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The
Search for Pleasure
The Mystery of Threshhold
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The Search for Pleasure
I
We
are all acquainted with that stern thing called misery, which
pursues man, and strangely enough, as it seems at first, pursues
him with no vague or uncertain method, but with a positive and
unbroken pertinacity. Its presence is not absolutely continuous,
else man must cease to live; but its pertinacity is without any
break.
There
is always the shadowy form of despair standing behind man ready
to touch him with its terrible finger if for too long he finds
himself content. What has given this ghastly shape the right
to haunt us from the hour we are born until the hour we die?
What has given it the right to stand always at our door, keeping
that door ajar with its impalpable yet plainly horrible hand,
ready to enter at the moment it sees fit?
The
greatest philosopher that ever lived succumbs before it at last;
and he only is a philosopher, in any sane sense, who recognizes
the fact that it is irresistible, and knows that like all other
men he must suffer soon or late. It is part of the heritage of
men, this pain and distress; and he who determines that nothing
shall make him suffer, does but cloak himself in a profound and
chilly selfishness. This cloak may protect him from pain; it
will also separate him from pleasure. If peace is to be found
on earth, or any joy in life, it cannot be by closing up the
gates of feeling, which admit us to the loftiest and most vivid
part of our existence.
Sensation,
as we obtain it through the physical body, affords us all that
induces us to live in that shape. It is inconceivable that any
man would care to take the trouble of breathing, unless the act
brought with it a sense of satisfaction. So it is with every
deed of every instant of our life. We live because it is pleasant
even to have the sensation of pain. It is sensation we desire,
else we would with one accord taste of the deep waters of oblivion,
and the human race would become extinct. If this is the case
in the physical life, it is evidently the case with the life
of the emotions, - the imagination, the sensibilities, all those
fine and delicate formations which, with the marvelous recording
mechanism of the brain, make up the inner or subtile man. Sensation
is that which makes their pleasure; an infinite series of sensations
is life to them. Destroy the sensation which makes them wish
to persevere in the experiment of living, and there is nothing
left.
Therefore
the man who attempts to obliterate the sense of pain, and who
proposes to maintain an equal state whether he is pleased or
hurt, strikes at the very root of life, and destroys the object
of his own existence. And that must apply, so far as our present
reasoning or intuitive powers can show us, to every state, even
to that of the Oriental's longed-for Nirvana. This condition
can only be one of infinitely subtiler and more exquisite sensation,
if it is a state at all, and not annihilation; and according
to the experience of life from which we are at present able to
judge, increased subtility of sensation means increased vividness,
- as, for instance, a man of sensibility and imagination feels
more in consequence of the unfaithfulness or faithfulness of
a friend than can a man of even the grossest physical nature
feel through the medium of the senses. Thus it is clear that
the philosopher who refuses to feel, leaves himself no place
to retreat to, not even the distant and unattainable Nirvanic
goal. He can only deny himself his heritage of life, which is
in other words the right of sensation. If he chooses to sacrifice
that which makes him man, he must be content with mere idleness
of consciousness, - a condition compared to which the oyster's
is a life of excitement.
But
no man is able to accomplish such a feat. The fact of his continued
existence proves plainly that he still desires sensation, and
desires it in such positive and active form that the desire must
be gratified in physical life. It would seem more practical not
to deceive one's self by the sham of stoicism, not to attempt
renunciation of that with which nothing would induce one to part.
Would it not be a bolder policy, a more promising mode of solving
the great enigma of existence, to grasp it, to take hold firmly
and to demand of it the mystery of itself? If men will but pause
and consider what lessons they have learned from pleasure and
pain, much might be guessed of that strange thing which causes
these effects. But men are prone to turn away hastily from self-study,
or from any close analysis of human nature. Yet there must be
a science of life as intelligible as any of the methods of the
schools. The science is unknown, it is true, and its existence
is merely guessed, merely hinted at, by one or two of our more
advanced thinkers. The development of a science is only the discovery
of what is already in existence; and chemistry is as magical
and incredible now to the ploughboy as the science of life is
to the man of ordinary perceptions. Yet there may be, and there
must be, a seer who perceives the growth of the new knowledge
as the earliest dabblers in the experiments of the laboratory
saw the system of knowledge now attained evolving itself out
of nature for man's use and benefit.
II
Doubtless
many more would experiment in suicide, as many now do, in order
to escape from the burden of life, if they could be convinced
that in that manner oblivion might be found. But he who hesitates
before drinking the poison from the fear of only inviting change
of mode of existence, and perhaps a more active form of misery,
is a man of more knowledge than the rash souls who fling themselves
wildly on the unknown, trusting to its kindliness. The waters
of oblivion are something very different from the waters of death,
and the human race cannot become extinct by means of death while
the law of birth still operates. Man returns to physical life
as the drunkard returns to the flagon of wine, - he knows not
why, except that he desires the sensation produced by life as
the drunkard desires the sensation produced by wine. The true
waters of oblivion lie far behind our consciousness, and can
only be reached by ceasing to exist in that consciousness, -
by ceasing to exert the will which makes us full of senses and
sensibilities.
Why
does not the creature man return into that great womb of silence
whence he came, and remain in peace, as the unborn child is at
peace before the impetus of life has reached it? He does not
do so because he hungers for pleasure and pain, joy and grief,
anger and love. The unfortunate man will maintain that he has
no desire for life; and yet he proves his words false by living.
None can compel him to live; the galley-slave may be chained
to his oar, but his life cannot be chained to his body. The superb
mechanism of the human body is as useless as an engine whose
fires are not lit, if the will to live ceases, - that will which
we maintain resolutely and without pause, and which enables us
to perform the tasks which otherwise would fill us with dismay,
as, for instance, the momently drawing in and giving out of the
breath. Such herculean efforts as this we carry on without complaint,
and indeed with pleasure, in order that we may exist in the midst
of innumerable sensations.
And
more; we are content, for the most part, to go on without object
or aim, without any idea of a goal or understanding of which
way we are going. When the man first becomes aware of this aimlessness,
and is dimly conscious that he is working with great and constant
efforts, and without any idea towards what end those efforts
are directed, then descends on him the misery of nineteenth-century
thought. He is lost and bewildered, and without hope. He becomes
sceptical, disillusioned, weary, and asks the apparently unanswerable
question whether it is indeed worth while to draw his breath
for such unknown and seemingly unknowable results. But are these
results unknowable? At least, to ask a lesser question, is it
impossible to make a guess as to the direction in which our goal
lies? III
This
question, born of sadness and weariness, which seems to us
essentially part of the spirit of the nineteenth century, is
in fact a question which must have been asked all through the
ages. Could we go back throughout history intelligently, no
doubt we should find that it came always with the hour when
the flower of civilization had blown to its full, and when
its petals were but slackly held together. The natural part
of man has reached then its utmost height; he has rolled the
stone up the Hill of Difficulty only to watch it roll back
again when the summit is reached, - as in Egypt, in Rome, in
Greece. Why this useless labor? Is it not enough to produce
a weariness and sickness unutterable, to be forever accomplishing
a task only to see it undone again? Yet that is what man has
done throughout history, so far as our limited knowledge reaches. There
is one summit to which, by immense and united efforts, he attains,
where there is a great and brilliant efflorescence of all the
intellectual, mental, and material part of his nature. The
climax of sensuous perfection is reached, and then his hold
weakens, his power grows less, and he falls back, through despondency
and satiety, to barbarism. Why does he not stay on this hill-top
he has reached, and look away to the mountains beyond, and
resolve to scale those greater heights? Because he is ignorant,
and seeing a great glittering in the distance, drops his eyes
bewildered and dazzled, and goes back for rest to the shadowy
side of his familiar hill. Yet there is now and then one brave
enough to gaze fixedly on this glittering, and to decipher
something of the shape within it. Poets and philosophers, thinkers
and teachers, - all those who are the "elder brothers of the
race," - have beheld this sight from time to time, and some
among them have recognized in the bewildering glitter the outlines
of the Gates of Gold. Those
Gates admit us to the sanctuary of man's own nature, to the place
whence his life-power comes, and where he is priest of the shrine
of life. That it is possible to enter here, to pass through those
Gates, some one or two have shown us. Plato, Shakespeare, and
a few other strong ones have gone through and spoken to us in
veiled language on the near side of the Gates. When the strong
man has crossed the threshold he speaks no more to those at the
other side. And even the words he utters when he is outside are
so full of mystery, so veiled and profound, that only those who
follow in his steps can see the light within them.
IV
What
men desire is to ascertain how to exchange pain for pleasure;
that is, to find out in what way consciousness may be regulated
in order that the sensation which is most agreeable is the one
that is experienced. Whether this can be discovered by dint of
human thought is at least a question worth considering.
If
the mind of man is turned upon any given subject with a sufficient
concentration, he obtains illumination with regard to it sooner
or later. The particular individual in whom the final illumination
appears is called a genius, an inventor, one inspired; but he
is only the crown of a great mental work created by unknown men
about him, and receding back from him through long vistas of
distance. Without them he would not have had his material to
deal with. Even the poet requires innumerable poetasters to feed
upon. He is the essence of the poetic power of his time, and
of the times before him. It is impossible to separate an individual
of any species from his kin.
If,
therefore, instead of accepting the unknown as unknowable, men
were with one accord to turn their thoughts towards
it, those Golden Gates would not remain so inexorably shut. It
does but need a strong hand to push them open. The courage to
enter them is the courage to search the recesses of one's own
nature without fear and without shame. In the fine part, the
essence, the flavor of the man, is found the key which unlocks
those great Gates. And when they open, what is it that is found?
Voices
here and there in the long silence of the ages speak to answer
that question. Those who have passed through have left words
behind them as legacies to others of their kin. In these words
we can find definite indications of what is to be looked for
beyond the Gates. But only those who desire to go that way read
the meaning hidden within the words. Scholars, or rather scholiasts,
read the sacred books of different nations, the poetry and the
philosophy left by enlightened minds, and find in it all the
merest materiality. Imagination glorifying legends of nature,
or exaggerating the psychic possibilities of man, explains to
them all that they find in the Bibles of humanity.
What
is to be found within the words of those books is to be found
in each one of us; and it is impossible to find in literature
or through any channel of thought that which does not exist in
the man who studies. This is of course an evident fact known
to all real students. But it has to be especially remembered
in reference to this profound and obscure subject, as men so
readily believe that nothing can exist for others where they
themselves find emptiness.
One
thing is soon perceived by the man who reads: those who have
gone before have not found that the Gates of Gold lead to oblivion.
On the contrary, sensation becomes real for the first time when
that threshold is crossed. But it is of a new order, an order
unknown to us now, and by us impossible to appreciate without
at least some clew as to its character. This clew can be obtained
undoubtedly by any student who cares to go through all the literature
accessible to us. That mystic books and manuscripts exist, but
remain inaccessible simply because there is no man ready to read
the first page of any one of them, becomes the conviction of
all who have studied the subject sufficiently. For there must
be the continuous line all through: we see it go from dense ignorance
up to intelligence and wisdom; it is only natural that it should
go on to intuitive knowledge and to inspiration. Some scant fragments
we have of these great gifts of man; where, then, is the whole
of which they must be a part? Hidden behind the thin yet seemingly
impassable veil which hides it from us as it hid all science,
all art, all powers of man till he had the courage to tear away
the screen. That courage comes only of conviction. When once
man believes that the thing exists which he desires, he will
obtain it at any cost. The difficulty in this case lies in man's
incredulity. It requires a great tide of thought and attention
to set in towards the unknown region of man's nature in order
that its gates may be unlocked and its glorious vistas explored.
That
it is worth while to do this whatever the hazard may be, all
must allow who have asked the sad question of the nineteenth
century, - Is life worth living? Surely it is sufficient to spur
man to new effort, - the suspicion that beyond civilization,
beyond mental culture, beyond art and mechanical perfection,
there is a new, another gateway, admitting to the realities of
life.
V
When
it seems as if the end was reached, the goal attained, and that
man has no more to do, -- just then, when he appears to have
no choice but between eating and drinking and living in his comfort
as the beasts do in theirs, and scepticism which is death, --
then it is that in fact, if he will but look, the Golden Gates
are before him. With the culture of the age within him and assimilated
perfectly, so that he is himself an incarnation of it, then he
is fit to attempt the great step which is absolutely possible,
yet is attempted by so few even of those who are fitted for it.
It is so seldom attempted, partly because of the profound difficulties
which surround it, but much more because man does not realize
that this is actually the direction in which pleasure and satisfaction
are to be obtained.
There
are certain pleasures which appeal to each individual; every
man knows that in one layer or another of sensation he finds
his chief delight. Naturally he turns to this systematically
through life, just as the sunflower turns to the sun and the
water-lily leans on the water. But he struggles throughout with
an awful fact which oppresses him to the soul, - that no sooner
has he obtained his pleasure than he loses it again and has once
more to go in search of it. More than that; he never actually
reaches it, for it eludes him at the final moment. This is because
he endeavors to seize that which is untouchable and satisfy his
soul's hunger for sensation by contact with external objects.
How can that which is external satisfy or even please the inner
man, - the thing which reigns within and has no eyes for matter,
no hands for touch of objects, no senses with which to apprehend
that which is outside its magic walls? Those charmed barriers
which surround it are limitless, for it is everywhere; it is
to be discovered in all living things, and no part of the universe
can be conceived of without it, if that universe is regarded
as a coherent whole. And unless that point is granted at the
outset it is useless to consider the subject of life at all.
Life is indeed meaningless unless it is universal and coherent,
and unless we maintain our existence by reason of the fact that
we are part of that which is, not by reason of our own being.
This
is one of the most important factors in the development of man,
the recognition - profound and complete recognition - of the
law of universal unity and coherence. The separation which exists
between individuals, between worlds, between the different poles
of the universe and of life, the mental and physical fantasy
called space, is a nightmare of the human imagination. That nightmares
exist, and exist only to torment, every child knows; and what
we need is the power of discrimination between the phantasmagoria
of the brain, which concern ourselves only, and the phantasmagoria
of daily life, in which others also are concerned. This rule
applies also to the larger case. It concerns no one but ourselves
that we live in a nightmare of unreal horror, and fancy ourselves
alone in the universe and capable of independent action, so long
as our associates are those only who are a part of the dream;
but when we desire to speak with those who have tried the Golden
Gates and pushed them open, then it is very necessary - in fact
it is essential - to discriminate, and not bring into our life
the confusions of our sleep. If we do, we are reckoned as madmen,
and fall back into the darkness where there is no friend but
chaos. This chaos has followed every effort of man that is written
in history; after civilization has flowered, the flower falls
and dies, and winter and darkness destroy it. While man refuses
to make the effort of discrimination which would enable him to
distinguish between the shapes of night and the active figures
of day, this must inevitably happen.
But
if man has the courage to resist this reactionary tendency, to
stand steadily on the height he has reached and put out his foot
in search of yet another step, why should he not find it? There
is nothing to make one suppose the pathway to end at a certain
point, except that tradition which has declared it is so, and
which men have accepted and hug to themselves as a justification
for their indolence.
VI
Indolence
is, in fact, the curse of man. As the Irish peasant and the cosmopolitan
gypsy dwell in dirt and poverty out of sheer idleness, so does
the man of the world live contented in sensuous pleasures for
the same reason. The drinking of fine wines, the tasting of delicate
food, the love of bright sights and sounds, of beautiful women
and admirable surroundings, -- these are no better for the cultivated
man, no more satisfactory as a final goal of enjoyment for him,
than the coarse amusements and gratifications of the boor are
for the man without cultivation. There can be no final point,
for life in every form is one vast series of fine gradations;
and the man who elects to stand still at the point of culture
he has reached, and to avow that he can go no further, is simply
making an arbitrary statement for the excuse of his indolence.
Of course there is a possibility of declaring that the gypsy
is content in his dirt and poverty, and, because he is so, is
as great a man as the most highly cultured. But he only is so
while he is ignorant; the moment light enters the dim mind the
whole man turns towards it. So it is on the higher platform;
only the difficulty of penetrating the mind, of admitting the
light, is even greater. The Irish peasant loves his whiskey,
and while he can have it cares nothing for the great laws of
morality and religion which are supposed to govern humanity and
induce men to live temperately. The cultivated gourmand cares
only for subtle tastes and perfect flavors; but he is as blind
as the merest peasant to the fact that there is anything beyond
such gratifications. Like the boor he is deluded by a mirage
that oppresses his soul; and he fancies, having once obtained
a sensuous joy that pleases him, to give himself the utmost satisfaction
by endless repetition, till at last he reaches madness. The bouquet
of the wine he loves enters his soul and poisons it, leaving
him with no thoughts but those of sensuous desire; and he is
in the same hopeless state as the man who dies mad with drink.
What good has the drunkard obtained by his madness? None; pain
has at last swallowed up pleasure utterly, and death steps in
to terminate the agony. The man suffers the final penalty for
his persistent ignorance of a law of nature as inexorable as
that of gravitation, - a law which forbids a man to stand still.
Not twice can the same cup of pleasure be tasted; the second
time it must contain either a grain of poison or a drop of the
elixir of life.
The
same argument holds good with regard to intellectual pleasures;
the same law operates. We see men who are the flower of their
age in intellect, who pass beyond their fellows and tower over
them, entering at last upon a fatal treadmill of thought, where
they yield to the innate indolence of the soul and begin to delude
themselves by the solace of repetition. Then comes the barrenness
and lack of vitality, -- that unhappy and disappointing state
into which great men too often enter when middle life is just
passed. The fire of youth, the vigor of the young intellect,
conquers the inner inertia and makes the man scale heights of
thought and fill his mental lungs with the free air of the mountains.
But then at last the physical reaction sets in; the physical
machinery of the brain loses its powerful impetus and begins
to relax its efforts, simply because the youth of the body is
at an end. Now the man is assailed by the great tempter of the
race who stands forever on the ladder of life waiting for those
who climb so far. He drops the poisoned drop into the ear, and
from that moment all consciousness takes on a dullness, and the
man becomes terrified lest life is losing its possibilities for
him. He rushes back on to a familiar platform of experience,
and there finds comfort in touching a well-known chord of passion
or emotion. And too many having done this linger on, afraid to
attempt the unknown, and satisfied to touch continually that
chord which responds most readily. By this means they get the
assurance that life is still burning within them. But at last
their fate is the same as that of the gourmand and the drunkard.
The power of the spell lessens daily as the machinery which feels
loses its vitality; and the man endeavors to revive the old excitement
and fervor by striking the note more violently, by hugging the
thing that makes him feel, by drinking the cup of poison to its
fatal dregs. And then he is lost; madness falls on his soul,
as it falls on the body of the drunkard. Life has no longer any
meaning for him, and he rushes wildly into the abysses of intellectual
insanity. A lesser man who commits this great folly wearies the
spirits of others by a dull clinging to familiar thought, by
a persistent hugging of the treadmill which he asserts to be
the final goal. The cloud that surrounds him is as fatal as death
itself, and men who once sat at his feet turn away grieved, and
have to look back at his early words in order to remember his
greatness.
VII What
is the cure for this misery and waste of effort? Is there one?
Surely life itself has a logic in it and a law which makes existence
possible; otherwise chaos and madness would be the only state
which would be attainable.
When
a man drinks his first cup of pleasure his soul is filled with
the unutterable joy that comes with a first, a fresh sensation.
The drop of poison that he puts into the second cup, and which,
if he persists in that folly, has to become doubled and trebled
till at last the whole cup is poison, -- that is the ignorant
desire for repetition and intensification; this evidently means
death, according to all analogy. The child becomes the man; he
cannot retain his childhood and repeat and intensify the pleasures
of childhood except by paying the inevitable price and becoming
an idiot. The plant strikes its roots into the ground and throws
up green leaves; then it blossoms and bears fruit. That plant
which will only make roots or leaves, pausing persistently in
its development, is regarded by the gardener as a thing which
is useless and must be cast out.
The
man who chooses the way of effort, and refuses to allow the sleep
of indolence to dull his soul, finds in his pleasures a new and
finer joy each time he tastes them, - a something subtile and
remote which removes them more and more from the state in which
mere sensuousness is all; this subtile essence is that elixir
of life which makes man immortal. He who tastes it and who will
not drink unless it is in the cup finds life enlarge and the
world grow great before his eager eyes. He recognizes the soul
within the woman he loves, and passion becomes peace; he sees
within his thought the finer qualities of spiritual truth, which
is beyond the action of our mental machinery, and then instead
of entering on the treadmill of intellectualisms he rests on
the broad back of the eagle of intuition and soars into the fine
air where the great poets found their insight; he sees within
his own power of sensation, of pleasure in fresh air and sunshine,
in food and wine, in motion and rest, the possibilities of the
subtile man, the thing which dies not either with the body or
the brain. The pleasures of art, of music, of light and loveliness,
- within these forms, which men repeat till they find only the
forms, he sees the glory of the Gates of Gold, and passes through
to find the new life beyond which intoxicates and strengthens,
as the keen mountain air intoxicates and strengthens, by its
very vigor. But if he has been pouring, drop by drop, more and
more of the elixir of life into his cup, he is strong enough
to breathe this intense air and to live upon it. Then if he die
or if he live in physical form, alike he goes on and finds new
and finer joys, more perfect and satisfying experiences, with
every breath he draws in and gives out.
The Mystery of Threshold
I
There is no doubt that at the entrance on a new phase of life something has
to be given up. The child, when it has become the man, puts away childish
things. Saint Paul showed in these words, and in many others which he has
left us, that he had tasted of the elixir of life, that he was on his way
towards the Gates of Gold. With each drop of the divine draught which is
put into the cup of pleasure something is purged away from that cup to
make room for the magic drop. For Nature deals with her children generously:
man's cup is always full to the brim; and if he chooses to taste of the
fine and life-giving essence, he must cast away something of the grosser
and less sensitive part of himself. This has to be done daily, hourly,
momently, in order that the draught of life may steadily increase. And
to do this unflinchingly, a man must be his own schoolmaster, must recognize
that he is always in need of wisdom, must be ready to practise any austerities,
to use the birch-rod unhesitatingly against himself, in order to gain his
end. It becomes evident to any one who regards the subject seriously, that
only a man who has the potentialities in him both of the voluptuary and
the stoic has any chance of entering the Golden Gates. He must be capable
of testing and valuing to its most delicate fraction every joy existence
has to give; and he must be capable of denying himself all pleasure, and
that without suffering from the denial. When he has accomplished the development
of this double possibility, then he is able to begin sifting his pleasures
and taking away from his consciousness those which belong absolutely to
the man of clay. When those are put back, there is the next range of more
refined pleasures to be dealt with.
The
dealing with these which will enable a man to find the essence
of life is not the method pursued by the stoic philosopher. The
stoic does not allow that there is joy within pleasure, and by
denying himself the one loses the other. But the true philosopher,
who has studied life itself without being bound by any system
of thought, sees that the kernel is within the shell, and that,
instead of crunching up the whole nut like a gross and indifferent
feeder, the essence of the thing is obtained by cracking the
shell and casting it away. All emotion, all sensation, lends
itself to this process, else it could not be a part of man's
development, an essential of his nature. For that there is before
him power, life, perfection, and that every portion of his passage
thitherwards is crowded with the means of helping him to his
goal, can only be denied by those who refuse to acknowledge life
as apart from matter. Their mental position is so absolutely
arbitrary that it is useless to encounter or combat it. Through
all time the unseen has been pressing on the seen, the immaterial
overpowering the material; through all time the signs and tokens
of that which is beyond matter have been waiting for the men
of matter to test and weigh them. Those who will not do so have
chosen the place of pause arbitrarily, and there is nothing to
be done but let them remain there undisturbed, working that treadmill
which they believe to be the utmost activity of existence.
II
There
is no doubt that a man must educate himself to perceive that
which is beyond matter, just as he must educate himself to perceive
that which is in matter. Every one knows that the early life
of a child is one long process of adjustment, of learning to
understand the use of the senses with regard to their special
provinces, and of practice in the exercise of difficult, complex,
yet imperfect organs entirely in reference to the perception
of the world of matter. The child is in earnest and works on
without hesitation if he means to live. Some infants born into
the light of earth shrink from it, and refuse to attack the immense
task which is before them, and which must be accomplished in
order to make life in matter possible. These go back to the ranks
of the unborn; we see them lay down their manifold instrument,
the body, and fade into sleep. So it is with the great crowd
of humanity when it has triumphed and conquered and enjoyed in
the world of matter. The individuals in that crowd, which seems
so powerful and confident in its familiar demesne, are infants
in the presence of the immaterial universe. And we see them,
on all sides, daily and hourly, refusing to enter it, sinking
back into the ranks of the dwellers in physical life, clinging
to the consciousnesses they have experienced and understand.
The intellectual rejection of all purely spiritual knowledge
is the most marked indication of this indolence, of which thinkers
of every standing are certainly guilty.
That
the initial effort is a heavy one is evident, and it is clearly
a question of strength, as well as of willing activity. But there
is no way of acquiring this strength, or of using it when acquired,
except by the exercise of the will. It is vain to expect to be
born into great possessions. In the kingdom of life there is
no heredity except from the man's own past. He has to accumulate
that which is his. This is evident to any observer of life who
uses his eyes without blinding them by prejudice; and even when
prejudice is present, it is impossible for a man of sense not
to perceive the fact. It is from this that we get the doctrine
of punishment and salvation, either lasting through great ages
after death, or eternal. This doctrine is a narrow and unintelligent
mode of stating the fact in Nature that what a man sows that
shall he reap. Swedenborg's great mind saw the fact so clearly
that he hardened it into a finality in reference to this particular
existence, his prejudices making it impossible for him to perceive
the possibility of new action when there is no longer the sensuous
world to act in. He was too dogmatic for scientific observation,
and would not see that, as the spring follows the autumn, and
the day the night, so birth must follow death. He went very near
the threshold of the Gates of Gold, and passed beyond mere intellectualism,
only to pause at a point but one step farther. The glimpse of
the life beyond which he had obtained appeared to him to contain
the universe; and on his fragment of experience he built up a
theory to include all life, and refused progress beyond that
state or any possibility outside it. This is only another form
of the weary treadmill. But Swedenborg stands foremost in the
crowd of witnesses to the fact that the Golden Gates exist and
can be seen from the heights of thought, and he has cast us a
faint surge of sensation from their threshold.
III
When
once one has considered the meaning of those Gates, it is evident
that there is no other way out of this form of life except through
them. They only can admit man to the place where he becomes the
fruit of which manhood is the blossom. Nature is the kindest
of mothers to those who need her; she never wearies of her children
or desires them to lessen in multitude. Her friendly arms open
wide to the vast throng who desire birth and to dwell in forms;
and while they continue to desire it, she continues to smile
a welcome. Why, then, should she shut her doors on any? When
one life in her heart has not worn out a hundredth part of the
soul's longing for sensation such as it finds there, what reason
can there be for its departure to any other place? Surely the
seeds of desire spring up where the sower has sown them. This
seems but reasonable; and on this apparently self-evident fact
the Indian mind has based its theory of re-incarnation, of birth
and re-birth in matter, which has become so familiar a part of
Eastern thought as no longer to need demonstration. The Indian
knows it as the Western knows that the day he is living through
is but one of many days which make up the span of a man's life.
This certainty which is possessed by the Eastern with regard
to natural laws that control the great sweep of the soul's existence
is simply acquired by habits of thought. The mind of many is
fixed on subjects which in the West are considered unthinkable.
Thus it is that the East has produced the great flowers of the
spiritual growth of humanity. On the mental steps of a million
men Buddha passed through the Gates of Gold; and because a great
crowd pressed about the threshold he was able to leave behind
him words which prove that those Gates will open.
Part
2
| Authors
Details: Mable Collins |
|
