Superior Index Go to the next: Chapter 29
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The little child is born. His life begins and moves forward. Of what is he composed? Ideas? Whose ideas? His own? God's? The world's? Out of many ideas the outer person comes to be. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"1
Man has many overlords of whom it can be said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."2 These rulers of the deep are built into the consciousness and very existence of the person in such a manner that their influence is both subtle and obvious. For example, the karmic record when it is not benign becomes an opposing force, a threatening god that must be reckoned with. Man sows; he must also reap.3
Although the Karmic Lords seek to bring the best tutoring out of each experience that is karmically leveled against humanity, the fact remains that sometimes the hammer blows of "fate" - which are actually manifestations of cosmic law in operation - do bring to a very low estate (seemingly without purpose) individuals who long to rise. The cry of "Why?" is heard. Yet what is needed is a perspective outside of the self, an objective view of the human person.
Men must behold the outer self from afar so that they can be objective in analyzing the drama of existence. Negative karma should not be an overlord. Man should learn to rule his karma through understanding himself. Obviously it is there, it is a fact. He cannot pass over it entirely, for he created it.
We leave you with this thought for a moment that we might go on to another subject and that is the buildup within the self of a resistance to opposing forces which manifest in society in general and in the world of the individual. In this connection we would also speak of man's desire to control others, of his desire to dominate, of his will to rule even where he is opposed. And we see now that there are gods many and lords many,4 but the man who will truly understand himself must be subject to none of these.
Man is born to rule, but first he must rule himself. He must school his desires and flex the muscles of self-control. If he cannot do this by himself, he has the right to seek divine help. He is not alone. He is a unity in a diversity which itself is held within a unity.
Returning now to the idea of the karmic god in its negative aspects, we would point out that what one cannot change one must learn to live with. And it must be remembered that the intervention of mercy is always a possibility for the soul that would truly serve the cause and in so doing emerge from the entanglements of his karma.
God is always willing and ready to help. The statement of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks"5 reveals the fact that when living truth first manifests to the human consciousness, it may seem to be a hard thing and the way difficult. All of the forces of the universe seem to oppose the life of the Divine Manchild. It is as though the Herods of the world were sending out soldiers to slaughter the innocent young Christs emerging within the dense domain of the person.
Yet the struggles against karma must not be permitted to overcome the self nor to make the self bitter as those individuals driven into the wilderness of self -consciousness who, feeling the pangs of inferiority, seek to flagellate the world, to lash out and overcome in an earthly way those "opponents" of their very existence. We are reminded of the words "All is vanity and vexation of spirit."6 But such is not the purpose of life. Man must truly know himself - not as a karmic record, but as a divine being.
We come, then, to the god of opposition. The world seems to contain within itself the very seeds of opposition to the achievement of any good thing. All who rise are opposed, and we sometimes ask ourselves if opposition itself is not the goad that engenders strength for attainment. Yet man must not become subject to an overpowering sense of the opposition of the world. These towering gods must be dethroned not by human reason but by holy reason and by a purified intelligence. If the surface of the idol be rough, then that rough surface will provide a foothold for the climb.
And of the desire to dominate others, this must be recognized as one of the most dangerous of all diseases of the ego. Only by the wings of true selfhood can man actually attain, and when he does so he becomes a power of good example in the universe which all may follow. As the Master Jesus so lovingly said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."7 As the soul rises toward God it becomes a luminary that inspires other lives to see his star, to be his star, to ingest light, to be possessed by light, to be light, to exalt, and to be exalted. This is ascended master God-control which mobilizes the good in all life through the individual who has attained self-mastery.
How man trembles on the brink of self-destruction. Indeed, how he trembles on the brink of self-exaltation! The little children of God must learn to fear not, for the natural steps to universal attainment unfold within the domain of the inner Self. It is but the outer self that trembles, as has been said, "the devils also believe, and tremble."8 Yet man is not a devil (deified evil); he was made a little lower than the angels and when he is found to be an overcomer he shall be crowned with more glory and honor.9
The self must be discovered. If a man lose his life for "my sake," the fact that he shall find it again10 must be realized by him as eternal truth which cannot be gainsaid. He is not the little person that he seems to be. He is the great Person (the pure son) that God made him to be. But the overlay - the patine of mud, of human filth, of degradation and dust that covers the earth - must be removed by the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, by the washing of the water by the living Word11 that makes all things real.
Then upon the altar stone, the foundation of truth and reality, he must rebuild the city of perfection which is cast down. In his search for the real, man can, if he wishes, explore the world of the unreal. But merely to understand what is not real will not of necessity bring him a sense of that which is real. God seems far away to some, but when they draw nigh unto him and he does draw nigh unto them12 the comfort of the Holy Spirit manifests in the joy of discovery.
Religion has been dangled before men as a panacea for all of their ills. It is not formal religion that is the answer, but the reality of God who originally clothed man with innocence. This purity that is the identity of the real man must be put on once again even as the old man with his deceit and shame is put off.13 This is not merely a matter of sect or philosophy; it is more than that. It is the living actualization of truth and being - being that refuses to accept the mold of complacency, of degeneracy, of death, that recognizes that the last enemy of death14 shall be overcome together with all of the lesser enemies that seek to destroy the reality of the person.
The false realities must go, they must be overcome, they must be recognized for what they are - enemies of the real Person. Not only do these lie in wait without to waste away the substance of the soul, but also they lie within the domain of the individual consciousness. That discord which is without is drawn to the self because reason has already been dethroned within and man lives in ignorance of his great commission.
As he returns to reason, as he begins the process of rediscovering himself, much of the sense of struggle disappears and experience is seen as the turning of the pages in a great book of known reality. Rise he must; but the how, why, and when is not always answered to one's satisfaction. The great universal magnet - through the hungers of the soul and its subtle belief in reality, by its inward majesty - appeals to the being that lives within this shroud of human personality.
Truly the words "Man, know thyself"15 lead him onward and upward into the light.
- Radiantly, I AM your elder brother,