• • THE INNER LIFE AND THE -TEH-WtfGr mwrn. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF James H. Collins IJe mystic Book Shoppe CIRCULATmq LlBRARl) 1508 ITlanori Street Cfampa, Florida The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King By C. H. A. BJERREGAARD Librarian, New York Public Library New York THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. OF NEW YORK 253 West 72nd Street 1912 Copyright 1911 By THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. OP NEW YORK Published December 1, 1912 URL V\ r \<\ CONTENTS. Chapter I. — The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King . . 1- 16 Chapter II. — The Inner Life 17- 33 Chapter III. — Mysticism 34- 58 Chapter IV. — Simplicity 59- 71 Chapter V.— The Sage 72- 88 Chapter VI. — Laotzse 89-104 Chapter VII. — Longevity 105-123 Chapter VIII. — Nature Worship 124-135 Chapter IX.— Tao 136-151 Chapter X.— Teh 152-166 Chapter XL— Life, Love, Light and Will 167-180 Chapter XIL— A Shawnee Tale 182-195 Chapter XIII.— "Non- Action" 196-210 Chapter XIV.— Nature 211-219 Chapter XV. — An Appendix on Jean Jacques Rous- seau's Ideas 220-225 BY THE SAME AUTHOR: Lectures on Mysticism and Talks on Kindred Subjects . Chicago, 1896. Lectures on Mysticism and Nature Worship . Chicago, 1897. A Sufi Interpretation of Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. New York, 1902. Jesus, a Poet, Prophet, Mystic and Man of Freedom. New York, 1912. Articles on Mysticism, Sufism and Kindred Subjects in The Inter- national Encyclopedia, The Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (S. M. Jackson), Encyclopedia Americana (1904), etc., etc. It PREFACE These chapters were originally lectures to a small, but select company. They are now revised and published for a larger world. They claim not to be exhaustive, but only an attempt in direction of a mystic interpre- tation of the Tao-Teh-King, a manner of reading that famous book but little practiced and less understood. The only proper way of reading that book is in the light of mysticism. The book can certainly not be handled like a Confucian document. I lay no claim to be a Sinologist. I have, however, in many places examined the texts and made translations differing somewhat from others. Elsewhere I have used all the known translations, with which I have usually agreed. It is more than thirty years since I began in this country to call attention to the Tao-Teh-King. It was then an almost unknown book. Since then, several translations and paraphrases have been published in this country and articles of more or less value have appeared in magazines, but much remains to be done if this treasure is to become known where it ought to be known. I hope my undertaking may be a step in that direction. Without the generosity of the theosophists before whom the original lectures were delivered, the book could not have been published. I owe them mv profound thanks. C. H. A. BJERREGAARD. THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING I. THE main difficulty in speaking about the Inner Life is the language that must be used. The medieval and renaissance mystics and occultists were obliged for various reasons to use alchemical language and phraseology to express their wisdom of life, be- cause such language was picturesque and easily comprehended by minds of a mechanical and practical turn, minds crude and ignorant of their own psychic powers and processes. To-day we have the same difficulty to overcome as the older mystics. Our audiences are unfamiliar with psychology and so little in the habit of seeing themselves as units, that they really believe themselves to be mere bundles of faculties, forces and states, and are unable to give an account of their mental, moral and spiritual condition. It is therefore necessary to pre- sent the Inner Life as if it were something in space and time. It is necessary to speak of traveling on paths, as if such paths were actual roads; and yet, Inner Life and Outer Life, Travel- ing and Paths, are only terms of psychic conditions. I shall in this chapter speak of passing over bridges as if I literally meant it. I shall be using realistic language, but not talk about realistic bridges. I shall talk psychology. Spiritually under- stood, there is no Inner Life, there is no Outer Life, there is no Path, no Bridge, No East, No West, no High, no Low — what is there? Well — wait till you have read these chapters and you may know! I will now do like the genial boy does who wants to know how his machinery is made and put together — he picks it to pieces and examines it. I will likewise pick our deeper life to pieces and tiy to show what it is and how it works, and, as I proceed, I shall put it together again. A few words about different standpoints and the "two voices": that of the Orient and that of the Occident, For the & THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING sake of the deepest understanding of problems which are of the uttermost importance to all thinking people, it is desirable that all theosophic and mystic subjects should be studied from a Western standpoint as well as from an Oriental. Most of you here present are accustomed, I think, to hear these subjects presented in Oriental phrases and in set terminology, all de- rived from Eastern sources. It has seemed to me desirable that you should hear the same truths set forth in Western termin- ology. I am sure you can only be the gamers. I propose to set them forth that way. But let me say something to guide you to see the similarities and to prevent confusion. Let me take as an illustration a familiar object, a lense, either concave or convex. The lense remains a lense what- ever you do with it, but it reflects the light variously as the light falls upon the concave or the convex. You may call the concave a type of the East, and the convex a type of the West, if you like, or vice versa. The viewpoint and the judgment are personal, indifferent, not real; the reality in the case is the fact that the lense reflects the light. The lense, of course, is the mind. Because I speak of great truths from the Western point of view and in Western terminology, I differ only from some of you in viewpoint and in personal aspect, but not really; we meet in the middle, in mind; in the Inner Life; in the fact that we both reflect the real, each in our individual way, however. Another illustration. Let us suppose I pass over a bridge : the " bridge of existence," from one end, the Western, and you from the other end, the Eastern. We shall see the Middle of the bridge and the approaches differently, but we shall both be passing the same bridge. And let me add that it would be wise for those of my listeners who have passed over such a bridge from one end only also to pass back over the bridge from the other end. They shall certainly be the wiser for so doing. It is the mystic's way. And let me say further, and, here I hint at a mystery, let me say, that since neither you nor I know absolutely which is the beginning or the end of the bridge, that it is immaterial which is the East or the West end of it. The most important part of the bridge is the Middle; from the Middle of the bridge we may ascend into another plane of ex- istence, and find that that existence is the real one. and that neither of the two approaches have any reality. Nature knows of no Beginning nor End; knows only the THE INNER LITE 6 Middle; the Inner Life. She spreads out continually from the Center, from the ever-present Now. For that reason, the Middle is called the first or fundamental principle and is the Inner Life. And for that reason, I say, that neither the East end nor the West end have any reality. As for myself, I have long ago come to the conclusion that neither end of the bridge is the real one, and, long ago a wise man talked much about the Middle Path. I, for one, am sure he spoke the truth. And I have found many who also have understood him. What is the Middle? Now I shall not indulge in meta- physics or mysticism, but use a well-known theosophic phrase as my illustration. The theosophic doctrine of "Brotherhood" is a very practical application of the philosophic doctrine Mid- dle ; it is the at-one-ing point for all races and creeds ; it answers to the One in philosophy. In that doctrine Theosophy pro- claims equal rights for all extremes. It is the gospel of "good will among men." It answers, as I said, to the One in phi- losophy; and to Unity. It is that which Schiller calls the Holy Will and "the idea supreme"; it is the power, that works for righteousness; the "spirit of rest" that ever tries to stay the changeful world. It is the "Love" of St. John; it is "the pure form of thought" of Kant. It is "god incarnate" of Christian- ity. All these terms explain what the Middle is ; what the Inner Life is. They explain that Middle, which we meet from whatever end we enter the bridge of life, and it is from such a Middle, I said, that we readily swing ourselves to heaven. Unless we come to the perfect realization, that life is one, one glorious whole, and not split up into various antagonistic elements, we shall never come to sound and rational philosophies or religions. Hu- man life is fallen apart and now lies in most unfortunate dual- isms of good and evil, of inner and outer, of upper and lower, of heaven and hell. The guilty ones are both saints and sinners; the first in ignorance, the latter in wilful misrepresentation. Away! Away! Let us now and henceforth build temples to Unity, to the One, to the Middle, to the Inner Life! Life, Ex- istence, is one. not manifold; one at the core; only manifold in manifestation. .' .*+ -is hang on to that. With this doctrine and realization before us, we can without fear examine the charac- teristics of the Easi and the West and see how they are merely extremes of a Higher Truth, a Higher Unity. And perhaps you will agree with me that it is desirable that I should speak from a Western point of view. 4 THE IN NEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TBH-KING To simplify matters, let me characterize the two viewpoints. The East is synthetic; the West is analytic; that, of course, makes views different, yet the multitudinousness of the circum- ference is only the center spread out, so to say. They answer to each other like concave and convex. Do they not? The East is sympathetic and has religion; the West is intellectual and has culture; that of course separates the two; but as sympathy means heart, and culture means brain, the two make a complete man: One; the Grand Man, Adam Kadmon, the Inner Life. The East discovered the World, the great objective; the West dis- covered and asserted the Ego, Man. To the East, the individual man is vanity and must be denied. The West declares that the world must be denied; but the discoverer in both cases was In- telligence, Mind: hence they meet. Intelligence, Mind, Heart, is the Inner Life. The essential point is that we always are on the wing, like the eagle. The eagle is only on the earth the few moments that Nature calls. The East does not wish to have any will of its own; it will not assert itself; self-assertion is in the East a sin and an illusion. But in the West a man is despised if he stands for nothing and leaves no monument after him. The East and the West here seem to differ radically. Do they not? Yet these two activities both meet in volition 1 Will is the name for the core of Man : it is the Inner Life. The essen- tial point is that we have will, because in the will both activity and passivity meet; both the objective and the subjective. The East has discovered the wonderful truths and the laws expressed by the words Karma and Reincarnation. In Western philosoph- ical language, and to Philosophy, the same truths are known under the names of Necessity, Determinism, Cause and Effect; hence they are not opposites. The real opposites as discovered by the West and thrashed out so thoroughly, that there is no more life in them, than in the ideas of Sin and Forgiveness. Where the East sees only Necessity and Law, the West sees only Freedom. Different they seem, yet they are but two sides of the same problem: the Oriental is the impersonal method, the Oc- cidental is the personal. Both dissolve in absolute truth and remain as a mystery! After all has been said that can be said, one Spirit, One Reality and One Truth remains, and the main point is that we reach the One Truth — that is the Inner Life. And so I might continue. There is always a middle Path which leads to the Inner Life, a point of consistency in which there is no creed THE TNNEB LIFE 3 nor dogma; no East or West. All mystics, all who are in wis- dom meet in Samadhi, as they call it in the East; Contempla- tion or Meditation, as they call it in the West. In Samadhi, or Contemplation, all differences disappear. Samadhi or Contem- plation is the Inner Life. The " Inner Life" to the East is, as I said, Samadhi, and to the West Contemplation. More closely defined, the Inner Life can in Eastern terms be described as a fullness of Being, an ecstatic Bliss and a supreme Knowledge; or in the corre- sponding Western terms, Freedom, Virtue, God, three terms for forms of mind derived from Kant's philosophy. In classical thought they are called the Good, the True, the Beautiful. But these descriptions will not help a rationalistic mind. In the West, people spurn sentiments, exalted perceptions, transcen- dental moods and subjective states. They are considered va- garies, whims and signs of degeneration. Negative Spirits, those of the order of Mephistopheles, deny the Inner Life. To them it is identical with fancy and romance. Only positive spirits, those of love, know it and live it. Oh ! what barbarians ! Those of the Inner Life have the same right to use that exclama- tion as the Greeks of old had, when they called a foreigner a barbarian. Oh! what barbarians all around! And yet the Ori- ental description of Samadhi is a marvel of expression to those who know the Inner Life from experience. The peculiarity with the Inner Life is this, that it cannot be made intelligible to those who have not experienced some of it. It is experience, not idealistic reason, that tells us that clouds and ice and steam are water. An African under the Equator who has never seen ice cannot understand that water may become as hard as a stone. He has had no such experience. People who live irrationally and in exterior things and who have never experienced anything else, deny the truth the mystics tell. They are like the fishes who did not know water. You know the tale? The fishes asked one another what water was, but none could answer. Then one, wiser than the rest, said he had been told that in the ocean lived a wise fish who knew all, and he proposed that some of them travel to this wise fish and ask what water was. Aud so they did, and the wise fish answered them : "O ye who seek to solve the knot! Ye live in God, yet know Him not. O THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAOTEH-KING Ye sit upon the river's brink, Yet crave in vain a drop to drink. Ye dwell beside a boundless store, Yet perish, hungry, at the door." The Inner Life is a "Wisdom of the other shore" and only comprehensible to those who have crossed over the river or have sailed upon it. Experience, not lecturing, nor hearing a lecture, will make it clear. "Measure not with words Th' immeasurable, nor sink the string of thought Into the fathomless: — who asks doth err, Who answers errs, — say naught!" ''Measure not with words." The Inner life is a "temple of no-thingness"; no words can enter. In it is understanding, but no creed. The Inner Life is a bloodless altar; its cup is Sam- adhi, or Contemplation, and its candlestick is insight. The Inner Life becomes an experience only to those who know their God in the form of mercy, never to those who drink of the waters of the lake of the fourfold flood, viz., passion, cleaving to life, false views, ignorance. Nay — it is as Whittier puts it: "The riddle of the world is understood Only by him who feels that God is good, As only he can feel who makes his love The ladder of his faith, and climbs above On the rounds of his best instincts." It is the general lack of experience in the higher life that makes it necessary to use such language as I have used; lan- guage that seems to deny my assertion that life is one; language that seems to suggest that an impassable gulf is fixed between daily life and the life of the mystic. But it is not so. There is a chasm, certainly, between the two, but it is not impassable; we have evidence enough to believe the testimonies of those who have come to us and told us about that life. Life is one and the chasm is only there for the ignorant, not for the initiate. There are good reasons and plenty of evidence that war- rants us in believing that those who deny the Inner Life are not sincere. A comprehensive study of the psychology of all THE IN NEB LIFE 7 races, creeds, and ages, proves that all people in all ages have found that man possesses certain high and divine qualities and is able to progress through psychic matters into regions of the Self, which seemed to be transcendental. Moreover, it is a fact that all sound minds crave that inner, that immortal life, which alone can give beauty to existence. It can only be called Satanic, when some moderns dare to assert that the Inner Life, the mystic life, is a product of dis- ease, a fungus growth, a degeneration. It is Satanic-false ! It is Devilish-evil. Is it possible that millions of people have lived and fed upon a lie ? Is it possible that the sweet-smelling flowers which again and again have refreshed humanity were nothing but poisonous growth? Nay! Nay! Gathering up the various remarks and definitions given, I will further illustrate the Inner Life by returning to my illus- tration, the bridge and its occult meaning, and thereby I come still nearer to the subject. Coming in from one end of the bridge, the Middle, or the Inner Life, I spoke of, is seen as the "Intelligible World," to use a Platonic term. The "intelligible world" is a term that expresses the idea that the world (Kos- mos) is intelligible; can be understood by Thought; is Thought; is over-sensual or ideal; is reasonable. And the world is not ' ' this, ' ' the actual, the space and time appearance, but that high phenomenon which appears to the mind and never to the senses. The ' ' intelligible world " is a mental and spiritual influence that corrects our understanding, because it is the plastic power of existence, the power that builds, the power that upholds and that teaches us. It is the archetypical perception of something not in space, yet present everywhere. Something not in time, yet perpetually moving everything else. Something not moved, but the cause of all movement. Something not measurable, but the master of all measure. Something we only perceive when we abstract ourselves from everything the senses are related to; which the desires crave, and which end in death. But this Something which the traveler thus sees in coming in from the one end of the bridge is not an airy nothing, an astral or unsubstantial something. It is most real; it is the real world. It is, still continuing the Platonic imagery, (1) the original world, viz., the world in which all things originate; (2) it is the typical world, viz., the world of patterns, motives ; and (3) the world <*f all essential thought and consciousness and 8 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING reason. It is the world of all the ideas of eternal value that lie back of all high and noble thought and action. Plato calls these ideals Universals, sometimes Substances, sometimes Numbers and sometimes Living Powers, Gods. Plato considered them to be indefinite in number and says they are what philosophy speaks of as categories. The highest of all ideas is the idea of the Good- Warning you against the possible error of confounding the 4 'Intelligible World" with the astral plane, I now want to im- press upon you what this walking in on the bridge means. In Platonic language, it means the opening of the noetic degree of mind, the degree of supreme wisdom which means an insight into the divine mysteries. And, now, again further illustrating the Inner Life by re- turning to my illustration, the bridge and its occult meaning. I will explain what is seen in coming in from the other end of the bridge and proceeding towards the Middle. Here the traveler is not met by views, visions or sublime ideas. The traveler en- ters into an exalted condition; is transfused by sublime pur- poses, and, gradually, forgetting self, he is coming into a trans- lated and celestial life, a condition of fulness, that excludes all evils, desires and cravings of the sense-man. The traveler is not merely moving towards the Middle, but is drawn towards it, and this drawing is joy and triumph. As the traveler comes near the Middle, he experiences a new energy and a fresh power, a power that comes from hitherto unopened wells of heart and soul. And in that power, the traveler feels a humanity not dreamed of, and, a divinity not even imagined, and a spiritual commerce between the two, which opens all mysteries of good- ness, love and perfection. Numerous mystics testify to that. The Sufi mystics speak not only of traveling to God, but also of traveling from God, and by traveling from God, they mean going into the world full of that love, they have received, and, distributing it into the world. Such a traveler from God was St. Francis with his infinite brother-feeling extending to the animals, and such a traveler was Buddha, and, such a trav- eler was Jesus. Filled with divinity and intelligence larger than their own, they saw into the life of things and made all things holy. The world thus opened is an empire of love. " Love feels no burden, regards no labors, would willingly do more than it is able, pleads not impossibility, because it feels that it can and may do all things," said Thomas a Kempis. Lovers of souls THE INNER LIFE J are the builders of this empire. Doers of deeds also build ; deeds that touch barren hearts and refresh the sick and the blind. This world holds no altars, no sacrificial fires. No Urim and Thum- min are needed to cover the heart; the heart is the Parousia, the Presence, the Fulness. These, then, are the two aspects of the Middle of the bridge to the Inner Life, seen according to the way you enter the bridge. The mystic is now suddenly beyond intelligence and love; beyond good and evil; beyond East and West; beyond all con- ceptions and actions or any other mental, moral, or spiritual state of man, and, beyond man himself. In the Beyond, on ' ' the other shore, ' ' there lies the Inner Life really, fully ; all the other conditions, sublime as they are, are, after all, but approaches. In Platonic language, the Middle is called the first or fun- damental principle, the Good. Ages and ages before Plato the Middle was called the Mother-goddess. But in the West they do not say the Good, they say God; and they do not say Mother- God, they say Father-God, and this change in terms robs the Middle, the Inner Life, of its real and sublime character. That change in terms robs the Middle of its life and character and makes it an abstraction. And the West has paid heavily for its mistake. Preachers are now obliged to urge their people ' ' to live the life," "to be doers and not hearers," and they are obliged to arrange Revivals, hoping thereby to quicken the peo- ple. All this decadence and decay of religion is a result of the change from reality to abstraction. It must be admitted that in the East, the realistic conception of the Middle or the Inner Life has led to extremes, and crude materialistic notions and worships. The East is as guilty as the West. They are, how- ever, both redeemed by their Mystics. Eastern mystics and Western mystics are the only souls who have come into true and real communion with the Middle, with the Inner Life and into the Beyond. It is not only the name for the Highest that has caused con- fusion, sorrow and sin in the religious world. There is another term and image that has been equally troublesome. That term is matter. What is matter? (1) As regards science of to-day, it must be confessed that it has never seen matter nor weighed it, nor in any way got a real hold of it. Atoms, molecules and ions are not matter, they are force; force is all science knows of. Consequently, science can give only a negative answer. Science does not know matter. In other words, there is no such 10 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING thing as that commonly called matter. There is substance, how- ever, but that is not matter, as commonly and ignorantly sup- posed. (2) The ancient people never thought of matter in con- nection with any physical science. Ever ready with pictur- esque figures they meant Mother by matter. So it is in San- scrit, so it is in Greek and all other languages, and, whenever philosoi)hers have entered upon explanations of what that word matter meant. The people who spoke Sanscrit explained it as the Universal Womb, as Space, as Aether, as the Measurer of the Firmament. They talked eloquently of the Divine Mothers where we moderns speak weakly about centers of evolution, centers of force. The Mothers, says Proclus, were /wnjrw (mestetes), "middles," and "possess mighty power in the uni- verse." Pythagoreans called them "towers of Jupiter." Nu- merous other terms are known. Matter then means generation; and note this: to all the ancient people and to all to whom, nowadays, matter means Mother, matter is never to be spurned or overcome. Matter to them was and is the most glorious term they know of for what others call God. This, then, is one signification of "matter," and it is the correct meaning of the word, when used by mystics. But matter has also another significance, and you will see it when I tell you that a Greek, Anaximander, about 600 B. C, introduced the term &pxt (arke) as a term and designation for the first and fundamental principle, and as a substitute for Mother. But &pxt is a colorless and anaemic term that stands for an abstract conception. Really we cannot object to Anaximander and his term; they were both Greek and both idealistic. But now comes the point, now you shall see where trouble arose. Aristotle, about 340 B. C, who understood i-px-h to mean merely a formative and empty principle and not reality, wished to de- stroy it because it had become a power in Platonism, which he criticised. He therefore placed over against it another term to counterbalance it and to contradict it. That term was i\j which means chaos; it is a realistic term, which means "mud," viz., a sort of general mixture of tangible elements. It is this conception of chaos, of mud, that has come down to us, while the conception Mother has been forgotten. It is jJM, chaos, mud, and since Aristotle's time materialism, moral baseness, we are bid in mystic life to overcome. We are not bid to deny the Mother. In addition to the Aristotelian conception of imper- fection, confusion and low quality, that word Matter has aJsc THE INNER LIFE 11 by Christian philosophy become the bearer of all ideas of moral impurity, defects, sins and baseness. These, too, the mystic candidate must shun. Aristotle and Christianity have certainly conferred a benefit upon us by the invention of a new term and the clear sense they gave that term, but the pity is, that all kinds of fanatics, ascetics, and pseudo-philosophers have completely forced the idea of Mother out of the common understanding and existence, and, that that, which is to be overcome, that which is the outer, and, thus diametrically opposed to inner, is called matter. It ought to be called something else and is so called by mystics. Can this Inner Life be lived in a workaday world like ours? This is a question constantly asked, and I constantly answer, Yes ! most emphatically. It can be lived and is lived. Life is not a snare. I shall in future chapters enter more fully upon this. How to reach the Inner Life? I have already used as illus- tration: the bridge, and two persons passing over it from op- posite ends. I will continue the use of that illustration. It is a good one — that which in mystic life is called the Path. I will now say that one end of the bridge is called Silence, the other Solitude, and that the Middle is called the True Self. Now listen ! Let me read you a poem full of suggestion : "We sat together in the afterglow And talked of earth's old mystery of pain; Of wasted toil, of love and anguish vain, Of little children born to helpless woe. We talked until life seemed like a hideous show, And men but slaves under the cruel reign Of a blind god, their prayers could not restrain. — Then we sat silent ; — on the rocks below, The careless mountain stream foamed at our feet; Above the dark pine's silhouette hung fair, One star, in whose calm radiance earth's despair Seemed childish outcry ; — life grew sane and sweet ; For nature's brooding peace was everywhere, And love eternal through her pulses beat." — Marion Pruyn, in New England Magazine, June, 1897. See the bridge ? ' ' We sat silent ' ' ! 12 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING The first part of this poem has very likely been the experi- ence of many in this room, and perhaps that line, ' ' Then we sat silent," has also been the experience and has had its natural sequence in peace and quiet, in which ''life grew sane and sweet." If that has been your experience, have you reflected upon this, that it was the silence that fell upon you, that brought sanity and sweetness ? It was silence that brought redemption ; not talk, not bitterness that did it ; not criticisms of facts of life misunderstood, not a negative spirit ivo^a; bitter criticism is the sin of the world to-day. Sanity and sweetness came when the ravens of restless thought had ceased their cawings; ravens, rooks, crows and jackdaws bring no peace; they mean putre- faction, and so does bitter, senseless talk. Scepticism is not the true beginning of philosophy. The true beginning lies in the recognition of this, "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46, 10), and in learning to commune with our own hearts. I will now say something about Silence and Solitude, and these two words will be the portals, through which, not by which, the Inner Life will appear in some of its majesty and beauty. It will appear that Silence discovers or unveils the Individual Self, and that Solitude discovers or unveils Universal Self. What is meant by Silence? Negatively, the word means "to shut up," to cease talking. Mysticism in its Greek root means to shut up, to close up. Mere silence is of course useless. Mutes are not on the Path, because they are not able to talk. Positively, Silence is the quiescence of a perfectly ordered fulness, viz., after we have become liter- ally silent, the fulness of life asserts itself as never otherwise. Again, in silence, there is a positive realization of the power of presence. A presence, to some, of Beauty : an awakening within of an Ideal, longed for, though forgotten. A Beauty, proud and austere, yet revealing an immortal face; a Beauty that lifts our longings into lovely dreams and the white flames of ecstacy. To others, Silence is like the edge of the day when the dawn slides slowly along the tops of the pines, and they feel a new energy awaken in them, an energy in which they feel, that they hold the worlds in the hollow of their hands. To others, Silence holds the highest Wisdom borne by the rhythmic currents that permeate space. The world calls it inspiration. Others hear the divine thunder: "Be still, and know that I am God," and they go forth as prophets of the Most High, as witnesses for the sov- ereign of the Past, the Present and the Future. "In silence we THE INNEB LITE 13 become each moment what God already is." Ah, how shall I tell those that have not experienced it what silence is? Those who know it, understand me. My words can be only like the ringing of bells. By Silence we come into the true life, into our right place, and the immortal life reigns. We discover our individual self. In Silence our normal nature asserts itself and we live; we do not merely think or act, we live, something so utterly foreign, that the modern culture-man does not know what it is, neither does he understand it. What is it to live? It is to experience an intensity which fully balances the immensity of the objective world. Full of that intensity, that insight, we bear up against any adversity like a thunderstorm, which always goes against the wind. Full of that intensity and this insight, there can be no ascetic dissi- pation of the eternal fires that lie at the root of the soul. That intensity, that insight, is the synthesis of all the powers we can conceive, and we live neither in fancy, speculation nor in false assertion of self. We are one with existence, as that murmurs in the forest and sighs in the wave and illumines the mountain top and cries on the tongue of the new-born baby or breathes in lovers' amorous talk or shouts in archangel's Halleluyah! This intensity, this insight, is synthetic; it is all in-clusive, not ex- clusive. It will not recognize the theological distinction of saints and sinners to have any eternal value. To it, life is one. It will not lament on account of the ragged edges of sorrow, nor will it merely rejoice in victory. All antagonism, cold as morning chill or deadly as night malaria, is dissolved into the colors of the rainbow of Hope. That intensity is an assertion of Soul and Immortality. It is a realization of Genius, and the Over-man. This was the one end of the bridge — Silence ! Now let us pass in from the other end, Solitude. The word Solitude means exactly what its originator meant it to stand for. It means that when ' ' things ' ' have been taken away or removed, there then remains something "alone," and that something is the Ego. Solitude means that the Ego is alone with itself. Do not consider loneliness and lonesomeness as synonymous terms and conceptions. A lonely life is a forlorn, sad and for- saken existence; it is solitary and lacking the soul's craving for a companion. A lonely life is usually the result of conflicts with societary order or a result of sickness. It is abnormal and de- fective. Lonesomeness, on the contrary, is most desirable for 14 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING strong souls. It means seclusion from the rabble and the multi- tudinousness of daily life. It imparts the idea of terror to some, to those, namely, who are so little self-centered that they must always lean upon somebody. But lonesomeness is not terrible or distressing; on the contrary, the wise seek it as an antidote against dismay and find it to be a tutelar divinity. All who seek the roots of life dig in solitude for them. The "second birth" is in solitude. The "twice-born" enjoy solitude. It would be well for many if they at least could retreat to a "quiet room," like Whittier's: "I find it well to come For deeper rest to this still room ; For here the habit of the soul Feels less the outer world's control. And from silence multiplied By these still forms on every side, The world that time and sense have known Falls off, and leaves us God alone." Yes, Solitude is a state or condition so sublime in character that I may say: Solitude is God's secret meeting place with the soul. Solitude is as Lenau put it, "The Mother of God in man." The "twice-born" man comes out of Solitude, not out at a whist party or from a ball. In Solitude arise all those images from our past existences which in this present noisy and pas- sionate earth-life have sunk to the bottom. In Solitude there is that which Plato called d^^u (anamnesis), " Beminiscence, " a recovery of all past experiences; a fact of the uttermost importance in our psychic life, and, a fact that gives great com- fort; we know that we live not in vain even if present condi- tions are antagonistic. We shall reap the fruits of all our labors, all our hopes, longings and tears. In Solitude arise not only our own endeavors in and towards the greater Life, but also the spectra of all the volitions, good and bad, that filled our surroundings while we lived in the past, as well as the images of cosmic life. "Whatever we lost in our studies, the visions of which we do not understand, the beauties we failed to perceive, all, all are again available, are again to be enjoyed, are again to be studied; and they all come back in a clarified condition and full of an imperial power they never be- fore possessed. THE INNER LIFE 15 You can readily see the rationale of this. They have been stripped naked of all the incidental and trivial and their burning fire. In utter nakedness they stand before us and call for life. By giving them life they become souls, and, we become prophets, artists, poets, musicians ! Oh, the glorious Solitude ! Oh, take solitude and let every- thing else go! Pay the price. Do you remember Goethe's con- fession? "Who never ate his bread with tears, Nor through the sorrow-laden hours Sat nightly face to face with fears, He knows you not, ye heavenly powers. ' ' The "heavenly powers" here spoken of, are those of soli- tude. But these very powers are the ones that made great men great. The pay was none too heavy ! They made Goethe great ! These powers of solitude and the ordeal we pass through in soli- tude brings us face to face with "the Great Alone" and our Genius ; nothing else does it. In solitude none of the five senses work. They are merely doors through which the soul passes in and out; in to itself, and out into nature. What I want to emphasize is this : in soli- tude, we are neither subjective nor objective ; we root in neither extreme; we are reflective. We are reflective, I say; we do not reflect or think; nay, the Universal, be it the Good or the Beauti- ful, finds its true expression through us. In solitude we have neither ears nor eyes; we are perceptive, however! Do you perceive the difference? We do not have senses, we are the essential of sense. In solitude we are not in manifoldness, we are in unity. These images become the expressions for what I call reconciliation, which sets us free. Here you have in a nut- shell the whole psychology of Solitude. See that the emphasis lies upon the withdrawing from ex- ternals, from tools, from means, to essentials ! This withdrawal must be thoroughly understood, otherwise we shall misjudge and perhaps reject the teachings of the mystics about "overcoming" and "self-conquest." This subject is the main element in all intelligent life, be it religious, artistic or mystic. Xo hmnan being attains freedom without passing through this psychic furnace. 16 THE INNEB LEPB AND THB TAO-TEH-KING No human being can ever create any monumental work with- out initiation in this temple. No human being, who has not worshipped at this shrine and there been baptized in fire and by spirit, can ever understand that myriad named power which we see in Nature, Beauty, Good- ness and everywhere else. Now, in conclusion, examine for yourself and see if I have spoken the truth. If I have spoken the truth, it conforms to (1) the method of nature ; (2) to the constitution of the human mind; and (3) to the testimonies of the Scriptures as they have been handed down from age to age. w THE INNER LIFE II. ALT WHITMAN, our neglected poet, wrote : "Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice Him or her I shall follow As the water follows the moon silently With fluid steps anywhere around the Globe." And he continues in the same poem (' 'Voices") : "I believe all wait for the right voices, I see brains and lips closed — tympans and temples unstruck, Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose, Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth What lies slumbering, forever ready, all in words." Like Whitman we all wait to hear the right voice. Where is that voice to be heard? The voice that can wake "what lies slumbering," where can it be heard f This sentence, "what lies slumbering," means a great deal; much more than its shortness would suggest. That which lies "slumbering" and which is to be awakened is our most essential nature. It is slum- bering, viz., it is unknown to ourselves and to others. It is living in the innocence of a fool 's paradise and in untried peace. The voices awaken it to activity and to thought. The awakening is sometimes painful and is followed by many trials. We enter upon the Path at the awakening. It is the awakening of the right voice that makes the difference between one man and another and which gives us any value. That is what happens normally. The "right voice" may also speak to us while we are in confusion or perhaps evil. It is then an awakener in another sense. Of that I shall not speak at present. 18 THE INNEB LIFE AND TKE TAO-TEH-KING I will show you two pictures. Be not surprised that I call them voices. I have good authority for it. Philo-Judaus, in most of his knowledge a good theosophist, and he had the Heb- rew Scriptures as his authority, says that Nature is the language in which God speaks, ' ' but there is this difference, that while the human voice is made to be heard, the voice of God is made to be seen; what God says consists of acts, not of words." 1 Let me show you a picture by the Japanese painter, Okio. It represents a sunrise on the coast of Japan. All you see is a long line of surf tumbling in towards you from out a bank of mist ; you see the blood-red disk of the rising sun, and over the narrow strip of breaking rollers three cranes are slowly sailing north. You do not see the shore nor the ocean itself, it lies still sleeping under the mist ; you see only the borderland of the great unknown, the breakers, the sun and the cranes. The picture is so simple that it would not appeal to most people. But it contains the whole philosophy of the Tao-Teh-King of which I shall speak in the following chapters. You have perhaps seen such a scene on an early morning. I have seen it (minus the cranes, to be sure), right outside New York, where the Atlantic washes New Jersey's low, sandy shores. The view is weird, to say the least. It makes a desolate shore look more desolate and strikes you painfully at first. In melan- choly you begin to realize that you have before you a picture of life. A vast unknown and a misty immensity envelops you, in which you perceive only the heaving breath of the ocean as of a mighty monster, perhaps dangerous. The breakers speak in un- known tongues and the cranes represent the eternal cry of the human soul for rest. And really, such is life in one of its aspects, the most dreadful one! What a blessing that the ma- jority of people do not even suspect the truth ! Only strong souls and initiates are allowed to behold the mystery and to see that we are surrounded by just such uncertainty — Uncertainty!. The Inner Life begins in such realizations. It cannot begin in any other way. Yet such a negative beginning is most fruitful. All the entangling meshes of a complex life are hindrances. The Inner Life is, first of all, simplicity; that is, it is un- mixed, homogeneous. Hear a legend. In the glorious days of chivalry, there was a knight brave and bold, but stupid as regards learning. He never learned more of the "Ave Maria" than the words "Hail, Mary blessed among women," but these words he 'Works. English trans, vol. 2, "Art. on Abraham." THE INNEB LIFE 19 repeated always, in time and out of time. When he died it was discovered that lilies sprouted from his grave, and upon opening the grave it was found that the lilies grew upon his tongue! Sancta Simplicitas! Simple enough! Who would follow him? Yet the legend contains eternal truth. A life in simplicity is a free life, a life not in bondage either to desire or the objects of desire, or blurred by intellectual smoke. A life in simplicity has eliminated even the perspectives of the landscape, and stands like Fudji-no-yama with the head above the clouds. A life in simplicity is a strong life, and ignores the clouds that thunder and lighten around its breast, and, it stands firmly on the rock- ribbed cosmos. It lies so near for anyone that may have been awakened by hearing about such a life, to imitate that which has been seen or heard, or follow some teacher who promises a short cut to the ideals. I would warn such. I would not have anyone copy another who has lived that life. I would have you know it from your own experience. The Inner Life is original. I warn all that "new trees cannot be made of flowers old ones bore," and, that one must not lay withered flowers as offering upon the altar. We live in a new age, and the Inner Life for us must be lived on new lines. It must be, first, natural or true to facts ; secondly, it must be human, viz., not ascetic; thirdly, it must conform to all the best results of the lives lived by Mystics and Theosophists in the past. The Inner Life is an original life and mankind to- day is in as bad a way as it is because there has been copying, imitations. Teachers and leaders have taken their gifts in vain and sold them for money, and smothered their own consciences by the belief that they did mankind good by making it follow them and by making it copy their methods. They conferred no blessing; they hampered the inner life not only in their followers, but in themselves. I need not mention examples ; church history is full of them. Prophets turning autocrats, leaders becoming tyrants and heavenly meetings ending in hell, are painted only too frequently in history. If I were offered a high seat in Heaven for organizing a mystic or Inner Life society, I would refuse it. The freedom of a soul is worth more than Heaven. The Inner Life is original. It rests on no authority. The study and exercise of the Inner Lifp must be as new and as fresh as the morning that breaks in upon that shore in Okio's painting, and shine in its own light as the sun does in the morning; every morning greeting the mists anew and inviting the cranes to rise. 20 THE INNBB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING And every soul that aspires to initiation must stand there where it sees no shore, but only breakers and the long indefinite line of possibilities. I will have no man or woman cling to another's thought, be- cause ' ' a thought that once has been thought, no man can think once more." The Inner, or the Mystic, Life must be and is original ; viz., it is a new beginning ; it is fresh from the Original ; it is something that never was before, either as light, or as power, or motion; it is a new opening into the sanctuary of the Most High ; it raises the curtain to new loves and is the genesis of new born worlds. A true mystic, or spiritually minded person, one who lives the Inner Life, avoids all kinds of ' ' systems, ' ' be they philosophical, theological, ethical, or anything else. He seeks what the Tao-Teh-King calls Wu-Wei, and Wu-Wei is taught by the seashore of Okio 's painting. The more consistent, the more logical the systems appear, the more they are to be shunned. Their very consistency proves their lack of life and spirit. Any and all systems, be they mystic, theosophic, or handed down by angels or otherwise, are only views obtained from one of the ap- proaches to the bridge of life. The middle lies equally remote from either end, and the middle is the Truth. Of that I spoke at length lately. Life is too rich and too full to be forced into a Procustes' bed of thought, no matter whose thought or will it happens to be. History bears witness to all I say on this subject, and, so does Nature. Go into any garden and you shall see for yourself and hear the old Mother Nature laugh at you and your ideas when you want to force her. Your ideas are not hers. She does not work by * ' system. ' ' She is Herself. We ought to analyze into the mysteries of the New Life that to-day surges upon the shore of existence. The New Age People follow the Stream and they never think of commanding the waves of the ocean to respect the royal feet, as did King Canut of Den- mark. What do the waves care about royal feet? In addition to that which I already have said about Okio's painting, I want to say that the main lesson I would point out in it, is this : In it there is no clamor, no striving of the senses, no lusts, no unreal thoughts. It is Wu-Wei, or the simplicity of life; or as the Tao-Teh-King calls it, relaxation from earthly activity; the simple beauty of life flowing as of itself like a river according to inner law, but not striving in its own will. The painting is a prayer for stillness; that voice which resounds everywhere in Nature, and everywhere with Nature's passionate THE INNER LIFE 21 intensity. And that voice is ''the right voice" to all. It speaks always about mystery. Mystery is but another name for ab- solute truth, for Originality! Now let me show you another picture and ask you to listen to another voice. I have a picture to show quite as powerful as that of Okio and you shall hear a voice from the abyss as rich as that in the Japanese painting. I shall quote a poet, who ought to be the banner bearer for Theosophists with poetic veins. I mean him who understood so well the occult there is in the landscape : ' ' The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is in the lonely hills," and who realized more powerfully than anybody else that "The meanest flower that blows can bring Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." I mean Wordsworth, to whom nature was no puzzling me- chanism, but a luminous organism, a personal influx. Words- worth, of whom Shelley said he had awakened "a kind of thought in sense"; Wordsworth, to whom a sunrise was the time of spiritual consecration ; Wordsworth, who liked to stand "Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are The ghostly language of ancient earth;" Wordsworth, who had communed with "Nature's self, which is the breath of God." I shall read to you a short passage from the first book of the "Excursion." I am very fond of it. It is a voice that speaks " .... truths that wake To perish never, — Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy." 22 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING This is the passage : " . . . . for the growing youth What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light? He looked — The solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay Beneath him : — Far and wide the clouds were touched And in their silent faces could he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none, Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank The spectacle : Sensation, soul and form, All melted into him ; they swallowed up His animal being ; in them did he live, And by them did he live ; they were his life. — In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed ; he prof erred no request ; Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!" This is ' ' An Ohphic song indeed, A song divine, of light and passionate thoughts, To their own music chanted, " as Coleridge wrote the night after he had heard "The Prelude." It is a voice that speaks without sound; a voice that does away with the animal being; a voice that does not need thought for translation; it is immediate; without means it transfigures sensa- tion, soul and form. In rapt communion the soul transcends both prayer and praise, and, becomes blessedness and love; be- comes one with glory, one with nature. In "The Prelude" where Wordsworth sings of another magnificent morning, he confesses : "My heart was full ; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit." THE INNER LIFE 23 How mean does not the every-day treadmill seem in the light of such solemn experiences? And how contemptible the waste most people are guilty of ; they waste the golden moments in bed and neglect the morning on the mount. Hence they do not expand and know not its beatitudes. A traveller once asked a Hopi Indian, whom he saw praying half an hour as he stood at his door looking over the mesa, what he said. The Indian an- swered : ' ' Nothing ! ' ' He said nothing — but something filled him. What? the Great Spirit filled him with bright presence and a calm sank down into his heart ; a calm in which he perceived the eternal, and the horizon of his heart widened. He felt some- thing akin to himself. And such is true prayer. He heard ' ' the right voice." Now, you have heard what Whitman called "the right voice," and these two, Wordsworth and the Indian, who "fol- lowed as the water follows the moon silently"; Wordsworth, the man from the sea of the nations, and the Indian, the power of the mountain fastness and the Open. Do you know the soul of either of these? or their experiences? Did you ever go out into the free, the Open, where "the right voices" may be heard? or did you fear and hide in the great city with its confusion of tongues, or, did you, perhaps, lose the key to your own heart? Hear "the right voice": "Love thy God, and love Him only, And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. In that One Great Spirit meet All things — mighty, grave and sweet. Mortal, love that Holy One, Or, dwell forever alone — alone!" It is not necessary that you or I should retire to the jungle, the hermit's cell, or forsake kith and kin,in order to listen to "the right voice." Nay — the sea, the mountain, and your own heart, speak in the right voice, if we but listen. The sea and the moun- tain we have always with us. Every woman is a sea; every man is a mountain, and the heart throbs in both. As I said, it is not necessary that we should retire to the jungle, as they do in In- dia and elsewhere. A large city like New York is a jungle, and as full of all the dangers, horrors and sublime opportunities 24 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING as any mountain fastness. As for myself, I live in it and look upon New York City as a jungle. I can testify that I do not lis- ten to the chattering monkeys; and the wild animals, though they growl and threaten, never hurt me. I let great popular excitements pass by like an electric storm in the forest, and I stay unaffected in my meditations. I have my solitary room and there I find myself undisturbed in my spiritual exercises. Yet, I am no recluse. I do my duty as a citizen and hold men's fate in my hands as much as any ruler of states. I do not wear the mendicant's robe, nor do I carry his bowl, nor do I affect the manners of a pietist. Of what use ? Why should you not do likewise? The "right voice" tells you to do likewise! To return to the voices: "Of mountain splendor and the mobile sea, Which are most Mother Nature's in sooth I cannot tell" (After John Chadwick) but this I know, female souls seek the mountain and masculine souls seek the sea. "Two voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty voice." (Wordsworth) The one, that of the sea, surges and sinks back again — a sublime continuance ! And thus it has been since time was. The others — the mountains — were ploughed up one day in an earth- quake and "made the haunts of beauty; the home elect of grace; Nature spreads mornings on them, and sunsets light their face," and that is why masculine souls love the sea and female souls seek the mountains. And by drawing these souls to the moun- tain and to the sea, Mother Nature speaks in the "right voice" to each; but alas! how often does not the female soul become restless and cry "Away! I will away, far away, Over the mountains high: Here T am sinking lower each day." (Bjornson) Alas ! I have also heard unfaithful masculine souls com- plain that they never fully understood the mystic song of the THE INNER LIFE 25 sea and that dreams enervated them. They wearied of seeing the sun retire and of sleeping behind his purple skirted robe. , . . And why is this? Ah! unfaithfulness! The masculine is as restless as the feminine. They are both unwilling to listen to Wu-Wei, to "inactive absorption into Tao." They fear to be lost. They will rather trust themselves. They have no faith, though Tao, which is faith, constantly speaks assuringly. Have no fear! The Inner Life does not kill either sense, understand- ing, feelings or anything human! Only shadows vanish and false activity is as naught. Will you not try to practice thinking without doubting; speaking without duplicity; acting without attachment! Again: I have heard of the wonderful mountains, Fudji-no-yama, of Alborgi, of Kaf and Meru, and other heaven-towering moun- tains, real and mythical, and I have felt the uplift and I have heard a female voice sing rejoicing: "I stand on high, Close to the sky, Kissed by unsullied lips of light ; Fanned by soft airs That seem like prayers Fleeting to God through ether bright." (C. G. Ames.) And I have heard the heart's meditation and triumph: "All alone on the hilltop Nothing but God and me ! ***** And things immortal cluster Around my bended knee." Ah, yes ! So I have heard the song — but silence and I have also heard the same heart fret and fume, wishing for the ab- sence of desire ; crying for a light that did not burn, and asking that the voice would cease to urge — as if the flame which the Mother had started was not a holy flame! What of it, if the heart burned away! It is so the Mother's way. Does she not know! 26 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Again: Masculine souls have exhausted their strength in lyric songs to the sea, its mighty breasts and the refreshing baths and the wild waves' ecstacy — but they, too, have been ungrateful and with tears repented and said " illusions dwell forever with the wave." Some have later on seen their folly and come lack to the waters of life. Those that did not throw their repentance to the winds and return to the ocean of love will lose their life if they ever come near the shore. Such renegades are never taken back. They have sinned against themselves and must be made over. This is what I have heard on the mountain and on the sea- shore and I have translated my visions and the voices as best I could. But there is much mystery left. You must understand that there are other seas besides the ocean; and other moun- tains besides rocky prominence. They all have voices — some to be heard, others to be seen. Perhaps you have read other in- scriptions on the mountains, and heard other musical notes scored on the staff of the shore. If so, we understand each other! How shall we teach the others to hear and to see? Okio's picture speaks in low and solemn voice. Words- worth's in high and triumphant notes. To those who seldom commune with nature, they will appear so remarkable that they will talk about them and write about them in the dailies and magazines. And they will consider them something special they have been lucky enough to see. But to those who live with Na- ture, these visions and voices are not exceptional ; they are com- mon, i. e., they lie open to the perception and enjoyment of all, and always, because Nature is not exclusive, but quite lavish in her goodness. A youthful and poetic mind would be apt to mis- interpret the symbolism and richer glory of these two pictures and miss their real significance. A prosaic and materialistic mind will, of course, remain ignorant of the spiritual values of such experiments. To a lover of Nature, who is one with her, they will be resonant with the deep things of Divinity; and such a lover will feel an interpenetration of all Nature with his or her own being, and he or she will come out of the experience feeling transformed and knowing that something transcendental has visited them. And this is Tao's work. I cannot define it any clearer, but you can experience it and thus know it better. When T now turn from objective nature to the subjective nature within, I also find two voices and they speak loud in the THE INNEB LIFE 27 halls of the learned. And these voices are called Idealism and Bealism, or Platonism and Aristotelianism. You have all heard them, though you may not have named them as I did. But hav- ing heard them, have you in their voice — either the one or the other — heard the note of your own mind? It is imperative that you should hear that note, otherwise the voice is not to you any right voice, but merely scholastic dust and noise. Which of the voices speaks pre-eminently to the masculine soul and which to the feminine, I leave you to answer for yourself. You have a guide in what I have said about the voices of the sea and the mountain. Those two voices I just now called Idealism and Realism; Platonism and Aristotelianism, were heard at an earlier day in Greece and expressed by Fire-Philosophers on one side and the Eleatics or Philosophers of Being on the other. I mention these because they are two voices which are heard wherever and whenever men try to form their ideas of the surrounding world, and, there is an affinity between the Fire philosophy and some minds in my audience, and, there is an affinity between the phil- osophy of Being and other minds in my audience. Some of you can understand the mystery of existence if you consider it un- der the aspect of eternal change, a coming and a going, a breath- ing in and a breathing out. And such an understanding is most valuable and most necessary for the formation of character. Others cannot understand what Not-Being is and how loss, decay and death can be necessary and valuable elements in the cosmos. They demand, according to the voice that speaks in them, permanency and rest. They, too, need to learn all details about their voice in order to build character, different as they are. I need not elaborate or say any more about these two voices. They will readily be seen to correspond to the sea and the mountain voices which I have described in detail. If it is as Aristotle has it, that some men become good by nature , others by training, others by instruction, then I say, that those who are good by nature always and spontaneously hear those voices of the sea and the mountains and the other voices. The others learn in the course of life to listen to them, and both become one with the voices, when they have uuderstood them. Now about the voice within. The "right voice" speaks also in our Inner Man. And that voice is called by many names and described, as is natural, very differently, but we never have any difficulty in knowing what is meant, when we hear the name. 28 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING This many-named voice, or power, or degree, of the Inner Man, which we aim at getting hold of ; that degree which we de- sire to open and which we wish to develop, is described in vari- ous ways, and some of these descriptions I will now give you. First of all I will give my own description. I call it the eter- nal pattern or plastic power in us and mean by that, that it is the rule and regulation inborn or given to all men. According to it, we know the eternal ways and methods. It always speaks as "the right voice" and we are happy when we listen. I came originally to the understanding of it by pondering upon the meaning of the statement in Genesis, that we are made in "the image of God." I therefore also call it "the image of God." Everyone of you have it in you. It is that ideal you carry in you and which you wish to come up to. That ideal you judge by, when you occasionally admit to yourself and others that you do not come up to the standard. It is there and nobody can plead ignorance as an excuse for disobedience or for not attempting seriously the Higher Life. It may not be wide awake, but it is there and admonishes us, even if we will not admit it. Plato's description of &vdnvvstial or mystic visitors that eome to free a soul in bondage. In some of them we also hear warnings to the one who receives the visit, and these warnings are to beware of rudeness and curiosity. I will give you an illustration, not Folklore, however, but just as good and to the point. It is a little story once told by a teacher THE INNER LIFE 31 of mine, Professor Rasmus Nielsen, of Copenhagen University. The story is about a student, a lady. We see her at her study table. She has ink on her fingers ; surely a proof that she is lit- erary. She is not yet a graduate, but soon she will be. See how she arms herself. Look at this table of studies; seven foreign languages, history, geography, music, singing, drawing, paint- ing, natural history and physics, mythology, perspective and mathematics, fortification and astronomy. For a moment she rests and takes her attention from an essay in astronomy on which she is at work. Suddenly it occurs to her that there is something wanting on the study-plan. Says she : ' i There must be something they call the Inner Life. I can learn so much else, surely I can learn that, too. It would be well to do so ; it is al- ways well to know something that others do not know. I wish I could find a teacher in the Inner Life. As suddenly as this soliloquy had sprung up, as suddenly there appeared in the door an elderly sage-looking man, who smiled upon her with compas- sion. "Well, who are you?" He was, he said, a teacher in the Inner Life and offered to give her lessons. What are your terms ? ' ' He teaches without money or compensation and is al- ways at service. "What?" says she, "without money or com- pensation," and "always at service?" She is astonished; looks out of the window and — when she turns back, he is gone ! ' ' Hah I what is that like? He teaches "without money or compensa- tion" and is "always at service" and can't even wait while one looks out of the window. Wonder if the Inner Life is logical? By the way, I forgot to ask about recommendations. The in- cident was soon forgotten and our student turned to the astro- nomical essay. What she later found out about the teacher and the Inner Life is not known. But this, my listener might learn, that the Inner Life is immediate, sudden, spontaneous and free of cost. Do not look out of the window; do not hesitate! Do not ask for recommendations. Not individuals only make such grave mistakes. Western' humanity has made them again and again. I can supplement my teacher's, the Professor's story by showing you the parallel to his story in history. The history of philosophy furnishes it. Greek Thought degenerated into materialism in Democritus and his successors, and, in Socrates and the Sophists it lost itself entirely in self-conceit. A reaction set in with Plato, and in the Post-Aristotelian thought Greece almost recovered itself. Neo- Platonism was full salvation. Neo-Platonism was mystic and 32 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING theosophic wisdom, that destroyed all self-sufficiency and taught men how to find release from the world and the flesh by an in- nermost activity of soul and in ecstacy. (Down and up!) Men lapsed. Night set in again, and, in the next and follow- ing ages the transcendental period established by Plotinos and his school lost entirely its vital force and became mere scholas- ticism in the Church's theology, and transformed itself into a doctrine of will, such as is manifested in St. Augustine. These two represent a new fall and degeneration once more. The Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, follow and the Inner Life is lost sight of. But redemption comes at last. It breaks forth in the Renais- sance and Reformation and comes to its full power in theosoph- ists like Jacob Boehme and all those wonderful men, such as Eckardt, Suso and Tauler, who all live entirely in the depths of the soul. (Again down and up!) Once again after a time delusions blind the human mind and conceit gets the upper hand. The supremacy of mind and spirit in men like Descartes becomes mere rationalism. English empiricism crops up as an antidote, but on the same low level and, between the two, the human mind is again darkened and comes near its death. A revival begins in Emanuel Kant's re- assertion of the spiritual principle, and in the works of the so- called Faith-Philosophers, Lessing, Jacobi and Herder. But the real resurrection takes place when the mystics and theosophs once again come upon the scene. Reinhold asserts "the prin- ciple of Consciousness" and lays emphasis upon the fact that, thought always points beyond itself. He therefore demands a higher unity than thought can furnish, and that opens the door for mysticism. Fichte and Schelling both end in Theosophy and become the saviors of many. Finally comes Schiller with his mystic doctrine of art as the redeeming element from all scep- ticism and materialism of the age. At the same time such Romanticists as Novalis dream and talk only about the inner- most essence of things. All this, together with that vigorous protest we call the French Revolution, shake off all trammels; and from now on the individual is free again to pursue its own course. Thus once more did the mystic powers that lie at the root of the human tree revive it and give it new growth. (Down and up again!) Has it continued to grow according to the promises of the beginning? Nay, it must be admitted that the negative forces, the selfish powers of the knights, kings and priests and their THE INNEB LIFE 33 servants, have succeeded only too well in strangling the new growth. And science, which ought to have been a liberating angel, has only too often and too well furnished the gross and stupid parts of man with indulgences and physical means for enjoyment. Everywhere we again see decay and indifference. Here and there only, and, in isolated cases, have theosophists and mystics arisen with healing on their wings, and upon them depend a revival and restoration as it has depended upon them in the past, as I have just shown you. Will you, all of you, each one individually, come to the rescue? There is no better way to promote one's own welfare than by working for others. All the voices, that are " right voices," all call upon us to do something for the neighbor, and, they all say that we can ac- complish nothing of ourselves, nothing in isolation. The future belongs to us if we will work! And, now, in this chapter you have heard two voices in the pictures I have shown. The first voice speaks in two ways, by the melancholy note of the sea and by the joyous triumph of the mountain. The second voice is that of the human heart. All three are voices of Tao, of which you shall hear more in other chapters. All three are One voice, and that voice speaks without sound, and, that One voice is also Tao. Of that you shall also hear more later. To the three spiritual voices answer four mundane voices, and of these I shall speak at the end of this course of chapters. Some of you will understand that I refer to the Triad and the Quater- nary. Tao is The Word or ' ' The Silent Speaker, ' ' and the little book, ''The Voice of the Silence," says, on page 3, that the soul must be "united unto the silent speaker" before she can com- prehend "the mystery." This teaching applies to all I have said to-day. And to hear the voice of the silence that speaks without sound, it is necessary one should learn what it is to fall away from the phenomenal and into the Higher Self, and thus become one with the "Silent Speaker." I have now spoken about voices, such as they come to us in Nature and in the Mind, and my words may possibly have been pleasant to some of you, and my illustrations may have been interesting, but I shall have missed my object entirely if my words have not translated themselves into soundless voices, and if the "Silent Speaker" in you has not united with you. Let me hope ! MYSTICISM nx THOUGH I have spoken twice about the Inner Life, intro- ductory to my chapters on the Tao-Teh-King, there is still a great deal to be said about it, all of which will be helpful in the study of that book. Upon some points most important in that respect, I shall touch now and hope you will be as happy to hear them as you were with the two other talks. It is especially about the Inner Life in its relationship to Mysticism that I would speak. The two are not identical as some might think. I can define their relationship very readily. If I divide mystics in two large groups and include in the first all pillar-saints, hermit-fakirs of the deserts, Harpokrates and his kind, epileptic miracle-mongers, flagellants, mendicants and other beggars who pretended to sanctity, but really were sus- picious characters, not to say criminals, then — these are not Inner Life people. They ought never to have been called mys- tics. The other group will be composed of saints, yogis, and all those who come under the category of Inner Life people, such as I have defined the Inner Life in the two foregoing chapters, and, as I shall define it now. In beginning a study of the Tao-Teh-King and Taoism it is well to emphasize that all Inner Life takes its color and terms from its environment. The Inner Life is always Mysticism, but its forms vary according to the soil in which it grows, the atmos- phere it breathes and the geographical zones in which it finds its home, and it is always adapted to the historic period in which it appears. You will remember from my last lecture the periods I pointed out and how the mystics came in as the saviors. The reason for the variation of form is this, that the Mystic Life is always more or less of a protest against existing conditions of the actual life in the midst of which it appears. It is only in forms of expression that it varies so much. Its core is always MYSTICISM 35 the same, and mystics of all ages and climes understand each other even if they do not speak each others languages. Thus in Brahminism Mysticism is ritualistic and must be studied in its symbolical actions. In Buddhism it is nihilistic and must be guessed from its hyper-transcendental forms. In Mohamme- danism it is forbidden and hides behind Koranic doctrines or in poetic and naturalistic lyricism such as found among the Sufis. In Christianity it indulges in extravagant ascetic practices and monastic enthusiasm. In Judaism it has revealed a wonderful philosophy, the Kabbalah, which is a transcription of the divine life as it flows in human arteries and veins and as it reveals itself in the cosmic order of the universe. In our own day Hasidism or Jewish pietism in the form of sentiment and emotional faith is Mysticism of purer water. In China, Mysticism is closely con- nected with the social-political order of the democratic forms of the empire. Something which the future chapters will show. In connection with the various forms of it which I have just mentioned, many individuals and books come before us and re- quire close attention. In Brahminism the Upanishads claim it. In Buddhism it is the person of the Buddha. In the Kabbalah it is the Zohar and the Sepher Jetzirah we go to. In Hasidism we realize that when we look on material things, we really gaze at the image of the Deity. In China it is the Tao-Teh-King and its author Laotzse, and, in Christianity it is the master-mystic, Jesus, and his disciple Paul. These general remarks are suf- ficient to show, that the Inner Life is not an abstraction or an airy nothing, but something historical and real, though at the same time it is entirely removed from history and the actual world. In studying Mysticism or forms of the Inner Life under any of these conditions, we repeatedly come in upon the ground oc- cupied by philosophy and religion, because these two together with mysticism are the three mental, moral and spiritual factors in human life, "These three on men all gracious gifts bestow." But their fields are nevertheless distinct and the three must be kept part in our studies. Philosophy will grasp the L^niversal in a conception. Religion will devote itself to the service of the Universal. Mysticism, or the Inner Life, includes both and transcends both because it lives in the Whole, not in any part. 36 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING It will, as Echardt put it, have Divinity, not merely God. It must also be borne in mind throughout our studies, that Mystic- ism is The Inner Life, and of the Inner Life I have already spoken. Being the Inner Life, Mysticism is not Occultism, nor anything that comes under that heading in the catalogue of the learned societies. To be sure, numerous occult subjects con- stantly come up and crave our attention for the time being and their relation to The Inner Life must be settled. Occultism, prop- erly understood, is a science of the hidden workings of Nature's powers and Nature's methods. The majority of people do not need occult studies, and such studies would be injurious to most. But all people need the Inner Life, the development of soul powers. Of what use in the bettering of life is a knowledge of manvantaras and pralayas, or, the ebb and flow of divine life, if the student does not live according to such knowledge ; if he does not live as Shamsy, who cried out: "From the bosom of Self, I catch continually a scent of the Beloved." Mysticism or the Inner Life is not the same as Spiritism; in fact it stands sharply over against the delusions that hide under that name. But we meet again and again mystics who have been in some relationship or other to angels and devils, and their records about such intercourses must be carefully sifted. There is Mysticism or Inner Life in Art and in much of our literature, in poetry, for instance. The artist feels it as the plastic power of his art ; the writer works by it as his formative energy ; to the scientist it is the mystic fire in his test-tube, that subtle cosmic power which he neither can weigh nor measure. Here a warning against bias is needed. An artist or a scientist may be good Inner Life people though they do not speak in the customary language of most mystics. Do not con- demn anybody because they do not use the same terminology as you do. I see a most exalted Nature-Mysticism in Michael An- gel o's so-called "Aurora," the figure on the monument over Lorenzo di Medici. They did not bury Tyndal in Westminster Abbey, as they ought to have done. When he advocated "imag- ination" in his famous Belfast address, he spoke from out of the Inner Life. Tn my opinion, in the Alps he had discovered what the image-making power is. He had seen, what Frederick Rob- ertson called so beautifully, "God's feeling and imagination." Friends ! There is much more Mysticism and many more ele- ments of the Inner Life in the world and in you, than you know. MYSTICISM 37 Asceticism is rampant in the history of Mysticism, but a mystic or a theosoph is not necessarily ascetic. Buddha found that the ascetic method was a miserable failure, as regards the attainment of the freedom and knowledge he sought. Jesus may in his youth have lived among Essenes and Therapeutae and applied the ascetic method, we do not know. But this is certain, in the Gospels he is no ascetic, and is blamed by his enemies therefore. Here are two mystics, two who lived the Inner Life, and whose likeness none of us have reached. Neither of them teach asceticism. They teach self-conquests ; they preach over- coming; they give examples upon living not swayed or domin- ated by passions — all of which we must learn, and learn to prac- tice. They teach especially against making bad Karma ; against fatal entanglements, and they advocate the simplicity of the lil- lies and children. Though Buddha and Jesus denied asceticism both Buddhism and Christianity, however, have upheld asceticism in its worst forms. Such master Mystics and Inner Life men as Buddha and Jesus are not denying the cosmic energy there is in life, both objectively and subjectively. On the contrary they work in harmony with that cosmic energy, and it is for us to learn to do likewise. Most people must, however, overcome much and fight many battles against themselves before they are ready for that simplicity which these two represent or even be- fore they are ready to acknowledge these two as types of the Inner Life. Buddha and Jesus deny the irrational workings of that energy when it appears in our human frame, when it flames like fire broken loose, or like a raging tempest, or as a subtle poison in envy and hatred. Cosmic energy can be a savor of life and a savor of death; it is a savor of life to the strong, to him who is not working for self; it is a savor of death to him who lives only for self, and, to him and all who are ignorant of the nature of cosmic energy. The mystic is no finished product; he is simply a traveller on the Path, and as such he is learning to "overcome." And what is it we must overcome? To what extent must we all be ascetics? I give as an answer in part the following: The mystic, in Western terms, "seeks union with God" and nothing else. To translate this phrase, "union with God" into the lowest terms, I say, it means "to come into order," "to live ration- ally." To attain such "order," such "rr.ason," we must over- come all our crotchets, desires and idiosyncracies, whatever they may be. Not the power which misapplied or run wild becomes 38 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING crotchets, desires and idiosyncracies. The power is all right, but our application is wrong. This is the simplest way to in- dicate what it is to * ' overcome. ' ' The subject can not be stated in lower terms. Of course, " overcoming" thus far denned is only a beginning. It is followed by numerous other degrees, but of these I need not speak at present. I will, however, touch upon some features of " overcoming' ' which are of primary import- ance : of total resignation, of self-denial, carrying the cross. In one word, and in a mystic phrase : we must stand naked in the presence of Self before the real mysteries will reveal themselves. "We must be "naked" in order to enter the Path to the Inner Life ; free from all those irrational and passionate forms which hinder us. Nakedness means freedom, truth, soul-reality. We must be "naked" because we cannot enter the sacred fire with clothes on; they burn, and thus we will be scorched. Self can- not burn. Do you remember the story from classic mythology about Demeter, who is the Goddess Isis, who placed the little Demophaon, son of Metanaia, in the fire, that he might become immortal ? The mother interfered and the boy was burned ! Ee- member also Ishtar of Babylonian legend, who had to drop one garment after another on each of the seven steps in her descent into hell to recover her other half, Ishtubar. At last she stood naked and the doors opened. She returned unscathed. In clothes we burn, but not without them. The same truths come out in the Sufi legend about the soul, which came to the gate of Paradise and asked for admission. Upon inquiry from within: "Who is there?" the soul answered: "It is I," but the door was not opened, and, remained closed for three times thousand years, each time the soul returned with the same request. At last when the soul had learned what the Inner Life is and answered not"It is I, "but "It is We," then the door opened at once. When the soul has learned that separate- ness or clothes are in the way, then it enters into joy; never before. Did not the cry of Jesus on the cross: "Father, why hast Thou left me!" signify the same ? They did ! The proof is, that immediately after that cry of nakedness, he exclaimed: "It is accomplished!" (his work.) What can we do in nakedness and not otherwise? In naked- ness, we are like Thor. Thor is the spiritual giant, who is not attached to "these" things and who therefore unlike anybody else, can break through Helas Kingdom and make even Hell MYSTICISM 39 shiver, shake and tremble. Asa-Thor is the God of rejuvenes- cence ; his beard is as red as his fiery nature ; he has the Mjolner, the belt of strength and the marvelous mail, all symbols of puri- fied or ' 'naked" humanity. Once he rode into Hellheim and brought consternation. Never before had living men entered where the ground was only fear, the walls nothing but pain and the roof made of the stench of death. No wonder Thor's com- panion Loki advised him to leave. But Thor would not till he had lectured the contemptible shades that stood in rows along the walls and shivered clad only in shadows and pained at sight of so much health ; health, they had lost because of fear and the Negative. Only nakedness accomplishes such deeds! No man loaded down with merchandise or in fine clothes comes back out of Hell, or is able to lecture the shades. He is rich, too rich ! ! Now you see the meaning of nakedness and will understand why anchorites almost always are naked. It is a symbolical help. Enough of pictures ! After that which I have now said about Mysticism and the Inner Life, it will not be surprising, that I say that Mysticism or the Inner Life is a protest against the actual conditions of its surroundings. The Inner Life is not nec- essarily so radical as Mysticism, but rather inclined in the same direction. Mysticism is always in its beginning a protest against the traditional and against the actual. It is in conflict with the traditional because it demands originality. It is in conflict with the actual because the actual is usually brutal and of itself in conflict with the Inner Life, a conflict which roots in the usurp- tion of leadership by the actual. The Inner Life cannot and will not recognize the actual for more than a passing show, a necessary face of life. The actual is made by man, not by the Eternal, hence its ephemeral character. But Mysticism and the Inner Life people have not always been in the right. Let me show a couple of mistakes. Mystic- ism has in the past condemned the senses. One of the mystics has said: "The senses resemble an ass, and evil desire is the halter" — that is the general idea of the mystics, but the Inner Life as I understand it does not necessarily take that attitude; at any rate not always. Let me try to say something in favor of a rational view of the senses, the flesh. I may possibly meet with opposition in some of you; may I therefore ask you to listen and follow my explanation till the end and wait with your judgment until I am through with my exposition? Mind is the interpreter and the 40 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING fashioner of the music that the Divine plays upon us, and I may say without fear of contradiction, that the senses are the me- chanics, who mould the divine fire into acts, into deeds. They are the hands of the mind. Can you realize what our world would be if we had no senses? Have you ever thought of itt If mind only existed and no senses, the Word might be spoken, sounds might thrill the vacant spaces and colors might dash from pole to pole or illumine the night, but there would be no human world. The human world is made by the human hand or which is the same, by human deeds and there can be no human deeds without the senses, the flesh ! That is a fact ! Without the arts man could not utter himself, much less discover himself. He would remain mute and blind. In his desire to speak and to see he evolved them; he demonstrated his desire by the arts. That is the origin of the arts. If there is anything at the bottom of you, you will develop a sense for its manifestation and an arl that proves your value ! We have the choice: a human world and the senses, the flesh, or, Death as Death will be if we leave out the senses, the flesh. In that case, Death will then be the end of life and not as it really is, an event merely. The denial of the senses, the flesh, means that we declare that all our doings, all our acts, are weav- ings of smoke, are puppet plays, are perishable time-illusions and not the manifestations of that wonderful existence which Silence reveals. What Divinity is esoterically, we do not know, but to us Divinity becomes something by our acts. In our do- ings Divinity is unfolded in us. The Greater Life, the Inner Life, cannot admit limited views. In the Greater Life, the five senses (to limit the question to these) are the five fingers of the human hand, and, the human hand is the most marvelous organ (none other excepted) we have. Without a hand, no human society ! Think it out and you shall sec ! Let us learn to honor the senses, the flesh, and, be done with absurd asceticism. The senses are nature's personification in man. "In the senses of the body, Nature mirrors herself to the mind" (Krause), and in "the formation of the human body, Nature authenticates her- self as one living whole." (Krause.) True, the senses drag us frequently over the ragged edges of sorrow! But it is rarely in the open sea that our ship is wrecked. Good sailors run out into the Open when the storm overtakes them, and they avoid the shore. The gale throws the catboat and the timid sailor on the rocks, or on the shoal that he MYSTICISM 41 hugs in his fear of the Open. The dangers on the sea are chiefly those of shore and shoal, not in the Open. Keep the rudder true ! Run out into the Open ! True, the senses are for many fall and destruction. With regard to the senses, the old accusa- tion which Adam raised against Eve holds good. Because fools have used and abused the senses they accuse the senses of undo- ing them. The accusation is as cowardly and unjust as that of Adam's. True, the senses often leave us empty and forlorn, but it is also true that it is first when the trees are leafless and reach the bare arms up in the cold air towards a bleak sky, that we discover the secret of the forest ! Have you seen that ? It is so ! There is a wonderful symbolism here ! When the forest is overloaded with leaves it is intoxicated with life and its mys- tery simmers away. When a human being is drenched in pas- sionate streams, the senses adjust the exuberance and the pain of the drain reveals their real nature. Never does conscience speak clearer than through the senses and their ravages ! The cure of life is more life! Do you see how the senses minister to the redemption of the whole man? I say all this fully con- scious of what I say. I glorify the senses, but I will not sub- scribe to Keat's famous exclamation: "Oh, for a life of sensa- tions rather than thoughts." The senses must always be " spir- itualized" and that not merely in Keat's sense. To "spiritual- ize" to him had only an aesthetic sense and no moral significa- tion. Degeneration is an economic factor in the life of the indi- vidual ; and, Deity and Nature are not at strife. I will say, that the Inner Life works with the senses, the flesh, as a gardener does with the soil. He uses the soil to grow his flowers in, and, has no other ground to plant in, and, this is the point, the soil he plants in is organic matter with slight intermixture of inorganic material. Just how the plant appro- priates and assimilates the elements we do not know. We see it grow, sometimes very well ; but we also see the plants make mistakes and die. Apply this to ourselves. We grow in or- ganic matter, in flesh, which we renew daily, and, if we do not do so, we die. We cannot grow without it any more than a plant can. How we appropriate and assimilate the elements we do know to some small extent, but we certainly do not know how it is that we can flower spiritually and can blossom heavenly on account of this organic life. But we do flower and blossom and some blossoms are very sweet smelling. We know that we make numerous mistakes — probably more than the plants — in our en- 42 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING deavors to appropriate and assimilate food both for the organ- ism, the flesh, for brain and heart, for soul and spirit. Rather than condemn the life of the senses, Inner Life people study them and one result Inner Life people have attained and that is, that they have realized that the senses are poor rulers but excellent servants when trained. It must not be charged against the senses, the flesh, that weeds and poisonous growth spring up and overrun everything. They are not generated by the soil or the senses, but are sowed there. The soil and the senses are simply passive tools to bring them forth, and no more. Yet, the senses have been condemned because of these growths ; nobody seems to have seen the irrationality and the absurdity of the charge. The whole absurdity must be laid at the door of the fanatics, and we must in the future acquire more sense. Let me advise my hearers when they next time hear some fanatic in unqualified talk condemn the senses, the flesh, that they ask him what he means. Ask him for instance if his harangues are not of the senses? Ask him where he gets his violence from? Ask him if his God gave him his senses in order to betray him! His answer to these questions will prove what sort of senses he has, and, whether he has any sense. If he does not see the point, you will. In our day we cannot affcrd to live in the foolishness of the past, nor to be led by maniacs ; let us have truth every- where. Like the gardener we must engage in the study of soils, and find out how to plow our sense-soil ; how to loosen it for the roots of the plants ; how to water it and drain it, and, keep it free from weeds; how to manure with the right ingredients, and, how to do it in right proportions ; how one soil of our sense-nature is suitable for art-cultures and another for wisdom-cultures. Common sense seems to me would advise this. But as it is, in the past when people awakened spiritually, they turned most un- naturally against themselves; they cut away all balancing roots, became top-heavy and were thrown over by the storms. Read any life of any of those people and you shall see it is as I have stated. Now, the Xew Mysticism has profited by study and will avoid these mistakes. This is what I at present will say about the senses, the flesh. You may now pass judgment upon what I have said and make up your mind what you will do with the subject. The future is yours if you will take it. This I will say, do not misunderstand or misconstrue my words, I have not advocated the free play of desires. I have not recommended MYSTICISM 43 license. I have in no way given anybody an excuse for any crime, or liberty to break with common sense morality. I have asked for a more dignified attitude to yourself. I have sug- gested a revision of old ideas, ideas that have proved unhuman and unnatural. As I said, the Future belongs to you! The Future, even as we now can see it, is vastly different from the Past. To own the Future you must endeavor to find out the ten- dencies that sway the moment you now live in, and the tenden- cies, I say, are in the direction of a thorough revision of our ideas about the senses, the flesh. It is not only our ideas of the senses, that need recasting. Our attitude to Reason is also false, and must be corrected. I think you can see that by a reform of our sense ideas and by deeper understanding of Reason, we shall rise to a higher level than the mystics of the past, and, we shall be much richer in our existence. Browning wrote, "man is not man as yet," but, I say, we may now become man. And how? In the first place by cultivating immediacy of the feelings. By feelings, the mystics and Inner Life people do not understand perceptions as they are defined in psychology. They mean divine gifts, graces, spir- itual intuitions, the Holy Ghost and the Image as I defined it in my last lecture. Secondly, "man may become a man" by learn- ing from the Mother ! Or to put it in a phrase more familiar to people in the West. We must learn "to live according to Na- ture." "To live according to nature" is a terribly hackneyed phrase, and its modern originator, J. J. Rousseau, was far re- moved from a life according to nature. Nevertheless, that phrase would express the highest philosophy were it but under- stood rightly and practiced correctly. In the West, the stoics were high and worthy examples of what a ' ' life according to nature ' ' ought to be. They were very near to the truth. If you have no better plans for your conduct, try to live up to Marcus Aurelius' "Thoughts" and you can see for yourself. "To live according to nature" is sublime exist- ence, but to live a "natural life" is undesirable, and, it is that life which all Inner Life teachers oppose. At first appearance the difference may not be discovered, but it is there and the dif- ference is radical. I shall come back often to this subject in future chapters and fully explain the difference between the phrases. I think that I shall here and now meet Mathew Arnold's onslaught. In a poem entitled "No Harmony with Nature," he wrote 44 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING "In harmony with Nature? Restless fool Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee, When true, the last impossibility — To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool!" I will meet this onslaught with the remarks made by Chwang-Tzu, a Chinese commentator on the Tao-Teh-King. Chwang-Tzu wisely said, "You cannot speak of the ocean to a well-frog, the creature of a narrower sphere ; you cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, a creature of the season. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedagogue; his scope is too restricted." I think Mathew Arnold, the schoolmaster, has been fully answered by that, and, moreover, a couple thousand years before he was born. The same Arnold went on in the same poem slandering Nature. Like Tennyson, who wrote so many false lines on Na- ture, he was influenced by some of the misconceptions that in- hered in the first presentation of the doctrine of Evolution. Both charged Nature with being "cruel" and exonerated Man, whom they claimed was "sick of blood." A stupid and ignor- ant boy may be kissed and petted by a fond mother and the rude world blamed for not taking kindly to her darling. Nature does not care for such a boy. So these men, small as they were made by class room and boudoir, found the sympathy and help they called for in clubs and conventional drawing rooms and claimed that Nature was heartless and cruel. None of them ever told us how they had followed the sun across the sky for a day, or seen the moon shine upon Diana in the bath in some secreted lake in the woods. Guess they had no such experience ! Nature would never sympathize with them ! How could she? They never had watched the opening and closing of a flower; the blowing of the bud ; the movements of a star fish or the formation and re-for- mation of clouds. Such people do not perceive Nature's Inner Life, or man's eternal longings. Nature is Spirit visible and Spirit is Nature invisible. They both maintained that "Nature and man can never be fast friends." Both of these two are like the prisoners in Plato's cave, who sit chained to the rock and with their backs to the very small opening that leads into the cave and through which comes the only ray of light that ever comes to the eyes of these prisoners. Being unable to turn round, the little they see are faint shadows on the rocks in front of them. As a matter of course, in such people we can find no cosmic emotion, no yearn- MYSTICISM 45 ing to feel the pulses of the great heart of the universe. They know neither visible spirit, nor invisible Nature. They are for- ever strangers to the Mother's voice and have never felt her Presence. I need not say any more; your own acquaintance with Mathew Arnold and Tennyson's poems has told you that they were not Nature lovers. I am sure you will not fear a study of a life ' ' according to nature ' ' because these two did not live according to nature, but in an atmosphere filled with phan- tasms of human greatness. I trust that my hearers will not misunderstand my words about a "life according to Nature" to mean a recommendation of that which in modern literature and philosophy goes by name of Naturalism. I mean nothing of the kind. Naturalism in this sense means perverted and degenerate human nature. By ' ' life according to Nature," when I use the phrase, I mean Nature- Mysticism, and of that you shall hear more in later talks. Nat- uralism I condemn in all its ways and forms. It is the cause of the moral decay of to-day. Quite often some say, to compliment another: "he is a strong nature," or "he is a strong man," but the phrase is a very doubtful one. Its value depends upon whence this man derives his strength. A strong man may be a "big stick" and as such have his way and will, a way and will that the community may need, because the community develops on selfish and nat- ural lines. But that very man is in all probability a weak man and a man of desires, and a mere baby in the Inner Life. Such a man may possibly be a tool in the hands of cosmic energy, but for all that not create any spiritual force for others or for himself. On the other hand, there are in the world the so-called "silent in the land;" those of whom you never hear till by acci- dent you come across them; those who so "empty" (Kenosis) themselves, that really they do not live, but somebody else lives upon them and in their stead; those whose only motto is "not as I will." These are the strong people, because their silences are eternal work; their "emptiness" prevents strife, and their non-assertions of will establishes Unity, and thereby they be- come patterns for all the world. The Inner Life loves silence and solitude; but it can also hear the divine voice in the roar of hell, and it can see the divine face in the market place as well as in mountain fastnesses or by "the sea. The Inner Life does not love the passing show, but is not offended by vulgarity, nor does it condemn bearers of evil, 46 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING It exists beyond such things. Rabia was asked if she hated evil, to which she answered that inasmuch as she loved God always, she had no time to hate evil. Mystics ignorant of true methods and without guides have given fight to their desires in various ways, and unfortunately readers of these reported fights have only too often been led to repeat these fights, hence the overflow of ascetic advice in mystic books. Some mystics denying the desires dammed up for them, have found all dams swept away and themselves besides. Other mystics have weakened the desires by diverting their forces, as one does with mountain torrents in order to break their power. None of these imderstood that the human passions are human parallels to the subterranean fires, which from time to time break forth in earthquakes; nor did they understand that pas- sions are the vortex-powers of devastating tornadoes; powers terrible to us, foreign to us, yet nevertheless engines of the di- vine workings. Other Mystics have led the waters of passion into irrigating canals and thus added great strength and fruit- fulness to their natural gifts. Such Mystics were not far from the truth. Other mystics have even given themselves over to desires, calling them heavenly fires and divine messengers. But fools they were, and, soon they ended by burning themselves in these fires. All this relates to one side of our nature, the side we are to fight, to ' ' regulate, " to ' * kill out, ' ' the desire life. All Eastern treatises are especially emphatic on this subject. East- ern passions and desires are so much more violent than ours and they need much more radical means for suppression. Now about another side of our nature, equally in our way and needing " overcoming. ' ' I mean our intellectual proclivi- ties : and they are especially a "Western sin. I do not wish to speak in paradoxes, but I am almost tempted to say that ignor- ance is the best soil for Mysticism. Mysticism is not literary religion, it is Wisdom-religion. " Learning is the perception of differences. Wisdom is the perception of similarities." As it is, Mysticism can do without learning. "He has scarce thought to any purpose who has not thought beyond words; who has not thought long enough, deep enough, fruitfully enough, to encoun- ter, somewhere, glimmerings of truth untranslatable into words." The Mystic, he of the Inner Life, has thought intense- ly, that is why he needs no words, no learning. He possesses MYSTICISM 47 the Word. And lie loves God and the neighbor, and he knows intuitively. Says the Tao-Teh-King : ''Dispense with learning and save yourself anxiety." Mystics and Inner Life people could not be caught in Descarte's delusion: Cogito, ergo sum: "I think, consequently I am." "Cogito" to the mystic means "coagito," that is to say, "I act and I think," because "action" or "thought" takes place in him. He is not the actor nor "the thinker. ' ' Mysticism stands sharply over against "desires" and against ' ' intellect, ' ' when these usurp the place of wisdom. In- tellect is impotent to penetrate beyond the phenomenal world to a vision of a reality transcending sense. Intellect is merely a land surveyor, and is neither the land nor is it the owner of the land. The Ego is both the land and the owner of the land, and it uses intellect merely as timekeeper and as a fence around its "space" or land, just as the Ego uses its other faculties. The intellect is thus a tool, a comparative faculty, and no more. As a comparative faculty, it judges of relations, of forms, forms of mind and forms of the object. But of essence, the intellect knows nothing and can know nothing. Intellect is analytic and can only concern itself with one point at the time. It lacks to- tally comprehensiveness, the ALL embracing power. It is "conceptual thinking" only, or, which is the same, "we think by means of something else ' ' and not absolutely. Mysticism wants the absolute. And this is the definition of intellect by Mysticism of all ages and lands. Mysticism wants Essence, Being, and not Form merely, hence it has always stood apart from intellect and the limited knowledge it can give, and, relegated it to lower places. By intellectual search we cannot find out the Di- vine; we may nevertheless have communion or fellowship with it, namely, in heart and feeling. The mystics of all ages, first clear the ground, then they plow and then they sow. Mysticism has always been (1) first a protest, then (2) a positive content. After it has denied the power of intellect to teach us about Essence, or Being, and de- clared that intellect cannot reveal Essence or Being, it tells us that we, in virtue of our Ego, possess a power that is equal to reach up to the Divine and the Universal, and, which is equal to bring us into union with it. This faculty, which answers to Kant's (so-called) "practical reason" has many names. In the West, the mystics of Germany call it "the spark of the soul," "the ground of the soul." and very characteristically they call 48 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KINQ it also " synthesis ; " and rightly they call the intellect "analy- sis." The mystics are sympathetic people; they gather to- gether ; they do not shatter. The illusory phenomenon is always in the way. How shall the soul pass from the phenomenon to the noumenon? Human understanding, Echardt reiterates, is useless in this matter. It can perceive things in time and space only. The soul must therefore try to attain what ordinarily will be called absolute ignorance and darkness, but which mystics call "the nothing of nothing" and of which the soul cannot and must not try to form any conception. It is not by an intellectual development, but by sheer passivity, by waiting for the transcendal action of God that the soul can attain the highest knowledge. That ignorance here recommended is not that blindness of mind, that untaught, that un-informed condition which that word ordinarily repre- sents; it is a condition in which the soul separates itself from the phenomenal world; voluntarily renounces all sensuous activ- ity and even ceases to think under the old forms. When the soul attains the nescience, then the soul is re-born; is in the Supreme. Though poor in spirit and having nothing, willing nothing, knowing nothing, the soul is in the highest and ap- proaching union with God. Examined more closely it will be seen that here is no illogical contradictions, nor foolish ascetic- ism. As John of the Cross said: "Spiritual things transcend sense, because they already include it," hence this passivity or negativity is formal only, and not real. The mystic has simply chosen the better part. From now on the soul lives in another world. In the East, where this is so well understood, they say that now the soul is in Sat-Chit-Ananda, in Being-Knowledge- Bliss. Meister Eckardt says that now God takes the place of the active reason. The soul has returned to the state in which it was before entering the phenomenal world ; but it has not re- turned empty handed, nay it has returned plus a recognition of itself as idea in God. Henceforth, to use a term from Spinoza, it sees everything sub specie eternitatis. Separated from man, from the external things, from chance, distractions and troubles it sees only Reality. I have nothing to say against mystics or against Inner Life people who reduce intellect to its place and refuse it permission to deal with spiritual things. But I have much against any so- called religious or other person who denies Reason. The true mystic and the Inner Life people build their temples with stones MYSTICISM 49 and timber furnished by Reason or Tao, and, out of nothing else, and they know that temples are adaptations and symbols. Do you know what the word temple means? Well, originally a temple was not a house of prayer for the multitude, nor, a shrine or sanctuary of a god. The "templum" was a certain place "cut off" ( rtuvw ), as the term means, and set apart by augurs, and, it included also that part of the heavens which was visible above this "cut off" place when one stood in the middle of it ; of course, it was not a building with a roof, and when it was a building it had no roof. The "templum" was then really a space set apart and nothing else. Intellectually there is nothing tangible in such a space, but to Reason, or the highest sense, there is in it a consecrated form of intercommunion between heaven and the soul. Anywhere, and wherever the human heart stands in the Inner Life, it builds such a ' ' templum. ' ' Do not compare this mystery to astrology of the kind of "a penny in the slot," or "around the corner." It has nothing to do with astrology. The space is not a locality in the sense that its earth-place is any more sacred than any other place on earth. Its space is merely pointed out by means of a place and is in no wise tangible. If we had an augur here and asked him to show us the space of his temple he would point to a part or section of the sky and tell us where he saw a certain section of the sky, there would be his temple. If he should take you to the top of a mountain or to the bottom of a valley and say : here is my tem- ple ! you would still remain ignorant of what he meant, even if you saw a magnificent building and numerous priests. If you have the Inner Life of a mystic or theosoph you would know the mystery, however. The augurs of old from such a house without roof read the signs of the heavens ; the Inner Life peo- ple now hear The Word in their temple, not built of stones, but of Reason. They see the law for themselves and see it written in the Kosmos without any augur or other middleman. You will now understand why the true mystic reveres Rea- son. It is because Reason builds his temple; not a common meeting place, but his individual space (not place). Reason is Tao, the main subject of the Tao-Teh-King on which I shall talk to you. And you shall hear much about Tao, which means both Life — Truth — Way — Reason. Reason or Tao is not an abstrac- tion, but the constructive and combining power, which out of it- self builds up the form or body in which the Image manifests itself. What the Image is, I denned in my last talk. Reason is 50 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Form, or Consciousness. Whatever we may call it, without Reason there would be no manifestation of our real life. We say that we see this object or that, but we do not. Out eyes do not see it, but through our eyes we see forms, and Form manifested. When Moses saw the burning bush, or Jesus the descending dove, or the disciples saw the three figures at the time of the transfiguration, or when Arjuna saw the divine forms in nature, they all saw through their eyes not with them. To explain what I mean by looking through the eyes, I will borrow a little from Fiona Macleod (William Sharp). The illustration will be much more effective than words of mme. The publication was called "The Divine Adventure" and was first published in the Fort- nightly Review and later in book form. The story is about 1 ' Three in One, ' ' that is, Body, Will and Soul traveling together in a night full of beauty and suddenly coming upon a secret garden of ilex and tall cypresses, which rose like dark flowers out of the ground. Flickering moonlight lit up between the trees ; the wild foxes barked in the distance and owls hooted near by. ' ' Look, ' ' said the Body, and there on the mossy slope under seven great cypresses lay a man asleep on the ground. In the moonshine his face looked beautiful, and, as if great sorrows had ached the heart. After a little it appeared that the sleeper was not alone, but that there were eleven others, lying about, also asleep. Only one of them was sitting upright as if he were the watchman of the hour, though slumbering at his post. Still another, the twelfth one, sat behind the great bole of a tree. Suddenly the spell was broken; the vision vanished far off among the hills, foxes barked, and, the owls hooted nearby. All else was still. This was what the whole man, the "three in one," saw — through the eyes in part, and, in part with the eyes. Individually, the Body, evidently with the eyes, had seen in the sleepers worn and poor men, ill-clad and weary, and, instead of the one sitting behind the tree, a company of evil men with savage faces and drawn swords. Individually, the Will, evidently also with the eyes, had seen only a fire drowning in its own ashes, and round about a mass of leaves blown hither and thither by the wind. Individually, the Soul, evidently through the eyes, had seen Divine Love asleep; not sleeping as mortals sleep, but resting in o holy, quiet, brooding peace and in communion with Eternal Jov. Around Love were the FJeven Powers and Dominions of MYSTICISM 51 the World. And the one that had caused surprise by his ap- pearance was the Lord of Shadows, whom some call Death, others the Unknown God. Behind were demons and demoniacs. The forest itself was made of human souls awaiting God. Perhaps the story may awaken in you a recollection of sim- ilar experiences; if not so romantic, perhaps alike anyhow. I am happy to say that I have had experiences of the kind as just described. I remember William Blake to have said, according to his biographers, that he, of course, saw the Sun set like a big flaming ball, not unlike a guinea. "But," said he, according to report, "through my eyes, I also see hosts of angels pass up and down singing: 'Glory! Glory! God on High!' " Friends! I think it is well, not to be hasty and condemn others who describe a scenery which we may not have seen. One of the party may have seen with the eyes, the other through the eyes. Some see the moon, others the moonlight ; which is most bewitching? Who sees best? Now to return to my argument. I want to point out how many people come to call Idealism Mysticism, and to believe that Idealism constitutes the Inner Life. A sad mistake. It is quite true that we speak correctly at times when we say that Form or Consciousness is all there is. That is, for instance, the refrain of all the Upanishads, and thus summed up it is one of the main teachings of Vedanta. It is true, I say, that it is all there is, but only to us. Only to us ! Whether it is all there is to other beings, we do not know; in all probability it is not. That Form or Consciousness must be ours; it could not be that of other beings. Nor can it be said absolutely that Form or Conscious- ness is all there is, for manifestly Form or Consciousness de- pends upon Substance. Substance, to be sure, is unknown to us, but that does not change the case; whatever there is, there is and must be Something back of Form or Consciousness. All this has a direct bearing upon what we call knowledge. All we know is, as was said, Form or Consciousness and not Sub- stance. In the West we identify our knowledge of Form with Reality, and that is false. Most of us in the West are therefore idealists and not mystics. True mystics, alone of all, discover the fallacy and reject the claims for Consciousness. They want to go behind it. Idealism is by no means enough for them. Mystics, as well as a great many other people, even profes- sional philosophers, must learn to distinguish between knowl- edge and reality. The besetting sin in the West is to confound 52 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING knowledge with reality. The "West has a doctrine, commonly held among philosophers, that says that "knowledge is a copy of the real world outside us. " In it lies the same error as that the wayfarer so readily falls into, that is, mistaking a fallen branch in the road for a snake. Knowledge is a copy of the outside world for us, but not a real copy, and the difference is enormous. The mistake is a fallacy which lies at the root of all Western philosophy and it is as pernicious as the phantasms that the de- sires originate, and, as destructive as those phantasms. Knowl- edge is of our making. The Keality behind the appearance is and remains unknown. When the mystic degree of our mind opens, we discover the fallacy and we care no more for scholastic knowledge or mere Idealism. In the mystic degree the real knowledge appears. That knowledge is no more our knowledge, it is both our knowl- edge and the universal knowledge. We call it no more knowl- edge, it is Wisdom. And Wisdom is first of all, "flight from all positive content as from a limitation," next it is pure thought, pure thought from the Inner Life sources. It is not so much a medium necessary in this life, it is rather the sum total of that larger life, which some know now, but which all will reach some- time, when they become free. But while the humdrum of daily life calls for no wisdom, we should nevertheless dissolve this humdrum into its spiritual elements and let these elements per- meate our daily existence. It is marvelous how easy life be- comes that way. It is wonderful how we renew ourselves. In- deed, it is true, as Hermas Pastor a thousand and more years ago said, "that those who regenerate, grow young." The New Mysticism is alive to this and lives that way. Vedanta is merely Idealism and a sublime form of mind, and not enough for the future man, the man of the New Age, the man that lives the Inner Life. Vedanta and Idealism are one of the ap- proaches to the bridge, I spoke of in the first chapter or the voice that we in the West call Platonism, spoken of in the second chapter. Mystics and theosophists of highest order go behind con- sciousness, or to use the phrase used before, they see through their eyes. And what do they see? They see the World of Reason, the Archetypes, or, if I may call it so, they see the heav- enly machinery and they experience great happiness. From my own experience with Beauty and art objects, I can say that by a little practice you can look so long upon the symbol before you MYSTICISM 53 that the symbol becomes life and reality. At such moments and for sometime after, you transcend your actual self and know positively that you are beyond yourself. All of this will be of importance in the study of the Tao-Teh-King which is a mystical book, and it will enable you to find the Inner Life by a study of that book. Thus far, I have dealt with laws of nature. Now I will give you a few historic facts to show what the mystics, the Inner Life people, are good for. Wherever we find Mysticism, we find it in either of two forms : two forms which answer to the two voices and the two ap- proaches to the bridge spoken of in my former chapter. (1) The one form is active and represented by such mystics as, for instance, those of the Rhine Valley. It is history, that these mystics, during the Black Death (1348-1349) and during the Interdict which lasted more than twenty years, utterly ig- nored the pope's orders. An interdict means that all bells are silenced, that penance and the eucharist is administered only to the dying; that none but priests, friars and children under two years can get Christian burial and that none can be married. The loss of these religious forms means terrible suffering in Catholic countries. But the mystics buried the dead, married the living and said mass regularly. During the Black Death, which ravaged the Rhine Valley and adjoining parts of France most terribly, the regular clergy could not even for money be induced to bury people, nor to visit the sick or dying, nor to say mass for them. In many places they deserted their parishes. But mystics of the orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans officiated in all cases, and there is no record that any of them died of the Pest. This is active Mysticism. Not a bad kind, is it? The other form of Mysticism is quietistic. (2) In this group 1 place people who live in their deepest nature ; " beyond the things of sense, Beyond occasions and events, And who, through God 's exceeding grace Know release from form, and time and place;" (Whittier) I shall describe these people by a story or two attributed to the famous John Tauler and you will please note that this beg- gar I describe is not held up before you as an example because 54 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING he is a beggar, but because he is a free man ; a man who lives in the Ground of the soul, as the mystics call it. In silence he has discovered the Divine Self in himself and is able to teach the learned, but as yet un-free Dr. Tauler. With this in mind the following queer story will not sound unreasonable and you will understand the quietistic mystic. This is the story. There was once a learned man who longed and prayed full eight years that God would show him some one to teach him the way of truth. And on a time, when he was in great longing, there came unto him a voice from heaven, and said : ' ' Go to the front of the Church, there thou wilt find a man that shall show thee the way to blessedness." So thither he went, and found there a poor man, whose feet were torn, and covered with dust and dirt, and all his clothing scarce worth three cents. He greeted him saying: "God give thee good morrow." To this the poor man answered: "I never had ill morrow!" Again he said: ''God prosper thee," to which the other answered: "Never had I ought but prosperity" — "Heaven save thee," said the scholar, "How answerest thou me so?" only to receive the re- ply: "I was never other than saved." The scholar was perplexed and said: "Explain this to me, for I do not understand." "Willingly," quoth the poor man, "Thou wishest me good morrow. I never had an ill morrow; for am I an hungered, I praise God; am I freezing, doth it hail, snow, rain, is it fair weather or foul, I praise God ; and therefore had I never ill mor- row. "Thou didst say, God prosper thee. I have never been un- prosperous, for I know how to live with God ; I know that what He doeth is the best, and what God giveth or ordaineth for me, be it pain or pleasure, that I take cheerfully from Him as the best of all, and, so I have never adversity. "Thou wishest God to bless me. I was never unblessed, for I desire to be only in the will of God, and I have so given up my will to the will ofGod, that what God willeth I will." "But if God were to cast thee into hell," said the scholar, "what wouldst thou do then?" "Cast me into hell? His goodness holds Him back there- from. Yet if He did, I should have two arms to embrace Him withal, and even so, I would sooner be in hell and have God, than in heaven and not have Him." Then understood the scholar that true abandonment with utter abasement was the nearest way to God. MYSTICISM 55 Again the scholar asked the poor man: "From whence comest thou ? " " From God. " " Where has thou found God ? ' ' "Where I abandoned all creatures! I am a King. My king- dom is my soul. This kingdom is greater than any kingdom on the earth." "What hath brought thee to this perfection?" "My si- lence, my heavenward thoughts and my union with God." This is life; this is simplicity. Not only did this beggar have life, he was life. And the report is that Dr. Tauler was so struck with this man and this meeting, that he gave up his preaching and withdrew for seven years to the Oberland. When he returned he became the famous mystic, now so well known in history. What had happened to the beggar which made him so great in life and so profound in knowledge, though he externally was nothing? What did he rest on? He had learned that "it is the ground we do not tread upon which supports us." This ground is Tao, of which more later. If you analyze this story, what will it prove or demonstrate? If we read it "syntheti- cally?" The "poor beggar" is certainly not "poor in spirit," nor is his mind covered with "dust and dirt;" and though his clothing may not be worth "three cents," his spiritual superior- ity is beyond price. He meets the "learned man's" greetings with a parry every time as if they were sword cuts, and he re- futes what he considers insinuations and radical misunderstand- ings of life's true order and the rationality of existence. When finally asked: "From whence comest Thou?" he gives an an- swer that comprehends all further and now unnecessary details. "From God." By that answer he has given an unequivocal re- ply, such as all mystics would give upon such similar questions. But to the analytic intellect, he has given no answer. Moreover, he further defines himself as a mystic of the heart by the answer he gives to the question: "Where hast thou found God?" His answer was, "Where I abandoned all creatures," and that "the learned man" should be in no further doubt, the mystic contin- ued triumphantly: "I am a king. My kingdom is my soul. This kingdom is greater than any kingdom on the earth." All this is of no value for analysis ; the words are not intellectual state- ments. You can analyze the conceptions "kingdom" and "soul," but you cannot "analyze" this synthetic phrase: "My kingdom is my soul." This is a specimen of a mystic of the heart, a theopathetic mystic, that is, one who suffers all things. Suffers! — not neces- 56 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING sarily in pain ! Nay, one who is passive ! One who has under- stood the mystery of, obedience to the course of life, no matter what it may be phenomenally. One, whose mind is not bound in Spanish boots of logic, but who has experienced the freedom from illusions which come from living untrammeled by philo- sophical systems. One, who knows of no " eternal no!" who does not fret at hindrances, who does not try to force locked doors, one who blesses drudgery, one who fears no cross ! Lest this word "theopathetic" trouble you, let me recall to your mem- ory that the Greek word ^ds v (Pate) means a passive state, hence secondarily suffering, misfortune; that you know from your Greek dictionary, and it is well, but you do not know that mystics consider suffering to be a blessing and that suffering is a normal condition to them. Mystics invite suffering as the best monitor against becoming entangled in illusions and sensual or phenomenal states. Nobody better than the mystic has un- derstood the educational value of suffering. This mystic is, as I said, of the class of theopathetic mystics, common in the south of Europe, France, Spain, Italy. He is of the company of Mine. Guyon, Molinos, John of the Cross, Theresa, Catherine of Siena. All of these sang like Mme. Guyon : "Love is my teacher 'Tis Love alone can tell of Love." 'Tis not the skill of human art Which gives me power my God to know; The sacred lessons of the heart Come not from instruments below." You notice that this "poor beggar" upon the question: "Where hast thou found God?" did not quote any philosophical system or enter upon any discussion on the "Path to Reality." He is not troubled with epistemological problems. His answer lies on no intellectual plan; he is on the plan of immediacy, the plan of simplicity, and because he has abandoned all intellectual and sensual problems, he stands in the principle of the Whole and answers from out that standpoint. And that he knows his own standpoint and is in full self-conscious possession of him- self, is clear from his final answer to the question, "What has brought you to this perfection!" His answer was, "My silence. My heavenward thought and my Union with God." These MEISTER ECKHAEDT 57 words could not and have not been transcended by any philoso- pher or any philosophical system. This mystic knows from out his own soul at once and without intellectual training that which the few philosophers who have attained similar knowledge have only attained through long years of painful thinking. The heart has reasoning powers of its own as much as the brain and the mind have. Before, in a former chapter, when I spoke of the two voices, I at-oned them in the voice of the ' ' Inner Man ! Tao. ' ' When I spoke of the two approaches to the bridge, I declared the truth to be in the middle. Here are two forms of Mysticism. How are they both the Inner Life? How are they at-oned? Place Nature in the witness box and you shall hear her declare that she is double. Sometimes the beast, sometimes the beauty. Sometimes Life, sometimes Death, and in no case revealing her- self fully. She speaks to us incessantly, yet she never betrays her mystery. She is our mother and that explains it. Place Mind in the witness box and inquire about the character of our language, and ideas, our conceptions of beauty, or religious sym- bols, and Mind declares that an inevitable dualism bisects nature and mind, and, that unity is only attained by a leap out of mind into the transcendental, into Wisdom. Mind will declare that our whole world is a system of nuptials and that only by remov- ing the extremes of active and passive Mysticism do they be- come one in true Mysticism or Inner Life, Tao, which is the sum total of both. Both of these two forms of Mysticism are found in the Tao-Teh-King and you shall hear more about them by and b ^ Now, I will appeal for a life on the inner basis of our exist- ence. Let our motive be love such as sung by Mme. Guyon, Love is my teacher; love alone can tell of love. Let us aban- don individual self-assertion and live according to Meister Eckardt, who said (Here is my translation from his Ms. (Fol. 274, 297, 301.) "There is something in the soul, which is above its created nature. It is in itself one and simple; it is above name and knowledge; it is pure No-thing. If you could do away with yourself, you would have all this is in itself. But so long as you look upon yourself as Something, so long you know as little what this is as my mouth knows what color is, or, as my eyes know what taste is. About this, I have often spoken. Some- times I have called it a Power, sometimes a Light, sometimes a 58 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Divine Spark. It is free from any and all names and forms, as Deity is free. It is above all knowledge, above love and above grace. In this power (light, spark), blossoms and nourishes the Divine. This Light (power or spark), rejects all creatures and will have Deity only, Deity simply, and no revelation of Deity. This light (power or spark) is satisfied only by the Simple Ground, the Still Waste, where nothing moves and where nobody lives. It will have only the Silent Solitude in which no distinc- tions are discernible. This Ground, though immovable and un- recognizable is nevertheless that which moves all and by which all is recognized." You will have noticed that Eckardt here attempts to state "the thing itself," the eternal reality, the Noumenon and that he all through opposes it to something else, the phenomenon. If anything can or needs be added to this quotation from Eck- ardt, let me say that this infallible light is ' ' the light that never was on sea or land," which the poet speaks of. It "lighteth every man that cometh into the world. " It is the highest heri- tage of our nature, the ultimate faculty. It requires no con- firmation and admits of no denial. It is direct and immediate in its operation. Our psychologists have no special name for it as yet. They know it in part as intuition, as ecstasy, as the over-soul, but such terms are defective because they smack too much of cognition only. The mystics attribute to this faculty, just described by Eckardt, both sensation, feeling and will and degrees of inner perception not known at all to ordinary psychology. Psychology has not sounded the depths of the soul as mystics have. Psychologists have never succeeded in dealing satisfactorily with Feeling as the fountain of consciousness. The fact is our school psychologies deal in abstractions ; but the mystics who know existence as a system of living forces, care not for abstraction or terms ; they live in realities. I SIMPLICITY IV. SHALL now begin to talk directly out of the book Tao-Teh- King, the book I have referred to several times in my three introductory chapters on the Inner Life. I have chosen for a text a line from Athanase: Our human souls Cling to the grass and the water brooks. I am fully aware that this line has no meaning to city peo- ple, or to people who are absorbed in city problems. Nor has it any poetry in it for those who have no sense of the Infinite in Nature. Nevertheless, I say that I could not find a more suitable text or motto for to-day's discourse on "Simplicity," because my discourse will have no interest for city people, for people who prefer the stage to a midsummer-night's revel in the woods, and, who would rather breathe factory smoke than morning dew and the cool breezes of sunrise. Grass is, as I trust you shall see, a type of a simple and sincere life, a life for use, and, water you shall hear Laotzse speak of as a most marvelous element. No wonder then that human souls cling to them. Simplicity, human souls, grass and water brooks are no ab- stractions. They are real things 'and not metaphysical entities, nor all poetry. And we need to concern ourselves with the prac- tical, with life and its methods. I shall connect grass and water brooks with Simplicity and the three shall give us an insight into the human soul. To be sure "There's not a place on earth's vast round, In ocean deep, or air, Where skill and wisdom are not found," 60 THE IN NEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING or as I said in the last chapter, "There is no place where God's feeling and imagination may not be seen ' ' ; but to-day I will extol grass and water and their union with human souls. I must clear away some difficulties that may arise from mis- conceptions. While I shall recommend Simplicity, as the Tao- Teh-King defines it, I shall by no means advocate "simple" minds, or minds of "one idea." "Simple" people or simple- tons are as a matter of course beyond the pale of our discussion, and, "one idea" people are to say the least a nuisance and usually fanatics. Simplicity as defined in the Tao-Teh-King means balance in the midst of fullness, and is the very founda- tion both of culture and Inner Life. This brings out the second point, I want to set straight, and emphasize. It is this: Sim- plicity is a method of Nature's, that lies at the root of all her doings. If I personified Nature, I would say that Simplicity was her one attribute. Again, I shall not advocate "The Simple Life " as it was preached in this country a few years ago. That movement came to naught because it did not rest on fundamen- tals : It was not Simplicity. It was a counterfeit and no more. It was merely a "knocking off." To knock off on your demands upon life does not produce Simplicity. Retrenchment is not Inner Life. ' ' The Simple Life ' ' and Simplicity are two different affairs. "The Simple Life" is only a compromise and can never produce Simplicity, and Simplicity does not necessarily mean a "Simple Life." Simplicity may be found in the midst of great abundance. Let me start by asserting, that as far as Nature is con- cerned, we all start evenly and with the same favors, and say that all the differences among men are created by themselves. In the words of Wordsworth, I will present Nature's case. Listen to what he said in the "Excursion" (9th book). "Alas! what differs more than man from man! And whence that difference? Whence but from himself? For see the universal Race endowed With the same upright form! — The sun is fixed, And the infinite magnificence of heaven Fixed, within reach of every human eye; The sleepless ocean murmurs for all ears; The vernal field infuses fresh delight Into all hearts. Throughout the world of sense, SIMPLICITY 61 Even as an object is sublime or fair, That object is laid open to the view Without reserve or veil ; and, as a power Is salutary, or an influence sweet, Are each and all enabled to perceive That power, that influence, by impartial law. Gifts nobler are vouchsafed alike to all; Reason, and, with that reason, smiles and tears ; Imagination, freedom in the will; Conscience to guide and check; and death to be Foretasted, immortality conceived By all, — a blissful immortality, To them whose holiness on earth shall make The spirit, capable of heaven, assured. Strange, then, nor less than monstrous, might be deemed The failure, if the Almighty, to this point Liberal and distinguishing, should hide The excellence of moral qualities From common understanding; leaving truth And virtue difficult, abstruse and dark; Hard to be won, and only by a few; Strange, should He deal herein with nice respects, And frustrate all the rest ! Believe it not : The primal duties shine aloft, like stars ; The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers ; The generous inclination, the just rule, Kind wishes, and good actions, and pure thoughts, No mystery is here! Here is no boon For high, yet not for low; for proudly graced, Yet not for meek of heart. The smoke ascends To Heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth As from the haughtiest palace. He, whose soul Ponders this true equality, may walk The fields of earth with gratitude and hope — Yet, in that meditation, will he find Motive to sadder grief, as we have found; Lamenting ancient virtues overthrown, And for the injustice grieving, that hath made So wide a difference between man and man. 62 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING . . . How blest that pair Of blooming boys, whom we beheld even now, Blest in their several and their common lot 1 A few short hours of each returning day The thriving prisoners of their village school; And thence let loose to seek their pleasant homes, Or range the grassy lawn in vacancy: To breathe and to be happy, run and shout ; For every genial power of earth and heaven, Through all the seasons of the changeful year Obsequiously doth take upon herself To labor for them; bringing each in turn The tribute of enjoyment, knowledge, health, Beauty, or strength! Such privilege is theirs, Granted alike in the outset of their course To both — Whatever fate the noon of life Reserves for either, sure it is that both Have been permitted to enjoy the dawn — Both have been fairly dealt with ; looking back, They will allow that justice has in them Been shown, alike to body and to mind." Is there not over all this a grand Simplicity? Does not Nature offer us all the same terms'? And this quotation is a lesson in Simplicity. Nature's method is so simple, that most people never notice it. And this want of notice is the beginning of all the future differences between man and man. In this pro- cedure of Nature, there is a lesson in the Inner Life. I will now let Laotzse explain how the differences grow up after the beginning has been made by ignoring Nature's sub- lime Simplicity. He and Confusius met once and the follow- ing is part of a conversation that took place between them. Con- fusius is blamed for all the fuss he makes about laws, rules and regulations. It is reported by one of Laotzse 's disciples that he spoke as follows to Confusius on the subject of Simplicity: "The chaff from winnowing will blind a man. Mosquitoes will bite a man and keep him awake all night and so it is with all this talk of yours about charity and duty to one's neighbor, it drivos me crazy. My lord, strive to keep the world in its orig- inal Simplicity — why so much fuss? The wind blows as it listeth, so let virtue establish itself. The swan is white without a daily bath and the raven is black without dying itself. When the SIMPLICITY 63 pond is dry and the fishes gasping for breath it is of no nse to moisten them with a little water or a little sprinkling. Com- pared to their original and simple condition in the pond and the rivers it is as nothing." The lesson was severe and throws a strong light upon both teachers' methods. Laotzse would let Nature alone and let everybody remain in original Simplicity, firmly believing that truth would prevail; and, in as much as he spoke at the time when morals were decaying, he meant to tell Confusius that talking about duty and preaching would no more reform the people than a sprinkling would suffice for the fishes which had been taken out of their original element. The only way to re- form, he meant to say, was to restore primitive Simplicity. Ig- noring Simplicity produces all those fatal complications which now lie like a curse upon us. Confusius' insistance upon laws, ordinances and rescripts had that fatal effect upon China, and, Confusianism no doubt is the cause of China's misery. What will Simplicity do for us? A great deal, surely. Hear what chapter XXII proclaims : ' ' He that humbles himself shall be preserved entire. He that bends himself shall be straight- ened. He that empties himself shall be filled. He that has worn himself out shall be renewed. He that puts himself low down shall be exalted. For these reasons the Sage clings to Simplic- ity and is a pattern for the whole world." And as if to repeat what Simplicity can do, the chapter continues with a descrip- tion of the Sage : * ' He is not self displaying, therefore he shines. He is not self-approving, therefore he is praised. He is not vain, therefore he has merit. He is not self-exalting, therefore he is honored. And in as much as he is not striving, he is not in conflict with others, and no man is his enemy." And the chapter ends in a very remarkable way. It reads, ' ' The ancient maxim : He that humbles himself shall be preserved entire; Oh, it is no vain utterance ! Verily he shall be returned home in peace. ' ' This closing sentence reads almost as if it meant: "Surely he shall be saved! He shall go to heaven!" as we would say in Western phraseology. Personally, it seems to me, that I have nothing to explain or add to these sublime teachings. Anybody may translate them into his own religious terms and will find them fully answering to all he believes and wishes for, if he wishes for the real root of virtue. Alas ! how many do ? Some- body, speaking in Western thought, will ask: "What about sin?" Laotzse 's remedy against sin is "to feed the root instead 64 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING of lopping off the branches, ' ' and, surely nobody can suggest a more rational remedy. Killing the sinful is only adding sin to sin. By restoring the errant they may and can change their ways. By ' ' feeding the root, ' ' or restoring Simplicity, the world may be saved from desires and false notions and — from sin! Restoring Simplicity means correcting our perceptions of values — but who cares to correct their perceptions of values? Everywhere they answer us that we need not preach. They have freedom and that gives true value to life and the use of life. Is this really true? I think not! The world has a great deal of liberty, but that is not freedom. Liberty has let loose numerous desires and men are being swamped by them and live not in freedom, but in a terrible social quagmire, in bondage to their own lower nature. Many know this, but dare not admit it. Something called "social conscience" once in a while cries out and calls for a halt, but it never advises a return to primitive Simplicity. It raises a gale and a few boats are overturned. Then there is calm again. What can be done? Laotzse tells us. This is what he teaches in the Tao-Teh-King : "By undivided attention to the soul, by restraining the passions and letting gentleness sway it, it is possible to become an infant (to continue as a child). By purifying the mind of phantasms it is possible to remain without a spot." This then is what can be done: re- straining the passions and purifying the mind of false thoughts and illusions. The Tao-Teh-King (XVI) continues, "Having empted your- self of everything, guard your tranquillity and remain where you are." Exactly! "Remain where you are," that is, in Simplicity, for Simplicity is restored when self is emptied of "everything." Says the book: "This going back to one's origin is called peace," "Returning to the root means rest," and, is a new Beginning. "This going back to the root is called preservation, and, he who is in preservation is enlightened, and, to be enlightened means to be royal, and to be royal means to be celestial, and, to be celes- tial means to be of Tao." I said as a commentary upon Laotzse \s words "remain where yon are," that "Simplicity is restored when self is emp- tied of everything." That is dark talk unless I elucidate it, and, happily, I think I can do it by calling in the famous Meister Eckardt to help me. Meister Eckardt lived in the fourteenth century; he was a German Mystic and besides this a deep psy- chologist. He was at one time laboring to assure his listeners NAMELESS SIMPLICITY 65 that they did not need to fear God's damnation and anger on account of their sins, for said he, when the will in you is changed, everything is changed — Yea! never was! That is to say, in as much as the will is the center or the all of man, then, when the will is no more what it was, all that belonged to that former state is no more either. The sinner being radically turned or changed is subjectively pure and simple again. Objectivity be- ing outside would take its own course, or, in other words, the objective deed and the sin are two different affairs. The sin being subjective, and, not objective, vanishes the moment the will swings round — "Yea! it never was," as Eckardt said, hav- ing no root anywhere in the subject, and, the subject being in the everlasting "Now," there can be neither Past nor Future for it, consequently, the sin neither was, nor is, nor will be. Apply this to what I said about the self being emptied of "everything," and, that that act would restore Simplicity, and you will readily see the truth and the profound signification of the word "Simplicity." By "emptying the self" is to be under- stood what Eckardt meant by the turning round of the will, and, by the restoration of Simplicity is to be understood the restora- tion of the eternal "Now." All this is psychology, or the mys- tery of the working of the soul or self. To put it in theological language, it means that God's anger is gone and forgiveness is absolute by the turn of will. But it does not mean, that karma is wiped out arbitrarily. The objective side of my deed remains for me to atone for, not because God does these things half- hearted or imperfectly, nay, simply because in my growth. I have reached no further than the deeds of the karma. I must labor further with my deeds, otherwise I shall never grow ob- jectively, and, that I must. What further can be done? Laotzse teaches it in the Tao- Teh-King (XV). It is asked: "May a man not make muddy water clear by keeping it still?" We answer yes, because we be- lieve in the original goodness of man. By keeping still, that is to say, by abstaining from evil, the mud will sink and the water be clear again. The mud is not evil in itself, it is only in its wrong place, when stirred up in the water. No action is either good or evil in itself, but it may be so, when prompted by some- body's wish or when out of order. Again, the teaching is (XXXVII) : "Nameless Simplicity" would produce absence of desire, and, "Rest would return, and, thus the world would regenerate itself. ' ' Can there be any doubt 66 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING about it! It is the loss of Simplicity and the sinking into the complexity of things that has wrecked humanity and brought about the frightful moral ruin we see about us. Therefore, if Simplicity could be restored the world would righten itself, as does the ship when the shifted cargo is thrown overboard. We need to-day single mindedness, candor, and disinterested teach- ers to give the example of a life in Simplicity. No social nor political revolution is enough. We must go much deeper. When I think of these conditions my mind runs into the scenes in the Apocalypse and I perceive all kinds of horrors coming to pro- duce suitable conditions. No doubt some will argue that no Simplicity or return of childlikeness can reform the world. And they will say that much more radical means will be needed. Those who argue that way are wrong, and, they are ignorant about the dynamic forces that work in Nature and human life. Laotzse knew the truth and spoke with insight when he said: (XLIII) "The weakest thing in the world will override the strongest." — (XXXVII) "Tao is quiescent, yet leaves noth- ing undone." — (XXXVI) "The soft and the weak overcome the hard and the strong." — (XXXV) "Tao is as nothing, yet in its uses it is inexhaustible." — (IV) "Tao is without limitation; its depth is the source of whatever is." — (XL VIII) "By non-act- ion there is nothing which can not be effected." — (LII) "To re- main gentle is to be unconquerable." — (LIV) "Whoever de- velops Tao in the world will make Virtue triumph." — (LV) "What is not of Tao, soon comes to an end." — (LXI) "A wo- man conquers a man by continual quietness." — (LXVII) "Gen- tleness is always victorious." — (LXXIV) "The celestial Tao does not strive, yet overcomes everything." All these quota- tions fully bear out my contention that Laotzse 's teaching about the weak overcoming and mastering the strong, is a teaching that represents Nature's method. The weakest thing Laotzse knows of is water. Of that he says: (LXXVIII) "Nothing on earth is so weak and yielding as water ; yet for breaking down the strong it has no equal. " (VIII) "It can get into the most inaccessible places and that without striving. It is therefore like Tao." Taoism has studied water very closely and Taoists constantly quote texts about it. I will give you one, rather lengthy, but to the point. From "History of the Great Light," a famous Taoist text by Huai-Nan-Tsze, Prince of Kuang Ling, I quote as follows about water : WATEB 67 " There is nothing in the world so weak as water; yet its power is such that it has no bounds ; its depth is such that it can- not be fathomed. In length it is without limit ; in distance it has no shores; in its flows and ebbs, its increase and decrease, it is measureless. When it rises to the sky, it produces rain and dew; when it falls upon the earth, it gives richness and moist- ure; there is no creature in the world to whom it does not im- part life, and nothing that it does not bring to completion. It holds all things in its wide embrace with perfect impartiality; its graciousness extends even to creeping things and tiny in- sects, without any expectation of reward. Its wealth is sufficient to supply the wants of the whole world, without fear of exhaus- tion; its virtue is bestowed upon the people at large, and yet there is no waste. Its flow is ever onward — ceaseless and un- limited ; its subtlety such that it cannot be grasped in the hand. Strike it, you hurt it not; stab it, you cause no wound; cut it, you cannot sever it in twain; apply fire to it, it will not burn. Whether it runs deep or shallow, seen or unseen, taking differ- ent directions, flowing this way or that, without order or de- sign, it can never be utterly dispersed; its cutting power is such that it will work its way through stone and metal ; its strength so great, that the whole world is succored by it, or (literally trans- lated) it is able to support the ships of the whole world on its broad bosom. It floats lazily through the regions of formless- ness, foaming and fluttering above the realms of obscurity, that is to say, in the forms of clouds ; it worms its way backwards and forwards among valleys and water courses ; it seethes and overflows its banks in vast and desert wilds. Whether there be a superfluity of it or a scarcity, the world is supplied according to its requirements for receiving and for imparting moisture to created things, without respect to precedence in time. Where- fore there is nothing either generous or mean about it, for it flows and rushes with echoing reverberations throughout the vast expanse of earth and heaven. It cannot be said to have a left side or a right, filling everything as it does; it winds and meanders backwards and forwards, this way and that, being co- existent in point of time with the entire Universe — for which cause its virtue may be called perfect. And how comes it that water is able thus to bring its virtue to perfection in the world! It is because of its gentleness, weakness, fertilizing properties and lubricity." And Laotzse himself said: "That which is the weakest thing in all the world is able to overcome the strongest. 68 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Issuing from nothingness it returns to nowhere, and from this I know that there is advantages in non-action." This was Tao- ism, and, you cannot gainsay a single point. Now remember, I was reading this to prove how powerful the weakest may be. Let me now quote a Western man, Ruskin, on water. Indeed, Ruskin 's enthusiasm (Modern Painter's, Sec- tion V, "Truth of Water") ought to be ours: "Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without as- sistance or combination, water is most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in the clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated, was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace; then as (in the form of snow) it robes the mountains it has made, with that transcendant light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen; then as it exists in the foam of the torrent, in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing river, finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of universal, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal cheerfulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul." I quote this, too, to prove how powerful the weak may be. How marvellous is not Beauty and yet it is intangible. Beauty can take hold of a human heart, when neither truth nor goodness can move it! You have now heard a great deal about the weakness of water and you have verified the truth of all you have heard. Let me now turn the leaf over and show some of the marvels this Weakness performs, and combining the two descriptions as sym- bolical of Simplicity, it will readily be seen, that Simplicity is a workinaster of miracles and that we never can fail essentially in life if we identify ourselves with it. Water covers seven- tenths of the surface of the earth. Not much left, is there? In connection with atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen, it surrounds the earth to a height of two hundred miles, it is estimated. Surely we may well say that we live and breathe in water, yea, we may even say that we are made of water, because three- fourths of the weight of all animals and plants is water. Cer- tain it is, that our body could neither be built nor sustained with- WATER 69 out water. It is water and light that transform the inorganic in the plant to the organic, and thus becomes the source of our en- ergy. This is directly important for us personally. But water exists not alone for us. Simplicity is not only a human virtue. Water, though seldom chemically pure, is without smell and taste, two of the most animal senses. Being without smell and taste points to its freedom from anything that can be called rottenness ; moreover, water is cooling and a solvent for all that which man normally takes into his body and assimilates. Apply this to Simplicity with which Laotze and his followers compare it, and, surely, you can see Simplicity as a "cooling" force, and as a "solvent" of many difficulties. Though water is soft and pleasant, it hides enormous strength. It is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, two of the most powerful gases. Bring these two together under the blow- pipe and they unite in a violent explosion. Simplicity contains in itself two equally strong powers : activity and passivity, and, where these two are brought together under the blow-pipe of circumstance, they produce terrific effects. It has been sug- gested that if the earth ever burns up, as old traditions say it will, then the energy to do it will arise from the Ocean, because the Ocean is simply at present concealing the two fire elements which can and will burn anything. It can then rationally be in- ferred from this that Simplicity is the same power and the same energy, only on another plane. Do you not think it worth while to pay some attention to this subject of water and Simplic- ity, as taught in so unique a way in the Tao-Teh-King? Where is the strength equal to Simplicity? I will wander away a little from the direct subject of my chapter and give you a few problems to think about in connection with water and Simplicity. Perhaps you will have more respect for the Hindus' bathing in the waters of the Ganges, and for the Egyptians of old who held the Nile to be sacred and even thought the rivers were gods. Perhaps you will also reconsider your notions about the frequent illustrations so common among ancient people and in the East to-day. Perhaps you will think of your own bath in a different way, and, perhaps you will bathe differ- ently now, than you used to. In old Babylonia, proselytes were initiated by baptism and the custom was borrowed by the Le- vites and transmitted to the church. In Ex. XIX-20, we are told that Jehovah would not come down and give the law before the people had washed their clothes. In John's Gospel (III-5) it is 70 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING reported that Jesus declared to Nicodemus that nobody could enter the kingdom of God before he was born of water and spirit. All these things and the suggestions they have called forth, I want you to think over in connection with Simplicity. Your meditations upon them can only stir you up to a consideration of all the marvels that we pass by in the ordinary day life, and, call out a desire to change and do better in the future. Anybody penetrating into these mysteries will understand much of the hidden meaning in the voices of the sea, I spoke of in my second chapter, and can neither drink a glass of water nor wander on the seashore without marvelling and thinking of mysteries and of veils that do not hide but do reveal. So much about water. Laotzse does not speak of grass, but I will do so in con- nection with this subject of Simplicity, because grass represents in the organic world the same state of mind and heart as water does in the inorganic. The peculiar character of the grass is its power to adapt itself to the service of men. In its marvellous Simplicity of build it shows humility and cheerfulness. It is satisfied to be trodden on and fed upon. It seems even to cheer up under all kinds of violence and ill usage. Cut it down, and, next day, it multiplies its shoots and sends a rich perfume to you from its withering leaves. It keeps itself green through the winter and greets you in fruitful strength next spring. Have you ever studied that dainty little spear of fluted green, we call grass? It is more marvellous than any church spire, and it teaches the same lesson every spring when it rises up from the soil with song of glorification to the Sun above, and a silent prayer of thanks for preservation to mother earth below. Its Simplicity is so great, so profound, that but few notice it long enough to speak about it, yet, we should know no fair earth if the grass did not fulfil its mission. The earth would be nothing but desolation and we should not be among the living. Nature's primary object with grass seems to be the protection of the soil. If the soil were not protected by an organic covering it would speedily pass away and only the bare rocks remain, because floods would wash it away and the sun would burn it up. Sim- plicity fills a similar office. The destructive power of man's heterogeneous culture would lay him waste very soon. He keeps himself in check by retirements upon the conservative forces of existence. The grass family feeds us. All our cereals come from the grasses. The grass family comprises over three hun- dred genera and not less than three thousand five hundred spe- GRASS 71 cies. In grain the grasses furnish a larger amount of suste- nance to animal life than all other tribes of plants together, and, thus they are truly the physical basis of all civilization. Reflect upon this and you will soon see that Simplicity serves the same purpose in the higher life ; that is, that the Inner Life so to say, lives upon it. The grass is the commonest of common things, and, therefore the ever-present god. The universality of grass is one of the most poetical of facts in the economy of the world, and, its name is so universal in its signification, that I may al- most identify grass with Nature. The word " grass' ' means to grow, to sprout, and, the word " Nature" means the same; that is, to bear, to bring forth. You have heard much about Simplic- ity. Does it not all find its realization in grass? As grass is earth's garment, so is Simplicity the most beau- tiful garment the soul can find. Both grass and Simplicity are found watching " in all the places that the eye of heaven visits. ' ' They love each other like brooks and the watercourses. They follow each other and make gardens for the spiritual man. The grass family has never betrayed its trust; neither has Simplic- ity. They are back of all man 's love and have covered over the sands of sin which human faithlessness has washed down upon so many fair flowers of spirituality. The grasses have spread out the garment and Simplicity has taken the seat thereon. There is still one more family likeness I wish to point out. It is most interesting and convincing. Grasses are endogens and their growth is endogenous ; that is, they grow from inside and not by concentric rings as for instance the oak. They in- crease by the intercalation of new cellular and vascular tissues among those already formed. They are "inside growers" and so are lillies and palms. You will at once see the similarity to Simplicity for that certainly is of inside growth and not of the outside. You can now see why I quoted as my text the poetic sen- timent, I started with: ". . . Our human souls Cling to the grass and water brooks." THE SAGE V. IN the third chapter I spoke of the mystics and toward the end I retold a story from John Tauler about a poor man, whose clothes were not worth three cents, and, who sat like a beggar at the church door, and, how John Tauler was sent to this man for heavenly wisdom. I retold their conversa- tion and you remember how this beggar triumphed over the learned Dr. Tauler because of his Union with God, a union at- tained as he told him by self-abandonment and absolute love of God. We agreed then that the beggar was a Sage. Now I offer you an Eastern parallel to this tale from the Middle Ages. The difference between that tale and the one which you shall now hear is this, that Laotzse, who gives the information, speaks as a teacher and instructs us in the language of Simplicity about the sage. The Western and the Eastern tales are simply two presentations of the same truth and image. "Who and what is the sage? Before I give you passages from the Tao-Teh-King on that subject, it may be well, that I say a few words about the great man in order to distinguish the two. The Sage and the Great Man are two distinct phenomena. Nietzsche was not a sage, nor were Caesar, Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Spinoza, Beet- hoven, Copernicus. They were men of genius and greatness. Jesus, Buddha, Laotzse were Sages, because they were embodi- ments of great love and started men on a course of life, more human than that mankind had followed before. The life they started mankind in was mahatmic, that is to say, it was a sub- lime blending and union of the opposite factors of existence, a union, that does not destroy but raises the opposites above the world by a complete transformation. The others were great brains and furnished mankind with many accessories of life. They promoted culture but not holiness. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill held Utilitarianism to be the characteristic of THE SAGE 73 the Great Man and Hippolyte Taine considered him an embodi- ment of the spirit of his time and the will of the people. The world has readily accepted these opinions and judges greatness by these standards. In contradistinction to these, I now shall give you Laotze's definition of the sage, and the difference will appear at once, and, you will see which of the two groups you belong to or want to follow. I will preface my definition of the sage, such a Laotze sees him, by leading your thought beforehand to observe how different Laotze's view is from the view of a sage we get from India, for instance. The views we get from India tend to de- press rather than to raise the value and significance of life. They contain no incentives to work or to put forth any efforts against irrationality and wickedness. The Hindu flees the world. Not so Laotze's sage. The main key to him is activity. He re- mains in the world as an example ; he encourages us to struggle for freedom and never condemns us, though he laments that the world is so bad and so irrational. You see the difference? It is my opinion that we in this country can learn far more from Laotze on how to live, than we can learn from India. If one wants to become a yogi, and wishes to throw away all human value and become a mere wheel in the mechanism of nature, let him go to India. If one wants to be a sage and yet live in the world as a useful member of society, let him study and follow Laotze. The last mentioned object in life, I believe, is Amer- ican. Who and what is the sage, the holy man? "The sage is occupied only with that which is without self-assertion and he conveys his instructions by silence. He does not refuse the world's ten thousand things, but does not possess them. He works, but claims not the fruit of his action. He has merit, but does not dwell on it and therefore no one robs him of it." (II.) In short, he is in the world, but not of it. If you remember the description of Simplicity, you will see that the sage is Sim- plicity realized. The sage and Simplicity are two sides of the same truth. They may be compared to the approaches to the bridge and the two voices spoken of in fonner chapters. The sage is neither self-sufficient nor does he claim the honor for that which Tao accomplishes through him, nor even the fruits thereof. How thoroughly the character of water and grass as shown in the last chapter! "The sage knows no distinctions; he has no ' loves,' but looks upon all men and things as made for 74 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING holy uses" (V.), that is to say, separateness does not exist for him. Men and women and things are seen sub specie eternitatis; only their eternal value counts with him. From a worldly point of view this looks like indifference. It is no indifference. It is wisdom; for consider: there are men and women enough all around us. They are common enough; they are everywhere and as plentiful as workers in a beehive or anthill. The mere' fact of shape and organic structure is nothing remarkable. Nature uses the same sex-model throughout all her kingdoms; everywhere she moves by means of dual forms. But where is the one among either of these sexes who is more, something more than merely a human form? The one who is a species rather than a specimen? The one to whom we can apply the eternal measure? The woman who will and can be recognized because she is Woman and not a special and separate individ- ual? The man, who is not a semblance, but a reality? Where are the ones who cause us to exclaim, "Ah, I have seen a soul! I have felt the Presence!" Such exclamations are proper when we see a man or a woman who uses the body with absolute and joyous freedom; and whose mind rests in majestic peace and who is master of both. Such an one is mahatmic, or a sage, a great spirit. We have mahatmic spirits of various degrees among us. They are the ones, whom the sage considers; the others are children, and some are merely possibilities. In the world it is heresy to say anything against the world and its things. The world wants all of us to be as worldly as it is itself, and to look only for self-interest and provide "bread and play" for the mob. In common justice to the sage we must, however, say that he has as much right to live in his own way as the world has to live its way. The world does not consider him a valuable asset, why should it complain because he sits apart? Let him alone, he does not hurt the world. The Tao-Teh-King thinks well of the sage and declares (VII) also that "the wise man is indifferent to himself and thus becomes the greatest among men. Because he does not seek his own he accomplishes his own." As little as the wise man seeks his own, so little does he proclaim himself as the "greatest among men." By acting that way he gives the world no cause for irritation or hatred. Why he succeeds by "indifference," I have elsewhere explained. It is because this sort of indifference is Simplicity. In confirmation of my explanations, I will here again quote the Tao-Teh-King on the subject. The reasons for the THE SAGE 75 sage's success and his superiority is this, that (XXII) he adapts himself to Tao, therefore he is "preserved to the end" and becomes a model even for the unwilling. He "bends himself," therefore he becomes straight, and he is "filled because he empties himself." Though unknown and unrecognized he toils incessantly for the good. Though that toil wears him away, he is constantly renewed. On this point of toiling and wearing away, yet not dying, the world least of all can understand him. The reason why he does not die lies, of course, in the fact that he draws life from the deepest wells of existence, and those wells are only open in the sage. The deep wells never dry up ; they are not filled by surface water; they flow with perennial streams which come from the innermost earth. It was that kind of wells Isaac was told to dig up when sent to dig up "the old wells." To the sage, work is not toil; it is recreation, growth and laudation of Tao. Work is the key to all spiritual- ity. Because the world does not know the difference between toil and work it condemns the sage as an idler and a useless member of society. It is further said (XXVI) that the sage never loses his gravity and daily walks with dignity. He never forgets himself even if glorious palaces should belong to him. This is readily understood when it is realized that he is a quietist. His Quietism is "concealed enlightenment" to the world; nevertheless in it he becomes the good savior, a savior to whom nobody and nothing is "outcast." In the mysterious balance of things, he outweighs all misery and degradation by being "the enlightened one" and one who is free. In his in- tensity, the sage balances the world's immensity. Being one he outnumbers the many. Because he rests in the endless, he commands the finite. He was always in the world, but the world did not know it. In connection with the gravity of the sage stands the fact that he (XXIX) "abandons pleasure, ex- travagance and indulgence. ' ' That he should be far from pomp and levity is a matter of course. But the sage is no pietist or hypocrite. On the contrary, he is a devotee of beauty, beauty both in the human and in nature. Being rooted in Simplicity he can appreciate beauty as nobody else. Simplicity being the kernel of all beauty, he and beauty are one. Beauty to him, is, of course, not show nor stimulated desire, it is the supreme form, that otherness which only from time to time strikes common people and professionals ; that power, which lit upon Chaos and Heaven and Earth came forth, and, became cosmic order. 76 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Again it is said about the Wise Man (XL VII) that "he does not travel, yet he has knowledge; that he does not see things, yet he defines them." How would an emperor or even a police inspector get along if he did not get daily and hourly reports from everywhere? How would any manager of affairs who did not see for himself and learn by reports, how would he "define" things or affairs. He could not do it. He depends upon a complicated state machinery and reports. Not so the sage. It appears that there is a universal exchange bureau in the spirit to which he has immediate access, access at any time and anywhere. The sage lives in the spirit, hence things appear to him not fragmentary, but essentially and as they really are, both in their primary forms and in any and all of their derived forms. His world is the sum total of all the factors of the universe; factors which are both positive and negative; factors of both birth and death; factors which are the forms of existence. His world has been described in all that which Laotzse says about Tao; in all that which Plato dreamed about Ideas, and Jacob Bohme revealed about the Nature-powers called "mothers." The sage does not strive. He knows that Tao is One and he follows Teh, or virtue, which is neither more nor less than following Tao, for Teh is Tao realized. As little as anything can be taken from Tao or added to Tao, so little can anything be taken from Teh or added to Teh. Teh, virtue, is a constant. Why then should the sage either strive or care for names or distinctions; they can only be human inventions, and cannot affect either Tao or Teh. The sage wastes no energy in striving, he applies himself to Tao, and, Tao gives him the true per- ception or understanding of the nature of things and their value. He also applies himself to Teh, or Virtue, which instructs him how to use things and by right use of things he attains power. Said a Taoist: "The man of virtue, Teh, remains indifferent to his environment. His integrity is thereby undisturbed and his knowledge transcends the senses. As a result of that his heart expands to enfold those who take refuge in it. Such is the man of complete virtue." It is said of one who does not strive: "He will bury gold in the hills and cast his pearls in the sea and not strive for wealth or for fame. He will not rejoice in old age or grieve over early death, nor will he pride himself of success or feel sorrows in failure. He will not feel rich because he ascends the throne, THE SAGE 77 nor glory because he may rule the world. His real glory is to know the One, Tao, and that all things are but phases of the One." It is interesting to compare this sublime indifference to the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius. The Roman looks upon such things with contempt. The Taoist treats them as unimportant. Both stand aloof and separate from them. The sage has "the gift that abides," the anointed eye, which sees the light that never fails. God still speaks to man. The mountains especially call to the sage and they show him the hidden life. In ever- ascending scale he rises upon the spiritual sense of all scrip- tures, and praying in the spirit he goes out into the wilderness. Everywhere he is in the midst of "the salvation of God"; no- where is the divine face hidden; "the little things," as well as the first born, the "sons of God," guide him. Thus and therefore, it will be seen, that though he does not travel as the curious and the idle do, nor examine as the learned do, he never- theless knows everything. It may now sound surprising and contradictory to hear that the Tao-Teh-King also says (XLIX) that the sage's heart is not set upon anything, that he has no fixed opinions, or opinions which he calls his own; but a little consideration will show that that is necessarily so. How could he who lives in the universal, stay in the particular? He would not even claim the universal as his own. Only small souls beat the drums and the smaller they are, the larger the drum. Professionals especially are zealous about their so-called discoveries and panaceas. Con- trary to all such, the wise man, says the book (XLIX), "ac- commodates himself to the minds of others." That is to say, he does not force his hearers or pupils to exalt him or to speak in the forms of his thought or copy him. He accommodates himself to them. If his hearer is an artist, he speaks in art phraseology; if his pupil is a philosopher, he falls in with him and uses abstract terms ; to a woman he speaks in life terms and with love, and, to the child he uses pictorial illustrations. To all he is sympathetic, and, they confide in him. The sage ' ' uni- versalizes his heart" (XLIX) and thus becomes a savior. And how does he thus become a savior? He does it by such behavior as I already have described; a behavior, the key of which is Simplicity. Salvation is not brought to anybody by forcing them into another's mode of thinking or living. Sal- vation comes to whosoever needs it, by letting him reform him- self, by letting him overcome himself, and thereby allowing the 78 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Higher Self to reassert itself in him. People would be righteous if let alone. It is pressure from outside and the preaching of false notions that cause people to do wrong. Remove desires by putting no false value upon things, and nobody will desire them. It is the law that makes sin, said St. Paul. Leaving out for the present any discussion about the metaphysics of "the law of contrariety, ' ' so called, this can be said, that by making distinc- tions we create crime and antagonize Tao and Teh. Rightly says Laotzse, that by setting value on rare things of sense we disturb the peace of the mind. (III.) Who can deny it? Pre- dilections are the cause of sin and crime and our alienation from Tao and Teh. If nobody made distinctions, no breaking of rules would take place. The human heart is not radically wrong. The core is right and sound. Our book says (LXII) that "Tao is the guardian of all things," and does not even forsake those who are not good." Yea, the book even says (LI) that "Teh (or virtue) nourishes all things, increases them, protects them and watches over them." In the face of such declarations, who dares throw stones? who dares malign the people? Let the hypocrites go and hide! Do not stand in the way of a soul! Every flower will seek the sun if let alone; none turns away. The sage is the good savior ! and the sage never advertises him- self, and the sage is always poor; he carries his jewels in his bosom (LXX). He never speaks up in the congregation. Those who do not know, do the talking. All this about the sage, I have read in the Tao-Teh-King. Go and read for yourself. You may find much more. You have thus far, in this chapter and in the last, heard much in praise of Simplicity and about its natural types, water and grass. You have also heard who and what the sage is, and how he uses Simplicity. All of this has conveyed ideas of Real- ity to you. It must have appeared that Simplicity is something fundamental ; something structural, something Kosmic. Let me now finally translate the word Simplicity into moral concepts and thus come a little nearer to our human existence. Simplicity then is first of all sincerity. Sincerity in the Latin is slue corn, ''without a flaw." Certainly Simplicity is com- pleteness and uprightness. Tt is a vase that rings true when struck. Simplicity is whole-hearted and simple-hearted, or, in other words, it is synonomous with singleness. Plato applied the word Simplicity, ovir\as (a pious) to God, "who is," he said, "perfectly simple and true both in word and deed." Plato uses THE SAGE 79 the word Simplicity again in the Republic about the just man. He means, and we ought to mean by the word Simplicity, that a just man is perfectly at one with himself in motive, aim and end in his relations to the Divine and to his fellowmen. In an old work, ' ' The Testament of the Twelve Patriachs, ' ' a work of Hebrew origin and character, Issachar, the fifth son of Jacob and Leah, is represented as Simplicity, and, he repre- sents himself to his children as one who has walked all his life in Simplicity. He lays emphasis upon his being a husbandman and recommends his children to find contentment in husbandry and to shun mercantile pursuits because these lead to transgres- sions. That of being a husbandman is a point I would emphasize as a necessity for the full realization of Simplicity. City life, with its complexity, is ruinous. The old adage is true: "God made the country and the devil made the city." By being a husbandman, I do not exactly mean being a farmer, though Issachar was it. I mean that country life, life in the open, and not city life is the true life. If we cannot flee the city, we can nevertheless in many ways place ourselves in direct relation to the country. Let us do that! An outlook to Nature will make a path to Simplicity ! And now in conclusion : What can be done for the restoration of Simplicity? We talk and boast of culture and civilization, and what is it? Nothing but sham! I say "nothing," and do so perfectly conscious of what I am saying, and do not think I am exaggerating. The proof is to be found in all the misery around us, a misery that never ends. I am not blind to the marvellous industrial and commercial progress of the world. I profit by it in many ways, and so do you, but eternally, what is it? It is not as stable as clouds, and, those who promote the so-called culture, make gains that last no longer than mosquitoes in the fall. The only lasting thing they gain is terrible strength of will. That lasts, and, will send them back like blind moles to burrow in the earth. By and by the Powerful and the sages will change places. To die poor now but wise is great gain. Cannot something effectually be done to introduce Simplic- ity? Can we not call to arms all those who have realized the Overman in themselves, as they say? Why not send them to vitalize that Overman? Let them introduce Simplicity! Who will be first to preach and practice it? I now come to that special purpose I had in mind, and to which I referred before. My purpose is to connect Simplicity, 80 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING the sage and the Tao-Teh-King, and that not merely as logically- related, but standing in a life relation to each other as Mother, Father and Child. Before I proceed to do so, let me explain my method in these papers. In these chapters I am endeavoring to translate all scholastic and intellectual terms and expressions into living conceptions, into the forms that answer to our per- sonal existence. In all of us there lie images, words, sounds, symbols, and so forth, of various kinds ; they are the epitomes of ourselves, and by means of these images we, in the most direct manner, get hold of ourselves and are taught. I am trying to get hold of such images in you, in order to explain my subject. It is easy enough to spiritualize any idea or conception, and to raise it very high, but the result is that it becomes so utterly attenuated that it loses all practical value. As soon as an idea is so thoroughly denaturalized that it has become a mere noth- ing, it has also ceased to awaken anybody who lives in flesh and blood. I say, it is easy enough to wander off into highflown language and poetic imagery, but it is very difficult to move the other way; and yet that is most needed, because people need a foothold, and they get it not by a talk above their heads, but by bringing the truth and the spirit to them in tangible forms, in forms that correspond to their own lives and their own experiences. Inded, it is an old truth that "invisible things are discerned from the foundation of the world through the things which are made." And why is that the truth? "Why is it self-evident? It is so, as John of the Cross says, because "spiritual things include them." By right use of visible and tangible things we may lay hold upon the invisible and intan- gible, because they are included in it as the higher in the lower. As I said, people need a foothold from whence they themselves can begin to work up on the Path. You remember I have laid much emphasis upon originality and have condemned all kinds of copying and ascribed much of humanity's misery to lack of originality and to copying. If a lecturer or a preacher can come down, not to platitudes or child- ish talk, but to the living images that lie in every human mind, he can reach that mind and do it good. By infusing those images with power, by purifying them, by electrifying them, by ex- plaining them to the mind that possesses them, that mind is infused with vigor and awakened to itself. Being awakened, it will live for itself and be on the Path, and, that it should be awakened and caused to live for itself is the object of all preach- IMAGES 81 ing. A preaching that does not aim at that nor accomplish it is no more than babbling or beating the drum. If you will go back over the preceding chapters and re- examine them, you will see that I am struggling to do this very thing I am talking about. Instead of screwing the subjects up higher, I have attempted to take the scholastic machinery to pieces and I have substituted living powers for all mechanical and inorganic details. I have made all abstractions into living personalities; I have painted dramatic scenes and appealed to your feelings and love-nature rather than attempted to instruct. I have used veils that reveal, and, thus I have gained the same effects as Greek sculptors gained, when they wetted the drapery they put upon their models: they revealed, yet they never offended propriety. I have, if I may say so, rather " lowered" idealistic expressions; I have done that by clothing them in flesh and blood, and, I know I have attained some satisfactory results. An experiment with that which I have called Western and modern phraseology will prove more of a success than might have been expected. It is most singular, that this method which I have called Western and modern is the very method of the ancients. In the East, to-day as of old, all preaching and teaching is by personal intercourse, and, experience in European universities has shown that it is the only real way by which to impart spiritual seed. Abstract and mechanical subjects may well be taught from a platform, but spiritual life never. The reason for this is plain. Consciousness is more than a physical fact. In the Universal, the individual person is a species, but in the physical world an individual is almost meaningless. One crystal is like another; but one soul is not like another. All those highflown, abstract and difficult terms and phrases and conceptions in which so many teachers, both mystic and others, have buried that life which these terms and phrases originally stood for, all these terms and phrases are not of the spirit of the Orient. The West and part of Asia under western influence made them, partly in Greece, and partly elsewhere, during the development in the East of what is called Western progress, Western culture and civilization. In its attempt to gain a reasonable understanding of living forces and acts, the West and part of Asia invented all these terms and phrases and they unfortunately forgot the original aim and end, and forgot that these terms and phrases were only to be symbols and no more, and they forgot life alto- 82 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING gether. They hugged and kissed petrifactions and do so now. By forcing posterity to learn by the brain and not by the heart, we have now come to our present desperate conditions. We have the shell, but the nut is not in it. I am trying to retranslate terms and phrases into life. Like so many others, I have lived in the blind man's paradise and been satisfied with painted canvases and with words. But time came when I could no longer square the murmur of the forest with the pages of a book; nor comprehend why I should not worship a beautiful body, but raise my eyes with de- votion to a manufactured and unsubstantial puppet god. Time came when I could no more find peace in thoughts formulated by others and not by myself; at that time I began to use my own innate images as symbols for my thought. Time came, also, when my will refused to be tied conventionally; at that time I dared to be myself, and I entered the Path. Having found it necessary for myself to give the life-element its absolute freedom and experiencing it as the first step in the approach to the Path, I now apply the experience and present to you what I call the " inside" of those terms and phrases which philosophy and ethics abound in. I translate them into life- forms, which I have experienced, and some of them must strike you as they have struck me. And I know they are of eternal value. I am confident that if you start with life-images, your own reason and the image in you will clothe these life-images with their celestial garments and you will discover yourself to be on the Path. It is my experience that nobody can enter the Path by any other method. And upon examination you will find that it is the true psychological process. It is Nature's way when she is allowed freedom with us. Now, then, applying this principle of translating philosoph- ical and ethical terms into terms of the living, I say that Sim- plicity is but another term for mother and that the sage is but another term for father and that the book, the Tao-Teh-King, is but another term for child. I mean to say that the love-power in us will feel Simplicity as the Mother-power. And that the wisdom-power in us will recognize the Sage as the Father-power, and, when I shall have spoken about the book, you readily will acknowledge that the book must be the child-power. Indeed, this translation seems to me so simple that I feel it ought to have been unnecessary to mention it. These conceptions, mother-father-child, are living-forces in us, and lie nearer to us than the abstract terms Simplicity, sage THE MOTHER 83 and book. We can grasp them by our inherent vitality and the image, and thus at-one ourselves with them, and having done that we can hereafter raise them to any potential power we wish. In the conceptions mother-father-child we get living footholds and cannot lose ourselves in fancies or miss the real in existence. They will readily transform themselves into the Path for us. But I must proceed. From this talk about Simplicity in the last chapter and about the sage in this, I come naturally to the subject of the ancient people who were so far ahead of us, and to the books they have left behind them. I will therefore say something about the recovery of the ancient wisdom and speak especially in praise of the Tao-Teh-King as one of the marvels of ancient wisdom. I was laughed at the other day when I recommended a certain learned man to read the Tao-Teh- King and advised him to learn something from people of an- other race and of prehistoric character. I urged the digging up of old wells, and as he was a minister, I referred to Isaac who dug up the ' ' old wells ' ' and found them flowing with fresh water. With scorn he refused to have anything to do with the ancients, barbarians, he called them. He wanted, he said, only the newest new; only the mental products of this, his own age. For, said he, ' ' there is and can be no connection between myself and those ancient ones." I never argue with a man that stands in his own light. What would be the use? I left him, only asking him if there were any connection between him and his ancestors of yore? Did you make yourself? How about your nationality and race characteristics? What vital connection is there or can there be between you and the theology you learned at the seminary? Of course, the answers to these questions would refute his conceit, but I did not force the answers. To refuse to read such an old book as the one I referred to, or to learn of the ancients is as rational as not to recognize the spring of the day. Surely the day spring is older than any book. People cannot deny it. Why not deny it? But they do not. On that point Nature forces them to learn her lesson, it is so her minis- try; on other points, they are left free to act and unworthy as most of their free-will acts are. They arrogantly refuse to listen. This is another of the many faults I have pointed out from time to time in our modern life and another source of many of our troubles. An age cannot stand apart from the age that precedes it, as little as an individual can stand apart from its parents and 84 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING other ancestry. To learn what to-day means, we must return to yesterday's task and its lessons, be they finished or not. Nature's method points the lesson. The spring of the day or morning ; the noon, and the dusk and the night resemble Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Nature has arranged it so, by making the diurnal revolution of the earth upon its own axis correspond to the annual revolution of the earth around the sun. And Nature makes all her children move in that fashion, and by so doing she both repeats herself and teaches new lessons ; she constantly renews and constantly returns again to the same point, but on each stage she teaches something new and forces a new development. We are constantly in the midst of her, yet never see the beginning nor end, but we are constantly taught nevertheless. Anyone refusing to reconsider the old teachings is a disobedient child and must necessarily be crushed sooner or later, because the wheel of Nature's rotation cannot be stopped. Modern culture is near being crushed because it does not follow Nature's method. It has cut itself off from Nature and at- tempts to rest upon self alone. Though I was laughed at, as I told you, I nevertheless recommend a return to the old wells, and I recommend that we dig them up again. From experience I know that modern culture does not contain the essential life. From experience of a long life, I also know that there is a stream of clear water flowing through much of the ancient learn- ing and that he who drinks of it never shall thirst again. One of the old wells that gushes forth such pure water is called the Tao-Teh-King. It is with this well, as with so many of the old wells, they must be dug up. The digger is the Inner Life and the sensible people of to-day who long for the Inner Life. Let me talk a little about wells and caves and on their sym- bolism, or, how they are to be revered, because they are veils that reveal; and not veils that cover up. I wish to speak of wells anil caves because of the water that flows from them. In Nature they play a part that resembles the work of the heart in our organism. As life flows from the heart and returns to it, so water flows from the eaves and returns to them by way of tb* clouds. In my last lecture, I described at length the importance of water, such as Laotzse and his disciples saw it, and I added what Science had to contribute; it is therefore quite natural that I now should say something about its source or sources. And whatever I shall say adds to the instruction given about Sim- plicity and the sage if yon will make the application. NATUBE 85 In the first place, wells or caves do not originate the water, to speak properly. They are the vessels that gather it and send it forth in different directions. In the Alps you may climb a mountain, the St. Gotthardt, and from that one mountain see three rivers flow out in various directions. The Rhine is the conflux of these three rivers. The three rivers start in icy caves. The three rivers united in one as the Rhine have been the leaders of much of the most important European history from the time of the Romans. Why, we do not know. The fact is there. From three repositories on St. Gotthardt these rivers are sent forth. The mountain gathers the water and stores it up in glaciers and from these it fills the wells, and the wells give birth to the stream. The mountain, the glaciers, the caves and the streams are ever the same, yet they are never old, but remain ever young and fresh. Ancient Druids and priests of Nerthus heard me eternal passion of song that reverberated from each drop of water that fell in the cave. That same song is heard to-day, though not understood. In that song Mother Nature assures the devotee that though her children forsake her, she will forever and ever keep sending streams, young and fresh, into the world. Though people think only of using the streams for selfish purposes, for saw-mills, sailing and shipping, she will nevertheless continue to submit and ask no rewards. St. Gotthardt, of course, means "God's Heart," and tbe song is one of assurance that Love never shall cease to flow from God's heart. Look upon caves and wells and springs in that way and you shall see that such symbolism is even richer than other meanings often attributed to them. The Tao-Teh-King is such a mountain like St. Ootthardt, and from it springs three rivers : Tao and Teh and the King. Tao and Teh are living forces and King is the book containing them. No matter how much foolishness commentators fill it with, the original stream is as pure to-day as ever. And now I will tell you the story of its origin and you can interpret it yourself. The legend is, that Laotzse, disgusted with the corruption of the court, left his home in the territory of Chow, and in order to travel West as he wished to, had to go through a mountain pass <©n the border. A friend of his was the warden of that pass. While staying with this warden, Laotzse wrote his book. The point I wish to call attention to is that it was written in a mountain pass, it was born in a pass. There is a connection between a cave, a mountain pass and the three rivers, called 86 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Tao and Teh and the King. Think it over and you will readily see it and you will discover that mystery, and that mystery will be a key to the understanding of the book. The book is, as you readily can infer, I mean to say, more than a book and its mean- ing is not understood except by those who have heard the voices of the sea and of the mountain, voices I spoke of in my second lecture. Many can read the book and many have read it with- out any mystery. But I can assure you that only those get its full meaning who can listen to its sentences as they would listen and interpret the flow of water from out of a cave. I know I am mystifying some of you, but I dare not express myself any clearer. Moreover, your own discovery will be of far more value to you than anything I could say in plain language. I have said all this about caves and wells, because I argue for the digging up of that old well, I call the Tao-Teh-King, hoping that when I have got so far as to have led your thoughts to it as a well of old, I may be able to take the next step and put some life into that cave or well, and henceforth call it a Heart, a living source rather than a cave or an inorganic hollow. If I can get that conception of Heart accepted, I will be under- stood when I say that Tao-Teh-King flows with living water, which will quench all thirst and none shall thirst again after having tasted its waters. And I have used the language I have chosen because this so-called book is no book in the ordinary sense of a book. It is a living being. It is an avatar, a revela- tion and can only be fully comprehended if treated as coming from the heavenly cave, whence are born anew Heaven and Earth every moment. It was a great misfortune for Peter Schlemilch that he cast no shadow, but it is for the Tao-Teh- King a proof of its celestial origin that it casts no shadow. It is light itself and does not stand in derived light. I am not exaggerating. Your own experience will prove the truth of what I say ; but no intellectual research will do it. No flippant criti- cism ever won fair love, nor will the book reveal itself where conceit reigns. The silver thread that runs through it is spun out of love's heart. As the spider spins its web out of its own organism and lives in it, so is this stream of life, called Tao-Teh- King, flowing as a living soul into the real student. Birds gather twigs and leaves for their nests; all material from the outside. The learned collect fragments from here or there, and putting these fragments together with bits of fancy steeped in midnight oil, they call the product philosophy. But CAVES AND WELLS 87 bees and spiders do differently, and so do the sages. The honey the bee brings home has been rejuvenated by the bee and trans- formed from inorganic stuff. The web of the spider is its own body. The sage is not a collector. He is a spontaneous pro- ducer. As the book is of such a peculiar nature, it will not surprise you that I should say something about how to read in it — I say "in it," I do not say "read it." You never can do the latter. The first characteristic of the book is that it can be read like any other moral treatise and will yield splendid results. Its teachings treated as merely human sense must by all be con- sidered as high and noble as any ethics taught anywhere. More- over, from a purely literary point of view, there is not a single sensual blot in it on any page. It never falls below propriety, no matter what straight-jacked school may hold up the standard of what is proper and right. In other words, the book naturally and literally is a model catechism in public and private morals. Reading it as such requires no special attitude or devotion. But reading in it is different from reading it, and I confess I find it difficult to say just what I mean. But here are some leading thoughts. You have perhaps seen old devout people reading their Bible with folded hands before them and reading with prayer for enlightenment. If you have not seen or heard it in reality, perhaps you have seen paintings in which this was shown. To say the least, that custom of the folded hands and of prayer is very beautiful. Some also cross themselves, and that represents to them an act of faith. In India no Brahmin reads a text without intoning the Om, and no Mohammedan begins or ends a prayer without reciting his creed — "La-ilaha-il- lal-laho," and so forth: "There is no Diety but God," and so forth. Everywhere, where people have any degree of the Inner Life, and even where only ancient ceremonies remain, they utter themselves in words of praise, thanks or adoration. If they do that spontaneously, their ejaculations will stir them profoundly; all externals will vanish or recede, thus permitting the soul to unfold and the spirit to become free. In that unfoldment and that freedom there is absorption into the Divine, and the outcome is either high ecstacy or an illumination. It is told of an old woman, who was ordered by her father confessor to say seven pater nosters, that when she next time came before him and was asked if she had done as directed, she answered No! she had come no further than "Our Father" of the first prayer, and 88 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING why? Because the intonation of that appellative had thrown her into ecstasy and absorbed all the rest of the prayer. If you can learn to say Ta-o with that fire, you will under- stand what I meant by calling the Tao-Teh-King an avatar. But if you cannot say Ta-o, say or act as your heart and imagination prompts you. Do or say something ! Again. All sentences and sometimes single words, no matter what the language may be, are merely hieroglyphics that represent an image that passed before the mind of the writer. It is that image we must get hold of when we read. If we do not get hold of it, we do not get from our reading that which we ought to get. To get that image, we must let the sentence read present itself before our inner eye. We do that best by meditation, not by prying into its meaning, possible or impossible. The sentence contains the Image, even if the sentence is poor linguistics. Sit still and meditate, that is my advice ! The power of single words is forcefully illustrated by a story told by Dr. Kober about Jacob Bohme. The two were walking in the fields, when the Doctor happened to use the Platonic word "Idea." No sooner had he pronounced it than Jacob Bohme, in ecstacy, exclaimed, "Ah! I see the heavenly Virgin!" Bohme had never heard the word before. The explanation was per- fectly rational and is easily explained, because "Idea" to Plato means a God. Bohme caught the Inner Life of the word. I my- self possess several such words. One of those words I got from the Tao-Teh-King, and I have prepared a chapter on it, which you will find as you continue to read ; that word can throw me into an ecstatic condition, and I have found a couple of images that will unlock many mysteries of the Inner Life as well as the outer. There is nothing marvellous about this, and I do not consider myself better gifted than any of you. Some of you probably possess similar words and images, but have perhaps not brought them consciously into use. I have come into pos- session of these words and images by devotion and by perpetual meditation on them. Will you not do something of this kind? You need no teacher. The teacher, the sage, is within. All you need is Sim- plicity, Truth of life and the Mother. LAOTZSE VI. I WILL now give an account of Laotzse and his book. I will first tell the little that is known about him, personally, and then I will examine the character of the historic period in which he lived, and it shall be seen what a remarkable man he was. Finally I will give a summary of his book. He was of a good family, possibly of royal descent, and born 604 B. C. in Ku, a hamlet in Tsu in Honan. Very little is known about him, but we know that he was librarian or custodian of the archives of Cho, a city in south-western China. He was called by many names, such as "the old philosopher," because, according to tradition he was white haired like an old man, when he was bom. Tradition also tells that he was 80 years old when born, having been all that time is his mother's womb. He is also called "the ancient prince," "the old child," which means "he who even as an old man remains child-like;" he was also called "the greatly eminent ancient master." After his death, the title of Tan was conferred upon him. Tan means "master" and is the same as the title "Christ" given Jesus, and "Buddha" given to Sakya- Muni. As we now say "Jesus, the Christ," so Taoists say Lao- Tan : Lao, the master. Much has been fabled about his connec- tion with Babylonian and Chaldean history, but no historic au- thority exists for any of those speculations. I want here in the name of justice to all of the ancient prophets and teachers to protest against the modern scholars' theory of borrowing. It has become the custom among scholars to search for plagiarism everywhere among the ancients, deny- ing the old wisdom-teachers any originality. In this country among the half studied it is common to hear that all teachings are derived from India. It is about as intelligent as to say that our civilization is derived from the Hottentots or from some African negro. The natural question, therefore, is: where did 90 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING all this wisdom which it is claimed was stolen from somebody else — where did it originate? Who originated it! Our wise- acres never ask themselves this question ! The truth about the ancient wisdom, as about wisdom today, is this : the human mind and heart are everywhere and always were capable of originat- ing it for themselves without teaching or impulse from another. All ancient wisdom has originated spontaneously, and that is the explanation of its origin. If you, my reader, would live truly and not lose yourself in all kinds of distractions, you could equal or transcend Laotzse, Buddha, and all the great teachers, and you could do that with- out any teacher. All you need to do is * * to be as you are, ' ' like those most ancient Chinese the Tao-Teh-King speaks of, said: 4 ' We are what we are, ' ' and who did not know who ruled them nor cared. Yes, that is all that is needed ! That Laotzse was a genuine theosophic mystic and not a copyist appears from his book, the Tao-Teh-King. In the 20th chapter he makes the following confession, the only known per- sonal statement we have: "The multitude of men are happy, so happy, as though they were celebrating a great feast. They behave as though it were springtime and they were ascending a high tower. I alone remain quiet, alas ! like one who expects nothing of the future. I am like a baby who cannot yet smile. Forlorn I am; oh so forlorn! It appears that I have no place where I may find a home. The multitude of men all have plenty and I alone am empty. Alas! I must be foolish? Ignorant I am; oh so ignorant! Common people are bright, so bright. I alone am dull. Common people are smart; oh, so smart. I alone am confused; oh so confused! Desolate I am, alas! like the sea. Adrift, alas ! one who has no place where to stay. The multitude of men all possess usefulness. I alone am awkward, and a rustic, too. I alone differ from others; but I reverence the Mother." This is the description of a man on the Path and also his groans, but there is no bitterness in them. It is the lamentation of a man who has moments when he is very un- happy because he feels the world's indifference to its own wel- fare and feels his solitary position and longs for a company he cannot find. As a sage, he is homeless and feels it when others rejoice around him. By the way, this condition of homeless- uess, this being a man without a country and a home, is one that comes with various degrees of force to all who are on the Path; you may hear them moan, but you never hear a cry of bitterness. LAOTZE 91 or anger, or regret. Do not consider such lamentations to be signs of weakness. It cannot be avoided; it must be endured and the rewards are sure. The time will come when we no more crave for sympathy. You have read about this in "The Voice of the Silence." Cheer up fellow sufferer. Paul was a fool for Christ's sake. Laotzse was a fool for the sake of Tao! And his lamentations are exclamations in moments of loneliness, moments that even the wisest and the most self-centered people have. At the same time, as they are cries of suffering they are also witnesses to his greatness. No mean man, no mere hypo- crite would or could so frankly characterize himself that way. Laotzse 's Theosophy centers around the two words Tao and Teh and his book is called Tao-Teh-King, which means, the Book about Tao and Teh. What these two words mean, I shall, in this and in subsequent chapters explain, and you shall find, I trust, an incentive in them to dive deeper into the mysteries which they reveal. Personally, Laotzse is the center of his book and also the beginning of a radically new development of the human mind and heart. It is not easy nor necessary now at the beginning of the study to define fully what the mental and moral state of China was just before Laotzse. You will see that easier when you shall have become familiar with the book itself. I will therefore omit such definition and description for the present. But it is possible to indicate what the historic appearance of Laotzse means by comparing him and his appearance to some contemporary and later movements in history. I will try to do that, Laotzse was born 604 B. C, or at the time when Rome was just built and in early childhood, and not yet of any universal value or significance. Nearly two hundred years later than Laotzse, Greece began in her way to talk about the same prob- lems which Laotzse already so long before had fully stated, and moreover introduced into life, in a most vigorous way and by great disciples. By comparing him and his work with Greece and Rome in point of time you see how the new cycle, which he and they represent, begins with him as a sunrise and ends with them as a sunset. And here are some other facts to prove the same point. As Laotzse is chief among Turanian people, so is, at this time, Babylonia chief among the Semitic people, and typified by Ne- buchadnezzar. At this time he had subjugated Judea, destroyed 92 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Jerusalem and awed Egypt. Nineveh was razed to the ground the year before Laotzse was born and three years later Daniel was ennobled for his interpretation of dreams. Ezekiel saw allegorical visions. In India, a little later, Sakya-Muni, the Buddha, began to preach the true doctrine of freedom and right knowledge. In other words, on a limited space on the face of the earth, reaching a few degrees north and south and stretching from the western part of China towards the Mediterranean sea, a pecu- liar awakening and revelation took place. The space may be in- scribed in a geometrical figure of a parallelogram of a few de- grees north to south and a few more east to west. (See Dia- gram.) One might imagine a great temple erected upon that parallelogram with its entrance in the east, represented by Laotzse, and its altar in the west, represented by the New Age, which is upon us. Its southern wall would be represented by Buddha and the Gita and the northern by Jesus. Such a design and idea is not so fanciful as some might think. It is a fact that Laotzse, the Gita, Buddha and Jesus, and let me add to them the New Age: these four represent the essentials of the Great Cycle we live in. Their ideas, their historical sequence and the power they have exerted, all confirm the conception. Historically, it is easy to verify what I say, namely, that there is not a single wisdom idea to be found among us which was not born then ; nor is there a single religious idea, that we today characterize as of eternal value, which was not born within that parallelogram I have drawn. We of today are simply the in- heritors! — and what have we done with our patrimony 1 ? Have we invested it to get its full power in current value? I think not ! I believe there is much in the teachings and life of those four, Laotzse, the Gita, Buddha and Jesus, that we have not yet discovered. I hope the New Age will discover it. The parallelogram, I have drawn, and the ideas I connect with it, point to the ideas mentioned in a former chapter on templum. I believe the templum of our cycle stands in the heavens above that earthly space. Do you understand me? I think it worth while for you to study these suggestions; they are not only occult, but they are historical, too, and everyone of you is historically affected by these sages and the movements that sprang from them. Everywhere else outside that parallelogram on the face of the earth, where man lived, he existed upon rem- nants of other civilizations, if civilizations they can be called; TEMPLUM 93 94 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING civilizations radically defective, when compared to the new forms that came in. Such historic facts must not be overlooked or thought of as of no or little value. On the contrary, they are of the greatest value. Some one will now ask about the value and significance of India and all its marvelous religions, thinking perhaps that I misjudge India's position. They will want to know how these are related to Laotzse, to Greece, and to the mighty Semitic force of the days I speak about. I can answer those questions easily. India and all its religions and customs lie on an anterior plane of development. India, or Brahmixiism, was not human as the human is represented by Laotzse; it is and was godly; man is and was of no significance ; the gods are and were all and everything. But with the other peoples, man is born as Man and his significance in the world economy is established. That is the difference. Brahminism knows of no sage who is active in the world and desirous of raising the world. Buddha and the Gita are the ones who first see and establish the basis for free- dom. Brahminism knows of no such struggle as that which took place among the Semites, the object of which was the estab- lishment of a Kingdom of God, the One, among men. Brahmin- ism was priest-craft, and fought for its own glory and the glory of its gods. Brahminism knows of no such mental boldness and revolutionary ideas as those which lie in the Socratic dictum: "Man is the measure of all things." It is easy then to see the radical difference between Laotzse, the Semites and Buddha on one side and Brahminism on the other; and, it must be acknowledged that the progressive ideas are with the former. As for the Bhagavad-Gita, it is not a brah- minical product in the sense, I have given Brahminism. Its ideas belong to the very period I am defining and for which I claim so much. An historic and a comparative study will show that. As for other factors, which I have not counted in, I may anticipate questions about Zoroaster and the Fire worshipers, which plainly lie within the territory I mention. My answer is simply this: I point to the fact that they have vanished. Ex- cellent and wonderful teachers they were, but the eternal, the upbuilding element, was not in their doctrine. Zoroastrian doc- trine was mainly an ethical philosophical doctrine of the per- petual fight of good and evil, a dualism that contains no redemp- tion, like that offered by Laotzse, Buddha, the Gita and Jesus. WISDOM AND VIRTUE 95 As for the Hebrews, they are the progenitors of Jesus, the last prophet and Master-Mystic. For the rest, their glory lies with all the other Semites, by whatever name they be mentioned, all of which were the standard bearers of belief in the One. At the time of Laotzse they were sadly degenerate, but had aready established the work they had to do. I do not think there are any other interrogations that I need anticipate and answer. You are now acquainted with something about the character of the time in which Laotzse appears and you can see the mo- mentous importance of his appearance. It was, as I called it, a revelation, a beginning of a new historic cycle, and, I repeat what I said before, we are still in it. I shall now make some comparisons between Laotzse, the Gita, Buddha and Jesus and their systems of religion, not as they exist in the world today, but the religions such as these masters taught it and instructed their disciples in it. Laotzse 's system is summarized best as a system or doctrine of Wisdom and Virtue. That definition will be and is accepted by all students of the book, the Tao-Teh-King. Buddha's one object was to emancipate mankind from sin, sorrow and death, and to teach the doctrine of right knowledge and right living. Jesus boldly bid his disciples: "Follow me and love one an- pther." He was the first and so far the only founder of a re- ligion whose doctrine was personal. Another comparison. Laotzse was not missionary in any sense, but rather the formu- lator and teacher for others, who became propagandists. The Gita is clearly a Krishna-Logos doctrine and the law of Union of self with Self by the fulfilling of one's duty. The Gita is full of intense activity, even war. It is a gospel for struggling man. It is a character builder, not a book for home-reading. Buddha was missionary in so far as he preached the doctrine; but he was not an organizer. His followers organized the brother- hoods, not he. Jesus was both a preacher and an organizer of brotherhoods and made His own person the center. Now, if I leave out of consideration the personalities of the three sages, Laotzse, Buddha and Jesus and also the historic systems that have sprung from them, and have regard to the character of their teachings only, then the result is, that there is a gradual development from the universal in Laotzse to the Individual and Personal in Jesus. And such development means psychologically that we begin by learning and end by becoming 96 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING realizations of that which we originally learned. And that too is the sum total of the Gita. If I now take the final step and seek a comparison between these four and the fifth degree — I mentioned before and called the New Age — what then is the result? It is this, that these four are found to be preparatory to a final transcending condi- tion in which we may be lifted in to a higher wisdom, and an interior union: into God- Wisdom or Theo-Sophia. They are our saviors from the lower to the higher. Summarizing what I have said, the result is a clear view of the essential steps upon the Path, (1) Instruction in Being, Wis- dom and Virtue; this degree is represented by Laotzse; (2) a vigorous attempt upon the attainment of freedom; this degree is represented by Buddha; (3) a personal realization of freedom; this degree is represented by the Gita and Jesus; (4) an identi- fication of the traveller with the Path and his transcending into God-Wisdom or Theosophy; this degree is represented by the Xew Age. I have claimed for Laotzse what a follower of Confucius will deny. I have claimed first place for him in China because he is the one who carries over into the New Age that begins with him, the contents, the inner value, the kernel of all the wisdom the previous ages had acquired, and, he is also the one who com- municates to the New Age of China that begins with him, the virtue, or, the right principles of conduct, which the previous ages had discovered. Confucius did no more than formulate ancient ceremonies, the most external of all forms of life. Moreover, this ceremonialism has been the bane of China. In view of these facts, I have a right to claim that Laotzse is the regenerator and the true transition from the prehistoric times to the historic in China. There may have been Taoism before Laotzse, that is to say, similar ideas may have existed, and, no doubt they did, but that docs not warrant anyone in saying, that Laotzse stole them. Such ideas as those of Tao and Teh always exist; they are part of the constitution of the universe. They have been discovered time and again, but each time revealed in a different way suit- able to the age that discovered them. Laotzse discovered them for his age and the subsequent times and interpreted them for the ( 'hinese, and. for us in a new and fresh form. You may dis- cover them and interpret them anew. Thousands of years hence somebody else will again discover them and interpret them. TAOISM 97 All these discoverers are benefactors, and original, not plagiar- ists. In a similar way, the eternal ideas of Buddha's preaching, those of the Gita and those of Jesus existed, before they ap- peared in that form which Buddha, Vyassa or Jesus gave them. These prophets and teachers discovered them for their ages and for us. They are couched in forms that still harmonize with the constitution of our minds. A word or two about Taoism after Laotzse. Taoism as a system and in relation to Laotzse, is much like Christianity in its relation to Jesus : in both cases is the founder ignored, his teach- ings shamefully perverted and a priestly system substituted for the founder's benevolent and sublime ideas. Taoism has tem- ples and a pope. It is full of spiritism, superstitions and pre- tenses. It is a mixture of alchemy, polytheism and yoga prac- tices. It is degeneration and disgrace. But there are Taoists outside these forms, just as there are a few friends of Jesus out- side the Churches. There are many translations extant of the Tao-Teh-King. They differ widely both as to sense and value. The cause of all the different renderings of various passages is easily seen. The translators pursuing their scholastic methods and applying the grammatical rules of Indo-European languages could never hit upon the right symbolical meaning of the Chinese characters, which are symbols of ideas and not verbal representations of words. Unless the Chinese characters are interpreted, both as to sound and to ideographic form, they never can be rightly understood. I will give you a couple of illustrations. A Jap- anese, now studying at Columbia University, has told me that false intonation caused a missionary to say to his pupils: "Go to hell, ' ' when he wanted to say : ' ' Go home. ' ' Another mission- ary attempted to teach his pupils the Lord's Prayer and made a fatal mistake in the very beginning of that prayer. He wanted to say "Our Father," but he did say "Fat pig." In the texts 1 shall use, I have avoided the scholastic and distorted transla- tions, where the ideographic interpretation was the obvious one. Hence I claim that I have been able to detect many a mystic sense, and, been able to harmonize many expressions, thereby gaining an insight into the Tao-Teh-King hitherto unknown. I have been engaged with the Tao-Teh-King since 1S77, or for 32 years, and my interest in the book is ever increasing. I place it very high among the treasures that have come to us from the East. 98 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING The book is not only full of mystic lore, but also thoroughly practical. In fact, it is a hand book in the ' ' Conduct of Life. ' ' It is a life book, not diy philosophy or metaphysics remote from the problems of life. If a man had no other guide for his spir- itual conduct, he would not be the loser, on the contrary, his struggles for light on the Path would be easy, because the book is simplicity itself. In regard to the many disputes about translation of certain terms and all the fuss those translators have made, I will quote a recent translator and commentator (C. Spurgeon Medhust) who makes the following note appropriately to chapter 2: "A lotus pond will serve as an illustration of the difference between the holy sages and the younger members of the race. Covered with broad green leaves and brilliant blooms, it irresistibly at- tracts child-souls. They wade into the water, sink in the slime, and desperately struggle for the fragile petals; but the sages, their elder brethren, remain quietly on the bank, always alert to aid any who requires assistance, content to admire, content to enjoy without desiring to possess ; yet actually owning the flow- ers more truly than the struggling crowd in the slimy pond. We are feeblest when we are grasping." The child-souls are the noisy and ignorant translators who "know all about it," yet never even know the A B C of the Tuner Life. Let me for a moment drop the thread of my subject and ask you to notice these words of the quotation just read : ' ' The sage k content to enjoy, without desiring to possess." What sorrow we do bring upon ourselves when we rudely rush in, into "the garden of the gods ' ' to pluck flowers, which we vainly think we own, because we have torn them off. In how many ways is that done ? Hereafter try to enjoy beauty without possessing it ! I shall now attempt to give you a summary of the doctrines of the book, but I shall leave the word Tao untranslated for the present, because the word means so much and I shall devote several chapters to it. But that some image may stand now before your mind, I will say that the word means both Nature, Logos, the Word and Reason, and also the Way, the Truth and the Life; it may also be translated both Deity and God. Keep these meanings in mind and you may profit by the following, which is a general summary of the Tao-Teh-King, leaving the word Tao untranslated. Tao existed as a perfect, but incomprehensible Being, be- fore heaven and earth were; is immaterial and immeasurable, TAO 99 invisible and inaudible; is mysterious, yet manifest, without shape or form; is supersensuous and hidden from our eyes; is incapable of being named or denned; and the book says, ''One needs not to peep through his window to see Tao, Tao is not there. The farther one goes away from himself the less he knows." Tao is in ourselves first of all. This then is Tao as unmanifested. But Tao is also manifested. Hear: "Tao is the external foundation of all things ; is the universal progenitor of all beings and only capable of being named by means of the works. But he who would gain a knoweldge of Tao's nature and attributes must first set himself free from all earthly de- sires. Unless he can do that, he shall not be able to penetrate the material veil which interposes between him and Tao. Tao is only revealed to those who are free from desires. He who regulates his actions by Tao will become one with Tao. Tao is the source from which all things come into existence — and to which all things return — and Tao is the means through whom this takes place. Tao being eternal and absolutely free, has no wants or desires, is eternally at rest but never idle, does not grow old, is omnipresent, immutable and self-determined, loves all things and does not act as a ruler. Because Tao creates, pre- serves, nourishes and protects all things, Tao is glorified for this beneficence and held in high honor. ' ' You notice that all this is about Being and Not-Being ; the prof oundest subject we can dis- cuss. Tao is both the beyond and also the present. Again, Tao is the foundation of the highest morality. Tao alone bestows and makes perfect, gives peace and is the universal refuge, the good man's treasure, the bad man's deliverer and the pardoner of guilt. Here again, is Tao in a new aspect; in the aspect of the moral power in the world, or as the judge and savior. Is not all this glorious? Do you wonder that my interest in the book is ever increasing. Surely you will wish to hear more about this book and its messages on Teh or Virtue. Teh, or conduct, or virtue, is the exemplification of Tao, the realization of Tao, Tao brought into life. I will now supplement this description, which is put together from accurately translated sentences from the Tao-Teh-King, by another general description of Tao drawn from Laotzse's famous disciple Kwang-zse. It is in the form of an instruction given by a teacher. It is a most practical instruction and Tao is defined in relation to immortality and the endless life. I shall say something about it after having read the instructions. 100 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING ' ' Come and I will tell you about the perfect Tao. Its essence is surrounded with the deepest obscurity; its highest reach is in darkness and silence. There is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. When it holds the spirit in its arms in stillness, then the bodily form will of itself become correct. You must be still, you must be pure ; not subjecting your body to toil ; not agitating your vital forces, then you may live long. When your eyes see nothing, your ears hear nothing, and your mind knows nothing, your spirit will keep your body, and the body will live long. Watch over that which is within you, shut up the avenues that connect you with that which is external ; much knowledge is per- nicious. I will proceed with you to the summit of the * Great Light' where we come to the bright and expanding (element); I will enter with you the gate of the dark and depressing ele- ment. There heaven and earth have their controllers ; there the Yin and Yang have their repositories. Watch over and keep your body, and all things will of themselves give it vigor. I maintain the (original) unity (of these elements). In this way I have cultivated myself for 1,200 years and my bodily form knows no decay." [The translation is Legge's in "Sacred Books of the East."] Evidently Tao is here transcribed as immortality and the endless life, but you must not forget that this is not from the Tao-Teh-King, but a product of Taozseism or the schools that founded their teachings upon the Tao-Teh-King. However, the Taozeists deducted this teaching of longevity from the master's book, hence it may well be considered to be in it. Now, I will attempt to explain some points of this "instruction," which may have been clear to the Chinese pupil of that day, but certainly is not to us of today. In the first place, the teacher takes the pupil to "the deepest obscurity." to "darkness and silence." That means he takes the disciple beyond himself, beyond the world of time and space, and. that "beyond" is always described for obvious reasons in negative terms, such as the "deepest obscurity," "darkness and silence." And literally, of course, there is nothing to be seen nor heard, because the state is beyond the senses, such senses as those which make seeing and hearing. Coming into that high slate, "the spirit lies in the arms of stillness;" a poetic expres- sion for the fact, that the spirit now is there where there is stillness, because no motion or change of any kind takes place nor ran take plare. simply because it is the immovable world, the TEH 101 primal world, the world that is perfect rest in itself, but from which all motion proceeds. In former chapters I have denned this world and its conditions in detail. After stating this, the teacher admonishes the pupil to be still and pure ; that is an important injunction. He who is still is the powerful one ; and he only because, in stillness the inherent power is not fretted away; we are self-controlled and that is power. The pupil is also admonished to be pure, that is, he is to be sincere or simple. The meaning of simplicity I developed in the fourth and fifth chapters of this course. If the pupil is pure, or, which is the same, single minded, he is, as a matter of course, in stillness. Stillness is not possible without purity, and, on the other hand, stillness produces purity. No man is strong unless he is pure, and no one can be pure without being strong. The two qualities condition one another. Next, the teacher says to his disciple under those conditions just described, "your spirit will keep your body" and "the body will live long." In other words, the teacher has shown the pupil how to manage to live long. Is that an object in itself: to live long? Nay, certainly not! The only justifiable reason for liv- ing long is to be of use to ourselves and to others. For no other reason should we wish to live long. What do I mean by being of use to ourselves ? I mean, that we should wish to live long in order to recover all the results we have attained in f ormer lives ; results which now lie more or less dormant in most people. Unless those results are recovered by an awakening, our present incarnation goes for nought or may even be a hindrance to us. By being of use to ourselves I mean then: (1) That we awaken. (2) That we recover our buried treasures of spiritual life. (3) That we proceed further on the Path. As a matter of course, we cannot proceed unless we have something to travel on, and that which we travel on is our past. The teacher speaks of this last point, when he says to the dis- ciple: "I will proceed with you to the summit of the 'Great Light.' " And, finally, the teacher repeats his injunction, "Watch over and keep your body, and all things will of themselves give it vigor. ' ' I need not now stop to speak on this final admonition. In the third chapter, I spoke extensively on a rational treatment of the senses, "the flesh," so called. All that which I then said openly or more or less veiled relates to this subject now brought up. 102 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING We will now return to the subject in hand and will let Laotzse himself speak. The master himself has said something equally as startling and, of course, something that is utterly in- comprehensible to people who are ignorant of the occult powers which Tao gives. Laotzse in the 50th chapter writes: "I have heard it said that a man who is good at taking care of his life may travel over the country without meeting a rhinoceros or a tiger, and may enter an armed host without fearing their steel. The rhinoceros finds in him no place to insert his horn ; the tiger finds no place to fix his claw; the weapon finds no place to receive its blade. And why is this? It is because he is beyond the reach of death. ' ' I have no time to tell you all the silly things that have been said by the ignorant about this. You yourself will understand that the pure and good are always protected, and, that one be- comes immortal when all desires are killed. Normally the sage escapes the wild animal because he is in truth and they are not; their ferocity and thirst for blood is not truth. And because the sage is good, or partakes of God, the evil cannot touch him; evil has no real power. It is as Kwang-zse said: "The sage is a spiritual being. If the ocean were boiling he would not feel hot. If all the rivers were frozen hard, he would not feel cold. ' ' The mystery is further explained by Su Cheh who says: "Nature knows neither life nor death. Its going forth we call life, and its coming in we call death." The sage belongs neither to those who pursue the path of life, nor to those who pursue the jjath of death, he is beyond life and death and therefore invul- nerable ; cannot be touched by death. All this was about Tao. I shall not say anything about Teh. I have already summarized Teh in two former chapters in which I described it as "Simplicity" and the "Sage." I shall, how- ever, come back to it as we proceed. I will tell you in the words of Goethe what to do with this book - "Once through the forest Alone I went ; To seek for nothing My thoughts were bent. I saw i' the shadow A flower stand there ; As stars it glisten 'd, As eves 'twas fair. THE STUDY OF TAO 103 I sought to pluck it, — It gently said : ' 'Shall I be gather 'd Only to fade?" With all its roots I dug it with care, And took it home To my garden fair. In silent corner Soon it was set; There grows it ever, There blooms it yet." This is what you shall do. Take it home and plant it again, it will then flower forever. To pluck it off as an ornament about which you may prate and pride yourself is only killing it. Only too many treat the books, the ancients left us, that way. They are to them merely like flowers in the buttonhole. In the second chapter I spoke of a young student who wished to add one more item to her study and chose the Inner Life to be that study, and, while she was looking out of the window, her teacher vanished. I want you to take warning from that story, too. Merely to study the Tao-Teh-King as one of several other studies will not be any more either than a flower in the buttonhole that soon fades. Nay, you must transplant this book into your own home, into your heart, root and all, and, to do that you must go out into the Open to learn how nature works. This book is not merely a book as thousand others. It looks like a book. We call it a book from its appearance just as we call flowers flowers, because we have become accustomed to do so. We have lost their lan- guage and can no more speak to them or hold conversations with them about the warmth they feel at their roots, or answer the whisperings of their leaves to the winds of morning and even- ing, when mother earth changes her garments from light to dark, or, when she says her morning prayers to the Sun. And that is why we call them flowers and think we have said all that can be said to characterize them. Our fairyland is lost. Most people have lost what they never really possessed and yet their better self followed them always and called. To avoid this catastrophe I advise a study and a life according to this book out of doors, that is, under the guidance of nature. 104 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING The book is a series of nature notes ; it is nature mysticism. It is a song that comes from nature's heart and not from any university. It is nature, or spirit made visible. You may also turn the sentence round, and say that the book is spirit showing us invisible nature. Both sentences are true and the study may be begun either by starting in spirit and ending in nature or starting in nature and ending in spirit. If you understand the last chapter on ' ' Simplicity and the Sage, ' ' you will do as I have done and still do. I study this so called book in the Open. It is only in the open that we see spirit and nature to be One. Some future day, when you and I shall see a new heaven and a new earth, we will be playing the sentences of this book on instruments, and its accords will bring us in harmony with the root of existence. I am not saying this merely to utter some extravagant thought. I have had some experience with Chinese thought that warrants my expressions. I shall speak more of this in future chapters. Take the book home ! LONGEVITY VII. IN the last chapter, I quoted a learned Taoist on Tao as Longevity, and I tried to explain the master's instructions to the pupil — all, except one sentence, which I left for this chapter. That sentence was: "When it (Tao) holds the Spirit in its arms in Stillness, then the bodily form will of itself become correct. ' ' I will now try to elucidate what ' ' Stillness ' ' is. "What I call my ' ' elucidation ' ' will appear to you as a roundabout talk and not as a direct elucidation. It cannot be anything else because the subject is transcendental. I think, however, it will be an elucidation and I hope so. In the six preceding chapters I have again and again quoted mystic authors about the necessity of overcoming desires, lusts, passions, or whatever all those wild and blind forces of Nature be called, which are in the way of our development in the spirit- ual life and which only too often destroy us. It is now high" time that I speak of other disturbing elements, elements far more dangerous than Nature's wild play with us. These other disturbing elements, I shall now speak of, have their very roots in our Ego, in our own will. Lusts and passions are merely parts of our make up and are not fundamental; they are mere forms of our objective existence; they are only external to us; they are residents of the flesh, and merely visitors on the soul's domain. I shall now lay special stress upon the conflict in aim and end there is between mind and inclinations, between our spiritual will and our physical will, the two wills of St. Paul, with which most of you are familiar. In short, I shall lay stress upon a fact well known to those who are on the Path, or the Narrow "Way, so called, namely this, that volitionally we are in conflict with ourselves ; or theologically speaking we are in sin. I shall 106 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING also try to point out how this conflict arises and can be brought to an end, or, how we, to use theological language, can be saved. This subject is of uttermost importance, whatever creed one may hold. It is a fundamental question for us all. Let me tell you now, right here at the outset, that this inner conflict I shall speak of and will illustrate in various ways, this inner conflict was unknown to all those peoples who lie outside that parallelogram I described in the last chapter. The conflict arises or comes into history at the moment the new cycle is ushered in, and it governs the whole period of this our cycle. By and by in other chapters you shall hear Laotzse describe the "paradisaical" conditions, if I may so call them, that pre- vailed in what he calls "the ancient days," or in the previous cycle; an absolute proof that these conflicts we now know, and which mankind has known since his day, did not exist before his time. The vedic writings do not know this conflict as we know it. Perhaps there is a glimmer of it with Zoroaster. But Buddha was fully aware of the conflict and preached it. The Gita also knows about it. Jesus preached it, and some of the Christians have talked themselves deaf, dumb and blind about it, yet they never understood it fully. It was only very late that the Greeks discovered the problem. Homer knew what "folly" was, but not what "sin" was. Aeschylos and Sophocles knew something about "penalties," so called, or, the karma that follows upon disobedience to our Higher Self, but could not formulate the principle. Not even Plato came to the bottom of the problem. In spite of all the talk for nearly two thousand years in Christen- dom about sin and salvation, I do not think it has yet been un- derstood how it is that we sin, nor how we may be saved. That a devil is the cause of our sin is folklore and no more. Children may believe it, but not mature minds. I shall not pretend to know the final solution, but I have lived with the problem before me since a time when many of you were not yet born, or, at any rate, were too young to have dis- covered it. And I have had some experiences that may be of use to others. Those experiences, in the form of tales and poems, I shall present to you, in part, in this chapter, and in part in the next. Now, then, to the subject. That which I now say will answer to the experience of most people — in some degree. The strongest and most individual people know more about it than the weak and those that pass SELF-ASSERTION 107 through life like sleepwalkers. Those that know nothing of these things are either children, saints or beasts. There was a time when you began to assert yourself, began to have your own will, as you called it; and there was a time when you said or thought that you knew the truth of life better than your parents, friends, or teachers. In those states you involuntarily (or vol- untarily) broke in such a way with your antecedents and your betters, that the break perhaps never has healed. An antagon- ism entered into your existence, which has left a permanent dis- turbance, a disturbance which must be distressing to a normal mind. Such splits, breaks or diremptions may in some be so deep that a permanent pain remains ever afterwards, and they may be deadly. You will naturally ask many questions relating to and about these breaks, such as about their origin, their psychological nature. I will try to meet some of these questions. The others must wait till their turn comes. At present I limit myself to a most characteristic feature of that cycle which begins with the time of Laotzse and his immediate disciples, and I say that the characteristic feature is this, that the prin- ciples of form, law, order, truth, are revealed or laid bare, and are discovered and realized by man. Of course, there was form, law, order, truth in Nature before this time, but the human mind was not so constituted reflectively that it could grasp or formulate these principles. I take it for granted that these terms, form, law, order, truth, are understood. If I am mistaken, let me state how I use them. I say they are various aspects of the same idea, and that they express the manner of appearance of substance, or, that Something which underlies the phenomenon. Take an illustration. Here is a silver trumpet. In its case, the silver is substance and the appearance of the silver in this case is the form (not the shape) of the instrument we call trumpet. It is not important as regards the form, or the trumpet itself, whether the substance be silver, gold, copper or brass. Trum- pets are made of any of these metals, but it is most essential that the form in which the metal is cast or hammered, is after a certain fashion and for a certain use, because the fashion and use determine whether it is a trumpet or another instrument. In other words, the form becomes the essential and the sub- stance is not the essential. Again, this form, called a trumpet, must be in a certain shape in order to be a trumpet and not a 108 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING clarinet, for instance. But that is another matter; I only say this to call attention to the difference between form and shape. Take another illustration. You and I are all in the form of man and that is our determining quality. We are made of substances physically not different from the substances in ani- mals. Hence you see, as regards ourselves, as it was with the trumpet, the form is the essential. That we differ among our- selves as to shape is another matter. From this it will appear that form is the manner of ap- pearance. And I want to add that we in philosophy often ignore substance, and only value form, and that confusion therefore often arises. That is my use of form. I might also use the words law, order, truth, for the same purpose, only in varying aspects of the same subject. With this note, I return to my subject, and when I now say, as I shall say, that the principles of form, law, order, truth, first appear in the cycle that begins in the time of Laotzse, you will understand that mankind at that period for the first time discovered what form, law, order, truth are cosmically and psychologically, and in contradistinction to substance and posi- tive laws laid down for the conduct of life ; two conceptions which did not give us that power, which you shall hear me say follows the discovery of the principles mentioned. Now, then, to my exposition. These principles arose in man's mind about five hundred years (or a little more) before Christ, and were fully established as ruling powers about five hundred years after Christ. It took mankind about a thousand years to add that intelligent element to its mentality. I said these principles arose. They did not arise as a growth simply, their appearance is so sudden and unconnected with the fore- gone state, that their appearance looks more like a gift, a divine gift. I usually call them a gift. For proof, you need only look into the literature that is left and to examine the extant monu- ments from the previous cycle. It would indeed be most in- structive and interesting if I now pointed out to you the nature of those literatures and monuments, but I cannot enter upon such archaeological details. My present object is not archaeo- logical or historical, but moral and practical. Both among Semites and Aryans you hear of law books, but they are not of the nature I speak of; they are not of cosmic character, nor psychological. They are formulas for the conduct of life, sociological edicts, but not thought-forms, as I will call them THOUGHT-FOBMS 109 for the present, not revelations of what we call philosophy and art, but ought to call Theosophy or God-wisdom, because these thought-forms are revelations of the constitution of the cosmos. I call them thought-forms for the present, as a most suitable term, but you must understand that these thought-forms stretch in variety from Laotzse's Tao to St. Paul's " gifts of the spirit" denned and described in Corinthians, Chap. 12. The term is therefore very elastic and contains much more than merely " thinking. ' ' These thought-forms are declarations, that, be- sides will, there is in Nature and in Man another power just as mighty as will, and because this other power is intelligent, seeing, and not dumb or blind, so much more superior to will. These thought-forms given to or revealed to man gave man from that moment a tremendous influence in cosmic affairs. In virtue of this peculiar light, man, who before was un-free, now could say "I" to himself as never before and was able to throw the force of this will against the course of events and thus mould them to suit himself. Before this event man was neither conscious of himself nor conscious of what he could do with himself or for himself. After that revelation man could and can now say as Pascal has formed the expression and done it so well: "Man is but a reed, weakest in Nature, but a reed which thinks. Were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which has slain him, because he knows that he dies. The universe knows nothing of this." I feel tempted to add "and this knowledge and thought crushes the universe. The universe is as nought against that thought, that knowledge." Do you grasp the mightiness of man, his thought and his knowledge when in conscious possession of that wonderful power? Pascal's words are a formulation of the difference between the universe and man and it is indicated what his tremendous power is : Thought. Like everything else, this power can be misused. When misused, those breaks I talked about arise. Before I now proceed to illustrate the breaks by stories, tales, I will show the law by which the persons of my stories should have acted, and, if they had done so, there would have been no break. That law, formulated at this same historic period, is found in the Gita in the instructions given to Arjuna. Arjuna is per- fectly conscious of his own power to have his own will, and he wishes to have it, at the same time that duty demands that he 110 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING shall obey and destroy the usurper of the oppressed land, though to do so involves the killing of both friends and relativea Krishna teaches him that he must drop all fears and personal interests and carry out the duty imposed upon him as warrior and prince and realize that it is Ishvara, who is both lord and law, who is the doer and not Arjuna. Arjuna must realize that he must fight without passion or desire, without anger and hatred and without fears. This is the Gita. It is the formula- tion of the law for men of active and combative tempers. The formulation lacks totally any and all expressions that could place it parallel to the Sermon on the Mount. And that is its weakest point. The little book "The Voice of the Silence" supplies most of the defects. The same law put in forms applicable to us, to you and to me, will be something like this. Life is not ours ; we are not its originators nor responsible for events or the outcome of events. Under no circumstances must we judge according to our own inclinations what ought to be done, but simply do or not do, awaiting the course of developments, which will show us what and how to do. And to this I may add that developments will come quickly in moments of doubt; they will not let us wait long. I may also say that they will come in the way best suitable for us. Now you know how hard it is for- us to believe this and wait. How impetuous we are, and why? Because we have that tremendous power I spoke of before, and wish to use it, wish to satisfy our own vanity, to prove how mighty we are, all because of ignorance till instructed. I will now tell you some stories to illustrate how we act and how the law works. First, I will give you a prose rendering of Schiller's profound poem, Das verschleierte Bild zu Sa'is. A young Greek, burning with thirst for knowledge, came to Sa'is in Egypt to study with the priesthood and explore the secrets of the land of Komitu. It happened one day that the hie repliant brought him to a lonely temple where the youth beheld a veiled statue, of which the high priest said: "That is Truth." The impulsive student at once demanded to know why he was not brought here before : "When I am striving after Truth alone, Seek'st thou to hide that very Truth from me?" " The Godhead's self alone can answer thee," Replied the hierophant, "Let no rash mortal Disturb this veil," said he, "till raised by me. . . ." SAIS 111 The boy from Hellas could not understand so singular a command. There was Truth, only covered with a thin gauze, and he not allowed to raise it ! Inquisitively he asked his wise guide: "And thou Hast never ventur'd, then, to raise the vein" " I f Truly not ! I never even felt The least desire." " Is 't possible? If I Were sever 'd from the Truth by nothing else Than this thin gauze " " And a divine decree, ' ' His guide broke in. * 'Far heavier than thou think 'st Is this thin gauze, my son. Light to thy hand It may be but most weighty to thy conscience. > » An insatiable desire consumed the youth. At night he could not sleep. In the day he sought his way to the isolated temple ; he found no rest anywhere. One night he lost control of himself and found his way into the temple. Suddenly he stood in the sanctuary facing the veiled statue. The goddess stood before him more mysteriously than ever. In the dim moonlight, which fell from an opening above, he gradually approached the statue, till with a sudden bound he reached it with the cry : "Whate'er is hid behind, I'll raise the veil." And then he shouted : ' ' Yes ! I will behold it ! " "Behold it!" Repeated in mocking tone the distant echo. He spoke, and true to his word he lifted the veil. "What did he see? Probably nothing but the statue of Isis. He was found unconscious next morning at the foot of the statue. To the priests he only said : "Woe to that man who wins the Truth by guilt, For Truth so gain'd will ne'er reward its owner." This young Greek, evidently a man of high order, was per- fectly right in his search for wisdom and in going for it to Egypt, but he had not up to the time of his transgression dis- covered that the main lesson in all temple methods and for him 112 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING was not learning, but obedience. He was an embodiment of self-assertion. Learning brings conflict and unrest, because it keeps us on this plane of life. Obedience to our Higher Self brings that stillness about which Qvang-zse spoke, and of which you read in the last chapter, a stillness in which Tao holds our "spirit in its arms," a stillness which gives our form its perfectness. Learning is all very well for its purposes, but I have already in another chapter told you how little mystics care for it, and told you that learning is not of the heart or will, but only of the brain, and therefore not the method that produces heart culture, or, which is the same, the Inner Life. Only heart can teach heart ; only will can control will. Intellect and learn- ing are strangers here and do not know the right knock. Spir- itual life moves on a curve of love, not on a straight line of logic, and the magic chain that binds men to men and to Divinity, is forged by love and spirit. If this young man had learned obedience and lived in obedience to his Higher Self he would have been brought into that stillness, in which our grosser self burns up ; in which no physical instincts are aroused, and no sense of cupidity stirred, and nothing sways our selfish- ness ; a stillness that is pure white flame and spiritual tranquil- ity; a stillness which Laotzse (XVI) says "returns us to the root" or origin of existence; a stillness in which Isis would have raised the veil according to promise and thereby also lifted his longings into an eternal transmutation and bliss. By practice of silence and solitude, stillness would have come. That which to us in our moral and spiritual life is silence and soli- tude is, in the cosmic life, called stillness. In other words, silence and solitude are subjective conditions; stillness is objective. What a difference between this young Greek and that beg- gar I have told you about in a former chapter and whom Tauler met. This young Greek is an awful illustration upon "taking" before time has come; upon "having one's own will," upon self- assertion, and thereby coming into that dreadful conflict I spoke of and said that it was much more serious than any conflict with lust. You heard from his own mouth how little he knew of non-action (Wu-Wei) or Inner Life, and you heard the awful confession of the dying man. What application dare I make as regards yourself? I dare not make any, but I may ask if not in some such way some of you may have brought yourself into a suffering that now tortures you? THE ILIAD OP THE EAST 113 But the break may be only intellectual, as it is with many. People simply break with the ideas of childhood, instead of out- growing them and substitute for those ideas some crude and ill understood scientific notions; notions that contain no life- marrow to fill their bones and hence leave them weak. These people are ever afterwards incapable of anything definite and become a burden to themselves and others, but they are not sinners ; they are only in confusion, and that is bad enough. Some one will now say that if we let this great, wonderful and also dangerous power alone, we would be better off and they will hypnotize themselves into that belief. That, too, is false and I will demonstrate it by another story. The story is called "The Love of Indra" and is found in the Ramayana. I give it in a slightly abridged form as translated by Mrs. Frederika Richardson in her ' ' The Iliad of the East. ' ' This is the story : "There were some young maidens standing just on the threshold of life; for childhood is the vestibule merely; it is hung with pretty pictures. Just at this point paused our young maidens, half awed by the tumult, half fascinated by all the movement and the light. It chanced that at this moment the gaze of Indra fell on them, and beholding them, so beautiful and so pure, he loved them. Flashing earthward, in a form of fire, he kissed them on the lips, and left them with blanched cheeks, and eyes aflame. They knew a god had been with them, and thrilled them by his touch, and yet had winged his way back to his High Home ere they had tasted aught of passion, save its first sudden pain. So, with a fever on them, and a vague desire in their innocent breasts, seeking Whom they knew not, What they could not say, they wandered forth; and Love, who breathes only in the upper air, led them to a Hilly Country, where the large stars seemed smiling near. And there, still far beyond them, but looking down with deeply passionate eyes, they saw the great God, Indra ; and he held out his large arms, wooing them to the fire of his embrace. The hearts of the young maidens failed them. Fain had each been to turn her back; but her soul within of a sudden found its wings, and bore her, in a rush of superhuman ecstasy, to the arms of the en- amoured God. Thus, ignorant of the bitter cost to mortals, who press up, with quivering lips and heaving breasts, to meet the desire of the Sons of Heaven, did they receive the "sorrow- ful great gift," the Love of Indra. Our little maidens, having 114 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING no previous knowledge of all an immortal's love involved, fretted against the crown Indra had laid on them; because, although it wrapped them in a light, it scorched and tore their smooth young brows, and mingled with its beams of gold the lifeblood of the wearers. 'We are faint,' they said, 'and weary! The bloom has faded from our cheeks, and all the youth of our hearts is dying! Our eyes are tired with beauty! Tired — and light is but a splendid pain. Our hearts are spent with passion, this eternal rapture will destroy us. Oh, that we could rest! Rest — rest, from the fever of our lives, ere it exhaust our power, and we die!' So, one day that this longing for rest overcame them, they strayed from the mountain of Meru, where the Gods quaff sparkling nectar, and hearken to the song that dies not. "With their hands to their ears the faithless brides of Indra fled from the witching strains, and sought the sheltered valleys, where life is calm, and men and women pass slowly through the stages of time; marking progress merely by the succession of season, and dying, at length, because they have dwelt too long, not lived too much. And in their wanderings they came upon the country of the Uttarakurus. Oh, that was a pleasant land, and surely just the spot where our weary fugitives might find the peace they longed for. There were no extremes of heat nor cold, no excess of light nor depth of gloom; all was equable and tempered calm, like the inhabitants themselves, whose dispositions were inaccessible to all violent emotions, which overstrain a delicate frame. There was no need for any exertion either; for in a wood, hung from the boughs of the trees all that the heart could desire; jewels, and raiment, and luxurious couches, and delicious viands of every description; one had only to walk thither and gather them. The flowers in this country were of gold, so were the mountains; the rivulets were so choked up with gold that they slept between their banks, and did not attempt to sing. The women who dwelt there were all youthful and lovely; the men were all courteous, and learned in saying pleasant things; old age, or disease, or pov- erty, or suffering, or grief, were not known here; it is probable that all such things were soaked away out of the land by the black and terrible river, that swept with its sinister floods the borders of the Land of Gold, and rolled, muttering ever words of menace and despair — that were not understood by the smiling Uttarakurus. Amid this luxurious people the pale wanderers paused; and, struck by their strange beauty and their wanness, THE ILIAD OF THE EAST 115 born of an ardor unknown to any here, the inhabitants nocked around them, saying, ' Stay with us and share our lives. ' Then, at first, a pang of unsatisfied longing held back the souls where Indra had set his love. But, little by little, each sought to reason herself out of the memory of those rapturous moments spent up among the mountains. 'Help me to live it down!' cried out each weary heart; and the appealing hands went forth, seeking for some stay. They met the smooth palms of the bland Uttarakurus. "Let us lead you along the path of pleasure," they said to the brides of Indra. But the beloved of the Sun- god found no delight in the golden country, nor in the wood, nor in the company of the smiling Uttarakurus. "Better to have died in a god's embrace," they moaned, "than to crawl through the long days in this hateful city. ' ' But they had made their choice; and Mahendra, god of the Firmament, has no welcome for renegades! In the heart of the Golden Land his curse found them out. 'Have ye forgotten,' he cried to them, "how, in the lone Hill Country, ye lay awhile on my breast, fainting almost with rapture, while the large stars were smiling near, and the night hung, still, around ? Have ye forgotten how, pale and beautiful, ye stepped through the groves of Nandana; and how light robed ye in splendor; and the stars I had laid in your bosoms glowed there, and flamed with a glory that shamed the pale orbs of heaven? Why have ye thrown by your crowns, whose gems flashed through the ages, witnesses to the past and the future that ye were chosen as the spouses of Indra? What though your slight heads were bowed, and your fragile strength near broken : was not my arm around you? Who would not totter and fail, to be upheld by the amorous Indra? What though your spirits' growth were too swift for your delicate frames? As guerdon for your shortened lives, my love had made ye immortal. But ye have loved ease better than glory. 0, foolish ones; ease can never be yours. Ye have tasted an Immortal's love. And your glory ye have abandoned. Dwell, then, as Exiles and Strangers in this town ye have preferred to the mountains ; and, since ye have dreaded the tempest, endure the torments of the calm.' "And so, in the city of the Uttarakurus, dwell these pale women with the lustrous eyes, who were once the beloved of Indra; and they hold no friendly intercourse nor have sympathy with any; each morning gives fresh birth to the wild desire, that gnaws their hearts ; each night finds 116 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING them in a dead despair ; for the pitiless curse of Mahendra drives them down to their unhonored graves!" Here again it is self-assertion, not non-action (Wu-Wei) that creates the trouble. These girls had no faith and yet they were in the presence of the Great Love. Having been chosen by Indra, they were supposed to be giant spirits and able to live in that sphere of light and life, which is Indra 's domain. Had they been common girls, their faithlessness would not have been surprising nor their punishment so severe. They should have allowed themselves to be burned up. Indra's stinging reproach accuses them rightly of disobedience to their call. Nature's method with common people is essentially different from Indra's. Those educated by nature run their full course before they discover her method with them. For such, the rule is that not till emotions have had their full course will they rise in intellectual light. They are like firebrands which, burn- ing without flame, are merely smoking annoyances and not lights. The very moment an emotion rises to white light condition, it becomes the savior of its offer. Laotzse says apropos (XL) "Stillness overcomes heat." Surely before long these girls would have discovered what Laotzse also says: (XXVI) "Stillness lies back of all motion." even we, without being called by Mahenda, may climb a mountain and discover that stillness is there and not in the valley. How much more those girls, so favored! Take the story literally or symbolically; either way it is full of lessons on my subject of the inner conflicts of the Ego. Everywhere it is action, actions, and again actions of our own, namely, on the plane of this life, that cause our diremptions, that split our personality in two, that breaks off our harmony with our Higher Self. If we let the Higher Self in us act, this will not happen. If we let our Higher Self act, we shall be in stillness and Tao will take our "spirit in its arms." Do not misimderstand this point on non-action, Wu-Wei. The meaning is not the idea involved in the washerwoman's hope. Have you heard of her, Who always was tired, Who lived in a house where no help was hired. And whose last words on earth were : Dear friends, I am going Where no sweeping ain't done, nor churning nor sewing, STILLNESS 117 And everything there will be just to my wishes, For there they don't eat, and there's no washing of dishes; And though anthems are constantly ringing, I, having no voice, will get rid of the singing. Don't mourn for me now, and don't mourn for me ever, For I 'm going to do nothing for ever and ever. ' ' This is not what Inner-Life people understand by " Non- action" or ''Stillness." They mean by Non-action, Wu-Wei, the withdrawing from all this world's interests and activities, all of which lie on a plane of life they do not want to have anything to do with, because their longings are not satisfied with such interests or activties. Their hearts pant for the Living God, as does the deer for the water brook. The Inner- Life people seek stillness or such a condition beyond the senses, where no noise or sound heard by the senses is possible, a still- ness which is the kernel and core of the cosmos. In my first illustration I had a man and his intellect in the centre. In this second story which you have just heard I had woman and her emotions in the center. They both fell because they said No! to obedience or the law of their life. The man's law of life is intellectual, and in due course of time his life swings around to its opposite: emotion, and the two complete him. The woman's law of life is emotion, and in due course of time her life swings around to its opposite, intellect ; and the two complete her. This is the normal evolution. But when the breaks, the splits, the diremptions occur, an abnormal condition sets in and as my stories told, the results are frightful. Would we be better off if we did not make use of that tre- mendous power of ours? Perhaps we would not suffer then? That also would be a mistake and I will show it by a story of my own, modeled on a few elements I have borrowed from the Hungarian. I have named my story "The Copyist." It runs as follows : Our friend is a copyist in a government office. Like every- body else, he wanted to go to a certain masquerade, but unlike everybody else that went, he had nothing wherewith to buy a costume. He had an idea. He sold himself to a Jew to carry advertisements through the halls and ball rooms. And so, fitted out in a gorgeous dress, full of announcements, he partook in the revel — after a fashion. 118 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING Soon he found himself the target for all the wit, good humor and ill will of the assembly. Poor devil, he stood it for a while ; but soon, too soon for him, he found out what it is to sell oneself for mercenary purposes, even though one might see the masquerade of life. Behind every masque, it appeared to him, a pair of eyes followed him. The advertisements sewed into his costume seemed to burn like hot coals, and excited his highly overwrought nerve-system and completely prostrated him; his throat seemed to be on fire; his eyes grew inflamed and unsteady. He began to feel as though he were about to be attacked with brain fever. At last he managed to find his way out from the hilarious crowd, and got into a distant cabinet, to an alcove turned into a kind of flower-grove by greenery and sweet-smelling flowers. The light was reflected by transparent needles, like stalactites, hanging from the ceiling, and it fell brightly upon a basin filled with fish of brilliant colors. The soft murmuring of a little fountain readily put him into a state of trance, and he dreamed. A large leaf fanned gently his fever-hot forehead, but only gloomy thoughts would rise in his sick brain. Ah, yonder they amused themselves and were almost lost in the whirl of pas- sionate enjoyment. But here was he, not only hungry and exhausted both mentally and physically — not so much, however, from the past few moments of excitement — nay, back of this hour lay years and years of unmanly indulgences, and recol- lections now arose in his mind, none of which could infuse any self-respect into his weak heart, or bring fresh thoughts to his withered soul. Poor fellow, only once, this one time, had he tried to gain admission to what appeared as the ideal brightness of life, in which so many seemed to live and enjoy themselves, and here was he, an outcast. Dimly he saw it; he had gained admission as an uncalled one, and by dishonorable means ! Every- one could see it, every piece of his costume bore the advertise- ments of the Jew, Abraham Trailles, No. 32 Fools lane. What was there to do but to return to the meanness and low life where he belonged and for a few years more drag himself along to an unhonored grave. Suddenly he felt himself touched upon the shoulder. Half sleeping, half beside himself, he looked up, and beheld : on the large leaf over his head he saw a beautiful woman, sweet as a sylph, slender and tiny, but gracefully strong, and in a dress of pure, fine linen. He noticed particularly a large fan in her hand. LOSS OF SELF 119 A pink masque covered the upper part of her face and left uncovered a mouth of exquisite forms and lines. She seemed a fay indeed. He gazed upon her with admiration and attraction, and asked gently: "Who art thou, sweet maiden ?" "Dost thou not know me!" she replied, and removed the masque. It seemed to him he had seen that brow before ; those eyes and their dreamy looks. Had he not often unconsciously thrown his mind into the mystic realms of the ideal world and there beheld this ideal of woman : His own personal self. Now she was near him, so near that he might clasp her in his arms. "Dost thou know me now? I played with thee when thou wast little and sung songs for thee. Surely thou canst not have forgotten it. But where didst thou go to f Thou keptest thyself in the house while I picked flowers in the meadows and gathered green leaves in the forest or watched the cuckoo, or listened to the songsters in the trees. Where wast thou while I sat by the brook and the lark hung in the air overhead, ringing out its peals of joy over life? Where wast thou in the time of thy youth?" "Eight hours of the day I spent in the schoolroom and under the whip of the schoolmaster. ' ' "Dost thou remember the day when they sent thee out into the wide, wide world? Dost thou remember that I followed thee and spoke to thee of trusting in me, and I would keep thee and preserve thee? But thou didst forget me when thou earnest to the gay capital. Thou didst lose thyself among the many people and their vanities! I sought thee at thy revels and in thy garret, but thou didst not know me. When thou lookedst upon the beautiful women, I stood before thee, but thou didst prefer flesh and blood to soul. Never, never didst thou come to me!" "What didst thou do when thou wast young and gay no more, when thou wast poor and miserable, when thou hadst become a ruin to thyself?" "I worked; I worked; I tried to save myself. Ten hours a day I copied in the office, and at home I copied — I copied always ! ' ' "And now. What dost thou do now?" "I copy still!" "And, in the future, what wilst thou do?" Our friend, the copyist, was fairly startled by that question, and humiliated, too, for he had nothing to answer but to say — "To copy, still!" He burst into tears; he cried the hot tears ]20 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING of remorse. But suddenly, as if in a fit of over-natural energy, he opened bis arms and tremblingly exclaimed, "I will love thee, I will embrace thee, I will own thee." Then it happened that the maiden's fan opened wide and covered her face; and lo! he beheld smiling landscapes, youth in its native richness and with its prophecy of love, and the thousand forms of life's beauty and charm, all in harmonious forms and living colors. The vision revivified him, and forgetting himself and his de- graded position, like another Faust, he rushed out to embrace this sweet genius, that held the pictures in her hand, the lady who so charmed him. A gentle stroke brought him to his senses. "Stop, my dear Mr. Copyist! To love me! To embrace me! To own me! I fear thou art too old! We have grown apart ! Thou are no more young and strong ; thy hair has turned gray and thin; thine eyes are no more lustrous and thy soul is withered, thy spirit darkened! Thou art no more fit for love. Know this, that I, thy soul, thy youth, thy personal being, thy Self is no reality, for thou hast not given me life; I am, and must remain to thee a dream, a phantom. Thou hast lost me, though thou never didst possess me!" She disappeared. Like a madman he rushed into the ballroom to catch her. He set everything in confusion and drove every one aside and frightened all. He was mad. Next day an old doctor stood leaning over a dying man in the hospital of the poorhouse. The dying man was unknown to all around him. Just before he died he was heard to say, "I lost what I never possessed ! ' ' Commentary is hardly necessary. The story explains itself. A copy of that man can be seen all around us. Business life grinds a man into the dust of indifference, and, as if to make his misery so much greater, life gives the flickering taper a whiff of fresh air in the last moment, and the darkness seems so much greater. This copyist is a warning example on not to bury one's gifts in business, that may overwhelm, or in the soil, where they may rust. We have our gifts for use — but not for abuse. It must not be overlooked or ignored that all of these three persons mentioned are people of higher orders. They are of that class which life or nature invites to the university method called heavenliness. Thev are not of those for whom a NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 121 common school method of earthliness is enough, because they are not yet ready to quit earth. Nature has two methods by which she educates us. The one, the common school method of earthliness, is applied first and to all, and consists mainly in learning to overcome lusts of all kinds, and in awakening the soul. When the pupil has attained some practice in overcoming lusts and begins to see beyond his own notions, the other is offered, not applied. There is a vast difference here. The first method is applied because it contains a great deal of compulsion. In all our earlier stages of awakening we are not voluntarily active; we learn only be- cause we must. You hear that frequently from people. They tell you that life has made them do so, and forced them to believe so and so. Such expressions clearly show that their progress has not been one conducted by inner love and high aspiration, but has been a result of necessity. The other method, the one I have called the university method of heavenliness, is offered to those who desire it, not to those who yet see no need of it. Only those desire this method who discover for themselves that there is such a method and who not only can see that the present world is vanity, but whose inner need craves for the Higher, no matter whatever the cost. I look upon the three persons I have used as illustrations as three persons who had come near enough to call for the higher method. Hence it was offered, but — they failed ! Now, to come back to what I said in the beginning of the chapter, about the breaks, the splits, the diremption you may have experienced. Like these three persons, you rose in mo- ments beyond yourself both in light and love and you demanded higher light and profounder love. When they were not forth- coming, you stretched out your hand to take "the Kingdom of God" by force like that young Greek, or you gave up and ran away from the greater love offered, like those girls of Indra, or you wasted your resources in false loves and dissipations like the copyist and as only too many do, who believe themselves geniuses before they are out of the mind's swaddling clothes. The hope these three had for stillness or for a world that can- not be moved was not based upon obedience to their Higher Self, but was simply momentary fancy. Hence the failure and suffering, when the higher method of heavenliness was offered them. Beware! Ask not of Spirit to be trained! Learn first 122 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING the principles of obedience to higher Self; first then will the revelation of those principles of form, law, order and truth be a blessing. Beware, when the test comes ! Do not act before the right moment, when Isis raises the veil ! Do not fear the great love 1 Do not ignore the repeated calls! Beware, when the critical moment comes ! In spite of all dangers, we must develop that thought-form or those principles I called form, law, order, truth. We must develop them ; if we do not, we never come to conscious posses- sion of ourselves, or of those principles which are offered so freely to us in this cycle ; and not coming to conscious possession of ourselves or of those principles is a calamity I cannot find word for. It means the loss of the thousands of years of this our cycle — a loss which perhaps to those ignorant of the nature of the loss means little, but which to those who have even a slight idea of the value of such time is an irreparable loss — who knows if there ever be another opportunity? Who knows! Without swinging out into the immensity of space and the thousands of years, think only of the poor copyist and his fate. How can he repair his loss of that which he really never pos- sessed ? There is no psychological ground in him on which he can work and where is it to come from in the future? We cannot imagine his salvation, his restoration, on any rational basis. I am now where I leave the subject of this chapter for the present. I shall continue it in next chapter and hope to finish it. But I have yet something to say to you. Does it not appear to you that those of us who have some idea of these important subjects ought to go out into the world and preach to our fol- low men "to make up" before it is too late? Who will serve in this ministry? We will enroll you this day! Ought we not to get out as missionaries to tell our fellow- men what treasures the Inner Life offers and offers for nothing, if we but will let go all kinds of entanglements with "this" world, a world with which we really have nothing to do. Our home is not here ! It is yonder ! Ought we not also tell our fellow men that in as much as they live in this cycle, they have the benefit of all its characteris- tics, even that mighty power of thought-forms I have spoken of, but that they bring curses upon themselves by misuse of that power? And should we not show them that they are in a bad way and that the world at large lies in suffering, because THE UNIVERSAL MINISTRY 123 that great power has been misused? Ought we not preach obedience t There is no need of an ordination or commission from some- body else. The witness of the Higher Self within is both call and ordination. We are all in a Universal Ministry, as many as have understood the motions of the Higher Self. NATURE WORSHIP VIII. I TAKE up the thread where I left it in the last chapter and will now speak about Stillness as Nature's essential life. I maintain that had those three persons — the Greek — the maidens — the copyist — remained self-contained, they would have discovered how nature's stillness embraced them and they would not have fallen so deep as they did. I shall now, as I have done in all the foregone chapters, point to Nature as our mother, our monitor, our educator and trainer in the Inner Life. To prevent misunderstandings, I repeat what I have said several times before: nature is spirit visible, or which is the same, the only form under which we can see spirit in activity is in nature (and in man, of course, but for the present I leave man out and consider nature, the greater of the two). Ever since the time of the Gnostics we meet in the ancient writings witli testimonies about Sophia, Heavenly Wisdom, that came in personal form to those who lived the Inner Life, and even in our own day there are people living who have received visits of Sophia. She is Deity revealed in nature, and, is de- scribed variously in all holy books, but always as man's best friend and companion and his example. I say, therefore, Nature is Sophia and Sophia is Nature. I may well appropriate as my own the following lines : "There are Three Testaments which show What God both is and does ; And he who well the first would know The second must peruse ; Nor will he in the second speed, Unless the third he rightly read." The three testaments, or which are the same witnesses in the world, are God — Man — Nature. He who would know God, must NATURE-WORSHIP 125 know man ; but to know man, one must read nature carefully. I think these lines justify the eminent place I give nature for the present and in these chapters on the Inner Life in connection with the Tao-Teh-King. Of the thousands of examples that could be given, I will mention only one upon her teachings, one to show how she can and does teach us to worship, and, worship I call the highest expression for our spiritual life. I call it the highest expression, because worship gives movement, unity, and system to our life and actions. You must understand I am talking about "worth- scipe, ' ' the old Saxon form. That word means value, apprecia- tion. Nature is teaching us to value life, to rejoice in God's gifts. She has not prepared for our use any liturgy of canned flat- teries or strings of petitions, nor does she lay down the law for the Deity what to do for us. Such unworthy acts are not hers. She is neither browbeating Deity nor shaking us with fears. She gives us an example and pattern for life and happiness, and rejoices in the value, the worth of life. And that is worship, acts worthy the Deity and for our upbuilding. Do not tell me when I shall have read Whittier's poem, en- titled "Nature's Worship," that the poet has simply personified some of nature's actions and read into them something very characteristic. Do not say that, for you have against you the great multitude of scholars who know about these things, and you reveal your own poverty as regards Inner-Life experiences. Man learned his method of worship from nature; it did not spring from out his own mind. As regards worship (worth- ship), as in all other fields, order or method came first and ex- isted before man found a name for it. Our definitions come long after we have discovered the facts in nature. At this day we know of numerous facts and ways of nature, but we have no name for them. Our thought-form system is but of recent date as I told you in the last chapter. Man's heart craved for ex- pressions, and as he felt the power of such actions, attitudes and motions of nature which Whittier describes, he imitated them, and he does likewise to this day, when he comes down to the bottom of his heart, and until he does it, he never attains full God-wisdom nor the practice thereof, call it religion or anything else. Such acts follow and are identical with the second birth. Did not the real great prophets live in the open? Yes, all of them! Those that came from monastic cells, were not of the first class. Wonderful as Tauler was, I have this against him, that 126 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING he pulled the cap down over his eyes, that the flowers should not disturb his meditations. Buddha took the text for his first sermon from a fire in the woods across the river where he was sitting. As for Jesus, you know how his parables abound in nature-life; how he preached from a boat, loved mountains and always traveled in the Open. And Laotzse either starts with a nature-symbol or ends with one. You shall hear enough about that as I proceed with my chapters. I repeat it, the great mas- ters live and have always lived in the Open, and that is why they and we have a common ground to meet on. I say we and mean those who associate with the spirit abroad. Examine into this and you will see it for yourself. By nature the superficial observer understands all the tan- gible manifoldness that impinges upon his senses, and that manifoldness only. But that manifoldness is only the fringe of that manicolored carpet which the great mother has spread out for us to walk upon. She herself is nature in a different sense, namely, she is the weaver of that carpet and those fringes. She is both object and subject, both doer and the deed. And she is as personal as you and I; and that is why we can have company with her. When we call her mother we are not merely indulging in personalities, we are speaking as does heart to heart. That many cannot understand this, condemns them and proves most conclusively that they are not on the path. Nature has woven symbols of the most varied designs into this carpet, but they all lead us to the solitary roads, where she is ready to meet us. These solitary roads may look like green meadows or barren mountain tops, like woodlands or deserts, like the open ocean or the still lake. Whatever they look like or whatever we call them, she has provided them for our sake that we may meet her in seclusion and solitude and have a heart to heart talk. It is not true that she is indifferent to the individual, caring only for the race. Nature never falls into those terrible disturbances which we human creatures fall into because we will not learn the prin- ciple of non-action. Nature is beyond such a conflict, to say the least. Will you please notice, how intensely active nature is in the illustration I shall give, and yet how quiet, how still, how su- blimely "non-active" she is. Nature is always double, not to say multiple, in all her doings. Outwardly she seems to be bent upon boating her own record for multiple productions, but her real doings lie behind the array of facts which is the all so many NATURE- WORSHIP 127 of us only see. Nature in these "real doings," which are voli- tional, always points beyond herself and therefore she is our example. I shall read to you Whittier's only too little known and less understood poem: "The Worship of Nature." Please notice that she acts like a human person. "The harp at Nature's advent strung Has never ceased to play ; The songs the stars of morning sung Have never died away. And prayer is made, and prayer is given, By all things near and far; The Ocean looketh up to heaven, And mirrors every star. Its waves are kneeling on the strand, As kneels the human knee, Their white locks bowing to the sand, The priesthood of the sea ! They pour their glittering treasure forth, Their gifts of pearl they bring, And all the listening hills of earth Take up the song they sing. The green earth sends her incense up From many a mountain shrine ; From folded leaf and dewy cup She pours her sacred wine. The mists above the morning rills Rise white as wings of prayer; The altar-curtains of the hills Are sunset's purple air. The winds with hymn- of praise are loud, Or low with sobs of pain, — The thunder-organ of the cloud The dropping tear 1 - of rain. 128 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING With drooping head and branches crossed The twilight forest grieves, Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost From all its sunlit leaves. The blue sky is the temple's arch, Its transept earth and air, The music of its starry march The chorus of a prayer. So Nature keeps the reverent frame With which her years began, And all her signs and voices shame The prayerless heart of Man." This ought to shame most people; it shows how nature is stillness, or in that essential condition so highly praised by all mystics and so intensely sought for. This shows how nature is in the. condition of the sage, such as you have heard Laotzse define him, as the one who "acts non-action;" the one whose work is always on the plane above this and yet whose effects are visible on this plane. Nature is the one who is not hasty with the hand, like that young Greek, and not afraid of losing the bodily life, like those girl loves of Indra, and, not indifferently wasting the measures of time and at last finding that that was lost which was never really possessed. Nature is in no such con- flict. Neither is the sage. Nay, the sage is he who lives in sim- plicity, such as you have heard me describe it from the Tao-Teh- King, and, simplicity and stillness are synonymous terms. — The harp at Nature's advent strung Has never ceased to play. The songs the stars of morning sung Have never died away. Indeed, nature sings, and "there is always a song, my dear, somewhere," as the Iloosier poet told us. B\rt he did not tell us what the song was about and failed to interpret her notes. Another has done it. I have heard it from another poet, Chr. Fr. K. Molbeck, a poet far away and in the Vikings-land, whence some would least of all expect to hear a translation of nature's call. That poet interprets the song to be a call to us to be still. Here it is in prose, as best I can translate it : NATURE-WOHSHIP 129 "Oh, man, thou who like the wild wind rushes over earth and ne'er throws the lead to the bottom of thy breast; thou, who would fathom life, but forget its source: seek for once thyself and God — but still! End this wild rush, this restless sighing! Put the ear to thine own breast, where thy soul is in prison ! "Dam-up and seal the flood of thy lusts; seek then thy- self in the depths of thy bosom — but still ! "Stop this hurry and haste from one door of life to an- other. In this noise, how can thou expect God's voice to hear, or thine own ; neither of them come like thunder storms ; they visit the heart like gentle winds — and still ! "Ye generation of men, full of evil and hatred, rushing through the world with tongue cursing and murmuring, what is thy goal ? What seekest thou in the tumult ? Behold the flower grows towards heaven — and still ! "Hear, everywhere in field and meadow, a prayer for still- ness is lifted up. Even midday's golden mouth bids stillness in the woods. The stars along the coasts of heaven, playing silver harps, bid thee be still!" "Be still" is the refrain "of the song that is always, my dear, somewhere." Be still! is nature's call, because stillness is her innermost, her mystery! Stillness is Nature's Truth and Beauty! Nature never says a word about Truth, but with in- finite patience and in stillness she forces us to hear it. She has time to wait. Nature never sings her own praise ; but to all, she is good- ness, especially to those who will quietly sit down at her table and take her bounties. She does it in stillness. Beauty is her wayside sacrament administered in every flower, and, she goes about spreading beauty everywhere and does it in stillness and without ostentation. Beauty is her hallmark and you find it even in the dust on the flower by the highroad. In spite of man's heedless conduct the dust falls harmoniously. In her workshop she is ever building, but in stillness she plans. On the stage of life, we see the players come and go, but never herself; she stands still in one of the wings. She makes us talk, but she her- self has no speech or language; she is stillness. In short: "Forward," is the mad cry of the world! "Homeward" is the gentle sigli of the heart and Nature ! "Homeward is the meaning and the aim and end of the "be still," Nature's imploring call. These two words "homeward" 130 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING and "be still' connect with each other. Home is stillness and stillness is home. The two express themselves in worship and there is no — nor can there be — worship where there is no home in God, or stillness of God. Nature is anxious for us to come to worship or to worth-ship, which is the real word or meaning. To worth-ship means to consider valuable. We ought to do as she does and as Whittier expresses it : strike the harp and each with our own tongue sing praises like the "stars of morning ;" we ought to make prayers or lift up our hearts and look up into heaven ; we ought to kneel or prostrate ourselves like the sands on the shore, and, thus we shall be baptized with water drawn from the eternal wells ; we ought to offer glad faces and happy thoughts, and, they shall shine like glittering treasures equal to the song that comes from the hills; such glad faces, happy thoughts and songs are incense, that comes back to the wor- shipper laden with ' ' sacred wine ; ' ' and where they are offered there is the Lord's table, indeed. The thunder cloud plays the organ and "dropping tears or rain" wash away any grief or sobs of pain. That is the kind of worship nature knows of and has practiced always and long before she saw man's face, and it is that kind of worship she is anxious to have us learn, and she tells us we cannot learn it except we be "still." In stillness alone Tao "takes us in the arms." Can you imagine what it means to be taken into the arms of Tao under such conditions? Would it not be glorious? Would it not be heaven? And yet they await us ! They can be had for the asking! And they cost nothing! Why tarry? Behold the fowls of the air! Consider the lilies of the field! Remember the sage whom Laotzse so graphically described! They all know about stillness and are ready to testify and to teach! Why will people not be taught these simple lessons? I will tell you. You have perhaps witnessed the scene that is enacted every time the wild geese come down from the North on account of the intense cold. When the tame geese in the farmer's yard hear the honk ! honk ! up in the air, they spread their short wings and run from one end of the yard to the other and make a tre- mendous noise — and that is all. They do not rise upon the wing and fly away! They have forgotten to fly! And so it is with people. They have forgotten to fly! They may well hear the speakers' call and the song of the spirit and their blood may throb quicker and they wish loudly — but they have forgotten to fly, and come no further than the door of the meeting place. NATURE-WORSHIP 131 When outside and on the street they forget to rise to heaven fol- lowing the honk ! honk ! Let us pray for stillness ! When the heart throbs violently and restlessly! When fortune's wheel whirls fastest, let us pray for stillness that we may measure our soul and our longings. When bitterness and loss assail us, let us pray for stillness that we cast our anchor safely ! People are earthbound and fear to rise high up like the eagle and see the sun. As soon as they unawares have forgotten the earth for a moment and felt the breezes of freedom, they hasten to come down again for fear of falling. They are really " souls in prison" and oh! the pity of it; they prefer the narrow streets to the Open, because they do not know that they are in prison. They have been born there. Their parents were pris- oners before them. If that young Greek, and those girl loves of Indra, and that poor copyist, had sought nature in the open, not in a temple service; on the mountain top and not in the land of the Uttera- kurus; near running brooks and in green fields and not in a counting room, then they would have learned what stillness is, and, they would have realized stillness in silence and solitude and been saved, because "Tao would have taken their spirit in the arms." Whittier's next stanza was : And prayer is made, and prayer is given. By all things near and far; The Ocean looketh up to the heaven, And mirrors every star. Yes, indeed "prayer is made;" the mute appeal in the dog's and horse's eye is a prayer, that is both a petition and a groan for relief. Who is so dumb and stupid that they never could imagine the golden bridge which the moon throws across the ocean is "prayer given" or prayer answered? When the poet next sings about ocean's waves kneeling upon the strand like a priesthood of the sea and how they bring their gifts of pearl, he happily personifies what can be seen in cathe- drals abroad, in Mohammedan mosques and often in the seclu- sions of a cell, when a human soul feels the need of crawling upon the knees, and thus finds relief for an inner burden. Of course those of you who have never felt the need of such an art, 132 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING camiot comprehend the poet's imagery. Whittier must have had that experience; else he could never have penned the next two lines "And all the listening hills of earth Take up the song they sing." These lines mean not merely that echo answers back the song of the sea. They express a literal fact. If you ever shall have an opportunity to stand on the ocean strand with miles of desolation around you, you will learn to understand how sea and land embrace and kiss. Nowhere else and never at any other time. At such a time you will learn what Nature-Mysticism is and you will learn how to pray. I know of one place where you can hear such a solemn duet sung by the ocean and the shore. Where the North Sea howls upon the coast of Jutland (Den- mark) on those places where the Vikings of old landed when they came down from Iceland and the other isles; that is the place. Only a devoted and worshipful soul like Whittier could ever discover that the earth offers incense and that the incense- burner is the "folded leaf and dewy cup," or compare the early morning mist, that of summer morning at 4 o'clock, to the wings of prayer, or see "sunset's purple air" as altar curtains, and so forth throughout the poem. Only persons who have spent nights and days, mornings and evenings in the mountains, or in great forests or deserts, or on the shores of the ocean, can catch the note of stillness in the transcendence of these things, but I think all ought to be able to see that in all this there is a condition of blessing, that there is no conflict, no inner rupture, no loss of peace, no sin; but on the other hand sublime teachings for us on how to do, and what the Inner Life is. Let me tell you about something I want you to do in summer on an early morning. Get up early enough to have time to rub the sleep out of your eyes, and get out to meet the sun ; but you must be on the hill on the edge of the woods before the sun gets there! If you do, you will be able to attend a morning service such as the small birds conduct it, and you shall never forget your ex- perience and perhaps discover what religion really is. At dawn, the birds in certain localities all seem to be touched by the solem- nity of the hour. No man knows why or how. It seems to me mother nature is the bandmaster and director of the music. NATURE, THE GREAT MOTHER 133 Though each bird sings his own song, the myriad voices blend in one concordant whole. All the birds seem to be actuated by unity of purpose with the feeling of some larger consciousness. Beginning with the desultory calls of woodpeckers, the song- sparrows, robins and catbirds all start in, and in some way the thrushes give the symphony a devotional character. The thrushes are always solemn ; a tone of invocation predominates. The Veery or Wilson thrush is truly called the high-priest of the mystic lore of the forest. When the twilight is no more, the warblers take up the strain and express contentment of mind and heart. With them ends the morning service, and the bobo- links, these little light hearted rascals begin to bubble over with song. Their merry jingles come up from the meadows, bubbling, rippling and lyric altogether. All this is not poetic fancy of mine. Lovers of nature and life in the open will verify my words and experience. Whence this accord? Nature, the great mother, falls in with all these voices and leads the song, and therefore there is in it a personal address! Go into solitude and you shall hear it. There is reconciliation in it. There is religion in it. Nature will teach you what prayer is and how to sing such as lips never sing, but such as the heart does it, when it offers its own warm blood as the sacrifice and lays itself upon the altar as an offering. Some day I trust you may realize that Nature is Tao and Teh, and that Whittier in this poem has helped to show what stillness is, in which "Tao takes our spirit in the arms." If you are at all familiar with any of these attitudes just described, you must sometime or other have realized the solemnity and reverence shown everywhere where nature worships, and she worships everywhere. Come out again! Come out on an early morning to hear the prelude to the day's symphony as it is sung in the woods. I have heard it many times, and I assure you, you shall spend a happy day, if you do. All the mud that sticks to your shoes will fall off; you will not bring it home again. As regards stillness, the subject of this chapter, you shall understand that it does not merely mean cessation of sound or noise, as with us men, but that stillness to nature means jubila- tion and an intensity of purpose of which men know nothing. To us such words as simplicity and stilln 'e merely negative conceptions. To nature they are positive and realities, the very condition the sage wishes to bring men to. I now come to the balance left of that sentence in which 134 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING "stillness" has played so prominent a part. The balance of the sentence relates to Tao taking us in the arms. This idea of being taken into the arms of Tao I now shall try to illustrate. You are all familiar with a number of ceremonial actions, actions which you yourself use as expressions of your feeling, though in all probability you are not consciously aware of their import, or why you do them. Among such ceremonies implying spiritual actions the most common are those of "shaking hands," and, other actions of the hand, such as embracing friends and relatives ; kissing ; taking off the hat. Such actions represent the sympathetic system in our constitution, and they express our feelings towards the neighbor. This sympathetic system in our constitution seems to be gradually sinking into the sea of our personal life. All the actions I have referred to, and numerous others of like nature, no more play the part in our life they used to. In the cycle anteceding the one in which we now live, they were exceedingly important and were the terms in which men's feelings expressed themselves, and they were in- valuable. They have survived in some weak form or other here and there even in our own cycle, and, they still are the essential characteristics of those people who are the remnants of earlier prehistoric races, such as among the people we call wild and uncivilized. These sympathetic feelings are now sinking into the sea or gradually receding in our personality, giving place for other systems and other terms; such as for instance, that system called thought-form which came in a cycle characteristic at the time Laotze wrote his book. I shall not speak any further about the loss of the sympathetic system, that must wait till another time. Now, I must speak of the thought-form system that arose at the beginning of our cycle. This new system, which T for convenience have called thought-form, is not unfamiliar to you. I will show you. I will suppose you to be a lover and suddenly to have been struck profoundly by another person and realized what "sameness" is, or, in other words, "love," for love is essentially a feeling of sameness, of identity with the beloved. In this feeling of same- ness, this familiarity you and tin 1 beloved have met and deter- mined not to be separated again and both found the essential peace which only such a union gives. Xo more seems necessary. Up to this point it was the sympathetic system that acted. But now the other system steps in. It is a psychological fact that neither of the two rest in those feelings, in those inner as- TAO 135 surances. Both begin very soon to inquire into each other's life and ideas, not mention making inquiries about wealth, or fame, or history. These things do not concern my subject. They begin to inquire, because the thought-form system in them clamors to "see" the beloved, to understand the beloved, to get a picture according to mind ; it demands a form rather than an emotion as an expression and will not rest without it. Examine yourself and you shall see the correctness of what I say. All lovers do that, except Jack and Jill ; they remain in the sympathetic sys- tem. Every intelligent mind is restless before its object, till it, in a "corresponding" way, has masticated and swallowed and assimilated it. First, after that, does it possess the object as an object of consciousness, and this possessing the object in con- sciousness is the demand of every intelligent mind, the very characteristic of intelligence and the demand of the thought- form system. To use Qvang-tze's phrase we "take the object in our arms." You readily see the close correspondence between the sym- pathetic system's action of taking a friend or relative or the be- loved "in the arms" and the same action under the form of un- derstanding by the thought-form system: Both systems act in a similar direction and on parallel lines, but their methods are very different. This action of the two systems on our relative plane of life illustrates what Tao does on the universal plane of life. And as we human beings on our plane come into union, so Tao on the universal plane brings us into union with itself. Tao "takes us in the arms" when we have come into still- ness or, which is the same, when sameness or identity has be- come a fact. You can now see the meaning of that sentence of Qvang-tze and you can readily understand that we are perfect when that happens. I am now done with that sentence I started o,ut with. TAO IX. LOOK at the diagram (No. 1), it is the motto for this chap- ter. It is a picture of Tao. I shall use the word Tao very little in this chapter, yet, not only the frame of it is of Tao but its content is about Tao; yea, I dare almost say it is Tao. The diagram will explain itself as I proceed with my expositions; I say expositions, be- cause I shall really give two ; the first one is a short one, consist- ing of four paragraphs, and, the second somewhat longer going over the same ground as these four paragraphs though very differently. The first exposition runs as follows: Diagram No. 1. ex ou (out of which) Substance Faust up ou (by which) Active Energy The Key The child Tao We our I mm ancnt Intell pow er selves lgence The Mothers Imi innont Power (through which) di mi Helen Effect or Transcendental form (with reference to which) pros ou TAO 137 (I) Observe the child. It knows what it is to be in the con- dition of having the thumb in the mouth, but it does not know what thumb means nor what mouth means. It has not the ability to substitute the technical terms thumb and mouth for the con- dition which I call "thumb-in-inouth" condition. The child knows quality, but not the name for quality. (II) Again; we all as children know something shining brightly, now, as in daytime all around us, then in the darkness as coming from certain objects ; how we do not know. We may be taught to call it light and we may call it so, and most of us continue so throughout our whole life, never even suspecting that we talk merely like parrots, not knowing what we say. How many know why brightness is called light and how that concep- tion arose? This condition is sense-consciousness; it is not intelligence. Intelligence does not arise till we in our inner man have found for ourselves a solution and a term for that brightness we have been taught to. call light. As an adjunct to this, the second point, I will have you realize how much injury we receive by being educated, as we call it. We learn certain results attained by others and that, of course, is useful, but it kills all originality; it kills the initiative in most people. In the schools we are not even warned of our danger. (III) Again; cotton cannot weave itself into cloth. Neither can sensations transform themselves into thoughts. Machinery weaves cotton into cloth. The thought-form system transforms sensations into intelligence. (IV) Again; our value as human beings depends first of all upon intelligence. Where there is no intelligence there is no humanity, properly speaking. These four points are really a chapter in themselves, and stand independent of the sequence of this chapter, but they are nevertheless the fundamental ideas that lie at the bottom of it and are four sides of Tao, and that will appear by and by. Without exaggerating much, I can say that this diagram (No. 1) is a diagram of the motions of your life and mine, not only in the four large divisions of life from birth to death, but it also represents the stages and the driving forces of our think- ing and acting. Our life swings around the four points, whether we will or not, and, the diagram may be compared to a clock; a clock that has a voice. If you listen closely you hear in the "tick-tack" a song of "evermore" — "nevermore." With the triad added, this tetrad becomes our templum. 138 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING You know what that word means ; I explained it in two forgone chapters. Yes ! this diagram is the ground plan of our templum and with the triad added it reaches into the heavens. Being of so much signification, I may well urge you to pay much atten- tion to it. The Innermost Square is characterized by four terms : the child — we ourselves — inherent power — intelligence. These terms express the four stages of our spiritual evolution. I need not describe them. It happens that Aristotle has already done it. The small Greek words on the corners corresponding to the terms I already have mentioned, explain them. The ex ou is the "out of which" the evolution starts. The up ou is the "by which" it starts. The di ou is the "through which" it is accomplished, and the pros o