# The Essential Mysticism

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

---

> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Stanwood Cobb, The Essential Mysticism, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> THE ESSENTIAL
> MYSTICISM
> 
> By
> STANWOOD COBB
> 
> BOSTON
> THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY
> 1918
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> ./   H~RV~RD COLLEGE L1BRUY
> FROM THE ESTATE OF
> H~NN~H ~ KI~B~LL        ~
> JUNE 23, 11122
> 
> Copyright 1918, by
> THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY
> 
> The Four Seas Press
> .;.
> Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> To THE TEACHERS OF THE PAST: WHO LIVED THAT WE
> 
> KIGHT DIE, AND WHO DIED THAT WE KIGHT LIVE.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> ,
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> PREFACE
> 
> T .
> HE chief purpose of "The Essential
> Mysticism" is to make clear to the lay
> mind some of the spiritual problems
> of humanity-to interpret to Americans the
> real value of that Oriental mysticism which
> has been so much despised-to set forth the
> mystery of the soul of man in terms not of
> psychology but of the daily life.
> There are many books on religion and
> mysticism. Their n~mes are legion. And
> yet I wonder if there is one of them
> which in completely simple, modern terms
> makes clear the value and importance of
> spirituality in the daily life of man?
> For it seems so plain, so self evident a
> fact, that spirituality works, that it is
> not a thing apart from life but life itself and
> the only clue to this existence ;-that could
> this idea be conveyed to the American business man, so searching for efficiency in life,
> he would never rest until he had acquired
> spirituality.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 8                PREFACE
> 
> It were too bold, too ambitious an aim, to
> expect to accomplish so much of good in this
> modest volume. But may the writer dare to
> hope that it will set on fire in the minds of
> some of its readers a few trails of spiritual
> gunpowder, which may, ultimately, cause
> explosions within the domain of their inner
> self resulting in a larger, freer, more farseeing life?
> To the writer, the spiritual life seems the
> only sane, reasonable development of man,
> the only life which expresses man's whole
> nature. That it may seem so to some who
> have never seen it so before, is the greatest
> wish and errand of this book.
> s. c.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> TABLE OF CONTENTS
> Chapter                                              Pap
> I.        INTRODUCTORY                                 13
> 
> II.       THE EsSENTIAL M YSTICISII
> ,             22
> III.   "THE WAy"                                       46
> IV.    THE OvERCOIlING OF DESIRE                       61
> V.        DESTINY AND THE SOUL                         75
> VI.    RENUNCIATION                                    85
> VII.   A WORLD OF MATTER AND A WORLD OF
> FAITH                                      95
> VIII. THE DocTRINE OF LoVE                            113
> IX.    NIRVANA                                        127
> 
> X.     THE NEED OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION               139
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER I.
> 
> INTRODUCTORY
> 
> W        HITMAN in his wonderful "Passage to India" proved himself indeed
> a seer. With his broad vision of
> things he saw that the Suez canal meant
> not only the commercial union of the East
> and West but an interchange of thought,
> customs, and civilization.
> Time was when East and West were not
> so far apart. Caravans from India brought
> the Oriental products overland to Constantinople and Alexandria, where they were
> shipped to Geno'a, Florence, or Venice, and
> distributed over Europe.
> The Florentine painters of the Quatro
> Cento owe much of the brilliant pageantry
> of their paintings to this oriental splendor
> which passed by their doors.
> But when the Turks possessed themselves
> of Asia Minor and later of Constantinople,
> the overland trade routes to India were
> broken and a toilsome dangerous sea-voyage
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 14    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> of many months became necessary. It was to
> shorten this sea-route that Columbus sailed
> out upon that great quest which was destined to add to the world a new continent
> and to bring into being a new race,-a raceá
> of pioneers composed of the most fearless,
> the most venturesome of all nations. Thus
> to the Turks do we owe our national existence.
> During four centuries merchants plied
> their weary way by sea to India, braving
> the Cape of Good Hope which in travesty to
> its very name proved ruin of many enterprises and the loss of countless lives. Then
> came that cutting of the desert, that subduing of the earth to the will of man which
> shortened by some seven tlJousand miles the
> route to India. It was to be, so Whitman
> saw, a wonderful link in the chain of world
> unity.
> Trade with the East made great an Empire which in its tiny isle would have languished feebly but for that. But England
> could not long monopolize the world's trade.
> Commerce was not destined to seek only the
> rising sun.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCTION                               15
> 
> To America has been given the destiny
> of completing the circle, not by sailing eastward but by sailing westward. The dream
> of Columbus was at last fulfilled. Take it
> as a mighty symbol, if you will,-that the
> farthest west becomes east. The wonder of
> the Suez canal pales into insignificance before the possibilities of Panama. Here is
> the final link, the final cutting which en..'
> circles the earth with a ribbon of water as
> a girdle of its maturity.
> For consider, was this. planet worthy to
> be called mature while half of it was yet unknown? Or while the East stayed East and
> West stayed West? Only when the two
> commingle-when East meets West--can
> its civilization be said to approach perfection.
> Since fifty years or more the East and
> West have been flowing together marvelously. Were Americans to realize how deeply
> their thought life has become permeated with
> Eastern wisdom they would, if of the unco
> pius type described by Vedderá, become
> á"The blood of the une<> pius it would surely freeze,
> To know that God in China speaks Chinese."
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 1:6    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> -horrified; but if they were of those who
> -dream of universal brotherhood they would
> -rejoice at this tremendous progress toward
> an understanding of the East.
> Emerson was one of the first in this country to delve in Oriental literature. The sacred books of India and Persia became for
> him a mine of thought. Indeed, he may be
> fairly said to owe most of his philosophy to
> the East. In his beautiful and mystic writings he translated for the American mind
> -the wisdom that had reposed for ages in the
> East.
> The effect of Emerson on American
> thought has been momentous. Not that his
> devotees are conspicuous for their numbers;
> but they are leaders in initiating and moulding public opinion. His influence, spreading
> to Europe, inspired a Maeterlinck, while in
> -this country scores follow in his trail.
> The next definite movement for the intro-
> -duction of Oriental thought was Theosophy.
> Brought over into this country in 1873 by
> -Madame Blavatsky, it had a rapid growth,
> -until the American Branch became as im-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> portant as that in England, the land of its
> birth.
> Theosophy, like Emersonianism, has had
> an influence enormously disproportionate to
> its mere numbers. The actual membership
> of the society has always been small and of
> an abnormal character, unfortunately such
> as to bring the movement into poor repute;
> but its ideas have permeated every department of our modern thought. Owing to its
> opportune extension of the doctrine of evolution-which in itself had proved the greatest
> stretcher of men's thoughts since the world
> began-Theosophy has tinged the minds of
> many thinkers with its teachings. From the
> pulpit, the lecture-platform, from books and
> from the editorial pages of our great dailies,
> it has and still is sending forth áits message
> of the cosmic law. And Theosophy, as all
> must know, is but a rehabiliment of Hindu
> thought.
> Theosophy has been followed by several
> lesser movements of a similar kind,-the
> Vedanta Society, the Mazdasnians, and the'
> private cults of Hindu "swamis" and "gurus"
> who have never failed to find some entour-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 18     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> age in this country.á Many of these teachers
> are influenced by unworthy motives, commercially exchanging as it were their wares
> of ancient wisdom for food and shelter and
> fawning adulation of wealthy American
> women. Yet among them have been humble
> men, true teachers; men who gave more
> than they received and asked for nothing except the opportunity to give. It is the fakirs
> that have brought disrepute upon the whole
> tribe of Oriental missionaries. But there is
> as much difference here as between those of
> our miss~onaries who go to India because it
> is the easiest way in which an inefficient
> man can make a living, and those earnest
> Christians who go there because they yearn
> to give their all for truth.
> The greatest movement of Oriental mysticism in this country, however, few suspect.
> Christian Science is metaphysically almost
> an exact replica of the Vedanta idealism as
> taught by <;ankara in India in the ninth century. One can trace the resemblance point
> by point. That this has not been previously
> recognized may be due to the fact that no
> real student of Christian Science has studied
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> the Vedanta; while our scholars of comparative religion who. know of the Vedanta
> teaching have not cared to spend much time
> on Mrs. Eddy's teaching. Nothing is more
> logical, more impregnable, than the essential
> . points of Christian Science. Because its
> teachings are clothed in emotional and mystial language, scholars have failed to grasp
> it just as they have failed to grasp the meaning of Hindu mysticism or of Laotze;
> for the American scholar, too generally
> materialistic in his trend of thought, passes
> over pearls of wisdom with the insouciance
> which Christ attributed to certain domestic
> animals.
> The contention of Christian Science is as
> follows :-that matter does not exist; that
> the cause of matter's seeming to exist is
> "mortal mind"; that mortal mind in itself
> has no reality and disappears before the
> light of truth.
> Let us look at Cankara.
> •         He too declares
> that matter does not exist; that the cause of
> matter's seeming to exist is Avidya or Ignorance; that this Avidya has no real existence
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 20     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> but disappears before the light of knowledge, which is Vidya.
> Many have made fun of Christian Science,
> thinking they punctured its logic when they
> asked what "mortal mind" was. Had they
> lived nine hundred years ago, they would
> have found a worthy polemist. Cankara, on
> being asked what Avidya was, r~plied: "He
> who would seek to know what Avidya is, is
> like one who, in order to know what darkness
> is, should light a torch. For when one lights
> a torch, darkness disappears. So when oneá
> acquires Vidya, Avidya disappears."
> Substitute for "Mortal Mind" Avidya, and
> for "Truth" Vidya and you have converted
> Christian Science into Vedanta-the purest
> and most incontrovertible form of idealism
> ever invented by the mind of man.
> A Vedanta teacher was once instructing
> his pupils in the midst of a jungle. There
> suddenly crashed through the bushes a mad
> elephant-the most dangerous of tropic
> beasts. The pupils, disregarding their
> philosophy,. took to the trees. When the
> animal had passed, they found their guru
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCfION                         21
> 
> descending unab"ashed from a stout upas tree.
> "Why," asked one heretical youth, "did
> you climb a tree, if according to your teaching matter has no existence?"
> To this smart inquirer, worthy to adorn
> the impudent ranks of American yout~s, he
> answered calmly:
> "There was no elephant. There was no
> tree. I did not climb up a tree."
> Such extreme form of idealism, whether
> phrased by an Oriental, or by a Christian Scientist, may appear nonsense. But
> the marvelous thing about Christian Science
> is that it is demonstrating, palpably and
> to the American sense, the existence of
> something other than matter. The typical
> American has two very good eyes, a physically analytical mind, and a total ineptness
> forá real thought. Hence he could never
> arrive, of himself and unaided, at the conclusion that anything but matter exists.
> But when his wife or favorite daughter, discarded by all the learned physicians, is healed
> by Christian Science, a little light permeates
> his brain. He does not know much about
> Christian Science, but he does know that she
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 22     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> who was condemned to die by consult~tion
> of the greatest specialists is alive again. He
> begins to attend a Christian Science church.
> And being a true Amerian, ardent and childhearted, he goes the whole length. He has
> become an idealist without knowing or
> understanding what he believes.
> View it unprejudicially! It is one of the
> most marvelous spiritual movements at present working in America. Its truths are
> stated in childlike terms, perhaps, but it has
> truths.
> From Christian Science branched out in
> 1891 the New Thought movement, which,
> more indefinite than Christian Science, has
> a correspondingly larger following. New
> Thought, in some phase or other, is familiar
> to every person who reads or thinks. To it
> is largely due that doctrine of conscious
> optimism and good ~heer which is so popular at present. That one can thus regulate
> one's thoughts and feelings is to Americans a
> stupendous discovery. The Oriental has
> known it for ages. It is needless to say that
> New Thought is very old thought invading
> a new and youthful race.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCfION                         23
> 
> The latest expression of Eastern spiritual
> thinking to reach these shores is the Bahai
> movement-a universal religion named after
> Baha Ullah, its founder. Three years ago
> Abdul Baha, the son of the founder, and the
> present leader of the movement, visited this
> country and spoke from many pulpits and
> lecture platforms.á The Bahai teaching is
> eminently sane, reasonable, and progressive. Its influence is plainly to develop a
> sort of practical everyday mysticism in its
> Western followers, and a wide-awake
> modern efficiency in its Eastern followers.
> From this, and from its definite teaching of
> world brotherhood, it is one of the greatest
> and most important movements for uniting
> the East and West. A most remarkable
> occasion was that witnessed by the writer,
> when Abdul Baha clad in his turban and his
> Oriental garments, conducted the Sunday
> service from a Christian pulpit-prayer,
> sermon and all.
> An event very significant of the rapidly
> growing Orientalism in the West was the
> conferring of the Nobel prize on Rabindranath Tagore, with the subsequent popularity
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 24     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> of his work in Europe and America. He is
> a pure mystic, singing the songs of Oriental
> mysticism; yet his poems, published by a
> leading house, have in two years reached
> twelve editions, and his writings are eagerly
> looked forward to from year to year by a
> large reading public. This is an astounding
> fact. The West is growing tolerant!
> The East does not need a growth in religious tolerance, for it has always been more
> tolerant than the West. It does not claim
> uniqueness for its religions, nor for its founders of religion.
> But the East does need, and sorely need,
> a greater material efficiency. Far ahead in
> spiritual wisdom, it is far behind in the outer
> aspects of civilization. It has a wonderful
> thought life but a poverty-stricken physical life. It has neglected the body and the
> things of the body. It has neglected most
> lamentably the education of the masses. So
> that the Western invasion of the East takes
> the form of schools, hospitals, railroads,
> bridges, science, industry, and all those inventions which make for sane and comfortabl~ living.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> The ascetic East is seeking after physical
> luxuries, while the materialistic West is
> growing more wise in spiritual ways. Here
> is a fair exchange-a barter which is of great
> profit to both sides.
> It is needless to point out the many ways
> in which the East is turning to the West for
> help. Japan, forced into the current of
> modern progress against its will, has made
> its way to the fore front. China, with its four
> hundred million souls~ is yearning for the new
> civilization, and is turning to America for
> ideas and for men to carry them out. Turkey,
> forced into a great world war by parliamentary tricks, is managed by Germany-a sort
> of partnership in which the "terrible Turk"
> becomes more terrible under modern
> methods of efficiency. India, scratched on
> the surface by the English plo~gh, is already
> yielding crops of Occidentalism. Fifty years
> ago Asia wanted nothing of the West, which
> she scorned and despised. Today, like a woman in despair, she is on her knees before
> her hitherto rejected wooer. The time has
> come for union.
> Each hemisphere has its final part to play
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 26     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> in the great world civilization which is at
> hand. The Orient is the germinating place
> for the soul. It is there that religions are
> engendered. The Occident, on the contrary,
> is the place of expansion; it gives physical
> form and shape to the ideals of the East.
> Nineteen hundred years ago there spread
> from the Orient a religion whose spiritual
> principles have enveloped one half the world
> -a religion which the West has expanded
> in a great civilization. But the beautiful
> breath of mysticism which stirred hearts of
> old at the name of the Christ has died out
> from His Church, leaving it formal and cold.
> Shall it be that a new breeze will blow from
> the Orient, arousing again the hearts of men
> to heroism, nursing into flower the buds of
> faith atrophied under a long winter? If the
> time has come for a great renaissance of religion, shall the presaging star not rise again
> upon the eastern horizon?
> Whatever favors as to mystic wisdom Destiny has granted to the East, yet she has reserved for the new and virile West the privilege of applying spiritual principles to life,
> rendering efficient the glory of the mystic's
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> INTRODUCfION                          2'1-
> 
> dream. Let no one suppose that the East is
> to be exalted above the West. Each has its
> place in the regard of Destiny; each is beloved of God; each is playing its great role
> in the cosmic evolution.
> Might one venture here a symbol of sex?
> Does it not seem that the soul of the Orient
> is feminine, while the soul of the Occident
> is masculine, in its qualities ?The Orient is
> dreamy, mystical, poetic; the West is bold,
> aggressive and unintuitive. The union of
> these two temperaments will constitute the
> greatest incentive and stimulus to humanity
> since the days of Ancient Wisdom. For from
> it will be born a new race--tender, imaginative, mystic,-yet efficient to the highest degree, heroic in action as in thought, bold to
> pentrate the secrets of Nature and to subdue
> her to its will. Thus will arrive a new civilization, splendid in beauty and in force, surpassing even the hopes of Utopian dreamers
> in the achievements of its mighty androgy~
> nous genius.
> And this country---eldest child of the N ew-
> World-is it to be favored by Destiny as the
> means and place of Union? Shall the fur-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> áI
> 28     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> thest West become East? For further West
> one cannot go without surprising the dwelling of Phoebus as he springs up from the
> Eastern ocean, ruddy and golden for his
> journey across the .sky's empyrean. And so
> here must be the final link of the chain that
> is to girdle the earth.
> And Destiny, wishing it so, has prepared
> many a soul for such an enterprise. In this
> country, engrossed as it is in material things,
> mad after wealth and uncivilized to the point
> of rudeness, here Destiny has nevertheless
> planted souls most etherial and mystical,-
> oriental souls, one would say to meet them.
> And they reside not only in the physical
> bodies of fair women, of writers and thinkers
> and dreamers; but also in those of business
> men and people of affairs. Were one to go
> through the land with seeing eyes one could
> trace a potential trail of fireá where these
> sparks lie,-smouldering until they burst
> forth in the Great Conflagration.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER II.
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> Tá     HERE are two reasons why one cannot see to the bottom of a well: it
> may be very deep, or it may be
> muddy. Most people, consoling themselves
> for a spiritual myopia, prefer to think that
> super-sensuous experiences are abnormal
> and unworthy the consideration of a healthy
> mi~d, Thus they dispose very easily of mysticism by calling it muddiness, and of spirituality by terming it neurasthenia,' It is well
> that some are ignorant of the enormity of
> their ignorance.
> Mysticism is defined as "obscurity of doctrine"; the mystic as "one who professes to
> have direct intercourse with, the Divine";
> and mystical as something "sacredly obscure or secret; remote from human comprehension," These three definitions by Webster are entirely satisfactory and sum up in
> a few words the whole matter. The mystic
> claims to have direct intercourse with the di-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 30     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> vine. How such a thing is possible is indeed
> "remote from human comprehension."
> And since most people find it comforting
> to pooh-hoo that which they cannot understand, they relegate all things mystical to
> the limbo of the unclear, vague, misty, distorted, and worthless,-a sort of clutterroom to which it pleases them to consign alldata and experiences which would disturb
> the neat and ordinary routine of their daily
> lives.
> Hence it is that mysticism is in poor repute, and mystic is a term of derogation.
> Let us acknowledge that the mystic lives
> in a world all his own-it may not be any the
> less real. That his experiences are not the
> experiences of common men mayor may not
> indicate that they are false.
> Conceive a Fiji Islander who had been
> brought to New York, upon his return trying to describe his experiences. That he
> had ridden in horseless vehicles directed by
> a magic bar of iron in the driver's hand; that
> he had seen man-birds fly over the city; that
> he had heard people talk three thousand
> miles away; that he had seen a prize-fight on
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM                     . 31
> 
> a magic curtain a week after it had occurred;
> that he had seen water become hard enough
> to walk on,-all such reports would properly
> be met with a condescending incredulity.
> ~
> 
> The wise-acres and sceptics of his home
> town, knowing that such things were impossible, would enjoy the traveller's vivid
> tales and honor him as the chief prevaricator
> of the village.
> Many things become possible that have
> been hitherto impossible ; and to the philosopher who analyses existence the impossibility appears often to reside in the limitations of the human mind, rather than in the
> nature of things themselves.
> Either, then, there is a whole new world
> into which the mystic is a pioneer; or else
> the mystic is a conscious or unconscious liar.
> That the analysis of spiritual experiences
> should fall to the province of the materialistic laboratory psychologist is a misfortune
> to the lay public; because such spiritual experiences, being fo'reign to the nature of the
> psychological dogmatist, find little chance
> of either a sympathetic or an accurate interpretation.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 32     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> That these psychologists are endeavoring
> to pigeon-hole God and X-ray the Divine,
> does not, I imagine, greatly alter the nature
> of that Divine, nor alarm that Creative
> Power in which all things, even psychologists, subsist.
> If there is any God, then the reaching out
> for union with Him is the .only possible religion. To posit a divine being is not religion.
> To believe that a god once created the universe is not spIrituality. If there is a Spiritualá Essence back of the seen aJ;ld felt and
> heard, then that Essence is the abiding pres'-
> ence in which man discovers his reality. "In
> Him we live and move and have our being,"
> said one of the greatest mystics.
> The true mystic, however, not content
> with being an unconscious unit of existence,
> seeks consciously a closer union with the
> whole-strives to mingle his soul with the All
> Soul, and to be penetrated daily with the very
> Breathá of Life. He believes in taking spiritual exercise in order to make his soul grow,
> much as theáá athlete works his muscles in
> order to build up his body.
> This exercise of the mystic differs widely
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 'THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM                      33
> 
> in different countries and religions, butá essentially it is the same,-prayer and medita-
> 
> -tion. The East has practised these things for
> t housands of years. The Brahman priest, in
> the early days of India, held his power because he was the "prayer maker."
> Prayer in our day has fallen into disrepute. It, tog~her wii'h epileptic fits and
> hysteria, is patiently analysed by the abnormal psychologist. Not that he has any prejudices against it or would condemn it, for
> he conceives it to be entirely harmless.
> If there is no divine, nothing spiritual, nothing higher than the mind of man, then of
> course prayer is a psychological illusion, a
> subjective necessity at times, comforting in
> sorrow, but needless to sturdy men.
> If, however, there is a super-sensuous existence, if there is anything superior. to the
> mind of a modern psychologist, then prayer
> is the natural means of communion with such
> a world,-a sort of telepathic message which
> .miraculously bridges the gulf between matter and Spirit, between the created and the
> Creative, between the limited and the Limitless. And no one who has not experimented
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 34     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> and through prayer, uttered or unvoiced,
> sought this union, can be deemed worthy to
> make authoritative statements either about
> prayer or about God.
> •••
> The two great quests of humanity-the
> quest for happiness, and the quest for
> power-find in mysticism their highest expression.
> That man fives for happiness is a truism.
> It is the great dominant motive in life, to
> such an extent that even religions can prosper only when they offer happiness,-happiness more abundant than falls naturally to
> the lotá of man.
> The true martyr goes to the stake or the
> arena chanting hymns of joy. This joy may
> be in the terms of psychopathology a form of
> hysteria; or it may be something else beyond
> the power of materialistic analysis. But it
> is a joy real enough to the religionist to
> cause him to give up for it possessions and
> home and friends,-yea, wife and children.
> The search for happiness has led mankind
> through strangeá adventures. The sense
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM                     35
> 
> world contains an immediate appeal, the" illusion of which only infinite experience of
> suffering and disappointment can offset.
> Primitive races have found in the delirium
> of drink and of sex the acme of sense satisfaction. These pleasures indeed have proved so ecstatic as to appear to the naive mind               I
> 
> to be a part of religion. Soma, an alcoholic
> drink, figured largely in the religious cult of
> the ancient Hindus; while the juice of the
> grape, in the Greek festivals, acquired the
> dignity of godhead. Sex orgies figured so
> largely in certain Greek religious rites, influencedfrom more eastern cults, that the
> mystic brotherhood of the early Christian
> Church fell under like suspicion. In India
> sex has been and still is the largest element
> . "in the religious rites of the lower classes,
> and in certain sects the practises are so unusual as to forbid description.
> The point to notice is this, that in the abandon of intoxication, either of alcohol or of
> sex, unthinking man finds a spiritual quality.
> That there is, in spite of Puritanic conceptions to the contrary, a certain spiritual quality in joy, may be true.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> .36     THE áESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> But the . sense-world disappoints,-not
> .by its failure to give pleasure, but by its. failure. to give sustained pleasure, and by reason
> of the depths of misery into.which the sensualist is plunged between his periods of exaltation.. If. a way could be discovered to make
> these sense satisfactions lasting, doubtless
> the majority of mankind would be quite content to linger in this valley. The fact that
> sense happiness is so fleeting, so ephemeral,
> may indicate to the inspective mind that
> Nature did not intend the senses to enthrall.
> It is only when satiety, disgust, misery intervene, that the seeker of the senses b~trays
> his loyalty to flesh and seeks elsewhere for
> joy.
> Moderation, then, becomes the foundation
> fora higher, more delicate civilization,-permitting the innate forces of the self to expand in creations of art and philosophy and
> refinement of living. The savage reaches a
> fierce maturity at adolescence. The races of
> civilization, conserving more carefully their
> emotional and sex force, prolong youth
> through a period which sees the rise of a
> creative will. Ambition, love of the beauti-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISMá                     37
> 
> ful, unknown aspirations, stir the sout of
> civilized youth; while the savage is content
> to complete at puberty his cycle of existence,
> henceforth living but to feed and spawn.
> Yet even in the mental world, the world
> of art and thought and dreams, one finds a
> disappointment. The most intellectual of
> men are not always the happiest. The artist
> is a slave to his temperament, whichá leads
> him ontoá mountain peaks, only toá cast him
> next moment into valleys of despair. Again
> joy is found transient, a will 0' the wisp; and
> the determined man, never relinquishing his
> quest, strikes out into unknown fields, an
> adventurer after happiness, aá pioneer, a
> mystic.
> Because the pioneer in the land of spirit
> cannot state in terms of evident proof, to
> the sensualist and to the man of materialistic culture, the marvels of his dream world,
> he is set apart as strange, as unveraciousá, as
> psychopathic. It is easier so. One does not
> then have to give up one's superb faith in
> matter. For when one begins to 1et go of
> solid earth, one fears the outcome.
> So, in the day when old men dream
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 38     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> dreams and young men see visions, the
> materialist strengthens his grip upon things
> earthly, and denies the soul with scalpel and
> X-ray.
> Not only does the materialist have a vague
> and inchoate fear of losing his grip upon the
> solid flesh; but he also, humanwise, dislikes
> to believe that others can have found something of which he is deprived. And so when
> the visionary has sold all his possessions and
> acquired the pearl of great price, the materialist laughs at him andá rejoices to think
> the jewel false. So, also, the materialist, to
> be logical, laughs at Christ and pities Him
> for his hallucinations; so he rejoices at finding Mohammed an epileptic and St. Francis
> of Assisi ps~chopathic. So hog-like, with
> snout in thetrough, he sniffs defiance at the
> fairest blossoms of the world above him.
> Were God to appear to him in flesh, yet
> would he not believe.
> Christ was a mystic, as are all the Founders of Religions. Christ's teachings were
> essentially mystic; yet out of the Christianity of today has been taken all that mysticism whi-ch is the very breath of religion,-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM                      39
> 
> an.d there is left to the world only an empty
>    shell which is no-religion.
> •• •
> That the mystic finds the highest joy, the
> most supreme joy, the most lasting joy, that
> mortals ~now,-many have proven from
> their inner experience. To others, we trust
> that our book as a whole may convey a demonstration of this truth. And now we pass
> to the next point, which is that the mystic
> also solves the quest for power.
> Happiness would very soon pall, were
> ther~ nothing for man to work at, nothing
> for him to achieve,. no destiny for him to
> carve out of the resisting material about
> him. The will to create is as innate in man
> as the desire for happiness; for as much as
> he partakes of the divine, in so far is he
> impelled to create.
> In its lowest phases this thirst for creative
> power takes the form of a desire to dominate
> over others. He who can inspire the highest
> degree of fear, respect, and obedience from
> those about him is the greatest among them.
> Not at this point in human evolution does
> humility appear desirable, nor that mystic
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 40     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> phrase comprehensible that "he who is least
> among them is the greatest."
> This exercise of power, though selfish, accomplishes certain cosmic ends, hence is permitted for the nonce by Destiny. By it are
> developed organization,á social and political
> groups, and that fierce competition in which
> the fit survive and the weak go to the wall.
> Power is necessary to growth and progress,
> and the only rewards which Nature offers
> the weak are suffering and extinction.
> There comes a time, however; in the Spiritual evolution of man, when the selfish are
> deprived of power. Cruel, despotic, masterful as man can be, he cannot cope with the
> forces of Destiny; he cannot long oppose
> the Universal Law and prosper.
> In a certain stage of evolution it is the
> physically fit who survive; when the powers
> of the human mind have developed, manifesting themselves in various power-producing inventions, it is not the physically but
> the mentally strong who survive; but in an
> age in whIch man has so matured as to consciously draw power from the Source of
> Power, it is not the mentally or the physi-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISIt                     41
> 
> cally fit, but the spiritually fit who become
> the masters of men. And inasmuch as spir- .
> itual man is a mystic, it is the mystic, in a
> spiritual age, who manifests the greatest
> power.
> This fact is not hard to see in the realm of
> art creation. The artist, drawing his inspiration from a higher Source, creates forms
> of beauty for the world. The greater his inspiration, the more selfless he is, the nearer
> to the Creative Source,-by so much the
> greater is his creative work. Egoism, conceit, self-consciousness, desire for the mere
> outer manifestations of power,-these things
> eat like hidden cankers at the creative heart
> of the artist, until the whole world cannot
> fail to 'notice a diminution in his power.
> The true artist knows that he is inspiredknows that the fairy forms of beauty that
> haunt his dreams are not the children of his
> brain, but visions from another world. He
> knows that he is but a channel, pouring forth
> cheer and inspiration to the world in proportion as he is freed from obstructions of self.
> Even the greatest of men said, "Call me
> not good. Of myself I do none of these
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 42     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> things." And if the greatest make no claim
> to personal power, shall the least among us
> strut and crow with human vanity, because
> it has been vouchsafed us to create?
> In even more practical ways man recog:-
> nizes the value and the mystic wonder of an
> inspiration. The great inventors tell us that
> after they have set all their superb powers of
> intellect to work upon a given problem, the
> final solution comes to them suddenly, unconsciously, inspirationally, as a gift from
> the blue. And so come to earth all the marvels of modern science,-the telephone, the
> telegraph, and mighty machinery that obeys
> like a huge hapless slave the slightest will of
> man.
> If inspiration helps the scientist, it can
> help the business man. True, the human
> brain can of itself accomplish marvels of organization and. production: but greater
> marvels can be accomplished by those who
> know how to grasp Ideas; who, not content
> with imitating, would create new fields of
> human endeavor. For the business man is
> also a creator.
> . We half expect the artist to be a mystic;
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM                      43
> 
> we can even understand how an inventor
> can be a little queer in this direction; but
> it is a new and almost inconceivable thing to
> imagine the business man as intuitive, spiritual, and truly creative. Yet there are those
> who have applied the principles of mysticism
> to their business, realizing from prayer, faith,
> and concentration a degree of power and external success corroborative of the value of
> their efforts.
> It is unfortunate that mysticism in the past
> has been almost universally correlated with
> asceticism, irresponsibility, withdrawal from
> the world,-resulting in a total unproductiveness on the plane of the visible. The
> ordinary mortal has no means of judging
> the value of dreams, save as they result in
> action and achievement; and quite rightly
> does he measure his -neighbor by results, by
> work accomplished, rather than by rapt
> visions and ideals.
> On the other hand, a mysticism that would
> produce a greater power and efficiency of
> achievement would- commend itself even to
> the practical American. Can mysticism become efficient? That is its greatest problem.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 44     THE ESSENTIAL MYsTICISM
> 
> In the East it has been inefficient: Yet in
> °
> 
> the nature of things there is no law whi~h
> compels it to remain so.
> It is not without reason that Destiny has
> fostered in the West a race disdainful of
> °
> 
> mere dreams and visions, a race hardy to
> create and achieve, a race which stands
> solidly for material efficiency. Material
> efficiency without the spiritual vision is no
> more accusable than a mysticism which accomplishes nothing. If we are to blame the
> West we must also blame the East. Destiny
> is tolerant of faults, and we may better spend
> our . effort, not in regret for a one-sided
> development in either hemisphere, but in         °
> 
> working for a union of these two attitudes
> toward life so vividly expressed in the Occidental and Oriental civilizations.
> Let mysticism become efficient, and let
> efficiency become spiritual. The perfect man
> must manifest on the material plane the
> power which he draws from spiritual sources.
> The ecstacy of vision must be wrought out
> in the sweat and toil of achievement. The
> man who creates is really spiritual, whether
> he know it or not. But the greatestinOspira-
> 
> DigitlZe~ by Google
> THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM                     45
> 
> tions come to those who know consciously
> where to seek Power.
> And so, I say, the mystic solves the problem of power, as he solves that of joy; and he
> unites in his being the song with the crea-,
> tion; rejoicing in ever new unfoldment of his
> powers, in ever new accomplishment, working joyously by the side of the Friend.á
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER III.
> "THE WAY"
> 
> T      HIS doctrine of "The Way" appeals
> but .little to Americans, who, both
> in theory and practice, raise the
> ideal of strenuosity to its apotheosis. To
> smash one's way through all opposition, to
> fight against the heaviest obstacles, to engage in increasing activity in order to bring
> about desired ends,-this is the American
> ideal. At the other pole of thought is the
> calmness and conservatism of the Oriental,
> who takes the line of least resistance and
> shrinks from brutally contesting the field
> of victory.
> Each is a matter of temperament and climate, of racial heredity and social example.
> That the Oriental may have something of
> truth in his point of view is the thought
> needed to be brought home to the strenuous
> American, who in action-restless and too
> often undefined-prematurely exhausts the
> very springs of action within him.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> "THE WAY"                            47
> 
> Of what use is it to do three men's work at
> thirty if one must die as the result at forty?
> Or to crowd five years activity into one, if
> that one year of effort is to bankrupt the
> storeá of power meant to last a lifetime?
> Haste! Yes, in our age of timetables and
> alarm clocks, haste is our god! But haste
> makes waste, and America needs a movement to conserve, not only her physical but
> also her human and spiritual resources.
> Are we Americans the masters of our fate,
> as Henley sang? Or but the slaves of Destiny,-who utilizes our ill-governed energies
> to exploit a marvelous new hemisphere ? We
> have worked hard. at the task-none harder.
> But is it not time now to sit down and take
> account? The forests are all cleared. The
> wolves are fled before the ax of the pioneer.
> The Indian has subsided to a harmless ward.
> The winds and waves are harnessed to our
> will. And the earth contributes of her treasures for the comfort ofá humanity more generously and more amazingly than in any previous age or country of the world. Let us
> take breath and look about us. Are there
> not other things in life than dollars and div-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 48     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> idends? Are there not other forms of
> achievement than that of developing earth's
> resources? Are there not other ideals than
> mere physical wealth and domination?
> As one who struggles in the thick of the
> fight loses his perspective of the battle, so
> perhaps the American who is working himself to death-he knows not why-may
> miss somewhat of true vision, may waste
> his efforts because his efforts are unguided.
> Not mere activity, but well directed activity
> is regarded by the wise.
> If one hour spent in calm meditation will
> clear upa difficult problem, inspire a new
> method, or yield a new ideal of achievement,
> is that hour not worth days of mere work?
> The plan must precede the action, not the
> action the plan; and Americans rush often
> too hot-headedly into action without t~king
> time to plan. The Great War illustrates how
> careful planning may defeat with ease the
> savage activity of unorganized and ill-equipped hordes. We make a god of quantitybut quality is more important. Not how
> much we do, but how much we do of value,
> is what counts.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> "THE WAY"                            49
> 
> I t would not seem to the strenuous Occidental that a model school could be conducted by a principal who spent several
> hours a day on th.e roof of his house in
> dreamy meditation. Our ideal of a head
> master is one who is rushing here and there,
> dictating countless letters, meeting people,
> giving speeches, taking violent exercise, and
> living. twenty-five hours a day. Yet Rabindranath Tagore has made his school successful, from every point of view; and he has
> built up his unique institution along those
> Oriental lines of calm poise and spiritual
> insight.
> What man would value the month's work
> of a day-laborer with the hour's achievement
> of a genius, who in that period of time dashes
> off an immortal poem or a melody destined
> to enchant the world?
> Democracy gives a false impression of
> average values, enviously attempting to obliterate all distinctions of superiority in
> brain, temperament, and insight. Hence the
> tendency in a new, raw, and crude social organism such as ours, to measure a man by
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> so      THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> the amount of work he does instead of by the
> quality of his achievements.
> The man of dreams, of meditations, of
> visions, is ill-appreciated in a race of workers who conceive not the power his dreams
> may exert over their activities.
> It was dreams before action that produced
> the French Revolution,-a faineant Rousseau who set the spark to one of the greatest
> of social and political conflagrations.
> And where, pray, are born those ideas
> which are the seed qf all action, save in the
> lonely struggle of the Self with the problems of the Universe? The world's great
> creators are ever lonely men,-men who
> must, at times, retire from the throng in
> order to get a clear vision of the right. They
> -the poets, the painters, the composers-receive their greatest inspirations in moments
> of peace and tranquility. From the flowers of
> spiritual calm they distill that perfume
> which sweetens the harshness of ourdailylife.
> But were poets alone to appreciate the
> value of meditation, of calm, and of non-activity, what a minuscule proportion of humanity would pro:fj.t by these things! It is
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> "THE WAY'                            51
> 
> not to the dreamer, already meditative by
> nature, that one wishes to appeal, but to the
> practical business man and to the world's
> 0' er-weary workers.
> Can this habit of in-drawing, of cessation
> from activity, be applied to business? It
> would seem impossible. Yet I know a man
> with the smooth, boyish face of a dreamer,
> whose business, because he took time to
> think and be original, in a period of real depression increased above that of any previous year. He is one who has the daring to
> free himself from routine and to rid himself
> of all petty details. He may come to his office
> and work hard all. day, he may come for
> only an hour, or he may not come at all. And
> following thus the guidance of his inner personality, he conceives ideas which are convertible into money. Here is success, measured even from the most materialistic standpGint, for in our country money is the final
> test of accomplishment.
> Many a business man is beginning to realize that a mind fresh, healthy, calm, is able
> to achieve more in an hour than a mind
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 52     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> fatigued and too harnessed to its task can
> do in days.
> Once convince the financier that ideas are
> worth ten times their measure of mere work,
> and you have him playing at golf, riding
> horse-back, daring to be at ease where others
> are making themselves idealess by overwork. It is a new doctrine, but one already
> gaining many adherents.
> The greater ability a business man has,
> the less hours he spends in his office; and
> decisions which involve millions are made
> in a quiet discussion of half an hour.
> It is the man of small conceptions and
> petty caliber who is always working, a slave
> to his task. Beads of perspiration stand out.
> upon his unthinking brow, and worry and
> anxiety reign turbulent over a mind that has
> never learned how to create.
> For the subordinate in business to rise
> above the tyranny of routine is difficult, so
> long as his employer demands from him
> mere work. Yet independence, originality,
> rebellion against the slavery of petty tasks,
> will in time raise clerks to managers and
> make creators out of mechanicians. Cour-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 'I
> "THE WAY"                            S3
> 
> age, boldness, and assertion are the qualities
> that make for success against obstacles.
> I would that all men of affairs were mys-
> . tic, in the true sense of the word. Materialism has had its day. ~any are coming
> to realize the existence of forces other than,
> and superior to, themselves,-forces that
> make for progress and success.
> To rely upon one's self, upon one's inner
> powers of accomplishment, is a rare gift;
> but to rely upon a higher Power which controls the movements of Destiny and holds
> in its grasp every entity in the universe, that
> is still a rarer gift,-and' that is to be a
> mystic.
> To the materialist this is babbling nonsense, f~r he believes in no power higher than
> himself; and before an audience of such,
> mysticism had best hold its tongue. But
> fortunately there is a spiritual breeze stirring, gently making itself felt, moving the
> 8t~gnant pools of scepticism and heralding
> the hope of a new day.
> Are there not already a host of business
> men who in times of stress look above and
> beyond themselves for aid? who turn to
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> S4     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> prayer in the midst of trouble and have
> learned how to place their hands in the
> hands of the Friend, that they may find
> guidance?
> Call it what you will. Call it Christian
> Science, New Thought, or call it simply
> Christianity,-there are more men who can
> give testimony of these things than the
> world dreams. People are shy of speaking
> of such e~periences. Your very neighbor
> who walks so' placidly to business in a
> week of downward drift and frequent bankruptcies, may be gathering, in prayer and
> inward mediations, the power and the
> guidance which is carrying him successfully through great and anxious issues.
> He does not claim to be a mystic-would be
> ashamed to confess to that appelation-but
> such he is in the truest meaning of the word.
> And where, pray, is mysticism of more
> value than in business? No department of
> life so sternly tests one's powers, or brings
> such an immediate and emphatic response
> to able effort. Meditation which revolves
> about itself in endless cobwebs is of no value
> to the world. More and more as I grow
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> "THE WAY"                           ss
> older, meditative by temperament, do I admire the powers of the business man to
> achieve. There is the test! Dreaming without achievement is a sorry return to make
> the universe for shelter and life. Rightly do
> men measure ability by its success in wresting a living from the world. I have no ultimate quarrel with those who admire incomes.
> There are other kinds of success-but in nine
> cases out of ten one's earning capacity is the
> correct measure of one's powers.
> The greatest achievement of this century
> will be found, I believe, in the application of
> mysticism to business,-in the miracle of
> Spirit breaking forth into natural increase,
> making fat the land with corn and wine and "
> prospering all who trust its guidance. That
> spirituality is the greatest source of power,
> is the truth now crying to be heard.
> "Nature strives not, and therefore she
> accomplishes everything." The Oriental"
> thinkers have in the course of ages drawn
> many lessons from Nature-but none more
> deep, or more pregnant for humanity than
> this great doctri~e of Laotze's. It is not
> difficult to see what it means. Everything
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 56     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> in nature is content to fullfil its inner destiny, not in ways of strife and strain, but in
> peaceful, harmonious, gradual unfolding of
> that which is within. The seed sends forth
> a shoot, the shoot becomes a shrub, the shrub
> becomes a mighty oak. But where in this
> process can one observe anxiety, strain, or
> undue haste? A raindrop falling on the mountain-side joins company with other raindrops; and the tiny streamlet trickling down
> meets with other streamlets and becomes a
> dashing brook, meets with other brooks and
> forms a river. And here, where power is
> greatest and achievement at a maximum, is
> observed the greatest tranquility and poise.
> The little mountain brook is dashing and
> strenuous; but the river is mighty, majestic,
> and calm.
> How impressive to watch the current
> sweep over a large dam. Dark masses of
> water approach with a slow power the obstacle over which they are to pass,-but
> there is no fretting or straining. Each drop
> holds its place, and is swept over the dam by
> a destiny mightier than itself; When the
> current is too low or too feeble to flow over,
> 
> Digitized by   Google.
> "THE WAY"                          57
> 
> it calmly bides its time gathering power for
> the onward drive. This is what Laotze
> meant when he said, "Nature never strives."
> But is Nature for this reason a helpless
> faineant? Can it be said that in this seeming
> inactivity she accomplishes nothing? Step
> by step, almost imperceptible to the observation of man, Nature in her calm way
> has formed our globe, has' prepared it for
> living forms, and has developed all of life
> which we see about us here today.
> The sun, that mighty symbol of unstriving power, has by its gentle radiative force
> nursed into being every form of activity .
> which characterizes our globe. Lightning
> and thunder pay tribute to its majesty. Cyclones and whirlwinds wear themselves out
> beneath its gaze. But it shines on,-never
> dimmed, never exhausted, calm and serene in
> an eternal influence which outlasts every
> form of cataclysmic might.
> There are in Nature, as well as among
> men, to be found busy-bodies,-strenuous
> little currents of activity which have their
> place in the stupendous whole; but they are
> only the servants of those more regal forces
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 58     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> whose action is harmonious, tranquil, a~d
> unstriving.
> When will mankind learn that harmony,
> not violence, is the keynote of the universe?
> When will they learn to tru~t themselves,
> childlike, to the mighty movements of that
> Law which has called them into being; and
> which will, in its own time, unfold to each
> one his or her true destiny?
> "Every thing which is in due time for thee,
> is in due time for me, 0 Universe, " is the
> lesson which life taught a pagan sage.
> There are times in which to act-and times
> in which not to act. But worry never yet
> has accomplished anything of worth.
> The strenuous American, confiding only
> in the strength of his right hand, seeks to
> batter down the walls that obstruct his
> path. Gallant but futile effort! When, if
> one were to go his way patient in his trust
> and effort, who knows but somewhere Destiny would open to him the gate through
> which she has meant from the beginning
> that he should pass?
> Is there a guidance that seeks to lead us
> to success? Of this one can speak but veil-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> "THE WAY"                           59
> 
> edly. The greatest truths are wasted upon
> unbelievers. Though a hundred Christs
> and Buddhas and Laotzes were to bring
> their message to the world pointing the way
> to new and more glorious triumphs for humanity,-yet would mankind, through its
> terrible inertia of scepticism, being for the
> most part of little minds, lack the courage
> and the will to achieve that new success.
> Of what avail to offer what few prize?
> Or what advantage, to speak of laws which
> as yet humanity has not evolved enough to
> use?
> Yet here and there are men who dare to
> trust these laws,-pioneers, who hesitate to
> claim an understanding of that which is so
> new and strange and epochal; that guidance
> which, from sources one knows not of, like
> mysterious currents of the ocean sweeps
> one's life on to success.
> A power more unknown than gravity,
> stranger than electricity, seeks to rule our
> lives. We may not analyze it-yet we may
> use it when we know its ways. By yielding
> to it we can command it. By confessing
> ourselves inferior to it, it becomes our ser-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 60     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> vant. By claiming that we are nothing,
> through its aid we become great and wise.
> By listening to its voice of warning, we instinctively avoid the hundred little pitfalls
> of the world. By following its guidance, we
> achieve mighty works without anxiety or
> strain. For we are working as Nature works,
> -and when at last we strive to do nothing,
> we accomplish everything.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER IV.
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE
> 
> E      ACH great religion has contributed
> something to the world's thought.
> The unique contribution of Buddhism
> is its doctrine of non-desire.
> Buddha, beginning life with every advantage of birth and position, surrounded with
> all the pleasures that wealth can bestow upon the senses, discovered that life's joy lies
> not in such.
> Seven weary years in quest of joy he wandered, seeking it through torture and negation of the body. Not here, however, the
> source of joy, as his discerning heart discovered ..
> Then carne the illumination-simple
> enough, as all great truths are simple. He
> discovered that the cause of sorrow is desire;
> that the cure for sorrow is the overcoming
> of desire. When this light dawned upon
> him, he went forth among his fellow-men
> with shining face and woke into life a spark
> 6r
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 62      THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> in others which made their faces also shine.
> A truth which makes people's faces shine
> is a sublime truth. Not often does it come
> to earth. Yet when it comes, it is as natural
> as love, cheering as rays of sunshine, and as
> powerful as the Creative word. Nothing can
> prevent its spreading through the hearts of
> men till ultimately it becomes imbedded in
> the thought-structure of humanity. We
> cannot now doubt that Love is the key to
> life, or that Non-Desire is the door which
> leads to happiness.
> Those truths which the Great Ones have
> wrought out in the loneliness of their spiritual strivings, we lesser creatures prove correct by the experience of years.
> It is hard for the young person to realize
> what Non-Desire means, or what its value.
> Each earth-bound soul is born a bundle of
> desires, and it is part of the process of
> growth to develop these desires. Hence to
> say to the young, "Desire nothing," is to
> talk to them in a strange language. That
> keen ambition of youth; that thirst for pleasure, for knowledge, for experience; that restless spirit of enterprise which would try all
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE                     63
> 
> things and yet not be content; that intense
> . desire for fame, for glory, for self-exaltation; and that impelling power of sex which
> adolescence sets in motion,-all these brook
> ill the spiritual command, "Cease to desire!"
> But some learn lessons more quickly than
> others. It is as if, made wise by the experience of many lives, they understood
> even from childhood that which Destiny is
> aiming at. It is not necessary for them to
> suffer so many misfortunes as others in
> order to hear the Truths that are knocking
> at their door. A few bitter experiences, a
> few sense-pleasures turned to ashes, suffice
> to teach them that the road to happiness lies
> not in the valley of desire.
> To the meditative mind life gradually
> makes clear the truth, that all material
> things are perishable; nay, must in the very
> nature of their being pass away.
> Wealth brings a multitude of possessions.
> But wealth is precarious, and even when its
> massive proportions seem to assure a permanence, . the soul may turn in loathing
> from the very things which once allured.
> To the lover in the ecstasy of passion
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 64     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> love seems immortal, a possession of the
> soul smperior to time and change, a power
> beyond the possibility of loss or hazard.
> Yet passion wanes as it arises, and the red
> rose which to-day entices the nightingale
> to-morrow is withered away. Even that
> love which has in it some element of the
> divine is ever haunted by the fear of separation. For we live in a world of change; and
> Destiny has never assured us that the souls
> of those we love should stay always in
> earth-bodies. Death, or even distance, may
> plunge the heart in gloom. In an existence
> phased in matter, a few miles of land or sea
> may frustrate the dearest longings of the
> soul.
> And so the philosopher consoles himself
> with not loving much. He seeks to disengage himself from the net of circumstance, and to become unattached to the
> things of earth. With stoic heart he sees
> quite placidly his friends and loved ones
> pass ~way, his possessions disappear, his
> cherished ambitions fail. Why, he says,
> should one set one's heart on the possession
> of a trinket which may so easily be lost or
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE                      65
> 
> taken from one; or which may cease, upon
> possession, to attract? And by analogy he
> applies this reasoning to life itself, and
> ceases to desire.
> Noone has so well expressed or so well
> lived the stoic life as that great Emperor
> who, having all, sacrificed in spirit all that
> he had j and by the power of philosophy and
> faith severed his so~l from every earthly
> tie.
> Yet the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius,
> the Stoic, is not the deepest nor the truest
> interpretation of the doctrine of non-desire.
> We should not strive to love less, but to
> love more. We should not seek to starve
> our hearts, but to enlarge them to embrace
> the universe.
> Renunciation is not mere negation. We
> gain little by cutting things off from us, or
> by cutting ourselves from the world.
> N either asceticism nor stoicism solve life
> nor satisfy the soul of man, which is destined to own all things, not to discard them.
> If by desire we mean attachment to
> things external to the self, then it may be
> said that spiritual evolution is measured by
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 66     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> the extent to which one has overcome desire. If by desire, however, we mean a
> reaching out for progress, for evolution, for
> cosmic growth, then the status of a race or
> of an individual may be measured by the
> amount of this desire it or he possesses.
> In other words, there are two kinds of
> desire which must be clearly differentiated,
> -one a desire for externals, and the other,
> a desire for self-development. In ordinary
> life the two are so closely mingled that it is
> difficult for the uninitiated to conceive of
> them as separate. Hence, when one says,
> "Overcome desire," the average person
> points the finger of scorn at those races
> which have most followed this doctrine,
> conspicuous for their cultural stagnation;
> and then points proudly to the races of the
> Occident, which by the very burning flame
> of their desire have forged new links of
> progress on the chain of life. He, then,
> who would teach the doctrine of N on-
> Desire to the West, must needs make his
> doctrine clear.
> Whatever tends to self-development is a
> desire not by any means to be condemned.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE                     67
> 
> The youth who, oppressed by poverty,
> yearns so greatly for a college education
> that he is willing to toil and endure hard-'
> ship for his degree, is surely not to be
> despised. The person of curious turn of
> mind who longs to travel, is not to be condemned if by might and main he forces his
> way about the world. The artist who feels
> an impelling desire to create is obeying a
> heaven-sent impulse when he subordinates
> everything else in life to his creation. And
> is this not desire?
> But there are other directions in which
> the soul of man destined to send out
> spiritual rays to radiate itself, so to speak,
> in creative activity neglectful of this destiny spends its efforts in the mere endeavor
> to acquire, to heap up things external to
> itself,-such as house and lands and luxuries and wealth and fame and immortal
> descendants. It is this desire which Buddha
> would condemn. Not only because it leads
> to selfish action toward others, but chiefly
> because it leads to unhappiness and
> frustrates the soul's growth.
> He who desires strongly material pos-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 68     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> sessions is tempted to acquire them at the
> expense of others. That is the substance
> of the spiritual message of a Christ or
> Buddha. Desire leads to injustice, to
> cruel competition, to brute selfishness. And
> selfishness separates the soul from God.
> Desire lies at the very root of the competitive system which the Leaders of Humanity
> have tried to displace by the system of cooperation.
> In his vision of the Kingdom, Christ
> portrayed a life on earth freed from aggression, from selfishness, from the mad clutch
> after wealth and position. Such an ideal is
> chimerical, Utopian, and impossible of
> achievement, say the devotees of the competitive system, whose conception of life
> is to wrest as much as possible from the
> world about them. That humanity can
> live and let live, is to them incredible. If
> they are to succeed, it is because they hope
> to cut off their competitors from profit.
> Yet there are some, even now, who conceive that a true bargain is one in which
> both sides find profit; who dare to believe
> that the earth holds enough for all; and who
> 
> Digitl~ed by Google
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE                      6g
> 
> maintain that complete civilization means a
> point reached in human progress where the
> welfare of 'society is put before the welfare            0
> 
> of the individual.
> No amount of legislation, of doctrinaire,
> or of socialistic effort, will establish cooperation upon earth until men have
> remitted somewhat their intensity of desire
> after things external. So long as men
> desire wealth above the ability to produce
> wealth; so long as they strive for success
> :-ather than to make themselves worthy of
> success; so long as worldly position means
> more to them than personality; so long
> will the world remain a jungle in which the
> strong prey upon the weak, only themselves
> to fall a prey to others stronger.
> Will humanity not learn at last that
> Destiny prefers proficiency to scheming,
> ability to dollars, greatness of soul to social
> sanctions? Will men not learn to trust
> themselves to God, who desires nothing
> more than to discover those worthy of
> success?
> When Christ said, "Take no thought for
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> ,/0    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> the morrow"-"Seek ye first the kingdom
> of heaven and all these things shall be
> added unto you,"-he was trying to teach
> humanity that faith in Destiny which will
> one day change the world from a contagion
> of cruelty to a heaven of peace and love;
> from a muddle of brute competition to a
> mysterious provision which feeds all who
> trust themselves to universal currents.
> It takes faith! Itá takes discernment!
> I t takes courage! The coward fears, and
> seizes from his neighbor's wealth enough to
> bulwark him against distress. The, spiritual
> man comprehends that he whose attitude is
> one of bestowal becomes the special favorite
> of Fortune, the recipient of all worldly and
> spiritual necessities,-which he gets without desire, without struggle, without competition. Because he gives all, he receives
> all. Because he alienates himself from the
> world of the brute, he is initiated into the
> city of Celestial Splendors,-into which are
> being gathered, slowly, sparsely, those of
> humanity who perceive the Shining Ray.
> Verily this is a mystery! And none can
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE                      71
> 
> comprehend it, save those whose hearts are
> aflame with the love of the Kingdom.
> 
> • • •
> The danger in desire lies in desiring contrary to the Universal plan. Such desires
> must in their very nature fail and leave
> their possessor plunged in sorrow. But
> there is no law against desiring the things
> of the spirit. Patience, gentleness, love,
> purity, knowledge, wisdom, creative power,
> -he who desires these things and sets his
> heart upon them, has all the aid of the
> heavenly powers toward their attainment.
> For the spiritual resources are infinite;
> and he who gains more love robs no one of
> that gift, but adds to the store of universal
> love. This is what the sage calls creation;
> for it adds to, and detracts not from, the
> Treasuries of Destiny.
> And the way of such desire is the way of
> peace. Here there is no conflict, no competition, no brutal selfish struggle for existence. To the man who has gained this
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 72     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> haven, it is like running from a tempesttossed sea into a harbor tranquil and safe. It
> is the same life, lived amid the same
> surroundings,-yet so different. Others
> around him are still fighting, still fearing,
> still apprehensive of failure and extinction,
> while he alone travels securely the way of
> Peace.
> "Take no thought for the morrow I"
> This ye cannot believe, ye of little faith,-
> but must plan and fight and worry, striving
> to attain that which Destiny does not desire
> ye to attain, expecting vainly those things
> that never come. For Destiny has its own
> plans for you. Yea, even for thee, my friend,
> and would not leave thee without guidance.       4>
> Yet how can it guide thee, who know est not ~
> how to follow guidance!                      <./
> This is the Tragedy of life,-that
> humanity should plunge its way self-willed,
> blindly, through brambles and briars and
> morasses of fear, when the Path lies so clear
> and bright for those who see.
> And how for this have the Leaders of
> Humanity wept, yea, bewailed the world's
> needless sufferings.      Standing on the
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE OVERCOMING OF DESIRE                       73
> 
> heights they would . point the road to
> happin~ss.     Yet few, so few, have dared
> to follow. And They must then return in
> martyrdom to the Heaven of Significan'ces
> and report that man is not spiritually
> mature; that like a brute he must needs
> still fight and struggle for existel),ce,
> because he will not see that he is expending
> his efforts over things of little import while
> the great world-tasks remam undone.
> Shall it be that, adolescent, as it were, we
> , humans shall suddenly develop into manhood? Are we near the epoch of maturity?
> Is the dawning of the promised day of peace
> and' love and worship near at hand?
> We know not what the Great Ones plan.
> yet many souls, incarnated in this age, burn
> to teach humanity new truths; and in the
> Realm of Causation mighty forces are working to hasten evolution. A spirit is brooding over the deep, as in the first days of
> creation; brooding to bring forth, not sea
> and sky and land, nor fish, nor fowl, nor
> crawling things on earth, but to bring forth
> light and truth and grace, and the knowledge of God.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 74     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> In the throes of this New Age it were well
> that no person desire aught for himself.
> But to be on fire with the love of God; to
> possess insatiable yearning for the Kingdom; to strive night and day for spiritual
> wisdom ;-this is the true desire.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER V.
> 
> DESTINY AND THE SOUL
> 
> I    N the Orient men still believe in an
> over-ruling God. Here such belief has
> gone out of fashion. Ideas of a
> beneficent Providence once had a place in
> our philosophy of life. N ow they are held
> only by the ignorant; for educated people
> know too much to-day to believe in any
> power greater than themselves.
> But the Orientals are childlike. They
> have a sublime faith in the Universe which
> makes them oblivious to the petty cares of
> life. They do not worry about trifles,
> because they think that what is to happen
> will happen anyway, and the best course is
> to bear disappointment and sorrow with
> resignation.
> The Mohammedans are extreme fatalists,
> believing that every event in their lives is
> determined before birth, written in their
> book of life, and cannot be avoided. This
> fatalism rules their every act. In business
> 7S
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 76     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> they do not strive for customers as do their
> Christian competitors. If Allah is to send
> them customers, those customers will come
> without being dragged in by the buttonhole. Hence the Turkish merchant has a
> dignified and calm tranquility which raises
> him above the pettiness of ordinary retail
> business. He is the master of life and not
> the slave of it.
> The same calmness characterizes his attitude toward death, either of himself or of
> his friends. Since that supreme event of
> life cannot be avoided or delayed, it is met
> wth simple resignation and without display
> of grief.
> Even in his every-day acts the Mohammedan shows that naive piety of which the
> word "Inshallah" (God willing) is symbolic.
> He never plans for the future without modifying his statements by this "Inshallah,"
> signifying his resignation to God's will
> above and beyond his own needs and plans.
> The phrase "Deo V olente" used by our
> ancestors is now. obsolete, it being consideredá absurd to take into account at all
> the will of God in making plans. We
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> á DESTINY AND THE SOUL                      77
> 
> moderns are a bold and boisterous race;
> and what we plan and determine upon we
> are going to carry through, strenuously
> and gloriously, whether God wills it or not.
> We will carry it through, or die in the
> attempt. Of course we have not become
> quite such masters of Life as to have mastered Death. There we succumb, crying
> in the face of such a destiny that we are
> "masters of our fate," meaning,. I suppose,
> that though we are mastered at the end by
> Death, we refuse to acknowledge the fact.
> Yes, the Oriental is a fatalist-deeply and
> consistently so. Fromá the Golden Horn to
> the Peak of Fujiyama the belief in destiny
> is so strong as to tinge the whole Oriental
> philosophy of life, producing not necessarily stagnation though such is the current
> criticism of it. Japanese fatalism in her
> war with China produced such a heroism in
> the face of death, such a spirit of selfsacrifice, that it proved to be a quality both
> efficient and triumphant.
> Fatalism in China, while it is open to
> criticism as to its results to-day, when considered in the light of history must be
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 78      THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> credited with a large share of the stability
> of that ancient race, which has endured the
> shocks of destiny for ten times the number
> of centuries that this New World has been
> known. And China still exists-amorphous,
> it is true-weak, helpless, it may seem,-yet
> as I believe, destined to play still a mighty
> part in the world's progress.
> The Chinese belief in destiny is less childlike and naive than that of the Mohammedans~ In a logical analysis of the theory of
> destiny, there appears that contradiction
> which is so inherent in any thought of a
> divine control. If all of our actions are
> directed by some high Destiny, where then
> is our free will, our sense of personality?
> And what the need of exerting oneself at all?
> The Turks, being simple-minded and
> unmetaphysical, accept the doctrine of
> fatalism without seeing its inevitable con-
> - tradictoriness.    Our ancestors, in their
> theology, found this the greatest stumbling
> block,'-a paradox, which as Milton tells us,
> kept the fallen angels in a rapt discussion
> from sunrise until sunset.
> No human mind has as yet solved this
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> DESTINY AND THE SOUL                      79
> 
> puzzle, or so explained the theory of destiny
> as to unite harmoniously its apparent
> opposites. Hence the childlike mind of the
> Turk accepts absolutely the belief in a
> predetermined life without free-will; and
> the childlike mind of the American accepts
> as absolutely the belief in utter freedom of
> the will without an over-ruling Providence.
> Is it to be expected that the riddles of
> the universe may be made apparent to
> the unthinking mind? In our desire to have
> everything clear and simple in our theory
> of life, do we not do an injustice to the
> universe by denying the possibility of all
> things which do not fit into our simple
> scheme,-rejecting those ideas for which we
> have no mental pigeon-hole?
> We have for several centuries, in the
> Occident, been trying to analyze the
> Universe; and several schemes have been
> suggested whereby man and the universe,
> either with or without God, find their
> solution. Yet one may be pardoned for
> thinking at times that the universe is beyond our power of analysis-at least by
> ordinary methods of cerebration.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 80     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> Let us make, then, the unbelievable
> assumption, that two contradictories may
> be at the same time true. Let us assume
> that there is a Destiny which guides our
> lives, while at the same time we are free to
> act; and for the moment pleading guilty 1:D
> the illogical, see how this belief works out.
> The ancient Chinese had a saying,
> "Heaven appoints a man's destiny, but he
> himself must fulfill it." Our primitive
> ancestors the Anglo-Saxons, great believers
> in Destiny, reflect their theory as to Fate
> in "Beowulf," where it is said that "the
> Wierd (Fate) oft saveth a man, if daughty
> his valor."
> This, then, is the conception w~ich I
> would have the reader consider for a
> moment.        Destiny is conditional-not
> absolute; and the condition necessary for
> its outcome is one's own power of will and
> of achievement. Success or failure is not
> thrust upon us by some arbitrar:y power,
> but the possibility of success along certain
> lines is offered us by Destiny,-conditional,
> first, upon our ability to perceive this offer;
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> DESTINY AND THE SOUL                        81
> 
> secondly, upon our willingness to co-operate
> with Destiny in working things out.
> I t is as if a king should offer to some
> favorite a post of honor and high privilege,
> an opportunity which the courtier might
> or might not rise to fulfill j or as if a father
> should destine for his son a partnership in
> his business, yet should say not a word of
> this to the lad, until he proved himself by
> effort andá accomplishment worthy of this
> high place.
> In such a view of Destiny there is no
> abnegation of free will. Rather does
> the outcome depend upon naught else but
> the sheer power of will in the individual to
> carve through opposition to success.
> ;N ever are the weak of will advanced by
> Destiny-nor does she pour success into the
> .laps of mortals with blind favoritism.
> But while achievement must depend upon
> man's owná exertions, opportunities present
> themselves to one beloved of Destin}' in
> ways marvelous to see. No man, in one
> sense, can be said to make his opportunities.
> They are the favors of Fortune; brought to
> his door that he may fulfill her scheme for
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 82     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> him. Yet in another sense those very
> opportunities are drawn to one by one's
> capacity and growth. Great opportunities
> are never sent to pigmy men.
> Not only must one have reached a certain
> capacity in order to attract large opportunities, but one must have also the perception
> to realize these opportunities when they
> come. Many men of large powers are,
> through their own conceit and hardness,
> unperceptive of the larger opportunities
> that pass their door,-and so fail to achieve
> that success which Destiny would offer
> them.
> By cultivating perception, open-mindedness, adaptability, and a certain facile
> quality of soul, one favored by Fortune can
> be guided, as a ship by favoring winds, into
> the very haven of success. Since man has
> not that range of vision nor that power of
> foreseeing which is possessed by Destiny,
> his plans for himself must ever fall short of
> Destiny's plans for him. Hence the necessity for overcoming desire, for freeing one's
> life from any fixed scheme or plan. Freedom is desired of Destiny, freedom from all
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> DESTINY AND THE SOUL                     83
> 
> human ties which would prevent her Hero
> from following her standard. Shall one
> from siren's song be deaf to Fortune's call?
> Shall one through the fascination of earthly
> faces be blind to Fortune's beauty? Shall
> one by human, self-made plans, be so imprisoned that one cannot take the open road
> when Fortune points the way? Not of
> such does Destiny appoint her workmen;
> only from the free of heart and soul, the
> unconfined, the severed.
> It may be said, then, that the ordinary
> individual has no destiny and receives no
> guidance. He forms a unit undistinguished
> from the mass, merely because he fails to
> distinguish himself. Destiny does not see
> him. She has no particular plans for him,
> save as he forms a part of her larger schemes
> for racial and planetary evolution.
> For as there is a destiny for individuals,
> so there is a destiny for nations, for races,
> and for humanity itself,-a destiny which
> may be achieved or failed of, according to
> the powers of achievement, the faith, and
> the perseverance of said race, or nation, or
> planetary mass.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 84     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> In epochs when the human race is
> spiritual, perceptive, pure, devoted to ideals,
> faithful and amenable to guidance, Destiny
> can achieve more for the world in a single
> century than elsewise in milleniums.
> Were humanity to-day to become aware
> of the glorious favors destined for it-were
> it to grow worthy of the honors with
> which God would crown all mortals-this
> Twentieth Century might then become the
> greatest epoch of the whole world's history,
> before or after; for those who know whisper
> that this IS to. be -the Century of Divine
> Gifts.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER VI.
> 
> RENUNCIATION
> 
> T
> ,
> o     most people personality, the
> feeling of a separate existence, is
> the most eternal reality; but to the
> Oriental it is an illusion, such as the sun
> would make reflected from a broken prism.
> There are not many rays of light, but only
> One which fills the universe. But through
> the error of man's eyes, which fail to focus
> on reality, the universe seems broken up into
> innumerable entities, each trying to absorb,
> to crush, to dominate the rest.
> Every man of genius whose early efforts
> have been inspired by the desire to excel, to
> shine above all others, has later in his
> development found himself at a point where
> desire for mere glory was an obstacle to
> work; and if he has persisted in thus childlike trying to grasp a moth, he has discovered to his dismay, and the world
> discovers too, that he has lost his genius.
> For Destiny, which lends us playthings in
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 86     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> our childhood in order to awaken sensibility,
> wishes us to throw aside these toys when we
> reach man's estate; and him who persists in
> playing, Destiny deprives of the ability to
> work.
> Ambition as a desire for self-unfoldment
> Nature smiles upon; but that ambition
> which seeks to exalt the personality to a
> position of ostentatiou~ tyranny must ever
> meet the fate of Wolsey, who cried:
> "Had I but served my God with half the
> zeal I served my king, he would not in mine
> age have left me naked to mane enemies."
> .Pride is the food of personality. The
> ego feeds upon it and spawns from it a
> loathsome brood of unlovely qualities. Pride
> is hostile to the purposes of the Universe;
> and pride, unless it is mercifully crushed by
> sorrow, may in time cause the destruction
> of the soul which fosters it. For Destiny
> does not tolerate long that which balks its
> progress. If one looks at the history of
> men a:,nd nations, one finds ample evidence
> of this truth, that the gods inflame with
> pride those whom they wish to destroy.
> Pride is the most dangerous enemy which
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> RENUNCIATION
> 
> besieges the gates of the soul. I t is ever
> active in temptation. It flies the white flag
> of truce, only to fall upon the self in. new
> and subtler attacks.
> Not great armor and weapons of massive
> size, but the lowliness of humility and the
> sense of universal love, overcome pride and
> sever one from personality. He who loves
> self loses that very self which he loves. He
> who loses self rises sublime into that
> inheritance of glory which awaits true
> Manhood.
> Personality is not the soul's maturity.
> It is the seed out of which by transubstantiation may spring the full and ripened
> ear. But the seed which wishes to remain
> a seed, by that very wish cuts itself from
> life and from the great transforming processes of Nature; and, as nothing in the
> universe stands still, since it will not grow
> it is condemned ultimately to decay.
> Life retreats from him who pursues it,
> as a fascinating girl eludes her lover; but
> to him who has learned the secret of
> renunciation, life comes bearing gifts of
> love, fulfilling all things, devoting herself to
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 88     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> Man, her master. The most active courting
> cannot awaken in a woman's heart that love
> which she bestows voluntarily upon him
> who is strong enough to command her soul.
> And so in the events of Fortune, that man
> achieves most who is seemingly indifferent
> to success; who calmly goes his way, intent
> upon the deed rather than upon its result;
> self-controlled, patient, waiting as only
> Nature can teach us how to wait, for the
> seed to grow to blossom and the blossom to
> bear fruit. Upon such a man Destiny
> showers her greatest favors. Because he is
> free from desire, all things are bestowed
> upon him. Fortune pledges him her troth
> and remains faithful to him so long as he
> is spiritual enough not to be made dizzy by
> her charms.
> Such is the nature of Renunciation, a
> doctrine little understood by Occidentals.
> The secret of renunciation belongs to age
> rather than to youth. The ancient races of
> the East, having striven hotly for the things
> of their desire only to see desire fail, awoke
> centuries, yea, millenniums ago to the folly
> of setting the heart upon those things which
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> RENUNCIATION                          8g
> 
> are but the floating jetsam of life's tides.
> Solomon, having tried all, cried, "All is
> vanity"; and the wise men of the East,
> discovering these truths, evolved the doctrine of renunciation which is in a way the
> keystone of Oriental thought.
> "Submission to Allah" is the meaning of
> .the word "Islam," a submission so interpenetrating the daily life of Moslems that
> their very forms of prayer are expressions
> of the soul's submission to its Maker. But
> submission is not renunciation. The one is
> passive; while the. other is an active, virile
> quality of the spirit without gaining which
> no proselyte can walk far along the path of
> mysticism.
> How foreign such a quality to our Viking
> race! A young race, lusty, ferocious, grasping at all things, trying the world and in
> the first flush of manhood finding it fair!
> To the inheritors of this Berseker rage for
> living, not renunciation but the apotheosis
> of the strenuous appeals.
> A great musical genius of this race, as
> great in philosophic thought as in the
> melodies which thronged his brain, Wagner,
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 90     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> in his "Tristan and Isolde" harmonized the
> two ideals of the East and West,-glorious
> red blood's rage and striving after joy with
> as glorious ideal of renunciation. This
> opera was written while he was in love
> himself with one who inspired all his work,
> yet denied him that which his love craved;
> denied him because duty to another bade
> her renounce the earthly form and expression of the soul's striving after comradeship.
> Into "Tristan and Isolde" Wagner poured
> forth his heart's anguish; and into its final
> motifs wove a single golden theme,
> Renunciation, which he had gleaned from
> Eastern reading.
> True renunciation ever comes thus after
> striving. It lies at the end of the hot
> pursuit of life. It is earned only by pain
> and anguish-not an easy gift poured into
> waiting hands. Think not that renunciation is a passive quality, a thing for children
> to play with. Think not that it is loss, or
> narrowing of life's horizon. Only when the
> soul renounces, is it free. Only when it
> realizes that it is no longer the slave 'of
> objectivity, does ,it perceive the infinite
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> RENUNCIATION                          91
> 
> richness of its nature. To let go, to bravely
> hoist the tiding anchor and set sail; then
> free, joyous, to breast life's sea with the
> infinite eternal horizon ever unfolding as
> the soul progresses, such is renunciation
> Do we think we can escape sacrifice? As
> easily escape breathing! It is the law of
> life. It is the necessity of choosing. To
> angels there is no such law, as there is no
> free will. But to man is given freedom, a
> soul resolute, daring, created for but one
> effort, th~ effort of will. We are always
> choosing. And every time we cho.ose one
> of two alternatives, we sacrifice the second.
> There is no other way.
> In choosing mundane things we sacrifice
> the spiritual. Very well, if this gives us
> perfect satisfaction, let us forget the soul
> exists, let us surround ourselves with
> objectivity, let us chase illusions. Destiny
> . would deprive none of happiness. But when
> the things about us fail to satisfy, and we
> begin to choose the higher spiritual things,
> is it any sorrow to give up the lower? If it
> were, then were the Universe unjust, then
> were God and Man irreconcilable~ Herein
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 92     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> lies the secret of renunciation, that it gives
> perfect joy. When we choose the things of
> the spirit and sacrifice the things of the
> flesh, it is without one pang of regret or else
> our sacrifice is vain.
> Those who feel that in such sacrifice they
> are losing a possibility of pleasure are not
> ready for this step. For renunciation is not
> sorrowful but joyous.
> The time must come in the growth of the
> soul when all desires are renounced. A
> distinct limit marks the boundaries of
> individualism. So far can its power go, and
> no farther. The greatest genius and the
> most powerful personal will can mould
> events, can apparently dictate the world's
> destiny, for a time. Then the crash comes.
> Let but Jove nod and the proud accomplishments of years tumble down ineffective.
> Humanity should now have reached the
> point of learning that power cannot long
> be employed personally against the supreme
> Universal Will. The greatest characters
> are those who have learned how to submerge themselves in God, how to make
> their wills but channels of the Divine Will.
> 
> •   DiQitlzedbyGoogle
> RENUNCIATION                           93
> 
> Then there is no limit, save infinity, to their
> power of accomplishment and their power
> of growth.
> This earth is about to become again a
> battle-ground between the Divine Forces
> and those who would use their wills for
> personal ends. Men have suddenly awakened to the marvelous powers of the will
> and they amuse themselves like children in
> playing with these powers,-hypnotizing
> others, forcing others to their desires, suggesting subtly their wishes upon others.
> This is the great crime of the Twentieth
> Century. Not physical molestation but
> psychical brutality. Let those who would
> thus assert their personal wills, know that
> the punishment for such a sin equals its
> enormity. God will not tolerate the selfish
> expression of personality. Destruction is
> the karma of all who oppose their wills to
> His.
> But in the New Age who will rule?
> Those who are pure channels of the Divine.
> Those who have submerged their will in the
> One and only Will. Those who have no
> selfish aims and who seek not to attach their
> 
> •                  Digitized by   Google
> 94    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> fellows as slaves to their own personal
> desires.
> Renunciation brings power, but power
> must not be the motive of renunciation.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER VII.
> 
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND A WORLD
> OF FAITH
> 
> T .
> HIS is a world of matter. That such
> is the fact, few would dispute. It
> is the report which all our senses
> bring us, the undeniable truth which forces
> itself upon us in the many catastrophes and
> suffering of life--for all our sorrows are
> caused by this, that the soul has desires to
> which the material world opposes obstacles.
> Aristotle, r,nilleniums ago, resolved life
> into terms of matter and of spirit; and saw
> that all the problems of earthly existence
> arose from the obstinacy, the obdurance,
> and the resisting quality of matter to the
> will of spirit.
> Reflect how matter hems us in on every
> side; how the soul, struggling to express
> itself, fails because it must express itself
> through a medium which resists, often
> perversely it would seem, the effort. to
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 96     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> organize it into terms harmonious with
> spirit.
> The artist has a vision,-but with paints
> and brushes, with fingers too- stiff for the
> task, upon a cold and unresponsive canvass,
> can but poorly reproduce the glory which
> he saw and would make manifest.
> Upon the inner eye of a sculptor is born
> a dazzling dream of beauty, which he can
> show the world,-how? Only by handling
> forá hours and days a form of matter
> which represents the .most material part of
> the earth, its earthy substance. This clay
> he moulds, as well as he may, into a form
> corresponding to his vision. But what a
> poor resemblance I Can clay express the
> soul's fair dreams?
> And even yet his task is not accomplished,
> for in order to express himself in matter he
> has been obliged to use a form of matter
> which, though somewhat fluent and obedient
> to his creative will, is unenduring. Now
> that this task is finished he must begin
> another task,-that of chiselling in marble,
> which is durable, a form similar to that in
> clay. Here he will have achieved something
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH                    97
> 
> that will last and that in a measure
> expresses his ideal. But against what
> difficulties!
> . The sculptor, perspiring' at the gigantic
> task of carving huge blocks of marble into
> forms of spiritual conception, well symbolizes the task the soul confronts when it
> would mould matter to its will.
> The very categories of space and time,
> . without which existeQ.ce here were impossible, are obstacles to the -desires of man.
> We long to be with a friend a thousand
> miles away. If our will is strong enough
> we can accomplish our desire---but at the
> expense of money (which means labor), of
> time, and of annoyance.
> We long to see the world, to explore our
> terrestrial habitation,-but we are confined .
> by birth and circumstances to a little
> country town whose mental vision is no
> broader than its tiny hill-girt horizon.
> Here genius without will would perish like
> a wild beast in a trap. Fortunate that
> genius is synonomous with will, and finds a .
> way, sooner or later, to express itself-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 98     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> though often at the cost of health, reason,
> and perhaps life!
> Even the petty annoyances of life, which
> like the swarming of mosquitoes make
> miserable, our daily round, are seen to rise
> from the perversity of matter. A draft
> upon our backs, a vile smell across the
> street, mud in o~r path, hateful persons
> thrown across our way, bacteriologic guests
> whose presence, uninvited, causes us fever
> and debility and ..enders useless the bodythe only means Uestiny has given the soul
> to express itself with,-all these difficulties
> come from living in a world of matter.
> A Carlyle suffering from dysp'epsia; a
> Nietzsche gone mad; a, Napoleon pacing out
> his grim despair on St. Helena; a Mac-
> Donald dying of starvation because his
> music was too late appreciated; a Hamlet
> placed in the dilemma of perpetual shame
> or of doing that most criminal of human
> acts, a murder,-are not these, at the
> bottom, material tragedies, tragedies which
> would never have existed in a world more
> fluent to the touch of spirit?
> One can conceive of another plane of
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH                     99
> 
> existence, phased in far subtler forms of
> matter qu\ckly responsive to the will, where
> the soul could live in joy and peace, surrounding itself with all that it desires;
> happy in theá midst of love and perfect
> beauty; and creating, by the mere effort of
> the subjective will, entourage and exterior
> expression. Such, the mystic claims, is the
> nature of the world of spirit.
> Why, then, this disparity? ,Why has the
> soul of man been exiled here, in an environ- .
> ment hostile to his inner being, in a material
> world which resists his every effort to
> progress..
> There can be but one answer. It is to
> develop the soul's creative will that it was
> submerged in matter. As the mystic views
> this worldly life it is a vast school, whose
> tasks have but one aim; to strengthen and
> increase the will of man. Every obstacle
> surmounted, every difficulty overcome,
> every ingenious device by which man masters his environment,-magnify within
> him the confidence and power and creative
> greatness of his soul, rendering it akin to
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 100    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> the Divine in its ability to mould matter to
> its will.
> For matter is not really the harsh,
> impossible medium that it would seem.
> Handled by the Divinity itself, it is easily
> fluent to His will, harmonious, obedient,
> joyously evolving into more and more magnificent forms of usefulness and beauty.
> Matter has no terrors for Spirit-because
> Spirit is causal and matter is but its creation
> and its servant.
> As man, then, develops gradually into the
> enjoyment of his spiritual birthright, 'more
> and mor,e will he too be able to control
> matter, to employ it, to dictate to it, and to
> mould it harmoniously to his will.
> First, in his intellectual awakening, by
> means of science and sheer logic, man has
> grappled with Nature and harnessed her in
> a small way to his desires. Modern man
> needs not to be told the marvels of sciencefor he deifies it, worships it, exalts it to a
> place in his heart which God alone should
> hold. But what modern man needs is to be
> told that material science is not all-that as
> an expression and development of the mere
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH 101
> 
> brain of man, itá can never equal the divine
> science of the soul, which has a capacity to
> create to a degree infinitely beyond the
> capacity of reason.
> Let those who doubt this statement file it
> away and hold it in abeyance until some
> strange, inner experience confirms its truth.
> For the spiritual truths are always here,
> but are perceived only by those who see.
> That which causes the greatest confusion
> of the soul towards materialism is the fact
> that the soul is here incarnated, lodged in a
> physical body, surrounded immediately by
> flesh, through whose mediation only does it
> at first become aware of existence. Hence
> the tendency toá confuse Being itself with
> matter, and Spirit with flesh.
> There are many, especially in Western
> countries, who cannot conceive of themselves save in terms of flesh and blood.
> The solidity of limbs and muscles, the
> adaptability of the physical structure to the
> . demands of the will, produce in them the
> feeling that the outer garment is the Self.
> They say, "I am weak," "I am sick,"
> "I have failed,"-when they mean this of
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 102     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> their body. Nowhere is this confusionbetween body and soul so great, or materialism so apparent, as in the phenomenon
> of death. When those who are b610ved die,
> to the materialist they seem to perish
> utterly and be compounded with the soil
> from which they sprung. And in reflecting,
> themselves, upon death, it is the destruction
> of the body that appals them. I know a
> woman whom reflection upon the dread
> decay that Death might 'Cause her fair
> young body drove into despondency and
> neurasthenia.
> The Orient has very little of such materialism, save where European philosophy
> has introduced it. The Arab, Turk, Persian,
> Hindu, do not conceive themselves as
> merely flesh,-nor is Death feared among.
> them-Death, the Cup-bearer of the
> Spheres, as he is poetically called.
> The practice of meditation, in a formal
> . or casual way, is a great means of awakening the soul to a sense of its separateness
> from flesh. The Hindu includes meditation
> among his religious practices-as do also all
> mystic orders among Mohammedans-a
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WPRLD OF MATIER AND FAITH 103
> 
> continuous spiritual concentration which
> lasts from one to three hours at a time. In
> this state the Self is felt to exist apart from
> body. Looking down at one's limbs, one is
> aware of them only by the sense of sight,
> for all other sensation has been merged intoá
> the mystic "Halet" which is the goal of
> dervish and of yogi; and the sight, reporting the existence of this flesh, reports it as
> something separate from the individual
> personality,-an instrument which is now
> asleep but which can be awakened by the
> very will which sent it to sleep, and can be
> made to serve the needs and purposes of the
> personality to which it is attached.
> A more unstudied and less conscious
> form of meditation is instinctively practised by those whose lives are led in open
> spaces-as they gaze across the vastnesses
> of deserts, or the limitless expanse of ocean,
> or looking up at night lose themselves in
> reverie upon the stars and constellations
> studding the midnight sky. Those who live
> close to nature are never intrinsically
> materialistic.
> In Christianity there has been no formal
> 
> Digitized by   Google .
> 104    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> practice of meditation, save in monasticism
> and the mysticism of the Catholic Church.
> When this practice was abandoned by the
> Protestant Church, with it was lost much
> spiritual knowledge and faith; and the seeds
> were sown of that materialism which,
> sweeping over cultured Europe, has produced a Nietzsche and a war in which the
> sotd of man seems for the time to be submerged in animality and blood-lust.
> In Protestanism the nearest we have
> come to the practice of meditation is in the
> thoughtful, concentrated, meditative reading
> of the Bible or of deeply spiritual writings;
> and in prayer. Either of these two practices will develop in the soul a knowledge .
> of its real aloofness from the flesh that
> holds it-a knowledge that matter is not
> master, even here. But without meditation
> in one form or other, I see no possibility of
> gaining the mystic realization. A world
> that is too busy hunting for material comforts to sit down and think, will remain
> enmeshed in the material net,-conscious. of
> nothing save matter expressed in terms of
> beauty, of power, of ugliness, of crime, or of
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH                    105
> 
> death. Life is for such a people a kaleidoscopic spectacle which changes by the
> whims of Destiny into strange and unforeseen patterns; and life's sole aim must
> be to exhaust the pleasure of the present
> moment, if pleasure there be in it. For
> never again will this exact pattern be
> repeated; and some day upon the screen will
> fall, instead of brilliant hues of fairest gems
> serene, the dark sombreness of Death and
> Nothingness.
> There are two movements which have
> arisen within the last generation that have
> greatly awakened the American mind to
> some seJ.:l,se of its separateness from matter.
> These are Hypnotism and ~ Christian
> Science (with its allied and inherited New
> Thought); and strangely enough these
> were at their beginning correlated,-for
> Quimby, through whom Mrs. Eddy derived
> her first ideas of the power of Spirit over
> matter, was himself a delver in hypnotism;
> and it was through the strange phenomena
> of this weird practice rather than from any
> intellectual or spiritual analysis of life that
> Quimby, an uneducated clock-maker~ acci-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 106    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> dentally stumbled upon the most pregnant
> and far-reaching spiritual truth yet discovered in the West-that man's Will has
> actual control over his body, for good or
> evil; and that as man thinks, so is he. Of
> course Christ taught this. But for centuries
> no one believed it, until Christian Science
> demonstrated visibly to incredulous Occidentals the validity of the truth known for
> millenniums to the East,-that spirit is
> causal, and that matter is obedient to the
> Spirit's creative will when scientifically
> asserted. For the knowledge h.ow to rule
> the body by the soul is a sci~iiee, and
> requires deep and concentrated study.
> Orientals have developed this science by
> practices of which I have already spoken.
> During the Japanese War an American
> surgeon operating upon a wounded J apanese general was astounded when the
> patient, refusing to take ether, submitted to
> amputation of a limb without the slightest
> sign of pain. He had, by practices of whic.h..
> he was aware, induced self-hypnotism and
> cut off from that limb all sensation while
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH 107
> 
> retaining consciousness In his higher
> centers.
> The medical profession is now making a
> large and considerable use of suggestion
> but only when forced to do so by its success
> as practised amateurly in cults which this
> same profession derides yet imitates. That
> medicine itself is largely only a form of
> suggestion, Homoeopathy has for some time
> claimed; and the. entering wedge of spiritualism in the gross materialism of physiological psychology and medicine will one
> day cause a split, a cleavage so great
> between the materialist and the mystic in
> , these professions that the common name of
> "Doctor" can no longer hold them together.
> I t seems nothing less than a cosmic
> destiny that has caused so many movements
> toward a spiritual interpretation of matter
> to spring up in Amenca within this last gen-
> . eration. Such influences are bound to bring
> about in time a very different attitude
> toward life than that now current; and to
> make possible a closer "rapprochement"
> between the East and West.
> The East in general cares little for
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 108    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> material things-not enough to strive for
> them; while the West supposes its whole
> salvation to lie in matter. A harmony between these two extremes would constitute
> the attitude of the ide'al world citizen.
> We are placed in a material environment
> for a purpose-that we may learn how to
> overcome it and adjust it to our spiritual
> . needs. At the same time, no amount of
> material progress can bring the world to
> such a state of perfection that the soul of
> man will feel at home in an existence so
> foreign to its nature. It is not the wish of
> Destiny that man should be so absorbed, so
> willingly lost in his material environment,
> . as he now is in Occidental lands. The
> intellectual will can not avail to transform
> the earth into a paradise-for theá simple
> reason that happiness is really a state of
> mind, a condition of the soul in perfect
> harmony with God, and material progr.ess
> of itself can never bring this to pass.
> The true reform should be from within
> outwards, and not the reverse. When the
> soul of man reaches a station of creative
> positiveness, of polar insularity from mat-
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH 109
> 
> ter, it can assert a new environment more
> harmonious, more peaceful, and more
> adapted to its spiritual needs; and not until
> 'man has reached this station of the creator
> can he be called truly Man.
> It is the part of the beast to partake of the
> qualities of his environment. It is the part
> of Man to make environment partake of his
> qualities.         "
> When Abdul Baha was in this country he
> stopped in New York at a hotel where the
> employees were distempered and on the
> verge of a strike, and the guests querulous
> and ill at ease. The spiritual power of his
> mere presence there was so great that
> within a few days harmony and peace
> reigned where altercation had prevailed
> before. This change was so noticeably due
> to Abdul Baha's presence that the manager of the hotel urged him to make it his
> headquarters whenever he was in New
> York.
> Discord cannot exist long within the
> neighborhood of one spiritually adept,-for
> harmony is the power which he radiates;
> and like light scattering the sullen darkness
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> no     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> before it, harmony sent out with the power
> of creative love puts to flight the ineffectual
> rebellious foes of wilfulness and hate.
> When Buddha returned to the world of
> man from his mighty struggle in the Spirit,
> his face shone so that people inquired as to
> the cause; and when he bestowed- the power
> of his new-found truth upon his followers,
> they too went forth with a light upon their
> faces which amazed all men. So the
> majesty of truth spreads, as a glorious light
> sent back from a thousand mirrors, until all
> around shares in the golden sheen.
> A Carpenter two thousand years ago sent
> forth such influence that even now, when
> nations war, the world asks in alarm-eels
> this the will of Christ?" Note that they do
> not ask-"Would Aristotle like this?" So
> great is the power of the spiritual will that
> it affects not only its own times, but the
> times to come; and creates a new environ- '
> ment, not for itself alone, but for the whole
> human race.
> Thus the great teachers of humanity
> come to earth from a more glorious existence; to teach us how to mould this world
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> A WORLD OF MATTER AND FAITH III
> 
> into a likeness to the spiritual kingdom.
> It is to be achieved through and by matter
> rendered obedient to the will of the man.
> Hence the value, in a way, of the materialism of the Occident in asserting and maintaining the importance of material things in
> life. The Oriental mystic would scatter to
> the winds the bonds of flesh that bind him,
> and "freely on the air of heaven ride"-
> paying no attention to the very tasks and
> lessons for which his soul was incarnated;
> while the Occident, with a more solid sense
> of things, expends his efforts in an endeavor
> to re-form the matter in the midst of which
> he exists.
> We cannot neglect matter and condemn
> it thus to oblivion. Jt will up and at us in
> -spite of a too idealistic denial of its existence. India may. assert the illusion of
> sense-but it perishes physically, nevertheless, to the number of millions yearly from
> the attack of that very matter which it
> denies and which becomes more foul and
> hostile from such denial and neglect.
> The West has not so far to go as one
> might think to attain perfection. It need
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 112    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> not undo its achievements of the past. It
> is not required of the West to raze its
> material structures to the ground and begin
> again at the bare level of material discomfort in which the Orient exists. All has its
> place. The function of the Occident has
> been to blaze new trails by means of science
> toward "that Promised Land of which all
> dream,-the Kingdom of God on earth, or
> in other words a condition of existence
> staged in this inferior plane of matter
> which shall nevertheless reflect somewhat
> of the happiness and the glory of the
> Supreme Concourse.
> I do not condemn the West. It has
> achieved much. But not until it goes at its
> task with more enlightenment and with
> the perception that spiritual means" alone
> suffice to "remould the world to its desire,"
> shall we attain the Golden Age in which
> a world of matter has become a world of
> faith.
> 
> •
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER VIII.
> 
> THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE
> 
> No          religion can be universal, and
> no character approximate perfection, save where love rules. There
> are many spiritual qualities, but love binds
> them all together; and with love absent the
> proudest edifices of the soul's building fall
> into disintegration.
> The negative of love is selfishness, and
> selfishness is at enmity with God-the only
> evil in the universe, the devil which lurks
> within each one of us, seeking to destroy.
> Not all of the great world religions
> equally emphasize the necessity of love. Of
> them all, the Krishna sect of Brahmanism,
> Buddhism, and Christianity have most
> exalted love. Hindu theology, in its symbol
> of the cosmic germ "tapas," expresses the
> mystic doctrine that God loved the world
> into being. Or again "Purusha," the Man-
> God, gave his body for a sacrifice of love
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 114    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> that out of it the universe with all its
> inhabitants might be formed.
> The overwhelming force of love, its burning fire, its power to create, make it the
> most divine gift bestowed on man. Primitive
> races feel this truth and make a sacrament
> of . sex. Herein lies a glory, a mystery
> which they would deify. Is it a low ideal?
> Only to those who conceive it so. Better
> such a star to guide-near to passion
> t.hough it be-than the cold etherial depths
> of darkness o~t from which burst forth the
> golden egg, existence.
> God created man and placed in him the
> wondrous spark of life; and, marvel of all
> marvels, gave him too the power of creating
> life. Shall not the heart sing in ecstacy at
> this power of creation?á
> But so long as man perceives in himself
> only the forces of physical propulsion,
> forces destined by the Divine to populate
> theá earth,-so long is he a mere slave to
> nature, exploited by her for far-reaching
> ends, himself an infinitesimal unit in the
> ma~~ of bei~g. .Not until a new percepti(>n
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE                      lIS
> 
> and a new meaning of Love dawns upon
> him, does he attain his spiritual estate.
> The lotus of love, though its roots lie in
> the mire of passion, lifts its blossoms to the
> face of heaven. This is the love which
> Krishna, which Buddha, which Christ
> taught the world. Not the love that poets
> sing of, glorious though that be.
> Listen! Buddha said, "As a mother at
> the risk of her life watches over her child,
> her only child, turn thou with compassionate heart toward all mankind."
> This is a higher thing than sex-Iove,-
> though the Teacher, trying to explain it,
> was obliged to draw his figure from the
> sex-life. Mother love, initiated by the sex
> act, but at the Mount of Transfiguration
> uplifted from the earth,-this love, most
> selfless of all earthly loves, would Buddha
> have us give to all mankind.
> Here is a task fit for Man to cope witha task which only spiritually regenerate
> man can achieve. . How is it possible to
> bestow upon all our fellow. beings the burning love which in the mother springs from
> the creative act?
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> u6     THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> It is only possible as we become creators,
> not in clay, but in infinite compassion.
> Think you that those waves of love, surging
> from a Buddha's bosom, die ineffective?
> Ah! could one but have the spiritual vision
> to trace those waves of love; to see' them
> spread out upon the ocean of existence; to
> see them flood every human bay and inlet
> with their tidal force,-then would one
> realize what a power is love!
> "As a mother loves her child, her only
> child"; or as Christ puts it, "Turn thy heart
> to God, and with that love with which He
> endows thee,á turn a brimful heart to every
> ~eighbor."
> This is no meek, mild trifle such as pious
> men are wont to impugn to the Christ.
> Lamb of God, yes! But Lion of God, too J
> "And the lamb shall lie down with the
> lion." Twain and inseparable, these qaalities in the truly spiritual man, loveendowed, heart-bursting, partner' with God
> in creating cosmos out of chaos.
> How were it possible for the Divine to
> trust mankind with such creative power,
> save by attaching it to love? Were one
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE DOCfRINE OF LOVE                       117
> 
> able to create by any other power,-man,
> prone to selfishness as the bat to darkness,
> would use his powers for separative aims,
> and like Lucifer, Sun of the Morning, deem
> himself equal with God!
> But love seeks no equality-vaunts not
> itself-craves nothing but in union to lose
> selfhood! I-t is the undying impulse in man
> to die unto himself. ,Between these two
> forces, the centripetal desire to live.. and the
> centrifugal desire to, in love, expire, spins
> the universe upon its spiritual course.
> There is no thought of self in love! There
> is no seeking to acquire! Only theá great
> longing to give out, the bursting of a heart
> that is full, as the golden Egg of the Vedas
> burst forth into the radiance of stars and
> solar systems.
> Selfishness cannot create. Its only aim
> is to absorb,-as the sponge would fill itself
> with water; as the octopus, thousandtentacled, would draw all to it. But from
> the depths of such sea-dankness, lift thine
> eyes unto the sun! Ever-conveying, propelling by some strange inner power its
> fire-rays out into space, that where they
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 118    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> strike inert matter, light and heat and
> life spring up,--of such is the nature of true
> love and such its power to create.
> Love is the golden thread that joins the
> heart of man to God. Else were religion a
> thing of mere form and of no consequence!
> Religion which is without love is no religion and souls that hide themselves from
> these rays cease to grow.
> Similarly love unites man with m~LD.
> The same love which one feels toward the
> Divine, one can divinely feel toward fellow
> men. And this is the only way in which
> one can love all creatures. .For. some men,
> nay, most of. men, are unlovable, and. can...
> not in themselves awake in us' the spark of
> love. It is rather for us to bestow, Unostri
> voluntatis," upon all we meet, agreeable or
> disagreeable, somewhat of that warmth of
> love which God has planted in us. To bear
> with all people~ even when they are unbear:-
> able, is the gift and power only of the
> spiritual love. This is a compassion which
> a Christ must die to show the world-else
> the world had known it not.
> Folly of the philosophers, to claim that
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE                      119
> 
> ideals are self-evolved!' Never, in centuries
> or in millenniums, would humanity of its
> own inherent nature have evolved the concept of divine, forgiving love. It is human
> to love all who are lovable and to hate all
> who are unlovable,-and this is' as far as
> humanity, unaided, could ever have traveled. The love that pardons all, nay, that
> would even lose' ibelf 'to save a world in
> sin, this' is not the love of man but the love
> of God.' And the mystery of all religion,
> the secret of spiritual evolution, is that man
> may receive and cultivate the divine 'love.
> And the glory' and the beauty of the law of
> love is' that from the human~ selfish love
> may blossom love divme.
> Is it wrong humanly to love all- who are
> lovable? Nay, it is the beginning of the
> path that leads to God. Not to destroy, not
> to annihilate the human love, but to transform it irtto the greater power: that is the
> way the mystic walks.
> Asceticism is false doctrine. It is not the
> way of life. Not emptiness of life but more
> abundance is what the Great Ones come to
> teach us. Not to love less, but to love
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 120    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> more; not to starve. the affections but to
> direct them; not to stultify one's sex but to
> command its powers so as to transcend the
> lower needs,-this is the way of wisdom;
> and every other way leads but to starvation
> and decay.
> See how nature grows and expands,
> normally, joyously, by means of love! And
> the same laws which guide the material
> world correspondingly guide the world of
> spirit. It is just as glorious and joyous a
> process to grow spiritually as to grow
> physically, just as normal, just as happy a
> partaking of the treasuries of life.
> Beware of any teaching which imposes
> limitation, deprivation, denial of the wealth
> of life; for it is a teaching that leads to
> pride and selfishness, strange though this
> statement may appear. It is the way of
> magic and delusion,-a will,..o'-the-wisp
> that, beckoning to Power, brings in the end
> Annihilation.
> Of all the mystic doctrines to which the
> Orient has given birth, none is more
> beautiful or more true than the doctrine
> of Sufiism,-áthat the soul, through earthly
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> á THE DOCfRINE OF LOVE                      121
> 
> loves, learns how to find the love divine.
> Born in Persia, a strange by-product of
> Islam, it has deeply permeated India,
> reflecting itself even to this day in the songofferings of Tagore.
> Not to condemn sex love, but to expand
> it and transmute it, till it is naught but
> pure star-dust and God-heat! God loved
> the worlds into being. The warmth of
> sacrifice, the ruddy power of creative love,
> in man is associated with sex. Starve the
> sex and you starve love itself. Shut the soul
> o~ from sex and you shut it off from life
> and growth. To remove sex would solve
> every problem of life-'-yes! by bringing
> death!. To give sex to man is to bestow a
> gift so potential, so dangerous, that only
> a God dare do it; but it is the gift of life
> itself, "and not to bestow it were to refrain
> from creation.
> Not, then, how can we conquer sex, but
> how can we use it; not to obliterate but to
> employ greatly; notá to despise but to
> reverence; not to fear but heroically to
> master the one power in us that makes us
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 122    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> partners in creation,-this is the truth the
> mystic knows.
> All religions teach Divine Love, but none
> to-day practise it so extensively as Christianity. True, Buddhism in its prime had
> hospitals and widespreadá charity; was kind
> to animals; and under its first king Asoka,
> refrained, in the name of God, from war-
> 'a development of international ethics to
> which Christianity ,itself has not yet
> reached. It is further true, that China,
> partly through the' influence of Buddhism,
> has been one of the most peaceful nations
> known to history. Yet China, itself, is
> guilty to-day of the most fiendish practices
> of ,cruelty toward criminals or towar4
> political offenders. To inflict mere death
> upon the victim is of no satisfaction to
> bri~ntal malignity. Tortures worse than
> the Inquisition have been invented by the
> subtle Chinese mind to prolong the agony .
> of death. This same barbaric cruelty is
> practised from the waters of the Pacific to
> the Golden Horn, throughout the vast
> extent of Asia, and wherever Ori~ntalism
> holds 'sway.
> 
> ...   '.
> Digitized by   Google
> THE DOcrRINE OF LOVE                        123
> 
> In more passive forms Oriental cruelty
> shows itself in the stoicism with which one
> can die or watch others die. Famine and
> pestilence sweep away their millions-while
> the survivors go about their daily life with
> an apathy impossible to Western people.
> This indifference to death and. to physical
> suffering is in part due to the philosophy of
> the Far East as regards existence-that it
> is a continuous round~ the soul being born
> and reborn till it is purged of evil. Suffering
> is the result of sin; either in this or in past
> lives; and only by suffering can the sin be
> expiated. Since it is useless to interfere
> in the destiny of others, why concern ourselves with the suffering of those about us
> who through suffering are mounting the
> path towards God? Infinite bliss, infinite
> joy, comes not in this life, but lies at the
> end of existence itself, in Nirvana, the goal
> towards which all Being tends.
> Orientalism, plunged into the pessimism
> of a sad old age, conceives this world as
> essentially one of tears and sadness. Only
> through knowledge of life's illusion can
> one escape life and reach Nirvana. Only
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 124    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> through suffering can one acquire knowledge. Therefore die or let die-it matters
> not.
> Into this fog of apathetic pessimism
> Christianity, essentially the religion of
> young, exuberant races, blows a fresh
> breath of hope and love and service. True,
> this is a world of tears-but it is our duty,
> in Christ, to make it less so. Not only of
> Heaven as an infinitely distant goal does the
> Christian dream-but of a finite tiny replica
> of Heaven established here below, the Kingdom of God on earth. This is the healthiest,
> the sanest, and the most virile note that
> religion has yet struck. Something to work
> for here and DOW. Something to inspire
> service. Some hope of progress. toward
> infinite improvement in the art of living.
> Some vision of a Golden Age, not past but
> coming to the world.
> And the means of this achievement lie in
> Love.     Brotherly love, connubial love,
> parental love, neighborly love, social love,
> inter-racial love, and the love of God,-all
> combine to form a chord the richness of
> which, rising in crescendo, outvies the songs
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> THE DOCTRINE OF .LOVE                      125
> 
> of angels and the music of the spheres.
> For iná human love lies the power of creation, denied even to angels and the rulers of
> the stars.
> Not that other religions have not taught
> Love: but Christianity practises it as never
> it was practised before. To the power of
> the lowly Nazarene how many hospitals and
> asylums, how many schools and colleges,
> how many institutions for the happiness and
> betterment of mankind bear witness!
> Let the East copy! Not. elsewise can
> it achieve true civilization. If we have
> much to learn from the East she has still
> this to learn from us,-the power of love.
> Without it all other gifts are vain, are
> tinkling cymbals, as Paul said. For other
> spiritual qualities, gained through wise
> effort of the will, without love lead to pride
> and the death of the soul. The young Occi-
> . dent, naive and simple-minded, humbly
> expressing the love taught by Christ in
> social service, has forged ahead of the East,
> old in wisdom, where the fallen are left by
> the roadside and the path of spiritual knowledge has become the path of pride.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 126á    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> Of even further reaches of the Love Divine,
> the mystic dare not speak except in symbols.
> That union with the Universal which is the
> very essence of mysticism, is expressed in
> terms suggestive of sex love merely because
> sex love is the highest, deepest, most exstatic, and most satisfying love known to
> man. Were man's experience along the
> spiritual path greater, he would not need
> to be taught these truths in such a faltering, unclear language. For. no words at
> man's disposal can express how infinitely
> the .love of the Divine transcends the highest love that flesh is heir to.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> CHAPTER IX.
> 
> NIRVANA
> 
> S     ALVATION is the goal of most religions; but just what is understood by
> -such a term depends upon the theological concepts of the time and place.
> In India it is salvation from rebirth that
> is sought. In this world of sorrow life is not
> a boon, but a sad necessity to which -our_
> ignorance and illusions compel us. Wisdom and enlightenment give release not only
> from sorrow but from the wheel of life
> itself, around which turn in continual
> bondage the souls of those who are not
> saved. Freedom from existence means entrance to Nirvana; and Nirvana means not
> extinction, as many Western critics claim,
> but infinite bliss. In Nirvana the Brahman
> has a lofty conception, not of mere negation
> but of spiritual perfection.
> For the Occidental, who is not as capable
> of grasping metaphysical abstractions as is
> the Hindu, some simpler conception must
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 128    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> suffice. Heaven, then, as a concrete
> locality of joy and bliss, is the goal
> toward which he aims; and the loss of
> Heaven is that from which he seeks salvation. How can he assure himself of an
> eternal destiny of spiritual joy and progress? This is the aim of the Christian,
> and all the practices of his religion have
> been mainly toward this end.
> As to by ~hat methods one can be saved,
> whether by baptism, confession of faith,
> good acts, total immersion, acceptance of
> the sacrificial atonement of a Christ,-these
> things are all a matter of creed and rite, not
> of metaphysics; and it is not our purpose
> here to try to reconcile the irreconcilable, or
> to harmonize the outward and so varying
> forms of world religions.
> But what is its esoteric meaning? Does the
> word "salvation," so distasteful to educated
> and eclectic ears, contain a germ of spiritual
> reality? It would indeed seem that a concept of such influence and inspiration in the
> spiritual life of millions upon millions
> throughout centuries of thought, must
> stand for some reality.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> NIRVANA                         129
> 
> From what, then, are we to be saved, be It
> not from the domination of Nature into
> which we are born as incarnated earthly
> bodies? And to what does salvation initiate
> us, unless it be to that state of spiritual
> existence which constitutes a round of evolution altogether distinct and separate from
> the evolution of the flesh?
> The mystic knows that even in the midst
> of the material world another world exists
> where all is fair and beautiful; that into
> this strange, unseen world only those may
> enter of pure hearts and God-like spirits;
> that once born into this world, growth goes
> on as in the world of matter and the spirit
> progresses according to eternal Laws 6f
> Destiny which know no favorites and which
> condemn none who condemn not themselves.
> áBut how can one discover this undiscoverable abode of bliss? How penetrate the
> arcana of the spirit? The way is not
> apparent to t~e eye of flesh; neither can
> carnate feet advance upon the path. To
> enter here, to become an inhabitant of thisá
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 1.30   THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> super-world, is and has been the goal ot
> mysticism since the human race began.
> To the mystic nothing else seems of importance. Dearly as he values life, he
> esteems it to be of little worth compared to
> this. Possessions, emoluments, office,-
> those are playthings which amuse childman; they are not necessary appurtenances
> of the soul.
> To discover this world of spirit is to
> achieve the utmost which life can offer.
> Beside such success all other successes pale.
> to insignificance. He who knew theá privilege of living in this Kingdom, Christ has
> told us, would sell all his possessions for itand he would search as one searched for
> life itself, to discover the secret portals.
> So highly does Destiny desire for us this
> success, that to train us for it she would
> sacrifice upon her altar all our earthly
> happiness, our material possessions, nay,
> the lives of friends, kindred, and the most
> dearly beloved of earthly beings. From
> those whose time has come for spiritual
> awakening all earthly treasures fiee, every
> seeming garment vanishes, until the soul is
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> NIRVANA                          13 1
> 
> left n~kedbef~re its niaker as in the day of
> Creation.
> •_-Then Destiny brings out new and glori6u~'
> ~ainient, fit 'fdr -áthe soul's initia.tion- into
> bliss. ,- And garbed in purity and light, upheld on either'side by angels of -lowliness
> and 'love, the spirit of man 'enters into:
> Salvation and dwells forever after in eter':'
> nity, though it live as yet in earthly body.
> .. Think not that Immortality comes after
> living, or that death is sufficient ,to usher
> one- into its abodes. Et~rnity does not
> begin where earthly life leaves off, for
> eternity is infinity itself -and neithe'r begins
> nQr ends. It is a state of being; and he who
> has not perceived its values while still
> illusioned in earth-senses, will not be born in
> spirit-land with a capacity to see.
> That is why it is so vitally important to
> achieve salvation here and now. -That is
> why the earnest Christian would sacrifice:
> life itself to save a souL: It is the quintes-'
> sence of religion, the- one good fortune' that
> can befall man. The mystic, oniy, sees it as
> such. - That is 'Why he longs unspeakably to_
> open: people's eyes, to tear'the veils asunder,'
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 132    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> to awaken men to the glories that lie before
> them. But human language does not suffice, nor finite thoughts capacitate, to unfold
> this mystery. Each must tread the pa~h
> himself. Each must face the weary round
> of life, until from very weariness one gives
> up the quest for joy in terms of matter. To
> him for whom the physical is all-glorious
> the mystic can say nothing. Christ himself
> could never heal of this myopia, until men
> craved for healing.
> Since we are all possessors of free will,
> partners with the Divine in this respect,
> Destiny must take its course; and each soul
> must work out in fear and trembling its
> individual salvation.
> Both in Christian and in Brahmin theology the term "twice-born" is used to
> denote those who not only share in common
> with others the exoteric rites of their religion;- but who, by some inner spiritual
> processes, are born again, so to speak,-born
> this time into a spiritual kingdom.
> In India there is current the symbol of a
> bird's evolution from the egg. Once it is
> born as the egg leaves the mother; yet what
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> NIRVANA                          133
> 
> a feeble, cribbed existence is that which
> the destined soarer-int9-heaven's-blue leads
> within its shell! Not until a further
> development goes on and the bird ling,
> arriving at the full potentiality of life,
> breaks through the shell to its real freedom,
> can it be said to live at all,-to be really
> that for which nature destined it.
> So with man. "Verily, man is not called
> man, until he hath put on the attributes of
> God. He is not worthy of the name Man
> merely because of wealth, adornment, learning or refinement~"_ That. is to say, unspiritual man, as yet confined within t!te
> prison walls of self, is as unfree and as little
> conscious of his real being as the unhatched
> bird is in its thin shell. Only when he bursts
> through sense-illusion and is born again,
> this time into light and life, can he be said to
> ábe partaker of reality.
> Either the mystic's claim is true, or it is
> not. Either the founders of religion are trying to describe to us an actual state of being
> -the only, to them, essential state of being;
> or they are self-deluded, psycopathic
> dreamers, whose teachings deserve to be
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 134    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> ridiculed. There is no half-way ground.
> For the whole tenor and portent of                 a
> prophet's teaching lies in this very point,-.
> the mystery of soul in' matter, and the
> possibility of the incarnated soul risi~
> superior to matter.
> The glory of man lies in his potentiality
> of becoming; in his hope of attaining to
> God-consciousness. Otherwise he is but a
> higher type of animal, subject to nature's
> laws and a slave to his environment. Men
> differ from animals not in intelligence-for
> animals too have that-but in spiritual
> capacity, in the possibility of rebirth, of
> entering the Kingdom.
> I t follows also from these premises, that
> intelligence can not suffice to lead the soul
> to heaven. To the intellect there are distinct bounds and limits. It will carry man
> to the height of refinement, of quickness of
> physical and mental perception; but it will
> never of itself convey those spirit~al truths
> and kindle that inner flame which is to light
> the soul on its way through the darkness of
> materia1is~.
> Mere intellect without spirituality breeds
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> NIRVANA                          135
> 
> pride, and pride is the greatest deceiver of
> man. He who surrounds himself with an
> edifice of pride dwells therein safely, for a
> time, ensconced from the storms of doubt;
> until some day a terrible cataclysm of the
> soul rends the walls, and they fall, like the
> House of Usher, into the dark tarn of
> ignorance from which they rose. For pride
> ever builds upon ignorance and hides itself
> froni the highways of the soul.
> The greatest scholar may be further off
> from God than the meanest peasant. Christ
> has said so, and history has proved it. It
> matters not to me that in this age of materialistic knowledge thinkers scoff at mysticism; it matters not that behind their
> barricades of doubt they would prevent the
> spiritual cohorts from advancing to the City
> of God. They shall in due time know their
> weakness; and they shall inevitably succumb. For the soul that opposes the Divine"
> has as little chance of succeeding in rebellion
> as an infant in its mother's arms.
> It is not without reason that the Saviours
> of the world teach men they must become
> again as children. In the realms of spirit
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 136    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> there is no place for the rebellious soul, for
> the proud or haughty, the unbending, the
> self-conceited, the overbearing. The qualities of a child-its sweetness of submission;
> its happy faith and dependence on a parent's
> care; its naive trust in things, based not
> upon knowledge but upon spiritual perception,-these are also the qualities of the
> spiritual initiate.
> And as the infant owes its birth to love,
> so spiritual man owes his new birth to t1'!e
> dawn of a new love,-a flame consuming his
> very being until it leaves naught there but
> God. "To love the Lord thy God with all
> thy heart and with all thy soul and with all
> thy mind,"-this is the inevitable condition.
> Bu~ how can man love God, whom he has
> never seen? How can love, which feeds
> upon concretion, exist for that which is
> abstract and distant? How can the finite
> be attached to Infinity, or the creature reach
> union with the Creator?
> Herein lies the deepest, the most sacred
> mystery of life. Religion can explain it butá
> dimly. The mind conceives it not, but the
> heart knows. This is the wings with which
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> NIRVANA                          137
> 
> the Brahmin flies, the. hymn the Christian
> sings, the golden light of "Bhakti" which
> has infused every great religion. Not adherence to ethical abstractions, not acceptance
> of metaphysical dogmas,-but devotion to a
> Living Personality; yes, worship of a Love
> gloriously impersonal, this is the road to
> Salvation.
> "Bhakti," or religion of personal devotion,
> is repulsive to th~ intellect of man, offends
> his pride, casts down his vanity, vitiates his
> eclecticism, and deprives him apparently of
> that freedom of will with which Destiny, in
> giving him reason, has endowed him. But
> so, and only so, love must come. What
> room is there for reason in the heart that
> bursts with love? The lover who' loves so
> coldly as to analyze is lost. Love asks for
> no reasons; like beauty it is content to be.
> In its very ecstasy lies a sufficiency of logic.
> For reason has never impelled man as love
> has; and knowledge has never looked with
> so fair a face upon the world as looks the
> blood-hued rose unfolding by the roadside.
> So the truly spiritual man, whose heart
> sings as sings the heart of a woman who has
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 138    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> put her house in order and awaits her dear
> lord, walks daily in company with the
> Friend; and climbs the heights to Union
> undazzled, unafraid, sublimely unconscious
> of his greatness in being near to God.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> . CHAPTER X.
> THE NEED OF A UNIVERSAL REUGION
> 
> T
> .
> .
> HOUGH commerce and cultural ex~
> change should bring the ends of
> the world together, East will not
> meet West in love and confidence till they
> are joined by the ties of a common religion.
> For it is in and by means of these spiritual
> ties, so deep seated in a race or an individual, that real union takes place. With
> everything else in common, diversity of religion opposes an insurmountable barrier to
> mutual confidence.
> It would seem that the time were near for
> a world religion, uniting all races and creeds
> in a common worship. Though the outward forms of religion differ as widely as
> the minds and temperaments of men, yet
> the inner spiritual truths are the same for
> all ages, for all races, and for all persons.
> There is but one commandment necessary
> for the world, "Love the Lord thy God with
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 140    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> all thy soul and with all thy mind; and love
> thy neighbor as thyself."
> I t makes no difference by what name the
> Creator passes, whether He is called Allah,
> or Buddha, or Jehovah. His essence does not
> change,-and love for Him is one and the
> same, whether it be born in Christian heart,
> or in Mohammedan or Buddhist breast.
> Does not the world's gold pass as equal
> currency no matter what the name stamped
> on it? It is the smallness of men's minds,
> not the nature of spirituality, that causes
> religion to be divided into separate and
> hostile formulas. At the bottom, religion is
> one and the same thing for Jew and Christian, Brahmin, Moslem and Confucianist.
> The writings of the. mystics reveal this
> unity. In the tender rhapsodies of a Kabir
> are to be found the same searchings after
> God as in the joyous utterances of St.
> Francis, or the deep spiritual love of the
> Sufi mystics. Watered on different soils the
> rose-bush bears a different tinted blossom,
> but its perfume and its heart are ever one.
> As men in different climes and races
> reach more deeply into life and find that
> 
> . Digitized by   Google
> NEED OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION                    lotI
> 
> nearness to God which is the quintessence of religion, they become too universal
> to be contented with man-made creeds or
> dogmas. The mystic is an antinomian, because he permits no man to make laws for
> • him, or to regulate his approach to the
> Divine. These mystics, of whatever race or
> whatever religion, are brothers and recognize the family relationship. For do not
> their features conform more and more;
> daily, to the Divine Image and Ideal?
> The nearer man gets to God, the better
> he can dispense with benefit of clergy.
> Does he need to be exhorted, whose heart is
> already aflame with the celestial fire? Or
> can he be taught of man, who is led by the
> Spirit? If the mystic conforms to outer
> religion it is from courtesy and kindness,
> and as a sign of outward reverence, so to
> speak, to the Great Being before whom he
> daily and hourly bows in the sanctified
> chapel of his own heart.
> The only possible universal religion, then,
> must needs be a religion of the inner life;
> a religion comprising te essential truths of
> all the world's spiritual teaching; a religion
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 142    THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> of work and efficiency; a religiori of pl"ayer.
> and mysticism.                        .
> The qualities of :spiritual man I have tried
> to outline in the precedingáchapters.' One
> who livedá a life embodying these truths
> would soon cease to care whether he were
> called Christianá or Hebrew or Máohammeá
> dan. To him aU sacred books would furá
> nish food of .the spirit, and his prayers
> would ascend to God in loving unison with
> the prayers of all who loved God.
> . The time will come, and now is, when                all
> who worship God must worship him in
> spirit and in. truth; when. the world will 'be
> divided, not i~to hostile groups of' nominal
> Christians and Buddhists and Moslems, but
> into the two great and unapproacha.ble
> divisions of those- who love God and' those
> who do not.
> How blinded are men's eyes, that they
> look so hostilely at other' worshipers of God!
> Did they but have the Divine Ray within
> their hearts, they would perceive their
> brothers in God, out. of whatsoever faces
> that Ray shone.
> There must be, and.there will be, brother-.
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> NEED OF A UNIVERSAL REUGION 143
> 
> hood among all who turn to God. But there
> can never be a bond of union between those
> who love God and those who hate Him, for
> all who are not with Him are against Him.
> We need again .. rough fiery prophets to
> preach retribution and destruction to man
> in order to do away with the supercilious
> eclecticism which characterizes this agethe cultured. tolerance and resolute indifference to what' concerns man's ultimate happiness. I t is no concern to you that your
> neighbor loves not God? Will you go and
> sojourn in a land of evil, and try to conform
> to its usages? You who bear the name of
> Christ-man and deny Christ daily,-know
> you not that Earth hates you? and that
> Destiny, patient to the last, has at last become impatient of you?
> A thousand trumpet calls are heard, enlisting the cohorts of Truth against the
> cohorts of Falsehood, of Evil, and of Carnality. Choose your ranks well and quickly,
> for the day is not far off when the evilminded shall no longer dwell at peace and
> ease in God's world. How will ye be found
> when the Master of the Vineyard comes?
> 
> Digitized by   Google
> 144   THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM
> 
> Look round about you, people of perception, and withdraw your garments from
> contact with those who deny God. There
> can be but one Religion on earth, and that
> religion none may share who know not God.
> SELAH I
> 
> Digitized by   Google
>
> — *The Essential Mysticism (Used by permission of the curator)*