The duality of man's nature.

 There is a great discovery which each must make for himself:  that human nature is dual and that a battle is ever going on between the higher self and the lower, the angle and the demon in man.  When the higher immortal, part dominates, there is knowledge and there peace.  When the lower rules, all the dark despairing elements of human life rush in upon the unguarded soul. 

Man, in his inner nature, is a being with a divine inheritance and immeasurable possibility of things should evolution.  

This is a strange duality, and how do human weaknesses creep in?  First of all we turn the key of selfishness in some closed door of nature; then, before we know it, the door is open and in walks a stranger, an obsessive, potent force of evil, often, with power enough to destroy the very being.  No lens has as yet been made that can show you what this is, but it nevertheless exists.  

And the door of selfish desire once ajar, the incoming stranger is welcomed, entertained, permitted to enjoy the bounty of the intellectual life, where only higher and splendid things should be, 

This door may be open in any of us, but know that it can never be shut, until our feet are planted on the eternal rock of knowledge and of trust, until we have the power-- and absolutely know that we have it- shut out the faintest tinge or touch or thought or vibration of anything that would mar the purity of that inner realm of mind that the soul works in and through. 

In the name of justice and of karma I say;  Woe be unto those who willfully entertain such visitors as these!  Woe be unto those who dare to desecrate their own mind or touch the mind of another with anything but the loftiest, the noblest, the purest and the best.  

Once the duality of human nature is admitted by science, our asylums will become great schools of study from which a deeper understanding and a larger compassion shall come.  For without a study of the self in its duality, disorders cannot be understand.  A volume could be written b this one line alone, and the half not then be told.

How wonderfully farseeing was that old teacher of  by gone days who left us this injunction:  Man, know thyself!  That is the key to the whole situation.  Let man take the first step boldly in honest self-examination, with a daring that stops before nothing that may impede his path, and he will find soon that he has found the key to wisdom and to the the power which redeems.  Discovered through his own efforts , by the law of self-directed evolution, this key will open before him the chambers of the self.  

For when a man has the courage to analyze himself-his purposes, his motives, his very life; when he dares to compare the wrong things in his life with the right ones, in the spirit of a love for humanity sufficient to make him willing to lay down his life for it if need be, he will find the secret of living.  This is what I mean when I say we are ever being challenged----challenged by the better side of our natures to stand face to face with ourselves, to reach out it recognition to the within. For this divinity, this knower, this spiritual companion is ever pleading to be listened to, ever waiting to be recognized, every ready to help and serve that may bring the whole nature of man to its standard of godlike perfection. 

These two forces: the physical dominated by the spiritual treasures of truth and inspiration from the highest self, these two, working together, will bring results that are unbelievable.  Nor will it take all eternity to bring about these things.  The very atoms of our body can be touched by the fire of divine life and bought into harmony with the mind and soul, controlled as the master musician controlled controls his instrument by the higher self.  

For life is light and light is life, and the Christos-spirit is in everything in degree.  Could we sit at the feet of the Law like little children, could we free our minds from misconception and learn from nature and listen to the Christos-voice within, what revelations would come to us!  We should then be able to say: this is immortal and that is mortal; this belongs to the animal nature of man, and that to the spiritual.  The power to do this is the power that we need, arousing us from the dead, so two speak, and bringing to us light and illumination.            

   

                    Thank You Katherine Tingley.  One truth many paths.  Be good, do good.

                                                              Louis DiVirgilio

  

      

Open the door of silence.

It is in the silence that we shall find the key, if we choose to search for it, that will open books of revelation in our natures.  We shall find there a strength that has never been ours before and never could be until we sought this path. We shall find there the peace that passeth understanding.  It may not come in a moment, nor in accord with puny wishes and desires, but if the motive is unselfish, it will come.  It steals into the life, into the heart and mind, like the grandest symphonies in music.  It carries you above and out of and beyond your difficulties and your trails, and prepares you for the real life.  The silence!  The one touch of silent prayer!  

When a man in silence becomes conscious of his own divine nature, he realizes if only for a moment that he is different from what he seems; he begins to feel that he is a god; he begins to let the imagination pulse through his heart, telling him of mighty things beyond comprehension, to feel something of his few words to humanity.  

Discipline comes in many ways, and without the help of books, many may yet find his own inner power, being no longer a mere potentiality.  He will dig into the depths of his being that he may find wisdom.  He will discover within himself a new quality if intuition and, at last, when touched by the 'feel' of this diviner life, the one of power of self-discipline will come to him, and he can stand and say: I know.  The more we are united in the silence, in the attempt at self-purification, the nearer we are to the light.

Never can we lose sight of the light, never of our obligations or our divinity, if we are to realize the sacredness of our calling.  There is so much in these few words: the sacredness of one's calling!  There is something growing in our hearts and in our daily lives that cannot be described, that can only be felt.  But once felt, deeply, profoundly, we are then moving along the true path.  We are rarefying the air; we are sanctifying life. 

Let us not forget that we are working together for the purpose of severing humanity and bringing to it the knowledge that it needs; that this is not a commercial effort, nor simply an ordinary educational effort, but that it is a spiritual effort in the highest sense; and for that reason we must be spiritually endowed with those qualities that make for true nobility.

"There is no idleness for the Mystic. He finds his daily life among the roughest and hardest of the labors and trails of the world perhaps, but goes his way with smiling face and joyful heart, nor grows too sensitive for association with his fellows, nor so extremely spiritual as to forget that an other body is perhaps hungering for food."

For we are one in essence; there is the interblending of forces so delicate, so subtle, that they cannot be perceived on this plane, yet they are ever at work, making or marring the destiny of a soul.

There is self-destruction, even on physical lines, in carrying an atmosphere of wrong thought. We have it in our power not only to build our bodies into health, but to retain that very much longer than, the allotted threescore years and ten.  I hold it a duty to work towards this end, by right thinking and thoughtful living.  Moreover, in such an effort, if it is made unselfishly, we can positively temper our bodies, much as metal can be tempered, so that they are unaffected by things that would put a strain upon them ordinarily.  

You must take time for self-analysis.  There must be time for calm, reflective attitude of mind.  Study the conditions surrounding you, the motives that actuate you in this effort or work, and determine with absolute honesty whether  they are selfish, unselfish, or mixed.  This will be an up lifting, a clarifying process, for the conscience is at work.  It is a confession, really, to the higher self, the divinity within you.

You invoke in such an effort the magic power latent in the silences of live.  False ideas are gradually eliminated under a process, and true ones find their way in.  Things once deemed necessary to the personal life becomes no loner so; and in thus moving out into a larger field of thought and aspiration you move towards self-adjustment.  

In such thought you eliminate your weaknesses, and you learn also one great truth, a truth accentuated by the Nazarene: that you cannot serve two masters.  You cannot move in opposite direction at one and the same time; you cannot ride two horses at the same time; and those who try it are certain to find themselves, sooner or later, arriving no where and more than likely trampled under the feet of both. 

Think on these things in the silence; and remember that when a selfish or personal thought creeps in during  silence, the door is shut and the light cannot find its place; the soul is barred, and the day will bring little to you that will satisfy the bitter side of your nature.

In the true condition of mind and heart there arises a sweet peace, which does not descends upon us from above, for we are in the midst of it,  it is not like the sunshine, for no transitory clouds obscure        its rays, but it is permanent and ever-abiding through all the days and years.  Nothing can move us when this condition is reached.

We have but to take the first step in the true spirit of brotherliness, and all other steps will follow in natural sequence.  We have to be warriors and fight the old fight unceasingly. but leagued, with us in this ancient are all the hosts  behind man, back of all things old fight unceasingly, but leagued with us in this ancient fight are all the hosts of light.  Behind man, back of all things, broods the eternal spirit of compassion.

Humanity has long wandered though the dark valley of bitter experiences; but the mountains heights are again seen, suffused with the glow of dawn and shown to that realm where the gods abide.  

See the gates of life and peace standing open before you, if you have but faith and trust to enter in.  But none can enter alone; each must bring with him the sad and sorrowing.  None can cross the threshold alone, but must help to bear the burdened of the overburdened, must aid the feeble steps of those who are discourage, must support those who are bowed down with sin and despair; and as he sends out the radiation of the of that joy and strength which he receives from his own aspirations and devotion to the higher self, joy and strength and power shall enter into the lives of these others, and together they shall pass through into Life.   

                 Think you Katherine Tingley  "One path, many ways."  Be good, do good.

     

          "Oh thou golden sun of most excellent splendor, illuminate our hearts and fill our minds, so that we, recognize our oneness with the Divinity which is the heart of the Universe, may we see the pathway before our feet, and spread it to those distant, goals of perfection, stimulated by thy radiant light."   

                                                                  Louis DiVirgilio

  

           

The average man and woman seems to have lost their sense of moral responsibility.

 If men and woman could realize what is going to happen to them after death, it would awaken a certain sense of a needed renewable behavior of a responsible kind.  Let us try to restore to mankind the teaching of the ancient wisdom: "as you live so will you be after you die."  It is a simple teaching and it is so logical, it brings massive appeal. So let us try to restore to mankind the wisdom of the ancients, it is a simple teaching and it is so logical, it brings with it great appeal: "it goes, as you live so will you be after you die." 

If you want to understand what happens to you after death you must just study your self now, and you will know what you are going to get.  You are going to get a continuation of precisely what now you are. If a man indulges in vice, what is going to happen to him?  He reaps the consequences of his evildoing.  He learns by it the lessons that come out of his suffering.  If a man fills his mind with gross thoughts and evil dreams, he learns by it in the long run through suffering, for the effects and  consequences on his mind and character will ensue.  He suffers, he is in torture, he pays the penalty, he has poisoned his inner system and he won't have peace until the poison has worked itself out, until he has become what is called re-formed, or re-shaped.  Then he will have peace again; he will be able to sleep in peace again. 

Your dreams are from your own mind, and therefore are apart of your own consciousness.  A man during his waking hours has evil dreams, evil thoughts; when he sleeps he has nightmares.  He learns by them when he sleeps; he certainly is not going to have a heaven of dreams because he has filled his mind with horrid, hateful, mean, degrading thoughts.  He has not yet built the substances of heaven.

There is an important spiritual component throughout the universe that is being over looked.  It is a state of consciousness which man encounters after death because man himself has made during his life time to have that kind of consciousness.  It is called: "kama-loka;"  and there is a coordinate state called: "devachan."  Kama loka and devachan are attached via the universe, and are the overseers of directing the value of the contact of man's actions, either for the suffering they bring or their peace full dreams. It works itself out, and then a man rises or sinks into whatever is his destiny: a weak devachan, or no devachan at all, according to the individual. In other words if he has made of himself a character which is X, he will have that character, what ever it is, after death.   He won't have character Y, or Z or A, or B.  Contrariwise, a man who during life has kept himself in hand, has controlled himself, has lived manly, experienced the same law precisely: then after the death state will be unconscious in the kara-loka, or very nearly so, because evil has no kama-loka biases in himself; probably there will a blissful devachan.  

Suppose a man has no marked character at all, is neither particularly good nor particularly bad.  What kind of after-death states is he going to have?  He will have a colorless kama-loka nothing particularly bad; and he will have a colorless devachan, nothing particularly bad. What kind of after death states is he going to have?  He will have a colorless kama-loka, nothing particularly bad; and he will have a colorless devachan nothing particularly beautiful or blissful.  It will be like a sort of vague, intangible dream.  It doesn't amount to much, and consequently he won't amount to mush, after he dies.

Or take the case of a young man of evil ways who reforms, let us say, at about middle age, and spends the rest of his life in deeds, of virtue, of self-improvement.  What will his fate in the worlds to come? As stated, the kama-loka and the devachan are simply a continuation of what the man is when he dies.  So consequently an evil young man becoming a good old man has practically no kama-loka of an unpleasant kind at all.  He will have to pay to the uttermost farthing for any evil he did as a youth---but in his future life; his evil deeds are only thought-deposits.  But as he reformed at about middle age, and lived a clean decent life thereafter, his kama-loka will be very slight because it will be simply a continuation of what he was when he died, and the devachan will be in accordance likewise.  And here is another very important deduction we should draw from this fact; if we have kama-loka while embodied men and women, we shall have it after death; and precisely according to the same law, because we have spiritual yearlings, dreams of a spiritual type or character while embodied, we shall have the devachan after death.  To repeat, the kama-loka is a prorogated or continuation, until it is worked out, of what you have been through in your life.  If you set your thought and mind and heart on things which bring you pain, which make you suffer because you are selfish, and stiff-necked in pride and egoism, you will assuredly continue the same bending of consciousness after  death.  It cannot be otherwise.  It is simply you. Therefore, the devachan and the kama-loka are prolongations or continuations of the same states of consciousness respectively that you have gone through on earth, with this difference: that being out of body, which is at once a blind and a shield of protection, you are, as it were-thought, naked thought.  And if your thought has been during life on things of horror, or if you have allowed your thought to bend in those directions while embodied you won't be washed free of stain merely because you have cast off the body.  Your thought, which is yourself, will continue and you will have to pass through kama-loka and exhaust that phase of thought.  It will have to die out as a fire will burn itself out.  

Similarly, indeed exactly: if in life you have had beautiful, grand thoughts, you will assuredly have the same in the devachan, but a thousand fold stronger because no longer smothered by the body you have cast off.  

So if you want to know what your destiny will be after death, just study you self now and take waning.  There is a very important and pertinent lesson that we can learn from this fact, just in that. You can make your postmortem condition what you will it to be now, before it is to late.  Nothing in the universe can prevent the bliss of devachan coming to you, or rather your making it for yourself.  

There you have the teaching of kama-loka.  There you have the teaching of devachan.  It is very simple.  All the intricate, abstract questions arise largely in failing to understand the elementary principles of the teaching.  When you lien down you dream, or you are unconscious. When you die you dream, you are unconscious.  You have, when you lie down at night, evil dreams or good dreams, or you are unconscious. When you die you will have evil dreams or beautiful dreams or you will be unconscious--all depending upon the individual and the life you have had.  So the kama-loka and the devachan, and indeed the avich, are not things that are going suddenly to happen to you; but because your consciousness has been that way while embodied, they, one or the other , will continue after you die. 

You see now the importance of ethics, and why all great sages, seers through out time have tried to teach men to spiritualize and refine their thoughts, to live in the heart-life, to cast out the things which are wrong and evil. The devachan is not waiting for you; the kama-loka is not waiting for you---I mean as absolute conditions now separate from you.  If you had them in life, you will have them you will have them after death.  The man who has had no thought of hatred or horror or detestation or venom toward another, in other words whose heart and mind have never been nests of evil, will have neither an avichi in life nor after death, nor an unhappy kama-loka in life or after death.  He will have an exquisite devachan, and will come back refreshed and vigorous and strong and renewed to begin a new life with everything to begin a new life and with everything in his favor.     

 After death you continue to be precisely what you are when you die.  There is the whole thing.  There is the secret of the kama--loka and the devachan and of all the intermediate states of bardo, as the Tibetans call it.  All the rest is detail, and that is why I keep emphasizing in my public lectures and in my writings that death is but a sleep.  Death is a perfect sleep and sleep an imperfect death.  It is literally so.  When you sleep you are partly dead.  When you die, you are absolutely asleep.  If you grasp these simple ideas you will have the whole teaching on your thumbnail, a thumbnail picture.  Now another point: I have  heard people say that they don't want to remain in devachan, it is a was of time.  This is a misunderstanding.  You might as well say, I don't want to have sleep tonight, it is a waste of time.  As a matter of fact, you need the rest, recuperation, assimilation of the experiences of the past.  You are strengthened by it, you grow by it.  So by building, for reoccupation, for assimilation, for inner digestion, for strengthening, an is just as mush needed as a night's rest is for the body.

There will come time in human evolution when even the devachan is no longer required, because the man has learned to live in the higher part of his being.  Devachan, however beautiful, is an illusion.  The time will come in the future when men will no longer have to sleep at night;  they won't require it.  They will have different kinds of bodies and thus learn to do without the devachan, and will reincarnate almost immediately in order to help mankind---which is the thing they love most of all---and all other beings.  These men are what we call masters, in all their grades.  But for us ordinary human beings the devachan is a necessary episode.  

The devachan, however, while a beautiful experience of the consciousness, is an experience of the higher personal consciousness, the higher part of us human egos, the higher part of the personal man, its aroma, so to speak.  In this fact lies the training bringing about the shortening of devachan.  If you learn to live outside of the personality and in the Eternal, while you are embodied, if it becomes habitual with you, your devachan will be correspondingly shortened because you won't want it. You won't need it.  The bent of your mind is not in selfish beatific satisfaction of the soul. That is what the devachan is, a fools paradise.  When compared with reality, it is an illusion. But because men and women strain for those things and suffer to attain them, the devachan in nature's infinite pity becomes the time when they have it, the resting, relaxing time, the time of recuperation, digestion, assimilation.  As we grow, as the ages pass, in future ages we won't long so desperately to have these beatific satisfactions of the soul.  We shall find our happiness in impersonal attachments to things of beauty, things which belong to higher spiritual man, and not to hungry human soul. 

Rise out of the personality so that you learn to use it as a willing, acquiescent instrument, and live in the spiritual part of you, which means impersonally; live universally so that you are not swayed by your own hunger for the things that please and help and rest you;  but live in the spiritual, in the universal, and all these other things will be added unto you.

                    Thank you G.D.P.    One truth, many paths.  Be good, do good.  

                                                    Louis DiVirgilio

  

  

Until you discover the power within, you cannot serve the light of the world's mirror on you.

Restriction is the great keynote of effort at the present time, of new things, new light, and very great help, if we invoke it.  The reconstruction of humanity!  How shall we set about it!  The first step, I, hold, is to declare to man; You are divine! There is in your soul life , and if you will to bring out that life it will reveal to you truth; it will make clear every step that you take. Greatest of all it will reveal to you your duty; it will make clear every step that you take.  For humanity at present is working largely on mistaken lines of duty.  

Duty is misunderstood, as are justice and equity.  Yet if we could free ourselves from the limitations of preconceived ideas---ideas that are literally riveted into the mind----we could move out into the free air of harmonious thought and action, and would know what duty is.  The things we believe in yesterday we should believe in longer; the false gods we have worshiped in our home life and the life of the nation, would vanish in the new light.  

For the light is only waiting to be perceived.  You need not go to India, nor wait for the touch of a swami's hand, in order to find the light.  You can find it for yourselves, although since all have evolved different environments, under different conditions, and up to different points of view of understanding, one cannot say when or how.  To establish a set rule for reformation would therefore be unwise.  This we do know, however, that with the motive pure and the soul ever urging one upward, one moves forward naturally on lines of simple duty, and thus into the light of the higher nature and of truth.  

This need not remain the age of darkness, nor need you wait until another age arrives before you can work at your best.  It is only an age of darkness for those who cannot see light, for the light itself has never faded and never will.  It is yours if you will turn to it, live in it; yours today, this hour even, if you will hear what said with ears that understand.  

Arise then, fear nothing, and taking that which is your own and all men's, abide with it in peace for evermore!

Wisdom comes not from the multiplication of spoken or written instructions; what you have is enough to last you a thousand years.  Wisdom comes from the performance of duty, and in silence, and only the silence expresses it. 

 Let us bring into life as an active, potent factor that knowledge which is not to be purchased, for it is only to be won by the surrender of the lower nature---the passionate, the selfish, the lustful nature---to the Christos-spirit, the god within. Then let us call forth this inner, divine self, that it may illuminate the mind and bring man to the heights of spiritual discernment, to knowledge of the higher self.

We shall never possess the courage that rightfully belongs to man as part of the divine law, until we know that we are souls, until we have opened new doors of experience in our lives, interpreting life according to this law and there higher knowledge of our being. 

When with great effort a man has clarified his nature, when he can say: Get thee behind me, Satan!--then has he entered the path of self-developed.  Though his lower nature may meet him at every turn of the path, never can he fail if his purpose is pure.  The godlike qualities of his nature are disciplining him, because he has said: It shall be so.   

Greater than all Christ knew was the divine compassion that he felt;  and it must have been when on the heights, sounding the harmonies of the soul in his compassion for humanity, that he looked into the future, beheld the divine possibilities of those who were to come, and said;  Greater things than these shall ye do.

The mentality of man will never be fully developed until he has made his own the enlightenment that comes that from the soul-knowledge.  And yet each holds this rare possession within his heart has heart of hearts.  It belongs to all men ; they have but to claim their own. 

                   Thank's Katherine Tingley.  One truth many paths.  Be, good, do good,

                                                            Louis DiVirgilio

 

Music is the song of the soul.

Music is one of the cornerstones of true education.  The world has not yet awakened to its value as a factor in refining and purifying the character, especially during the early and more plastic years of life.  Man is essentially a creator, and he can be considered in no other way.  It brings the soul into action, ennobles the nature, frees the mind and inspires, so that naturally it finds expression, directly and indirectly, in both art and music.

There is an immense correspondence between music on the one hand, and thought and aspiration on the other, and only that deserves the name of music to which then the noblest and purest aspirations are responsive.  One who really desires to understand the soul of things is ever careful in the selection of music, ever heedful as to what notes are sounded in the hearts of men, lest some harm be done instead of good.

There is a science of consciousness, and into that science music can enter more largely than is usually supposed.  A knowledge of the laws of life can be neither profound nor wide which thus neglects one of the most effective of all forces.  

Let us bring our children, therefore, close to the refining influences of the best in art and music.  In doing so, however, let us realize that the power of beautiful expression in these things is not an affair of the intellect alone, or of custom or convention. Nor can it be learned from books.  It comes from the awaking of the inner powers of the soul, Those qualities of nature which are in sympathy with whatever is high and pure.

Music is the song of he soul, and well we know that it has not yet fulfilled its function.  Had I had the millions that are yearly given out to charity, my first work after I had fed the hungry and clothed the naked, would be to give such help to the families of the poor as would lead to the establishment of a musical life in even the humblest household. For when the soul is stirred by music, when we feel ourselves within reach of the higher ideals of life, then we  find the light.  Do you not know how deeply we can be moved even by the old church hymns, in spite of the old-fashioned theology that pervades.

Music!  What a wonderful power lies in it to swing us out into the universal life!  To realize its power is to realize that when self is forgotten, when personalities disappear, we are free---out in the open air of thought and love and the higher purposes.  And yet even the best that we have today, is but a  materialistic expression in comparison with what it will be.  Everything in music is so imperfect as yet: we are but touching the fringe of the real harmony. 

If we could hold ourselves in the attitude of mind that is created when true music touches us;  we could bind and fasten ourselves to the larger views it opens out and broaden our comprehension of what life really means, we could tear down the veil that divides the seen from the unseen, the seeming from the real; we could look at life as it really is, at ourselves as we really are.

I have always believed that music should be a power among the masses; that the god of music should  rule every household, and that the little children, indeed the whole family, should give as much attention to music as to other duties in life.  If that were only the case, what a beautiful world this would be!  Were we only taught the simple, fundamental laws of music we could throw ourselves upon soul-resources when under the shadow of sorrows and trails of life, and sing ourselves once more into harmony and usefulness, into the light and joy of life.

                       Thank you Katherine Tingley.  One truth, many paths.  Be good, do good.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Louis DiVirgilio                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

Altruism

Human nature is so prone when hearing or reading about altruism to imagine that it is something foreign to us, lugged into human life as a most desirable thing to follow, but, after all, highly impractical----that it is not inherent in the characteristics of human beings to be altruistic.  In other words, they are all fascinated with the idea of isolated self-interest. Is not this supposition utterly unfounded in nature?  For wherever we look, whatever we consider or study, we find that the indvidual working alone for himself is helpless?  In all the great kingdoms of the universe, it is union of effort, cooperation in living combines, is which is not only what nature herself is working to bring about and therefore which we find everywhere, but that anything that runs counter to this fundamental law of the universe---unity in action---produces disharmony, strife, and what in our own bodies we call disease. Health is that condition of bodily structure where all parts work to a common end in what we my call friendship, union.

What is civilization but the combined efforts of human beings to produce great and noble effects in human life; increasing, comfort dispelling danger, bringing about the productions of genius from greater men which rebound to our comfort and use.  Show me a single instance where pure self-interest has produced anything.  If we consult nature in all her kingdoms, we find naught but a community of working brought about by multitudes of individuals cooperating to a common end.  And what is that but altruism?  Altruism is the word we give to this fact when we see its ethical significance, and its significance is in no wise, nor in any great way nor in any small, different from what we see in the world physical.  Altruism means the one working for all----nature's fundamental law in all her grand structures----and all standing as guard and shield and field of effort of the one.  Think of the deep moral lesson, the deduction to be drawn from this greatest of universe's----not mysteries but verities; so common around us that usually we pass it by unseeing, with unseeing eye.  Show me anything that can endure soly and alone for a single instant of time.  

Any single entity essaying to follow the very noble path of isolated self-interest sets its or his puny will  against the force which keeps the stars in their courses, gives health to our bodies, brings about  civilization, and produce's all the wonders that are around us.  

There is a point of teaching in this connection which it is important to introduce into the world today, and that is hope.  You probably know the old Greek story about a certain very curious and inquisitive person who opened a box and all the evils in the world fled out, and there remained only hope.  I think this contains a great deal of truth which indicates a practical bearing on life's problems.  As long as a man has hope he does not despair.  Weak or strong, it matters not; if he has hope, something to look forward to, if his inner spirit, the spiritual being within him, teaches him something of hope, he not only will never despair, but he will become a builder, a constructor, a worker with the universe, because he will move forwards.  And this is altruism.

We are all children of the universe, of its physical side and of its spiritual and divine side.  This being so, there is in every human breast an undying front not only of inspiration, but likewise of growth, of hope, of wisdom, and of love. So that world today, although apparently in parlous condition, in a desperate state, still contains in it men and women enough to carry the evolutionary wave of progress over its present turmoil and strife; for the majority of mankind are essentially right in their instincts, especially the higher instincts. 

Therefore, I do not see anything horribly hopeless about the world's condition today.  I believe not only that there is ground for hope, but that the undying spark of spirituality, of wisdom, and love of altruism, always living in the human heart, will carry the human race not only of its present series of impasses, of difficulties, but into brighter days, which will be brighter because wiser and gentler.  It is not the crises, when things crash or seem to crash; it is not the horrific noise of the thunder or the crash of its bolt, which govern the great functions of life, human and cosmic; but those slow, to us, always quiet, unending silent processes which build; build when we wake, build when we sleep, build all the time; and even in the human race carry it through folly after folly into the future.  

There is the ground of our hope; and its seems to me that all good men and true should rally to the defense of these primal, simple verities which every human heart, adult or child, can understand.  I believe it is about time that men and women began to look at the bright side of things, to see hope around us, to forget themselves and there petty worries, and to live in the Infinite and in the Eternal.  It is easy, infinitely easier than making ourselves continuously sick with frets and worries'.  With each one of us there is something divine to which we can cling, and which will carry us through. 

Altruism is not something foreign or exotic, it is the only thing that lives, and which endures.  When any single element or part in a human body begins to run on its own, we have disease.  When any single element or part in any structural combine which helps to compose the world around us begins to run on its own, i. e., what we call self-interest, there we see degeneration and decay. 

Deduction and question: which of the twine should we follow---the pathway of the cosmic intelligence bringing us health inner and outer, peace inner and outer, strength internal and external, union inner and outer?  Or the teaching of tawdry and isolated self-interest which seek its own to the prejudice of all?

Is it not high time that we give the world a few of the simple inner teachings of the god-wisdom of the  ancients?  Will you show me more sublime, more appealing to human intellect and to the dictates of human conscience, than that of altruism, which puts us in intimate union with the throbbing of the cosmic heart, and which idea, if we can pass it over into the minds of men, will than justify all the work that the great masters of wisdom have been doing for mankind since time immemorial?  Ethics above all!    

                               Thanks G.D.P One truth, many paths.  Do good, be good.  

                                                            Louis DiVirgilio

 

 

Mind, Body, Spirit.

Mind, body, spirit, so the argument rages, which has the importance on this evolving stage ?  Some say, "mind superior."  Its an accumulation of total directing mass, computerized for life's tasks. Think in an impulse or two, and that heavy bear acts the fool, like a puppet on a string, the mind controls how and where the brute sings. In a world of abstract dimension what need ye of lumbering intervention?

The spirit hypocritically apes the body, whatever alias or delight the swollen oft, vibrates the soul's song. Valuation then should follow, the mind surpasses the other two classes. 

Others contend, that spirit's the end.  Its the source that drives the body to a friend, That compels the mind to bend.  Spirit sores with the Muses, sponges their art, and drips its nectar out like juices.  Marvel the painter's form sublime.  Marvel the minister's words touch time. Marvel the scientist's un-complicated find.  Spirit's the current than, that turns the head of the limbering river to its final bed.

A great many agree, the soma affects instantly.  Mind and spirit focus in when the belly cries out hun-gr-y.  There is no soaring nor abstraction until panging satisfaction.  Mouth dry, and coughs cry, "thris-ty."  Mind and spirit zero in until quenching moistens parched skin.  Heart in pain, mind and spirit leave attraction, and attend to the infarction. Body then significant of all.  The argument has ended the other must fall.

Three arguments well founded, but I am still confounded; which priority should be?  Which has superiority?  The three it seems from vintage view, with equal weight when involved in the interaction with man.  Take the act of love, _when shuddering in your lovers shadow does mind alone pronounce the quack?  Does separate spirit, alone feel the fire?  Does body singly transpire the desire? 

One it seems acts on the other, developing a union as a son with his mother, combining parts to more than their sum, like blending strings, and reeds, and a big kettle drum, then hearing the mix in a symphonic, symposium.  

Mind, body, spirit, severely thought gives vague significance as hot water without tea.  However, grouping the three produces dynamic compression, releasing meaning in combining sympathy. 

Which is superior, the argument absurd, who could find a naked king, amid a naked herd?

                                 One truth, many paths.  Be, good, do good.

                                                             Louis DiVirgilio