17. The Glorious Conquest Truth can only be apprehended by the conquest of self. Blessedness can only be arrived at by overcoming the lower nature.
The way of Truth is barred by a man's self. The only enemies that can actually hinder him are his own passions and delusions. Until a man realises this, and commences to cleanse his heart, he has not found the Path which leads to knowledge and peace.
Until passion is transcended, Truth remains unknown. This is the Divine Law. A man cannot keep his passions and have Truth as well.
Error is not slain until selfishness is dead.
The overcoming of self is no mystical theory, but a very real and practical thing.
It is a process which must be pursued daily and hourly, with unswerving faith and undaunted resolution if any measure of success is to be achieved.
The process is one of orderly growth, having its sequential stages, like the growth of a tree; and as fruit can only be produced by carefully and patiently training the tree even so the pure and satisfying fruits of holiness can only be obtained by faithfully and patiently training the mind in the growth of right thought and conduct.
There are five steps in the overcoming of passion (which includes all bad habits and particular forms of wrong-doing) which I will call: 1. Repression 2. Endurance 3. Elimination 4. Understanding 5. Victory When men fail to overcome their sins, it is because they try to begin at the wrong end. They want to have the stage of Victory without passing through the previous four stages. They are in the position of a gardener who wants to produce good fruit without training and attending to his trees.
Repression consists in checking and controlling the wrong act (such as an outburst of temper, a hasty or unkind word, a selfish indulgence etc. ), and not allowing it to take actual form. This is equivalent to the gardener nipping off the useless buds and branches from his tree. It is a necessary process, but a painful one. The tree bleeds while undergoing the process, and the gardener knows that it must not be taxed too severely. The heart also bleeds when it refuses to return passion for passion, when it ceases to defend and justify itself. It is the process of “mortifying the members” of which St. Paul speaks.
But this repression is only the beginning of self-conquest. When it is made an end in itself, and there is no object of finally purifying the heart, that is a stage of hypocrisy; a hiding of one's true nature, and striving to appear better in the eyes of others than one really is. In that case it is an evil, but when adopted as the first stage toward complete purification, it is good. Its practice leads to the second stage of Endurance , or forbearance, in which one silently endures the pain which arises in the mind when it is brought in contact with certain actions and attitudes of other minds toward one. As success is attained in this stage, the striver comes to see that all his pain actually arises in his own weaknesses, and not in the wrong attitudes of others toward him, these latter being merely the means by which his sins are brought to the surface and revealed to him. He thus gradually exonerates all others from blame in his falls and lapses of conduct, and accuses only himself, and so learns to love those who thus unconsciously reveal to him his sins and shortcomings.
Having passed through these two stages of self-crucifixion, the disciple enters the third, that of Elimination , in which the wrong thought which lay behind the wrong act is cast from the mind immediately it appears. At this stage, conscious strength and holy joy begin to take the place of pain, and the mind having become comparatively calm, the striver is enabled to gain a deeper insight into the complexities of his mind, and thus to understand the inception, growth, and outworking of sin. This is the stage of Understanding .
Perfection in understanding leads to the final conquest of self, a conquest so complete that the sin can no more rise in the mind even as a thought or impression; for when the knowledge of sin is complete; when it is known in its totality, from its inception as a seed in the mind to its ripened outgrowth as act and consequence, then it can no more be allowed a place in life, but it is abandoned for ever. Then the mind is at peace. The wrong acts of others no longer arouse wrong and pain in the mind of the disciple. He is glad and calm and wise. He is filled with Love, and blessedness abides with him. And this is Victory !
18. Contentment in Activity The confounding of a positive spiritual virtue or principle with a negative animal vice is common amongst writers even of what is called the “Advance Thought School,” and much valuable energy is frequently expended in criticising and condemning, where a little calm reasoning would have revealed a greater light, and led to the exercise of a broader charity. The other day I came across a vigorous attack upon the teaching of “Love,” wherein the writer condemned such teaching as weakly, foolish, and hypocritical. Needless to say, that which he was condemning as “Love,” was merely weak sentimentality and hypocrisy.
Another writer in condemning “meekness” does not know that what he calls meekness is only cowardice, while another who attacks “chastity” as “a snare,” is really confusing painful and hypocritical restraint with the virtue of chastity. And just lately I received a long letter from a correspondent who took great pains to show me that “contentment” is a vice, and is the source of innumerable evils.
That which my correspondent called “contentment” is, of course animal indifference . The spirit of indifference is incompatible with progress, whereas the spirit of contentment may, and does, attend the highest form of activity, the truest advancement and development. Indolence is the twin sister of indifference, but cheerful and ready action is the friend of contentment.
Contentment is a virtue which becomes lofty and spiritual in its later developments, as the mind is trained to perceive and the heart to receive the guidance, in all things, of a merciful law.
To be contented does not mean to forego effort; it means to free effort from anxiety ; it does not mean to be satisfied with sin and ignorance and folly, but to rest happily in duty done, work accomplished.
A man may be said to be content to lead a grovelling life, to remain in sin and in debt, but such a man's true state is one of indifference to his duty, his obligations, and the just claims of his fellow-men. He cannot truly be said to possess the virtue of contentment; he does not experience the pure and abiding joy which is the accompaniment of active contentment; so far as his true nature is concerned he is a sleeping soul, and sooner or later will be awakened by intense suffering, having passed through which he will find that true contentment which is the outcome of honest effort and true living.
There are three things with which a man should be content: 1. With whatever happens. 2. With his friendships and possessions. 3. With his pure thoughts.
Contented with whatever happens, he will escape grief; with his friends and possessions, he will avoid anxiety and wretchedness; and with his pure thoughts, he will never go back to suffer and grovel in impurities.
There are three things with which a man should not be content: 1. With his opinions. 2. With his character. 3. With his spiritual condition.
Not content with his opinions, he will continually increase in intelligence; not content with his character, he will ceaselessly grow in strength and virtue; and not content with his spiritual condition, he will, everyday, enter into a larger wisdom and fuller blessedness. In a word, a man should be contented, but not indifferent to his development as a responsible and spiritual being.
The truly contented man works energetically and faithfully, and accepts all results with an untroubled spirit, trusting, at first, that all is well, but afterwards, with the growth of enlightenment, knowing that results exactly correspond with efforts. Whatsoever material possessions come to him, come not by greed and anxiety and strife, but by right thought, wise action, and pure exertion.
