS OF EXPRESSION
The life of the Spirit, or, in other words, the true religious life, is
not a life of mere contemplation or a life of inactivity. As Fichte, in
"The Way Toward the Blessed Life," has said: "True religion,
notwithstanding that it raises the view of those who are inspired by it
to its own region, nevertheless, retains their Life firmly in the domain
of action, and of right moral action.... Religion is not a business by
and for itself which a man may practise apart from his other
occupations, perhaps on certain fixed days and hours; but it is the
inmost spirit that penetrates, inspires, and pervades all our Thought
and Action, which in other respects pursue their appointed course
without change or interruption. That the Divine Life and Energy actually
lives in us is inseparable from Religion."
How thoroughly this is in keeping with the thought of the highly
illumined seer, Swedenborg, is indicated when he says: "The Lord's
Kingdom is a Kingdom of ends and uses." And again: "Forsaking the world
means loving God and the neighbour; and God is loved when a man lives
according to His commandments, and the neighbour is loved when a man
performs uses." And still again: "To be of use means to desire the
welfare of others for the sake of the common good; and not to be of use
means to desire the welfare of others not for the sake of the common
good but for one's own sake.... In order that man may receive heavenly
life he must live in the world and engage in its business and
occupations, and thus by a moral and civil life acquire spiritual life.
In no other way can spiritual life be generated in man, or his spirit be
prepared for heaven."
We hear much today both in various writings and in public utterances of
"the spiritual" and "the spiritual life." I am sure that to the great
majority of men and women the term spiritual, or better, the spiritual
life, means something, but something by no means fully tangible or
clear-cut. I shall be glad indeed if I am able to suggest a more
comprehensible concept of it, or putting it in another form and better
perhaps, to present a more clear-cut portraiture of the spiritual life
in expression--in action.
And first let us note that in the mind and in the teachings of Jesus
there is no such thing as the secular life and the religious life. His
ministry pertained to every phase of life. The truth that he taught was
a truth that was to permeate every thought and every act of life.
We make our arbitrary divisions. We are too apt to deny the fact that
the Lord is the Lord of the week-day, the same as He is the Lord of the
Sabbath. Jesus refused to be bound by any such consideration. He taught
that every act that is a good act, every act that is of service to
mankind is not only a legitimate act to be done on the Sabbath day, but
an act that _should_ be performed on the Sabbath day. And any act that
is not right and legitimate for the Sabbath day is neither right nor
legitimate for the week-day. In other words, it is the spirit of
righteousness that must permeate and must govern every act of life and
every moment of life.
In seeking to define the spiritual life, it were better to regard the
world as the expression of the Divine mind. The spirit is the life; the
world and all things in it, the material to be moulded, raised, and
transmuted from the lower to the higher. This is indeed the law of
evolution, that has been through all the ages and that today is at work.
It is the God-Power that is at work and every form of useful activity
that helps on with this process of lifting and bettering is a form of
Divine activity. If therefore we recognise the one Divine life working
in and through all, the animating force, therefore the Life of all, and
if we are consciously helping in this process we are spiritual men.
No man of intelligence can fail to recognise the fact that life is more
important than things. Life is the chief thing, and material things are
the elements that minister to, that serve the purposes of the life.
Whoever does anything in the world to preserve life, to better its
conditions, who, recognising the Divine force at work lifting life up
always to better, finer conditions, is doing God's work in the
world--because cooperating with the great Cosmic world plan.
The ideal, then, is men and women of the spirit, open and responsive
always to its guidance, recognising the Divine plan and the Divine
ideal, working cooperatively in the world to make all conditions of life
fairer, finer, more happy. He who lives and works not as an individual,
that is not for his good alone, but who recognises the essential oneness
of life--is carrying out his share of the Divine plan.
A man may be unusually gifted; he may have unusual ability in business,
in administration; he may be a giant in finance, in administration, but
if for self alone, if lack of vision blinds him to the great Divine
plan, if he does not recognise his relative place and value; if he gains
his purposes by selfishness, by climbing over others, by indifference to
human pain or suffering--oblivious to human welfare--his ways are the
ways of the jungle. His mind and his life are purely sordid, grossly and
blindly self-centred--wholly material. He gains his object, but by
Divine law not happiness, not satisfaction, not peace. He is outside the
Kingdom of Heaven--the kingdom of harmony. He is living and working out
of harmony with the Divine mind that is evolving a higher order of life
in the world. He is blind too, he is working against the Divine plan.
Now what is the Divine call? Can he be made into a spiritual man? Yes. A
different understanding, a different motive, a different object--then
will follow a difference in methods. Instead of self alone he will have
a sense of, he will have a call to service. And this man, formerly a
hinderer in the Divine plan, becomes a spiritual giant. His splendid
powers and his qualities do not need to be changed. Merely his motives
and thereby his methods, and he is changed into a giant engine of
righteousness. He is a part of the great world force and plan. He is
doing his part in the great world work--he is a coworker with God. And
here lies salvation. Saved from self and the dwarfed and stunted
condition that will follow, his spiritual nature unfolds and envelops
his entire life. His powers and his wealth are thereafter to bless
mankind. But behold! by another great fundamental law of life in doing
this he is blessed ten, a hundred, a millionfold.
Material prosperity is or may become a true gain, a veritable blessing.
But it can become a curse to the world and still more to its possessor
when made an end in itself, and at the expense of all the higher
attributes and powers of human life.
We have reason to rejoice that a great change of estimate has not only
begun but is now rapidly creeping over the world. He of even a
generation ago who piled and piled, but who remained ignorant of the
more fundamental laws of life, blind to the law of mutuality and
service, would be regarded today as a low, beastly type. I speak
advisedly. It is this obedience to the life of the spirit that Whitman
had in mind when he said: "And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy
walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud." It was the full flowering
of the law of mutuality and service that he saw when he said: "I saw a
city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth. I
dream'd that it was the new City of Friends. Nothing was greater there
than the quality of robust love; it led the rest. It was seen every hour
in the actions of the men of that city and in all their looks and
words." It is through obedience to this life of the spirit that order is
brought out of chaos in the life of the individual and in the life of
the community, in the business world, the labour world, and in our great
world relations.
But in either case, we men and women of Christendom, to be a Christian
is not only to be good, but to be good for something. According to the
teachings of the Master true religion is not only personal salvation,
but it is giving one's self through all of one's best efforts to
actualise the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. The finding of the
Kingdom is not only personal but social and world-affirming--and in the
degree that it becomes fully and vitally personal will it become so.
A man who is not right with his fellow-men is not right and cannot be
right with God. This is coming to be the clear-cut realisation of all
progressive religious thought today. Since men are free from the
trammels of an enervating dogma that through fear made them seek, or
rather that made them contented with religion as primarily a system of
rewards and punishments, they are now awakening to the fact that the
logical carrying out of Jesus' teaching of the Kingdom is the
establishing here on this earth of an order of life and hence of a
society where greater love and cooperation and justice prevail. Our
rapidly growing present-day conception of Christianity makes it not
world-renouncing, but world-affirming.
This modern conception of the function of a true and vital Christianity
makes it the task of the immediate future to apply Christianity to
trade, to commerce, to labour relations, to all social relations, to
international relations. "And, in the wider field of religious thought,"
says a writer in a great international religious paper, "what truer
service can we render than to strip theology of all that is unreal or
needlessly perplexing, and make it speak plainly and humanly to people
who have their duty to do and their battle to fight?" It makes
intelligent, sympathetic, and helpful living take the place of the tooth
and the claw, the growl and the deadly hiss of the jungle--all right in
their places, but with no place in human living.
The growing realisation of the interdependence of all life is giving a
new standard of action and attainment, and a new standard of estimate.
Jesus' criterion is coming into more universal appreciation: He that is
greatest among you shall be as he who serves. Through this fundamental
law of life there are responsibilities that cannot be evaded or
shirked--and of him to whom much is given much is required.
It was President Wilson who recently said: "It is to be hoped that these
obvious truths will come to more general acceptance; that honest
business will quit thinking that it is attacked when loaded-dice
business is attacked; that the mutuality of interest between employer
and employee will receive ungrudging admission; and, finally, that men
of affairs will lend themselves more patriotically to the work of making
democracy an efficient instrument for the promotion of human welfare. It
cannot be said that they have done so in the past.... As a consequence,
many necessary things have been done less perfectly without their
assistance that could have been done more perfectly with their expert
aid." He is by no means alone in recognising this fact. Nor is he at all
blind to the great change that is already taking place.
In a recent public address in New York, the head of one of the largest
plants in the world, and who starting with nothing has accumulated a
fortune of many millions, said: "The only thing I am proud of--prouder
of than that I have amassed a great fortune--is that I established the
first manual training school in Pennsylvania. The greatest delight of
my life is to see the advancement of the young men who have come up
about me."