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XVII. CONCLUSION
In conclusion there does not seem much to say, except to
accentuate certain points which may still appear doubtful
or capable of being understood.
The fact that the main argument of this volume is along
the lines of psychological evolution will no doubt commend
it to some, while on the other hand it will discredit
the book to others whose eyes, being fixed on purely MATERIAL
causes, can see no impetus in History except through these.
But it must be remembered that there is not the least reason
for SEPARATING the two factors. The fact that psychologically
man has evolved from simple consciousness to
self-consciousness, and is now in process of evolution
towards another and more extended kind of consciousness,
does not in the least bar the simultaneous appearance
and influence of material evolution. It is clear indeed
that the two must largely go together, acting and reacting
on each other. Whatever the physical conditions of the animal
brain may be which connect themselves with simple (unreflected
and unreflecting) consciousness, it is evident that
these conditions--in animals and primitive man--lasted
for an enormous period, before the distinct consciousness
of the individual and separate SELF arose. This second
order of consciousness seems to have germinated at
or about the same period as the discovery of the use
of Tools (tools of stone, copper, bronze, &c.), the adoption
of picture-writing and the use of reflective words (like "I"
and "Thou"); and it led on to the appreciation of gold and
of iron with their ornamental and practical values, the
accumulation of Property, the establishment of slavery
of various kinds, the subjection of Women, the encouragement
of luxury and self-indulgence, the growth of crowded
cities and the endless conflicts and wars so resulting. We
can see plainly that the incoming of the self-motive exercised
a direct stimulus on the pursuit of these material objects
and adaptations; and that the material adaptations in their
turn did largely accentuate the self-motive; but to insist
that the real explanation of the whole process is only to
be found along one channel--the material OR the psychical
--is clearly quite unnecessary. Those who understand
that all matter is conscious in some degree, and that all
consciousness has a material form of some kind, will be the
first to admit this.
The same remarks apply to the Third Stage. We can see
that in modern times the huge and unlimited powers of
production by machinery, united with a growing tendency
towards intelligent Birth-control, are preparing the way
for an age of Communism and communal Plenty which
will inevitably be associated (partly as cause and partly as
effect) with a new general phase of consciousness, involving
the mitigation of the struggle for existence, the growth
of intuitional and psychical perception, the spread of amity
and solidarity, the disappearance of War, and the realization
(in degree) of the Cosmic life.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty or stumbling-block to
the general acceptance of the belief in a third (or 'Golden-
Age') phase of human evolution is the obstinate and obdurate
pre-judgment that the passing of Humanity out of the Second
stage can only mean the entire ABANDONMENT OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS;
and this people say--and quite rightly --is both impossible and
undesirable. Throughout the preceding chapters I have striven,
wherever feasible, to counter this misunderstanding--but I have
little hope of success. The DETERMINATION of the world to
misunderstand or misinterpret anything a little new or unfamiliar
is a thing which perhaps only an author can duly appreciate.
But while it is clear that self-consciousness originally came
into being through a process of alienation and exile and fear
which marked it with the Cain-like brand of loneliness
and apartness, it is equally clear that to think of that
apartness as an absolute and permanent separation is an
illusion, since no being can really continue to live divorced
from the source of its life. For a period in evolution the
SELF took on this illusive form in consciousness, as of an
ignis fatuus--the form of a being sundered from all other
beings, atomic, lonely, without refuge, surrounded by dangers
and struggling, for itself alone and for its own salvation
in the midst of a hostile environment. Perhaps some
such terrible imagination was necessary at first, as it
were to start Humanity on its new path. But it had
its compensation, for the sufferings and tortures, mental and
bodily, the privations, persecutions, accusations, hatreds,
the wars and conflicts--so endured by millions of
individuals and whole races--have at length stamped upon
the human mind a sense of individual responsibility which
otherwise perhaps would never have emerged, and whose
mark can now be effaced; ultimately, too, these things
have searched our inner nature to its very depths and exposed
its bed-rock foundation. They have convinced us
that this idea of ultimate separation is an illusion, and
that in truth we are all indefeasible and indestructible
parts of one great Unity in which "we live and move and
have our being." That being so, it is clear that there remains
in the end a self-consciousness which need by no means be
abandoned, which indeed only comes to its true fruition and
understanding when it recognizes its affiliation with the
Whole, and glories in an individuality which is an
expression both of itself AND of the whole. The human
child at its mother's knee probably comes first to know it
HAS a 'self' on some fateful day when having wandered
afar it goes lost among alien houses and streets or in the
trackless fields. That appalling experience--the sense of
danger, of fear, of loneliness--is never forgotten; it stamps
some new sense of Being upon the childish mind, but that
sense, instead of being destroyed, becomes all the prouder
and more radiant in the hour of return to the mother's arms.
The return, the salvation, for which humanity looks, is
the return of the little individual self to harmony and union
with the great Self of the universe, but by no means its
extinction or abandonment--rather the finding of its own true
nature as never before.
There is another thing which may be said here: namely,
that the disentanglement, as above, of three main stages of
psychological evolution as great formative influences in the
history of mankind, does not by any means preclude
the establishment of lesser stages within the boundaries
of these. In all probability subdivisions of all the three
will come in time to be recognized and allowed for. To take
the Second stage only, it MAY appear that Self-consciousness
in its first development is characterized by an accentuation
of Timidity; in its second development by a more deliberate
pursuit of sensual Pleasure (lust, food, drink, &c.); in its
third by the pursuit of mental gratifications (vanities,
ambitions, enslavement of others); in its fourth by the pursuit
of Property, as a means of attaining these objects;
in its fifth by the access of enmities, jealousies, wars and so
forth, consequent on all these things; and so on. I have no
intention at present of following out this line of thought,
but only wish to suggest its feasibility and the degree to
which it may throw light on the social evolutions of the Past.[1]
[1] For an analysis of the nature of Self-consciousness see vol.
iii, p. 375 sq. of the three ponderous tomes by Wilhelm
Wundt--Grund-zuge der Physiologischen Psychologie--in which amid
an enormous mass of verbiage occasional gleams of useful
suggestion are to be found.
As a kind of rude general philosophy we may say that
there are only two main factors in life, namely, Love and
Ignorance. And of these we may also say that the two are
not in the same plane: one is positive and substantial,
the other is negative and merely illusory. It may be thought
at first that Fear and Hatred and Cruelty, and the like, are
very positive things, but in the end we see that they
are due merely to ABSENCE of perception, to dulness
of understanding. Or we may put the statement in a rather
less crude form, and say that there are only two factors
in life: (1) the sense of Unity with others (and with Nature)
--which covers Love, Faith, Courage, Truth, and so forth,
and (2) Non-perception of the same--which covers Enmity,
Fear, Hatred, Self-pity, Cruelty, Jealousy, Meanness and an
endless similar list. The present world which we see
around us, with its idiotic wars, its senseless jealousies of
nations and classes, its fears and greeds and vanities and
its futile endeavors--as of people struggling in a swamp--
to find one's own salvation by treading others underfoot,
is a negative phenomenon. Ignorance, non-perception, are
at the root of it. But it is the blessed virtue of Ignorance
and of non-perception that they inevitably-if only slowly
and painfully--dESTROY THEMSELVES. All experience serves
to dissipate them. The world, as it is, carries' the doom
of its own transformation in its bosom; and in proportion as
that which is negative disappears the positive element must
establish itself more and more.
So we come back to that with which we began,[1] to Fear
bred by Ignorance. From that source has sprung the long
catalogue of follies, cruelties and sufferings which mark
the records of the human race since the dawn of history;
and to the overcoming of this Fear we perforce must look
for our future deliverance, and for the discovery, even in
the midst of this world, of our true Home. The time is
coming when the positive constructive element must dominate.
It is inevitable that Man must ever build a state of
society around him after the pattern and image of his own
interior state. The whole futile and idiotic structure of
commerce and industry in which we are now imprisoned
springs from that falsehood of individualistic self-seeking
which marks the second stage of human evolution. That
stage is already tottering to its fall, destroyed by the very
flood of egotistic passions and interests, of vanities, greeds,
and cruelties, all warring with each other, which are the sure
outcome and culmination of its operation. With the restoration
of the sentiment of the Common Life, and the gradual
growth of a mental attitude corresponding, there will emerge
from the flood something like a solid earth--something on
which it will be possible to build with good hope for
the future. Schemes of reconstruction are well enough
in their way, but if there is no ground of REAL HUMAN
SOLIDARITY beneath, of what avail are they?
[1] See Introduction, Ch. I.
An industrial system which is no real industrial order, but
only (on the part of the employers) a devil's device for
securing private profit under the guise of public utility,
and (on the part of the employed) a dismal and poor-spirited
renunciation--for the sake of a bare living--of all real
interest in life and work: such a 'system' must infallibly
pass away. It cannot in the nature of things be permanent.
The first condition of social happiness and prosperity must
be the sense of the Common Life. This sense, which
instinctively underlay the whole Tribal order of the far past--
which first came to consciousness in the worship of a thousand
pagan divinities, and in the rituals of countless sacrifices,
initiations, redemptions, love-feasts and communions, which
inspired the dreams of the Golden Age, and flashed out for
a time in the Communism of the early Christians and in
their adorations of the risen Savior--must in the end be
the creative condition of a new order: it must provide
the material of which the Golden City waits to be built.
The long travail of the World-religion will not have been
in vain, which assures this consummation. What the signs
and conditions of any general advance into this new order
of life and consciousness will be, we know not. It may be
that as to individuals the revelation of a new vision
often comes quite suddenly, and GENERALLY perhaps after a
period of great suffering, so to society at large a similar
revelation will arrive--like "the lightning which cometh out
of the East and shineth even unto the West"--with unexpected
swiftness. On the other hand it would perhaps
be wise not to count too much on any such sudden transformation.
When we look abroad (and at home) in this
year of grace and hoped-for peace, 1919, and see the spirits
of rancour and revenge, the fears, the selfish blindness and
the ignorance, which still hold in their paralyzing grasp huge
classes and coteries in every country in the world, we
see that the second stage of human development is
by no means yet at its full term, and that, as in some vast
chrysalis, for the liberation of the creature within still more
and more terrible struggles MAY be necessary. We
can only pray that such may not be the case. Anyhow, if
we have followed the argument of this book we can hardly
doubt that the destruction (which is going on everywhere)
of the outer form of the present society marks the first
stage of man's final liberation; and that, sooner or later, and
in its own good time, that further 'divine event' will surely
be realized.
Nor need we fear that Humanity, when it has once entered
into the great Deliverance, will be again overpowered
by evil. From Knowledge back to Ignorance there
is no complete return. The nations that have come
to enlightenment need entertain no dread of those others
(however hostile they appear) who are still plunging darkly
in the troubled waters of self-greed. The dastardly Fears
which inspire all brutishness and cruelty of warfare--whether
of White against White or it may be of White against
Yellow or Black--may be dismissed for good and
all by that blest race which once shall have gained the shore
--since from the very nature of the case those who are on
dry land can fear nothing and need fear nothing from the
unfortunates who are yet tossing in the welter and turmoil
of the waves.
Dr. Frazer, in the conclusion of his great work The Golden
Bough,[1] bids farewell to his readers with the following
words: "The laws of Nature are merely hypotheses
devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of
thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of
the World and the Universe. In the last analysis magic,
religion and science are nothing but theories [of thought];
and as Science has supplanted its predecessors so it may
hereafter itself be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis,
perhaps by some perfectly different way of looking at
phenomena--of registering the shadows on the screen--of
which we in this generation can form no idea." I imagine
Dr. Frazer is right in thinking that "a way of looking
at phenomena" different from the way of Science, may some
day prevail. But I think this change will come, not so
much by the growth of Science itself or the extension
of its 'hypotheses,' as by a growth and expansion of the
human HEART and a change in its psychology and powers of
perception. Perhaps some of the preceding chapters
will help to show how much the outlook of humanity on
the world has been guided through the centuries by the
slow evolution of its inner consciousness. Gradually, out
of an infinite mass of folly and delusion, the human soul
has in this way disentangled itself, and will in the future
disentangle itself, to emerge at length in the light of true
FREEDOM. All the taboos, the insane terrors, the fatuous
forbiddals of this and that (with their consequent heart-
searchings and distress) may perhaps have been in their
way necessary, in order to rivet and define the meaning
and the understanding of that word. To-day these taboos
and terrors still linger, many of them, in the form of
conventions of morality, uneasy strivings of conscience, doubts
and desperations of religion; but ultimately Man will emerge
from all these things, FREE--familiar, that is, with them all,
making use of all, allowing generously for the values of
all, but hampered and bound by NONE. He will realize the
inner meaning of the creeds and rituals of the ancient religions,
and will hail with joy the fulfilment of their far
prophecy down the ages--finding after all the long-expected
Saviour of the world within his own breast, and Paradise
in the disclosure there of the everlasting peace of the soul.
[1] See "Balder," vol. ii, pp. 306, 307. ("Farewell to Nemi.")
APPENDIX
THE TEACHING OF THE UPANISHADS
BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF TWO LECTURES TO POPULAR AUDIENCES
I. REST
II. THE NATURE OF THE SELF
I. REST
To some, in the present whirlpool of life and affairs it may
seem almost an absurdity to talk about Rest. For long enough
now rest has seemed a thing far off and unattainable. With
the posts knocking at our doors ten or twelve times a day, with
telegrams arriving every hour, and the telephone bell constantly
ringing; with motors rushing wildly about the streets, and
aeroplanes whizzing overhead, with work speeded up in every
direction, and the drive in the workshops becoming more
intolerable every day; with the pace of the walkers and the
pace of the talkers from hour to hour insanely increasing--
what room, it may well be asked, is there for Rest? And now
the issues of war, redoubling the urgency of all questions, are
on us.
The problem is obviously a serious one. So urgent is it that
I think one may safely say the amount of insanity due to the
pressure of daily life is increasing; nursing-homes have sprung
up for the special purpose of treating such cases; and doctors
are starting special courses of tuition in the art--now becoming
very important--of systematically doing nothing! And yet
it is difficult to see the outcome of it all. The clock of what
is called Progress is not easily turned backward. We should
not very readily agree nowadays to the abolition of telegrams
or to a regulation compelling express trains to stop at every
station! We can't ALL go to Nursing Homes, or afford to enjoy
a winter's rest-cure in Egypt. And, if not, is the speeding-up
process to go on indefinitely, incapable of being checked, and
destined ultimately to land civilization in the mad-house?
It is, I say, a serious and an urgent problem. And it is, I
think, forcing a certain answer on us--which I will now endeavor
to explain.
If we cannot turn back and reverse this fatal onrush of modern
life (and it is evident that we cannot do so in any very brief
time--though of course ultimately we might succeed) then I
think there are clearly only two alternatives left--either to go
forward to general dislocation and madness, or--to learn to
rest even in the very midst of the hurry and the scurry.
To explain what I mean, let me use an illustration. The
typhoons and cyclones of the China Seas are some of the most
formidable storms that ships can encounter. Their paths in
the past have been strewn with wrecks and disaster. But
now with increased knowledge much of their danger has been
averted. It is known that they are CIRCULAR in character, and
that though the wind on their outskirts often reaches a speed of
100 miles an hour, in the centre of the storm there is a space of
complete calm--not a calm of the SEA certainly, but a complete
absence of wind. The skilled navigator, if he cannot escape
the storm, steers right into the heart of it, and rests there.
Even in the midst of the clatter he finds a place of quiet where
he can trim his sails and adjust his future course. He knows
too from his position in what direction at every point around
him the wind is moving and where it will strike him when at
last his ship emerges from the charmed circle.
Is it not possible, we may ask, that in the very midst of the
cyclone of daily life we may find a similar resting-place? If
we can, our case is by no means hopeless. If we cannot, then
indeed there is danger.
Looking back in History we seem to see that in old times
people took life much more leisurely than they do now. The
elder generations gave more scope in their customs and their
religions for contentment and peace of mind. We associate
a certain quietism and passivity with the thought of the
Eastern peoples. But as civilization traveled Westward external
activity and the pace of life increased--less and less time was
left for meditation and repose--till with the rise of Western
Europe and America, the dominant note of life seems to have
simply become one of feverish and ceaseless activity--of activity
merely for the sake of activity, without any clear idea of its
own purpose or object.
Such a prospect does not at first seem very hopeful; but
on second thoughts we see that we are not forced to draw any
very pessimistic conclusion from it. The direction of human
evolution need not remain always the same. The movement,
in fact, of civilization from East to West has now clearly
completed itself. The globe has been circled, and we cannot go
any FARTHER to the West without coming round to the East again.
It is a commonplace to say that our psychology, our philosophy
and our religious sense are already taking on an Eastern color;
nor is it difficult to imagine that with the end of the present
dispensation a new era may perfectly naturally arrive in which
the St. Vitus' dance of money-making and ambition will cease
to be the chief end of existence.
In the history of nations as in the history of individuals there
are periods when the formative ideals of life (through some
hidden influence) change; and the mode of life and evolution
in consequence changes also. I remember when I was a boy
wishing--like many other boys--to go to sea. I wanted to
join the Navy. It was not, I am sure, that I was so very anxious
to defend my country. No, there was a much simpler and more
prosaic motive than that. The ships of those days with their
complex rigging suggested a perfect paradise of CLIMBING, and
I know that it was the thought of THAT which influenced me.
To be able to climb indefinitely among those ropes and spars!
How delightful! Of course I knew perfectly well that I should
not always have free access to the rigging; but then--some
day, no doubt, I should be an Admiral, and who then could
prevent me? I remember seeing myself in my mind's eye,
with cocked hat on my head and spy-glass under my arm,
roaming at my own sweet will up aloft, regardless of the
remonstrances which might reach me from below! Such was my
childish ideal. But a time came--needless to say--when I
conceived a different idea of the object of life.
It is said that John Tyndall, whose lectures on Science were
so much sought after in their time, being on one occasion in
New York was accosted after his discourse by a very successful
American business man, who urged him to devote his scientific
knowledge and ability to commercial pursuits, promising that
if he did so, he, Tyndall, would easily make "a big pile."
Tyndall very calmly replied, "Well, I myself thought of that
once, but I soon abandoned the idea, having come to the
conclusion that I had NO TIME TO WASTE IN MAKING MONEY." The
man of dollars nearly sank into the ground. Such a conception
of life had never entered his head before. But to Tyndall no
doubt it was obvious that if he chained himself to the commercial
ideal all the joy and glory of his days would be gone.
We sometimes hear of the awful doom of some of the Russian
convicts in the quarries and mines of Siberia, who are (or were)
chained permanently to their wheelbarrows. It is difficult to
imagine a more dreadful fate: the despair, the disgust, the
deadly loathing of the accursed thing from which there is no
escape day or night--which is the companion not only of the
prisoner's work but of his hours of rest--with which he has to
sleep, to feed, to take his recreation if he has any, and to
fulfil all the offices of nature. Could anything be more
crushing? And yet, and yet . . . is it not true that we, most of
us, in our various ways are chained to our wheelbarrows--is it
not too often true that to these beggarly things we have for the
most part chained OURSELVES?
Let me be understood. Of course we all have (or ought to
have) our work to do. We have our living to get, our families
to support, our trade, our art, our profession to pursue. In
that sense no doubt we are tied; but I take it that these things
are like the wheelbarrow which a man uses while he is at work.
It may irk him at times, but he sticks to it with a good heart,
and with a certain joy because it is the instrument of a noble
purpose. That is all right. But to be chained to it, not to
be able to leave it when the work of the day is done--that is
indeed an ignoble slavery. I would say, then, take care that
even with these things, these necessary arts of life, you
preserve your independence, that even if to some degree they may
confine your body they do not enslave your mind.
For it is the freedom of the mind which counts. We are
all no doubt caught in the toils of the earth-life. One man is
largely dominated by sensual indulgence, another by ambition,
another by the pursuit of money. Well, these things are all
right in themselves. Without the pleasures of the senses we
should be dull mokes indeed; without ambition much of the
zest and enterprise of life would be gone; gold, in the present
order of affairs, is a very useful servant. These things are
right enough--but to be CHAINED to them, to be unable to think
of anything else--what a fate! The subject reminds one of
a not uncommon spectacle. It is a glorious day; the sun is
bright, small white clouds float in the transparent blue--a day
when you linger perforce on the road to enjoy the sence. But
suddenly here comes a man painfully running all hot and dusty
and mopping his head, and with no eye, clearly, for anything
around him. What is the matter? He is absorbed by one idea.
He is running to catch a train! And one cannot help wondering
what EXCEEDINGLY important business it must be for which all this
glory and beauty is sacrificed, and passed by as if it did not
exist.
Further we must remember that in our foolishness we very
commonly chain ourselves, not only to things like sense-
pleasures and ambitions which are on the edge, so to speak,
of being vices; but also to other things which are accounted
virtues, and which as far as I can see are just as bad, if we
once become enslaved to them. I have known people who were so
exceedingly 'spiritual' and 'good' that one really felt quite
depressed in their company; I have known others whose sense
of duty, dear things, was so strong that they seemed quite
unable to REST, or even to allow their friends to rest; and I
have wondered whether, after all, worriting about one's duty
might not be as bad--as deteriorating to oneself, as distressing
to one's friends--as sinning a good solid sin. No, in this
respect virtues MAY be no better than vices; and to be chained to
a wheelbarrow made of alabaster is no way preferable to being
chained to one of wood. To sacrifice the immortal freedom
of the mind in order to become a prey to self-regarding cares
and anxieties, self-estimating virtues and vices, self-chaining
duties and indulgences, is a mistake. And I warn you, it is
quite useless. For the destiny of Freedom is ultimately upon
every one, and if refusing it for a time you heap your life
persistently upon one object--however blameless in itself that
object may be--Beware! For one day--and when you least
expect it--the gods will send a thunderbolt upon you. One
day the thing for which you have toiled and spent laborious
days and sleepless nights will lie broken before you--your
reputation will be ruined, your ambition will be dashed, your
savings of years will be lost--and for the moment you will be
inclined to think that your life has been in vain. But presently
you will wake up and find that something quite different has
happened. You will find that the thunderbolt which you
thought was your ruin has been your salvation--that it has
broken the chain which bound you to your wheelbarrow, and
that you are free!
--------
I think you will now see what I mean by Rest. Rest is
the loosing of the chains which bind us to the whirligig of the
world, it is the passing into the centre of the Cyclone; it is
the Stilling of Thought. For (with regard to this last) it is
Thought, it is the Attachment of the Mind, which binds us
to outer things. The outer things themselves are all right.
It is only through our thoughts that they make slaves of us.
Obtain power over your thoughts and you are free. You can
then use the outer things or dismiss them at your pleasure.
There is nothing new of course in all this. It has been known
for ages; and is part of the ancient philosophy of the world.
In the Katha Upanishad you will find these words (Max
Muller's translation): "As rainwater that has fallen on a
mountain ridge runs down on all sides, thus does he who sees
a difference between qualities run after them on all sides."
This is the figure of the man who does NOT rest. And it is a
powerful likeness. The thunder shower descends on the mountain
top; torrents of water pour down the crags in every
direction. Imagine the state of mind of a man--however
thirsty he may be--who endeavors to pursue and intercept
all these streams!
But then the Upanishad goes on: "As pure water poured
into pure water remains the same, thus, O Gautama, is the Self
of a thinker who knows." What a perfect image of rest!
Imagine a cistern before you with transparent glass sides and
filled with pure water. And then imagine some one comes
with a phial, also of pure water, and pours the contents gently
into the cistern. What will happen? Almost nothing. The
pure water will glide into the pure water--"remaining the
same." There will be no dislocation, no discoloration (as
might happen if MUDDY water were poured in); there will be
only perfect harmony.
I imagine here that the meaning is something like this. The
cistern is the great Reservoir of the Universe which contains
the pure and perfect Spirit of all life. Each one of us, and
every mortal creature, represents a drop from that reservoir--
a drop indeed which is also pure and perfect (though the phial
in which it is contained may not always be so). When we,
each of us, descend into the world and meet the great Ocean
of Life which dwells there behind all mortal forms, it is like
the little phial being poured into the great reservoir. If the
tiny canful which is our selves is pure and unsoiled, then when
it meets the world it will blend with the Spirit which informs
the world perfectly harmoniously, without distress or
dislocation. It will pass through and be at one with it. How can
one describe such a state of affairs? You will have the key
to every person that you meet, because indeed you are conscious
that the real essence of that person is the same as your
own. You will have the solution of every event which happens.
For every event is (and is felt to be) the touch of the great
Spirit on yours. Can any description of Rest be more perfect
than that? Pure water poured into pure water. . . . There
is no need to hurry, for everything will come in its good
time. There is no need to leave your place, for all you desire
is close at hand.
Here is another verse (from the Vagasaneyi-Samhita Upanishad)
embodying the same idea: "And he who beholds all
beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, he never turns
away from It. When, to a man who understands, the Self
has become all things, what sorrow, what trouble, can there
be to him--having once beheld that Unity?"--What trouble,
what sorrow, indeed, when the universe has become transparent
with the presences of all we love, held firm in the One
enfolding Presence?
But it will be said: "Our minds are NOT pure and transparent.
More often they are muddy and soiled--soiled, if not
in their real essence, yet by reason of the mortal phial in which
they are contained." And that alas! is true. If you pour
a phial of muddy water into that reservoir which we described
--what will you see? You will see a queer and ugly cloud
formed. And to how many of us, in our dealings with the world,
does life take on just such a form--of a queer and ugly cloud?
Now not so very long after those Upanishads were written
there lived in China that great Teacher, Lao-tze; and he too
had considered these things. And he wrote--in the Tao-Teh-
King--"Who is there who can make muddy water clear?"
The question sounds like a conundrum. For a moment one
hesitates to answer it. Lao-tze, however, has an answer ready.
He says: "But if you LEAVE IT ALONE it will become clear of
itself." That muddy water of the mind, muddied by all the foolish
little thoughts which like a sediment infest it--but if you leave
it alone it will become clear of itself. Sometimes walking along
the common road after a shower you have seen pools of water
lying here and there, dirty and unsightly with the mud stirred
up by the hoofs of men and animals. And then returning
some hours afterwards along the same road--in the evening
and after the cessation of traffic--you have looked again, and
lo! each pool has cleared itself to a perfect calm, and has
become a lovely mirror reflecting the trees and the clouds and
the sunset and the stars.
So this mirror of the mind. Leave it alone. Let the ugly
sediment of tiresome thoughts and anxieties, and of fussing
over one's self-importances and duties, settle down--and
presently you will look on it, and see something there which you
never knew or imagined before--something more beautiful
than you ever yet beheld--a reflection of the real and eternal
world such is only given to the mind that rests.
Do not recklessly spill the waters of your mind in this direction
and in that, lest you become like a spring lost and dissipated in
the desert.
But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them
still, so still;
And let them become clear, so clear--so limpid, so mirror-like;
At last the mountains and the sky shall glass themselves in
peaceful beauty,
And the antelope shall descend to drink, and the lion to quench
his thirst,
And Love himself shall come and bend over, and catch his own
likeness in you.[1]
[1] Towards Democracy, p. 373.
Yes, there is this priceless thing within us, but hoofing along
the roads in the mud we fail to find it; there is this region of
calm, but the cyclone of the world raging around guards us
from entering it. Perhaps it is best so--best that the access
to it should not be made too easy. One day, some time ago,
in the course of conversation with Rabindranath Tagore in
London, I asked him what impressed him most in visiting the
great city. He said, "The restless incessant movement of
everybody." I said, "Yes, they seem as if they were all rushing
about looking for something." He replied, "It is because
each person does not know of the great treasure he has within
himself."
--------
How then are we to reach this treasure and make it our own?
How are we to attain to this Stilling of the Mind, which is the
secret of all power and possession? The thing is difficult, no
doubt; yet as I tried to show at the outset of this discourse,
we Moderns MUST reach it; we have got to attain to it--for
the penalty of failure is and must be widespread Madness.
The power to still the mind--to be ABLE, mark you, when
you want, to enter into the region of Rest, and to dismiss or
command your Thoughts--is a condition of Health; it is a
condition of all Power and Energy. For all health, whether
of mind or body, resides in one's relation to the central Life
within. If one cannot get into touch with THAT, then the life-
forces cannot flow down into the organism. Most, perhaps all,
disease arises from the disturbance of this connection. All mere
hurry, all mere running after external things (as of the man
after the water-streams on the mountain-top), inevitably breaks
it. Let a pond be allowed calmly under the influence of frost
to crystallize, and most beautiful flowers and spears of ice will
be formed, but keep stirring the water all the time with a
stick or a pole and nothing will result but an ugly brash of
half-frozen stuff. The condition of the exercise of power and
energy is that it should proceed from a center of Rest within
one. So convinced am I of this, that whenever I find myself
hurrying over my work, I pause and say, "Now you are not
producing anything good!" and I generally find that that is true.
It is curious, but I think very noticeable, that the places where
people hurry most--as for instance the City of London or Wall
Street, New York--are just the places where the work being
done is of LEAST importance (being mostly money-gambling);
whereas if you go and look at a ploughman ploughing--doing
perhaps the most important of human work--you find all his
movements most deliberate and leisurely, as if indeed he had
infinite time at command; the truth being that in dealing
(like a ploughman) with the earth and the horses and the weather
and the things of Nature generally you can no more hurry than
Nature herself hurries.
Following this line of thought it might seem that one would
arrive at a hopeless paradox. If it be true that the less one
hurries the better the work resulting, then it might seem that
by sitting still and merely twirling one's thumbs one would
arrive at the very greatest activity and efficiency! And indeed
(if understood aright) there is a truth even in this, which--like
the other points I have mentioned--has been known and taught
long ages ago. Says that humorous old sage, Lao-tze, whom
I have already quoted: "By non-action there is nothing that
cannot be done." At first this sounds like mere foolery or
worse; but afterwards thinking on it one sees there is a meaning
hidden. There is a secret by which Nature and the powers
of the universal life will do all for you. The Bhagavat Gita
also says, "He who discovers inaction in action and action in
inaction is wise among mortals."
It is worth while dwelling for a moment on these texts. We
are all--as I said earlier on--involved in work belonging to
our place and station; we are tied to some degree in the bonds
of action. But that fact need not imprison our inner minds.
While acting even with keenness and energy along the external
and necessary path before us, it is perfectly possible to hold
the mind free and untied--so that the RESULT of our action (which
of course is not ours to command) shall remain indifferent and
incapable of unduly affecting us. Similarly, when it is our part
to remain externally INACTIVE, we may discover that underneath
this apparent inaction we may be taking part in the currents of a
deeper life which are moving on to a definite end, to an end or
object which in a sense is ours and in a sense is NOT ours.
The lighthouse beam flies over land and sea with incredible
velocity, and you think the light itself must be in swiftest
movement; but when you climb up thither you find the lamp
absolutely stationary. It is only the reflection that is moving.
The rider on horseback may gallop to and fro wherever he will,
but it is hard to say that HE is acting. The horse guided by
the slightest indication of the man's will performs an the action
that is needed. If we can get into right touch with the immense,
the incalculable powers of Nature, is there anything which
we may not be able to do?" If a man worship the Self only
as his true state," says the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad, "his
work cannot fail, for whatever he desires, that he obtains from
the Self." What a wonderful saying, and how infallibly true!
For obviously if you succeed in identifying your true being with
the great Self of the universe, then whatever you desire the
great Self will also desire, and therefore every power of Nature
will be at your service and will conspire to fulfil your need.
There are marvelous things here "well wrapped up"--
difficult to describe, yet not impossible to experience. And
they all depend upon that power of stilling Thought, that
ability to pass unharmed and undismayed through the grinning
legions of the lower mind into the very heart of Paradise.
The question inevitably arises, How can this power be
obtained? And there is only one answer--the same answer
which has to be given for the attainment of ANY power or
faculty. There is no royal road. The only way is (however
imperfectly) to DO the thing in question, to practice it. If you
would learn to play cricket, the only way is to play cricket;
if you would be able to speak a language, the only way is to
speak it. If you would learn to swim, the only way is to practice
swimming. Or would you wish to be like the man who when
his companions were bathing and bidding him come and join
them, said: "Yes, I am longing to join you, but I am not going to
be such a fool as to go into the water TILL I KNOW HOW TO SWIM!"
There is nothing but practice. If you want to obtain that
priceless power of commanding Thought--of using it or dismissing
it (for the two things go together) at will--there is no
way but practice. And the practice consists in two exercises:
(a) that of concentration--in holding the thought steadily for
a time on one subject, or point of a subject; and (b) that of
effacement--in effacing any given thought from the mind, and
determining NOT to entertain it for such and such a time. Both
these exercises are difficult. Failure in practicing them is
certain --and may even extend over years. But the power equally
certainly grows WITH practice. And ultimately there may come
a time when the learner is not only able to efface from his mind
any given thought (however importunate), but may even
succeed in effacing, during short periods, ALL thought of any
kind. When this stage is reached, the veil of illusion which
surrounds all mortal things is pierced, and the entrance to the
Paradise of Rest (and of universal power and knowledge) is found.
Of indirect or auxiliary methods of reaching this great
conclusion, there are more than one. I think of life in the open
air, if not absolutely necessary, at least most important. The
gods--though sometimes out of compassion they visit the
interiors of houses--are not fond of such places and the evil
effluvium they find there, and avoid them as much as they can.
It is not merely a question of breathing oxygen instead of
carbonic acid. There is a presence and an influence in Nature
and the Open which expands the mind and causes brigand
cares and worries to drop off--whereas in confined places foolish
and futile thoughts of all kinds swarm like microbes and cloud
and conceal the soul. Experto Crede. It is only necessary to
try this experiment in order to prove its truth.
Another thing which corresponds in some degree to living
physically in the open air, is the living mentally and
emotionally in the atmosphere of love. A large charity of mind,
which refuses absolutely to shut itself in little secluded places
of prejudice, bigotry and contempt for others, and which attains
to a great and universal sympathy, helps, most obviously, to
open the way to that region of calm and freedom of which we
have spoken, while conversely all petty enmity, meanness and
spite, conspire to imprison the soul and make its deliverance
more difficult.
It is not necessary to labor these points. As we said, the
way to attain is to sincerely TRY to attain, to consistently
PRACTICE attainment. Whoever does this will find that the way
will open out by degrees, as of one emerging from a vast and
gloomy forest, till out of darkness the path becomes clear. For
whomsoever really TRIES there is no failure; for every effort in
that region is success, and every onward push, however small, and
however little result it may show, is really a move forward,
and one step nearer the light.
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