Inspired and Motivated

1. Psychic and spiritual powers may be inborn, or they may be gained

by the use of drugs, or by incantations, or by fervour, or by

Meditation.

Spiritual powers have been enumerated and described in the preceding

sections. They are the normal powers of the spiritual man, the

antetype, the divine edition, of the powers of the natural man.

Through these powers, the spiritual man stands, sees, hears, speaks,

in the spiritual world, as the physical man stands, sees, hears, speaks

in the natural world.

There is a counterfeit presentment of the spiritual man, in the world

of dreams, a shadow lord of shadows, who has his own dreamy

powers of vision, of hearing, of movement; he has left the natural

without reaching the spiritual. He has set forth from the shore, but has

not gained the further verge of the river. He is borne along by the

stream, with no foothold on either shore. Leaving the actual, he has

fallen short of the real, caught in the limbo of vanities and delusions.

The cause of this aberrant phantasm is always the worship of a false,

vain self, the lord of dreams, within one’s own breast. This is the

psychic man, lord of delusive and bewildering psychic powers.

Spiritual powers, like intellectual or artistic gifts, may be inborn: the

fruit, that is, of seeds planted and reared with toil in a former birth. So

also the powers of the psychic man may be inborn, a delusive harvest

from seeds of delusion.

Psychical powers may be gained by drugs, as poverty, shame,

debasement may be gained by the self-same drugs. In their action, they

are baneful, cutting the man off from consciousness of the restraining

power of his divine nature, so that his forces break forth exuberant,

like the laughter of drunkards, and he sees and hears things delusive.

While sinking, he believes that he has risen; growing weaker, he thinks

himself full of strength; beholding illusions, he takes them to be true.

Such are the powers gained by drugs; they are wholly psychic, since

the real powers, the spiritual, can never be so gained.

Incantations are affirmations of half-truths concerning spirit and

matter, what is and what is not, which work upon the mind and slowly

build up a wraith of powers and a delusive well-being. These, too, are

of the psychic realm of dreams.

Lastly, there are the true powers of the spiritual man, built up and

realized in Meditation, through reverent obedience to spiritual law, to

the pure conditions of being, in the divine realm.

2. The transfer of powers from one venture to another comes through

the flow of the natural creative forces.

Here, if we can perceive it, is the whole secret of spiritual birth,

growth and life Spiritual being, like all being, is but an expression of

the Self, of the inherent power and being of Atma. Inherent in the Self

are consciousness and will, which have, as their lordly heritage, the

wide sweep of the universe throughout eternity, for the Self is one

with the Eternal. And the conscious ness of the Self may make itself

manifest as seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, or whatsoever perceptive

powers there may be, just as the white sunlight may divide into

many-coloured rays. So may the will of the Self manifest itself in the

uttering of words, or in handling, or in moving, and whatever powers

of action there are throughout the seven worlds. Where the Self is,

there will its powers be. It is but a question of the vesture through

which these powers shall shine forth. And wherever the consciousness

and desire of the ever-creative Self are fixed, there will a vesture be

built up; where the heart is, there will the treasure be also.

Since through ages the desire of the Self has been toward the natural

world, wherein the Self sought to mirror himself that he might know

himself, therefore a vesture of natural elements came into being,

through which blossomed forth the Self’s powers of perceiving and of

will: the power to see, to hear, to speak, to walk, to handle; and when

the Self, thus come to self-consciousness, and, with it, to a knowledge

of his imprisonment, shall set his desire on the divine and real world,

and raise his consciousness thereto, the spiritual vesture shall be built

up for him there, with its expression of his inherent powers. Nor will

migration thither be difficult for the Self, since the divine is no strange

or foreign land for him, but the house of his home, where he dwells

from everlasting.

3. The apparent, immediate cause is not the true cause of the creative

nature-powers; but, like the husbandman in his field, it takes obstacles

away.

The husbandman tills his field, breaking up the clods of earth into fine

mould, penetrable to air and rain; he sows his seed, carefully covering

it, for fear of birds and the wind; he waters the seed-laden earth,

turning the little rills from the irrigation tank now this way and that,

removing obstacles from the channels, until the even How of water

vitalizes the whole field. And so the plants germinate and grow, first

the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. But it is not the

husbandman who makes them grow. It is, first, the miraculous plasmic

power in the grain of seed, which brings forth after its kind; then the

alchemy of sunlight which, in presence of the green colouring matter

of the leaves, gathers hydrogen from the water and carbon from the

gases in the air, and mingles them in the hydro-carbons of plant

growth; and, finally, the wholly occult vital powers of the plant itself,

stored up through ages, and flowing down from the primal sources of

life. The husbandman but removes the obstacles. He plants and

waters, but God gives the increase.

So with the finer husbandman of diviner fields. He tills and sows, but

the growth of the spiritual man comes through the surge and flow of

divine, creative forces and powers. Here, again, God gives the

increase. The divine Self puts forth, for the manifestation of its

powers, a new and finer vesture, the body of the spiritual man.

4. Vestures of consciousness are built up in conformity with the

Boston of the feel- ing of selfhood.

The Self, says a great Teacher, in turn at- itself to three vestures: first,

to the physical body, then to the finer body, and thirdly to the causal

body. Finally it stands forth radiant, luminous, joyous, as the Self.

When the Self attributes itself to the physical body, there arise the

states of bodily consciousness, built up about the physical self.

When the Self, breaking through this first illusion, begins to see and

feel itself in the finer body, to find selfhood there, then the states of

consciousness of the finer body come into being; or, to speak exactly,

the finer body and its states of consciousness arise and grow together.

But the Self must not dwell permanently there. It must learn to find

itself in the causal body, to build up the wide and luminous fields of

consciousness that belong to that.

Nor must it dwell forever there, for there remains the fourth state, the

divine, with its own splendour and everlastingness.

It is all a question of the states of consciousness; all a question of

raising the sense of selfhood, until it dwells forever in the Eternal.

5. In the different fields of manifestation, the Consciousness, though

one, is the elective cause of many states of consciousness.

Here is the splendid teaching of oneness that lies at the heart of the

Eastern wisdom. Consciousness is ultimately One, everywhere and

forever. The Eternal, the Father, is the One Self of All Beings. And so,

in each individual who is but a facet of that Self, Consciousness is

One. Whether it breaks through as the dull fire of physical life, or the

murky flame of the psychic and passional, or the radiance of the

spiritual man, or the full glory of the Divine, it is ever the Light,

naught but the Light. The one Consciousness is the effective cause of

all states of consciousness, on every plane.

6. Among states of consciousness, that which is born of

Contemplation is free from the seed of future sorrow.

Where the consciousness breaks forth in the physical body, and the

full play of bodily life begins, its progression carries with it inevitable

limitations. Birth involves death. Meetings have their partings. Hunger

alternates with satiety. Age follows on the heels of youth. So do the

states of consciousness run along the circle of birth and death.

With the psychic, the alternation between prize and penalty is swifter.

Hope has its shadow of fear, or it is no hope. Exclusive love is

tortured by jealousy. Pleasure passes through deadness into pain.

Pain’s surcease brings pleasure back again. So here, too, the states of

consciousness run their circle. In all psychic states there is egotism,

which, indeed, is the very essence of the psychic; and where there is

egotism there is ever the seed of future sorrow. Desire carries

bondage in its womb.

But where the pure spiritual consciousness begins, free from self and

stain, the ancient law of retaliation ceases; the penalty of sorrow

lapses and is no more imposed. The soul now passes, no longer from

sorrow to sorrow, but from glory to glory. Its growth and splendour

have no limit. The good passes to better, best.

7. The works of followers after Union make neither for bright pleasure

nor for dark pain The works of others make for pleasure or pain, or

a mingling of these.

The man of desire wins from his works the reward of pleasure, or

incurs the penalty of pain; or, as so often happens in life, his guerdon,

like the passionate mood of the lover, is part pleasure and part pain.

Works done with self- seeking bear within them the seeds of future

sorrow; conversely, according to the proverb, present pain is future

gain.

But, for him who has gone beyond desire, whose desire is set on the

Eternal, neither pain to be avoided nor pleasure to be gained inspires

his work. He fears no hell and desires no heaven. His one desire is, to

know the will of the Father and finish His work. He comes directly in

line with the divine Will, and works cleanly and immediately, without

longing or fear. His heart dwells in the Eternal; all his desires are set

on the Eternal.

8. From the force inherent in works comes the manifestation of those

dynamic mind images which are conformable to the ripening out of

each of these works.

We are now to consider the general mechanism of Karma, in order

that we may pass on to the consideration of him who is free from

Karma. Karma, indeed, is the concern of the personal man, of his

bondage or freedom. It is the succession of the forces which built up

the personal man, reproducing themselves in one personality after

another.

Now let us take an imaginary case, to see how these forces may work

out. Let us think of a man, with murderous intent in his heart, striking

with a dagger at his enemy. He makes a red wound in his victim’s

breast; at the same instant he paints, in his own mind, a picture of that

wound: a picture dynamic with all the fierce will-power he has put

into his murderous blow. In other words he has made a deep wound

in his own psychic body; and, when he comes to be born again, that

body will become his outermost vesture, upon which, with its wound

still there, bodily tissue will be built up. So the man will be born

maimed, or with the predisposition to some mortal injury; he is

unguarded at that point, and any trifling accidental blow will pierce the

broken Joints of his psychic armour. Thus do the dynamic

mind-images manifest themselves, coming to the surface, so that

works done in the past may ripen and come to fruition.

9. Works separated by different nature, or place, or time, are brought

together by the correspondence between memory and dynamic

impression.

Just as, in the ripening out of mind-images into bodily conditions, the

effect is brought about by the ray of creative force sent down by the

Self, somewhat as the light of the magic lantern projects the details of

a picture on the screen, revealing the hidden, and making secret things

palpable and visible, so does this divine ray exercise a selective power

on the dynamic mind-images, bringing together into one day of life the

seeds gathered from many days. The memory constantly exemplifies

this power; a passage of poetry will call up in the mind like passages

of many poets, read at different times. So a prayer may call up many

prayers.

In like manner, the same over-ruling selective power, which is a ray

of the Higher Self, gathers together from different births and times and

places those mind-images which are conformable, and may be grouped

in the frame of a single life or a single event. Through this grouping,

visible bodily conditions or outward circumstances are brought about,

and by these the soul is taught and trained.

Just as the dynamic mind-images of desire ripen out in bodily

conditions and circumstances, so the far more dynamic powers of

aspiration, wherein the soul reaches toward the Eternal, have their

fruition in a finer world, building the vesture of the spiritual man.

10. The series of dynamic mind-images is beginningless, because

Desire is everlasting.

The whole series of dynamic mind-images, which make up the entire

history of the personal man, is a part of the mechanism which the Self

employs, to mirror itself in a reflection, to embody its powers in an

outward form, to the end of self-expression, selfrealization,

self-knowledge. Therefore the initial impulse behind these dynamic

mind- images comes from the Self and is the descending ray of the

Self; so that it cannot be said that there is any first member of the

series of images, from which the rest arose. The impulse is

beginningless, since it comes from the Self, which is from everlasting.

Desire is not to cease; it is to turn to the Eternal, and so become

aspiration.

11. Since the dynamic mind-images are held together by impulses of

desire, by the wish for personal reward, by the substratum of mental

habit, by the support of outer things desired; therefore, when these

cease, the self reproduction of dynamic mind-images ceases.

We are still concerned with the personal life in its bodily vesture, and

with the process whereby the forces which have upheld it are

gradually transferred to the life of the spiritual man, and build up for

him his finer vesture in a finer world.

How is the current to be changed ? How is the flow of

self-reproductive mind-images, which have built the conditions of life

after life in this world of bondage, to be checked, that the time of

imprisonment may come to an end, the day of liberation dawn?

The answer is given in the Sutra just translated. The driving-force is

withdrawn and directed to the upbuilding of the spiritual body.

When the building impulses and forces are withdrawn, the tendency

to manifest a new psychical body, a new body of bondage, ceases with

them.

12. The difference between that which is past and that which is not yet

come, according to their natures, depends on the difference of phase

of their properties.

Here we come to a high and difficult matter, which has always been

held to be of great moment in the Eastern wisdom: the thought that

the division of time into past, present and future is, in great measure,

an illusion; that past, present, future all dwell together in the eternal

Now.

The discernment of this truth has been held to be so necessarily a part

of wisdom, that one of the names of the Enlightened is: “he who has

passed beyond the three times: past, present, future.”

So the Western Master said: “Before Abraham was, I am”; and again,

“I am with you always, unto the end of the world”; using the eternal

present for past and future alike. With the same purpose, the Master

speaks of himself as “the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the

end, the first and the last.”

And a Master of our own days writes: “I feel even irritated at having

to use these three clumsy wordspast, present, and future. Miserable

concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are

about as ill adapted for the purpose, as an axe for fine carving.”

In the eternal Now, both past and future are consummated.

Bjorklund, the Swedish philosopher, has well stated the same truth:

“Neither past nor future can exist to God; He lives undividedly,

without limitations, and needs not, as man, to plot out his existence in

a series of moments. Eternity then is not identical with unending time;

it is a different form of existence, related to time as the perfect to the

imperfect … Man as an entity for himself must have the natural

limitations for the part. Conceived by God, man is eternal in the divine

sense, but conceived ., by himself, man’s eternal life is clothed in the

limitations we call time. The eternal is a constant present without

beginning or end, without past or future.”

13. These properties, whether manifest or latent, are of the nature of

the Three Potencies.

The Three Potencies are the three manifested modifications of the one

primal material, which stands opposite to perceiving consciousness.

These Three Potencies are called Substance, Force, Darkness; or

viewed rather for their moral colouring, Goodness, Passion, Inertness.

Every material manifestation is a projection of substance into the

empty space of darkness. Every mental state is either good, or

passional, or inert. So, whether subjective or objective, latent or

manifest, all things that present themselves to the perceiving

consciousness are compounded of these three. This is a fundamental

doctrine of the Sankhya system.

14. The external manifestation of an object takes place when the

transformations ore in the same phase.

We should be inclined to express the same law by saying, for example,

that a sound is audible, when it consists of vibrations within the

compass of the auditory nerve; that an object is visible, when either

directly or by reflection, it sends forth luminiferous vibrations within

the compass of the retina and the optic nerve. Vibrations below or

above that compass make no impression at all, and the object remains

invisible; as, for example, a kettle of boiling water in a dark room,

though the kettle is sending forth heat vibrations closely akin to light.

So, when the vibrations of the object and those of the perceptive

power are in the same phase, the external manifestation of the object

takes place.

There seems to be a further suggestion that the appearance of an

object in the “present,” or its remaining hid in the “past,” or “future,”

is likewise a question of phase, and, just as the range of vibrations

perceived might be increased by the development of finer senses, so

the perception of things past, and things to come, may be easy from

a higher point of view.

15. The paths of material things and of states of consciousness are

distinct, as is manifest from the fact that the same object may produce

different impressions in different minds.

Having shown that our bodily condition and circumstances depend on

Karma, while Karma depends on perception and will, the sage

recognizes the fact that from this may be drawn the false deduction

that material things are in no wise different from states of mind. The

same thought has occurred, and still occurs, to all philosophers; and,

by various reasonings, they all come to the same wise conclusion; that

the material world is not made by the mood of any human mind, but

is rather the manifestation of the totality of invisible Being, whether

we call this Mahat, with the ancients, or Ether, with the moderns.

16. Nor do material objects defend upon a single mind, for how could

they remain objective to others, if that mind ceased to think of them?

This is but a further development of the thought of the preceding

Sutra, carrying on the thought that, while the universe is spiritual, yet

its material expression is ordered, consistent, ruled by law, not subject

to the whims or affirmations of a single mind. Unwelcome material

things may be escaped by spiritual growth, by rising to a realm above

them, and not by denying their existence on their own plane. So that

our system is neither materialistic, nor idealistic in the extreme sense,

but rather intuitional and spiritual, holding that matter is the

manifestation of spirit as a whole, a reflection or externalization of

spirit, and, like spirit, everywhere obedient to law. The path of

liberation is not through denial of matter but through denial of the

wills of self, through obedience, and that aspiration which builds the

vesture of the spiritual man.

17. An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is,

or is not, tinged with the colour of the object.

The simplest manifestation of this is the matter of attention. Our minds

apprehend what they wish to apprehend; all else passes unnoticed, or,

on the other hand, we perceive what we resent, as, for example, the

noise of a passing train; while others, used to the sound, do not notice

it at all.

But the deeper meaning is, that out of the vast totality of objects ever

present in the universe, the mind perceives only those which conform

to the hue of its Karma. The rest remain unseen, even though close at

hand.

This spiritual law has been well expressed by Emerson:

“Through solidest eternal things the man finds his road as if they did

not subsist, and does not once suspect their being. As soon as he

needs a new object, suddenly he beholds it, and no longer attempts to

pass through it, but takes another way. When he has exhausted for the

time the nourishment to be drawn from any one person or thing, that

object is withdrawn from his observation, and though still in his

immediate neighbourhood, he does not suspect its presence. Nothing

is dead. Men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and

mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window,

sound and well, in some new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead,

he is very well alive: nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle;

at times we believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the

names under which they go.”

18. The movements of the psychic nature are perpetually ob jects of

perception, since the Spiritual Man, who is the lord of them, remains

unchanging.

Here is teaching of the utmost import, both for understanding and for

practice.

To the psychic nature belong all the ebb and flow of emotion, all

hoping and fearing, desire and hate: the things that make the multitude

of men and women deem themselves happy or miserable. To it also

belong the measuring and comparing, the doubt and questioning,

which, for the same multitude, make up mental life. So that there

results the emotion-soaked personality, with its dark and narrow view

of life: the shivering, terror driven personality that is life itself for all

but all of mankind.

Yet the personality is not the true man, not the living soul at all, but

only a spectacle which the true man observes. Let us under stand this,

therefore, and draw ourselves up inwardly to the height of the

Spiritual Man, who, standing in the quiet light of the Eternal, looks

down serene upon this turmoil of the outer life.

One first masters the personality, the “mind,” by thus looking down on

it from above, from within; by steadily watching its ebb and flow, as

objective, outward, and therefore not the real Self. This standing back

is the first step, detachment. The second, to maintain the

vantage-ground thus gained, is recollection.

19. The Mind is not self-luminous, since it can be seen as an object.

This is a further step toward overthrowing the tyranny of the “mind”:

the psychic nature of emotion and mental measuring. This psychic self,

the personality, claims to be absolute, asserting that life is for it and

through it; it seeks to impose on the whole being of man its narrow,

materialistic, faithless view of life and the universe; it would clip the

wings of the soaring Soul. But the Soul dethrones the tyrant, by

perceiving and steadily affirming that the psychic self is no true self at

all, not self-luminous, but only an object of observation, watched by

the serene eyes of the Spiritual Man.

20. Nor could the Mind at the same time know itself and things

external to it.

The truth is that the “mind” knows neither external things nor itself.

Its measuring and analyzing, its hoping and fearing, hating and

desiring, never give it a true measure of life, nor any sense of real

values. Ceaselessly active, it never really attains to knowledge; or, if

we admit its knowledge, it ever falls short of wisdom, which comes

only through intuition, the vision of the Spiritual Man.

Life cannot be known by the “mind,” its secrets cannot be learned

through the “mind.” The proof is, the ceaseless strife and contradiction

of opinion among those who trust in the mind. Much less can the

“mind” know itself, the more so, because it is pervaded by the illusion

that it truly knows, truly is.

True knowledge of the “mind” comes, first, when the Spiritual Man,

arising, stands detached, regarding the “mind” from above, with quiet

eyes, and seeing it for the tangled web of psychic forces that it truly

is. But the truth is divined long before it is clearly seen, and then

begins the long battle of the “mind,’ against the Real, the “mind”

fighting doggedly, craftily, for its supremacy.

21. If the Mind be thought of as seen by another more inward Mind,

then there would be an endless series of perceiving Minds, and a

confusion of memories.

One of the expedients by which the “mind” seeks to deny and thwart

the Soul, when it feels that it is beginning to be circumvented and seen

through, is to assert that this seeing is the work of a part of itself, one

part observing the other, and thus leaving no need nor place for the

Spiritual Man.

To this strategy the argument is opposed by our philosopher, that this

would be no true solution, but only a postponement of the solution.

For we should have to find yet another part of the mind to view the

first observing part, and then another to observe this, and so on,

endlessly.

The true solution is, that the Spiritual Man looks down upon the

psychic nature, and observes it; when he views the psychic pictures

gallery, this is “memory,” which would be a hopeless, inextricable

confusion, if we thought of one part of the “mind,” with its memories,

viewing another part, with memories of its own.

The solution of the mystery lies not in the “mind” but beyond it, in the

luminous life of the risen Lord, the Spiritual Man.

22. When the psychical nature takes on the form of the spiritual

intelligence, by reflecting it, then the Self becomes conscious of its

own spiritual intelligence.

We are considering a stage of spiritual life at which the psychical

nature has been cleansed and purified. Formerly, it reflected in its

plastic substance the images of the earthy; purified now, it reflects the

image of the heavenly, giving the spiritual intelligence a visible form.

The Self, beholding that visible form, in which its spiritual intelligence

has, as it were, taken palpable shape, thereby reaches self-recognition,

self-comprehension. The Self sees itself in this mirror, and thus

becomes not only conscious, but self-conscious. This is, from one

point of view, the purpose of the whole evolutionary process.

23. The psychic nature, taking on the colour of the Seer and of things

seen, leads to the perception of all objects.

In the unregenerate man, the psychic nature is saturated with images

of material things, of things seen, or heard, or tasted, or felt; and this

web of dynamic images forms the ordinary material and driving power

of life. The sensation of sweet things tasted clamours to be renewed,

and drives the man into effort to obtain its renewal; so he adds image

to image, each dynamic and importunate, piling up sin’s intolerable

burden.

Then comes regeneration, and the washing away of sin, through the

fiery, creative power of the Soul, which burns out the stains of the

psychic vesture, purifying it as gold is refined in the furnace. The

suffering of regeneration springs from this indispensable purifying.

Then the psychic vesture begins to take on the colour of the Soul, no

longer stained, but suffused with golden light; and the man red

generate gleams with the radiance of eternity. Thus the Spiritual Man

puts on fair raiment; for of this cleansing it is said: Though your sins

be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be as crimson,

they shall be as wool.

24. The psychic nature, which has been printed with mind-images of

innumerable material things, exists now f or the Spiritual Man,

building for him.

The “mind,” once the tyrant, is now the slave, recognized as outward,

separate, not Self, a well-trained instrument of the Spiritual Man.

For it is not ordained for the Spiritual Man that, finding his high realm,

he shall enter altogether there, and pass out of the vision of mankind.

It is true that he dwells in heaven, but he also dwells on earth. He has

angels and archangels, the hosts of the just made perfect, for his

familiar friends, but he has at the same time found a new kinship with

the prone children of men, who stumble and sin in the dark. Finding

sinlessness, he finds also that the world’s sin and shame are his, not to

share, but to atone; finding kinship with angels, he likewise finds his

part in the toil of angels, the toil for the redemption of the world.

For this work, he, who now stands in the heavenly realm, needs his

instrument on earth; and this instrument he finds, ready to his hand,

and fitted and perfected by the very struggles he has waged against it,

in the personality, the “mind,’ of the personal man. This once tyrant is

now his servant and perfect ambassador, bearing witness, before men,

of heavenly things and even in this present world doing the will and

working the works of the Father.

25. For him who discerns between the Mind and the Spiritual Man,

there comes perfect fruition of the longing after the real being of the

Self.

How many times in the long struggle have the Soul’s aspirations

seemed but a hopeless, impossible dream, a madman’s counsel of

perfection. Yet every finest, most impossible aspiration shall be

realized, and ten times more than realized, once the long, arduous

fight against the “mind,” and the mind’s worldview is won. And then

it will be seen that unfaith and despair were but weapons of the

“mind,” to daunt the Soul, and put off the day when the neck of the

“mind” shall be put under the foot of the Soul.

Have you aspired, well-nigh hopeless, after immortality? You shall be

paid by entering the immortality of God.

Have you aspired, in misery and pain, after consoling, healing love?

You shall be made a dispenser of the divine love of God Himself to

weary souls.

Have you sought ardently, in your day of feebleness, after power ?

You shall wield power immortal, infinite, with God working the works

of God.

Have you, in lonely darkness, longed for companionship and

consolation ? You shall have angels and archangels for your friends,

and all the immortal hosts of the Dawn.

These are the fruits of victory. Therefore overcome. These are the

prizes of regeneration. Therefore die to self, that you may rise again

to God.

26. Thereafter, the whole personal being bends toward illumination,

toward Eternal Life.

This is part of the secret of the Soul, that salvation means, not merely

that a soul shall be cleansed and raised to heaven, but that the whole

realm of the natural powers shall be redeemed, building up, even in

this present world, the kingly figure of the Spiritual Man.

The traditions of the ages are full of his footsteps; majestic,

uncomprehended shadows, myths, demi-gods, fill the memories of all

the nobler peoples. But the time cometh, when he shall be known, no

longer demi-god, nor myth, nor shadow, but the ever-present

Redeemer, working amid men for the life and cleansing of all souls.

27. In the internals of the batik, other thoughts will arise, through the

impressions of the dynamic mind-images.

The battle is long and arduous. Let there be no mistake as to that. Go

not forth to this battle without counting the cost. Ages have gone to

the strengthening of the foe. Ages of conflict must be spent, ere the

foe, wholly conquered, becomes the servant, the Soul’s minister to

mankind.

And from these long past ages, in hours when the contest flags, will

come new foes, mind-born children springing up to fight for mind,

reinforcements coming from forgotten years, forgotten lives. For once

this conflict is begun, it can be ended only by sweeping victory, and

unconditional, unreserved surrender of the vanquished.

28. These are to be overcome as it was taught that hindrances should

be overcome.

These new enemies and fears are to be overcome by ceaselessly

renewing the fight, by a steadfast, dogged persistence, whether in

victory or defeat, which shall put the stubbornness of the rocks to

shame. For the Soul is older than all things, and invincible; it is of the

very nature of the Soul to be unconquerable.

Therefore fight on, undaunted; knowing that the spiritual will, once

awakened, shall, through the effort of the contest, come to its full

strength; that ground gained can be held permanently; that great as is

the dead-weight of the adversary, it is yet measurable, while the

Warrior who fights for you, for whom you fight, is, in might,

immeasurable, invincible, everlasting.

29. He who, after he has attained, is wholly free from self, reaches the

essence of all that can be known, gathered together like a cloud. This

is the true spiritual consciousness.

It has been said that, at the beginning of the way, we must kill out

ambition, the great curse, the giant weed which grows as strongly in

the heart of the devoted disciple as in the man of desire. The remedy

is sacrifice of self, obedience, humility; that purity of heart which gives

the vision of God. Thereafter, he who has attained is wrapt about with

the essence of all that can be known, as with a cloud; he has that

perfect illumination which is the true spiritual consciousness. Through

obedience to the will of God, he comes into oneness of being with

God; he is initiated into God’s view of the universe, seeing all life as

God sees it.

30. Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil.

Such a one, it is said, is free from the bond of Karma, from the burden

of toil, from that debt to works which comes from works done in

self-love and desire. Free from self-will, he is free from sorrow, too,

for sorrow comes from the fight of self-will against the divine will,

through the correcting stress of the divine will, which seeks to

counteract the evil wrought by disobedience. When the conflict with

the divine will ceases, then sorrow ceases, and he who has grown into

obedience, thereby enters into joy.

31. When all veils are rent, all stains washed away, his knowledge

becomes infinite; little remains for him to know.

The first veil is the delusion that thy soul is in some permanent way

separate from the great Soul, the divine Eternal. When that veil is rent,

thou shalt discern thy oneness with everlasting Life. The second veil

is the delusion of enduring separateness from thy other selves,

whereas in truth the soul that is in them is one with the soul that is in

thee. The world’s sin and shame are thy sin and shame: its joy also.

These veils rent, thou shalt enter into knowledge of divine things and

human things. Little will remain unknown to thee.

32. Thereafter comes the completion of the series of transformations

of the three nature potencies, since their purpose is attained.

It is a part of the beauty and wisdom of the great Indian teachings, the

Vedanta and the Yoga alike, to hold that all life exists for the purposes

of Soul, for the making of the spiritual man. They teach that all nature

is an orderly process of evolution, leading up to this, designed for this

end, existing only for this: to bring forth and perfect the Spiritual Man.

He is the crown of evolution: at his coming, the goal of all

development is attained.

33. The series of transformations is divided into moments. When the

series is completed, time gives place to duration.

There are two kinds of eternity, says the commentary: the eternity of

immortal life, which belongs to the Spirit, and the eternity of change,

which inheres in Nature, in all that is not Spirit. While we are content

to live in and for Nature, in the Circle of Necessity, Sansara, we doom

ourselves to perpetual change. That which is born must die, and that

which dies must be reborn. It is change evermore, a ceaseless series

of transformations.

But the Spiritual Man enters a new order; for him, there is no longer

eternal change, but eternal Being. He has entered into the joy of his

Lord. This spiritual birth, which makes him heir of the Everlasting,

sets a term to change; it is the culmination, the crowning

transformation, of the whole realm of change.

34. Pure spiritual life is, therefore, the in- verse resolution of the

potencies of Nature, which have emptied themselves of their value for

the Spiritual man; or it is the return of the power of pure

Consciousness to its essential form.

Here we have a splendid generalization, in which our wise philosopher

finally reconciles the naturalists and the idealists, expressing the crown

and end of his teaching, first in the terms of the naturalist, and then in

the terms of the idealist.

The birth and growth of the Spiritual Man, and his entry into his

immortal heritage, may be regarded, says our philosopher, either as

the culmination of the whole process of natural evolution and

involution, where “that which flowed f rom out the boundless deep,

turns again home”; or it may be looked at, as the Vedantins look at it,

as the restoration of pure spiritual Consciousness to its pristine and

essential form. There is no discrepancy or conflict between these two

views, which are but two accounts of the same thing. Therefore those

who study the wise philosopher, be they naturalist or idealist, have no

excuse to linger over dialetic subtleties or disputes. These things are

lifted from their path, lest they should be tempted to delay over them,

and they are left facing the path itself, stretching upward and onward

from their feet to the everlasting hills, radiant with infinite Light.