Elementary Theosophy Part 9

All of us who have studied the subject find in our daily lives the evidence of the truth of such Biblical declarations. We know perfectly well that anger provokes anger and that conciliation wins concessions, while retaliation keeps a feud alive. We know that retort calls out retort, while silence restores the peace. In these little things it is usually within the power of either party to the trouble to have peace instead of turmoil--just a matter of self control. But in the larger events it is not always so. They are not invariably within our immediate control because they are often the results of causes generated in the past which we can no longer modify. And this brings us to a wider view of this law of cause and effect.

If we look at the life history of an individual as it stretches out from birth to death it presents a remarkable record of events that appear to have no logical relationship to each other. In childhood, there may have been either great happiness or great sorrow and suffering regardless of the qualities of character we are considering, and there is nothing in the present life of the child to explain either. The child itself may be gentle and affectionate and yet it may be the recipient of gross abuse and cruel misunderstanding. In maturity we may find still greater mysteries. Invariably there are mingled successes and failures, pleasures and pains. But when we come to a.n.a.lyze them we fail to find a satisfactory reason for them. We see that the successes often arrive when they are not warranted by anything that was done to win them, and for the want of any rational explanation we call it "good luck." We also observe that sometimes failure after failure comes when the man is not only doing his very best but when all of his plans will stand the test of sound business procedure. Baffled again we throw logic to the winds and call it "bad luck."

Luck is a word we use to conceal our ignorance and our inability to trace the working of the law. Suppose we were to ask a savage to explain how it is that a few minutes' time with the morning paper enables one to know what happened yesterday in London. He knows nothing of reporters and cables and presses. He cannot explain it. He cannot even comprehend it. But if he is a vain savage and does not wish to admit his ignorance he might solemnly a.s.sert that the reason we know is because we are lucky; and he would be using the word just as sensibly as we use it!

If by luck we mean chance, there is no such thing in this world. Chance means chaos and the absence of law. From the magnificent, orderly procession of a hundred million suns and their world systems that wheel majestically through s.p.a.ce down to the very atom, with all of its electrons, the universe is a stupendous proclamation of the all-pervading presence of law. It is a mighty panorama of cause and effect. There is no such thing as chance.

What then _is_ good luck? We know that people do receive benefits which they apparently have not earned. There simply cannot be a result without a cause. They have earned it in other lives when the conditions did not permit immediate harvesting of the results of the good forces generated and Nature is paying the debt and making the balance of her books at a later period. It may be in the case of one that some specific act is attracting its reward, or it may be in the case of another that he is nearing the point in evolution where he no longer desires things for himself, only to discover that nature fairly flings her treasures at his feet. He has put himself in harmony with evolutionary law--with the divine plan, and nature withholds nothing.

When we eliminate chance, then, we are forced to seek the cause of unexplained good or bad fortune beyond the boundaries of this life because there is nothing else we can do. We have results to explain and we know they do not come from causes that belong to this life. They must of necessity arise from causes generated in a past life.

Now the moment we get away from the narrow view that we began existence when we were born, all the mysteries about us disappear and we can fall back on natural law and logically explain everything. Why does one person begin life with a good mind while another is born with small mental capacity? Because one worked hard at life's problems in past incarnations while the other led a b.u.t.terfly existence and merely amused himself. Why does one move serenely through trying circ.u.mstances always maintaining a cheerful view of life while another loses control of his temper at the slightest annoyance and wears himself out with the trifling vexations of existence? Only because one has for a long period practiced self control while the other has never given a thought to the matter. Why is one so thoughtful of others that he wins universal love and admiration while another is so self centered that he makes no true friends at all? Again past experience explains it. The one has studied the laws of destiny and lived by them while the other has not yet even learned of their existence.

Putting aside the old belief that the soul is created at birth, and keeping in mind the newer and scientific view that we have all lived many lives before, all the difficulties and perplexities at once disappear. We are no longer puzzled because we find in a man's life some good fortune when he has apparently done nothing to deserve it, for we see that he must have set the forces in motion in a previous life which now culminate in this result. We are no longer mystified because apparent causeless misfortunes befall him for we know that in the nature of things he did generate the causes in the past. A single incarnation has the same relation to the whole of the soul's evolution that a single day has to one incarnation. As the days are separated by the nights and yet all the days are related by the acts which run through them, so the incarnations are separated by periods of rest in the heaven world and yet all the incarnations are related by the thoughts and acts running through them. What a man does in his youth affects his old age, and what we did in our last incarnation is affecting the present one. The one is no more remarkable than the other. As we mould old age by youth so we are shaping the coming incarnation by this one. Before we shall be able to see the utter reasonableness of the truth that what we are now is the result of our past we must have a clear understanding of the relationship between the soul and the body. The physical body in each incarnation is the material expression of the soul, of its moral power or weakness, of its wisdom or ignorance, of its purity or its grossness, just as one's face is, at each moment the expression of one's thought and emotion in physical matter. Every change of consciousness registers itself in matter. A man has emotions. He feels a thrill of joy and his face proclaims the fact. He becomes angry, and the change from joy to anger is registered in physical matter so that all who see his face are aware of the change in his consciousness, which they cannot see. These are pa.s.sing changes like sunshine and shadow and they are obvious to all. But we know that as the years pa.s.s the constant influence of consciousness moulds even physical matter into permanent form. A soul of sunny disposition finally comes to have benevolent features while one of morose tendency as certainly has a face of settled gloom. n.o.body can contact the soul of another with any physical sense we possess yet n.o.body has the slightest doubt of his ability to distinguish between a sunny, peaceful soul and a soul that is not in harmony with life. We know the difference only because consciousness moulds matter. But this is merely the surface indication. Consciousness is continually influencing matter and the major part of its work is not visible to us.

What the consciousness is, the body becomes. Whether we are now brilliant or stupid, comely or deformed, is the result of the activities of consciousness, and the very grain of the flesh and the shape of the physical body are the registrations in matter of what we, the soul, thought and did in the past.

Consider a specific thing like deformity and we shall begin to see just why and how it may have come about. If in a past life a person was guilty of deliberate cruelty to another, and on account of it suffered great mental and emotional distress afterward, it would be no remarkable thing if the mental images of the injuries inflicted on his victim are reproduced in himself. In idiocy we have apparently merely a distorted brain so that the consciousness cannot function through it. Might not that distortion of the physical brain easily be the result of violent reaction from cruelties in a past life? The consciousness that can be guilty of cruelty is seeing things crooked--out of proportion. Otherwise it could not be cruel. This distortion in consciousness must register a corresponding distortion in matter, for the body is the faithful and accurate reflection of that consciousness. It is just because the body is the true and exact expression of the consciousness in physical matter that the palmist and phrenologist can sometimes give us such remarkable delineations of character. The record is there in hand and head for those who can read it.

This broader outlook on the life journey, extending over a very long series of incarnations, gives us a wholly different view of the difficulties with which we have to contend and of the limitations which afflict us. It at once shows us that in the midst of apparent injustice there is really nothing but perfect justice for everybody; that all good fortune has been earned; that all bad fortune is deserved, and that each of us is, mentally and morally, what he has made himself. Masefield put it well when he wrote:

All that I rightly think or do, Or make or spoil or bless or blast, Is curse or blessing justly due For sloth or effort in the past.

My life's a statement of the sum Of vice indulged or overcome.

And as I journey on the roads I shall be helped and healed and blessed.

Dear words shall cheer, and be as goads To urge to heights as yet unguessed.

My road shall be the road I made.

All that I gave shall be repaid.

Have we ever heard of a plan more just, of a truth more inspiring? It is surely a satisfying thought that every effort shall give increased power of intellect; that all kindly thought of others is a shield for our own protection in time of need; that every impulse of affection shall ripen into the love of comrades; that all n.o.ble thinking builds heroic character, with which we shall return, in some future time, to play to a still n.o.ble part in the world of men.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Proverbs, XXVI, 27.

CHAPTER XV.

SUPERPHYSICAL EVOLUTION

If we accept the idea of evolution at all we cannot escape the conclusion that there is superphysical evolution. The belief that man is the highest intelligence in the universe, except G.o.d himself, would be utterly inconsistent with evolutionary facts and principles. Evolution is a continuous unfolding from within, and it is only the limitation of our senses that leads us to set limitations to it. The one great life of the universe expresses itself in myriad forms and at innumerable levels of development. One of those levels is humanity. But as certainly as our consciousness has evolved to its present stage it shall go on to higher ones.

Orderly gradation is clearly nature's method of expression. A continuous, unbroken line of life reaches downward from man. Its successive stages are seen in the animals, the reptiles, the insects and the microbes. Even the great kingdoms into which the biologist divides life fade into each other almost imperceptibly and it becomes difficult to say where the vegetable kingdom stops and the animal kingdom begins.

Just as that continuous chain of life runs downward from man it must also rise above him until it merges in the Supreme Being. There must necessarily be the higher as well as the lower products of evolution.

Man is merely one link in the evolutionary chain. The human level is the point where consciousness has become completely individualized and is capable of turning back upon itself and studying its own inner processes.

The thought of Occidental civilization has been sadly fettered with materialism. It has scarcely dared to think beyond that which could be grasped with the hands. The physical senses were its outposts of investigation. What could not be seen or heard or felt had no existence for it. Modern science explored the material universe and perfected its methods until the vast panorama of worlds could be intimately studied, and its illimitable scope and colossal grandeur be somewhat comprehended. But there was no study of life comparable to the vast stretch of worlds; for material science had made the remarkable blunder of a.s.suming that the last word on the nature of matter had been said.

Then came the startling discoveries that revolutionized the accepted views of matter, that proved that the supposedly indivisible atom was a miniature universe, a tiny cosmos of force. The old theories about matter had to be thrown aside. They were as much out of date as the belief that the earth is flat. Stripped of technical terms of expression the revised view of matter is, substantially, that it is the lowest expression of life; and now modern science is turning tardy attention to a study of the life side of the universe. The moment that is done the sense of consistency and the law of correspondence compel us to postulate a gradation of intelligences rising above man as man does above the insects.

The scientific mind instantly grasps the inherent reasonableness of the existence of superphysical beings. Writing on the subject of energy, Nicola Tesla says:

"We can conceive of organized beings living without nourishment and deriving all the energy they need for the performance of their life functions from the ambient medium.*** There may be *** individualized material systems of beings, perhaps of gaseous const.i.tution, or composed of substance still more tenuous. In view of this possibility--nay, probability--we cannot apodictically deny the existence of organized beings on a planet merely because the conditions on the same are unsuitable for the existence of life as we conceive it. We cannot even, with positive a.s.surance, a.s.sert that some of them might not be present here in this our world, in the very midst of us, for their const.i.tution and life manifestation may be such that we are unable to perceive them."[N]

Alfred Russell Wallace, who was called "the grand old man of science,"

wrote in one of his latest books:

"I think we have got to recognize that between man and the ultimate G.o.d there is an almost infinite mult.i.tude of beings working in the universe at large, at tasks as definite and important as any we have to perform on earth.

I imagine that the universe is peopled with spirits--that is, with intelligent beings with powers and duties akin to our own, but vaster. I think there is a gradual ascent from man upward and onward."

While the scientist, still lacking the absolutely conclusive evidence, goes only to the point of a.s.serting that it is reasonable and probable that supermen exist, the occultist a.s.serts it as a fact within his personal knowledge.[O] So we have the direct testimony of the occultists, the endors.e.m.e.nt of the scientists as to its probability, and, perhaps the most important of all, the inherent reasonableness of the idea.

The relationship of the supermen, or great spiritual hierarchy, to the human race is that of teachers, guardians and directors. They superintend human evolution. But this does not mean in the very least the relationship that is expressed in the term "spirit guides" so frequently use by the spiritualist. That is a totally different thing.

They seem to imply that the "spirit guide" gives direct instructions or orders to the person known as a "medium." If we were all thus controlled and directed what would become of free will? Evolution can proceed only if we use our initiative in the affairs of life. If we were to be directed by the wisdom and will of others we would not evolve at all. We would be merely automata directed by others, and no matter how great they were we could never thus develop our judgment and self-reliance. It is not thus that the great spiritual hierarchy directs human evolution.

It is, in part, by working with mankind en ma.s.se and bringing mental and moral forces to play upon them, thus stimulating latent spiritual forces from within. It is also by directly, or indirectly placing ideals instead of commands before the race. In another direction it is actual superintendence, or administration, or teaching, in a way that does not interfere with one's initiative or will. If the soul is to evolve it must have liberty--even the freedom to make mistakes.

It is sometimes asked why, if the supermen exist, those who are in incarnation do not come out into the world and give us ocular evidence of the fact. It is pointed out that they could speedily convince the world by a display of superphysical force. But they are probably not in the least interested in convincing anybody of their existence. They _are_ interested in raising the general level of morality, of course, but such an exhibition would not make people morally better. The work of the supermen can best be done from higher planes than the physical. As for the very small number of the supermen who take physical bodies to better do their special work, they can best accomplish it from secluded places; and if they sometimes have reason to come out into the seething vibrations of our modern civilization it is easy to understand that they would not be conspicuously different from other men, to the ordinary observer.

It is from the spiritual hierarchy that come all the religions of the world. There the question may arise, "Then why do they differ so greatly?" Because the peoples to whom they are given differ greatly. The difference of temperament and viewpoint between the Orient and the Occident is enormous. We are evolving along the outer, the objective, and our civilization represents the material conquest of nature. They are evolving the inner, the subjective. In the Orient the common trend of conversation is philosophical, just as in the Occident it is commercial. Such different types of mind require somewhat different statements of ethics, but the fundamental principles of all religions are identical.

When a new era in human evolution begins a World Teacher comes into voluntary incarnation and founds a religion that is suited to the requirements of the new era. Humanity is never left to grope along alone. All that it can comprehend and utilize is taught it in the various religions. World Teachers, the Christs and saviours of the race, have been appearing at propitious times since humanity began existence.

Most readers will probably agree that a World Teacher known as the Christ did come and found a religion nearly two thousand years ago. Why do they think so? They reply that G.o.d so loved the world that he sent his Son, the Christ, to bring it light and life. If that is true how can we avoid the conclusion that He, or his predecessors, must have come many a time before? The belief that He came but once is consistent only with the erroneous notion that Genesis is history instead of allegory, and that the earth is about six thousand years old! Science has not determined its age but we know that it is very old, indeed. Many eminent scientists have made rough estimates, taking into consideration all that we have learned from astronomy, geology and archeology. Phillips, the geologist, basing his calculations upon the time required for the depositions of the stratified rocks, put the minimum age at thirty-eight million years and the maximum age at ninety-six million years. Sir George Darwin, basing his calculation wholly upon astronomical data, puts the earth's age at a minimum of fifty-six million years. Joly arrived at his estimate by a calculation of the time required to produce the sodium content of the ocean, and concluded that the age of the earth is between eighty million and one hundred million years. Sollas is said to have made careful study of the matter and he finds the minimum to be eighty million, and the maximum age to be one hundred and fifty million years. But perhaps the most exhaustive study of the matter, and that made by the use of the later scientific knowledge, was by Bosler, of the French scientists. He bases his calculations upon the radio-activity of rocks and arrives at a minimum earth age of seven hundred and ten millions of years. Thus it will be observed that as our knowledge grows the estimated age of the earth increases.

In the face of such facts what becomes of the a.s.sertion that G.o.d so loved the world that he sent His Son to help ignorant humanity about two thousand years ago--but never before? What about the hundreds of millions of human beings who lived and died before that time? Did He care nothing for them? Did He give his attention to humanity for a period of only two thousand years and neglect it for millions of years?

Two thousand years, compared to the age of the earth, is less than an hour in the ordinary life of a man. Does anybody believe that G.o.d, in his great compa.s.sion, sent just one World Teacher for that brief period?

What would we say of a father who gave one hour of his whole life to his child and neglected him absolutely before and after that? Countless millions of the people who lived and died prior to the coming of the Christ were very much like ourselves. They belonged to ancient civilizations that often surpa.s.sed our own in many desirable characteristics. They were educated and cultured in their time and fashion. They were fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and husbands and wives, with the same kind of heart ties that we have. What of them? Were they permitted to grope in the moral wilderness without a Teacher or a ray of light? Of course the idea is preposterous. If G.o.d so loved the world that He sent his Son two thousand years ago He sent Him, or some predecessor, very many times before. By the same token He will come again. The only logical escape from such a conclusion is in the materialist's belief that He never came at all.

All religions crystalize, become materialized, and lose their spiritual significance. That is precisely what has happened to the various great religions of the modern world, including Christianity. It is no longer the dynamic thing in the lives of the people it once was. That's why a world war was possible. The fault is not with the teachings of the Christ. The trouble is that the world has not lived by them. We need a restatement of the old teachings in the terms of modern life that shall again make it a living force in the lives of men. It is when the World Teacher is most needed that he comes; and when has the need been greater than now? The world war has demonstrated the failure of so-called Christian civilization. We have seen the highest type of that civilization revert to the law of the jungle, deliberately disregard the usages of civilized warfare, and commit atrocities that would shame barbarians. We surely need no further proof that the Christian religion has not accomplished all that the spiritual hierarchy had a right to hope for, and that the coming of the Christ again is a necessity.

But the spiritual hierarchy sends its great amba.s.sadors only when the time is propitious, only when the world is ready to listen. Perhaps such an event can never be predicted in terms of time, but only in those of conditions. When the strength of the nations is spent, when the slain totals appalling numbers, when few homes of high or low degree are without their terrible sacrifice, when the heart of the race is filled with anguish, when famine and disease have done their awful work, and humanity fully realizes what the reaction from greed, l.u.s.t, cruelty and revenge actually means, the world will be ready to listen as it never listened before, and after that we may reasonably expect the Christ to again appear to re-proclaim the ancient truth in terms of modern life.

The supermen are not myths nor figments of imagination. They are as natural and comprehensive as human beings. In the regular order of evolution we shall reach their level and join their ranks while younger humanities shall attain our present estate. As the supermen rose we, too, shall rise. Our past has been evolution's night. Our present is its dawn. Our future shall be its perfect day. Think of that night from which we have emerged--a chaos of contending forces, a world in which might was the measure of right, a civilization of scepter and sword, of baron and serf, of master and slave. That, we have left behind us.

Think of the grey dawn that our civilization has reached--the dawn of a public conscience, of individual liberty, of collective welfare, of the sacredness of life, but with armed force still dominant, with war the arbiter of national destiny, with industrial slavery still lingering, with conflict between the higher aspirations and the lower desires still raging--a world of selfishness masked by civilized usage, a world of veneered cruelty and refined brutality. In all that we now live. But think of the coming results of evolution!--an era in which love shall replace force, when saber and cannon shall be unknown, when selfish desires shall be trans.m.u.ted into n.o.ble service, when, finally, we shall finish the painful period of human evolution and join the spiritual hierarchy to direct the faltering steps of a younger race.

FOOTNOTES:

[N] "The Conservation of Energy," Nicola Tesla, Century Magazine, June 1900.

[O] An Outline of Theosophy, C. W. Leadbeater, pp. 6-12.