We are not brought into existence by chance nor thrown up into earth-life like wreckage cast along the shore, but are here for infinitely noble purposes. All humanity should know its heritage, constantly striving to become and over come, yet never depending on force outside of self. Rising in the morning, we should be conscious of the divinity within; retiring at night, we should be enfolded in the protection of the law. For none of us is overlooked, left out, or forgotten in this scheme of life of whose sweeping beneficence each is apart. In all situations from the most trivial to the most important, in all temptations from the smallest to the largest, a man can find in his own reflections and inner consciousness that which will convince him that he is more than he seems---a knowledge that leads not to egoism or self-importance, but to great simplicity, impersonality, and balance.
For man is the soul, and there is no wisdom so divine that he cannot attain; the soul belongs to the beautiful eternities and we are here to make all existence beautiful. Life would have nothing for us through a day, if it were not for the consciousness within that this apologetic bit of our self were not the temple of the soul, the shrine of a god ever pressing towards grander expressions of life. The soul can rest on nothing this side of Infinity: it loses its vitality if it seeks to do so. All eternity awaits it; how should it be satisfied with the half-life we live and the many imperfections that mar us. The nature of the soul is to be winging its flight forever towards the boundless; to be working, hoping, and conquering; to be going forward forever and ever.
It is therefore no question or our likes and dislikes; advance we must, seeking with ourselves the secret of our god selves which sing to us eternally through the silence. If the meaning and music of the song be lost before it reaches our hearing, it is because, our thoughts are too full of things of death and because we are weighted down by needless burdens and grow old in our youth with wrong thinking, filling our minds with desires that emanate from selfishness and allowing them to accumulate until they, and not we, become the living force behind our actions. It is not only the mind but the whole being that must be prepared for the search for truth.
And for this there are no rules that can be given, no precise direction nor yardsticks recipes. But conceive, if but for a day, that you are greater than ever you dreamed you were, that in the essence of your nature you are divine and cannot suffer perdition; and remember that you never could have walked if you had not tried, that you never could have spoken if you had not made the effort to speak, that you never could have sung if you had not felt within you the urge of the living god.
Where there is satisfaction with self, there look for danger because there, no growth can take place. A certain conflict within, of thought and feeling, must be going forward, until we arrive at some knowledge of our own--at some perception of life's meaning and purposes, of our origin and destiny, our duties, obligations, and responsibilities.
No man can grow until he has trust in himself. The successful inventers is the one who realizes that there is something more to know, that new knowledge is always accessible and waiting for him, that tomorrow will add to what he has today. He was once a boy with tools clumsily and with no knowledge of mechanics, but after a time some inner whispering told him that he was to achieve something. He kept on because that which bade him keep on was above and beyond his mind, until he came to be aware that his mentality was but an aid to him in the working out of his problems and that there is an inside something that uses it, discovering truth and acquiring knowledge, and this is the real man who may be inspired by illuminating ideas out of the universal mind or may have brought them with him as memories out of ancient lives.
He looks always for truth beyond his opinions and goes out seeking into the broad spheres of thought. He frees his mind and advances, hoping and trusting. He visualizes his aims and believes there are whole regions in his nature which he has not yet discovered and, relying on that underdeveloped side of himself, claims from it by trust of knowledge he seeks, and does not claim in vain.
So to the real artist, the lover of truth and beauty, is left in his moments of creation above all brain-mind limitations and carried on to a plan that transcends our normal thought-life, and feels there, throbbing and thrilling through his being the poetryscot and inspiration of the great silence---that divine light that is within and a part of us all and forever awaiting our recognition. Such a one, artist or inventor, when he is in quest of that which should do good to the world sounding the deep resources of his nature, touches the fringe of worlds more wonderful, and strangely mysterious powers. Whereas another man, with equal latent ability, approaching the some problems with doubt and hesitation, or again with presumptions self-sufficiency, would be ready not to succeed. In proportion as a man worships the outer, he misses the inner truth.
We are the family of the eternal; we are the hightest expressions that we know of, of universal Deity. Are we to think that the experience to which we have a right can be gained in a few score fleeting years of a single life time, before these bodies of ours cease to be useful and drop away following the laws of physical life and return to the storehouse of nature? The material things have their place, but the essential and everlastionthing are in the eternal self. They are the attributes and faculties of the soul, and these are what we are here to develop, working in harmony with the mighty and compassionate heart of nature.
Thank you Catherine Tingley. One truth, many paths. Be good, do good.
Louis DiVirgilio
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