Полная версияThe New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul
This personal acquaintance may become the nearest possible criterion, short of our own personal experience, as to demonstration.
In previous chapters this phase of the subject has, perhaps, been sufficiently dwelt upon.
The Master may say, “I know; I have had the personal experience; I have demonstrated.”
The student may at last say, “I believe; I am convinced; I am satisfied.”
All through the foregoing pages the effort has continually been made to preserve clearly this distinction.
In tracing analogies through the history of the past, the conditions, premonitory, present, and subsequent to great world-movements have often been referred to.
Nothing is more common or more patent than the oft-repeated saying, “This is the age of science.” Any great movement that undertakes at the present day to deal with the deeper problems of individual and social life, must fit in and conform to the “spirit of the present age.”
To that platform it must appeal; in that language it must be addressed, and by such judgment and criterion must it stand or fall.
All these tests and criteria have been fully met by the School of Natural Science, and they are clearly outlined and set forth in the “Great Work,” addressed to “the Progressive Intelligence of the Age.”
There need be no misconception or misinterpretation at this point.
It is true that superficial thinkers and readers, enthusiasts and emotionalists, are likely to infer that the science of the soul can now be had “for a consideration” and in “a dozen easy lessons.”
All such are doomed to disappointment.
It is furthermore likely, if the average “physical scientist” pays any heed at all, that he will devise a series of “tests” and “experiments” of his own, to fit his preconceived notion of things psychical, with the latent conviction, at least, that he will be able to prove the whole thing a humbug.
These, also, are doomed to disappointment. Physical tests of psychical and spiritual laws and processes are unscientific. No spiritual problem can be solved in terms of physical matter alone.
So-called psychological science to-day is in the condition of one possessing a fine piece of ground, and gathering materials for a house, a superstructure.
The ground is already covered with bricks and stones, and sand and lumber, piled in every direction, with the purpose of one day beginning the work of construction, and the slogan, “Wait! Not yet!” “Some day we are hoping to build.”
No architect, “no designs on the trestle-board,” and so they go on accumulating “facts” and “evidence” day after day, year after year, century after century.
They have a “working hypothesis,” but no definite theorem, and they may work till doomsday on this line without a glimmer of real scientific knowledge of the human soul, yet with mountains of “facts” or of “rubbish.”
They can never prove the existence of a spiritual entity in terms of matter on the physical plane.
Their work has been, and still is, of great interest and value, but it is in no scientific sense, Constructive, backed by the laws of proportion and harmony, nor the “Canon of Architecture.”
The apotheosis of Natural Science is like the “canon of proportion” in architecture, introduced by Vitruvius (an Initiate) centuries ago. It is the verification of Plato’s saying, “God geometrizes,” and his concept of “the World of Divine Ideas.”
Plato further declares, “He who knows not the common things of life is a brute among men. He who knows the common things of life is a man among brutes. But he who knows all that can be learned by diligent inquiry is a god among men.”
Natural Science, as shown in the Great Work, includes scientific knowledge on all planes of being on which the soul of man functions: The physical, moral, psychical, and spiritual; for man is a composite being.
The apotheosis of Natural Science, therefore, is Fact, Law, Demonstration, and Knowledge; before theory, conjecture, creed, dogma, superstition, or fear, intuition, inspiration, revelation, and “holy men” or “holy books” that must be accepted without evidence, or “believed” against evidence.
The Avatars of all the past have originated great reformations which have at last degenerated into dogma and superstition.
The people, incapable of understanding the Law, have been taught in parables, while the few in all religions and in every age have apprehended the law and learned the “Secret Doctrine.”
To-day, for the first time in centuries, for the reasons already assigned, and in keeping with the scientific spirit of the age, and because superstition in power, dogma, and persecution are politically dethroned, these great truths, this Great Work, is openly declared and outlined so that he who wills may apprehend.
Let no one say, “This is an effort to deify an individual.” It is an effort to enthrone Truth; to remove the barriers to the rights of conscience, the shackles of reason, private judgment and Individual Responsibility, and to free the soul of man from all the fetters of ignorance, superstition, and fear, in order that he may be “first a man,” “then a Master,” and at length on a higher plane of being, something more than man has yet realized, or ever dreamed.
Something “that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it yet entered into the heart of man to conceive the glory that shall be revealed.”
The beginning is here and now, when man shall achieve the Mastery of Self and really possess his own soul, and not hold it tremblingly as a pawn of some pretentious potentate of the soul.
The right of Light, Knowledge, and further progress by “Being a Man,” and not a chattel, an asset, a pawn, or a slave.
This is the coming Avatar, and the dawn is already here.
Will the day darken, the Light be quenched? Who can tell?
The redemption of Woman from the slavery of all the past is well under way, and it is indeed a glorious sign.
No lesson in history is plainer nor more readily demonstrated than the fact that the degeneracy of a religion and the degradation of woman go hand in hand.
Demonstrate to-day in any country on earth the status of woman as a whole, and no mistake need be made as to the prevailing religion.
Woman’s political disability is another matter entirely; for she is dominated by man only because, and only so far as, she is handicapped or degraded by the dominant religion.
Take woman from the churches, Protestant or Romish, to-day, and no church could do business for a twelvemonth.
For these reasons the immense and rapidly growing movements, Women’s Clubs and the like, to-day, are of great significance, backed and illuminated as they are by all past history.
In the new movement, the School of Natural Science, the door is as wide open to woman as to man. I might paraphrase the slogan of the Robber Barons of the middle ages. “She may seize who hath the power, She may hold who can.”
In the coming Illuminati woman will stand by the side of man in all opportunity, endeavor, or achievement.
In the new age woman will be something few men have even yet dreamed of.
We might call this new age “the Woman’s Avatar,” without doing violence to either religion, tradition, history, or science; while the sacred Hymns of the Vedas, with the angel of the household and the inspirer of the soul of man, the worship of Divinity, by both men and women, opened a new heaven on this old earth.
And then – such children as will be born, without pain, not through chance, caprice, nor under protest, but even as they were in Greece, as an offering of Love on the altar of divine man-womanhood, with a song of joy to heaven.
Prof. Fiske somewhere said, “The evolution of man by Natural Selection draws near its close, to be followed by that of Divine Selection.”
The Divinity in man is Christos, the “son of the Father,” the Divine and Eternal Avatar.
Belief is rather a superficial process, the intellect (“mortal mind”) mingled with the emotions, changing and evanescent. “Now you see it, and now you don’t.” It is mingled with hope that alternates with fear and doubt.
Faith, when once analyzed and apprehended, is another thing entirely, though nearly every one, and most writers, confuse “belief” and “faith.”
“Faith is the soul’s intuitive conviction of that which both Reason and Conscience approve.”
Genuine faith rarely wavers or changes, because it is an evolution, a “growth of the soul,” a spiritual experience, and it becomes the “dominant chord” in the symphony of life, determining Harmony.
It is in this deliberate and discriminative sense that I have used the term conviction in relation to the Master and his “Great Work.” He never dogmatizes, nor undertakes to “indoctrinate.”
In answer to a question on some deep and perplexing problem of the soul or of the spiritual plane, he replies, “So far as we know, it is so and so.” “A new experience, or an added light, may alter our conclusion.”
The average individual scarcely realizes what absolute sincerity, with no motive save Love of Truth, and beneficence to man guided by clear intelligence, and dominated by the rational Will, means, or can accomplish.
These are the natural powers of the human soul. There is nothing mysterious or miraculous about them, more than in the art of music of a Beethoven or a Paganini, or in gymnastics and the winner of the Marathon.
“To shape and use, arise and fly,The reeling Faun, the sensual feast,Move upward, working out the beast,And let the ape and tiger die.”My conviction is strong, and my Faith unwavering.
“The great and peaceful ones live, regenerating the world like the coming of spring: and having themselves crossed the ocean of embodied existence, help those who try to do the same thing without personal motive.” (“Crest Jewel of Wisdom.”)
CHAPTER XVI
THE NEW AVATAR
From all the foregoing general considerations it may be discerned that the “New Avatar” is strictly that of Scientific Demonstration.
As we use terms in vogue at the present day, it pertains to the field of Natural Science.
This does not imply that it is irreligious, nor unreligious, nor sacrilegious.
When it is clearly apprehended it will be found to be the only thing that harmonizes – not the Institutions of man – but Science, Philosophy, and Religion per se, as departments in human intelligence.
Man will thus discern “the rational order that pervades the universe.”
The purpose and result of such knowledge to man are Harmony, Enlightenment, Courage, and Hope.
Man is the arbiter of his own destiny. He may become the Master of his own Fate. Such are the Illuminati, the “Masters of the Great White Lodge,” the Benefactors of the whole human race, the members of the “School of Natural Science.”
What would I have my readers do? I answer, Investigate! Study! Think! Wait! Hope! Anticipate!
Careful, intelligent, and conscientious investigation will determine the fact that we possess in America to-day one who can fill all the requirements that I have endeavored to designate and portray – not as a “reincarnation” of Buddha or Jesus, but as a “Master” – one who has been duly instructed and prepared, who has had the personal experience, and has made a practical demonstration, that determines Mastership.
He has demonstrated that “there is no death,” but transition only (except through conscious and determined devolution, or suicide of the soul). Man is, after all, and in the last analysis, a “free moral agent.”
As a Member of the “Great School” he was educated and initiated many years ago, and has consecrated his life to this service. He has demonstrated the separability of the soul by leaving and returning to his body at will.
The School of Natural Science; the Great Work; the Individual Representative; the conditions of the present age; the opportunities offered; the demand for real knowledge everywhere; the falling in pieces of creeds and dogmas; the expectancy so often voiced – all of these correspond intimately with what the ancient Aryans designated as “Avataric.”
It is not now the deification of any Individual, but the “apotheosis of Natural Science,” as the foundation and method in the achievement of actual knowledge.
From this actual knowledge will arise a new Faith, not a new religion, but the old Religion of Humanity, precisely as taught and lived by Jesus, Christna, Buddha, and all the other “Redeemers,” and real Avatars of the past.
The “Enemy of all Righteousness,” as already said, have made many attempts to assassinate this Representative of the Great School, but he goes steadily about his own work. These enemies realize the danger to their unholy work, but not the Power back of this great movement. This they can never destroy.
The day of enlightenment has come, and the cry has gone forth, Ho! all ye who are heavy-laden, involved in fear and doubt and uncertainty; bewildered, discouraged, despairing, and committing suicide! There is no death! Man is the Arbiter of his own Fate! Look up and Live, and Hope and Realize!
And there shall dawn for you a new heaven and a new earth in which dwelleth Love and Peace and Righteousness; with Jesus – the Christos– your “elder Brother,” leading the way, and the downtrodden, the poor and despised children of men, shouting Hosanna! for the Loving Kindness that will have taken the place of selfishness, strife, cruelty, superstition, and Dogma.
Religion will no longer be a matter of mere sentiment, nor of emotion, of blind belief, nor of fear, superstition, dogma, nor creed – but a Great Work. So Mote it be.
The author of this volume can lay no claim for it as a systematic treatise on Psychology, either according to the rules of composition or the orderly sequence of science.
It is rather a number of essays, some of which were written without reference to publication, or the design, at the time, of putting them together in a single volume.
There is, therefore, more or less repetition, the same subject under a different title, viewed from a different aspect, yet involving the same principles, motives, and aims.
But the subject of Psychology is so vast, so intricate, so interesting and important, and yet, in the average mind, so confused, and so little known, that considerations from many sides, and even repetitions in the application of a given principle in various ways, are believed more likely to make the whole subject apprehensible to the general reader to whom it is addressed.
Moreover, the author believes that the time has come when Psychology, as a Constructive Science of the nature, laws, and destiny of the Human Soul, need no longer be regarded as unknown or unattainable, but open to all who seek it in the right way, giving to it the consideration, time, and loyalty it so amply deserves.
To such as these, it is hoped, the foregoing pages may give many clews and sidelights, suggestions, encouragement, and hope.
Psychology, to the Author of this volume, means literally A Knowledge of the Human Soul, rather than of treatises upon the subject, or of the opinions, beliefs, or dogmas of men.
NOTES
The oligarchy of creeds, and the autocrats of Rome no more represent the “Coming of the Son of Man,” the Divine Logos that was and is “in the bosom of the Father in heaven,” than do the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Harrimans, constituting the oligarchy of wealth, or than the political grafters and bosses of our municipalities represent the “New Commandment,” “that ye love one another.” The barons of wealth have not yet resorted directly to murder, as has Rome for ages.
St. Augustine says, “What is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients and was not absent from the human race until Christ came, from which time, the true Religion, which existed already, began to be called ‘Christian.’” (See Heckethorne’s “Secret Societies,” page 12, Introduction.)
As to the basis of scientific chronology regarding the Wisdom of the Masters, and their indestructible records, I quote the following from a modern student of Astrology. His method of reckoning is correct, even though his dates may not be absolutely exact, as he is not a “Master.”
CHRONOLOGY AND THE “RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX.”
Ancient religious symbols bear a striking resemblance to the constellations of the heavens, especially those of the Zodiac, and if this be their true meaning, we have an infallible key to their chronology. At the beginning of the Christian Era, the constellation Aries, or Ram, occupied the equinoctial place, being in the first degree of that constellation. About 2150 B.C. the first degree of Taurus, or Bull, contained the Equinox. When the constellation Taurus, or the Bull, was in the first division, or the equinoctial place, the people used a symbol representing a bull, described as giving fecundity, a deity of vegetation as at Dodona, in their religious ceremonies. One of the statuettes found recently in the excavations of Crete, was a woman figured between bulls and lions, with a dove or eagle on her head, and holding serpents in her hand. This figure would seem to represent mother earth between the constellations Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. She is figured between Taurus (the Bull) on one side, Leo (the Lion) at her feet, Aquila (or Eagle) in the constellation, Aquarius on her head, and Scorpio (or the Serpent) in her hand; all forming the sacred cross or ‘Swastika,’ with the constellations Taurus in the vernal Equinox; Leo beneath the earth, the Eagle or Aquarius overhead, and Scorpio held in her hand toward the west.
Archæologists place the date in which this symbol was in use in Crete at 1100 to 1500 B.C. These dates are included between 2150 B.C. and the year 1 A.D. By the same method we are enabled to calculate the age of the Sphinx.
This Sphinx apparently represents the constellations Leo (the Lion) and Virgo (the Virgin). It has a lion’s body, and a woman’s head and breast. When the Sphinx was built, it seems the spring equinox occupied a point between these two constellations, and as the spring, or Easter, festivals of the ancients were held on or about March 21st of our calendar, this Sphinx was the representation of Leo and Virgo, the point in which the Sun crossed the equator, or equinoctial line.
Now as the equinox retrogrades from east to west in the reverse order of the constellations, as well as the reverse order of the movement of the planets, the Sun will not cross the equator at the same point each year, but at a point a little to the west, amounting to about fifty and a third seconds of arc. At this rate the equinox will pass backward through the constellations, making a complete revolution in a little less than twenty-six thousand years, or at the rate of about twenty-one hundred and fifty years to a constellation of thirty degrees. Now by taking the present position of the equinox in the constellation Pisces, we find that it has nearly reached the constellation Aquarius. About 1909 years ago it was in the first point of Aries. If we begin at its present point in Pisces, and count back to the Junction of Leo-Virgo, we will have to count 1909 years to first point of Aries; 2150 years to the first point of Taurus; 2150 years to Camini; 2150 years to Cancer; 2150 years to Leo and 2150 years to the constellation Virgo. This indicates that the Sphinx was built 12,659 years ago, or approximately 10,750 B.C. (John Kilduff.)
1
See President Eliot’s latest utterances.
2
At the death of Pope Leo there were 65 Cardinals, 39 of whom were Italians.