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The
Initial Effort
The Meaning of Pain
The initial effort
I
It
is very easily seen that there is no one point in a man's life
or experience where he is nearer the soul of things than at any
other. That soul, the sublime essence, which fills the air with
a burnished glow, is there, behind the Gates it colors with itself.
But that there is no one pathway to it is immediately perceived
from the fact that this soul must from its very nature be universal.
The Gates of Gold do not admit to any special place; what they
do is to open for egress from a special place. Man passes through
them when he casts off his limitation. He may burst the shell
that holds him in darkness, tear the veil that hides him from
the eternal, at any point where it is easiest for him to do so;
and most often this point will be where he least expects to find
it. Men go in search of escape with the help of their minds,
and lay down arbitrary and limited laws as to how to attain the,
to them, unattainable. Many, indeed, have hoped to pass through
by the way of religion, and instead they have formed a place
of thought and feeling so marked and fixed that it seems as though
long ages would be insufficient to enable them to get out of
the rut. Some have believed that by the aid of pure intellect
a way was to be found; and to such men we owe the philosophy
and metaphysics which have prevented the race from sinking into
utter sensuousness. But the end of the man who endeavors to live
by thought alone is that he dwells in fantasies, and insists
on giving them to other men as substantial food. Great is our
debt to the metaphysicians and transcendentalists; but he who
follows them to the bitter end, forgetting that the brain is
only one organ of use, will find himself dwelling in a place
where a dull wheel of argument seems to turn forever on its axis,
yet goes nowhither and carries no burden.
Virtue
(or what seems to each man to be virtue, his own special standard
of morality and purity) is held by those who practise it to be
a way to heaven. Perhaps it is, to the heaven of the modern sybarite,
the ethical voluptuary. It is as easy to become a gourmand in
pure living and high thinking as in the pleasures of taste or
sight or sound. Gratification is the aim of the virtuous man
as well as of the drunkard; even if his life be a miracle of
abstinence and self-sacrifice, a moment's thought shows that
in pursuing this apparently heroic path he does but pursue pleasure.
With him pleasure takes on a lovely form because his gratifications
are those of a sweet savor, and it pleases him to give gladness
to others rather than to enjoy himself at their expense. But
the pure life and high thoughts are no more finalities in themselves
than any other mode of enjoyment; and the man who endeavors to
find contentment in them must intensify his effort and continually
repeat it, - all in vain. He is a green plant indeed, and the
leaves are beautiful; but more is wanted than leaves. If he persists
in his endeavor blindly, believing that he has reached his goal
when he has not even perceived it, then he finds himself in that
dreary place where good is done perforce, and the deed of virtue
is without the love that should shine through it. It is well
for a man to lead a pure life, as it is well for him to have
clean hands, - else he becomes repugnant. But virtue as we understand
it now can no more have any special relation to the state beyond
that to which we are limited than any other part of our constitution.
Spirit is not a gas created by matter, and we cannot create our
future by forcibly using one material agent and leaving out the
rest. Spirit is the great life on which matter rests, as does
the rocky world on the free and fluid ether; whenever we can
break our limitations we find ourselves on that marvelous shore
where Wordsworth once saw the gleam of the gold. When we enter
there all the present must disappear alike, - virtue and vice,
thought and sense. That a man reaps what he has sown must of
course be true also; he has no power to carry virtue, which is
of the material life, with him; yet the aroma of his good deeds
is a far sweeter sacrifice than the odor of crime and cruelty.
Yet it may be, however, that by the practice of virtue he will
fetter himself into one groove, one changeless fashion of life
in matter, so firmly that it is impossible for the mind to conceive
that death is a sufficient power to free him, and cast him upon
the broad and glorious ocean, - a sufficient power to undo for
him the inexorable and heavy latch of the Golden Gate. And sometimes
the man who has sinned so deeply that his whole nature is scarred
and blackened by the fierce fire of selfish gratification is
at last so utterly burned out and charred that from the very
vigor of the passion light leaps forth. It would seem more possible
for such a man at least to reach the threshold of the Gates than
for the mere ascetic or philosopher.
But
it is little use to reach the threshold of the Gates without
the power to pass through. And that is all that the sinner can
hope to do by the dissolution of himself which comes from seeing
his own soul. At least this appears to be so, inevitably because
his condition is negative. The man who lifts the latch of the
Golden Gate must do so with his own strong hand, must be absolutely
positive. This we can see by analogy. In everything else in life,
in every new step or development, it is necessary for a man to
exercise his most dominant will in order to obtain it fully.
Indeed in many cases, though he has every advantage and though
he use his will to some extent, he will fail utterly of obtaining
what he desires from lack of the final and unconquerable resolution.
No education in the world will make a man an intellectual glory
to his age, even if his powers are great; for unless he positively
desires to seize the flower of perfection, he will be but a dry
scholar, a dealer in words, a proficient in mechanical thought,
and a mere wheel of memory. And the man who has this positive
quality in him will rise in spite of adverse circumstances, will
recognize and seize upon the tide of thought which is his natural
food, and will stand as a giant at last in the place he willed
to reach. We see this practically every day in all walks of life.
Wherefore it does not seem possible that the man who has simply
succeeded through the passions in wrecking the dogmatic and narrow
part of his nature should pass through those great Gates. But
as he is not blinded by prejudice, nor has fastened himself to
any treadmill of thought, nor caught the wheel of his soul in
any deep rut of life, it would seem that if once the positive
will might be born within him, he could at some time not hopelessly
far distant lift his hand to the latch.
Undoubtedly
it is the hardest task we have yet seen set us in life, that
which we are now talking of, -- to free a man of all prejudice,
of all crystallized thought or feeling, of all limitations, yet
develop within him the positive will. It seems too much of a
miracle; for in ordinary life positive will is always associated
with crystallized ideas. But many things which have appeared
to be too much of a miracle for accomplishment have yet been
done, even in the narrow experience of life given to our present
humanity. All the past shows us that difficulty is no excuse
for dejection, much less for despair; else the world would have
been without the many wonders of civilization. Let us consider
the thing more seriously, therefore, having once used our minds
to the idea that it is not impossible.
The
great initial difficulty is that of fastening the interest on
that which is unseen. Yet this is done every day, and we have
only to observe how it is done in order to guide our own conduct.
Every inventor fastens his interest firmly on the unseen; and
it entirely depends on the firmness of that attachment whether
he is successful or whether he fails. The poet who looks on to
his moment of creation as that for which he lives, sees that
which is invisible and hears that which is soundless.
Probably
in this last analogy there is a clew as to the mode by which
success in this voyage to the unknown bourn ("whence," indeed, "no
traveller returns") is attained. It applies also to the inventor
and to all who reach out beyond the ordinary mental and psychical
level of humanity. The clew lies in that word "creation."
II The
words "to create" are often understood by the ordinary mind to
convey the idea of evolving something out of nothing. This is
clearly not its meaning; we are mentally obliged to provide our
Creator with chaos from which to produce the worlds. The tiller
of the soil, who is the typical producer of social life, must
have his material, his earth, his sky, rain, and sun, and the
seeds to place within the earth. Out of nothing he can produce
nothing. Out of a void Nature cannot arise; there is that material
beyond, behind, or within, from which she is shaped by our desire
for a universe. It is an evident fact that the seeds and the
earth, air, and water which cause them to germinate exist on
every plane of action. If you talk to an inventor, you will find
that far ahead of what he is now doing he can always perceive
some other thing to be done which he cannot express in words
because as yet he has not drawn it into our present world of
objects. That knowledge of the unseen is even more definite in
the poet, and more inexpressible until he has touched it with
some part of that consciousness which he shares with other men.
But in strict proportion to his greatness he lives in the consciousness
which the ordinary man does not even believe can exist, -- the
consciousness which dwells in the greater universe, which breathes
in the vaster air, which beholds a wider earth and sky, and snatches
seeds from plants of giant growth.
It
is this place of consciousness that we need to reach out to.
That it is not reserved only for men of genius is shown by the
fact that martyrs and heroes have found it and dwelt in it. It
is not reserved for men of genius only, but it can only be found
by men of great soul.
In
this fact there is no need for discouragement. Greatness in man
is popularly supposed to be a thing inborn. This belief must
be a result of want of thought, of blindness to facts of nature.
Greatness can only be attained by growth; that is continually
demonstrated to us. Even the mountains, even the firm globe itself,
these are great by dint of the mode of growth peculiar to that
state of materiality, - accumulation of atoms. As the consciousness
inherent in all existing forms passes into more advanced forms
of life it becomes more active, and in proportion it acquires
the power of growth by assimilation instead of accumulation.
Looking at existence from this special point of view (which indeed
is a difficult one to maintain for long, as we habitually look
at life in planes and forget the great lines which connect and
run through these), we immediately perceive it to be reasonable
to suppose that as we advance beyond our present standpoint the
power of growth by assimilation will become greater and probably
change into a method yet more rapid, easy, and unconscious. The
universe is, in fact, full of magnificent promise for us, if
we will but lift our eyes and see. It is that lifting of the
eyes which is the first need and the first difficulty; we are
so apt readily to be content with what we see within touch of
our hands. It is the essential characteristic of the man of genius
that he is comparatively indifferent to that fruit which is just
within touch, and hungers for that which is afar on the hills.
In fact he does not need the sense of contact to arouse longing.
He knows that this distant fruit, which he perceives without
the aid of the physical senses, is a subtler and a stronger food
than any which appeals to them. And how is he rewarded! When
he tastes that fruit, how strong and sweet is its flavor, and
what a new sense of life rushes upon him! For in recognizing
that flavor he has recognized the existence of the subtile senses,
those which feed the life of the inner man; and it is by the
strength of that inner man, and by his strength only, that the
latch of the Golden Gates can be lifted.
In
fact it is only by the development and growth of the inner man
that the existence of these Gates, and of that to which they
admit, can be even perceived. While man is content with his gross
senses and cares nothing for his subtile ones, the Gates remain
literally invisible. As to the boor the gateway of the intellectual
life is as a thing uncreate and non-existent, so to the man of
the gross senses, even if his intellectual life is active, that
which lies beyond is uncreate and non-existent, only because
he does not open the book.
To
the servant who dusts the scholar's library the closed volumes
are meaningless; they do not even appear to contain a promise
unless he also is a scholar, not merely a servant. It is possible
to gaze throughout eternity upon a shut exterior from sheer indolence,
-- mental indolence, which is incredulity, and which at last
men learn to pride themselves on; they call it scepticism, and
talk of the reign of reason. It is no more a state to justify
pride than that of the Eastern sybarite who will not even lift
his food to his mouth; he is "reasonable" also in that he sees
no value in activity, and therefore does not exercise it. So
with the sceptic; decay follows the condition of inaction, whether
it be mental, psychic, or physical.
III And
now let us consider how the initial difficulty of fastening the
interest on that which is unseen is to be overcome. Our gross
senses refer only to that which is objective in the ordinary
sense of the word; but just beyond this field of life there are
finer sensations which appeal to finer senses. Here we find the
first clew to the stepping-stones we need. Man looks from this
point of view like a point where many rays or lines center; and
if he has the courage or the interest to detach himself from
the simplest form of life, the point, and explore but a little
way along these lines or rays, his whole being at once inevitably
widens and expands, the man begins to grow in greatness. But
it is evident, if we accept this illustration as a fairly true
one, that the chief point of importance is to explore no more
persistently on one line than another; else the result must be
a deformity. We all know how powerful is the majesty and personal
dignity of a forest tree which has had air enough to breathe,
and room for its widening roots, and inner vitality with which
to accomplish its unceasing task. It obeys the perfect natural
law of growth, and the peculiar awe it inspires arises from this
fact.
How
is it possible to obtain recognition of the inner man, to observe
its growth and foster it?
Let
us try to follow a little way the clew we have obtained, though
words will probably soon be useless.
We
must each travel alone and without aids, as the traveller has
to climb alone when he nears the summit of the mountain. No beast
of burden can help him there; neither can the gross senses or
anything that touches the gross senses help him here. But for
a little distance words may go with us.
The
tongue recognizes the value of sweetness or piquancy in food.
To the man whose senses are of the simplest order there is no
other idea of sweetness than this. But a finer essence, a more
highly placed sensation of the same order, is reached by another
perception. The sweetness on the face of a lovely woman, or in
the smile of a friend, is recognized by the man whose inner senses
have even a little - a mere stirring of - vitality. To the one
who has lifted the golden latch the spring of sweet waters, the
fountain itself whence all softness arises, is opened and becomes
part of his heritage.
But
before this fountain can be tasted, or any other spring reached,
any source found, a heavy weight has to be lifted from the heart,
an iron bar which holds it down and prevents it from arising
in its strength.
The
man who recognizes the flow of sweetness from its source through
Nature, through all forms of life, he has lifted this, he has
raised himself into that state in which there is no bondage.
He knows that he is a part of the great whole, and it is this
knowledge which is his heritage. It is through the breaking asunder
of the arbitrary bond which holds him to his personal center
that he comes of age and becomes ruler of his kingdom. As he
widens out, reaching by manifold experience along those lines
which center at the point where he stands embodied, he discovers
that he has touch with all life, that he contains within himself
the whole. And then he has but to yield himself to the great
force which we call good, to clasp it tightly with the grasp
of his soul, and he is carried swiftly on to the great, wide
waters of real living. What are those waters? In our present
life we have but the shadow of the substance. No man loves without
satiety, no man drinks wine without return of thirst. Hunger
and longing darken the sky and make the earth unfriendly. What
we need is an earth that will bear living fruit, a sky that will
be always full of light. Needing this positively, we shall surely
find it.
The meaning of pain
I
Look
into the deep heart of life, whence pain comes to darken men's
lives. She is always on the threshold, and behind her stands
despair.
What
are these two gaunt figures, and why are they permitted to be
our constant followers?
It
is we who permit them, we who order them, as we permit and order
the action of our bodies; and we do so as unconsciously. But
by scientific experiment and investigation we have learned much
about our physical life, and it would seem as if we can obtain
at least as much result with regard to our inner life by adopting
similar methods.
Pain
arouses, softens, breaks, and destroys. Regarded from a sufficiently
removed standpoint, it appears as medicine, as a knife, as a
weapon, as a poison, in turn. It is an implement, a thing which
is used, evidently. What we desire to discover is, who is the
user; what part of ourselves is it that demands the presence
of this thing so hateful to the rest?
Medicine
is used by the physician, the knife by the surgeon; but the weapon
of destruction is used by the enemy, the hater.
Is
it, then, that we do not only use means, or desire to use means,
for the benefit of our souls, but that also we wage warfare within
ourselves, and do battle in the inner sanctuary? It would seem
so; for it is certain that if man's will relaxed with regard
to it he would no longer retain life in that state in which pain
exists. Why does he desire his own hurt?
The
answer may at first sight seem to be that he primarily desires
pleasure, and so is willing to continue on that battlefield where
it wages war with pain for the possession of him, hoping always
that pleasure will win the victory and take him home to herself.
This is but the external aspect of the man's state. In himself
he knows well that pain is co-ruler with pleasure, and that though
the war wages always it never will be won. The superficial observer
concludes that man submits to the inevitable. But that is a fallacy
not worthy of discussion. A little serious thought shows us that
man does not exist at all except by exercise of his positive
qualities; it is but logical to suppose that he chooses the state
he will live in by the exercise of those same qualities.
Granted,
then, for the sake of our argument, that he desires pain, why
is it that he desires anything so annoying to himself?
II If
we carefully consider the constitution of man and its tendencies,
it would seem as if there were two definite directions in which
he grows. He is like a tree which strikes its roots into the
ground while it throws up young branches towards the heavens.
These two lines which go outward from the central personal point
are to him clear, definite, and intelligible. He calls one good
and the other evil. But man is not, according to any analogy,
observation, or experience, a straight line. Would that he were,
and that life, or progress, or development, or whatever we choose
to call it, meant merely following one straight road or another,
as the religionists pretend it does. The whole question, the
mighty problem, would be very easily solved then. But it is not
so easy to go to hell as preachers declare it to be. It is as
hard a task as to find one's way to the Golden Gate. A man may
wreck himself utterly in sense-pleasure, - may debase his whole
nature, as it seems, - yet he fails of becoming the perfect devil,
for there is still the spark of divine light within him. He tries
to choose the broad road which leads to destruction, and enters
bravely on his headlong career. But very soon he is checked and
startled by some unthought-of tendency in himself, - some of
the many other radiations which go forth from his center of self.
He suffers as the body suffers when it develops monstrosities
which impede its healthy action. He has created pain, and encountered
his own creation. It may seem as if this argument is difficult
of application with regard to physical pain. Not so, if man is
regarded from a loftier standpoint than that we generally occupy.
If he is looked upon as a powerful consciousness which forms
its external manifestations according to its desires, then it
is evident that physical pain results from deformity in those
desires. No doubt it will appear to many minds that this conception
of man is too gratuitous, and involves too large a mental leap
into unknown places where proof is unobtainable. But if the mind
is accustomed to look upon life from this standpoint, then very
soon none other is acceptable; the threads of existence, which
to the purely materialistic observer appear hopelessly entangled,
become separated and straightened, so that a new intelligibleness
illumines the universe. The arbitrary and cruel Creator who inflicts
pain and pleasure at will then disappears from the stage; and
it is well, for he is indeed an unnecessary character, and, worse
still, is a mere creature of straw, who cannot even strut upon
the boards without being upheld on all sides by dogmatists. Man
comes into this world, surely, on the same principle that he
lives in one city of the earth or another; at all events, if
it is too much to say that this is so, one may safely ask, why
is it not so? There is neither for nor against which will appeal
to the materialist, or which would weigh in a court of justice;
but I aver this in favor of the argument, - that no man having
once seriously considered it can go back to the formal theories
of the sceptics. It is like putting on swaddling-clothes again.
Granting,
then, for the sake of this argument, that man is a powerful consciousness
who if his own creator, his own judge, and within whom lies all
life in potentiality, even the ultimate goal, then let us consider
why he causes himself to suffer.
If
pain is the result of uneven development, of monstrous growths,
of defective advance at different points, why does man not learn
the lesson which this should teach him, and take pains to develop
equally?
It
would seem to me as if the answer to this question is that this
is the very lesson which the human race is engaged in learning.
Perhaps this may seem too bold a statement to make in the face
of ordinary thinking, which either regards man as a creature
of chance dwelling in chaos, or as a soul bound to the inexorable
wheel of a tyrant's chariot and hurried on either to heaven or
to hell. But such a mode of thought is after all but the same
as that of the child who regards his parents as the final arbiters
of his destinies, and in fact the gods or demons of his universe.
As he grows he casts aside this idea, finding that it is simply
a question of coming of age, and that he is himself the king
of life like any other man.
So
it is with the human race. It is king of its world, arbiter of
its own destiny, and there is none to say it nay. Who talk of
Providence and chance have not paused to think.
Destiny,
the inevitable, does indeed exist for the race and for the individual;
but who can ordain this save the man himself? There is no clew
in heaven or earth to the existence of any ordainer other than
the man who suffers or enjoys that which is ordained. We know
so little of our own constitution, we are so ignorant of our
divine functions, that it is impossible for us yet to know how
much or how little we are actually fate itself. But this at all
events we know, - that so far as any provable perception goes,
no clew to the existence of an ordainer has yet been discovered;
whereas if we give but a very little attention to the life about
us in order to observe the action of the man upon his own future,
we soon perceive this power as an actual force in operation.
It is visible, although our range of vision is so very limited.
The
man of the world, pure and simple, is by far the best practical
observer and philosopher with regard to life, because he is not
blinded by any prejudices. He will be found always to believe
that as a man sows so shall he reap. And this is so evidently
true when it is considered, that if one takes the larger view,
including all human life, it makes intelligible the awful Nemesis
which seems consciously to pursue the human race, -- that inexorable
appearance of pain in the midst of pleasure. The great Greek
poets saw this apparition so plainly that their recorded observation
has given to us younger and blinder observers the idea of it.
It is unlikely that so materialistic a race as that which has
grown up all over the West would have discovered for itself the
existence of this terrible factor in human life without the assistance
of the older poets, -- the poets of the past. And in this we
may notice, by the way, one distinct value of the study of the
classics, - that the great ideas and facts about human life which
the superb ancients put into their poetry shall not be absolutely
lost as are their arts. No doubt the world will flower again,
and greater thoughts and more profound discoveries than those
of the past will be the glory of the men of the future efflorescence;
but until that far-off day comes we cannot prize too dearly the
treasures left us.
There
is one aspect of the question which seems at first sight positively
to negative this mode of thought; and that is the suffering in
the apparently purely physical body of the dumb beings, - young
children, idiots, animals, - and their desperate need of the
power which comes of any sort of knowledge to help them through
their sufferings.
The
difficulty which will arise in the mind with regard to this comes
from the untenable idea of the separation of the soul from the
body. It is supposed by all those who look only at material life
(and especially by the physicians of the flesh) that the body
and the brain are a pair of partners who live together hand in
hand and react one upon another. Beyond that they recognize no
cause and therefore allow of none. They forget that the brain
and the body are as evidently mere mechanism as the hand or the
foot. There is the inner man -- the soul -- behind, using all
these mechanisms; and this is as evidently the truth with regard
to all the existences we know of as with regard to man himself.
We cannot find any point in the scale of being at which soul-causation
ceases or can cease. The dull oyster must have that in him which
makes him choose the inactive life he leads; none else can choose
it for him but the soul behind, which makes him be. How else
can he be where he is, or be at all? Only by the intervention
of an impossible creator called by some name or other.
It
is because man is so idle, so indisposed to assume or accept
responsibility, that he falls back upon this temporary makeshift
of a creator. It is temporary indeed, for it can only last during
the activity of the particular brain power which finds its place
among us. When the man drops this mental life behind him, he
of necessity leaves with it its magic lantern and the pleasant
illusions he has conjured up by its aid. That must be a very
uncomfortable moment, and must produce a sense of nakedness not
to be approached by any other sensation. It would seem as well
to save one's self this disagreeable experience by refusing to
accept unreal phantasms as things of flesh and blood and power.
Upon the shoulders of the Creator man likes to thrust the responsibility
not only of his capacity for sinning and the possibility of his
salvation, but of his very life itself, his very consciousness.
It is a poor Creator that he thus contents himself with, - one
who is pleased with a universe of puppets, and amused by pulling
their strings. If he is capable of such enjoyment, he must yet
be in his infancy. Perhaps that is so, after all; the God within
us is in his infancy, and refuses to recognize his high estate.
If indeed the soul of man is subject to the laws of growth, of
decay, and of re-birth as to its body, then there is no wonder
at its blindness. But this is evidently not so; for the soul
of man is of that order of life which causes shape and form,
and is unaffected itself by these things, - of that order of
life which like the pure, the abstract flame burns wherever it
is lit. This cannot be changed or affected by time, and is of
its very nature superior to growth and decay. It stands in that
primeval place which is the only throne of God, - that place
whence forms of life emerge and to which they return. That place
is the central point of existence, where there is a permanent
spot of life as there is in the midst of the heart of man. It
is by the equal development of that, - first by the recognition
of it, and then by its equal development upon the many radiating
lines of experience, - that man is at last enabled to reach the
Golden Gate and lift the latch. The process is the gradual recognition
of the god in himself; the goal is reached when that godhood
is consciously restored to its right glory.
III The
first thing which it is necessary for the soul of man to do in
order to engage in this great endeavor of discovering true life
is the same thing that the child first does in its desire for
activity in the body, - he must be able to stand. It is clear
that the power of standing, of equilibrium, of concentration,
of uprightness, in the soul, is a quality of a marked character.
The word that presents itself most readily as descriptive of
this quality is "confidence."
To
remain still amid life and its changes, and stand firmly on the
chosen spot, is a feat which can only be accomplished by the
man who has confidence in himself and in his destiny. Otherwise
the hurrying forms of life, the rushing tide of men, the great
floods of thought, must inevitably carry him with them, and then
he will lose that place of consciousness whence it was possible
to start on the great enterprise. For it must be done
knowingly, and without pressure from without, - this act of the
new-born man. All the great ones of the earth have possessed
this confidence, and have stood firmly on that place which was
to them the one solid spot in the universe. To each man this
place is of necessity different. Each man must find his own earth
and his own heaven.
We
have the instinctive desire to relieve pain, but we work in externals
in this as in everything else. We simply alleviate it; and if
we do more, and drive it from its first chosen stronghold, it
reappears in some other place with reinforced vigor. If it is
eventually driven off the physical plane by persistent and successful
effort, it reappears on the mental or emotional planes where
no man can touch it. That this is so is easily seen by those
who connect the various planes of sensation, and who observe
life with that additional illumination. Men habitually regard
these different forms of feeling as actually separate, whereas
in fact they are evidently only different sides of one center,
- the point of personality. If that which arises in the center,
the fount of life, demands some hindered action, and consequently
causes pain, the force thus created being driven from one stronghold
must find another; it cannot be driven out. And all the blendings
of human life which cause emotion and distress exist for its
use and purposes as well as for those of pleasure. Both have
their home in man; both demand their expression of right. The
marvelously delicate mechanism of the human frame is constructed
to answer to their lightest touch; the extraordinary intricacies
of human relations evolve themselves, as it were, for the satisfaction
of these two great opposites of the soul.
Pain
and pleasure stand apart and separate, as do the two sexes; and
it is in the merging, the making the two into one, that joy and
deep sensation and profound peace are obtained. Where there is
neither male nor female, neither pain nor pleasure, there is
the god in man dominant, and then is life real.
To
state the matter in this way may savor too much of the dogmatist
who utters his assertions uncontradicted from a safe pulpit;
but it is dogmatism only as a scientist's record of effort in
a new direction is dogmatism. Unless the existence of the Gates
of Gold can be proved to be real, and not the mere phantasmagoria
of fanciful visionaries, then they are not worth talking about
at all. In the nineteenth century hard facts or legitimate arguments
alone appeal to men's minds; and so much the better. For unless
the life we advance towards is increasingly real and actual,
it is worthless, and time is wasted in going after it. Reality
is man's greatest need, and he demands to have it at all hazards,
at any price. Be it so. No one doubts he is right. Let us then
go in search of reality.
IV One
definite lesson learned by all acute sufferers will be of the
greatest service to us in this consideration. In intense pain
a point is reached where it is indistinguishable from its opposite,
pleasure. This is indeed so, but few have the heroism or the
strength to suffer to such a far point. It is as difficult to
reach it by the other road. Only a chosen few have the gigantic
capacity for pleasure which will enable them to travel to its
other side. Most have but enough strength to enjoy and to become
the slave of the enjoyment. Yet man has undoubtedly within himself
the heroism needed for the great journey; else how is it that
martyrs have smiled amid the torture? How is it that the profound
sinner who lives for pleasure can at last feel stir within himself
the divine afflatus?
In
both these cases the possibility has arisen of finding the way;
but too often that possibility is killed by the overbalance of
the startled nature. The martyr has acquired a passion for pain
and lives in the idea of heroic suffering; the sinner becomes
blinded by the thought of virtue and worships it as an end, an
object, a thing divine in itself; whereas it can only be divine
as it is part of that infinite whole which includes vice as well
as virtue. How is it possible to divide the infinite, - that
which is one? It is as reasonable to lend divinity to any object
as to take a cup of water from the sea and declare that in that
is contained the ocean. You cannot separate the ocean; the salt
water is part of the great sea and must be so; but nevertheless
you do not hold the sea in your hand. Men so longingly desire
personal power that they are ready to put infinity into a cup,
the divine idea into a formula, in order that they may fancy
themselves in possession of it. These only are those who cannot
rise and approach the Gates of Gold, for the great breath of
life confuses them; they are struck with horror to find how great
it is. The idol-worshipper keeps an image of his idol in his
heart and burns a candle always before it. It is his own, and
he is pleased at that thought, even if he bow in reverence before
it. In how many virtuous and religious men does not this same
state exist? In the recesses of the soul the lamp is burning
before a household god, -- a thing possessed by its worshipper
and subject to him. Men cling with desperate tenacity to these
dogmas, these moral laws, these principles and modes of faith
which are their household gods, their personal idols. Bid them
burn the unceasing flame in reverence only to the infinite, and
they turn from you. Whatever their manner of scorning your protest
may be, within themselves it leaves a sense of aching void. For
the noble soul of the man, that potential king which is within
us all, knows full well that this household idol may be cast
down and destroyed at any moment, -- that it is without finality
in itself, without any real and absolute life. And he has been
content in his possession, forgetting that anything possessed
can only by the immutable laws of life be held temporarily. He
has forgotten that the infinite is his only friend; he has forgotten
that in its glory is his only home, -- that it alone can be his
god. There he feels as if he is homeless; but that amid the sacrifices
he offers to his own especial idol there is for him a brief resting-place;
and for this he clings passionately to it.
Few
have the courage even slowly to face the great desolateness which
lies outside themselves, and must lie there so long as they cling
to the person which they represent, the "I" which is to them
the center of the world, the cause of all life. In their longing
for a God they find the reason for the existence of one; in their
desire for a sense-body and a world to enjoy in, lies to them
the cause of the universe. These beliefs may be hidden very deep
beneath the surface, and be indeed scarcely accessible; but in
the fact that they are there is the reason why the man holds
himself upright. To himself he is himself the infinite and the
God; he holds the ocean in a cup. In this delusion he nurtures
the egoism which makes life pleasure and makes pain pleasant.
In this profound egoism is the very cause and source of the existence
of pleasure and of pain. For unless man vacillated between these
two, and ceaselessly reminded himself by sensation that he exists,
he would forget it. And in this fact lies the whole answer to
the question, "Why does man create pain for his own discomfort?"
The
strange and mysterious fact remains unexplained as yet, that
man in so deluding himself is merely interpreting Nature backwards
and putting into the words of death the meaning of life. For
that man does indeed hold within him the infinite, and that the
ocean is really in the cup, is an incontestable truth; but it
is only so because the cup is absolutely non-existent. It is
merely an experience of the infinite, having no permanence, liable
to be shattered at any instant. It is in the claiming of reality
and permanence for the four walls of his personality, that man
makes the vast blunder which plunges him into a prolonged series
of unfortunate incidents, and intensifies continually the existence
of his favorite forms of sensation. Pleasure and pain become
to him more real than the great ocean of which he is a part and
where his home is; he perpetually knocks himself painfully against
these walls where he feels, and his tiny self oscillates within
his chosen prison.
Part
1
Part 3
| Authors
Details: Mable Collins |
|
