The Prodigal Returns Part 7

Since coming to Union with G.o.d, I have had innumerable trials, some of them tortures, but have been brought safely out of every one.

I afterwards found that each trial was exactly what was needed for the alteration of some objectionable characteristic in myself. No trial that came was unnecessary. When its work was accomplished, the trial disappeared.

Can it be said that Union with G.o.d in this world entails upon us increased sufferings here? Yes. But these sufferings are not owing to abnormal occurrences: nothing will happen which is not the common lot of humanity; merely we are caused to feel that which we do experience, very acutely; and after Union with G.o.d all earthly consolations must be abandoned: until we abandon these we do not know how we have depended on them, how they have protected us from depression, loneliness, boredom, and discontent. Abandon all these earthly consolations and interests, and at the same time _be abandoned by G.o.d_ (sensible Grace is withdrawn), and immediately our sufferings become very severe, though our outward circ.u.mstances may appear, and may actually remain, of the very best. If our house is a fine one, we must live in it completely detached from its attractions: the same with regard to our friends, our amus.e.m.e.nts, our wealth, and all our possessions. It is obvious that in learning to do this we shall often suffer. The soul has painfully to learn that without G.o.d's Grace there is no virtue, no righteousness, and no sanct.i.ty: she learns by going forward upon Grace--perhaps to some great height: then Grace is withdrawn, the soul falls back, and feels to fall lower than she ever was before, and usually she falls over a trifle. Amazed, unspeakably surprised and humiliated, and ashamed, the soul learns to know herself--to know herself with G.o.d, to know herself without G.o.d. When she is with G.o.d, there seems no height to which she cannot rise: this gives great courage: more and more she abandons everything distasteful to G.o.d in order to unite herself more securely to Him.

We have no sufferings that are not useful to us. Looking back on my life, I see how many troubles I suffered: how often my health suffered (malaria and sun fevers, and lightning and its consequences): how I was and still am kept in a somewhat fragile state of health, though quite free of all actual disease. I see in this frailness, especially during the earlier years of my life, an immense protection: given full and vigorous health, combined with my selfish and pa.s.sionate temperament, and I know very well I should have fallen in any and all kinds of dangers at all times. I was not to be trusted with robust health, and even after all the mercies and blessings G.o.d has showered upon me I do not trust myself. I still remain the sinner, fundamentally and potentially at every step the sinner. But Love and Grace surround the sinner. Love and Grace save the sinner from himself: Love and Grace can beautify and make the sinner shine.

My physical sufferings are not to be compared with the sufferings I see others endure, and endure cheerfully: this is a great shame and humiliation to me, because I have not learnt to suffer cheerfully: I am too easily undone by suffering and by the sight of suffering in any living thing; but although one may be a coward--that is to say, one may inwardly shrink from every kind of suffering,--one can be, and it is necessary to be, quite submissive; and to refrain from the slightest rebellion or selfishness--this is what G.o.d takes note of.

What a difference there is between the selfish and the unselfish sufferer: how the one makes everyone around him miserable, wears them out body and soul; and how the other calls out all that is best in others and strengthens all that is best in himself! It is not so important whether we are secretly cowards or heroes; what matters is how we deal with sufferings when they come, what reaction we permit or encourage on their account in heart and mind and soul.

There is nothing but suffering that can cleanse us, nothing but pain and misfortune which can so thoroughly convince us of our own nothingness, and break self-pride: joy will not do it; joy can do nothing more than refresh us after our sufferings, and in almost all lives we see how joy is made to alternate with sorrow: it encourages, it stimulates to further endeavours (this is the reason that G.o.d, at a certain stage of progress, gives extraordinary blisses, ecstasies, and so on), but it does not disperse our blemishes: the dispersal of spiritual blemishes is, as we know, the main reason of life in the flesh; it must be done, and the sooner the better: then we can finish, once and for all, with flesh existence. Righteous and very virtuous people may be able to dispense with Divine joys and consolations: it is doubtful if many sinners can--they require the confidence, the certainty, the enthusiasm which is naturally kindled by such experiences. So then we find that the vicissitudes of life, the endless daily trials, do not go because we find G.o.d. But His Grace comes, and when His Grace is with us wet or shine is all one, love and beauty gently sparkle everywhere; and then the heart cries out to him, Every day is like a jewel, every day I see the whole world decked and garlanded with all the beauty of Thy mind: each tree, each flower, each bee or bird tremulous with the life and wonder of Thy creative ingenuity! Each day is a new jewel set upon the necklace of my thoughts of Thee.

VIII

One of the trials that we have to endure as beginners is a joyless, flat, ungracious condition; a kind of paralysis of the soul, a dreary torpor.

When we would approach G.o.d--pray to Him--He is nowhere to be found: He has disappeared, and everything to do with finding Him is become hard work, such hard work that it suddenly seems to us quite unprofitable: we suddenly remember a number of outside things which we would far sooner do: we try to pray, but the prayer goes nowhere-in-particular; it has no enthusiasm, no force behind it: has prayer then suddenly re-become a duty? This is terrible; what shall we do--shall we ask G.o.d to help us? When we do, we do it in so halfhearted a manner that our prayer feels to merely float around our own head like some miserable mist. We feel certain that this joyless, withered state will endure to the end of life on earth (the conviction that our unhappy condition is permanent is characteristic of all severe trials, because if we supposed the condition or difficulty only momentary it would not produce a sufficient trial, and consequent effort to overcome it on our part). This trial (though it may not always be a trial, but an actual blemish of the soul, a serious lack of unselfish love which must at once be strenuously corrected) is given for several reasons--we have become, perhaps, too greedy of _enjoyment_ of prayer: or we have come to take this joyousness of prayer for granted: or we have come to think we are uncommonly clever at knowing how to love and to pray; that we know so well how to do it that we can do it of our own power and capacity without G.o.d's a.s.sistance.

Or the trial may be sent not for any of these reasons, but solely in order to increase the strength and perseverance of our love to G.o.d, and of our Generosity.

This is one trial, and another is that G.o.d allows us to become convinced that He has nothing more to give us, He withdraws His graciousness from our apprehension; He leaves us as a tiny, unwanted, meaningless speck, alone in a vast universe. It would be idle to say that the soul does not suffer from this change; but these sufferings are just what she requires in order to develop courage, humility, endurance, love, and generosity. These two trials--the one when love is all dried up on our part, and the other when we think love must be all dried up on G.o.d's part--are the finest possible training and exercise for the soul, but they are only such if the soul _tries ardently to overcome them:_ it is in the effort to overcome that virtue is learnt, progress made.

There is one most splendid remedy. Is it asking of G.o.d? No, it is giving to G.o.d. We give Him thanks and we bless Him, and we tell Him that we love Him, and we do it with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and this becomes possible even though a moment ago we were so far from Him, so tepid, seemingly so estranged: it becomes possible because we remember all the wonderful things that G.o.d has done for us and given us, and made for us, and suffered for us; and in remembering these it is impossible but that love and grat.i.tude, like a torch of enthusiasm, will presently flare up in us.

If G.o.d never gives us another thing, we will adore Him for His kindness in the past, we will adore Him for Himself, for what He is.

Desolation and tepidity vanish. Joy returns, the trial is over; but it will come again perhaps a few hours hence, or to-morrow, or every day for weeks: the remedy is ever to be reapplied, and the remedy when thoroughly applied never fails in immediate efficacy; but it has to be constantly repeated: never let the heart and mind forget this.

IX

The heart, mind, soul, and will work together and lead together the reasonable earthly existence; but there is another part of the soul, a higher part, which has its own intelligence, which leads no earthly existence, has no direct recognition of _material being;_ thinks no earth-thoughts, judges by no man-made standards, sins no earth-sins.

Has this part of the soul, then, never sinned? _It feels_ that it has sinned, though it cannot say how or when, but it _feels_ that this sin was direct as between itself and G.o.d, and is the cause of its separation from G.o.d; and it feels this sin to have been _an infidelity._ It is with this part of the soul that we sin the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost, which cannot be sinned by mere natural man: (here we touch the mystery of the two orders of sinning which, to the initiated, are seen both to be covered by the same commandments). This higher part of the soul mourns and longs for G.o.d with a terrible longing, and can be consoled, satisfied, by G.o.d only; He communicates Himself to this part of the soul. Sins of heart and mind do not injure it, but r.e.t.a.r.d it: it cannot be corrupted by material living, because it does not connect itself directly with earth-living, it "responds" to G.o.d alone; but earthly sins delay it, paralyse its powers, postpone indefinitely its return to G.o.d. Is it this part of the soul which we ordinarily speak of as the Will? It cannot be, since it is with our Will that we consent to earth-sins. Have we, then, two Wills? It is reasonable and it conforms with experience to say that we have two Wills--a Spirit-Will conducting Spirit-living, and a Reasoning or Mind Will, conducting the affairs of earth-living: the lower part of the soul is the meeting-place and the intermediary between these two (often opposing) Wills, it is the ground upon which they work and have their fruitions.

The Spirit-Will is the Will by which we finally become united to G.o.d. Before regeneration we are unaware in any keen degree of its existence; but it may exist for us in a vague and confused manner as an incomprehensible, undefined yearning: we cannot satisfy this yearning, because we do not know what it requires for its satisfaction. It is above conscience: conscience has its seat in the lower soul, there it deals with the affairs of earthly life. This Spirit-Will is so far above conscience (which can be used, cultivated, improved, or destroyed, according to our own desire) that it is not given into the keeping or cognisance of the "natural" man, but remains unknown, inoperative until reawakened and impregnated with renewed vigour by direct Act of G.o.d in the regenerated man.

This awakening, this reinvigoration, would seem to be synonymous with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

If it is awakened only by Act of G.o.d, in what way can we be held responsible about it? Our responsibility, our part, our opportunity is to so order the lower or earth-will that G.o.d shall see us to be prepared for the awakening of the Spirit-Will.

This Spirit-Will, once awakened, is never again shut out from direct communication with G.o.d. Even when Grace is withdrawn, this Will-Spirit can come before G.o.d and, no barrier between, know Him _there_; although He may deny it all consolation and leave it languishing, it yet retains the consolation of its one supreme necessity--that of knowing _it has not lost Him._ It waits.

X

Like knows like: it does not "know" its opposite, but is drawn towards its opposite before and without "knowing" it: here we have the cause of the condescension of the Good towards the imperfect, and of the aspiration of the imperfect to the perfect long before it can "know" the perfect. Without this attraction of like to opposite the imperfect could not become the perfect (we desire, are drawn to G.o.d, long before we are able to know Him). The imperfect is able to become the perfect by continually aspiring to it: it gradually becomes "like." There are no barriers in spirit-living, therefore there is nothing to prevent the soul becoming perfect, save its own will-failure. The barrier existing between material- or physical-living and spirit-living can only be overcome in and by a man's own soul: in the soul these two forms of living can meet and become known by the one individual, who can live alternately in the two modes, but it is necessary that the will and preference shall be continually given and bent towards spiritual-living, physical-living being accepted patiently and as a cross. Then flesh ceases to be a barrier to spiritual-living. This is the work of Christ and of the Holy Ghost. Because the soul has recaptured the knowledge of this rapturous living we are not to suppose that it is possible to continually enjoy it here or introduce its glories into social and worldly living: it is between the soul and G.o.d only; but earth-life can and should by this knowledge be entirely readjusted.

XI

Are we correct in saying or supposing that this world with all that we see in it (because perishable) is not real, and that the Invisible is the only Real? We are using the wrong word: all that we see here is real after its own manner: it is intentional, it is designed, it is magnificent, it is the evidence in fixed form of the Supreme Intelligence; how can we venture to call it unreal, nothing, negligible? It is a question not of Reality or Unreality, but of greater and of lesser Activity. In this world we see the Divine Energy slowed down to its least degree: we see it so much slowed down that the Divine Ideas can become crystallised into a form and for their decreed period remain fixed. It is exactly this which the soul requires in order to recover her lost bearings. She needs the Beautiful, the Good, and the Bad made sensible to her in _fixed objects,_ and Time in which to consider them and make her choice between them. When Spirit-living is experienced, we become aware that in spirit-life Activity is of such an order as to preclude the mode of it being in fixed forms and objects: so there is no fixed visible Beauty, no fixed visible Good or Bad, no fixed _results,_ and the soul "sees" and "knows" only _that which she herself is like to._ If she is bad, she cannot become better by the privilege of looking at that which is good. If she thinks or desires wrong, she remains wrong: she must think Right in order to produce or "know" Right.

She loses G.o.d because she can no longer think G.o.dly, and nothing is fixed by which she can trace Him: it is like to like, and this instantaneously without pause (or time). Here in this world Like may behold its Opposite: Bad may behold Good and, because of being able to behold it, may go over and join its will to Good: it is able to do this, because the evidence of Good remains fixed whether the beholder or thinker is good or bad.

What is our quest in this world? It is to refind the lost knowledge of Celestial-living. Our Goal is G.o.d Himself. Our salvation does not depend upon our finding Celestial-living, but our finding this living depends upon whether we have found the way of Salvation. This Celestial-living is here, at our door, but we cannot retouch it without Act of G.o.d. What is essential to obtaining this Act of G.o.d? Is it necessary to belong to this or that Denomination, to perform this or that ceremony, to stand up, kneel down, or prostrate ourselves a hundred and one times, visit shrines, handle relics, endlessly repeat fixed words and sentences? No, these will not do it. Christianity _in its full meaning,_ a repentant and clean heart and mind--these will do it. It is a direct affair between the soul and G.o.d. It is Thee and me.

This is immense condescension on the part of G.o.d. Love alone makes such a condescension possible.

As in free spirit we think a thought and become it, have a desire flash to it and are it, it is easy to see how in thinking thoughts that are not G.o.dly, desiring that which is unG.o.dly and imperfect, we pa.s.s far from G.o.d by "becoming" imperfection; and, having "become,"

find no satisfaction, satisfaction resting with G.o.d only. Having ceased to think G.o.dly, the soul loses G.o.d, becomes insensitive, and falls into darkness, thinks of her own wretchedness and, thinking of it, is held fast to it. Being miserable, she thinks to Self; thinking of Self, she is bound to the solitude of Self--blank solitude without fixed objects to amuse, without fixed Beauty to lead higher, to restore, to calm. Is all this tantamount to saying that when separated from G.o.d Spirit-life is less desirable than earth-life? It is: for then we are "dead" to celestial-living, and in Spirit-life all other living is miserable living. Hence we see the dire necessity of the soul for a Saviour: the necessity of fixed forms, of time, of flesh (which is a fixed stay-point for the soul), of the Incarnation of the Saviour _in flesh_ in order that He may guide the soul amongst these fixed forms, Himself showing her which to choose and which to cast aside: we see the necessity of time in order that, though we have an unG.o.dly thought, we have _time_ to repent and choose a better before, in a horrible rapidity, we are inevitably _become that which we had thought._ In this world, this stay-point for the soul, the most lost is enabled to enjoy and perceive Beauty and Goodness. How much more easy, then, to return to G.o.dly thoughts, to the Good, to G.o.d Himself! But though her Saviour is in this world so near to the soul, she does not always seek Him. He belongs to the Invisible.

Intoxicated at finding herself amused amongst fixed objects which she enjoys lazily through fixed mediums of the five senses, she devotes herself to these objects, surrounds herself with them, forgets everything else. "It is harder for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." But she must abandon object-worship: this is not to say she is to deny the existence of objects, calling them unreal; she must despise no created object, for each is there to form for her an object-lesson. She has two choices: she can see the objects, remain satisfied with them, and seek no further. Or, she can see the objects, admire them, but seek beyond them for their Instigator and Creator. Now she is on the track of G.o.d. All is well.

But all this is not that Adam may recover his perfection, for when, and for how long, was Adam "Perfect"? We behold him sinning at the very first opportunity. In the Fall of Adam we see merely the continuation in the stay-point of time and of flesh, of the history of the fallen soul--sinning the same old sin, Self-will.

The way of return to G.o.d is the same way by which we came out from Him--reversed. We came away by means of greeds and curiosities imagined by Self-will. The return is by casting away these greeds, casting away all prides, all selfishness; and what self-loving soul is there that could or would, left alone to herself, conceive of following such a way of cruel necessities, of such hard endurance without an Example before her? For the way is a hard way, a toiling way, at times an awful way, and as we pursue it the burden grows heavier, the pain sharper: then it grows lighter as the soul becomes renewed; and the pain is no longer the pain of loneliness, of sin and sorrow, but becomes the pain of Love, waiting in certainty for an ultimate Reunion: it becomes pain which is being forgotten in the returning happiness of G.o.d.

But first must come the abandonment of Self-will, bit by bit, to the death. So we see upon the Cross Christ stripped of everything, and at the last stripped even of Union with the Father: consenting to bear the pains of even Spiritual Death: "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" If there could be any greater depth of pain, He would have shared that also with the wandering soul. So we are indeed one with Him in everything: and He with us.

In Spirit-life we meet the Ideas of G.o.d uncrystallised into any form.

They penetrate the soul--she flashes to them, she becomes them, she reaches unimaginable heights of bliss by "becoming." This form of joy is incomprehensible until experienced: it is stupendous living, if it may be so expressed it is happiness at lightning velocity; but it is a lightning happiness which must flash to G.o.d. When it ceases to do this in a full manner, it ceases to be full happiness. When it becomes further perverted, diverted, and, finally, inverted, it ceases to be any happiness whatever. It is independent of surroundings: what it depends on is a perfect reciprocity with its own Source. That the laws which govern this Divine living will not be altered to suit wandering souls is not to be wondered at; but a new system may be called into being, and we may be able to perceive it in this world, evolved from first to last with its substance, forms, creatures, flesh, and time, in order to a.s.sist such wanderers. G.o.d _spends Himself_ for every wandering soul.

XII

Directly this world ceases to afford us pleasure, we wonder why we were born. The soul longs for happiness; feels certain she was created for it. So she is. Looking at the ma.s.ses of drab, ugly, and unsuccessful lives around us, we may well ask what purpose and what progress is there in the lives of all these hopeless-looking people. But there is not one life that does not have brought before it, and into it, the opportunity of, and the invitation to, self-sacrifice, and in a greater or lesser degree this is accepted and responded to by all. There is far more soul-progress made by these grey-looking lives than would appear on the surface: they accept self-sacrifice--they accept Duty--all is well. Very much progress may not be made during the one earth-period of life, but some is made: we drifted away slowly from G.o.d; our return is slow.

XIII

Love is not the mere pleasant sentiment of the heart we are apt to consider it: it is _the animating principle of the soul,_ it is the reason and cause of her existence: it is a G.o.d-Force. When a soul does not love G.o.d she has ceased to respond to this Force; she is no longer a "sensitive" or _living_ soul: when she becomes insensitive, she has become what flesh is when it is "callous."

This insensitiveness is the one great predominating disease of the soul: it is the cause of the darkness in which the soul finds herself in this world: it is this which causes our unawareness of G.o.d and of Celestial-living. How can we commence to remedy this disastrous state? We can act n.o.bly, we can be generous, doing what we do as though it were for love, although it is merely Duty which animates us. This will be more or less joyless, because love alone can make acts joyful; but though it may be joyless it will advance the soul immensely: it will advance her to the highest degrees required by G.o.d in order that He shall Retouch her. When He Retouches her she becomes reanimated, she once again commences to live for and because of love: she becomes "sensitive" to G.o.d. This Retouching may occur only after the soul is free of the body--but the body is the house in which our examination must be pa.s.sed, in which we must prepare and qualify for this Retouching. Hence the importance of continuing to make every effort _in this life._ The soul which takes Christ into herself, loves Him, obeys Him, tries to copy Him, qualifies fully for this Retouching.

XIV

In early youth life may be, and often is, a joyous adventure: little by little we grow aghast at the amount of suffering which life really stands for--our own sufferings and those of others, of which, owing to our own pains, we gradually take more and more note. Why all this suffering? It appals, it frightens, it makes upon many hearts and minds a sinister impression: how is this suffering of innocents to be reconciled with the Benign Will of a G.o.d Who is Perfect Love? Let us cease thinking that indiscriminate suffering to creatures is the Will of G.o.d. What is it, then? It is the inevitable--the long drawn-out sequence to the soul's departure from G.o.d--the Source of Happiness.

To inhabit flesh is no paradise, but it is a means of regaining heaven.

There is no misfortune, suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or pain, which is not consequent upon this departure of the soul from G.o.d.

Are there here any truly "innocent" persons? To be here at all points to a fault of the soul, to infidelity to G.o.d--the "Original sin" in which we are born.

The beginning of Salvation is to think. Nothing causes us to think so much as sorrow, suffering, and pain; and they melt the heart also, and they humble pride. The man who has never suffered, and never loved, is more to be pitied than the paralytic: his chance of Life is remote.

How can we reasonably expect that the road back to our long-since forsaken G.o.d is to be smooth, pleasant, velvet-covered. What divides us from G.o.d? Is it happiness, beauty, and light?

No--self-indulgence, rocks of evil, ugly greeds, places of sin and selfishness. Can we climb back through all this, most of it in darkness, without tears, without pain, without every kind of anguish?

Over this part of the road is no peace; but continue, and, little by little, peace comes.

We say that we must find Christ; but where, and how, shall we find this Mighty Lord, Who comes out from the Father to meet the Prodigal? Must we study in ecclesiastical colleges, travel to distant lands, visit holy places, kneel on celebrated sacred ground, kiss stones, attend ceremonies, look at bones?

No! Stand still! Just where we are is the place where we can meet Him. Just where we stand to-day can be as sacred, as blessed, as the Holy Land. Some little wood sprinkled with flowers, our own quiet room, an unknown, nameless hillside--these can be as holy as Mount Carmel, because He meets us there.

In all these experiences of the soul which has refound G.o.d, what is it that truly rejoices her? Is it the learning and knowledge that the pursuit of Truth may bring her to? She values Truth and knowledge because they lift her towards Him Whom she seeks and loves. Does the soul rejoice in ecstasies because they are ecstasies? No: what she values is the recaptured knowledge and certainty of heavenly living--in however small or brief a degree she is able to attain it in flesh: and because in the experience of ecstasy _she knows Him to Whom she belongs._