The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul Part 9

Incidentally with this dominating impulse and determination will be the growth and development of the spiritual body, and the intuition and guiding light of the Individual Intelligence. We shall become consciously _aware_ of this as a constant personal experience demanding no further proof. It is _knowledge_ of the soul _direct_.

Every faculty, capacity, and power of the soul will be our willing servant.

This is Constructive Psychology, and is a normal evolution under both Natural and Divine Law: "Living the Life that we may know the doctrine."

It is practical, scientific Psychology worked out and demonstrated in the Laboratory of Life. Religions and Revelations will no longer be mysteries, but open books; for we shall be in touch with their source and at-one with their inspiration.

This is what is meant by "The School of Natural Science."

Nor is it an idle speculation, nor merely a thing "devoutly to be wished."

If the whole nature of man is built and operated under law; if he is, as he seems to be, an aggregate of all substances, an epitome of all principles and processes; then it follows that to understand these laws, processes and correspondences, is to become _master_ of them and of life.

Wonderful as have been the discoveries in nature's finer forces and in applied science, all that science has discovered or invented, or art has devised, is like children's toys, when compared with the subtle and marvelous mechanism of man's organism.

The rhythmic beating of the heart, synchronous with respiration and the circulation of the blood, are sufficient ill.u.s.trations. But even this concerns the vehicle, not the driver; the instrument, not the player upon this "harp of a thousand strings."

When it comes to the mental and psychical realm, cognition is direct and immediate. We become "aware" of relations and processes, of sequences and powers, by intuition, as we are _aware_ of the Self.

This is _apperception_ in its highest sense. Not through the mind, which is a _process_ and a function, but through that which uses, controls and dominates the mind, viz.: the Individual Intelligence, the Soul.

In the mind, in daily life, _we_ weigh and measure, reason, choose, compare, and adjust. In intuition or apperception it is borne in, or comes like a flash of light, and seems as if "we always knew it."

We may somewhat haltingly describe the process, but we can never impart the knowledge to another, because it is an _individual experience_. As easily could another feel, sense, and _realize_ the pain of thrusting our finger into the fire, as to receive vicariously, from us, a _real_ physical experience.

Here lies the difficulty, often the impossibility, of the teacher or the Master, in imparting his knowledge.

I am _entirety satisfied_ that by personal effort and experience along these lines of normal higher evolution, there comes a time and a degree of unfoldment and power when, from knowledge and self-mastery, the Master--the Individual Intelligence--having evolved and learned to _control_ the spiritual body, can consciously and deliberately pa.s.s out of the physical body and return to it at will. He can do this as consciously and completely as it occurs at death; can go where he pleases, within the range of his unfoldment or spiritual experience, and retain conscious memory of it all after his return to the physical body.

And suppose this all to be true, how can he demonstrate the fact, or transmit the experience to another; and particularly if that other declared to begin with that, "the whole process is absurd and impossible"?

Nor is mere credulity here a highway to knowledge. It is merely the opposite pole of incredulity, and both are begotten by ignorance.

a.n.a.logy and the basic principles and laws of scientific psychology are very different matters indeed. They point in this direction like a theorem in mathematics. The principles and laws being grasped and apprehended, the solution becomes only a question of _work_; and at every step the law is verified, "Backward and forward it still spells the same."

What is this but the _methods_ of Natural Science applied to Psychical Science upon the basis of the Unity of Natural Phenomena and Universal Law?

There is nothing to prevent any of us from starting on this upward journey of the soul, if we choose; and never till we do, shall we really begin to _know_, to realize our birthright, and progress toward the realm of eternal day.

The science of ethics, the basis of morals, is the starting point, the first step; and _leading the life_, the way. And there is no climbing up some other way. So said the Master of Galilee, and so say the real Masters in all times.

When Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," he doubtless meant that these were all _in him_, and he at-one with them.

When Jesus said, "I and the Father are _one_. No one cometh to the Father but by me," he doubtless referred to this at-one-ment as the only way by which the natural man--Adam--could become the Spiritual man--_Christos_.

When he said, "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he undoubtedly meant that "heaven" is a condition, a harmonic state, and not a place.

We undoubtedly create our own "h.e.l.l" and our own "heaven," and people them with "devils" or with "angels."

True Science and true Religion clasp hands, and are like the two hands of the one body of Truth. They check each other, supplement each other, harmonize each other.

Superst.i.tion and blind dogma are the enemies of true Science; Religion--never.

Science and Religion are the handmaids of Truth; because both are the children of Divinity, the agents of Light and of Eternal Progress for Man.

This building of character, this growth of the soul, this Harmonic of Evolution, is a matter of _work_; of personal endeavor, of valid, real, personal experience.

Its results are our _real_ possessions, our "treasure in heaven" that nothing can ever destroy. Life and Death may ebb and flow, and come and go; but _we_ may, if we will, go on forever; or we may turn the other way and go down to death. _Some day_ every human soul will elect, choose, and decide and then start on the journey, North or South.

This is the meaning of Soul, of Individual Intelligence, of Rational Volition, of Personal Responsibility.

It is the Science of Nature aligned with Divinity, and compa.s.sing Humanity.

The purpose of these outlines, suggestions, a.n.a.logies, and inferences, is to show that this life is a period of gestation, in close a.n.a.logy and comparable with that of the child _in utero_; that with the web and woof of character, organ and function, impulse and use, opportunity and destiny, we are building a spiritual body, the _immediate vehicle_ of the soul, as literally as is the physical body on the outer material plane; that the laws of Spiritual health and vitality are as concrete, apprehensible, and demonstrable as those of physiology.

Normal use under law develops health, harmony, and strength, in the one case as in the other, demonstrably; and these laws, accurately formulated and demonstrated, const.i.tute the School of Natural Science, accessible to all prepared to receive and wisely use them; advancement depending on progress, thoroughness, and loyalty, in all preceding degrees.

Is it worth while?

CHAPTER VI

THE CROSS IN RELIGION AND THE CRUX IN SCIENCE WITH THE GREAT WORK IN AMERICA

With the progress of civilization and the general growth and diffusion of intelligence everywhere, there is one problem upon which all else focalizes, though the fact seems to be seldom clearly apprehended or realized.

Not only do science and religion face each other at one point, but the life of each is at that one point involved. It is not only the often recognized "conflict between Religion and Science," which was long ago worn threadbare. It is the fact that both Science and Religion are out of joint with themselves.

The battle-ground may, in a broad way, be named Psychology. All problems and all discussions of the real issues arise from, involve, or center around, the nature, laws that govern, and destiny of the Human Soul.

From the very nature of these problems, their intricacy and diversity, they remained the latest in the categories of Science to be seriously investigated.

For the same reasons they have been the subject of dogma and revelation in religion, with doors slammed in the face of all investigation as not only useless, but wicked, and often made dangerous.

Between the agnosticism of Science, and the dogmatism of Religion, knowledge has been crucified, and there it hangs to-day, a crux to the one, and the Cross to the other: The same problem, only facing different ways.

And yet the Reconciliation is not far to seek. It is difficult for the average churchman, or theologian, to apprehend and remember, that a _fact_, in nature or in life, is one thing; and that the _interpretation_, or _explanation_ put upon that fact, by any man, or body of men, is another thing entirely. Here is where Belief, Dogma, and Heresy come in.

As soon as one denies the interpretation, he is accused of denying the fact, no matter how illogical or absurd the interpretation may be, on the one hand, or how openly he admits the fact as the basis of his own conclusions, on the other.

Few individuals will be found nowadays who deny the _fact_ of the birth, life, mission, and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But the interpretations read into the fact differ so widely as to result in almost numberless sects, and an endless war of words. All this theological wrangling may be focalized at one point, almost on a single word. Did Jesus of Nazareth differ in kind or in _Degree_, from the rest of Humanity?

If he had "a like nature with ours," as he and his disciples took the utmost pains to declare, and to demonstrate, then he differed in _degree_ of unfoldment, and was indeed, our Elder Brother; He differed as the holy differs from the unholy; as the pure differs from the impure; as the kind and charitable differ from the unkind and the uncharitable. It is just at this point that all the theological juggling comes in, in the effort to reconcile contradictions and irreconcilable paradoxes, under the designation--Mystery, Miracle, and Faith. Few theologians would admit that it is desirable, even if possible, that the mystery and miracle should disappear, and that wisdom and understanding should take their place. In other words, that Jesus should be proved an evolution under both natural and divine law, as the result of "Living the Life."

Bear in mind that we are dealing with _Interpretations_ only, and with the opinions of men; and that there is nothing "sacred" or "holy" about these opinions, no matter how they may be hedged about by dogma, or ecclesiastic authority. The Immaculate Conception; the Virgin Birth; the Resurrection of the physical body, and the Vicarious Atonement, are each and all Dogmas; the opinions of men, in _interpreting_ the mystery, and miracle, they have a.s.signed to the nature of Jesus, in what they call the "plan,"

or the "Scheme of Salvation."