The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul

CHAPTER IV

THE MEASURE OF VALUES

This is a very utilitarian age. Start almost any subject, propose almost any scheme, adventure, or investment, and the question is asked, “Will it pay?” The multitude are cautious; the lower stratum, the unsuccessful – the poor and the oppressed – are envious and often bitter and resentful; the successful are often reckless, dissipated, and proud.

I am not writing an essay on Economics, but on Ethics and Psychology; on the character, value, and use of the resources within ourselves; our real possessions. Here only may be found actual values.

I am not considering the “hereafter,” as to “rewards and punishments”; what gods, devils, angels, or men may do to us, here or hereafter; but what we may (if we choose) do for ourselves.

This question is practical to the last degree. Put the question, “does it pay?” and I answer: It pays like nothing else on earth; it is the only thing that is independent of time, place, or circumstance.

It concerns man’s actual possessions, of which nothing in “the three worlds” can ever dispossess him. I know of nothing so beneficent, in any concept of God or Nature, Providence or Destiny, as this birthright and opportunity of man, to build character, and be what he chooses to be.

He who knows his power, realizes his opportunity and utilizes his resources, may build a Palace of the Soul, in which he may dwell, literally, in a “kingdom of heaven.” And because God is the Architect, and Man the Contractor and Builder, working strictly to the “plans” and the designs, “that house shall stand.” It is founded on the “Rock of Ages.”

Did anyone ever know or see a noble character that was not built by the Individual himself, by personal effort, by self-control, by self-denial, by justice and kindness to others; often in the face of Poverty; often in spite of wealth; often in the face of sickness, pain and deformity; perhaps deaf and dumb and blind; and yet, like Helen Keller, the soul triumphant and glorified?

To-day, as I write, I went to the Crematory to see the dissolution of a poor, twisted, deformed, and tortured body of a woman past fifty, in which had dwelt a soul so serene, cheerful, and patient, that the beatitudes clustered around her, like doves in a garden of roses. It required no stretch of the imagination to determine what society she had entered. “Like seeks like,” and each “goes to his own place.” Her motive, the day-star of her life, was the Mother-Love for an only son. In spite of poverty and pain, she must reward him for love and loyalty, by being bright and cheerful and by belittling her own discomfort to save him sorrow.

Her reward was the growth of the soul that has now risen to its great reward, and dearer and sweeter than all this to the Mother-heart, was to see and realize the growth, the tenderness, and the beautifying of the soul of the Son.

Did it pay? I can almost hear her shouting for joy as she joins the anthem of the Invisible Choir of Helpers that welcome her just over the border. She prayed many times, even the last time I saw her, before the great change, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” I could only say, “Wait just a little longer,” with the assurance that every shadow of darkness shall be transformed into dazzling light, and every drop of bitterness into the nectar of the Gods. She was almost deaf and blind, but you should have heard the sweetness in her voice and seen the radiance in her face. I did not know that the end was so near.

To the son, the sweetest sound on earth was that mother’s voice, but, though silent for a thousand years, he would not recall her to one moment of the old torture. His sorrow for himself is swallowed up and glorified in his joy for her release.

And what is all this but a lesson in practical psychology, the growth of the soul?

Does it pay? Ask that Mother; ask that Son now. “How do you know?” How do you know anything, except as you see, or experience it?

Character reveals itself. It cannot long hide itself. When the check goes to the bank the resources are there. The Bank of God, and of Nature, and of Compensation, and Eternal Justice, cannot fail. Its resources are infinite.

Independent of time, place, or circumstance, I said: Intrinsic, Inalienable.

Take another illustration almost at random. A cultured soul, winning its way alone, and at great disadvantage.

In the middle of the tenth century lived Farabi, or Alfarabi. He did not confine himself to the Koran, but fathomed the most useful and interesting sciences. He visited Sifah Doulet, the Sultan of Syria. The Sultan was surrounded by the learned who were conversing with him on the sciences.

Farabi entered the salon where they were assembled and remained standing till the Emperor desired that he should be seated; at which the philosopher, by a freedom rather astonishing, went and sat on the end of the Sultan’s sofa. The Prince, surprised at his boldness, called one of his officers and commanded him, in a tongue not generally known, to put out the intruder. The philosopher heard him, and replied in the same tongue, “O Signor! he who acts so hastily is subject to repent.” The Prince was no less astonished by his reply than by his manner and assurance.

Wishing to know more of him, he began a conference among his philosophers, in which Farabi disputed with so much eloquence and energy that he reduced all the doctors to silence. Then the Sultan ordered music, and when the musicians entered, Farabi accompanied them upon the lute with so much delicacy as to win the admiration of all present. He then drew out, at the Sultan’s request, a piece of his own composition, and sang it with his own accompaniment, and had the audience first in laughter, and then in tears – and to complete his Magic, changed to another piece and put them all asleep.

The Sultan in vain urged Farabi to remain near his person, and offered him a high position in his household.

Voluminous writings of Farabi are preserved in the library at Leyden.

“A tale of the Arabian Nights,” you may say, and yet it is historic. It reveals the fact that resources, character, and wisdom, in the end triumph and surmount all obstacles. They are intrinsic and permanent values.

They may remain unknown or unappreciated by others, but they are none the less riches to him who possesses them.

It was during this same tenth century in which Alfarabi lived, that there existed at Baghdad a Society composed of Mohammedans, Jews, Christians, and Atheists, for the purpose of Philosophical discussions and scientific investigation; and it was doubtless under this influence that Alfarabi was educated and enabled to cope with the philosophers of the world. Here in Arabia was the highest culture known at the time, in Medicine and all the Arts and Sciences, while the Ecclesiastics were inaugurating the dark ages elsewhere, to eventually spread over the whole of Europe.

Here and there have always appeared individuals superior to their age and time; men who dug to the foundations of knowledge, built character, accumulated resources, and left their impress upon all subsequent time.

Nor has this accumulation of real knowledge been derived from books and schools, though these resources have not been neglected.

Real culture of the Individual has always consisted in the realization of the latent powers of man, in bringing these to light, in learning by experience how to use them. Hence arise self-knowledge, self-control, and a higher evolution.

It is not a mere technical, intellectual acquirement, the ability to define principles and formulate propositions. It rather consists in testing them out in actual experience; first by self-analysis to become familiar with the real self, its capacities and powers, its motives and aims in life; and having grasped and adjusted all these, then to start consciously, deliberately, determinedly, and intelligently, on “the road to the South,” on the upward climb toward the Light.

“Possessions,” with the great majority of individuals, mean something outward, in space and time; what we have, and, for the time hold, rather than what we are. The average idea of enjoyment is something altogether superficial and transient. It is found, or supposed to be found, in variety of sensations, emotions and feelings; in ringing the changes on these, till vitality fails, disillusion or satiety supervenes, and old age or death closes the play. Often the appetite remains, when vitality fails, and Faust rejuvenated, would run the same gauntlet again. The pity of it is that thousands of these victims of either satiety or Tantalus seem never to dream that there are other values, or anything else, or better, in life.

And yet there is not one of these faculties, capacities and powers that is useless, or, in itself, evil or degrading. They are, one and all, resources of the Individual Intelligence; tools for the day’s work; materials for the building of the Temple; whereas, they most frequently are made the motive and the aim of life. They are means to a higher end, and not the end itself.

Without the latent passions, emotions, and feelings, man would be a mere mechanism. If all were mind, or mere intellect, there could be neither the creation nor the appreciation of beauty. Every work of art would be soulless; music might amuse the intellect by intricate chords and variations, like a colorless kaleidoscope, but it could never touch the heart nor elevate the soul.

Music and art, in the highest sense, through consonant vibrations in us, open the doors and windows of the soul, put us in touch and tune with the Infinite, and then, the real harmony begins. We live for the time in another world and return with a sigh and recover the bated breath, as though we had seen a vision beyond words. Music is an agent, a talisman, a means to an end. It strikes in us chords that lie at the foundation, the combinations that unlock the doors, and the “Imprisoned Splendor” wings in and out like the doves of Hesperides.

Blunt the passions, the feelings and the emotions by over-indulgence, by vice and dissipation, and the royal guests desert the banquet hall, the doors of the soul creak on their hinges; and in place of the “music of the spheres” you have a devil’s dance, and the orgies of despair!

Does it pay? It all depends on use. Here lie the resources, the real possessions of man. Here lies the “Parable of the Talents.”

Look at the profusion, the prodigality, the beneficence of Nature, Flowers and Fruit, Beauty and Bloom and Fragrance everywhere. Where there is no eye to see, no hand to pluck, Mother Nature delights in profusion, seemingly because she is made that way and cannot help it. And yet, in this little Rose-garden of ours – the Human Soul – we tramp down the flowers, plant loathsome weeds and poisons that kill and degrade and besot us, set up the tables of the money-changers, drive out the doves of Hesperides, and turn the temple into a shambles for wild beasts. “Nothing pays.” “Let us curse God and – die!”

Is there not something after all in the Measure of Values, and in the inexorable Law of Use?

And who constrains us but ourselves?

Can God and Nature be so prodigal, noting even the sparrows fall, and yet disregard the children of men?

What our resources are we can never imagine till we draw upon and begin to utilize them as others have done throughout the ages.

The “average sinner,” seemingly to justify or excuse his own failure, will not believe that any have ever achieved. But there they stand all down the ages! Ecclesiastics help the deception and keep up the illusion by calling it Miracle or “Special Providence,” and so prevent man from entering his birthright, to possess it; and so we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage. It is like the dissipated, poverty-stricken spendthrift, who shuts his eyes and refuses to believe that any, by industry, economy, integrity and hard work have secured a competency. And so he cries, “Come on, boys! let’s have another drink, and then rob this bond-holder, who has more than his share.”

The Measure of Values, and the Law of Use hold everywhere, in every department of human life; and the question, “Does it pay?” is practical and scientific to the last degree, and no one can answer but ourselves. As we answer will be the results, and nothing but ourselves can change them.

We must realize that the human body, the organism of man, with all its faculties, capacities and powers, is but an instrument of the Individual Intelligence; and that every experience in life, every episode in our career, is like a day’s work; perfecting the instrument for more and better work, if used rightly; till we advance from height to height of being; to larger and still larger and more glorious fields of work and experience.

There would seem to be no limit to this evolution, this upward and onward journey of the human soul. The more good work done, the larger the capacity and the broader the field opening before us. “From height to height the spirit walks.”

The primary endowment of man is Life and conscious Intelligence, with the power to use both.

This would seem to be the only gratuity, and whether we regard it as a blessing or a curse, depends on how we regard and use them.

The great majority in all time, through ignorance or recklessness, seem to have misused them.

Hence sickness, disease, deformity, and degradation.

It is a wonderful thing – this Law of Normal Use – from which health, harmony, comfort, joy, growth, and development result, while misuse and abuse degrade and destroy.

Divinity seems to have put within the grasp of man’s Intelligence (if he chooses and wills) an almost infinite range in power, variety and application, of that subtle and basic Principle of affinity, balance and equilibrium, that unites the atoms in a molecule, or a chemical substance; that law of attraction and repulsion – the Parallelogram of Force – that holds the planets in their orbits. Divinity seems to have taken man into council and offered him, not only the Kingdom of Nature, but the royal domain of his own soul, as a reward for co-operation and loyal service, on condition that he shall use wisely, intelligently, loyally, and kindly, and not misuse or abuse.

Is it worth while? Will it pay?

Nor is this all, beneficent as it seems. The whole journey of life on the physical plane here below is so designed and planned as to make the natural aging and decay of the physical body supplement, unfold and develop the Spiritual Body, through the right use of the faculties, capacities, and powers of the Human Soul – the Individual Intelligence.

These are aspects, uses and powers of that subtle something we call Life; that Principle that

Normal use that insures growth and development, range and power of action, is also, from first to last, a refining process; while misuse and abuse of these powers degrade and brutalize inevitably.

It follows, therefore, as the bodily structure and functions fail under normal use those of the spiritual body open, develop and unfold. First the seed, then the plant, then the flower and finally the fruit “of a well-spent life.”

There is no “theory” or “guess-work” about it. It becomes, step by step, a matter of conscious, intelligent, individual experience. We know it just as we know that fire will burn or that we are here now, living, breathing, and acting.

If I thrust my finger into a flame, all the philosophers and metaphysicians of the world could not “argue” me out of the experience of the fact of “burn” and “pain”; nor could theologians succeed any better by quotations from Scripture! Man is so constituted that the facts of experience are stubborn things; and the more open to reason the individual the more convincing the facts of experience. Ignorance, superstition, and fear recede in the presence of these Lights of man’s intelligence, as do dogma and despotism, that seek to enslave the human soul.

Theologians tell us that it is exceeding dangerous to take all this responsibility upon ourselves, thus appealing to ignorance, superstition, and fear.

I would answer: I refuse to take the responsibility of disregarding or disobeying the Law which the Divine and Universal Intelligence has placed at the very foundation of man’s being; and I am so unorthodox as to imagine and believe that God knew what he was about, even better than the theologians, or the “Infallible” Italian who misinterprets God, Nature, and Man.

To-day, as I write, “God’s Vicegerent” is instigating and promoting a “Holy War” in Priest-ridden Spain, over the temporal power of the Vatican, angered to the point of murder over the “posting of notices of places of public worship,” other than Catholic.

They would rather turn the world into one “City of the Dead,” than yield one point of Freedom, Enlightenment, or Self-government to man.

And men still call this Religion, and cast aside the crucifix for the sword, the gun and the firebrand. The Inferno has never yet been portrayed or even outlined. Its name is Priestcraft and Intolerance under the name of “Religion.”

And is this a “Study in Psychology”? Yea, verily! Scientific Psychology is the only thing that goes to the very bottom of it, and defines and classifies every element, every fact in human experience. Man cannot build a home on a piece of ground where a slaughter-house disputes every square yard of ground with the tombstones of a graveyard. Clericalism is ever the one or the other, and frequently both; denying to man the right to build a home for himself anywhere, except by its permission and according to its plans and specifications, fixing the rent and the revenues for all future time.

The Premier of Spain to-day is disputing this prerogative of Rome, and the graveyard has been thrown open. The pity, the marvel of it all is, that the people generally do not seem to care, and call any statement of facts “sensational” or “panicky.”

I am told by some very good people that these references to Popery seem irrelevant, and by others, that they mar the symmetry of my essay.

They are reminded that we are dealing with real and permanent values, and with what man may do and ought to do for himself.

Lying squarely across this upward pathway of man, to be pursued by free choice and personal effort, is the dogma of the Vicarious Atonement and the forgiveness of sin, of which “His Holiness” claims to hold the exclusive agency.

Through appeal to superstition and fear this preposterous and sacrilegious claim to-day, as in all the past, paralyzes the will and discourages the personal efforts of millions of men and women. Between that blind credulity which makes personal effort unnecessary, and the miracle and dogma which make it seem useless, the upward and onward march of man is hindered or annulled, notwithstanding the fact that many men and women lead noble lives who are yet communicants of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant. True, they may, with little thinking, reason and reflection from early education and “lip-service,” give intellectual assent to these dogmas. But the lives they lead and the personal effort put forth prove them “better than their creeds.” They say with the lips, “Christ has forgiven us,” or “Jesus will save us,” and while they are saying these things they go to work saving themselves by “leading the life” through personal effort and experience.

In other words, they “save themselves” in spite of their creeds and superstitions.

It is, therefore, with this exact “measure of values,” that we are dealing; and the necessity and value of these considerations are nowhere so plain to-day, or so imperative, as just here, in the face of these demoralizing dogmas and pretensions of men, who contradict all natural law and steal unblushingly the prerogatives of God, as his “Vicegerent.” The marvel of it is that it excites neither surprise nor protest, but is treated with a smile of good-natured complacency outside its circle of dupes.

He who treats it seriously, as a thing that, more than any other, demoralizes, discourages and paralyzes millions, is regarded as “sensational,” “emotional,” or an “alarmist.”

In the face of all the facts, of which the daily papers are full, and the record of the Vatican crowded, I prefer that my own arraignment shall stand. No one who knows half these facts can dispute or gainsay them. We are making history here to-day, as mankind has had to make it in all the past, in the face of these “Lions in the path” of civilization and progress.

If I must choose between being superficial, ignorant and insincere, or being an “alarmist,” I certainly and unhesitatingly choose to be an alarmist! The strongest ally of Superstition to-day is credulity, or indifference. The average man says, “I do not believe there is any danger”; and if he “spoke his heart” would add, “if there is, I do not care.”

I would only reply, “If you mean to be honest, read, observe, and see.” You may wait too long. Spain and Portugal are just awakening from the priest-ridden lethargy of centuries, and are making history anew. May a just God and all the angels help and protect them.

The great daily newspapers of the country are very conservative wherever Rome is concerned. She is too powerful and her resources too well organized and available to be disregarded.

It is therefore very significant that an editorial in one of the largest and most influential of these papers to-day gives a clear, concise, and impartial epitome of the “Row in Spain,” clearly locating its cause and animus in the Vatican, and showing how unbearable this tyranny and exploitation had become to a large portion of the people of Spain.

I refer to this here for a special purpose, which involves and lies at the foundation of all other issues and considerations. And that is the statement in this editorial, that while the Church of Rome has held practically undisputed sway in Spain for centuries, with immense tracts of land, houses and revenues, independent of civil authority, with 20,000 priests, 5,000 communities with 60,000 inmates in a population of only 20,000,000 of people —Seventy per cent. of the people are entirely uneducated. With every opportunity, plenty of time and almost boundless resources, Rome has kept the people in ignorance, the easier to rob them; determined to own the land, the resources, and the people – body and soul – as the Autocrat of heaven and earth! A slavery in the name of “Religion” found nowhere else on earth to-day.